The Guilty - Jason Pinter [32]
erupt. I hated making Amanda feel like my troubles were any
more important than hers, but I couldn't focus on anything
but this story.
"I have a lot of work for tomorrow," I said. "I'm pretty sure
whoever's responsible for these murders is using an antique
rifle or a replica, something that hasn't been used in a long
time. There are thirty-two gun shops in the five boroughs
alone, so I have my work cut out for me."
"You should talk to Agnes Trimble," Amanda said, sighing,
wiping her mouth as a tomato spurted juice onto her plate. "She
was my American History professor at NYU. Brilliant woman,
but she scared the hell out of us during student conferences.
She kept half a dozen model guns in her office, you know, like
some people keep snow globes or toy fire trucks. She knows
more about guns than Al Gore knows about the environment.
Belongs to the NRA, all that good stuff. I can call her if you'd
like, she should be in the city for the next few weeks and I'm
sure she'd be happy to talk to you. Who knows, maybe she can
help."
"Actually, yeah. That'd be a huge help," I said. "Thanks."
"No problem."
We sat there in silence as I listened to Amanda chew.
"Did you see him die?" she asked me. There was a corner
of lettuce sticking out of her mouth.
"No," I said. "I just saw what happened afterward."
Amanda chewed more.
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Jason Pinter
"You don't want to know," I said.
"No," she replied. "Guess I don't."
As I got up and tossed the rest of my dinner into the
garbage, the buzzer rang.
"Are you expecting anyone?" she asked. For a moment,
my heart hammered. I could picture Mya waiting downstairs.
"No," I said. Amanda looked at me for a moment, surely
knew what I was thinking. We walked to the window.
Though we had no doorman to announce visitors, our apartment overlooked the building's entrance vestibule. Handier
than an eye slot.
I grunted and heaved the window open, reminding myself
to wipe down the grease and grime later, and poked my head
outside. Looking down, I saw a man wearing a gray trenchcoat and hat. He looked up.
"Let me the hell up, will you?"
"Who is it?" Amanda asked.
"It's Jack," I said with more than an ounce of relief. I
closed the window and pressed the door release button.
"Doesn't he have his own home? What's he doing here at
this hour?"
"I have no idea." I'd worked with Jack for over a year,
and never once had we seen each other's apartments. I
pictured his clean, full of polished wood and cracked books.
Shelves lined with erudite literature and snifters of amber
liquid, a fire roaring as he puffed a pipe and wrote great
news of the day.
I looked around my apartment. Wondered if his vision of
mine contained empty bottles of Pepsi and a subscription to
Glamour.
"Quick," I said. "Hide stuff."
The Guilty
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I picked up all the girly magazines, food wrappers and
rubber bands I could find and threw them in the trash. Which
was already overflowing with girly magazines, food wrappers
and rubber bands.
"What are you doing?"
"Amanda, baby," I said, taking her hands in mine. "I
idolized this man growing up. He's probably the only man
I've ever dreamt about. And now he's coming up to my apartment." She eyed me like I'd just insulted her mother. "Okay,
forget I said that. Just help."
For the next minute, we scrambled around the room
tidying up as best we could. In those sixty seconds, our onebedroom apartment went from resembling a tsunami-affected
college dorm room to resembling an apartment lived in by two
people who cleaned dishes after using them.
I heard a knock at the door. I looked around, panicked, then
threw myself onto the worn polyurethane sofa and crossed my
legs. Amanda glared at me.
"You expect me to open the door?"
"Would you mind?" She gave an exasperated sigh.
"Just so you know, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."
She went to the door. Peered through the eyehole for dramatic
effect. "Who is it?"
"Now it'd be some coincidence if it was someone other
than the guy who was just downstairs,"