Thread: Blank Slate (Dane Stalling & Malicious Lullaby)

The police psychologist would have called Pablo's state being in the present. He didn't subscribe to psychobabble bullshit, but the technique could be useful when clues weren't forthcoming. The wrongness he had felt earlier had eased. There were so many voices, quiet, loud, laughing. The occasional hushed moan or shameless scream from somewhere upstairs. Pablo closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. All of those voices, bragging, pleading, gossiping in myriad accents- Spanish, Australian, Texan, Italian, German... Irish. His eyes flew open and he saw the blonde in the blue dress, her nose not six inches from his own. She grabbed the lapel of his coat in one hand and tried, drunkenly, to kiss him. She spilled half of her whisky down the front of his shirt before he could spin away from her. Wha's the matterr? She slurred, lost her balance, and slid gracelessly to the floor. The dress had twisted just enough that one of her nipples was showing. C'mon. How you gonna fuck me from way up there? Pablo looked around for a little help, but nobody seemed to see what was happening. The girl with the black bob was on her way upstairs, her silver tray tucked under her arm. Blue Dress had locked her arm around one of his ankles and was trying to wrestle him to the floor. The wrongness again- what was it? He couldn't concentrate. He reached down and got his hands under Blue Dress's arms and dragged her around the corner to the next room. He propped her up against the wall next to a grandfather clock. He left her there and went back to the foyer, trying to chase down the instinct. The girl with the black bob was going upstairs with her platter under her arm. Why wasn't there a drink? She should have had a drink on the way up and no drink on the way down. If she was going for a little tryst for spending money, why did she have the platter? He heard Blue Dress vomiting into the rich carpet when he heard a ringing sound like a bell, then a clatter. At the foot of the stairs, she ran into him and knocked him back against the wall and he saw the long red hair and one green eye. It was Penny, but he hesitated. One blue eye? Then her black wig came tumbling down the stairs after her and everything clicked. Too late. She was out the door. Hey! He grabbed the wig, fumbled for his badge and his gun, missed them both and ran to the door. She was running unsteadily down the driveway. He started after her and his feet abruptly slipped out from underneath him and he dropped hard on ice, his gun in its shoulder holster digging into his ribs and knocking the breath from him. There were fireworks, illegal in the city, but people brought them in from Mexico anyway. New Year firecrackers went off in sudden bursts and occasionally big booms echoed through the neighborhood. Pablo lay on the ground, wheezing when he heard two sharp cracks, a pause, then a third crack. A bullet shattered the ice just above his head. He rolled away, instinctively, and curled behind the entrance stairs to the mansion. He had heard the pattern before at the FBI shooting range. Two quick shots for a knockdown, a breath and a sighting, then the kill shot. The explanation had sounded fishy at the range, and obviously, it didn't work. None of the three shots had hit him. He heard it again, two, then one, but in a different direction. The shooter wasn't aiming at him anymore. They were shooting at Penny. She would have been too far away to hit reliably, but that wasn't what had him worried. Who would want to kill them both? Law enforcement might shoot at her but not him, and whoever she was working with would shoot at him, but not her. Pablo got his gun out just in time to hear wheels squealing. As he left cover, he saw a dark sedan driving up the street to the right. Penny was running to the left and he ran to follow her. He had lost a lot of time. He ran in the snow so he wouldn't lose traction again, but it slowed him down, He got to his car and pulled out hard, his headlights sweeping the other parked cars and the iron gate. He honked to get the guards to open it again, and it took them an infuriatingly long time. When there was enough space for his car to fit through, he gunned the engine and squealed into the street. He could see Penny's tail lights two blocks away, moving fast. Her car went over a rise, then he saw headlights sweep the sky twice like her car was spinning or rolling. He drove as fast as he dared. The headlights over the crest were angled oddly, lighting the upper floor of a house. Pablo approached the rise cautiously.