Waiting for Sobrigh Eddy

Rachel slid onto a bar stool and drummed her fingers, avoiding any and all eye contact with the people surrounding her by staring at the drinks that lined the wall.

“This one’s on me,” a male voice growled in her ear. She could feel his breath—stinking of Budweiser—on her shoulder, and she jerked her arm forward reflexively.

“No, thanks.”

“You don’t gotta have a chip on your sh-shoulder, bitch.” His growl grew louder, and he put his hand on the inside of her thigh. “I’m jus’ bein’ friendly.”

“It’s not you,” she replied loudly, unperturbed, “I just don’t need a buzz right now.” Rachel was positive if he probed further, she could slam his pork face into the glass top of the bar without a hitch, but she didn’t want to test that theory.

“But you’re at a bar.”

“I’m meeting someone,” she replied, turning to the barkeep. Maybe if you’d have asked me two years ago… “Ginger ale, please.”

“Ser’sly, one drink. Leas’ I can do for summ’n as purty as you.”

Rachel smiled.

“No means no, sir. I do not want to imbibe any alcohol tonight.”

“Easy w’those big words, missy. I’ma bit buzzzel muself.”

“It’s six letters,” she said, peering at the man over her glasses. Clearly, he had not finished high school. “Good day to you.” Rachel rolled her eyes and made to move down a stool, but his hand, still on her thigh, clenched around her muscles. Sighing, she grabbed the grayish brown curls around his neck, wincing at the grease, and introduced his lips to the smooth and stinging kiss of glass shards.

Rachel knew she should have just gone into the alley the second he breathed on her. It couldn’t have ended anywhere else. Two bouncers approached even before her hand had a strong grasp around the creep’s neck. She put her arms up in surrender as soon as he began his make-out session with the floor.

“Yeah, I know, ‘disturbing the peace.’ I’m leaving.”

They grabbed her arms anyway and began a distorted tango as they weaved around the drunkards. Her sand blonde hair fell across her face as they shoved her into the alley. At least they didn’t throw her out, as television always dramatized.

“Waited at the bar again, didn’t you? Come on, Rachel, you know better,” a tenor voiced, placing his hand lightly on her hair. She turned. A short-statured, dark-haired man grinned and bowed to her.

“Hello, Mr. Eddy.”

“How many times do I need to tell you? Eddy’s just fine.”

“I’ve never liked calling people by their last names.”

“How do you know it’s my real name to begin with?”

“Indeed.”

“I like the incognito hero mask. Gives me a chance to be creative. I never intended for people to use my first name anyway. Too distinctive. Too personal. I help those I can and blend into the shadows when I’m done. Case: always closed. False family name all that’s known.”

“What about mine?”

“It’s bad enough I know your real first name, Rachel. I don’t wanna get too familiar. We don’t need to share enemies.”

“I meant my case.”

“Nothing’s turned up yet. Same saps trying to get sober for their life partners. I’m sorry. The guy must be an expert sneak-about.”

“I just…if he’s enough of a stupid drunk to murder somebody, you’d think he’d show up somewhere, whether it’s AA or a jail.”

“I know, I know. Unfortunately, some of these cases are one-time deals, and the guy never touches a bottle again. I’ll keep trying.”

“I appreciate it. Don’t worry about the extra time. You’ll get your commission.”

“Rachel, no. I get it. Don’t worry about paying me until we catch the scoundrel.”

“Oh, Eddy. Please don’t do me any favors. I hate pity.”

“Fine. No pity. But if you give me a check now, it’s going in the trash. I’m serious.”

“Wow. Okay. Have it your way. I need to go home; it’s almost 4 AM. You have my number.”

“Yes, for the prepaid.”

“Of course. Anonymity is key, as you’re always telling me.”

Eddy patted her shoulder and backed away into the shadows. Rachel shook her head and sighed, walking two blocks to her apartment building.

Her door was ajar.

The gold numbers above her peephole had shaken loose from the impact of someone’s shoe on the doorknob, so that 512 now read 51. Rachel sucked in a mouthful of air and swung her body around to lean against the hallway wall, texting Eddy.

Screw our Latin code, she thought as she texted, “Someone’s here. Might be HIM. Please come. Rachel.”

The cell phone vibrated.

“Scribe in codice. SE.”

“He is not flipping serious,” she muttered.

“Quispiam est hic. Posset EUM. Tu venis, beneplaceo.”

“Damn him,” she whispered. A few seconds later her cell phone buzzed again, and the sound of shattering glass erupted from within the apartment.

“Your Latin is rusty. I’ll be there soon. SE.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and turned off her phone. She hoped the intruder hadn’t broken her china cabinet. She had traveled around the country acquiring rare antiques for her collection.

Ten minutes passed. The prowler remained in the apartment – apparently, he wasn’t expecting her anytime soon – and Sobrigh Eddy was nowhere to be seen. Rachel couldn’t even hear the whisper of car engines in the street.

ZzRIP.

That sounded like a zipper. Not her emergency money. How could he have found it, expertly sewn inside her Valentine’s bunny from two years ago?

The carnival, the cotton candy, Dan. He had been so sweet. And then, not a week later, he had been minding his own business, discussing a new import with the barkeep, when he was shoved off his stool by a drunkard. The barkeep told her all Dan had responded with was a polite request for his seat back, and the villain pulled out a knife and slashed his stomach.

How did this guy find me? There was no way of knowing I was connected to the man he randomly killed.

She halfheartedly considered throwing herself in the room and attacking at will. She would likely die, but who was around to care? She could be with Dan again.

Rachel tightened her lips and ran into the room. The couch was upended; her china cabinet was indeed smashed, though nothing within was disturbed; the TV was lying on the floor; and all her paintings were strewn about the carpet. The streetlight coming through the kitchen window revealed the bent figure of a man, adorned in black and wearing a ski mask. Rachel stared at his getup.

“Really, you went there? Typical,” she said.

He raised a pistol in his right hand; his left strangled the neck of her Valentine’s bunny. He fired, but she ducked and rolled behind the couch. She threw a pillow at his face and jumped up to grab the gun. A shot went off into the ceiling as they wrestled. He pulled the weapon away from her, smashing her nose with the magazine well. She fell onto her back, and he stood triumphantly over her, the hand holding the bunny positioned on his hip.

Where are you, Eddy? I’m getting pissed…

The stranger aimed at her heart.

“Say goodnight, purty bitch,” he said. That voice…

“It’s you. The lecher from the bar. I should’ve known. You’re just the kind to use a cliché before offing someone.”

“Whu…whu you callin’ me?”

“Still drunk,” Rachel said, scuttling backward like a crab. He fired again; the bullet zinged past her ear. She gasped.

“Drunk, mebbe, but I still a purty good aim.”

“It was you, wasn’t it? You pushed my fiancé off a bar stool and stabbed him when he tried to take it back.”

“Huh? Oh, that dumb prissy-boy. He shoulda just run. S’funny, the two o’you were togetha? Your boy toy was jus’ in my way. You, though, you looked like you could be packin’ the benjamins. And ‘parently,” he paused, shaking the bunny violently, “you do.”

Rachel felt a tear drip across her cheek and wiped it off before it smudged her foundation. She laughed. Her nose was bleeding profusely, and she was worried about mussing her makeup? Get real, Rachel. She rubbed her eyes, blurring the navy-blue eye shadow to suggest bruising.

“Why you laughin’?”

“The more crumpled up I look, the worse you’re gonna get it.”

“From wha’ pig?” he guffawed, firing the pistol again. A bullet wedged in her arm and she screamed.

“From this one,” she heard from behind.

Finally. Rachel shut her eyes and lay back on the carpet.

“This is for my brother,” Eddy said, shooting once. The man screamed. “And this is for Rachel’s fiancé.” A final shot, a body dropping, and silence.

Eddy picked up Rachel’s torso and held her against him. “Stupidus. Where’s your gun?” he whispered in her ear.

“Bedroom. Which the creep conveniently blocked.”

They sat for a moment in the still darkness.

“Cops?” Rachel asked.

“Called. Lucky I have a relationship with them since I keep drunks out of their cells, or they might arrest me for this.”

“What happened to your brother?”

“I never tell clients about my family. It isn’t necessary. But I’ve never had to kill before, so why not throw protocol out the window.”

“Is Mr. Eddy about to divulge his personal life?”

He ignored her comment. “One night back in college, I was out with my twin, Inebri, and I had to use the restroom. Next thing I know, screaming erupts at the bar. Some fat white guy found out it was our 21st birthday and gave him multiple shots of absinthe. As if Inebri’s body – newly introduced to alcohol that night – should have been able to handle it. He passed out and died.”

“So this was a personal vendetta for you.”

“Rachel, look at my trajectory. My life is a personal vendetta. I work as an alcohol counselor, a sober companion, and an undercover AA member. All to find out who that man is so I can bring him to justice and keep people from becoming him.”

“You don’t think—?”

“Actually, yes. He’s got the same build, the same voice…the man that killed your fiancé is the same man that poisoned my brother. A constant drunk who never looked for help. And now the world is rid of him.”

Eddy pulled out a tissue from his breast pocket and placed it against Rachel’s nose. She took it, rubbed his back with her free hand, and slowly stood up. Eddy stayed on the floor, half cross-legged, watching her. She walked over to the drunk’s dead form, ripped off his ski mask, and shoved her dirt-covered boot against his face.