The Marvel Knights Group presents: Sleepwalker #4

She unlocked the door and wasn’t having me walking in before her; her outstretched arms kept me outside. Well, her outstretched arm and the threat of bodily harm kept me at bay more than anything. I’m not sure if this was some sort of lawyer trick, a legality measure, or if there was something small and valuable she wanted to stuff in her purse before I could see. She’s a tricky thing to figure out, she has that emotionless demeanor down to a science but there is something more itching under the surface that’s more interesting. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how I get myself in over my head, though I suppose I should be thanking the fair people of this city, I haven’t been in a situation where so many were fawning over me in …

“Never,” she said.

“S’cuse me?”

“You never miss a beat do you? Or a nicely toned ass to stare at.”

She caught me, damnit. So I do the big thing and shrug, “You were throwing it out there, how could I miss it?”

“Did you just call me fat?”

“No way, I wouldn’t be staring if that were the case.”

“You’re disgusting, you know that?”

She shakes her head and closes her eyes, hiding her brown eyes as they roll partly behind the lens covers that are her eyelids. It’s a shame really, and I catch myself wondering what cup size she wears under that blouse. It’s a funny thing where all this shit comes from, but what the hell, no sense in dwelling on some mysteries.

She invites me inside, finally, and even the walkway is bigger than the bedroom back home. “Wow,” I whistle through a pair of tightened lips, hardly listening to the legal garbage she’s spouting off. I shed my coat and hang it on the brass coat hook just inside the door. I like the idea that she threw hers on the green couch instead. Explaining some things are tricky enough, I can’t keep up appearances with that coat on but I don’t want her fiddling around in my pockets finding a gun caked in dried blood.

Ah, the excitement that is my life. Some days it’s just enough to keep myself sane.

The living room is just inside the door and past a small hall. The hall ends abruptly and a connected living and dining room are hardly separated by a half wall. Completely furnished, the lawyer sits on the love seat with a pair of water glasses half-empty sitting on the dark wood and glass coffee table. There are no personal touches left here and the whole place smells like fresh plastic and packing peanuts.

It’s a little overwhelming to be honest, especially being given a gift by a man I haven’t seen since I was sixteen or younger. I take her hint, rather the finger pointing at the couch telling me to sit, and sit. I’m not thirsty but what the hell, it would probably pay to find out what the water tasted like around here; at least I couldn’t see anything floating in it like back in New York.

The lawyer goes over a few more things and I ask if I could just take a look around. She refuses at first, insisting on my signature on three pieces of paper that have no meaning to me. I take her pen and figure that I’ve been good for long enough and stand up to look around. She’s pissed off, but she’s also the kinda girl that likes getting her way, I was betting on that much at least.

There’s a bar sitting in the corner just beyond the false wall in the dining room with the table sitting in the opposite corner. It’s hardly big enough for more than two people, but I suppose a third person could sit at it if they wanted to be uncomfortable. The lights hanging overhead are yellow and one of the bulbs is dead, I stand behind the bar and take it all in. Sadly, there isn’t a drop of alcohol behind the small mixing station. It took her a few minutes but she finally followed me inside and sat at the head of the table, “You like it?”

“What’s not to like?”

She nods and moves on to the kitchen, and it’s kind of small, about the same size as mine back home but with none of the mess or a garbage can full of paper plates and old food. The refrigerator is empty but at least there was a water filter attached to the door and icemaker. It’s a nice touch, that’s for sure.

The hall sort of continued after the living room ended and the half wall separating the dining room from the living room grew into a full wall that boxed in the kitchen. Closing in on either side of me as I walked, a door on my left led into an entirely empty bedroom and a thought of turning it into an office or a place to work out of entered my mind. Weird how comfortable I feel here, even though it’s where my uncle died. The bathroom and laundry room were just across from the empty bedroom, big enough I suppose if I didn’t have a woman living here. There was, after all, only one sink. The linen closet was just outside the door, opening outward from the break in the hall as the bathroom felt as though it was set inside the wall.

If not for the Whirlpool and the idea that I’ve never in my adult life owned my own washer and dryer I would’ve felt as though I was set inside a cave.

At the end of the hall, a closed door felt almost wrong to touch. “This was his room?”

She nodded and I swallowed everything I had in my dry mouth, i.e. nothing but air. My stomach turned a bit as I twisted the knob and pushed the door open. Like the living room, a strange small hall opened up into the room. A pair of doors felt out of place on the left wall as I walked into the room, the first being a walk-in closet that I could swear is larger than my bedroom at home, the second was another full bathroom, complete with two mirrors and sinks. I smirk; apparently, the architect was either in love with himself or had a woman that lived with him.

The only furniture in the room was a pair of large bookshelves, a long dresser and perhaps the biggest bed I’ve seen outside of a hotel room. To be fair it was most likely a king sized bed and I’ve become accustomed to waking up either on couches or rooftops that I’ve forgotten what comfort feels like. The whole place smelled just as sterile as every other room and I couldn’t help the feeling that every stick of furniture in this apartment was new.

“Every piece of furniture in this apartment was purchased after your uncle passed away.” Well there goes my astute observation. “It was part of the conditions of his will that he didn’t want to give this apartment to you as well as furniture used by a dead man.”

“That’s thoughtful.”

“He was like that,” she said and something in her eye caught my interest, something a little deeper than just a client.

“So what’s your deal?”

“Pardon me?”

“You know,” I said as I took a seat on the bed, feeling the plastic under the dark blue sheets, “You give me this whole idea that your happy to be rid of this place but you’re about to get all choked up the moment you mention his will.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says.

I smile and put my hand on her arm. “Worrying about the small stuff is why people pay me.”

She smiles a little bit, it’s the first time I’ve seen her lips curl into something other than disdain for something I said. “So, you and my Uncle had some sort of fling?”

Her eyes shoot open and I immediately know I’ve said the wrong thing. “You disgusting little freak!”

She throws my hand off her arm and backs against the wall, tears welled up in her eyes and my brain is rushing to find something clever to say until her quivering lips say it for me. “He was my father, asshole!”

My jaw drops, literally and figuratively. Standing from the bed I resist the urge to vomit about all the sexual thoughts I had in my mind the entire drive over here. All the times I was staring at her ass, oh Jesus Christ. “You’re my cousin?”

“Yeah, genius.”

“Some big detective I am.” I want to laugh, really I do, but there’s none left in me. She’s crying now and I do the only thing I know and wrap my arms around her and she buries her head into my shoulder.

She cries for a minute or two before declaring, “God you stink.”

“Jeeze, I’m sorry but do your insults have to cut so deep.”

“Ever think about cologne?”

I look down at the old pair of slacks I think I wore when my mother still drug me to church years ago and the somewhat decent collared shirt I took out for this meeting. “Does it look like I have money to waste on that junk?”

“No, it doesn’t,” she catches her breath and starts to laugh a little. Great another crazy relative. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

“Are you kidding me? The last time I saw your pops I was barely in high school, I never knew he was even married.”

“He wasn’t, he didn’t believe in such a thing, that and its borderline illegal in this country anyway.”

“Marriage?”

“Same sex marriage, yeah. Christ you really need someone to feed you all the pieces of a puzzle before you get it, don’t you?”

I crash back on the bed and sigh as loudly as I can. This is seriously turning into a wonderful trip, really it is. “So how did you come about, or is that too complicated of a question to ask?”

“My mother was a client of his,” she spoke pretty damned candidly. “Your family hardly agreed with his decisions and didn’t want any part of me either.”

“Yeah I’d imagine, mom is a strict catholic. She doesn’t get into the whole gay rights movement.”

“Or artificial insemination.”

And to think I was going to bring up cloning next. I’m so glad she brought that up before I looked even dumber. The religious fruitcakes, mother included, hates those clones and Spider-Man by extension, it’s rather humorous when you think about it for about ten seconds. “So wait. Why isn’t this your apartment?”

“I don’t want it, I’ve got my own place and my own things, why do I want any of his. Besides he always liked you, he thought you could make something of yourself if you got away from that crazy mother of yours.”

“That crazy mother of mine was his sister, your aunt.”

She shrugged that one off, I can see the family resemblance already. “Only due to lack of choice in the matter, she didn’t want to come to the funeral and that was the final straw.”

“I would’ve been there.”

She smiled a little bit and the dirty thoughts came back, god why did they have to come back, disgusting! “I know you would’ve, he was sure of it.”

And this is exactly why I don’t go to family reunions. Not that we’ve had one in the last memory I had, unless everyone else had them and my mother wasn’t invited. She was quite the over bearing person but I had no idea she was so despised in her own brother’s mind. “So you weren’t even going to tell me, were you?”

“If I could’ve avoided it, I wanted to get this paperwork finished first.”

Sitting back up I looked at her a little closely and I couldn’t see an ounce of my Uncle in her. Sounds like a disgusting little statement, but I just couldn’t see the family resemblance of what I could remember of my Uncle. She must take after her mother, “And then what, you were going to make due on my advances to you?”

“Mister Sheridan, please, you’re hardly in my league.”

“Yeah, family kinda puts that question to rest doesn’t it?”

“That too, yeah.” She smiles a lot more freely now. Like some weight was just lifted off her shoulders. “Besides, you come from the wrong side of the tracks to try people from my world.”

“Lesbian, huh?”

“God no. You assume because my father was gay that I’m gay too?”

“It crossed my mind, that and your vague symbolism from being on the wrong side of the tracks.”

“My fault, no, I’m not gay. I’m used to getting pegged with that stereotype.”

I shake my head. “Stereotypes are a bit of a bitch aren’t they?”

She gets my meaning and the smile runs from her face. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

We more or less stare at each other for ten minutes or whatever sounds like an eternity. With no idea what to talk about next we skimmed the surface making small talk and finding our way back to the living room where I made quick order of the remaining paperwork. She dropped the keys in my hand, but it was almost as though she didn’t want to let go of them. “Are you okay with this? I mean I don’t even know if I can even leave New York.”

“Mister Sheridan, this is what my father wanted, I can finally put all this behind me.”

I take in a deep breath. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think about it? What’s there to think about? This place is paid in full, there is no rent and we still have to talk about the monetary part of this estate.”

“Money?”

She shakes her head and does that thing that girls do when they want to slap a guy in the face but think twice about it because it wouldn’t do any good to get through to us. “Of course, he wanted you out of New York, you can’t start a new life without a start up fund.”

“Again, more things he didn’t leave to you?”

She laughs. “Don’t think this is some sort of billion dollar trust fund, Rick.”

At least she didn’t call me by my last name again. “Alright, I won’t.”

I grab the long coat as we walk out of the apartment and lock the door behind us. The elevator is just across the hall and convenient. The doors close us in and we ride down for a minute or two and leave the same way we walked in – only backward. Well, no we don’t walk backward, but we leave instead of…well shit, you get the idea. The meter is in the red but we beat the meter maid before she can write a ticket. “Does this mean the car is mine too?”

“In your dreams, this is mine.”

We’re back in her office in a matter of fifteen minutes and I never took a second look at the place the first time I walked up, but damn this girl is set for life. She’s starting to talk to me like a human being instead of seeing me as some sort of buffoon that didn’t deserve the kind of charity her father bestowed on me, though I’m quite sure she has her reservations.

I have to say it’s nice to think that I have relatives other than my dad’s side of the family, even though most of them didn’t talk to me either. It’s rather insane; some people wonder about living life by yourself, thinking it as something of a good life. I know some of the girls I attached myself to were hardly good exercises of finding someone to talk to other than the parasite sharing my body when I slept.

Damn where’d that come from?

We step out of the elevator and she starts to talk again. “Listen, Rick, I don’t know why dad had such a soft spot for you.”

“Well…”

“If that’s a gay joke, you might find a fist in your throat.”

“Well, shit.”

“Was it?”

“No, it really wasn’t but now I forgot what I was going to say.”

She smiles. “That happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?”

“You have no idea.”

We laugh about it and spend the next hour in her office.

It’s dark by the time I leave and I feel much better about my situation. Especially after she agreed to meet me for lunch so that we might be able to get to know one another since…well, we’re family and all that jazz. She offered to call me a cab but I decline, telling her that if I’m going to move here that I need to figure out the city at some point. She laughed at me, printed out a map from the internet, and sent me along my way.

The cool night air smelled better than New York, or well at least my portion of it, I hear upstate is at least nice. Don’t see why the X-Freaks have such a problem; they’re more or less living the good life up there.

I like the nighttime, most of the time it’s quiet, at least quiet enough to let my thoughts and me have the time of their lives. It’s been a hell of a day to say the least, and the peace and quiet is nice to get my thoughts together.

“Hey, man,” a questionable voice speaks up and my stomach gets a feeling that I’m in for something I didn’t bargain for. “Got a light?”

“Nope, sorry man, don’t smoke.”

“Big time PI like you? Don’t you get that PIs are supposed to smoke? Where’s your funny hat?”

Ah crap, this isn’t going to go well at all. “I wore the hat once, it makes for a difficult time being taken seriously.”

“Yeah I bet.” He stops speaking and shoves himself off the wall he was perched, and pulls out a gun. “We’re going to have to do this the hard way, aren’t we?”

“Well, I’m too much of a dumbass to go quietly.”

A van pulls up and screeches to a halt, I can smell the burning tires and the transmission move into park. “Do you guys have a hood or does this cliché come complete with chloroform?”