Come Out Tonight (39 page)

“Okay,” Sirken says.
 
“Let’s continue.”
 
Before we can say anything we regret, she pushes play.

Henry-onscreen is sitting there looking at Detective Sirken with this sexy, bedroom eyes look.
 
“Hey, there, Babe,” I say.

“Babe?” Sirken says, looking like someone hit her in the head.

“You’re not so bad looking, Detective.
 
You just should take better care of yourself.
 
Get a good haircut.
 
Something a little more feminine.
 
And from what I can see you’ve got some bodacious boobs.
 
Show ‘em off a little.”
 
He’s, I mean, I’m, leering at her.

“Henry?” she says.

“Edward.
 
You mean you can’t tell the fucking difference?”
 
There’s that smug smile again.
 
“Henry’s a fucking dweeb.”

“Edward,” she says, pausing for half a minute at least.
 
“Edward Jackman?”

“Fucking right.”

“So you’re not just sleepwalking.”

Henry-onscreen gives this low, virile chuckle. Sirken’s pupils are dilating, just looking at him.
 
“Is that what you thought would happen?” he says.
 
“Henry would get up, walk in here like a zombie and fucking confess to everything?”

“I...I hadn’t gotten that far.
 
I had read about Somnolux and parasomnias.
 
I thought you were sleepwalking when you committed the crimes.”

“Uh,
huh.
 
Don’t say I committed crimes.
 
That’s slander.
 
You don’t have any fucking proof.”

Sirken seems to be recovering her wits.
 
“We have plenty of circumstantial evidence.
 
And an eye witness.”

“Eye witness my ass.
 
She identified me as being there that night.
 
So was Ryan.
 
Why don’t you arrest him?”

Sirken leans over the table.
 
“So who are you, Edward Jackman?”

He, I mean I, is staring at her chest.
 
He makes a grab for one of the buttons on her uniform.
 
“Yeah, I was right about those boobs. What they lack in perkiness they make up for in size.
  
You shouldn’t hide them away like that.”

Sirken leans back suddenly, making sure her top button is closed.
 
“You only come out when Henry takes Somnolux?” she asks.

“Plus something.
 
Alcohol, usually.
 
Tonight you got the poor slob so exhausted, I practically fell out.”
 
At this point, He, I mean I, get up and start walking around the room.
 
I stop right in front at the two-way mirror, and the camera gets a good shot of me cleaning my teeth.
 

“Is Henry conscious of you?” Sirken asks.

“Are you kidding?
 
That doofus?
 
He doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s going on.
 
I’m the one in charge.”

“You mean you’re conscious when he’s awake?”

“Yeah,” I say, coming back and slinging my leg back over the chair to sit down.
 
“I know every fucking thing that happens.”

Sirken gives her second smile of the evening, like she’s gotten over the shock of whatever this is. You can tell by her body language that she’s ready to play.
 
“Then, I guess you’re the guy I want to question, Edward.”

“Knock yourself out,” Henry-onscreen says.
 
“But my attorney’s not here, so I probably won’t answer.”

Sirken goes into her act.
 
“How did you know Jessica?”

What he tells her surprises me, because it sounds like the truth.
 
“I was hanging around Ryan’s house, spying on him to see what Sherry was fucking up to.
 
I buzzed Jessica’s button to get in.
 
I gave her some story; I don’t remember what. Anyway, one thing led to another.
 
She was a pretty good fuck.”
 

“Did you kill her?”

“You think I’m stupid enough to say yes to that?
   
I wasn’t even there that night.”

“Arlene says you were.”

“Arlene only has half a fucking brain.”

“Did you have sexual intercourse with Arlene?”

That low, virile laugh.
 
Sirken’s chest heaves a little.
 
“What do you think?” he says.

“I think yes.”

“Yeah, well, she wasn’t worth the fucking trouble.”

“So where were you on the night of July 6?

“Home nursing a cold.”

This goes on forever.
 
Henry-onscreen admits to nothing.
  
I’m almost ready to fall asleep.

Then, suddenly, “Is Alicia’s baby yours?”

Jerry and I both perk up.

“Yeah, probably.
 
So what?”

“Is that what Diego thought?”

“Do I care?”

“You knew Diego?”

“In passing.
 
I didn’t fucking kill him.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Henry already told you that.”

This goes on awhile.
 
She doesn’t get anything worthwhile out of him.
 
Sirken is beginning to look frustrated and exhausted.
  
Somehow, Henry-onscreen looks great.
 
Better than me.
 
I don’t know what it is about him.
 
Same face, same body, but somehow the whole package is differently arranged: sort of intense and laid-back at the same time, radiating sex and heat and arrogance.
 
You can see it getting to Sirken.
 
She’s tired, but her eyes shine.
 
She smiles at him when she shouldn’t.
 
I never knew I had it in me.
 

“How about a fucking coke?” he tells her.
 
He doesn’t ask; he commands.
 
And, would you believe it? Sirken gets up and goes out the door, coming back a couple of minutes later with a iced coke, slice of lemon on top.
  
I mean she never did that for me.
 
Whatever
me
means.
 
I don’t know.
  
I was just beginning to accept that I was doing shit in my sleep, and now I find that someone else was using my body.
 
It’s just too much for me to figure out.
 
I’m tired again, probably because I wasn’t sleeping those eight hours I thought I was sleeping.
 
I’m feeling foggy and out-of-it.
 
I’m watching my own image with someone else’s mojo.
  
Jerry, on the other hand, is watching the screen like it was Gladiator or something.
 
He’s totally engrossed.
 
Every once in awhile, he looks over at me and says something like, “That was a good one.”
 
I think he needs sleep more than I do.
 
He’s not objecting to anything.

Sirken looks like she’s almost down for the count.
 
The eyelids are stuck halfway between open and closed.
 
Her shoulders are hunched in defeat.
 
Henry-onscreen is leaning back in his chair, grinning.

“Let’s go back to Sherry.
 
Why were you trying to kill her?”

“I wasn’t.”

“We caught you in the act of smothering her with a pillow.”

“That’s your interpretation,” he says.

“What’s yours?”

“I was trying to wake her up.”

“You think a jury will believe that?”

“What would I want to kill her for?” Henry-onscreen laughs.
 
“She’s half dead already.”

“She told you she knew who attacked her.
 
You had to make sure she didn’t tell anybody it was you.”

“Sherry didn’t remember shit.
 
You told her to say that.”

“Maybe,” Sirken says.
 
“But you couldn’t take the chance, could you?
 
Why else were you there?”

“I wanted to see her.”

“In the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, well that’s when I come out,” Henry-onscreen fires back.
 
“How the hell would I see her during the day?”

“You could see her when Henry sees her.”

“It’s not the same.
 
Henry’s such a chickenshit.
 
Sherry never liked him.”

Sirken laughs.
 
“But she liked you.”

“She loved me.
 
I’m the one she loved.”

“How did she tell you apart?”

“In fucking bed,” he says with a grin.

“Do you love her?”
 
Sirken asks.

Henry onscreen laughs like he thinks this is hilarious. “Nah.
 
But she banged like a screen door in a tornado.
 
She was some great fuck, that Sherry.”

I can’t stand it anymore.
 
“Wait,” I shout.
 
“Stop the tape!”

Sirken stops the tape, Edward’s mouth caught in mid-laugh.
 
“What, Henry?”

“That bastard did it!”
 
I cry.

“Damn right,” Sirken says.

Jerry shushes me.
 
“Don’t make this worse than it already is, Henry.”

“But it wasn’t me.
 
It was him,” I whimper.
 
Jerry puts his arm around my shoulders as I cry.
 
I suddenly understand what Sherry saw in me: Edward.
  
Jerry motions for her to turn it back on.
 
The screen moves again.

“Then why did you want to kill her?”

“I didn’t.”

“I think you get angry when you don’t get your way,” Sirken says.

“Think what you fucking like.”

“Okay, I will.
 
I think every time a woman gets too feisty, too independent, she ticks you off.
 
I think Sherry wasn’t happy when she found out about Jessica.”

“She never found out about Jessica,” Henry-onscreen says.

“Well, about Alicia, then.
 
Those panties with the red
A
we found in your drawer.
 
I think she confronted you with them.
 
Asked for an explanation.”

“Which I gave,” he says.

“Which she didn’t like.
 
I think she was also tired of having you knock her around.”

“That’s what you think.”

“She liked you to abuse her?”

“Let’s just say she liked it rough.”
 
Henry-onscreen looks into the detective’s eyes at this point, this little curve of a smile on his lips.
 
“I think you do, too.
 
I see how you look at me, Sweets.
 
I can see it in your eyes.”

Sirken-onscreen does the slightest double take, but her eyes are glistening.
 
“Do you?” she says.

“Fucking right I do.”

“Anyway,” Sirken-onscreen says, clearing her throat.
 
“Hitting her with a wooden statue is a little over the top, even in rough sex.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, strangling is more your style.
 
What made you kill Jessica, Edward?”

Henry-onscreen smiles the most evil-dude smile I ever saw.
 
Never mind it’s on my lips.
 
That smile is nasty.
 
“You’ve got nothin’ on me,” he says.

Stalemate.
 
Sirken’s looking so tired.
 
“Yeah, it’s true, we don’t have enough to convict you of murder.
 
All we can bring is a charge of attempted murder.
 
Willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder.
 
You know that premeditated attempted murder brings a punishment of life in prison, Edward?
  
We have enough on you without murder to put you away for a long, long time...”

I take a look at myself onscreen.
 
That evil-dude smile is still there, but fading.

“...The whole time without Somnolux, Edward.
 
You know what it’s going to be like without Somnolux?
 
You’ll be locked in Henry’s body forever, without time off for good behavior.
 
You’ll never be able to come out.
 
Ever.
 
It may be life imprisonment for Henry, but it’ll be purgatory for you.”
 
She’s smiling now, but it’s a cold smile; the pupils in her eyes are little points of hate.
 
“It’ll be a fate worse than death.”