Shimmy Bang Sparkle(81)

The guard got nearer and nearer, passing in front of a palm about ten feet away from Stella. “Aim . . .”

As he made the final approach, I peeled back the lid on the spoiled yogurt. Its time in the sun had made it clot and separate. A layer of slightly cloudy water had gathered on the surface. Using the spoon, I stood at the ready with a good-size glop.

The guard rounded the curve in the path, and I said, “Fire.”

Stella tossed the jerky across the walkway, and Priscilla darted after it at exactly the moment that the guard passed in front of her. The timing was perfect, and she snared the big ox in the thin nylon leash. The increased tension confused the hell out of Priscilla, who looped back around toward Stella like a tetherball zipping around its pole. While the guard’s back was turned, Stella tossed the terry cloth bone, and Priscilla zipped after that, wrapping the guard’s legs up into a web.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” Stella said, throwing up her hands and moving toward the guard. Priscilla, now totally confused, tried to get back to Stella and entangled both Stella and the guard in another loop of the leash.

Stella, sweet as ever, placed her hand on his shoulder, and I heard her say, “Just stay there. God, I’m so sorry. That’s what I get for playing a game as I walk the dog.”

The guard tried to help out, attempting to lift his foot. Stella played the awkward dog owner perfectly, dropping the leash—with the slack locked all the way out. But the leash was attached to the treat bag, and Priscilla tackled both, sending the leash skidding farther away.

Stella’s nervous, cute giggle filled my ears. She crouched down, attempting to help the poor guy extract himself from the cat’s cradle that Priscilla had gotten him stuck inside. As she lunged away for the treat bag and the end of the leash, I took my chance. I looked down at the guard’s head. I zeroed in on my target. As I was about to rotate my wrist to drop the big, drippy spoonful of warm plain yogurt, he started moving again. In the nick of time, I repositioned the spoon over the container of yogurt.

The guard was actually trying to be helpful, but he was moving all over the damned place. He reminded me of a cartoon version of Rumpelstiltskin I’d seen a million years ago, lifting up bent knees and lumbering around in a circle.

“Get him to stop moving,” I told Stella.

Instantly she said, “Jeez, what a mess! Here, you stay still. I’ll do the untangling.” She smiled up at him, apple-pie sweet. “I got you into this tangle. Let me get you out of it.”

For whatever else the guy was—built like a brick shithouse, slightly prehistoric, totally unable to find a suit that fit him—he did know how to listen to instructions, and he held completely stock-still, hugging the briefcase to his chest with one hand and holding up the other like he was being robbed.

Christ, the irony.

In my ears, Stella said, “Ohhhhkay,” and leaned away.

Which was when I turned the spoon over and let the glop of yogurt fall through the air. Though it only took a second, it felt like an hour, until finally it landed with a magnificent splat, right in the center of his godforsaken nest of charcoal-black hair.

The guard let out a groan and smacked his hand onto the yogurt, compounding the whole mess. “For fuck’s sake! Not again!” he bellowed.

It was my cue to get the hell out of Dodge, and in one smooth movement, I turned, dumped the yogurt in the trash, and headed for the stairs, while Stella, sweet as could be, said, “Gosh, I think there was something very wrong with that bird!”

As I passed the trash can before the stairs, I ended the call. I popped out the SIM card and tossed the phone. Then I opened the door to the stairwell. I bit the SIM in half to destroy it, spitting the fragments out as I jogged up the flights of stairs.



I waited for her in the room with the ice machine on our floor. When I heard the door ding open, followed by the telltale swish-swish of the guard thigh-rubbing his way down the hallway, I leaned out and counted the number of doors he passed. At the fifth one on the left, he dug around for his key card in his pants and let himself inside. The yogurt was a slick patch on his head, and he’d occasionally touch it with his fingertips and give them a sniff.

I leaned back into the ice machine room, listening. About ten seconds later, the elevator dinged again. The sound of the doors rolling open filled the hallway, and I heard Priscilla panting. One second later, Stella appeared.

“That was perfect,” I told her as she stepped into the ice machine room. There, we waited. When a boisterous family began approaching from the other direction, I pushed Stella up against the wall and kissed her, out of sight behind the window, but positioned so that if anybody came in, they wouldn’t stay for long. The kiss was electric—frantic, passionate, and hurried. I packed all my adrenaline into that kiss, into her, into those perfect lips of hers. When I pulled away she was breathless and blushing. She pressed her lips together and smiled, the light from the ice maker making those deep-blue eyes doubly wild. After a minute more, I pulled two pairs of black latex gloves from my pocket, and we slipped them on together. From the outside pocket of Stella’s purse, I took an old credit card that didn’t trace back to me, along with two seemingly unimportant but crucial things, all of which I had already wiped for prints: a rubber band and a roll of Scotch tape, which I slipped into my pocket. When the coast was clear, we headed down the hallway toward the guard’s room. I pretended to be about to let myself into a different room, one immediately across from his, as Stella stopped right next to his door and fussed with her shoe. For all the world, she was just a woman whose Converse laces had come undone.