Disappearing Acts

The man at the apartment had told her that Meat had left there over a half hour ago. He had not gone home, so he must have come here.

And, Herculeah reminded himself, Meat was not the kind of person who could take care of himself in a scary situation, not the way she could.

She peered through the glass beside the door. She could see nothing. She thought she heard voices. She knocked again. “Is anybody there?”

Moving quickly, she skirted the building and turned into the alley. The walls of the buildings on either side were so covered with spray paint and graffiti that they were a tangle of letters. Only an occasional word leaped out at her—“Spider” ... “Zippo” ... “Beware of” ...

The Dumpster at the end of the alley had been spray-painted too, so that it blended into the background, almost camouflaged.

She turned the doorknob. The door opened quietly—she had almost expected it to creak. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.

Herculeah moved silently up the few steps and stood in the hall. Suddenly she heard voices to the left.

Herculeah glanced around. Her hair had doubled in size now and she knew she didn’t want to be found here in this dark hall.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw a door. JANITOR, the sign said. Herculeah opened it and slipped inside.

It was a closet of cleaning supplies. Herculeah stood there, scarcely breathing, and when she did, she almost choked on the menthol smell of urinal cakes and damp dry-mops and kerosene rags.

“I thought it was gone. Man, you have a dead body on your hands and then it’s gone, you don’t go looking for it. I thought I was in the clear.”

“Right. Last night some kid goes to the john and comes back. This is a funny kid, but not intentionally. He walks out on the stage. His face was like this.”

Herculeah knew he was probably twisting his face, Jim Carrey-like, into Meat’s. The other man gave a short, reluctant laugh, as if he couldn’t help himself.

“The class starts grinning. They, me, everybody, we think he’s doing a routine. Then he goes, ‘And she’s dead.’ Everybody’s looking at everybody else to see if they got it. They think they’ve missed something.

“Anyway, I go back, check the rest room out and, man, there really is a body. It’s a kid was in my class last time, back for more—thinks he’s ready for the big time.”

“And, okay, I panicked, there’s no other word for it, and my adrenaline was pumping so fast. I got that body out of there and into the closet in minutes. Okay, I should have called the police, but the last thing I need right now is a dead body in the bathroom. I got enough dead bodies sitting in the audience every night. And this club has got to work. I owe money to people you do not want to owe money to—so I got the body out of there.”

There was a silence, and in that awful moment, Herculeah imagined the men’s faces turning to the janitor’s closet. Her blood froze. They were going to open the door and find not a dead body but her.

Then the realization hit with the force of a hammer. They would find her and the body. The body was here. In the closet with her.

It had to be on the floor behind her. Not again! she thought with growing horror. The body she’d found at Dead Oaks had left her with a dread of it ever happening again. She began to tremble.

She remembered now that in that brief moment before she closed the closet door, she had been aware of something. It hadn’t registered then—perhaps it had been some clothes on a coatrack or some old cleaning rags. She hadn’t paid much attention.

Yes, she thought. Yes! She would scream, burst open the door, dash past the startled men, and be outside before they could stop her.

Before she could put the plan into effect, a hand from the back of the closet reached out and clamped over her mouth.