The moment he wanted to show me the table I knew something else was required from me. Something different than what I had come there to do and completely different from what I had expected or had been prepared for.
He took me by the hand and led me into the other room. His wife and kids were sitting at the table having lunch in the one he had first welcomed me. He winked at me and said: “Business is to be discussed by men. It should not poison women or children’s ears.”
And then leaned closer to my ear: “they don’t have the capacity to take it all in, you know? They should remain pure; at least until life hits them in the face.”
He then gave me a vicarious pat on the chest as if it were my shoulder and made a sign with his head to follow him.
We went into the other room and everything felt as if we had entered a different world. There was no natural light as it had been covered by this big heavy purple velvet drape.
‘Here’s where I like to think”, he said and took out a box of cigars from his desk’s drawer and opened it.
“Fancy one?”
I shook my head and kept thinking about the reasons that got me out of bed that very morning: nothing came to mind. Nothing except for that dream - the one I had caught by the leg, as the French turned American “aube” spread her legs and let light in, but was not able to hold on to. I was struggling to remember what the dream was about when he started talking again.
“I called you here for the table. I have to use it. You are the only one that can help with this matter. And to be completely honest, the only one who answered my ad. And I must confess you have proved your class. The way you came back to me, the discretion, even though I had not mentioned it in the ad, it was a vital requirement. And you met it.”
I looked at him trying to hide the puzzle pieces of my face that started falling from their place. I remembered having replied to an ad, but a different kind of ad.
“I’m not dismissing the possibility of you replying to another ad, he continued. But it’s the stroke of chance that leads to greatness.” He slipped his forefinger between the curtain and the window and peeked out for a second and then drew back as if the light had blinded him. “Do you like apples?”
The question was so out of the green that I could hear my eyebrows frowning.
“Apples?” I replied.
“Yes. Apples. It’s a simple question that requires a simple answer. But it has to be the right one.”
“In this case, the question is altogether wrong. I have to make a correction. The proper question should be: Do apples like me?”
“Good answer,” he smiled proudly.
“Don’t you mean question?”
“Well that’s a technicality, but it came as a reply to my question. I’ll take it for an answer.”
He put out his half smoked cigar, de-hoarsed his voice and turned up the grown up tone of his voice:
“Enough chit-chat. Let’s get down to business. The table is in my basement. We have to use it properly. And I also have a gun. But I’ve never been a big fan of guns. Just the sight of them makes my tongue taste metal and that’s disgusting.”
I concluded:
“I don’t work with guns, not when children are around.” Having said this I felt like I was reading for a script, but the words matched my intentions perfectly. The reason for my being there was even clearer.
“I like this about you, the fact that you respect my family. Follow me.”
We left his thinking room, but not through the door we had used to get in, we took a back one that led to a flight of descending stairs. It was dark and moist by the smell of it. We kept climbing down those stairs until he switched on a light.
“Here it is”, he said passionately and with a trace of submission in his voice.
He grabbed this piece of cloth covering this big piece of furniture, or so I thought, and uncovered what was laying beneath.
“Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
I could not believe my eyes: it was a table, but not the kind we’re used to: it had 8 legs, 8 women legs, from the knee down, wearing red stiletto shoes; it’s corners were round shaped breasts and its surface had lips and noses coming out of it. It was a human table: you could see the muscles of the legs struggling to support the rest of the table. I had to take a closer look.
“Don’t touch it”, he screamed.
I drew back.
“Don’t touch it, or else you’ll be a part of it too. Don’t you know what this is? This, my dear, is the apple. These women enchant you with their forms and the moment you touch them, they will eat you alive. You’ll be inside the table and gone from this world. I know you’re desperately yarning to touch a leg or maybe a corner, but let me tell you it will be the last thing you’ll ever do.”
“Then what did you have me here for?” I asked almost mechanically still not being able to turn my eyes away from the wonder placed before me.
“I want to find out more about this. And your name is carved on the sole of each shoe,”he leaned down pointing at the sole of one shoe. There was a cross, made out by two letters S and beneath them was written Stuart Smith.
“SS, isn’t that you? Isn’t that how you replied to the ad? Ha, Stuart?”
I was mesmerized:
“It’s a pseudonym I use. It’s what I use on my hits. I’m a hit-man. I thought you got me here to kill someone. At first I thought you wanted me to kill you.” Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing except those perfect body forms enticing my senses.
“You’re not so far from the truth.” He replied and took out a photo from his pocket and handed it to me. In the picture was a black pedestal table.
“This is what it looked like when I first got it. It was a simple table. And at one point it started changing. Tell me, I’m curious, how many people have you killed?”
“8”, I replied in a precise end of fiscal accountant fashion.
“Any connection between the hits?” he was turning into an investigator.
“None that I can think of, other than all of them being men. What’s with the interrogatory, anyway?”
“Well, my dear SS, your every murder caught life on this exquisite pedestal I have inherited from a crazy old grandmother of mine. Each and every body part you see here before you is the representation of each and every one of your hits. It only seemed fair to tell you about this. About this work of art you have created.”
He looked at the table and then back at me and with a crazy spark in his eye spat out a sentence that made no sense to me:
“I want to be the last one.”
“The last what?”
“The last murder, the one that completes the table: the only thing missing is the leg in the middle. I want that to be mine. It has to be my murder. Don’t you see? This is the reason why we met. The murder metaphor chose to come to life in my house. I have to complete it!” he was getting more excited with every new word he was uttering. “So, tell me, how did you think about doing it?”
“I’m not going to kill you! Not after I have seen this! No way. I need to get as far away from this as possible.” I turned around and headed for the stairs. That’s when he grabbed my arm.
“I’m afraid you have no choice! It’s the only way! I have to be a part of this and you are the only one who can make me be a part of it.”
And then it all came back to me as if a flashlight had been switched on inside my head.
“Listen to me! Even if I kill you, you will not be a part of the table, you do not fit the profile. These were all passion murders. They all had to do with love, obsession and possession. They did not want or requested to die. This is way too strange even for me. I am out of here.”
I started climbing those stairs as if everything was crumbling behind me. I ran through the rest of the house and finally got out on the street. The sun was setting red. I light a cigarette with one hand and with the other wiped my face hoping I could wipe the bad thoughts as well. I sat down on the sidewalk and eagerly fed my lungs with smoky death. My palms were not sweating anymore, but my eyes were still picturing the table. All of a sudden I heard a voice calling me: “Stuart, Stuart, you forgot your..”
Tyres squeaked followed by an awful noise. I turned around and there he was, under the wheels of a big jeep, having got his way.
Rolling towards me, just out of his dead hand, was a green apple that stopped on the brim of my shoe.
