Noir Story of the Murder of Neo Con
…Ezra knocked Lefty Liberal to the floor and repeated his question. “I tell you I didn’t kill her…I wish I did though,” said Lefty petulantly. Ezra kicked him in the ribs.
“I told you I didn’t touch her!” protested Lefty resuming the fetal position.
“Oh, I believed you the first time,” said Ezra coolly. “Now I’m just hurting you for fun.”
Kay Beck reclined on the oversized couch smoking furiously. Ezra ignored the long tendrils of smoke.
“Weren’t you and Neo at odds?”
Kay laughed and flicked her ashes onto the carpet. She said, “Mais oui, but we moved in the same, how you say, social circles.”
“She was a good girl though,” said Ezra.
“Too good,” huffed Kay, “she didn’t play the game, didn’t know la regle du jeu.”
“What do you mean?”
“When she found out about me Steven, Lefty, and the rest she was disgusted with me.”
“You and Leader?” repeated Ezra incredulously.
“Oui, some think us odd bedfellows but I’m using him to teach Lefty a lesson. But I’m easily bored and leader keeps talking about housekeeping and marriage. Ours is not a likely marriage” she laughed.
The young woman was nervous. She bounded around the apartment to check the windows and only settled down across from Ezra after testing the front door chain.
“Nervous?” asked Ezra.
“Yeah,” Free Press said, “You could say that.”
“Have you been threatened?”
She shot him a look, “Of course I’ve been threatened, Neo and I were like sisters.”
“Who…?”
“Everyone–people think that Lefty looks out for me but after we were a couple—if you can call it that—he started to beat me up.” She cried softly. “I thought he’d protect me but he was the one that I needed to be protected from. Once he nearly killed me over a cartoon—honest to God, a cartoon! But Lefty was a coward he wouldn’t go after either of us so publicly.”
“So, who killed Neo?” asked Ezra.
Freedom shook her head. She sobbed for a while then whispered into Ezra ear and handed him a letter. Ezra read it, got up and headed to the door.
“Ezra,” cried Free, “there’s something else you got to know…”
Ezra was ushered into the house by a servant who just as quickly disappeared. A voice behind him asked,”What can I do for you, Ezra?”
Ezra turned around and faced the man who had mirrors for eyes.
“I’m here about Neo”
Steve Leader gave a tensile smile, “what do you want to know?” he asked, relaxing his smile to a facsimile of a frown.
“Neo killed herself, overdosed on abuse,” said Ezra.
Steve Leader raised an eyebrow as a slight whirring noise sounded from his head.
“Ezra, Neo was a great girl I loved her but she was naïve, an idealist, she didn’t understand how power worked,” Steve said. His raised eyebrow stayed improbably aloft.
“Well I got news for you Steve, she had a baby…”
Leader’s eyes began to wink uncontrollably. Ezra ran, opened the front door and shouted out to the street, “…that baby’s name is Western Standard and I’m raising the child with Free Press and nobody, not Lefty Liberal, Kay Beck, nor you can hurt her.”
2.5