"I'd like a martini," Vera studied her nails and repeated her request before adding "please" along with a toothy but insincere grin.
"We're out of dry vermouth," Otto countered, no hint of irony in his voice, as though he were taking the order seriously.
The abduction had not gone the way Emily planned. She had flashed a small, silver firearm in Vera's direction while instructing Otto to leave a note for Tannehill and escorted her captive out of the diner. She expected that Vera hadn't made a peep while leaving, because she was too frightened by the shock of the events. She assumed that Vera's facade would crack, once the three of them were barrelling down the city streets toward downtown - a mix of screams, hysterics, tears, and pleading in a snot covered blur of a face begging for her life.
Instead, Vera rested her hands in her lap and her head against the back window and hummed. She took advantage of staring down from the summit every time they climbed one of the city's famous hills. She remained in this state of serene meditation the entire ride. The. Entire. Ride. Now, back at Emily's flat, she sat calmly in one of the high-backed, armless dining chairs at the head of the table, her white smile matching the impeccable leather of the chair and somehow accentuating the hideous lime green uniform she wore, asking for a martini.
"A manhattan, then."
"Actually," Otto pursed his lips thoughtfully, "we're out of vermouth, full stop."
"Bourbon, neat, please, with just a couple of drops of water."
Otto rounded the breakfast bar, pulled a bottle of bourbon from the counter, and began opening cabinet drawers searching for a tumbler. "Glass?"
"Drawer to the right of the sink," Emily responded.
Otto finished the order and returned to the dining area. He motioned for Vera to slide away from the table and she obliged, re-orienting herself in the chair after backing up. Otto placed the drink on the table, out of her reach. He sat on the edge of the dining room table and faced Vera. Emily, disappointed in the cavalier use of her furniture - much of what she had was rented, while she still waited to settle in, but her dining set was brand new - bit her lip and grimaced. "Now, tell me what the notebook says, and you can have your drink," Otto continued.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" he hissed.
"Have you seen the notebook? The notes in it are incomprehensible."
"Yes, but" he began to blubber, "but it's your notebook!"
"What gives you that assumption? That it was in my possession? That I'm a woman and must be a secretary?"
"Yes," he exhaled, as if the answer to all three of those questions were self-evident.
"Wouldn't it make more sense to give me the notebook for safe-keeping? Isn't it more likely that you'd go after Tannehill to get the information you needed?"
"No. Well, yes, but, you have the notebook."
"Otto," Emily interjected, worried that Otto may start an argument with himself. His face, wide-eyed in confusion, turned toward her. "Even if she doesn't know what's in the notebook, it's highly likely that she has at least some of the information we seek."
This seemed to inspire a swift change of demeanor in Otto, who swiftly walked over to Vera. Red-faced with eyes blazing flecks of gold he grabbed her by her hair, yanking her head back over the chair. She winced with pain. "WHERE ARE OUR ITEMS?" He waited briefly for a response before throwing her head unceremoniously against her chest. He began to turn back toward his previous position at the table to further cement his menace and wait for Vera to come to her senses.
Before doing so, Vera grabbed him by the wrist gently and stood up to face him. Eyes brimming lightly with tears from such a violent jolt to her sinuses, she smiled thin-lipped and meekly at him. He smiled back. Then she slugged him in the solar plexus.
He doubled over, emitting a combination cough and noiseless howl before staggering over to the table and pressing all of his weight on another chair, causing one of its legs to snap.
Emily, more enraged by the demolition of her dining room set than by the assault on her partner, moved across the room and slapped Vera. Vera, undeterred, kicked Emily in the shin. This caused Emily to tumble backward and trip over Otto. Otto, Emily, and the newly wounded chair collapsed to the floor in concert.
There was a slight shifting of forms audible through the wall and a quick muffled exchange of concerned voices. A few seconds later there was a click of an exterior door and then a polite knock on Emily's own. While Otto, Emily, and the chair were still tangled together, Vera took the opportunity to answer the door. She opened it wide to a diminutive man with thinning brown hair dressed in an oversized cerulian cardigan.
"Excuse me, Miss...," he paused in surprise, "oh, you're not Miss Brunner."
"No," Vera paused as though realizing she was not, in fact, Miss Brunner, "I'm a guest of hers."
"Oh, sorry!" the diminutive man exclaimed, "I'm Mr. Sugarbaker from next door," he paused to gather himself. "My wife and I heard a commotion. Is everything alright?"
"Yes, certainly. We were just a little excited at the realization that we're unable to make martinis for our soiree."
From behind, Emily began to stand apart from what appeared to have been the world's most uncoordinated spider. "That's correct," she smoothed her skirt as Otto groaned below her, "we have no dry vermouth."
"Oh," another brief pause, "oh," Sugarbaker glanced toward his unit and hitchhiked a thumb in its direction, "it's no problem. I can..." he stammered.
Vera waved him off. "No need." She walked over to the table and swallowed two fingers of bourbon in a single gulp. She coughed, pounded her chest, and continued hoarsely, "we were able to improvise."
"Yes, improvise," Emily affirmed. "Mr. Sugarbaker, please close the door on your way out, if you don't mind."
"Certainly," and he did, as the two women watched the door seal the view of the exterior hallway.
When Vera turned to face her would-be abductors, she noticed that Otto had closed the distance between the two of them and had Emily's small, silver revolver pointed in her direction. "What are you going to do with that?" She puffed out her cheeks and blew exasperatedly.
"If you don't sit down and behave, I intend to kill you."
"No," she glanced at the barrel of the gun and back at Otto, "you don't."
"Yes," he stopped to match her previous pause, "I do."
"No," she kept the cadence up, "you don't."
"And how do you know this to be true?"
"Well, for starters, that pistol barrel isn't bored, so it would be exceedingly difficult to fire a projectile at me. And, to cap it off, I saw that pistol lying on the end table of the sofa earlier once Emily dropped it there, after our road trip. It's a cigarette lighter. So, unless you intend to set me on fire, I don't believe you intend to kill me."
With that explanation, Otto let the gun swing around his finger by the trigger guard and replaced it on the end table in a demonstrable 'what can you do?' manner.
Another knock sounded at the door, sterner than the first.
Emily elbowed Vera out of the way in her haste to open it before Vera decided to play hostess again. "Mr. Sugarbaker, I told you, we don't need any..." the door swung wide and Tannehill was plainly visible holding a revolver leveled at Emily Brunner. A real one.
[Author's Note: I've been thinking about this chapter since at least the middle of the book. What happens to Vera when she's kidnapped? Does she wilt? Does she face a couple of psychopaths and barely make it out alive. Then I remembered that in addition to film noir, another popular genre of the 30s was the screwball comedy, and I was able to pick a scene that matched the current tone of the book. I didn't want to waste her character development as a damsel in distress, but I needed her to get kidnapped to move the "plot" along. Today's edition is 1303 words. The novel's total is 46754 words.]
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