The Astonishing Mistakes of Dahlia Moss Page 3

  “Oh God,” said Tricia. “Don’t get me started on his partner.”

  Kyle took off and I asked:

  “What’s wrong with his partner? Some kind of prima donna?”

  “Nah,” said Tricia. “I mean, I hope not. He’s just a kid. He’s, like, fourteen. It’s just depressing to get paired up with someone that young.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Kyle used to be paired with the very best players—he used to run in the big leagues.”

  “I guess this fourteen-year-old is not in the big leagues?”

  “No,” said Tricia. “He’s not even in the little leagues. He bid for a chance to be Kyle’s teammate in some kind of auction.”

  “Wow,” I said jokingly. “Tacky.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Tricia. “You gotta get that dolla. Am I right?”

  Tricia, weird though she may have been, was right, and I told her so.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m picking up that you’re not super keen on spending quality baby time with Undine—”

  This was true—I liked babies, but I liked them in the way that I liked heart transplants. It was great that they existed, and yet I positively did not require one now, which is what I told Trish.

  “I feel you,” she said, in a voice that suggested that she did not feel me whatsoever. “But could you just watch Undine for a couple of minutes? I’ve got a bathroom situation I need to resolve.”

  “You can’t just bring her into the bathroom?”

  “It’s kind of a complicated situation,” said Tricia. I had no idea what she meant, but there are certain lines of inquiry that are unwise to pursue.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You won’t even have to pick her up; just leave her in her carrier.”

  “What if she cries?” I asked.

  “Okay, then, yeah, you have to pick her up. Please? Come on!”

  And Tricia put her knees together in a way that suggested she had to pee very badly.

  Which is how I became the caretaker of a strange woman’s infant.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For someone who did nothing—and I mean NOTHING—Undine was very good at keeping my mind off the business with my mystery client. She slept for the entire fifteen minutes Tricia was gone, but I kept expecting that she would explode somehow. She’d vomit or shoot poop out of her eyes or whatever dramatic, terrible thing babies did.

  None of that happened. Undine slept. She even kept on sleeping when Tricia came back and took her away.

  While I was in possession of Undine, I wasn’t nervous at all. People don’t mess with ladies with infants. Even in horror movies—they’re pretty much off-limits, right? In part because it’s unseemly to attack them, in part because people with infants don’t have time for your Freddy Krueger bullshit. Haunt my dreams, Freddy Krueger? Ha, that’s where I’ve got you. Since I had this baby, I no longer sleep!

  But I digress. The moment Undine left, I started getting anxious again.

  Where was this Doctor XXX, and why hadn’t he found me? I’d been here a while now, and there weren’t _that_ many people around. Maybe the idea of me with an infant had scared him. It had alarmed me a little, so why not?

  Anyway, I took care of my own business in the bathroom, probably brought on by anxiousness. Then I continued to scan the crowd, this time not looking for hats, but more with the lens of contemplating who might kill me. Or at least, who might be Doctor XXX.

  This was a reasonable enough plan, but not emotionally helpful, because most people, when you’re in the right mood, have a face for murder. There was this shifty-looking kid, who had—I’m not kidding—absolutely no chin and one enormous eyebrow. There was this other guy with, like, thirty skull tattoos. Thirty! Who likes skulls that much? But the person who was really making me anxious was this weaselly-looking redhead. He had a head like a ferret, with a pointed nose and tiny little eyes and weird little fingers that he kept putting in his mouth. He also kept making eye contact with me, which I didn’t approve of. Okay, probably he was doing it because I kept staring at him, but even so. Massively suspicious.

  Weasel guy came over. He didn’t have tats, or a particularly menacing body type, but there was something about him. He gave off henchman aura.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “This is awkward, but I feel I should inform you that you have toilet paper stuck to your leg.”

  I looked down at my leg, which indeed trailed an improbable amount of toilet paper.

  “I hope that’s not too toward,” said the weasel.

  I told him it wasn’t toward, although it sort of was.

  “I would want someone to tell me,” said the weasel.

  I agreed with the weasel, who seemed to imagine that this was now somehow going to turn into a meet-cute. I am willing to admit that I was wrong about the guy, because he obviously had no immediate plans to murder me, but neither did I plan to embark upon a romantic comedy with him.

  “Thank you for informing me,” I told him. “Now, good day, sir!”

  When he was gone, it dawned on me that I was possibly not a great judge of character. Still, it was good that he had come over there—not only for the toilet paper but because it made me realize that I ought to check in with Twitch chat. If something terrible did happen to me, it would undoubtedly be because Doctor XXX was here. I should let Twitch know what was up, because this would provide valuable clues to the police later when they were investigating my demise.

  I had brought my laptop, and so I booted up and started my stream.

  “Good morning, Twitch chatters,” I told everyone. “Guess where I am right now?”

  Oh no, said Twitch chat. Tell me you didn’t go to that hotel.

  “How did you guess? Yes, I’m at the Endicott Hotel. I decided I would take Doctor XXX up on his offer.”

  This is terrible, said Twitch chat. You will get killed. Although despite saying this, my viewers continued to swell. My getting killed was apparently an attraction. Streamers, it’s all about bringing a unique service to the table. Take that, Nice Guy Kyle.

  “I brought a bodyguard, so don’t worry about that. But Doctor XXX hasn’t shown up yet, which is why I’m checking in with all of you. Do any of you good fellows know what he looks like?”

  Twitch chat diverged into a useless cacophony of theories, which is basically its natural state. Suggestions posited by Twitch chat:

  Doctor XXX never was going to show up and was just trolling me.

  Doctor XXX weighs 500 pounds and is sixty-seven years old and was too intimidated by my beauty to approach me.

  Doctor XXX weighs 145 pounds and is twenty-four years old and was too intimidated by my ugliness to approach me.

  Doctor XXX weighs 60 pounds and is seven years old, and his mother is too intimidated to approach me.

  Doctor XXX was waiting in a corner for me with some chloroform.

  Doctor XXX was waiting in a corner for me with a garrote.

  Doctor XXX was waiting in a corner for me with a blunderbuss.

  I have already been killed by Doctor XXX, like in The Sixth Sense, and do not yet realize that I am dead. Spoiler alert, I guess.

  Additionally, they provided the physical descriptions of dozens of people. Among them:

  Charles Manson

  Hannibal Lecter

  The Cat in the Hat

  Aileen Wuournos

  RuPaul Charles

  Warwick Davis

  Dracula

  So, they were essentially useless, although I realize now that if I am somehow killed by RuPaul or Warwick Davis, I have set myself up for an ironic death.

  “Thanks very much, you guys,” I told Twitch chat. “Your help is really invaluable.”

  Are you entering the tournament? they asked, quite reasonably. I was here to watch something “go down,” and if that didn’t happen, I might as well make a day of it. The odds of my winning was pretty low, but it would at least pass the time.

  “Nah,” I told them.
Because, after all, it did cost money to enter. “I’m just kicking around. But if I do get murdered—which obviously I won’t—”

  Don’t be too sure, said chat.

  “One of you guys should contact the police. Like, avenge my death, won’t you?”

  “I’ve entered us into the tournament,” said Daniel, who popped in out of nowhere. It was a trait that he shared with Charice. Was this a skill that dancers pick up, or was this something he had somehow acquired through their sex alliance?

  Yippee, said Twitch chat.

  “What, what?” I asked Daniel. “Did you find anyone in a green hat?”

  “I didn’t. There was one guy that looked really weaselly, though.”

  “I saw him,” I told him. I should have been irritated at Daniel for entering us into the tournament, but mostly I was happy that someone else agreed with my weasel assessment. That guy was weird, even if I did vaguely appreciate him telling me about my TP situation—although I’m sure Twitch chat would have been more than happy to point it out. The sentiment did not last long, though, because I noticed that Doctor XXX himself had joined my Twitch chat channel. Or rather, the rest of the channel noticed, showering him with expletives, Kappas, and threats.

  Don’t kill Louise!!!!!!! said Twitch chat.

  Doctor XXX did not respond to the abuse of the channel, which is always a good idea, actually, and instead privately messaged me:

  “There’s an unlocked storeroom on the second floor. Meet me there, ASAP.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I did not immediately respond to this message. In fact, I smiled brightly, as though someone had tossed a little money into my tip jar. Because it dawned upon me that this guy—probably this creep—was watching my reaction. I didn’t much care for the idea of being his puppet. Although, on the other hand, I had to admit I was curious about whatever might have been in this open storeroom.

  “I’m glad we had this talk,” I told chat. “Maybe I’ll try to interview some players live on the stream later. That’d be interesting, right?”

  No, said Twitch chat. It would be shit.

  But that’s the kind of thing they always say.

  “We need to get to meeting room eleven,” I told Daniel.

  “We need to do a lot of things.”

  I’d have to brief Daniel on what was going on, but I’d want to do so after the channel was turned off.

  “We play a game in five minutes,” said Daniel.

  “What, seriously?”

  “Yeah, we’re up first,” said Daniel. “I’m lucky like that.”

  I closed my laptop and Daniel yanked me toward my first true humiliation of the day.

  I had always imagined Daniel as a sort of Lesser Charice, and so I was always surprised when he did not react in a Charician manner.

  “So,” I told him, once the stream was entirely off, “this mystery doctor tells me that I should meet him in an abandoned storeroom upstairs.”

  This was not precisely the message, but I was embellishing it, because this was the sort of drama that Charice would enjoy. Daniel, however, just continued to walk along without any reaction whatsoever.

  “We’re going to be late for the tournament,” said Daniel.

  Had I given this piece of information to Charice, she would have combusted with excitement. I’m not entirely sure that I even mean that as a metaphor; she might have gone into Firestarter territory. Daniel didn’t even slow down.

  “Why are you pulling me? You don’t even play this game.”

  Daniel shrugged, even as he continued pulling me.

  “I threw in the cash to enter,” he said. “I don’t want to lose just because we show up late.”

  “But you don’t even play! You’re going to get crushed.”

  “It will make the day more fun,” said Daniel. “We can root for the people who defeat us.”

  “I don’t want to root for them. I want them to fail.”

  But I was being lulled into a conversation about gaming, or at least about competing, which was not the point.

  “You understand we’re going to have to check out this storeroom, right?” I asked. I couldn’t even believe this was a point of discussion.

  “Of course,” said Daniel. “But if this guy really is some kind of creeper, it can’t hurt to make him wait an extra fifteen minutes before he chloroforms you.”

  “Before he chloroforms you,” I told him. “You’re the designated victim. You’re going in that storeroom first.”

  This notion pleased Daniel tremendously.

  “If you had told me that ahead of time, I could have brought a wig and dressed up as you. Like a disguise.”

  And it was comments like these that made me think Lesser Charice. When plan A is “I’ll dress in drag as Dahlia,” you’re comfortably in Charician waters.

  “No one would mistake you for me,” I told Daniel.

  “I’m too tall?”

  “That, and you’ll have to walk schlumpier.”

  Daniel started mimicking my walk. I was sort of kidding about the schlumpier bit, mostly, but damned if he didn’t start doing it. First, accurately—because I don’t have Daniel’s ridiculous posture—then in an exaggerated form, like I was some awful schlubby mime.

  “Please stop that.”

  But he didn’t stop it, at least until we reached our destination.

  Meeting room 11 continued our leitmotif of “underwhelming.” For a $20,000 tournament, everything felt so pedestrian. That said, I understood how this worked. The first round had far too many matchups to do them all in one location, and so they were scattered in meeting rooms all over the place. There was a feature match area in the ballroom, and that match would be projected large, to a big audience. Naturally, the high-profile players would be sent there.

  And then there was the place where they sent us, a featureless white room with a handful of folding chairs. We weren’t even playing on a flat-screen TV.

  This was where bad players were sent to die.

  Our opponents were already there waiting for us. A kid with black hair and a red jacket stood there sneering.

  “Dahlia Moss? Daniel Simone?”

  We told the kid, yes, that was us.

  “I hope you’re ready to get crushed!”

  Also, this kid was seven. Maybe I should have mentioned that first. And seven’s not an exaggeration. I asked him his age.

  A very tired woman in a plaid blouse was standing behind him.

  “Jacob,” said the woman, presumably his mother. “What have we said about being a good competitor?”

  “It’s called smack talk, Mom!”

  Another kid, I supposed his partner, and even younger brother was also there, standing behind his mother. He was wearing an Oscar the Grouch shirt. Six? Possibly five. I asked him his age too, but the answer was hard to understand, because he told me one age and displayed fingers for a different number.

  “This is a ‘no smack talk’ zone,” said Fighting-Game Mom. “We’re polite to strangers.”

  “Don’t be mean!” yelled Oscar to his brother.

  “Fine,” said Jacob, with a lot of bitterness for a seven-year-old. “Good luck.”

  I was still wrapping my head around this all—this tournament of urchins—but Daniel took it quickly in stride.

  “Good luck to you, Jacob,” said Daniel. “Although I have to warn you—I’m pretty good.”

  Daniel Simone, as far as I am aware, had never picked up a controller before this moment.

  “Oh yeah?” said Jacob. “Well, my dragon kick is unbeatable.”

  “We’ll see,” said Daniel. And he was doing this in such an appealing way. He wasn’t being mocking, and he wasn’t being condescending. He was getting into it with this kid in exactly the proper spirit. Fighting-Game Mom was smiling. “I’m really good at dodging,” said Daniel, like the cool older brother you wanted to beat.

  “Oh yeah?” said Jacob. “I’m too fast to be dodged.”

  “I hope not
!” said Daniel.

  “I eat children for breakfast,” I told everyone. I wanted to participate in this junior version of smack-talk theater, but I just didn’t have the knack for it. Jacob’s mom frowned at me.

  It wasn’t long before the tournament organizers had everything set up. Most of the players there brought their own joysticks, and even here, in the purgatory of meeting room 11, the organizers seemed surprised that we did not have our own custom Mad Catz joysticks in tow.

  Jacob had his own joystick. Even Oscar the Grouch had his own joystick, and he was five.

  “You really don’t have your own?” the organizer asked, quite surprised. Three times he asked us this.

  “We totally have joysticks,” I told him. “They’re just being cleaned right now.”

  “I see,” said the organizer. “I guess you’re stuck with the controllers that come with the machine.”

  And we started.

  I had never played Dark Alleys before, but it seemed to me that I was easily the most-skilled person playing. The game worked a lot like Smash Brothers, which was to say, there were four people trying to knock one another off a platform. If you’re not a gamer, imagine an episode of American Gladiators—with folks trying to knock each other off a balance beam and into a pool below, although instead of Nerf-covered sticks for weapons, you had lightning bolts and a robot arm.

  “Who should I pick?” asked Daniel, to me, in a whisper, apparently because he didn’t want to show weakness to a six-year-old.

  “The hell if I know,” I told him. “This was your idea. I’m just here for dangerous and unwise mysteries.”

  My strategy for fighting games, and also for racing games, is always to choose someone big and slow. In my experience, speed and subtlety are overrated. This might also be my approach to problems in general, now that I think about it. I selected a large robotic sumo wrestler to be my avatar.

  Daniel chose—I’m not completely sure—but I believe it was Amelia Earhart, and whispered to me:

  “How does this game work?”

  That’s what he asked me. How does this game work? These are words that are rarely spoken by people competing in a tournament.