CHAPTER 53:
"Sweet dreams are made of these.
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas,
Everybody's looking for something.
Some of them want to use you;
Some of them want to get used by you.
Some of them want to abuse you;
Some of them want to be abused.
I wanna use you and abuse you.
I wanna know what's inside you."
Marilyn Manson (Sweet Dreams)
"Sorry about that," said Rixon, entering the men's toilets.
The floor was tiled red and the walls painted yellow, holding two stalls and three urinals opposite the basins, with a mirror situated above them.
Basso stood at the basin, running water from the tap and splashing it on to his shirt, scrubbing the coffee out as he went along.
"She's a right old perve," Rixon said, excusing his girlfriend's behaviour. "She can't help it."
Basso shook his head.
"Look, I feel bad about it. Please take this," he offered, handing the red shirt he'd bought earlier.
Basso eyed it quickly then shook his head. "It's all right. I've got a clean shirt in the car."
"Oh, please. I don't want to inconvenience you any further. Let me replace that one," he pointed to Basso. "It's the least I can do."
Basso thought about it for one short moment, then closed the tap and wiped his hands dry on his ruined shirt. He turned slightly away from the mirror and began unbuttoning his shirt from the top.
Rixon couldn't believe it. His plan was working, from the moment he'd spotted Basso in the store's fitting room to this very moment in the men's bathroom. It had all been planned in a second and executed in the next.
Those scars brought on a feeling of nostalgia, like seeing a childhood friend after 50 years of being apart.
But he couldn't see a single mark on the man's chest as he opened the first two buttons on his shirt. He became anxious but tried to seem un-so as he looked on inconspicuously.
Basso was down to the fifth button and all Rixon could see was a bare chest. Did his eyes see things that weren't there? Did they see things he wished were there?
He didn't believe it. He couldn't accept it. So he recalled the moment he thought he'd seen the scars in the hope that if he could recreate the scene that he might see them again.
The fitting room... curtain... mirror.
He'd seen the scars in the reflection.
He looked at the large bathroom mirror behind Basso, thinking of a way to get him to face it again. But if he did, he would give himself away. He needed Basso to think he was a good Samaritan.
Reflections. Reflective surfaces. None.
Suddenly it came to him.
Rixon pulled out his phone from his pocket and held it casually at his side, thumbing at the screen as he pretended to navigate through his phone menu. He handed the shirt to the detective just as casually, while he angled his dark phone screen just right so that he could catch Basso's reflection.
And there they were. The scars he'd seen before, but more of them; the bigger picture.
Thanks to his sharp, brilliant eyesight – due to his existence as a heavenly being – he could put the reflection to memory, all of it. Words written in an ancient language he hadn't seen since his fall from grace.
Just as Basso noticed Rixon's phone activity, Rixon pulled it to his ear to 'listen to a voicemail'. It wasn't hard to fake that because he had let the voicemails build up over time. All those contacts had called him to leave voice messages and now, finally, he found a use for them.
He turned away from Basso and walked up to the mirror as if to entertain himself while the voices nipped at his ear. In the reflection, he could see Basso finishing up and focused his eyes back on himself.
"Thanks," Basso said in his rumbling voice.
"Does it fit?" Rixon asked, as if he cared.
"Just."
"Ah, well. You're not the smallest guy in the world," Rixon joked, patting Basso's shoulder hard. He reacted with a slight smile and shook Rixon's hand. "I'll get my bird and we'll leave you to enjoy your book."
"There's no need for that," said Basso.
"No, please. She loves that shirt on me; can you imagine if she saw you in it? She'd be like a bitch in heat!" Rixon laughed.
Basso gave an uncomfortable smile and held out his hand for another shake. "Thanks again. I didn't get your name."
"Patrick," said Rixon.
"Ecanus," said Basso.
"Is that Greek?" Rixon asked.
Basso paused before replying, "Yeah."
"See you around," said Rixon and left.
