Chapter 5: Flores para los Muertes
Billy bought her flowers. He never buys women flowers. They were cheap flowers, but still. Velma Kelly was no different than every broad he ever fucked.
But she was.
Not only did he buy her flowers, but he delivered them himself. He liked to think of himself as an indispensable lover. The women came back to him.
He sauntered to the door, rang the bell. Slick yet casual. Billy was doing this for himself, not for her. The door opened; he smirked.
Roxie raised her eyebrows.
Billy's world halted and started spinning in the other direction.
"Miss Hart?"
"Mr. Flynn?"
Long. Awkward. Silence.
"Is Velma here? Last time I checked she was the one who lived here."
"Oh. Well, I'm just picking up some of my things. She stole my garter. A blue one with a rhinestone buckle. Claims it was hers."
"Well, when will she be back?"
"How should I know? Soon, I guess."
"Do you mind if I wait for her?"
"Guess not. What's with the flowers?"
"I heard her sister died, and I'm passing on my condolences."
"Condolences. Ha! Condolences."
She found the garter under Velma's bed. She opened her mouth to say something, stopped, cocked her head to the side. She finally fumbled out something about a lunch date and left, taking Velma's garter with her.
Billy wandered around Velma's place, finding himself in the bathroom. He opened the mirror, passing through the looking glass, and found lipstick the color of oceans of rubies. And a bottle of sleeping pills.
It was the minutiae that only Roxie knew. The fact that Velma doesn't go anywhere without lipstick. The fact that only really good sex or a really strong barbiturate can get Velma to sleep.
xxxxx
"I think I'm getting too old for this."
She's the one who said it, inhaling smoke, smoke that doesn't belong anywhere near her pristine figure. Then again, he doesn't belong anywhere near her pristine figure either. When did their little rendezvous' twist into something irreparably perverted?
It really irked him that they almost never spoke. She was all words at the press conferences, feigning adoration and pity. It seemed that she only had a certain amount of words to use, and by the time she came to him, she was all out.
Did they want this anymore?
Billy couldn't lose his headlines. Billy had a huge double homicide case on the horizon, a vaudeville vamp who bumped off her husband and her sister.
That was who he thought about when Mary put out her cigarette and kissed him on the lips. He could never lose sight of their initial purpose, the reason he keeps coming back. It was business, never anything more. Billy saved oppressed, hot-blooded, slightly violent women who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tonight, he was saving Velma Kelly.
xxxxx
"You brought me flowers? How nice. Never do it again."
"I'm sorry. Are you too good for flowers?"
"Well, I'm not too good for diamonds."
"Roxie was here earlier."
"For the garter, right? I don't even need that little tramp. And to think, she would be on the streets without me."
She neglected to mention that she was just as faded and worn when Roxie found her. She liked to think that she had enough sheer star shine to light her own way. And for a moment, she had even Billy fooled.
"You really don't like the flowers?"
"Too sentimental. And they wilt. Diamonds last forever."
Charlie used to bring her flowers; he could see it in her eyes. She mistook it for love. So she kept love at a distance simply because it was unpredictable, felonious, reckless. Sex was sex. This clever carbon copy of love was enough for her.
And that was exactly what Billy loved about her.
