What if?

Mr. Strange and Madame X shared a common wall with Rex and me.  Usually I slept with earplugs on and a portable fan at full blast for white noise.  Rex simply dozed with Larry King on volume level eight.  We were both determined to negate the sound of pots, frying pans and various unidentified glassware hitting the wall that separated us, the sane tenants from, well-the ones next door.

I found the soothing sound of a babbling brook coming from my alarm clock to be anything but this morning, and I trudged over and slapped it off.   My usual ritual of stretching, plucking the plugs out and diving back into bed was interrupted by the sound of someone singing.  A baritone maybe, singing in some language I knew was familiar, but that I didn't understand.

I eased on my robe and sequined flip-flops, which scratched my toes up but were cute anyway, and surreptitiously opened the front door.  There was Mr. Strange, bear-like in his stature and hair volume, smiling at the newspaper.  Then he noticed me and smiled down with those discolored, yellow tusks of his.  "Your paper-is-yes-here-it's-you," he strained, in that accent I could never quite place.  He pushed my paper toward me with his furry hand.  "Goodbye," he said simply and disappeared around the corner to his lair.  He was kind of an over sized version of Ladka from "Taxi."  

Had I missed something here?  Mr. Strange-smiling?  At me?  Was this some sort of bizarro world dream I was having?  As neighbors, we've had strained international relations for some time now.  The sun was warm on my robe and made me squint.  I retreated to the relative safety of my dark apartment.

Standing at the kitchen counter, I unfolded the paper and my heart sank.  There had been another murder.  This time it was in SOMA, down off of 3rd, in an area I was quite fond of.  Same stats and scenario.  The victim was in his late thirties-early forties, he'd been beaten to death, face all pulpy like plum jam, his teeth had been removed and the tips of his fingers had been burned off.  The police called this charming menace to society the "Identity Killer."  I guess that was a working title.  Sometimes he would leave i.d. on the victims to taunt their loved ones.  Oftentimes it wasn't the same person, but it took the police a while to figure that out.  I tasted bile in my throat.  Why were there so many sickos in the world?  And why did they have to descend on my city?

And then I had a thought.  (It happens from time to time.)  Mr. Strange.  Who had a night job.  Who always seemed to be teetering on the brink of-what-madness?  Who could conceivably be violence incarnate?  Yes-he was smiling.  At the newspaper.  And singing, like he was in a Disney movie.  I scanned the rest of the front page for any sign of a lighter story he might have perused.  Orphans saving money for their own ice cream store?  A cure for cancer?  City hall giving out free cash on Tuesdays?  But no.  There was only the usual bad news.  More suicide bombings, no end to the Darfur crisis-the economy going to hell in a big ol' hand basket.  The normal stuff.

Was I actually living next door to the I.K.?  As early as it was, no matter which MBA bimbo was sharing his bed, Rex was getting up now.  Mr. Strange had turned into Mr. Serial Killer-we needed to-to-I wasn't sure what we needed to do.  Despite the sounds coming from his room, I knocked loudly on Rex's door.

After all, this was an emergency.