A Favor

ART: "Reality" By Laurie Cooper

I was chasing Sepia around the living room....She was wearing nothing more than a very sheer ,white babydoll...She was moving fast, but not fast enough...I did my best impression of one of the Eagles defensemen and tackled her....We fell and rolled upon the floor, wrestling and laughing...It was a lazy, playful Saturday morning...Neither of us had to go to work and we were both laughing, before I finnally wrestled my way on top of her,leaned in and gave her a very long and passionate kiss.. She returned the kiss and we lay there, holding each other and breathing heavy, when all of a sudden the door bell rang.....I let it ring again...I felt ,if we were silent..maybe whoever it was ,would go away...But Sepia, got up, tried to fix her hair, put on a robe and went to the door. Upon seeing who it was..she turned to me with a frown and said..."Kevin, it's for you."

I got up off the floor and walked to the door...It was Cock Robbins.. He peeked in and looked at us sheepishly -

"Hope I wasn't interruptin nothin folks.." he said.

"Oh nah...whatever would make you think that?" said Sepia ,not even trying to hide her sarcasm or her disdain for the man.

"Kool it Sepia?"I said. Then I looked at Cock and said-"So what brings you to my house on a Saturday morning?"

"You know I wouldn't just come over here on a humbug like this Kevin, but I need you to look into somethin for me." said Cock.

"Look into something...Look into what?" I asked.

"It's like this...one of my ex-girlfriends was dating this guy...Walt Branson.....right? Well ,he died
last night...Shot to death.....Cops are saying it's a suicide." said Cock.

"Yeah and?" I asked...

"She don't think it was a suicide...." he said.

"So...what do you want me to do?" I asked...

"Kevin, this has you written all over it...If you could figure this out and-"

"Hold up, Hold up....do I look like a cop or a private eye to you? I'm a Blogger and a writer..
I'm not a detective..Why don't you go to the cops with this?" I said.

"Because they already ruled it a suicide..they won't talk to me...but if you look at him and dig around a little you'll prove that they wrong." he said.

"What? If the cops already ruled it a suicide, what can I do to undo that? And what do you want me to do, solve his murder...if it in fact is a murder?" I asked.

"Kevin, just meet me at the morgue and look at the body and tell me what you think...just do that for me, okay?"asked Cock.

"If I agree to do this, will you leave me alone? I asked...

"Yeah, sure man." He said

"Okay...get out of here...I'll see you in a few hours." I said.

"A few hours?? I got the girl outside in my car..what am I supposed to do in the meanwhile?"
asked Cock.

"Where's your wife? She know about this?" I asked.

"Vanessa is home, she knows I'm helping Olivia....It's on the up Kev, I swear....I aint doin nothing shady..." said Cock.

"Okay, Okay...I'll meet you in a few hours. I'm sure you'll find something to do with her." I said.

"I'm tellin you Kev, it aint nothin like that..I'm a changed man..no skirt chasin...I aint shady like that no more." said Cock..

"Okay Cock..whatever you say." I laughed, still teasing him. I beleived him..Sepia didn't.

After Cock was gone...I grabbed Sepia and pulled her towards me... She had been standing by the bedroom door.

"Now that he's gone...I wanna do something shady and underhanded with you.." I laughed..

"Oh..you so nasty, Kevin.." laughed Sepia.

Three hours later I was parking in front of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office..right off of the University of Pennsylvania's campus. If you didn't know better, you would have sworn that the small, cold impersonal building..located in a cubbyhole on 38th Street, near Baltimore Avenue was actually part of Penn, but it wasn't. Cock and his ex-girlfriend, Olivia were already inside talking to some people...There were Television monitors in the hallways for those who were too squeamish to actually go into the rooms and view the bodies...but we were going into the room. We walked down a very cold and clinical, yet well lit hallway to the room where dozens of the recently deceased lie cold and lifeless on steel tables with wheels.

A small dwarfish little white man in a white uniform walked us to the table that held Walt Branson....or what was left of him. He was a dark skinned hulk of a man, larger than Cock Robbins and well muscled...a handsome man in life...with a big hole on the right side of his head.

"Kevin...look at the bullet hole...I aint smart as you, but even I can see what's wrong with this picture here?" said Cock Robbins.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked.

"Kevin...the bullet hole is on the right side of his head..." said Cock.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"He was left handed." said Cock. 'Did everything with his left."

For the first time in a long time..Cock Robbins had said something intelligent, something that made me think...Maybe he had a point after all..

(To be Continued.....)