Oh dear lord, where do I even begin? For that matter, my dears, where does it end? I suppose in all cases, at the beginning or, in this case, where I last left off.
I'd just finished my third piece of thin slice with cherry tomatoes and almond slivers when I saw them. There they were, Walter and my once-upon-a-time-saved-her-lunar-white-tush-more-times-than-I-can-count best friend. Yes, sweet bunnies, it was none other than that red-haired interloper Zinnia. Need I remind you that it was not long ago that I, unselfishly and at the risk of losing my own life and freedom, facilitated her own wretched husband's well-deserved exit from this world? I mean, really. What act of loyalty is more genuine--more raw than that of killing a woman's husband, when said's husband wife is too emotionally distraught to do it herself? In fact, as I stood there dabbing red sauce from my own saucy lips, there came a moment when I thought I might like to ring my own best girlfriend to return the favor, and send good old Walter on an eternal pearl-diving expedition deep to the bottom of the Hudson River. But then I realized, said "best friend" had her Orientally manicured tendrils already sunk into him!
My mind began a rapid fire, random thoughts shooting in and out like some tangled string of sparking Christmas lights. I felt my knees growing weak, and there was a burning in my eyes, burning, unlike anything I'd ever felt before. This was all so new to me, my sweet kittens, you must believe this without hesitation. In all my years of...cleaning house, let's say...every single time I've ever pulled the trigger, or cinched the pebble-filled stocking or roundhouse kicked a target from the building ledge, I have never felt this level of emotion. Nerves, yes--we all have them and should claim them proudly. In fact, the one who says that killing makes no dent in his armor has no soul. But this...I could only say that it was something I was not prepared to feel.
Perhaps, if I may be so bold as to surmise, it was--and is--love. For all the headaches, and the seeping nausea and the lousy jokes at my expense, I suppose I actually loved the old lunt. And that, my dears, is why it hurt so badly. For the two people in my life whom I loved the most, the two people whom I felt would be there for me until the last bullet left my pistol, had done to me what my chauffeur Miles was likely having done to him in some brownstone alley in Greenwich.
Which brings me to Tiffany.
Like I said, the flames were quite nearly literally shooting from my eyes, and I had had the luck (misfortune?) of spotting the curvature of the pizza pie slicer in my gauzy periphery. With lightning speed (for that is how I most frequently move) I snatched it into my quivering hands. I had reached far back behind me, probably as far back as the East Village dears, and just as I was to hurl the gleaming, yet tomatoey, weapon at the smarmy couple, I was lain usunder by something piercing and expensive against my breast. Perhaps it was the shock of the assault or the realization of 14 carat gold, but the cool dampness of the sidewalk was soon resonating on my rump.
And who should scoop me from the ground, and cradle me in his arms, and remind me that to kill these two gerbils in the broad clarity of Little Italy would spell my demise and ruin, was my dear chauffeur (and only remaining friend) Miles.
"It's been a rough night," he smiled, collecting the gleaming Tiffany cufflinks from the ground.
"Was there no one you would have rather spent the evening with than me?" I asked, sincerely. My voice by now was more of a bird's chirp than a woman's.
"No one," he promised. "Now let's get you cleaned up. And then we can figure out how to send them to Shanghai."
"Shanghai?" I asked. "Why China?"
"Oh," he smiled, pointing at the ground. "They might not make it there, but we can certainly send them part way."
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