Her face was in shadow, which she liked. More mystery. The phone call came in as scheduled and she picked it up and before the voice on the other end of the line could say so much as hello she rattled off a string of numbers. It had been easier in the old days when there was a cord to twist in her hands. She would use the cord for finger strangling, push the blood one way or the other, turn an index tip a deep pink verging red then ease off and watch the white joint darken back to normal. Now she was done with the numbers and listened with her whole body as the voice on the other end of the line told her a story: he had left the embassy, he was on his way over, he had a love letter and a knife and half a mind to use one of them. Her eyes could have gone wide as saucers but she played it the other way, narrowed them to dashes. The pair of them Morse Coded an M across her face. She hung up the phone and shook her head contemptuously. In the back, behind the director, she could see various thumbs up, but she didn’t need them. She had been famous so long that she knew that they had gotten exactly what they needed.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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