I sat in the stairwell that they used to bring the contestants up from their quarters to the studio. I wasn’t sure if privacy was exactly what I was looking for, though it was hardly what I got.

“Great job!”

I looked up at the man patting my shoulder. It was Ed. He held up a thumb before turning back to the line of people behind him. I shifted over to accommodate the audience members as they made their way to the floor below. The woman, Valerie, brought up the end. Once she had passed, I was alone again in the dim glow of the bare light bulb hanging above.

I got up. Walked into the studio. The place was empty.

I crouched down and peered under the risers. It was too dark to see anything, but I suspected that if Nora was in there she’d say something.

Up in the booth, I got on my knees and turned off the reel-to-reel machine. After I carried Sy’s homemade tape deck down from the booth, I put it and a video monitor onto a rolling cart and took everything up the elevator to Sy’s penthouse apartment.

The sun had just set and the surrounding lights of the city came in beautifully from every direction I looked. The floor of the penthouse was a dark stained wood. I rolled the cart along, occasionally slowing on the area rugs scattered about. I arrived at one of the clusters of sofas and chairs where the lone light in the room shone. Sy sat with his feet up on an ottoman watching me.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “Please don’t let Saligia know that I forgot to lock the elevator. She’s hyper-vigilant these days.”

He looked on with curiosity as I parked the cart in the center of the conversation pit, locked the wheels, and used an extension cord to provide power to both the tape machine and the video monitor.

“You do that so well,” said Sy. “Let me guess, you were in the AV club in high school.”

“I was.”

“Thanks for turning off my tape machine. I’d completely forgotten. But there was no reason to bring it up to me.”

“I have something to show you.” I turned on the monitor. It crackled with a slight static charge and the screen began to glow. “That is, if your kludged together contraption works.”

“Oh, I can assure you, it does.” Sy sat up. Intrigued. “Something to show me, eh? Well, show away.”

“Saligia and that woman, Rose,” I said. “I think they both know.”

“They both know what?”

“You saw them talking together after the show, right?”

“Yeah. I assumed they were talking about you.”

“Me? No. They were talking about Hal.”

“Hal? No.” Sy shook his head like explaining something to a child. “No one talks about Hal. The man is as devoid of sex appeal as a turnip.”

“Good lord, Sy.” I rewound the tape. “Were you not watching on the monitor? Or looking when that woman, Susan, was pushed through Door Number One?”

“No, but her scream was pitch-perfect.”

I cued the tape.

“Here’s what made her scream.”

I let the tape roll to show Rose opening the door and escorting Susan inside. Susan tottered and looked down. Just as she screamed, I paused the tape.

“Does that lump at her feet look familiar?”

Sy didn’t need my prompting. He was already leaning forward, hands on his knees.

“Puffy down vest,” he muttered, “and the unkempt beard.” Sy’s eyes burned like he was watching a murder mystery. “It’s Hal!”

“Yep.”

“Maybe he got drunk and passed out in there?”

“Sy, the man’s dead,” I said. “And my money’s on murder.”

It seemed that we had slipped into some surreal scene where we were discussing a very disturbing incident with comedic banter. But, then again, Sy had a habit of making the normal abnormal, and the uncommon common.

“Dead?” He shook his head. “That would be thrilling, Morris, but if you hadn’t noticed, that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore.”

“So your reaction is that he’s sleeping it off?” I asked. “For three days? Does that explain the smell lingering around the studio after that door was opened?”

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“There was a whiff of decomposition,” Sy said softly. He leaned in closer to the monitor screen. “And he is in an awkward position.”

“Awkward? Sy, the man’s head is facing backward. His eyes are bugged open.”

“Can’t argue with video evidence,” Sy said, grinning. “Can we?”

“I thought we were done with death since the Changes.”

“This is so exciting,” Sy said. “We have a mystery!”

“So,” I said slowly. “I’m guess Hal wasn’t what you’d call a close friend?”

There was a rattling of bottles back towards the kitchen. Sy looked around.

“Sal!” Sy exclaimed. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”

She pulled her head out of the refrigerator.

“Let’s put our mystery on hold,” Sy whispered to me. He stood up and turned off the video monitor. Then he shouted out for Saligia to hear.

“The three of us need to head out for a nightcap!” Sy turned to me. “There’s this wonderful bar next to the Alamo. Teddy Roosevelt used to go there to get sloshed.”

“You could maybe go without me,” Saligia said, ignoring me.

“You know I can’t do that.” Sy crossed his arms and frowned melodramatically.

“Fine.” Saligia closed the refrigerator. She looked over at me. “We can’t keep running from each other, can we?”

“Then it’s a date!” Sy clapped his hands.

###

It took about half an hour. Saligia had to go up a ladder to her “penthouse above the penthouse” to get dressed for a night out. I was about to explain that it was just a bar, then I remembered who I was with. It all came back. Silverio and Saligia both had a compulsion to dress for any and every occasion.

When we finally made it to the street, I was in my normal jeans and leather jacket, but Sy had put on a bright yellow sport coat with horizontal pink stripes. And Saligia had on some sort of black velvet backless gown with violet mesh opera gloves that reached to her biceps. I had forgotten how I always felt shabby when we’d all three go out.

“Oh, this feels nice,” Sy said as he got in the middle and linked his arms with ours.

I’d learned not to fight Sy on these occasions. It was best to play along, he was no fun to be around when he pouted.

We made our way along the darkened streets of downtown San Antonio. As the city was practically car-free we literally walked in the middle of the street.

“Oh, by the way,” Sy said, turning his head toward Saligia. “Someone murdered Hal.”

“I know,” was her short response.

Sy came to an abrupt strop. And since Saligia and I were still arm-linked, we had to stop as well.

Sy loved to blurt out the unexpected so as to cause deliberate awkward moments. Only on the rare occasion did he fail to get a rise out of his intended victim. However, when that happened, such as it had with Sal, he became the one pushed into the awkward state as he tried to regain his composure.

That was when it occurred to me that we were all behaving strangely. I mean, someone we knew had been murdered. Were we finally succumbing to the malaise so common with people in the post-Changes world? No. It wasn’t that we were indifferent or unconcerned. In fact, we were quite engaged with the matter at hand. Not detached, no. Though more than a bit cavalier…which, I’d admit, wasn’t something one should be proud of when talking about a deceased co-worker, but then the three of us weren’t, strictly speaking, normal people.

I turned my head to look at Sy. I realized I was looking forward to that drink, and this standing in the middle of the street wasn’t getting us closer to a bar.

However, Sy’s attention was focused on Saligia.

“Just when were you going to tell me?” he finally demanded of her.

“You mean about Hal?”

“Of course.”

“After I had a drink,” she said. “Or three. And then I was going to tell you about Hal and who killed him.”

“You’ve already cracked the case?” Sy tightly gripped my arm, as I assumed he was with Saligia’s. It appeared he had regained his composure. “Do tell!”

“I still need that drink,” she said. “Let’s get to the bar.”

Sy turned to me.

“Do you know the culprit?”

I shook my head.

“Ah,” Sy said with a satisfied chuckle. He continued walking, pulling us along. “What a great detective team you two make. Morris with his evidence-based presentation, and the Great Saligia Jones with her gift of second sight.”

“You made fun of me wanting to put that lock on the elevator,” Saligia said softly. “We could have been murdered in our sleep.”

“I am a notoriously light sleeper,” Sy said, although I knew that not to be true. “And do you think for a second that some maniac would be able to get past me to make his way up to your humble home?” Sy laughed softly. Then he took in a deep lungful of air and looked at the sky. “It is the perfect night for a walk. The three of us together again. Hey, do the two of you remember that night in Juarez when we snuck up to the roof of the Mercado Cuauhtémoc to fly kites under the full moon?”

I tried to get Sy back to the present.

“So, what’s up with this whole show?” I asked.

“Serpientes?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a vague question. What do you mean by what’s up? Are you having trouble understanding the rules? Morris! It’s a children’s game. Or are you talking about the deeper epistemological significance?”

“I mean those creepy contestants kept locked up on the 28th floor? The magical closets you cram them into. All that. I mean, Silverio Moreno, what have you gotten yourself into?”

Sy gave me a sly smile as we walked into sight of the Alamo.

“Morris, that’s a tall order. I will give you the standard Saligia Jones response.”

“Which is?”

“I need a drink or three first,” he said gleefully.

“Amen to that,” Saligia said.

As we crossed the plaza, Sy noticed Charlemagne DeWinter and his food cart.

“We should definitely grab some falafel later,” he said. Then, “Hey, is that man wearing what I think he’s wearing?” He slipped his arms from ours and rushed over to the falafel cart.

Sy and Charlemagne were exchanging pleasantries as Saligia and I hurried to catch up. There was an awkwardness hanging in the air between the two of us that could only be mediated by Sy’s presence. I hoped we could somehow get past that.

When we reached the cart, Charlemagne gave me a surreptitious sign, acknowledging, I presume, the recognition of a fellow member of the All Seeing Eye Society.

I turned my attention to the menu. Some food would be nice. But Sy shook his head.

“Drinks first.” And he began pulling us across the street. “The vendor told me he got his fez at Penner’s. Did you know they have a whole line of them in every color. With or without tassels. In the basement. But you have to ask.”

A fez would not have helped me at the moment, but still, maybe a decent jacket and proper trousers.

“I feel underdressed,” I muttered.

“What?” Sy laughed. “Nonsense. That rugged look of yours always gets people’s attention. You’re so clueless—you probably didn’t even notice the falafel vendor winking at you.”

“Oh, he noticed,” Saligia said.

What did she mean by that?

“Besides,” Sy said as he steered us toward the side entrance to the Menger Hotel, “of the three of us, you’re the most appropriately dressed. This is a very masculine establishment.”