Chapter 2
“Is she dead?”
There was no tremor in her voice. She spoke like someone conducting scientific research. Cora came closer, twirling the key to our apartment on her index finger, and bent down to smell the corpse’s skin.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “And where did you get that key?”
When she finished doing whatever it was she was doing, she walked over to Piglet and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Love Nugget and I are in a serious relationship,” she said.
“Huh?”
Piglet gave us his I-fucked-up-but-so-what face. The same one as when he told us he’d blown all our money on sex, when he’d bragged about posting a human dinner party online, and when he’d emailed all those people confirming the event. Unfortunately for me, I’d been seeing that face a lot lately.
“We’re in love. I gave her a spare key.”
Hugo let go of the rope, which slipped quickly through the hooks with an irritating screech. The corpse slammed to the ground.
“Wait, are you the fucking bitch who got us into this mess?”
Piglet positioned himself next to his girlfriend, ready to fight for her, but she didn’t need anyone to defend her.
“Fucking bitch? Not sure. My name is Cora,” she said, blowing a kiss. “Now will someone please tell me why there’s a dead body in the living room.”
“You explain,” I told Piglet, and he began to speak.
Cora sat in the armchair, crossing her long legs and following along attentively while Piglet told her everything.
She didn’t blink, didn’t shudder, didn’t startle, wasn’t shaken at all.
When he came to the end of that string of absurdities, Cora just ran her hands through her hair and smiled. “You guys are doing it all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want the best-quality meat, you have to drain the animal’s blood, before it all coagulates.
” Cora kneeled down on the sheet and felt around on the corpse’s bare thighs.
“If the abdomen’s gone green, it’s because decomposition has already set in.
Then it’s too late. How long has she been dead? ”
“Five, six hours, more or less.”
“What did she die of?”
“Internal bleeding.”
“The blood’s left the muscle, at least. Natural exsanguination. I think I can help you,” she said. “But I want ten percent.”
Hugo was furious. “Now this whore wants to squeeze another three thousand out of us!”
“You’re good at math, I’m good at butchering.”
“The only reason we’re in this mess is because of you! The right thing to do would be for you to give us our money back. That fatass over there blew it all on you!”
“Stop complaining! I did my work. I earned that money.”
“We should string you up next to the old hag!”
“Hey, nobody touches my girl!” Piglet interrupted.
“I can do the butchering myself, okay?” said Hugo, sounding completely unsure of himself. “I don’t need you!”
She rolled her eyes, moving her gaze from the corpse to me, to Piglet, and finally to Hugo.
“You sure about that? You guys seemed pretty fucked when I got here…”
“The last thing I need is some whore trying to teach me something!”
“She told me she used to help her father out at a slaughterhouse when she was a kid,” I said.
Cora stepped away from the corpse and picked up her bag from the armchair. “Well, you’re the boss … If you don’t want my help, I’m leaving.”
“I already told you we don’t need you!”
“Chill out, man. You said it yourself, you’re a chef, not a butcher. Cora might come in handy.”
“Cora fucking rocks!”
Hugo swallowed hard, refusing to accept defeat.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But I don’t want her using my knives.”
Every chef is overprotective of their knives and pans. Hugo was always complaining that we were dulling his knives or burning the bottom of his Le Creuset.
“So how do you propose I do this?” Cora pushed. “With my nails?”
“I don’t care, find a way.”
“I can buy you a knife, baby,” said Piglet, enveloping his girlfriend’s tiny body.
“Not a knife. Buy me a chainsaw. That’s what I like to work with. Makes it easier to split the carcass.”
“Deal.”
“Make it yellow.”
“Yellow?”
“Yeah … canary yellow. It’s my favorite color,” she said, grinning like a kid in a candy store. “I want a canary-yellow chainsaw.”
“You’ve got it.”
Piglet went to his room to get his wallet and left, promising he’d be right back.
Cora asked to borrow some old clothes, and I offered her a pair of baggy shorts I no longer wore.
While she was changing in the bathroom, I told Hugo to calm down and stop nitpicking.
Cora was the perfect solution: She wasn’t judging us, she didn’t see anything wrong with what we were doing, and she didn’t want to call the police.
“I prefer to work alone,” she said when she came back to the living room.
She was wearing the shorts as sort of a dress: one leg like a tube top that came down to her thighs and the other over her right arm, like a wide sleeve.
“Can I use that butcher knife while we wait for Love Nugget to get back with my chainsaw?”
Reluctantly, Hugo handed it over.
“You’re fucking psycho.”
“Hey, I don’t care much for you either,” she said. “You think because you’re a hot, tattooed swinging dick that you’ve got the right to talk to me like that?”
Cora turned and sauntered toward the corpse. Hugo snapped and lunged at her, losing his balance as she ducked just in time. He crashed to the floor and Cora swiftly twirled the knife in the air and put the blade to his neck.
“You take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine, okay?” she said, pressing the tip of the knife against his skin. “I’m just going to wait here for my little Nugget to get back. Then I’ll do the rest on my own. Dante, you and this asshole are free to go.”