Poison Shy Read Online Free Page A

reality shows, and became an overnight success as a result. Kill ’Em All
had a deal going with Mr. Burl: we sent him free rat traps in exchange for half-price takeout for all KEA employees.
    None of us had ever been to Mr. Burl’s home before. Ansel and I figured it was no big deal. We met him outside his building. He gave us the keys, said he was heading to Vancouver for a weekend “rendezvous.” We let ourselves into his apartment, and honest to God, the guy had swastikas all over the place. I mean
everywhere
. On the walls, on the lampshades, on the floor tiles. He even had a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler in his living room. It was like walking into a miniature Nazi museum.
    I remember the expression on poor Ansel’s face — sheer bewilderment. He was Jewish. I can only imagine how he must have felt, standing in that place in his mustard-brown uniform, a dented can of bug spray hanging at his waist like a gun. I remember thinking: if I were him, I’d trash the place. But Ansel was one of the most mild-mannered guys I’ve ever known. I told him he didn’t have to stay, and after his shock wore off, he took me up on it and left. I finished the job myself, suppressing the urge to poison the food in Mr. Burl’s fridge.
    A week later, Ansel quit. I didn’t blame him. He and his girlfriend moved into her parents’ place in some suburb of Toronto. A few days after that, rumour got around that Mr. Burl had been shot and killed in a church basement poker game out west. His restaurant was turned over to his sister, and our rat-traps-for-takeout deal came to an end. I never told my boss what I saw in Mr. Burl’s apartment, and I don’t think Ansel did either. It was sort of an unwritten rule in the pest control business that we turn a blind eye to our clients’ lives, no matter how troubling or strange — or alluring.
    That rule was on my mind the next morning as I lay in bed, thinking about the fumigation at Melanie’s apartment. I’d snooped around a bit. I hadn’t been able to resist.
    â€œJust gonna use the bathroom,” Bill had said, as soon as we stepped inside. “That pastrami sandwich isn’t agreeing with me.” He hustled down the hallway, keys jingling.
    â€œTake your time.”
    The place was small. Cozy. There was something distinctly masculine about it: posters on the wall for
Pulp Fiction
and
The Shining
, empty beer cans on the duct-taped coffee table. A TV plunked on a sagging milk crate. An Xbox and a small pile of video games on the floor. Curtains fashioned out of faded bedsheets. An old sweatshirt slung over a lampshade. A mountain of unwashed dishes in the sink.
    I could hear Bill grunting away in the bathroom, the spillage of his guts. I knew I had more time to look around, so I made my way to the bedrooms down the hall.
    The first door I came to had a No Exit sign nailed to it. Written below the sign in black marker was the phrase
The truth is rarely pure and never simple
— Oscar Wilde’s words, though I didn’t know that at the time. I did know, right away, that this was Darcy’s room. It smelled of wet dog and masturbation. The mess was similar to the one in the living room: two empty beer cans on the nightstand, dirty socks and underwear on the floor. Something resembling a cross had been crudely spray-painted on the wall above the crusty futon bed.
    Across the hall was a plain white door. It was closed. I put my hand on the knob. My palms were moist. I bit my lip and entered.
    Melanie’s room smelled of sharp cloves and candle wax. The walls were painted a deep blue and had been decorated with an intricate collage of Polaroid photographs. One of the pictures showed Melanie in a thin white tube top and red short shorts. She held a cigarette in one hand and a half-drunk bottle of vodka in the other. She was walking along the seat of a park bench as though it were a tightrope. Her eyes were