Bladerunner: Aimee Calls The Number

She always thought the carousel was out of place, even in such an anything-goes city. But that quirk made it a favorite of hers, and a natural when she needed a public place for a first date. She watched to see what brightly painted, jewel-clad animal he'd pick, but he hung back, letting her choose. She would've chosen the palomino with the eagle saddle but it was stationary, so to start things off she went for the giraffes.

They rode around and around, up and down under the sounds of a canned Wurlitzer, talking and watching the people on the other side of the glass.

"This one's called 'Professor Markey's Philharmonium'." Seeing his look, she added, "I only know that because I have the cd." Seeing his look, still, she continued, "Hey, I like carousel music. My father calls it a charming quirk."

"It's more charming than drug addiction. Or having a cleft palate." He was smiling.

"Exactly." When the music wound down and the carousel slowed to a stop, they moved to a new pair of animals and rode another turn, four, five, six, a new song and a new set of mounts each time. They chatted about work, about their favorite neighborhoods in the city, the worst movies of all time and the best music of their lives. About old pets and car trips and sushi mishaps.

"Oh my God." He reached down and grabbed hold of her horse's tail. "Is this real?" He lifted it up and let the hairs fan out.

Aimee squirmed around on the slick wood saddle and took a look. "Yeah, those are real horse tails. Does it creep you out?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, where's the rest of the horse, right?"

"You eat hamburger, don't you? What's the big deal? Long after the dog food is gone, at least people will still be admiring their tails. Tsk! We're slowing down. I've got one more ticket left—choose something good for the last ride."

"Let's finish on the giraffes, then." They wove around the platform and got back on their animals. "You know, Aimee, I was surprised you asked me out. I was sure I was dead in the water with you, you know?"

She smiled, ducking her head. "I wavered plenty, I'll admit. But then I started thinking, here I was in a job I didn't really like. Then this origami thing started, and even though it was this simple thing, it just made all the difference. Gave me something to think about other than being miserable. Like sunshine, somehow." She lifted her head now and looked him in the eye. "And I thought, to heck with what people might think, I'm asking him out. And I wanna say, thank you for that."

Her date grinned a goofy grin, thought about leaning over and taking her hand, but didn't. Not yet. "Well, I'm glad you asked me here to solve this mystery. We're stopping. What are you up for now? Wanna get something to eat?"

"Sure." She hopped down, and let him steady her with his arm even though her balance was fine. They were almost off the carousel platform when he looked up and said, "Hey, it's the guy from the theater!" He pointed. "Standing in front of the Zeum, there!"

"Huh, what do you know? You were right. I didn't think he'd show." Aimee threaded her arm through Russ's. "Neo. Mystery solved."

"I owe you five bucks."

"Man, just ask her out already."

"I did! She shot me down."

"Man, asking a girl to hang out in your crappy-ass apartment watching black-and-white shit on tv ain't a date." Donte laughed. "It's assisted suicide. Ask her on a real date."

Russ shook his head. "I don't know, Donte. I mean, dating someone you work with can backfire. I've seen it happen. I know."

"Man, nobody in their right mind would choose this lame-ass job over a woman. Get right in the head, man! And go man the booth, man."

"Man, alright! Just leave it."

Russ dragged his skinny, sullen ass over to the chair by the glass doors, and sat down. "Theater 23 is upstairs level four. Theater 2 is on your right. Theater 4 is on your right. Bathrooms are by Theater 3." On and on in a robotic voice as his mind churned furiously. Ask Aimee out, again? God, he'd just about crapped his pants asking her the first time.

And she'd said no.

***

The paper heart was burning a hole in her pocket. She was dying to unfold it, but every time she had a minute Russ was at her elbow, or looking her way while sweeping across the lobby. She'd once asked Russ if she could, in the interest of their investigation-game, unfold his collection of cranes.

"Are you kidding? No way, Jose! I don't want them destroyed." Russ threw his arm in front of their roost on the popcorn machine. "One, if you unfolded them, I'd end up with a collection of receipts. Boring. Two, it would take a serious dent out of the mystery of Blade Runner's identity. And," he finished, "without the little perqs I manage to create around me, I'd go postal. I would. And I don't want to be the star of a prison movie, thanks."

"So hands off the cranes, Aimee."

She finally went into the women's room and sat down in a stall.

The crooked little heart, No. 14 in an erratic series, had been folded with the printing on the inside, so she carefully unfolded it, smoothed it flat against her thigh, and took a look. 11/19. Harry Potter. Well there goes that theory. Red Vines, large Coke.

And written in black ball-point pen, a phone number.

Aimee crumpled the receipt in her hand, poised to flee back into the lobby, then slowly flattened it out again. She didn't recognize the exchange. Probably a cell phone. I wonder if he's one of those pricks who text-messages through movies. Her purse was in the break room, and her highly-unattractive polyester Multiplex 24 uniform didn't have any pockets, so she slipped the paper inside the left cup of her bra, washed her hands, and went back to the snack bar.

***

"Oh, hey, Aimee. You look glum—but fabulously glum. You know, noir. Very noir."

"I'll take that as the compliment it might have been in a better life, Russ. Thanks. Any news on the Bladerunner front?" Sound casual, act casual.

"No, nothing since the 13th heart last week. Eleven cranes, two pinwheels, six little boats, and thirteen hearts. For awhile I thought it was a mathematical code, but apparently not." That's right, man, casually intelligent. That's right.

"So, no clues as to identity?" Aimee was looking down at the glass countertop.

Dazzle her, man. "Still have my short-list of suspects, the usual suspects," Cool! Stay cool, "Goth Chick With Roots, Neo, Retired Guy, and our neighborhood Comic Book Guy. Haven't been able to definitively weed any of them out. Although," Russ cleared his throat, "I never see Goth Chick hanging out with other women, so I can probably scratch her off my list. Heh, maybe Retired Guy has a thing for girls in polyester."

Aimee looked up at Russ, not smiling. "Thanks for that mood-lifter, Dr. Robert. I'm feeling ever-so-noir now."

Russ managed to squeeze words out of his frozen throat. "Sorry. I'm a dick. I didn't mean it that way. It's just that, uh, a bunch of paper hearts with 'Aimee' written inside, which only started appearing after you started wearing the origami earrings, it just seems like he's flirting with your."

"How do you know it's a guy? It could be a girl. It could be someone not on your list." Russ saw that while Aimee didn't resume her pose slouched over the counter, she didn't turn away, either.

"Yeah." Now. "Aimee, I, uh, I...go to the movies with me."

"I am at the movies with you."

No! "I mean, go out with me to the movies. Or to...someplace else. A date kind of place."

Aimee stood there, her arms crossed, chin lowered. "Are you asking me out?"

Russ felt like he was going to have an Olestra event righ there and then. "I, uh, yes. Please go out with me."

Aimee stood there, broadsided, not knowing what to say. Skinny, geeky Russ was asking her out. The guy who their coworkers once called the Andy Stitzer prequel. Glasses-wearing, comic-book-reading Russ. Under her arm Aimee could feel the unfolded, crumpled, and flattened origami heart against her breast. Maybe it was the guy they called Neo who'd left her his number. Tall, dark, fashionably rumpled Neo. That would be a score. Or maybe Russ's joke was nearer the mark and her secret admirer was the grizzled, pot-bellied Senior Discount. Or Comic Book Guy. Aimee's face crumpled in distress thinking about their obviously socially inept, body-odor-ridden patron leaving her love notes.

"Aimee, I'm sorry—don't cry!" Russ felt about two inches tall, looking into the face of a woman ready to cry at the prospect of a date with him. "I didn't mean it, Aimee. I'm sorry I upset you!" He turned and bolted down the hall toward Theater 4.

***

[I thought I could finish this today, but I ran out of time! —Suzanne]

Bladerunner again

Russ and Aimee gazed at the popcorn machine, butts up against the counter of oversized Dots and Redvines. They studied his growing origami collection in a blissful, quiet between movies, the only sounds the Coming Attractions monitor, the video games, the high school students screaming out on the street, and a toilet in the men's room that wouldn't stop flushing.

"So no more cranes."

"No, no more cranes. Only these," and Russ leaned forward to jab a folded white paper taped to the front of the popcorn machine, "twelve of them now."

Aimee shifted her weight, made to move like she was going for the hot dog ferris wheel, leaned back where she was. "That's weird."

"No, not weird." Russ shifted his weight again, jabbed another folded heart and stood there, hunched, not wanting to turn around, not wanting to turn away, "They all have 'Aimee' written on the inside."

Blade Runner, contd.

"Hey, Sherlock. What theater are you in today?"

"Hey, Russ. Five. I am so tired of Chicken Little." Aimee pulled her head out of the storage cabinet, a Mormon family-size tub of mustard clutched to her chest. Russ was leaning over the counter looking down. She glanced down herself to make sure nothing was showing, then stood up.

"Oh, wow, that is so excellent!" Russ didn't move, and the couple behind him moved over to the self-serve candy display. He grinned at Aimee like a man who just found a vorpal sword, no traps. "Did you make those, or did you find them in a theater?"

Aimee gave her head a little shake. The two little water bombs she'd attached to ear wires bobbed wildly, silently, between her jaw and her hair. "We're experiencing a huge upsurge in Blade Runner leavings, right? So I figured we should take advantage of the last two days of the long weekend. Good idea, huh?" She shook her head again, grooving to her origami coup.

"It's effin' brilliant, Aimee." "I can trade with you if you want, and work theater five if you want to do concessions. He won't see your earrings if you're in the projection booth."

"Ugh, concessions. But yeah, sure. Anything for the investigation, right?" She put the mustard in the dispenser.

"So, hey, ah, speaking of investigations," Aimee looked back at Russ, who was now rocking back on his heels, holding onto the edge of the counter and studiously examining something on the ground by his feet. "We're–my roommates and I, Jeff and Dean and his girlfriend Carol–we're having a Basil Rathbone retrospective at our apartment Saturday night after work. If you wanted to come by that'd be cool." He was still looking at the floor. "We'll probably order a pizza."

Aimee smiled a crooked smile. "Wow, thanks, Russ. I know you take these retrospectives seriously. But usually when I'm off work I don't feel like watching a bunch of movies." She reached down for a tub of ketchup, and looked up into his face. "I guess it's another reason this job sucks. But thanks."

Russ's eyes darted briefly into contact with hers before slamming to the floor again. "Oh, hey, you know I just thought of you because I've been calling you Sherlock. Hey, some other time, maybe."

"Yeah, maybe some other time."

"I gotta go screen Doom." Russ swung away from the counter and hurried across the lobby. He tilted his head back and shouted, "Lemme know if you find him!"

Blade Runner, contd.

She stood behind the counter, standing on one leg like the grumpy ponies on her aunt's farm, just waiting for someone to come within reach so she could bite their extended hand, hard. How could a job suck so hard? Her happy memories of trips to the big downtown theaters were turning rancid in her mind as she began to loathe the smell of butter-flavored topping mixed with the smell of industrial carpeting.

The doors down the hall banged open, the sound rolling through the nearly-empty lobby. A skinny streak in white and black rushed across the carpets toward her. She didn't move, only raising her eyes from the washrag she twirled on the glass countertop.

"Aimee, check it out!" Russ grabbed her hand off the rag, turned it over and placed a small paper figure in her upturned palm.

"Huh, a pinwheel. Mystery man's branching out."

Russ took the origami out of her hand and held it up, examining it in the buttery light. "Not a great job; I mean, it's pretty crooked, but I guess when you're making them out of pieces of receipts you can't expect precision perfection." He gave it a twirl between his pinched fingers. "How do you think I should display it? It won't stand up without me bending it, which I don't want to do, and if I lay it flat you won't be able to see it." He rested his butt against the counter as he pondered the line of origami cranes marching across the top of the popcorn maker.

"Give it here." Aimee held out her hand, knowing that Russ wouldn't pass up another opportunity to touch her hand in handing the pinwheel back to her. "Since it's not a crane, and since Blade Runner–we surmise–left this in place of the canoe I left on the seats this morning, I've got a better idea for displaying it." Now Aimee gave the crooked little pinwheel a spin.

"What have you got in mind, Miss Sherlock?"

"Oh, just taking our inquiry up a notch." She slipped the pinwheel into her uniform pocket. "Ugh, here they come. The 4:40 crowd. Ready?" Her voice was perky, but she didn't really smile. Russ gave her a goofy grin, though, and said he was ready. "For anything, Aimee."

"Blade Runner was here!" He held out his arm and there, sitting in the plastic dustpan was a little origami figure. With a flourish Russ picked it up and deposited it with the others.

"You've got quite a collection going there." Aimee had been juiced about getting a job at the theater but barely a month into it she was looking anywhere she could for diversion, including the top of the popcorn machine. "How many have you found?"

"Ten, although I threw out the first couple. I didn't realize the scope of Blade Runner's obsession."

She stood on her tiptoes and examined the line. "They're all cranes, though. Doesn't he know any others?"

"I dunno. Maybe he's a moron. Or an idiot savant."

She shrugged and dumped a cup of kernels in the machine. "Maybe you should call him 'Rain Man' then. Besides, wasn't it the Edward James Olmos cop who made the origami?"

Russ was adding weenies to the wiener-go-round. "Duh, Edward James Olmos was the blade runner. Harrison Ford was a replicant. Everybody knows that! Jeez."

"Sorry." Aimee looked out at the lobby, filling up with the dinner show crowds. She dumped the popped popcorn out of the hopper and started a second batch. "So why are you saving them?"

"Because. Welcome to the Multiplex 24. What can I get you? You must've figured out by now. The extra large is only 19 cents more. How freakin' boring. Butter topping? This job is. If it weren't. Plain or peanut? Two? For little mysteries like Blade Runner. Tea bags are at the end of the counter. I'd go postal.

"The best part is. Your total's $19.75. Trying to figure out who he is. I get. It's butter flavoring. Maybe two or three cranes a month. The bathrooms are upstairs next to Theater 6. Donte, Alex, and Kelee save 'em when they find them. No, 'tub' is our largest size. That co—Two tubs? Uh, okay. Ben won't save them, or even tell me if he sees any. Theater 4 is at the end of the hall.

"I've got ideas about who it could be, people who are in here all the time. Me wondering which one is the real Blade Runner is what makes it bearable."

"So what are your theories, Sherlock?"

"Blade Runner digs the sci-fi flicks, but not so much the fantasy stuff. Blade Runner is not a tween girl; I've gotten nothing out of anything with Hillary Duff, Mandy Moore, or the Olsen Twins. With the sci-fi geek factor, that really points away from teen or pre-teen girl. No Harry Potter, no Star Wars, so probably not a kid. But anything animated is pretty much guaranteed to result in a find, which is another point in favor of geek. Cartoons, origami; maybe the guy's oriental."

Aimee sighed. "So what movie did you find crane number ten in?"

"Corpse Bride. Easy pickings. Down front, as always. Hey," Russ looked over at Aimee leaning over the candy counter. "What are you doing?"

"If it's alright with you I want to get in on this game, too." She held up an abandoned receipt. "So I'm gonna make a little bait for your mystery man. Here." She handed him a small white iris. "Put this down front about 20 minutes before 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' starts, on one of the aisle seats."

"Excellent." Russ looked worried. "Does this make me Holmes, then?"