The happy birthday balloon hovered close

The happy birthday balloon hovered close to the ceiling, barely touching its textured, painted skin. They painted it, it figured, to dull the pain of each tenant falling for it,

the "popcorn" was full of asbestos. A sick joke because "white polyps" would "pop" out in the tenant's lungs from breathing the dust. But Leona never let an emotion get in the way

especially when she was singing. How she had risen to such star status only Celine could say. she passed the popcorn to John with a soda laced with

desire (not that John needed any). He was already hornier than an 8th grader climbing the rope in gym class. John shoveled the buttered popcorn in his sizable maw and winced when

even one kernal fell onto the sticky floor. He was so hungry hecouldn't let anything go to waste, so he he leaned over to pick it up, and that's when he saw

the blood stain. His mind raced, and he forgot all about his popcorn. He was sure he had covered the room with plastic--like he had seen on Dexter. He had to clean it up before

before the cleaning lady arrived. His Spanish wasn't good, but he was pretty sure she wouldn't clean up the blood. Wrapping the still warm body in the plastic sheets,

he gathered his instruments into a leather carry-all and placed it into his duffel bag. Then he sprayed vinegar onto every surface to make the blood unidentifiable, and hauled the

body into a postage sack. But on his way to dumping it into the river, he bumped into the one person with the one item of clothing he was desperately trying to avoid. It was Mr