Chapter Text
10:14 AM
"I'll call you up," Nick finally finished after saying his upteenth train was leaving. I, honestly, did not want him to leave.
"Do, old sport." He probably couldn't wait to leave, I was sure.
"I'll call you about noon."
We walked slowly down the steps. I still wandered on his question. "I suppose Daisy'll call too." I was desperate for an affirmation coming from him, for his opinion still mattered to me, despite our small falling out this morning.
"I suppose so." A tired sigh escaped from his mouth as he retrieved his hat and coat and shook my hand, walking away towards a cab. Just before he had reached the hedge, he seemed to hesitate, turning around to fix his gaze on me. "They're a rotten crowd," he shouted. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." The compliment made me smile. He had never complimented me. He never really complimented anyone. That made my heart beat a little louder. "Thank you again for your hospitality."
"Anytime, old sport," I responded.
"Goodbye," he called back, "I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby."
---
10:54 AM.
I had thought about the question all afternoon while waiting for the phone to ring. I had even asked myself enough times if I should even pick up when it rang.
You see, I was now in the library. Nick's question had soaked in my mind enough that I couldn't do any idle activity that wouldn't particularly occupy my mind while my friend was away for work. Otherwise, I would... I simply didn't want to ponder the question. So I grabbed the nearest of the thousand books I had never read and dove into the first page.
However, my focus seemed to shift back to the question at hand, no matter what I did. Or back to Nick, and his sudden directness.
The compliment he had paid me kept coming back. Who was 'they'? And why were they a rotten crowd?
It wasn't a far reach, but apparently for my sleep-ridden mind it was, as it took me a long time to figure out. He obviously meant the group of people called 'old money'. For now, I could not for the life of me figure out why he thought they were rotten.
Why was I better than them? He had refused any of my gifts and had done me so called 'favors' in exchange for nothing. Absolutely nothing could ever get him to say yes to my gifts. Absolutely nothing pointed to any incentive of befriending me.
And yet he'd payed me the only real compliment I had ever heard. The only compliment that didn't have to do with my business, or my money, or my parties. The only compliment that had made my stomach leap with joy, even if he still ever so slightly resented me.
Why did he make me feel like this?
---
12:00 AM
Nick was always punctual. So when the phone rang at noon exactly, I knew I wouldn't be picking up to Daisy. I put down the book I was reading and walked over to the cream colored phone, hoping for a nice conversation, when I heard a loud bang. It seemed to come from outside, and it directed my attention away from the phone. I began to run towards the sound when I heard a second bang. I eventually arrived at the pool the gardener had been draining.
The first thing I saw was a red liquid filling up the water, which hadn't even begun to drain. The gardener tended to procrastinate, I knew, but his procrastination ended up...
I remembered the red across the windshield, both of her dress and her blood.
I saw the red filling up the pool. I saw the hole in his shoulder, face-down in the pool. He did not move. I did not move as soon as I noticed the red. I could not move.
My fingers gripped at my pants to stop them from shaking. My breath lay still as the wind on this late summer day. My eyes could not, would not turn away from the scene.
Alfred then ran from inside. "Sir! Are you alright?" His Welsh accent reached my ears. He first checked me, and then followed my gaze to the red pool. He also noticed another body near the entrance of the pool and then ran towards the body, seeing the bullet had struck the man in the head, all while my eyes could not turn away from the red pool. "Mr. Gatsby! It seems like this man killed himself!"
My eyes hesitantly followed his voice, seeing none other than George Wilson lying on the marble tiles. His glassy eyes were now empty of life, drained of the madness that had taken them over only minutes or hours ago. His hand had let go of the simple gun in his hand, cold metal and cold skin.
The hole in his forehead was the most striking thing about the whole scene.
---
Mr. Gatsby seemed distressed at the whole scene. I could imagine why. I grabbed the gun of the man laying on the floor. "Sir, would you like me to call the police?" His chest rose slowly, seemingly unsteady with fear. "Mr. Gatsby?" This seemed to shake him out of his frozen stance, slowly nodding and beginning to walk backwards towards the door, not keeping his eyes off the two dead men at and in his pool.
My boss had always been eccentric, I'd known that when Wolfsheim first got me this job. But the way he looked at the bodies reminded me too much of my fellow soldiers after the war. I was one of the lucky ones who simply flinched at firework, but some were known to freeze or flee when faced with a dead or severely hurt body. Of course Mr. Gatsby would be affected by this. It seems I don't know a lot about him yet, despite what Mr. Wolfsheim had told me.
I ran towards the mansion as quick as I could with the wet tiles and picked up a phone, dialing the police's phone number.