Work Text:
Endicott’s body is heavy, more than Malcolm and Ainsley will ever be able to carry. The rug drenched in forever flowing blood weighs down the living room. A room so covered in evidence, it’ll take hours to scour and remove, perhaps won’t disappear at all. Separated from reality, Ainsley is no help whatsoever. They’re in trouble, and Malcolm needs to find a way out. It’s a trolley problem, one with many possible solutions, but the same outcome—a man is dead, and Malcolm can choose to be the bystander or the accomplice to save at least two others—himself and his sister.
He plays through each of his options like a one-room adventure game, pulling the switch to see what happens.
“Leonard! I need your sweater!” Malcolm shouts.
“Why?” Leonard responds, pulling his sweater over his head at the same time. He’s always eager to please and only seems to want to borrow Malcolm’s room in return.
“To hide a body.”
“Teach me how.” Leonard looks back with naïve glee in his eyes.
“Kid? Malcolm?”
“You’re not doing too well if your friend in a coma is talking back to you,” Martin taunts Malcolm.
“Gil, I need help,” Malcolm pleads, blood-soaked hands shining like molasses, never to be removed.
No one comes.
“Could you give me a hand?” Malcolm requests, scratching blood trails onto his forehead.
“You can stop torturing me now,” Nico protests.
“No, really—you’re nearby, and I need to hide a body.”
“Luisa, I need some towels,” Malcolm requests, flying into the kitchen. “A lot of them.”
“Why?” Her questioning glare warns him she’s thirty years wary of his ways and not to lie.
“To mop up a body.”
“Not in my house.”
The phone rings, and rings, and rings…
A text comes back. No, Bright.
A call moments later. “It’s 3AM, what the hell is so important?” JT growls.
“A body?”
“Call Daaani,” his father purrs.
The tone churns Malcolm’s stomach, threatening to add to the bloody mess at his feet.
Whatever he needs to do to get them out of this circle of hell, it won’t be calling her.
Malcolm’s phone rings, and of course, he answers it. “Hello.”
“This is John Watkins. An old friend of your father’s.”
“We’ve been acquainted.”
“Was hard to tell if you remembered who I was. I hear you have a body. Congratulations! Maybe you can reuse that hope chest you locked me in. Good luck, Little Malcolm.” John’s voice falls away like a twenty-year grudge, slowly, but never disappearing.
“Sunshine, I need some help,” Malcolm scurries to ask.
“You’re in a pretty bad spot if you’re talking to me.” Sunshine quirks her head to the side and looks at him like there are two of him.
“There’s a lot of blood.”
“Do it yourself—I’m a caged bird.”
“Why in the hell would you call me?!” Colette yells, visions of his FBI days whirring back.
“Butt dial?” Malcolm ekes out, shrugging.
“BS—I don’t show up until C. Even your sister comes before me.”
“Funny thing about that…”
“Hello, Malcolm. I am a long lost friend of your father’s, suddenly reappearing out of the blue because I heard you needed help.”
Malcolm hangs up on the telemarketer.
“Sophie? Hi! I, uh, I need to call in that favor,” Malcolm stumbles, uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
“How so?”
“Might need you to hide a body. I’ll have the trunk ready.”
“Fiona—is anyone traveling overseas with the ballet company soon?” Malcolm asks the ballerina.
“Yes, we’re going on a tour… Europe—Sweden, Finland, Estonia…”
“Got room for another body?”
“Edrisa, I’ve got a body,” Malcolm reports.
“Yes, you do.” She chuckles. “Slender and smart—“
“A dead one.”
“Give me some more clues—this is a fun puzzle!”
“He’s at my mother’s.”
“Is it The Surgeon? I knew it! I finally get to meet him!”
“There is a corpse in my mother’s living room,” he says, reinforcing each word.
“You could’ve just said we had work,” she returns.
“Baby boy!” A cheer comes through the phone, few people ever this excited to talk to him.
“Vijay, I’m in trouble…” Malcolm trails off, unsure of what to say.
“Corner Table Boys ride again!”
“Adolpho, hide the body!” Malcolm commands across the living room.
“I only hide coke. And it was one time! Maybe”—Adolpho scratches his head—“I can’t even remember if it happened.”
The phone rings a few times before it connects. “Mom—“
Sniffle. “He’s fine.”
She sounds so tired, he can’t bring himself to ask for help.
“This is Dr. Higa’s office. If you’d like to make an appointment, please press one,” the automated message plays through the phone.
“You really thought that was a good idea, Malcolm? You need a trauma specialist, not my old group therapist,” his father’s voice taunts him in his head.
“Yes, keep saying it just like that,” his father instructs.
“I’m a Whitly, and I will slice that body apart. No way, man,” Hector complains, stopping the roleplay.
“Malcolm, even stand-in you is too chicken to go through with it,” his father reports through the phone.
“Izzy! How about that guillotine?” Malcolm rambles. “We haven’t met yet, but no bother. Can I borrow it?”
“Vivian! Yes, can you help my boy with a favor?” his father’s voice calls away from the phone.
“That’s Dr. Capshaw to you,” another voice comes through the line, challenging his father. “What’s that?”
“He has a body he needs to hide.”
“Guess he had it comin’.”
“Your father told me to call you. Something about a body?” Mr. David’s no-nonsense voice comes through the line.
“We’re playing operation,” Malcolm covers. “Zzz, I lost.”
“You two have fun.”
“Take care of yourself, Mr. David.”
“Malcolm Bright, this is Simon Hoxley,” a confident voice comes through the phone.
“Who?” Why is someone calling Malcolm right now? Better yet, will he ever learn the use of do not disturb?
“The Mindsleuth.”
“Who?”
“I hear there’s been a murder.”
“Did it come in musical form?”
“Ainsley! We’ve gotta hide the body!” Malcolm shouts, trying to force his sister into gear.
“But the bad little angels all fall down, fall fall down, tumble down. They’ll never get to heaven,” Ainsley sings, rocking in her own little world.
“It’s just a dream. I wanted to cut him up, but it never really happened,” Malcolm repeats under his breath over and over like the potential options that just won’t quit.
“Really?” his mirror dares to question him.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The words escape his ears as easily as they escaped his mouth.
Switch after switch, and the bloody display remains in front of them. Endicott is dead, as wrecked as if he had been run over by the train on the subway below.
They’re out of options. Blue, green, red, and gold doors stare back at him, but he doesn’t have any keycards.
In the distance, the train roars, approaching.
Time to call dear, old dad.
fin