Lady is sitting on her giant rocking chair in the office, drinking wine from a dirty glass. She is cranky and worried. Plumber enters. He is wearing the buffalo tooth necklace. He looks epic with that necklace. His eyes fall on the carpet. It is clean and stainless.
“Do you know where Starlet is?” Lady asks. “I haven’t seen her all day!”
“She is now sitting on a bus,” Plumber responds with a victorious smile, “going someplace far, far away that I don’t know and I didn’t want to know.”
Lady is shocked and starts coughing painfully as if she is choking on the last sip of the alcohol. Plumber is standing there, watching her with a smile. Lady’s face is red, partly from the coughs partly from the rage. She leans forward a bit. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“No,” Plumber says with a satisfied chuckle, “I am not. Not this time. Not anymore. She packed her stuff and took the bus this morning. She is gone forever.”
“What?!” Lady interrupts with a threatening tone. “This morning! And you are telling me now?”
“Darling. It means that your little game is over. No more replacing life with career. No more turning humans to cash cows. She is a free woman now, and she is not going to waste any second of her life into becoming a star, neither in this house nor in this city. And I didn’t tell you before, because I’m the one who had talked her into that. I’m the one who had helped her pack. And I’m the one who watched her get into the bus.”
“You?!” Lady says with a loud sneer. “No, you didn’t,” Lady leans back again. She takes a relaxed breath and takes another sip of the wine. “You don’t have the balls, you never did. You are just a plumber. All you have is your tools. Speaking of it, why don’t you come over here unclog my pipes. Come here, and do your job, Plumber, my darling.”
“No. I don’t think I will. Not anymore,” Plumber says proudly. “And if your rotten memory helps, I was the gardener here before you came and took over this land. You made everybody call me Plumber. You can call me Plumber as much as you want, but that young gardener is still alive within my heart. I am leaving tomorrow myself. I had stuck around just to have a chance to save that innocent life from you and your insanity. My mission is over now. I’m not staying in this madhouse any single day more.”
“You should have left with her this morning,” Lady says in a low but threatening tone.
“And miss watching the expression on your face when you hear the news? Ha,” Plumber says while wearing a victorious smile, and turns to leave the office forever.
“I think you’re right,” Lady says sadly. Plumber stops. “You won, I lost. I don’t know how to live with myself anymore. Before you go, do me one last favor, hand me the bottle of wine.” She shows the empty glass in her hand.
Plumber, the victorious smile on his face, reaches over the library, picks up the bottle of red wine that is in front of it, and brings it to Lady. “Here, drink yourself to death.”
Lady smashes the glass on Plumber’s face. The blood splashes back on her face.
Plumber falls down on the ground. The broken glass has cut the main vein on Plumber’s neck, and he is bleeding everywhere. The carpet is getting all red.
“Told ya, you should have left with her this morning when you had a chance.”
Lady, as she was sitting on the rocking chair, watches Plumber bleed to death. She tries to enjoy the scene but is not getting any satisfaction. She finally gets up, and picks up the bottle of wine that is now lying on the ground. She stands over the Plumber’s dying body and calmly watches him struggling. She bites the cork, pulls it out with her teeth, spits it on Plumber’s body, and chugs half the bottle. She belches loudly afterward.
Plumber is taking his last breaths. Due to the massive blood loss, his vision is getting impaired. He sees a vague image of Lady above him.
“This is my city,” Lady yells like King Kong. “I rule this city. You are just a plumber around here. Never forget that. Wherever she goes, I will find her, and bring her back to this house. You can take this as a certainty. Lady, herself, guarantees that.”
In the very last moments of his life, the Plumber’s vision gets clear again. He can see Lady clearly, but this time he sees her rotten, with worms and cockroaches coming out of every corner of her body.
“What the fuck are you smiling at, Plumber?” Lady asks the dying man.
Gardener dies with a big smile on his face.