The Art of Disposal (22 page)

“Classy,” Carlino said as she poured.

“Perfect for you,” Jody said.

“You got some iced tea?” Eddie said.

“Sure, hun,” Jody said.

“Iced tea?” Carlino said with a frown. He knew damn well that Eddie didn't drink, but every time the subject came up he had to make a big thing of it. Guys like Carlino always do.

“He don't drink,” Jody said, setting a canned iced tea in front of Eddie.

“What kind of a man don't drink?” Carlino said.

“The kind who'll put a foot right in your ass,” Eddie said.

“Try it, old man.”

Eddie stood up, leaned over, and gripped the sides of the table like a baggy-eyed detective interrogating a suspect. The veins in his forehead stood out.

“We got
one
dead guy in the back of that truck because of you. If you wasn't a made guy, I might just make it two.”

Carlino licked his lips, rubbed his chin, blinked his eyes a few times. Creeping Jody reached into her oversized coat pocket. She froze in that position.

“It couldn't be helped,” Carlino said.

“It's true,” Bullfrog said.

Eddie looked at me. I nodded.

Eddie swallowed. Sat back down. Creeping Jody took her hand from her pocket.

“Are you boys almost done playing
whose is bigger
?” she said.

“Mine's bigger,” Eddie said.

“Oh yeah? Around here, mine's the biggest of 'em all,” Jody said.

“Amen sister,” Bullfrog said, and raised his cup to his lips.

“Eh-eh-eh,” Jody said, placing a hand on it to stop him from drinking. “Bad luck. Where's your manners?”

Eddie opened the can of iced tea and poured it into a cup. He grabbed his collar, bent his head, and cracked his neck. It was loud, like someone twisting some bubble wrap.

“Goddamn,” Carlino said.

“Getting old: it ain't no joke,” Eddie said.

“Let's drink already,” Bullfrog said. “Hmmph—white folks.”

“Success,” Jody said, raising her cup.

“Success,” we all said in unison.

The cups got drained, and Bullfrog asked why all the formality?

“Tradition,” Eddie said.

“The illusion of permanence,” I said.

“Huh?” Eddie said.

“Woody Allen. Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”

“I'm a big fan of permanence,” Eddie said. “But I never much cared for Woody Allen.”

“Annie Hall was dope,” Bullfrog said. He burped. Then he poured out another dollop of scotch and gulped it down.

“That little guy's pretty funny,” Carlino said. “For a Jew.”

“Man, if there weren't no Jewish comics, there wouldn't be no comedy,” Bullfrog said.

“I'm s'posed to trust a black guy's opinion?” Carlino said.

“Trust this,” Bullfrog said, and cupped his hand over the front of his pants.

We got to work unloading the stuff, starting with Max Finn's corpse. Creeping Jody got a big roll of industrial plastic wrap, and we rolled the body up like we were saving leftovers. Then we dragged the package into the backroom. Bullfrog talked about how he was renting a small U-Haul truck next week and having one of his boys, DeShawn, drive up with him to get the hundred some cameras that were coming his way.

“Wait up,” Carlino said. “His name is Dijon… like the mustard?”

“De
Shawn
,” Bullfrog said and rolled his eyes.

“I'm guessing he don't look like Woody Allen,” Carlino said.

It was a hoot to watch Bullfrog wheel stacks of camera boxes out of the trailer. There was a slight incline on the way back out of the truck, and Bullfrog always wheezed a little, but pushed himself hard to keep up with us. Sometimes he had to stop, sit down, take off his hat and wipe his brow.

Carlino whistled peacefully, like he was building a birdhouse. We made a lot of trips into and out of the truck. He said he was glad to be rid of Max Finn, but how some of the other guys back in New York might not see it that way.

“He's a made guy.”

“So are you,” I said.

“That don't give me the right. You gotta get approval.”

“Will Frank be mad?” I said.

“It ain't Frank I'm worried about. It's Dante.”

“Who's Dante?”

“Some beaner,” Carlino said. “Crazy-ass Mexican. He was with the Zetas, along the Texas border, back in the day. They'll chop the head right off an innocent housewife if she calls the cops on a gangbanger bumping his car stereo.”

We wheeled the stacks of camera boxes.

Eddie and Jody stayed at the table by the punch-clock. She drank scotch and he drank iced tea, and they laughed sometimes and touched each other's hands.

Carlino stopped working and leaned on the top of his red dolly. He made a little hole with his thumb and forefinger on one hand, and with the other he pushed a finger into and out of the hole.

“Rinky, rinky, dinky,” he said, and nodded toward the table.

We finished unloading at about two in the morning, and we plopped down into those plastic chairs by the punch-clock. Carlino and Bullfrog smoked cigarettes and drank scotch. I drank a tall glass of tap water.

Creeping Jody was storing the goods for us until her connection came into town to take the cameras far away—to Boston, Salt Lake City, Reno, and San Francisco. Eddie said how some of them were going all the way to China and Japan, to be sold on the black market.

“Ain't that funny,” Carlino said. “The Japs make the cameras and ship 'em all the way here, and we steal 'em and ship 'em all the way back.”

“I don't make the rules, D-T,” Eddie said.

“What about the weasel?” Bullfrog said.

“You guys killed him,” Eddie said. “Deal with it.”

“Where's Eugene when you need him?” I said.

Carlino looked at Eddie. “That shit still creeps me out. Over a dog?”

“I like dogs,” Eddie said. He stared at Carlino, hard. “Don't bury him too close. Jody don't need any heat.”

Creeping Jody came out from a backroom somewhere, with a potted red geranium and a card.

“For Dotty,” she said.

Eddie took them and nodded, slowly, deliberately. Then he stared at a section of the chipped concrete wall, and his eyes were fixed and cold and dull, like he was watching a distant boat crossing the horizon.

“How's he doing?” Jody said.

“The chemo didn't do nothing.”

“I had an aunt, same thing,” Jody said.

“Hey Champ, can you take these over to Dotty tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I said, and took the potted plant and card from Eddie.

We put our gear into the car. Bullfrog called shotgun, but Carlino vetoed it, saying how he was a made guy, and Italian to boot, so that gave him the right to ride up front. I put the geranium on the floorboards in the back of the car, and asked Bullfrog to keep his feet around it, so it wouldn't tip over.

Then me and Carlino loaded Max Finn's plastic wrapped body into the trunk.

While we were carrying the corpse—me the shoulders, Carlino the legs—I saw Bullfrog through the backseat window, sniffing one of the geranium blooms.

Jody and Eddie talked on the other side of the warehouse, in a little sliver of darkness.

On the car ride home, I asked Carlino if he thought they were doing it.

“'Course they're doing it. Or they used to be.”

“But Eddie's married,” I said. “He loves Irene.”

I pictured Marcia and Kevin and their wonderful kids having a picnic with the Rutherfords at Friends Lake. Kevin was wearing an apron, manning the barbecue, his arm wrapped tenderly around Marcia, who was decked out in a tight dress and a string of pearls like June Cleaver.

Carlino turned and looked at me. “What are you, the world's biggest chump?”

I watched the dark rows of trees run by like twiggy monsters.

“So he loves his wife, so what?” Carlino said. “Maybe she don't give it up no more.”

“My wife, my ex-wife—Emily—I never cheated on her.”

“You want a gold medal?”

“No,” I said.

“Maybe he ain't banging her,” Carlino said. “Maybe he just likes to remember how it felt back when he was.”

That was pretty elegantly stated, I thought. Some guys have street smarts more valuable than three college degrees.

“I'm glad Frank sent me down here,” Carlino said.

“Sure,” I said.

“No, I mean it. Eddie's all right.”

He touched his face here and there, and squinted his eyes. He looked out the window. He looked like he was weighing some pretty heavy things.

“This ain't fair. I called shotgun,” Bullfrog said.

“Italians ride up front.”

“Ronnie ain't Italian,” Bullfrog said.

“He's driving,” Carlino said. “And anyways, I got longer legs.”

We rode in silence for a minute. Then Bullfrog said, in a soft voice like a Dad might use for a son who'd just hit a triple to win the big game: “Hey, D-T… thanks, man.”

“What did I do?” Carlino said. “You're a better worker than Max, that's all.”

“Yeah, well. Thanks anyway.”

“Don't get all mushy on me, Sam.”

We pulled off on a little country road, and we followed it for quite a while until we saw an even smaller gravel road leading off into nowhere. My car struggled and crunched over some of the trickier stretches. Lots of stones and dips and holes.

“Right here,” Carlino said.

We got out and left the car running and the headlights on.

“You think they's owls out here?” Bullfrog said, looking up into the purple darkness.

“Sure there are,” I said.

“You see an owl fly by, it means you're gonna die.”

“So don't look for 'em,” Carlino said.

We lifted the body out of the trunk. My arms were sore, and I felt like I was back in one of my teenage summers bailing hay for Mr. Hughes who lived three miles up the road from Uncle Carl's farm. I secretly wished I was Hughes's kid.

I grabbed the flashlight and folding camp shovel that lived in the back of my car, and the three of us walked a little ways into the damp woods.

I dug. Carlino and Bullfrog sat on a log and smoked cigarettes, and Bullfrog held the light and aimed it where I was digging. Some guys might complain, but there was only one shovel, and the hole was shallow, and physical labor is good for the soul.

“That should do,” Carlino said when I'd gone about two feet down. I'd made a rectangle, six feet long and three feet wide.

“That's it?” Bullfrog said.

“This ain't a military service,” Carlino said. “You cut corners.”

“I seen a t.v. show one time,” Bullfrog said. “The cops found the body 'cause the grave was so shallow that wolves dug it up.”

“Wolves,” Carlino said and laughed. “Can you believe this guy?”

We rolled the body into the hole, and I thought about Dan the Man, withering away on his sofa. I was scared to see him. I'd already imagined a million different versions of the way he might look now: a sick shell of a man in a drawn-out handshake with the Devil.

Bullfrog aimed the flashlight as Carlino shoveled the dirt back into the hole. When Max Finn had vanished into the earth, we all gathered pine needles and pine cones, and sticks and stones, and we finished the grave so it blended right in with the woods. Carlino wiped his hands on his pants, and studied the grave with pride.

Then he made the sign of the cross, said a quick prayer, and pulled a cheap Rosary out of his pocket, which he dropped on the grave.

“Why'd you do that?” Bullfrog said.

“Max Finn's immortal soul.”

“But you killed him.”

“I didn't kill his soul, did I?” Carlino said. He stepped on the Rosary, ground it down into the loose earth, and kicked some pine needles on top of it.

There came a startling sound, like the blades of an industrial fan. Small twigs rained down on us. Bullfrog covered his face with his hands. Carlino flinched. So did I.

Then came a gentle cooing, like a happy baby. Then a hooting.
Hoot, Hoooot, Hooot
. A great dark shape dropped out of the sky, and a branch cracked and fell, and the wind came in cold blasts as the wings of the beast flapped and fluttered and soared right through us.

“Ahhhhhhh!” Carlino screamed.

I slipped and fell, and landed with my head sideways in a puddle.

“An owl,” Bullfrog said. “An owl.”

He may as well have just seen The Flying Dutchman, or a Yeti, or The Loch Ness Monster. He shook his head and said, how could it be, and why did it happen to us?

Over the next two weeks, Bullfrog unloaded his share of the cameras. He made one hundred and ninety thousand dollars in cash. That guy could hustle.

He stopped by the office and dropped off Eddie's share. Eddie split it up between the crew and told Bullfrog that he done good, real good. Bullfrog and Carlino did a shot, and Eddie smoked one of the Davidoffs from Frank Conese. But Bullfrog looked like a guy whose wife just left him. Carlino said we should all go to the Totsy and do some real drinking. That would cheer him up.

“We can get some weed,” Carlino said. “Brothers love weed.”

But nothing Carlino said could rile him up.

“It ain't that owl, is it?” Carlino said.

Bullfrog nodded.

“A goddamn owl? Are you kiddin' me?”

“That owl was telling us something,” Bullfrog said.

“Oh yeah? And what did it say?”

“My Auntie, she's a Root Doctor. Practices the Hoodoo down in Georgia. Knew a guy named Moses Strummer. Extra finger on his left hand. Played blues guitar.”

“That's the blackest thing I ever heard,” Carlino said.

Eddie laughed.

“Moses is driving home one night. Owl flies right toward his car, yellow eyes staring him down like it's playing chicken. Zips right over the car like a ghost. Moses goes to my Auntie for some kind of cure. But there ain't nothing can be done about a owl.”

“Did he die?” Eddie said. He perked up a little and puffed his cigar.

“Three days after he seen the owl, he's walking through the woods to one of his fishing holes, and a tree falls over. Right on top of him. One second earlier, one second later… tree would've missed him.”

“And that was the owl's fault?” Carlino said.

“That's what my Auntie said.”

“Your Auntie's a nut,” Carlino said.

We headed off to the Totsy, Bullfrog looking as glum as a teenager. But we finally managed to cheer him up. We talked a lot about the money, and we drank a few shots and beers; and Carlino even gave Becca a fifty on the sly just to sit down next to Bullfrog and give him a few kisses on the cheek and rub his back a little.