The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (18 page)

—Not public transportation. I'm fine with light rail or trams. Subways. Just buses I don't like.

—Forever?

I thought about that. But I didn't need to, really, I knew it wasn't forever.

—Um, no, no, not forever. I used to ride them quite a bit.

—When you were a kid?

—No. I mean, yeah, but.

Words just kept occurring to me, kept finding ways to put themselves together. While I was trying to corral one bunch, another slipped out. These were the next ones.

—Yeah, come to think of it, it is kind of a new thing. Not liking buses. Hating them, really.

She took a step over.

—Web, you're killing me. Are you serious? Are you trying to cheer me up? Because I hate that. If you're making this up to cheer me up I will be so fucking pissed at you.

Again, I tried to get things under control, knowing where this conversation ended. Not wanting to go there. Ever again.

But things, they have a way of going out of your control sometimes. Have you noticed that?

And I kept talking.

—Yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, no. I mean, really, I can't stand the things. Make me crazy.

—Why?

She folded her arms.

—I want to know why. You better not just be trying to get me to hang around longer.

I laughed.

—Well, they're loud and they smell. They get in the way. And they're really kind of ugly.

She smiled.

I took this as encouragement and kept talking, something that's rarely gone well for me in my life.

—And they're haunted.

She raised her eyebrows.

I raised a hand.

—No, no. Really. This is so strange. I don't know. Just this thing. Kind of started. Something happened and I started not liking them.

She laughed. Sort of.

—Because they're haunted?

I rubbed the spot between my eyes and squinted.

—Yeah, OK. Um, let me think.

—You're lying. You're so trying to sucker me.

—No, I'm not.

—You totally are. You're trying to think of something funny to say. You are fucking with me and you are so busted.

I laughed again.

—No. It's just that it's complicated and I sometimes, I don't know, forget exactly how.

I looked up at the sky outside the window.

A piece of it snapped off and dropped and hit me on the head.

And it was all there again, the whole thing, back in my head, one picture, entire. No longer broken into the little fragments I liked to keep it scattered in. Fragments hidden on ghost buses cruising LA. Freighters of lost things. But not of me.

I looked at Soledad, who'd just helped me to put it all together again.

And I thought,
How kind of her.

—No, I got it! Yeah, huh, it's funny. You know. Because, it's not like I forgot. It's more like I think about it all the time. So I kind of forget it's there. Like white noise?

She tilted her head.

—Web?

—Yeah, funny thing. Totally fucked up, but funny in a distinctly
not
ha-ha way.

—Web. Hey.

—Weird how I had to think really hard to remember the … details? Details. Yeah.

—Are you OK?

—Yeah, I'm fine. So I was on this bus. I was teaching. I was a teacher before. Did I tell you that? I was. My dad always wanted me to be a teacher. Well, not always, but that's a long story. So I was a teacher. And I was on a bus. With my class. Fifth grade. Ten- and eleven-year-olds. Great age for kids, I think. Because they're really coming into their own as people, but the hormones haven't gone entirely berserk yet. They're mostly still kids. So my class and two other classes a little younger are on this bus. It's a field trip. Remember those?

—Sure.

—Yeah. This was cool. Did you grow up in LA.? Cuz when you grow up in LA., when I was a kid anyway, you always, sooner or later, you always go up to the Griffith Observatory. The planetarium. But it had been closed for renovations for like a year. Then it reopened. So we were going. I'd had to twist arms to make it happen. Field trips are a major production these days. So we were going. And we're riding in the bus. Lalalala. Kids talking, yelling, texting to the kid in the seat next to them. Kids in the back of the bus shoving each other and playing with toys they're not supposed to have because they start fights over them. I'm walking the aisle, talking to kids. Talking to this kid Tameka. Cute girl. She's pissed at one of her friends over this hat she's been wearing that no one else had, but now her friend is wearing the same hat and she doesn't understand how her friend could bite off her style like that. And we were talking about that. So then. Um. Crap. What happened then? Oh, yeah, man, how could I forget this part? So then, yeah, there's like a noise, like, like, like when you dent a soda can and pop it back out. But louder. There's a couple sounds like that. And someone screamed for the driver to stop. Crap, who was that? Oh, oh yeah, it was me. So I screamed for her to stop. And she did. And the kids. Some ran for the door. But I told them to get on the floor. Under their seats. And most of them did. Then I thought,
Crap, we should get out of here.
Or did I yell it? Anyway, I yelled at the driver to drive away. But she was on the floor, too. Aaaaand. There were sirens. And a helicopter. And it
happened really fast. But pretty soon there were cops and they came on the bus and got the kids off. And they tried to get me off. But, you know, I really didn't want to leave Tameka behind? So they had to kind of, pry me loose from her. Embarrassing, kind of. And then, well, that was kind of it. Except that there was a real mess in there, in the bus. Man, I had stuff all over me. Don't know how I got those clothes clean. No, that's right, Chev threw them out. And, what happened was there was some kind of thing, some thing on the street between some guys who had a beef with each other, never found out about what. So, bullets were exchanged. Obviously some hit the bus. So. That's what hit Tameka. That's why it was such a mess in there. Aaaaanyway, that's why I guess I don't like buses. Funny, right? That I'd forget something like that? So thanks, you know, for pushing the point, really digging into me and getting me to stir all that up. Because, you know, I clearly haven't been doing enough to keep people at arm's distance and it's a good reminder to me to tell you to get the fuck out of here.

—Web? Web, are you OK?

I looked at her from under the bed where I'd crawled and curled into a ball.

—GETTHEFUCKOUT!

And she did. And I felt tired. So I went to sleep.

—Motherfucker!

I opened my eyes and looked up at the extremely pissed off giant standing over me holding one edge of the bed off the ground and threatening to stomp on my head.

—Motherfucker, are you high?

I shook my head, looked around the sun-filled office.

—No. What? No. I don't even do drugs.

He hefted the bed.

—Get the hell out of there before I drop this thing.

I scrambled out and stood in my T and underwear, jeans clutched in my hands.

—Um.

Po Sin dropped the bed.

—Jesus, Web, what the hell?

I slid one leg into my jeans.

—No, I'm fine, I was just sleeping. I sleep a lot.

He shook his head.

—You sleep
a lot?
You sleep like the fucking dead, is what you do. I was yelling, running around yelling your name for five minutes. Saw you under the bed, I freaked out.
Oh, shit, Web's fucked up.
Almost had a heart attack. And I don't mean that figuratively.

He squinted at me.

—You sure you're not high?

I buttoned my fly and looked at him.

—Man, I smoked grass
once
when I was eleven and got so paranoid I thought the air was trying to kill me. Only time I ever got high. I hate drugs. I never do drugs.

He licked his lips.

—OK. Fine. Then help me with something here.

He walked to the outer door and swung it open and pointed at the empty parking spot out back.

—Help me and tell me where the fuck my van is.

I took a step toward the door.

—I. I. I.

He nodded.

—Yeah, and when you figure out the answer to that one, you can tell me this.

He unballed one huge fist and showed me the pair of blue panties in his palm.

—Who the fuck do these belong to and why are they in my office?

The thing about getting beat up twice, spending big chunks of time cleaning up other people's blood, seeing your dad for the first time in two years, getting in a fight with your best friend, and having sex with someone you think you might really like a lot and then totally going psycho on her, all in a twenty-four-hour period, is that it's likely to affect your judgment. And if your judgment is pretty much for shit to start with, that may result in some spectacularly lame lies.

I'm not saying it's cool or anything.

I'm just saying that when I proceeded to tell Po Sin exactly what had happened that night, the fact that I left out the part where I drove to Carson to clean a bloody motel room and then brought one of his clients back to his office and had sex with her, just didn't seem relevant. I mean, nothing happened to the office while I was away, man. So why bother him with the information that I'd, you know, gone and used his equipment to sterilize a crime scene? And the van was clearly stolen while I was
in
the office asleep. That would have happened even if I'd spent the whole night here. And as for telling him the girl who'd come over to keep me company on a long lonely night was Soledad, well, that just would have required I tell him the rest of the story. And I just explained why that didn't matter.

So I streamlined things to make it easier for everyone involved.

But I digress.

—Stop lying to me, Web.

—I? What? Lying to you? I would never.

He took his face from his hands.

—Before you say anything else and really fuck up our relationship, let me tell you something about modern technology.

—Uh. OK.

He leaned back in his chair.

—Modern technology is an amazing thing. It allows us to do amazing things. Go to the moon. Cure disease. Watch TV. It also allows us to communicate over vast distances.

He reaches for the phone.

—And check our messages remotely.

He pressed a button on the phone.

Um, hi, this is, uh, this is Soledad Nye. The woman in Malibu. You cleaned my dad's mess? I mean, oh fuck, that was horrible. You cleaned the house. Anyway. I was hoping I could get in touch with one of your employees. Web. I wanted to talk to him about… anyway. My number, well, he should call me on my cell. The number. Hang on. Hello? Hello? Crap! Crap! Uh, Web?

Yeah, yeah, it's me. Oh fucking crap! Jesus. Are you OK?

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

—Motherfucker!

—Didn't we already cover that?

Po Sin stopped hammering his desk and faced me.

—What?

—Nothing.

He put his hands on his knees and rose from his chair.

—Are you certain of that?

—Yeah.

He took a step.

—Because I'm just about positive I just heard the guy, the guy who had a female client, I expressly told him to stay away from, over here when he was on watch last night and played fuck games on the job till he passed out
under the bed
and my van was stolen, I think I just heard that guy make something like a joke. Am I mistaken? Because if I am
not
mistaken, I would take it very poorly.

—I.

The phone rang, cutting off whatever verbal strategy I might have mustered to keep him from crushing my spine.

Po Sin raised a finger.

—Hold that thought.

I wondered if he meant whatever I'd been about to say, or the thought that he was about to crush my spine. This leading to the sudden worry that perhaps he could read minds. Sleep deprivation, etc, having clouded my reasoning a bit.

Po Sin picked up the phone.

—Clean Team. What?

He looked at me, slitted his eyes.

—No. He is not.

He hung up the phone and pointed at it.

—Do you know what this is
not
for?

—Um, I'm sorry, the structure of the question got me a little confused.

He raised a finger.

—We did just talk about what a bad fucking idea it would be for you to be making jokes at this moment, didn't we?

—Yeah, yeah we did.

—OK.

He pointed at the phone again.

—So, do you know what this is
not
for?

I shook my head, assuming this was one of those rhetorical things that would allow Po Sin to make a point and lead, soon after, to him chilling out a bit. I was right about part of that assumption.

He opened his mouth and a small hurricane wind blew out.

—It is not for your fucking personal use, motherfucker!

He made a fist, raised it high, brought it down slowly, and rested it on top of my head.

—It is
not
for desperate young women to call you on, looking for comfort in the middle of the night, and it is
not
for your buddies to be calling on during business hours asking if you're around. Understood?