The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (22 page)

The foot shoved harder.

—What? What the fuck? Are you fucking? Is that a joke?

Of course it wasn't a joke, I was telling the absolute truth. The can, or bathroom if you will, was indeed down the hall. I wasn't sure why this person was referring to it as
our
can, or why finding it required battering me, but it was there. Perhaps I was a bit confused. That, along with, you know, my general exhaustion, emotional chaos, and fedupness with being fucked around got the better of my good manners as a host and the next thing I knew I was twisting and swinging the huge old phone my hand had found and listening to it make the kind of heavy thunk against a man's shin that
only genuine craftsmanship can produce. This, followed by a faint ringing as the bell inside was jangled by the blow. A tone, oddly, in perfect harmony with the ringing still sounding in my ears from the shots Gabe had fired.

The guy, with what I can only assume was a genuinely desperate bladder condition, hopped off me and dropped into the Barcalounger that Chev had bought at the Melrose Trading Post, and clutched his shin.

—Fuck! Ow! Fuck!

I pushed myself off the floor and went to the wall and turned on the light and looked at him, a guy for whom the terms
wiry
and
'pockmarked
had been invented. He may also have been the inspiration
for gap toothed, scraggly haired
and
waxen. White trash
, I assume, goes without saying. But if one needs to have the point emphasized, I can draw attention to the oversize Dale Earnhardt, Senior, memorial-motif tank top he was wearing.

I blinked and looked at his bandaged shoulder and hand.

—I don't know you.

—You know
me
, son?

I turned, looked at the guy on the couch who had just spoken. He was tall and lean and wore well-used cowboy boots, jeans, Levi jacket, and a face that was just slightly more weathered than his clothes. Oh, and the gun in his work-gloved hand was really fucking big.

I figured answering him was a good thing to do.

—I'm gonna say no and hope it's the right answer.

The guy with the bandages picked up the phone and hit me in the back of the neck with it.

—Want our fucking can.

He may have said more nonsensical shit, but I was way too knocked out to hear it.

—Guy wake up, come on, get it together.

I got it together. No, that's a lie. I woke up, but I did not get it together. Not even a little bit. What I did was come to and discover a wrenching pain at the back of my neck, my hands tied behind my back, and the dude with the bandaged hand shoving a cellphone against my ear.

—Someone wants to talk to you, asshole. Wake up and listen.

The phone was ringing. It stopped, the line clicked, and one of those robot voices started talking.

Hello, you have reached 209-673-9003. Please leave a message.

I looked at the guy.

—What should I say?

—What? Say? Just answer the question.

—I. What question? It's voice mail.

—What? Jesus fucking.

He held the phone to his own ear.

—Sonofabitch.

Fingers snapped.

We both looked at the cowboy on the couch with the gun.

—Just dial it again, Talbot.

Talbot disconnected and started to dial.

—Fucker doesn't have any sense.

He listened to the phone ring, nodded at the cowboy.

—Here we go. Hello. It's me. Yeah. Well why the hell didn't you pick up? So take it off vibrate and turn on the damn ringer. No, do it later. OK. She there? Fuck you, I know she's not going anywhere. I meant is she next to you. So put her on.

He stuck the phone against my ear.

I cleared my throat.

—Uh, hello?

—Web?

—Yeeeah?

—Is that you?

—Yeah.

—What the hell are they doing with you?

—I.

I looked at Talbot.

—She wants to know what the hell you're doing with me.

—She? Damn it.

He took the phone from my ear and spoke into it.

—Bitch, just tell him what you were told to say. Jesus.

He put the phone at my ear again.

—Fucking people.

The voice on the phone spoke again, still a little blurred by my ringing ears.

—Web?

—Yeah?

—I think I've been kidnapped.

I swallowed.

—Soledad?

—They want their container, Web. They say to get it for them fast or they'll do something to me.

—Wait. Hang on. I.

I looked at the Talbot.

—What container?

He slapped me.

—The can, fucker. Listen to the girl.

I listened.

—Go ahead.

—They want their container. They'll give you a number to call when you have it. They want it by tomorrow night.

—OK, OK, I can …

My brain did a few doughnuts in the mud while I tried to figure out what words should come next. What exactly
could
I do? Could I call the
cops?
Could I
rescue
her? Could I crawl under the wheels of a speeding vehicle and let myself be
crushed
if it meant having some peace?

And wait just a fucking second
, my brain screeched to a halt and declaimed,
are you totally being set up or is it just me?

I shook my head, almost laughed, was too pissed to actually do it.

—You're totally setting me up, aren't you, Soledad?

—I? Web?

—This whole deal has been one long setup. Like, that shit with your brother, all this. Even fucking me. It's all a setup. I'm so being used here. You have been totally working me.

Silence on the line as she struggled to find something to say to squirm her way loose from my accusation.

Silence broken as she found the words.

—Web, you are such an asshole.

And she hung up.

Talbot poked me in the neck.

—Stop fucking around with her, she's not setting you up. Just listen to the bitch.

I looked up at him.

—She hung up on me.

He looked at the phone screen.

—Jesus.

He started to dial again.

—Man, you are one asshole. Girl calls and needs your help, been snatched, and you make like she's in on it. Way to trust people, man.

He put the phone to his ear.

—Fuck, going straight to voice mail. Bet he's calling me back now.

He looked at the cowboy.

—Should I hang up and let him call or keep dialing?

The cowboy rose from the couch.

—Put the phone away.

Talbot put the phone away.

The cowboy scratched the whiskers on his neck and walked over until his boot heels were inches from my face.

—She tell you what we want?

I looked up the length of his denim legs, past the scratched longhorn belt buckle to his leathered face.

—The can?

He tucked the gun into the belt at the small of his back.

—Yeah, that's it.

He squatted, held up a finger.

—She tell you what we'd do?

—Something bad?

—Yeah. Something pretty bad.

He looked at Talbot.

—Go take a look out that window and see what's to be seen.

Talbot limped to the kitchen window and looked out.

—Nothing. Just the stairs and part of the parking lot and the street.

—Keep looking. Been here awful long without no one else coming home.

He rested a hand on the phone I clobbered Talbot with, and with which Talbot returned the favor.

—Old phone.

—Yeah.

—Must have hurt.

—A lot.

—Uh-huh.

He hefted the phone.

—Talbot's been spoiling a bit to put a hurt on someone. Since he got himself cut.

Talbot turned from the window.

—That wasn't my fault.

—Just keep your eyes out there.

Talbot looked back out.

—Not my fault.

The cowboy rested the phone on his knee.

—Was his fault. Fella like your girl's brother, he shouldn't be no trouble for no one. Talbot, he just isn't the kind who can admit he screwed up and let someone get the better of him.

He stood, took three steps, heels loud on the linoleum, and pounded the phone into Talbot's face as he turned. And pounded it again as he went down. And again when he was on the floor. And again.

He hunkered next to the bloody rag-dolled man and stuck a gloved finger deep under his jaw alongside his throat. Apparently not liking what he detected, he raised the phone and brought it down once more.

For luck, I suppose.

This time, when he checked under Talbot's jaw, he felt the stillness in the man's pulse that he was looking for, and he dropped the phone on Talbot's dead body.

He stood and looked at me.

—You took that pretty well. Figured you for the screaming and crying type.

I shook my head.

—No, not me, I've seen that kind of thing before.

He nodded his head, went to the sink, looked in the cupboard underneath, and came out with a plastic garbage bag.

—Yeah, guess you would have, with your job and all.

I rested my head on the carpet and watched as he shook out the bag and fitted it over Talbot's crushed head.

He came over to me.

—And it looks like that training's going to come in handy for you.

He grabbed one end of the knot that tied my hands and gave it a tug and it came apart.

—You best get cleaning.

He took the rope to the corpse and used it to tie the bag around its neck.

—And then go get our can, and call.

He tossed Talbot's cellphone onto the carpet.

—Just call the last number he called on there.

He took the corpse under its arms, pushed up with his legs, let it flop over his shoulder and stood.

—I'll take care of this bit here.

He walked to the door, easy under the weight of the dead.

He opened the door.

—Go get my can. I want them damn almonds. Alright?

I stared at Talbot's blood in my kitchen.

The cowboy tapped a heel on the floor.

—Said
alright?

I looked away from the mess.

—Yeah. Alright.

He touched the brim of his hat.

—Good then. And, oh yeah, I got your boss's van. You can have that back too, when you bring the can. Case you need any other motivation.

And he went out the door, corpse on his shoulder, apparently prepared for any questions such a thing might raise.

That or just quick on the draw.

Almonds.

As I cleaned yet another crime scene, I thought about almonds.

Stripped to my underwear, a pair of sneakers, and rubber gloves I took down the white pillowcases I had hung over the kitchen windows to keep the morning sunlight from pouring in when I used to get up early and have my coffee before going off to teach kids how to read and write and add and subtract. And I thought about fucking nuts.

In all their guises.

Starting with myself.

Dropping the pillowcases into the bathtub after rinsing them out and dousing them in about a half gallon of bleach, I considered just how crazy I actually was. Not a question I'd been apt to embrace for the last year, but one that seemed appropriate to the moment.

I brought my desk lamp and a clip light from Chev's bedroom into the kitchen and plugged them in. The improved lighting gave me a better idea
of what I was dealing with. Studying the remains of a man's face spattered about the area where I prepared my meals, or opened my to-go containers anyway, and finding that I didn't really have any emotional reaction to speak of, gave me a better idea of just how out of normal mental alignment I'd gotten.

I looked down at my nearly naked, blood-scrubbing self.

—Skewed.

I pulled a strip of paper towels off the roll I'd gotten from under the sink and started wiping the little card table under the window.

—Your mentality, Webster Fillmore Goodhue, has become seriously fucking skewed.

I cleaned, wondering if the fact that it had taken witnessing a man deliberately murdered in front of me to shake this realization loose was a bad thing, or a really really
really
bad thing. There seeming to be no other options available.

The table clean, I carried it to the edge of the linoleum kitchen and set it safely across the carpet border of the livingroom. Along that edge, I spotted a rim of dark wet spots on the dirty carpet. I soaked a hand towel in cold water and blotted the spots before they could set. I worked some dish soap into the carpet fibers and left it to be finished later.

The worst of the mess was puddled below the window. Talbot had, quite fortunately it seemed, looked down after the first blow, sending most of the blood that had poured from his ruptured nose to the floor, rather than hosing the walls with it. Of course the cowboy had swung the phone in an uppercut on the second blow. Not so good. That meant the ceiling had a nice spray pattern on it. But the last three blows were all placed squarely once Talbot was on the floor on his back.

I looked up.

—Ceiling first.

I got the stepladder from the hall closet and started spraying and wiping, moving from side to side as my body crossed the beams of the lights and cast shadows over the blood, trying to see clearly.

When the worst was done, when I'd scooped the partially congealed blood from the floor and scrubbed the walls and mopped and wiped and wiped some more, and taken four ruined sponges and the shredded remains of
two paper towel rolls and three old Ts I'd had to use as rags, and the mop head, and stuffed it all in the cleaning bucket and carried it downstairs and locked it in the trunk of my crapped-out 510 in the driveway, I poured the remains of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide into the empty window-cleaner spray bottle and misted the carpet and floor and walls. The carpet foamed in a couple spots, but it wasn't anything visible to the naked eye, so I let it go. Back up on the ladder, I sprayed the ceiling, searching for any last remains, and caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the dark window.

All but naked, on a stepladder, cleaning dead man's blood from my kitchen ceiling, I stopped and addressed the young man I saw there.