The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (34 page)

She leaned over the top of the door and kissed me.

—So I'm just gonna have to hope I'm right about that.

She got in the cab.

—'Cause I'm too tired to do anything else.

I put my hands in my pockets.

—Your flattery knows no bounds.

—Yeah. I'm a sweet talker.

—Right. So this means?

The cabby turned and gave her a look and she nodded and looked up at me.

—I'll see you tonight, Web.

She closed the door. The cab pulled away. The window rolled down and she stuck her head out.

—If I'm not in jail.

I watched the cab to the end of the street, standing on the curb, still there a couple minutes later when Chev pulled into his spot.

I wandered over.

—Hey.

He climbed out, ran a hand over the freshly washed door.

—Lucky you didn't fuck her up.

—I was careful.

He closed the door and sat on the running board.

—Beautiful day.

I looked at the utterly typical, stunning blue sky hovering relentlessly above.

—Yeah.

I sat next to him.

—Some things.

He stretched his legs, crossed his ankles.

—Like?

I leaned forward, put my elbows on my knees.

—I saw L.L. again. Last night.

I looked at him, looked away.

—He's, not that it matters, but he's in sorryass shape. And I'm gonna, I don't know, I need to see if I can. Help? I guess. And I don't want to sneak around doing it.

He uncrossed his ankles, recrossed them the other way.

—He's your dad. Do what you have to.

—And I took some money from him. For a guy I know. To pay a debt.

He slipped the smokes from his T sleeve and knocked one from the pack.

—'Kay.

—Just so you know.

—Now I know.

He lit up, tilted his face to the sun and closed his eyes and blew smoke.

I leaned my back against the hot steel of the door.

—I want to do better, Chev. I. I want to try and do better. Shit, man, I want to just, I want to try. I'm tired of. Things. I'm not saying. I don't
feel
any better. About it. I still can't think. About it. Too clearly. It still makes me want to fall asleep. But I know. It. Happened. I know I was there and the girl. I know. It. Happened. And I don't want to be him. I don't want to be L.L. I don't want this one fucked up thing to be who I am and that's it, this is the end of my life. I do not want to feel like this, be like this forever. I mean, I'm not sure, but I think I used to be kind of a nice guy.

He took the cigarette from his lips, opened his eyes and slid them my way.

—Web, man, you have never in your life been a nice guy.

He closed his eyes again.

—But you used to be pretty damn cool. You used to be a guy a friend could count on. And it'd be nice if you were that way again.

I nodded.

—See, that's it. That's it. I want to be that guy, I want to be the guy people can count on. That sounds great. I don't exactly remember how that worked, but I want to try and be that again. Really, man.

He nodded, worked a hand into his pocket.

—Cool.

He took his hand from his pocket.

—So why don't you start by telling me where you took my truck.

He opened his hand and showed me the nine-millimeter bullet inside.

—And how this got in there.

—The phone?

—Yeah.

—Jesus. I think we need to get rid of it.

We both sat on the couch, staring at the phone in the middle of the livingroom floor.

I nodded.

—Yeah. Without a doubt.

He pointed at the kitchen table.

—There was stuff on it?

—Um, yeah.

—Lots?

—Not really.

—On the top?

—Yeah.

He shook his head.

—We got to get rid of it.

He put his face in his hands.

—With the fucking phone. That is so. Oh man.

He took his face from his hands and looked at me.

—Was the guy a dick?

—Chev, he beat his nephew to death with a fucking phone! Yes, he was a dick.

—No, the nephew, was he a?

—I don't know. Probably. Why do you?

He stood up.

—I don't know. I'm just trying to deal and. Jesus. With the phone. Awwww, man. I used it after that. Awwww, shit!

He sat back down.

—That's fucked.

—Sorry.

—What sorry? Fucked up inbred kills someone with the phone, what are you sorry about?

—I don't know. Feels like it's my fault.

We stared at the phone.

Chev cupped his chin in his hand, clicked his thumb ring against one of his earrings.

—No way I can look at that kitchen every day.

He stood.

—We got to move out of here, man.

I nodded.

—Do you
think?

He looked at me.

—Are you being a smartass? Are you being a smartass about a guy getting bludgeoned with a phone in my apartment?

I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

—Little bit?

He shook his head.

—Looks like someone's feeling better.

He started for the door.

—Long as you're all chipper, you call the landlady and tell her we're out at the end of the month.

I stood.

—Where you going?

—The shop.

—Hang on, I'll come with.

He opened the door.

—Uh-uh, fuckwit, you have some disturbing shit to dispose of before I get home.

He pointed at the phone and the table.

—Those. Gone. And anything else that got.
Stuff
on it.

He looked at the kitchen.

—Telling you, Web, a weaker man than me, he'd have quit your shit long ago.

I shrugged.

—Must be my abundant charm.

—So what now?

—I don't know for sure.

Po Sin stirred the ice cubes at the bottom of his glass.

—You gonna go back to teaching?

I thought about the classroom. The kids. How much fun they could be. How much of a pain. I thought about trying to walk back in there and be a normal teacher. Be a person without all these things clinging to him. Deaths like barnacles. They felt visible. And a burden. I didn't want to have them around kids.

And there were other things.

—I don't think I can really teach anymore.

—So?

—So I.

—Round two.

Gabe came back from the bar with two bottles of beer and another gin and juice for Po Sin.

I took my beer.

—Thanks.

Gabe nodded.

We all drank.

—Po Sin.

—My name. Means Grandfather Elephant. Speak it and I will answer.

—Po Sin.

I drank again.

—What'd you do with them?

Po Sin stared into his glass.

—Web, in all honesty, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I nodded.

—Sure, I get that. But. I called you. And I think, I think I need to know. I'm trying, this is new for me, but I'm trying to be kind of a grown-up. But, hey not too many examples of that in my life, so I'm flying a little blind. Anyway. Part of. I think I need to know what I'm responsible for. What things I do that make other things happen.

I picked at my beer label.

—I think I really need to know what you did to them.

Po Sin looked at Gabe.

Gabe lifted his bottle, took a drink.

—It doesn't work like that, Web.

—I know. But.

—I said,
It doesn't work like that, Web.

I looked at him.

He nodded.

—This is how it works. You ask someone for a favor.

He pointed at himself and Po Sin.

—And they come and do you a favor.

He moved his beer over the surface of the table, leaving a smear of moisture.

—They swing their weight behind you and give your actions gravity. They do things.

He wiped the smear away with the edge of his hand.

—You left the room. You could have stayed. You chose not to. Now you have to live with the consequences of leaving that room. The biggest of those is, you don't know what happened. After you leave the room, it's no longer your business. You want to know what price is paid in this world, you need to be there when the deal goes down.

He trained his lenses on me.

—That shit, whatever it is we may think we're taking about, it never even happened.

He got up.

—I'm gonna go shoot a rack.

He walked to the pool table at the back of the Monday night empty bar and started dropping quarters in.

Po Sin rattled the ice in his glass.

—He has a way of summing shit up.

He sipped, swallowed, looked over his shoulder at Gabe, and leaned close.

—Shit needs to be done sometimes, Web. I'm not saying it's the way the world should be, not saying it's the world I want my kids to be in, but this life we're in, you don't end up doing this kind of work because everything went the way it was supposed to. You're doing work like we do, it's because some shit got fucked up. That means things behind you, you don't always
want them coming to the light. Further you go into this kind of job, more people you meet, more of them you find just like you. Secrets. Skeletons. Coworkers. Competitors. Clients. Secrets start cropping up. Know what I mean?

Did I know what he meant? Shit yes. I was hip deep in what he meant.

Which he already knew.

So he kept talking without me giving an answer.

—What no one wants is for the secrets to start coming out into the open. Guys like we were just talking about, they can make things come to light. Just by being around and getting involved in your life, they can cause all kinds of shit to unnecessarily become unhinged. So we did what we do.

He gulped the last of his drink.

—We cleaned shit up.

He set the empty glass in front of me.

—Like the man said, you wanted to know, all you had to do was stay in the room.

I looked at the glass.

—That's the thing.

I looked at him.

—I don't want to leave the room. Po Sin, man, honestly, even if I did want to, I'm not sure I could find the door. But. That doesn't even matter. Because.

I shook my head.

—I love this shit.

I raised a hand.

—I liked teaching. I did. But I
love
this shit. It's like, man, it's like I found my calling. It's like if I took one of those employment placement tests we gave the kids in junior high.
You should be a scientist, an insurance adjuster, a flight attendant.
When I took that test, it said I should be a structural engineer. But this, this is like if that test said,
You shall be a crime scene cleaner, Webster Fillmore Goodhue, and you shall like it well.
It just fits. It fits me. This is what I want to do, man.

I lifted my beer.

—I want to clean up after dead people.

—Hey yo.

We looked at the bartender.

—You guys come over in that van?

Po Sin started to rise.

—It getting a ticket?

—No.

Po Sin started to sit.

—Good. That would have been a pisser.

The bartender pointed out the swinging saloon door.

—But looks like it's on fire.

The Lost and Found is in a strip mall at the corner of National and South Barrington. That far west, that close to their place of business, it was probably a provocation. But that wasn't the kind of thing I could be expected to know. Po Sin and Gabe, I guess they just wanted to go to one of their favorite bars.

We came out the swinging door into a small parking lot illuminated by the flames pouring from the shattered windows of the van. Morton's crew was already piling back into a silver Pathfinder. Morton was on the sidewalk with an ax handle. Dingbang just behind him, jumping up and down, jabbing a finger at us as we came out.

—'Bout that shit? Huh, motherfuckers? 'Bout that shit?

Morton raised the ax handle and pointed it at Po Sin.

—Had it coming. We were under truce, you pulled that shit. Had this coming.

Gabe started across the lot.

Po Sin grabbed him.

—Cool it. He's right.

He pulled Gabe back to his side.

—Deal with this later.

Dingbang bounced higher.

—'Bout that? Fuck with the best, get fucked in the ass like the rest.

Po Sin raised his voice over the flames.

—Shut up, Dingbang.

—Bang! Bang!

Morton raised the ax handle over his head.

—You are done, Chinaman. You and your nigger. Gonna squeeze you right out of business.

Dingbang pumped a fist.

—Right out of business!

—Motherfucker!

Po Sin started toward them.

—You're a disgrace, Dingbang!

—Bang!

—A wart. Your dad is a jailbird, but at least he has half a brain. At least he never let himself get used against his own family by some whiteass motherfucker.

He pointed at Morton.

—Fuck this midget. I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna take the stain off my family. If I got dead ancestors watching, they are gonna be laughing their asses off tonight. I'm gonna improve the gene pool, Dingbang.