The Good Neighbor

by William Kowalski

  “Take that road,” said Flebberman.

  Colt did as he was told. The road turned to rutted dirt now, soft and muddy, with mountain ranges of filthy snow on either side. Although it had seemed just a short time ago that winter had settled in to stay, now everything was thawing, and the world was a wet mess. The tow truck pushed slowly through the muck for another mile, until the road ended without warning. That was it. Nothing more. He stopped the truck and leaned back in his seat, waiting.

  “Get out,” said Flebberman.

  Colt got out. Flebberman slid out after him, pointing the gun at his back.

  “Move a few steps forward,” he said.

  Colt moved until Flebberman had positioned himself right be hind him, the barrel pressed into his spine.

  “Now,” Flebberman said, “walk dead ahead.”

  They walked until the ground dropped out from underneath them. They were above a huge hole in the ground, Colt saw now. Not a hole—a canyon. Looking down, he realized that they were at a landfill. Before them was spread an endless vista of acres of trash. In the distance, he could see a bulldozer moving lazily over the top of the garbage. There was no snow left here; the heat of decomposition had melted it. The bulldozer was too far away to call to the driver for help. Maybe too far away to hear a gunshot, even. The smell hit him as the wind changed, and Colt gagged as

  258 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  decay filled his nostrils. He covered his mouth with his hand and tried to breathe through his fingers.

  “Don’t smell too good, does it,” Flebberman said. “No.”

  “I imagine this is the first time a shitbird like you has ever smelled so much garbage. You probably think it just disappears every morning, all by itself. Like magic. This is what cities do to the world, shitbird. They fill it up with crap. An’ the same with the people who live there. Everything they touch turns ta shit. Now keep movin’.”

  “Is this where you’re going to kill me?”

  “That depends on a lotta things, Fancy Pants,” said Flebber man. “Right now we got work to do. Or you do, that is. Now go.”

  “Down there?” Colt pointed down the side of the landfill. “That’s what I said.”

  Clearly, arguing was useless. Colt scrambled down the embank ment, crabwise. He could hear Flebberman sliding along behind him. They descended for perhaps fifty feet, until they were on top of the far reaches of the garbagescape. Colt could scarcely breathe now; the smell was almost strong enough to knock him out. He retched again, and this time he vomited. The contents of his stomach splashed on the ground and onto Flebberman’s boots. Flebberman stepped out of the way, cursing. Sour bile from last night’s excesses burned Colt’s throat and mouth. He wished des perately for some water.

  “I should make you lick that off,” Flebberman said disgustedly. “What are we doing here?” Colt croaked.

  “I dunno! You tell me. Look around. Take a good look and tell me what you see.”

  Colt looked; all he saw was garbage. Miles of it. “What am I supposed to be looking for?” he asked. “Oh, fer Chrissakes. Look down, shitbird.”

  Colt looked down. There, at his feet, he saw several flat white stones, some of them broken into pieces. Nearby were scattered

  The Good Neighbor

  259

  what could only have been human remains—a thighbone, part of a skull, other miscellaneous pieces that he couldn’t identify. For several moments he made no connection, but then he realized that there could have been only one reason why Flebberman had brought him here, and there could be only one cemetery that he could possibly have been concerned with. It was the Musgroves.

  “Oh, my God,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Flebberman. “This is where they ended up! After all that time a restin’ in peace where they belonged, this is where they ended up, ’cause a you!”

  “I don’t understand,” said Colt, beginning to panic. “I didn’t— they told me they would be reburied in a cemetery! I didn’t know this was what Steinbach was going to do! I swear!”

  “It wasn’t Steinbach,” said Flebberman. “Wayne Steinbach knows better than this. He’s a decent man. It was one a those id iots he has workin’ for him. Took the hundred bucks extra I gave ’em to make sure they got to the county grave, which is where they was supposed to go in the first place, and dumped ’em here instead. His helper told me. Called me last night late and told me what happened ’cause he felt guilty about it. A hundred bucks I gave ’em! An’ he took it, an’ this is what he did! ’cause it was closer!”

  Colt turned. “Flebberman. Mr. Flebberman. Randy. I swear. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I—I’ll do whatever I have to to make it right. Right now. I promise. Just don’t—”

  “Yer goddam right you will!” Flebberman roared. There were tears streaming down his face, and he held the gun to Colt’s chest. Colt stepped backward apprehensively. “Yer goddam right you will!”

  “I know. I know I will. Just—why don’t you go after the guy who dumped them here? Isn’t this his fault? I’m asking you. Please. Be reasonable.”

  “Believe me, he’s gonna get what’s comin’ ta him, too. But none a this woulda happened if it wasn’t for you. You started it.

  260 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  Now you finish it. Pick ’em up!” said Flebberman. “Bring ’em up the hill! Every bit! Every blessed piece!”

  “I—”

  “Do it!” said Flebberman. “Or else!”

  He raised the gun threateningly to Colt’s face.

  “All right,” Colt said. He looked down at the bones. “All right. I’ll do it. Just—give me a minute to—there’s something you don’t—”

  “No,” said Flebberman. He cocked the gun and pressed it to Colt’s temple. “No nothin’. You have five minutes to get all of ’em back up in the truck, or yer gonna be joinin’ ’em.”

  “Okay,” said Colt. He heaved again, bending over, but there was nothing left in him to throw up. “It’s just—I have this thing about dead bodies. I can’t make myself—”

  Flebberman’s knee came up into his face, knocking him back ward into the garbage. He felt the dry stones underneath him, and he touched something slimy—he didn’t dare look to see what it was. He scrambled upright and tried to throw up yet again, and once again failed. Blood streamed down his nose—he could feel it trickling off his upper lip, a small Niagara.

  “This is gonna make me really sick,” he said quietly. “I don’t care,” said Flebberman. “Get to work.”

  Colt got to work.

  23

  ‌

  The Morgue

  He would remember the wall in the morgue for the rest of his life. He ought to—he’d been staring at it long enough. It was blue

  tile, with white grout. Well, of course the grout was white. Grout didn’t come in any other colors, did it?

  Grout. He remembered that in one of the public bathrooms at Cornell, some wag had taken a pen and written “Grout Expecta tions.” On the grout. It was sort of funny. The joke had caught on, and a few days later, someone else had written “A grout time was had by all” in tiny letters, between the tiles. After that, it was like an explosion of grout jokes. “Grout Fishing in America.” “Some men are born grout—others have groutness thrust upon them.” “No grout about it.” Grout jokes. Who knew that college could be so edifying?

  Colt was aware of the two people standing behind him, wait ing for him to turn around. They’d been waiting for a long time, and they probably thought he was either rude or crazy, but he didn’t care. He was prepared to wait them out. One of them was the medical examiner, an elderly man with salt-and-pepper hair.

  262 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  The other was a woman, black, much younger. An examiner-in training, perhaps. They both wore white coats and glasses, his small, gold and round, hers large and ovoid. They had met him at the information desk and led him down here, and he’d followed them calmly enough at first, until they ended up before the
view ing window. Then he’d turned away, because he knew he just couldn’t do it. There was no way. He just couldn’t.

  “Mr. Hart?” said the older man. “Are you all right?”

  Colt felt the man’s hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off, em barrassed at the suggestion that he wasn’t man enough to handle this, that he needed consolation. He pulled his jacket on tighter and straightened up.

  “I’m fine,” he said, in his best stockbroker ’s voice.

  He was only twenty-one that year, but he’d been working on that voice for a while already, and he had it down pretty well. It was a voice that was supposed to inspire confidence in his cus tomers. He’d already used it to talk himself into a job, just a week after graduation. That had been less than a month ago. Three whole weeks into his new, adult life, his past successfully stowed behind him for all time, and then this had to happen. He felt like everything was ruined. Everything. He was going to have to start forgetting all over again, and it was going to be a lot harder now. It was a setback. It was a disgrace. People were bound to find out about it. The wrong people, too—his boss, his customers, his col leagues. And they would never let him forget it, because that was the way those people were. They never let you forget about any thing. It was their way of keeping you down, of preventing you from realizing your own dreams—because that would only re mind them all the more that they had failed to achieve theirs.

  “Think of it this way, son,” said the medical examiner. “You’re doing her a service. It’s the one last thing you can do to help her.”

  Colt reached into his pocket for a tissue and wiped his nose. “How come you didn’t get my father to do it?” he asked. “This

  is really his responsibility, isn’t it?”

  The Good Neighbor

  263

  He could feel, rather than hear, the two looking at each other.

  The woman spoke up.

  “We were unable to locate him,” she said. “She had you listed as next of kin. We understood that they had separated some time ago.”

  “Yeah? Well, she was wrong,” Colt told the wall. “I’m not her next of kin. I haven’t even seen her in almost five years. She’s nothing to me. Neither of them are anything to me. I didn’t even know they were separated. That’s how close I am to them. So, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I put myself through school, did you know that?” Colt said to the wall. “I just graduated from Cornell last month. Fifth in my class. I paid for the entire four years by myself. She never offered me anything. Anything.” He paused, not sure if any of this was sinking in, not even sure why he was telling them. Surely they didn’t care, he knew. They must have had better things to do. They were probably waiting for him to get on with it so they could put her away in her refrigerator, or wherever they were go ing to stick her.

  “Congratulations,” said the medical examiner. “Thank you,” said Colt.

  There was another long pause.

  “She is behind glass, sir,” said the examiner-in-training. “And she’ll be several feet away.”

  They waited. He still didn’t turn around.

  “Tell me again where they found her?” Colt asked the wall. “An alley, they said?”

  “Ah,” said the medical examiner. “I thought the police had . . . gone over that with you.”

  “I wasn’t listening,” Colt said. “Tell me again.”

  He heard the medical examiner clear his throat. “Yes,” he said. “It was an alley. Under some boxes.”

  “Where?”

  264 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  “Ah—I don’t know.”

  “In the Bowery,” murmured the woman.

  Colt almost laughed. “The Bowery?” he said. “You mean right around the corner from where I grew up? That’s something. That’s really something. I wonder if she could see our old apart ment when she was shooting up. I wonder if she could see my old bedroom window,” he said.

  Then he began to cry. He couldn’t help himself. It burst out of him like cats from a sack. He leaned his forehead against the cool blue tiles and tried to stop, but he couldn’t.

  “We understand how difficult this is,” said the woman. “Believe me.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Colt. “Believe me.” But his words were un intelligible, because he was crying too hard. He punched himself on the leg to make himself stop. It almost worked. He did it again and again, over and over, several times, until he felt the man’s hand on his arm, holding him still. He stopped hitting himself, but it had done the trick. He wasn’t crying anymore.

  “All right,” he said, wiping his nose again. “I just have to know.

  How bad is it?”

  Neither said anything. He could tell they were looking at each other again, trying to decide how best to explain it.

  “Come on. Tell me. I want to know. How long was she there?” Colt demanded. “How long was she under those boxes?”

  “Two weeks, at least,” said the medical examiner. “Maybe a lit tle more.”

  “Two weeks, maybe a little more,” Colt repeated. “Did the—did the rats get at her?”

  They didn’t answer that one.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m going to do it now. I’m going to look.

  Right now.”

  But still he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He stared at the wall for a while longer. Never, he reflected, had he wished more strongly to be somewhere else. And that was saying something.

  The Good Neighbor

  265

  “Look,” said the woman. “Just think of it as something you’re doing for her. A last service. It’ll be over in a minute. If you don’t ID her, she can’t be given a proper burial. She’ll be listed as Jane Doe and cremated. She won’t have anything but a number. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “I told you, I don’t care. I don’t owe her anything.” “Not even for giving birth to you?”

  He laughed, surprised at how unpleasant his own voice sounded—more like a bark.

  “Please,” he said. “I’m sure I was a mistake. An inconvenience. I practically raised myself. Ever since I was little. I had to feed my self, take myself to school. They didn’t want me.” He blew his nose again. “It’s not like they abused me. That almost would have been better. At least that would have showed they knew I was alive.” He paused, thinking. “How did you find out who she was, anyway?”

  “Fingerprints,” said the medical examiner. “She—had a criminal record.”

  Colt laughed again, this time in astonishment. “Great,” he said. “My mother, the convict. What’d she do?”

  “You’d have to ask the police,” the medical examiner said. “That kind of information has no bearing on our investigation. We simply treated her as a human being, and no less.”

  Colt sighed.

  “Will she have a sheet over her?” he asked. “I don’t want to—I don’t want to see—”

  “You’ll only see her face,” said the examiner-in-training. “That’s all.”

  “I—I’ve never seen a dead body before. I don’t know—”

  “It’s all right,” said the medical examiner. “It’ll be over in a sec ond. You only need to look at her long enough to know that it’s her. We’re sorry about the—her condition. We’ve cleaned her up as much as we could.”

  “You did?”

  266 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well,” said Colt. “Okay. Here I go.”

  He turned on his heel like an officer on parade. Then he opened his eyes.

  The rats had been at her, all right. No amount of cleaning up in the world was going to fix that.

  He closed his eyes again.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s my mother.” Then he fell to the floor.

  ❚ ❚ ❚

  The medical examiner caught him in time, but Colt was too big for him to support on his own, and the examiner-in-training, who ha
d not yet dealt with a fainter, was too slow. Colt slumped to the floor, bumping his forehead on the tile.

  “You have to be ready for that,” the medical examiner told his protégé. “You never know when they’re going to go, so you al ways stay just behind them. You don’t want them to get hurt when they land.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the examiner-in-training. “I haven’t seen that before.” She knelt and took Colt’s head in her lap, patting his face lightly. The medical examiner watched her disapprovingly.

  “The poor baby,” the examiner-in-training said, feeling Colt’s smooth cheeks. “He’s barely even old enough to shave.”

  “Thing is, they can sue us for not catching them,” the medical examiner said. “If they get hurt.”

  He tapped on the window to tell the orderly it was okay to take the body away.

  24

  ‌

  The Collision

  Colt was behind the wheel again.

  They had nearly gotten stuck in the mud heading out of the

  dump, and for one terrifying moment he thought Flebberman was going to make him take the bones out of the truck again and carry them. If that had happened, he would have had to kill him right then and there. Or be killed himself. It wouldn’t have mattered, at that point. Bringing them up the hill, armload by armload, nearly had been more than he could take.

  The tombstones hadn’t been so bad, but the few mortal re mains of the Musgrove family, stained a deep death-brown by their years in the earth, had clacked sickeningly as he pulled them from the trash and placed them—with a tenderness he did not feel—in the back of the tow truck. He would have preferred to fling them as far from himself as possible. He knew what the con sequences of that would have been—”blammo,” as Flebberman put it. But he almost did it, anyway.