I shook my head and stifled a grin.
"I would like a white wine please."
Henry grunted and grabbed a fresh glass.
"So how do you want it done?" I asked Martin.
He hunched over instinctively and leaned close to me. "Well it's got to look like an accident or it's just no good."
"Besides that," I said, dismissing his comment, "is there anything else I need to know?"
"The key is to the alley entrance, it's a heavy steel door. You can't miss it."
"Are there any windows?"
"Yes, on the second floor but there are none on the first floor, they were bricked up years ago."
I smiled and grabbed the fresh beer. "It'll be done in a week. Meet me here again, at midnight, the Saturday after it’s done." I folding the thick envelope of cash into my front pants pocket.
"Are we finished then?"
I looked at him sideways. "No,” I said sternly. “We are finished after we meet again,"
"Okay then, until we meet again." He held up his wine glass making a toast.
I clinked my glass against his and drank deeply, letting the cold beer calm the excitement I felt at being flush with cash again. He gathered himself, shook my hand, and nodded a curt goodbye. He took a first step away, but I grabbed his shoulder before he could go and whispered in his ear, unsuccessfully trying to suppress a laugh. "Make certain you're insured."
He smirked, unamused, and walked away quickly as though he didn't want to acknowledge his involvement. They're always like that the first time.
"Who was that?" asked Henry.
"Not sure really, let's find out," I said, holding up his eel-skin wallet. I fished out the driver’s license. "Martin Shelby it says."
"Nice pull,” he beamed. “Are you working again?"
"Yes, a new job."
"Why did you lift the wallet? Wasn't there enough money in the envelope? Hell, I saw it. It was that thick." He held his index finger and thumb an inch apart.
I reached up, placed my hand on his and adjusted his measurement by half. "That thick. And no, it's not the money. See, this jerk-off’s only got eight bucks in here, but the rest of this stuff might come in handy."
I pulled the eight bucks out of the billfold before I put it in my pocket and retrieved my lighter and cigarettes. "Henry, Mr. Shelby would like to buy me another beer.”
“Whatever Mr. Shelby wants,” he said, replacing my glass. “Hey, where did you get that lighter?”
I held it up for him. It had three Cyrillic letters and two roman numerals under a red star burst background and appeared to be a Russian military commemorative lighter. “It was a gift from my mother. It looks cool but it’s not quite right. You have to know the trick.” I took it loosely in my right hand and slapped it three times in rapid succession against my left palm to prime the wick and lit up.
“Was she Russian?”
“No, Bulgarian.” I squinted at him through a strong exhale of smoke. “It’s complicated.” I leaned close to him, eager to change the subject. "I might need your help in a couple of days. The usual stuff at the usual rate. You up for it?"
"For you man, always. Besides, I could use the money. Just call me when you're ready Evan. Another drink?"
I reached into my pocket, grabbed the envelope, pulled out the handwritten address and unfolded it. “No, this is my last one. I’m going to take a walk.”
Garbage and broken window glass covered the sidewalks in Martin’s warehouse neighborhood. Only one in four or five buildings looked occupied. I counted down the numbers on the transoms and door frames of the passing buildings: 2678, 2674, 2670. Martin's building was brick and had been painted, the last time in gray. It stood two stories high, with four tall narrow unbroken windows running along the street side of the second floor. The two large picture windows in the front of the second floor had long been boarded over with plywood that had turned the same color gray as the paint from the assailing smog-soiled rain. A lonely floodlight at the back of an occupied warehouse halfway down the alley cast long shadows at the rear of the building. The door Martin had mentioned was large, four feet wide, eight feet high and made of metal with riveted steel straps running horizontally across it. It looked more at home in a prison than it did on a warehouse.
I looked around and picked up a discarded newspaper. Folding it so that it fit the inside contours of my left hand, I pulled out the key with my right. I placed my hand on the large iron door handle being careful to keep the newspaper in place around it so that I left no fingerprints and gently placed the key into the dead-bolt housing. It turned with ease and made no sound as it unlocked.
The poor lighting from the alley penetrated only a few steps inside. A dim glow from the windows above showed an old wooden stairway leading up along the back wall. I took out my lighter, slapped it three times against my hand and lit it. The small flame threw sparse light around the back room and up the stairwell to the rafters of the second floor. To the left was an open door to a dingy bathroom. Directly in front of me opened up into a large dark expanse.
I stepped into the main room on the first floor, careful not to overstep the small circle of illumination the lighter provided. The ceiling was a cross-hatched pattern of floor joists, cross beams, and electrical conduits, no sprinkler system. The ground floor was a concrete pad painted battleship gray like the outside brick. Eight roughly hewn square wooden posts supported the weight of the second floor. There was no sign of light or life anywhere as I retraced my footsteps to the staircase in the back.
Decades of footfalls had worn the rough cut stairs smooth in the centers. I climbed into brighter light with each step. The tall windows I had seen from the sidewalk opened to the street lights on one side, projecting long rectangles of light onto the hardwood floor. I walked along the wall next to the side street, checking each window in vain with a newspaper covered hand to see if it would open. The gray paint on the outside bricks ran wildly over the wooden window frames, locking them tight. The ceiling looked exactly like the one below: no sprinkler system in place. I turned away from the wall, surveyed the second floor. "It's going to have to start up here. Let's figure out how to burn this place."
2
I went over and over the job in my head as I walked back toward downtown. The sun lurked just below the horizon when I reached the Ohio Hotel. I pushed open the front door and walked into the empty lobby, realizing I had never seen it in the morning.
Usually it was crowded with broken men sitting on broken furniture. The black and white television mounted in the upper corner of the room was off for the first time in memory and the threadbare couches by the counter looked even more so without occupants. The lobby looked strangely peaceful, like a leftover scene in a run-down theater long after the actors had walked off. I quietly walked over to the vacant front desk and enjoyed the silence for a few moments before repeatedly pounding the bell on the counter, sending shocking waves of unrelenting noise through the dirty brown curtain into the manager's room beyond. I continued striking it three times a second like a fire alarm until that familiar bald head peered around the curtain.
"Good morning Leo," I bellowed. "Take the fucking lock off my door. I'm going to pay the rent."
He emerged from behind the curtain, picked up the small dome shaped bell and threw it past my head into the empty lobby. The motion was so sudden and unexpected that I didn't have time to flinch at its proximity. It landed at the base of the far wall with a combination of muted ring and thud.
"Give me the money," he said in a gravelly voice.
I pulled another two bills out of my pocket and placed them on the clean spot on the counter where the bell had been. "That's for this week and next week."
He picked up the pair of hundred-dollar bills the same way he picked up the bell, and I half expected him to throw them at my head. Instead, he produced his receipt book and began scribbling. He moved like a robot and looked like a sleepwalker, writing with his eyes half closed. He gave me the receipt a
long with sixty dollars change and walked around the counter and over to the stairway leading to the second floor rooms. Leo was only five and a half feet tall and easily weighed two hundred pounds, but looked even shorter in his permanent stoop. He wore only faded blue boxer shorts and a pair of old dirty yellow flip-flops.
He walked to my door, searching for the blue key on his oversized key ring. He turned to face me after he had unlocked it, his narrow red eyes fixed on my kneecaps. "Don't ever fucking touch that bell again." Each of his words hit me squarely in the chest like a stone.
I didn't say anything as he walked past me back down the hall. I stepped inside and went straight to sleep.
I don't know why I'm still here. It seems like every time I wake up in this room I hear myself give that same answer. Lately I don't even have to ask the question. I don't know where I'm supposed to be going or why I'm not going there. Each day seems to pass into the next without reason or purpose and I find myself wondering more and more often if I shouldn't step off and start fresh again. The stiff orange noose was still hanging from the ceiling lamp, still willing. I wonder if it would be different next time, if I could forget that I can remember.
I got up and looked out my window onto the dark street below. The clock at the bank across the street flashed nine-thirty.
“It has to be p.m., it's dark outside,” I thought as I rummaged through the English and Bulgarian newspapers on the kitchen counter, looking for the Los Angeles master bus schedule. I sat on the bed and planned my getaway from the warehouse back to the club as I flipped through the coffee-stained booklet, cross checking routes.
The hotel lobby was full of men when I went down to use the phone. Leo sat on a stool behind the counter and strained his eyes to see the snowy television screen hanging in the corner. Red, Murphy, Cotton, and a new old guy were playing gin at a card table set up behind one of the couches.
"Hey kid, did ya scrape up enough money for rent?" Red shouted across the lobby. He chuckled to himself as he went back to his conversation.
The Ohio hadn't been a hotel in the conventional sense in ages. It's the kind of place that draws two types of men: those who don't feel comfortable making plans or committing to anything so they live week to week and those who stop here temporarily on their way to the street. I hoped I was in the first group.
I stepped over to the pay phone and dialed the club.
"Henry, Henry!" I shouted over the background noise on his end. "It's Evan. Hey, let's do this thing tomorrow!"
Loud knocking woke me out of a dead sleep. I answered the door rubbing at my eyes.
"Good morning sunshine!" said Henry, chuckling.
I motioned for him to come in.
"Charming, is that a noose?" he asked sarcastically.
"No, it’s just how they decorate here," I said behind the bathroom door, trying to think up something. “It’s a new motivational tool the city is installing in these 7th Avenue flop houses.”
Henry looked around. The room was cleaner than usual. "Man, you really need to do something about this place. This is like county jail, no pictures, no art, no amenities, just books, clothes, bed… and a noose. Why don't you throw up some curtains at least? You know what this place needs? Plants, something green and alive."
He stopped talking when I came out of the bathroom. "Are you finished?" I asked, annoyed. "Let's go. Did you bring the truck?"
Henry nodded. “Can you read this?” he asked, picking up a Bulgarian paper from the table.
“Yes.” I locked the door behind us. He was right about the room and it bothered me. There was no reason to live like this, in a place like this, other than habit. But if I had better habits I'd just have to work harder or get a regular job to support them. Besides, what's the point in a better standard of living if you’re not that standard?
When we reached his white pickup truck I hesitated opening the passenger door and looked at him through the open windows. "Don’t worry about the noose. I put it up just to mess with the management."
"Where to?"
"Sierra Chemical Company[3] near Riverside and The 2, I'll show you."
Henry made the turn into the parking lot of the chemical store and left the motor running. "So do you just go in and buy it or what?"
"Yeah, they sell chemicals here, it’s no big deal. They don't know what it's going to be used for."
I had no trouble buying the alcohol and emerged minutes later with a white, five gallon can.
"That was quick," Henry said
"Quick and easy, let's go." A feeling of overwhelming paranoia swept over me as we pulled away. Funny thing, I never feel nervous or larcenous about the lighting of the fire, but I always feel like I'm walking into a sting operation when I buy supplies or prep a job site.
"We need to go by a hardware store and then to the warehouse," I said.
"Where is the warehouse?"
"Commerce."
He pulled into the alley and stopped by the door. "Take off after I unload the stuff and come back in an hour. I'll leave the door open if I'm ready to go, if it's not open come back in another hour. It shouldn't take any longer than that." I put on a pair of black rubber gloves and jumped out of the cab of the truck. In less than fifteen seconds, I had opened the warehouse door, unloaded the truck, and closed the door behind me.
My heart raced and I sat for a moment on the steps to keep my legs from shaking. There was more light now and I could easily see up the stairs. I pulled out a cigarette and smoked it down to the end, smoked it until it started to scorch my throat. I crushed out the remainder and placed it in my pocket before unwrapping the roller pan and mop head. 'You're not thinking clearly, you should have removed these wrappers beforehand. Concentrate.'
I placed the clear plastic in a pile by the back door so I wouldn't, couldn't, forget them. 'Concentrate.' I carried the equipment up the stairs in one trip. The temperature was in the mid nineties again outside and seemed to rise by five degrees inside with each stair I climbed. The second floor looked smaller now in the brighter light of day and I had completely missed two small boxes next to the back support post in the darkness of two nights ago. The heat upstairs was stifling.
I opened the container of alcohol, filled the paint roller pan half full and let the mop head drink its fill before beginning to methodically coat the floor starting in the front corner opposite of the stairwell. The methanol went on easily in thin coats that dried into the thirsty wooden floorboards almost as quickly as I could apply them. I worked rapidly, staying away from the uncurtained windows by making longer strokes from the sides.
My first coat stopped at an imaginary diagonal line between the last window on the far wall and the top of the stairs. I had three of the original gallons left when the first coat was finished. My shirt was soaked through with sweat and the biting smell of the alcohol hung in the stagnant air of the second floor.
The vertical support beams were next. The rough unfinished posts easily drank two coats apiece. I was just finishing the second coat when I heard a car in the alley. My heart started to race again as I peered out of the lower corner of the back window. It was Henry's white truck; an hour left.
I sat the mop down and took out my lighter and a cigarette in consolation to my frayed nerves. I slapped the lighter twice, then thought better than to light it in the alcohol charged air.
The air in the downstairs bathroom was refreshingly cool. I lit a cigarette and barely recognized my own reflection in the dirt streaked mirror. My blond hair appeared brown and clung to my sweaty forehead in narrow points. I looked pale even in the dim light of downstairs. I drew long on the cigarette and followed it in with a deep breath. The red end of the cigarette highlighted my face in the mirror. I moved closer so that I could see myself clearly through the grime.
"This is the worst of it," I said out loud. "It's almost over. Concentrate." I took the cigarette from my mouth with black gloved fingers and blew the smoke at myself as I spoke. "See you soon Bobby." I finished t
he cigarette and put the butt in the same pocket with the other one.
I put the hard rubber stopper in the drain of the dirty sink and turned on the cold water faucet. The anticipation of refreshing cool water running over my head was dashed by two blasts of brown liquid that shot out into the basin between deep groans inside the pipes. Disgusted, I turned the faucet off, walked back up the stairs and poured more methanol into the pan.
The second coat on the floor took longer to dry and seemed to go farther per pan full. When I reached the same imaginary diagonal line I stopped at before, I moved over about five feet and sponged the rest of the way into the corner leaving a five foot wide diagonal dry patch on the floorboards. There was only a small amount left in the white can by the time I finished priming this last triangle of floor. The sponge at the end of the mop was black and frayed from running over the long fallow floorboards. I took it, along with the rest, downstairs and sat them next to the plastic wrappers by the door.
I opened the door three inches and put my mouth and nose in the opening, gasping like a swimmer at the fresher, cooler air of the alley. After a few minutes, I sat on the steps again and lit another cigarette. I'd checked the whole building four times for anything that I'd left behind and I'd chain smoked half a pack of by the time Henry came back.
He stopped the pickup close to the door. I threw the steel door open, tossed the stuff in the back and jumped in the cab.
"Step on it, let's get out of here," I said, slamming the door closed.
He looked at me with a sense of urgency on his face. "Why, is it gonna blow?"
"No, it's not gonna blow. Let's just get away from here." Sticking my head out the window, I ran ungloved fingers through my hair in an attempt to dry it. I looked back at the building as we drove off. "Everything is set."
Halfway back to the Ohio Hotel I pulled out two hundred dollars and gave it to Henry.
The Reincarnationist Papers Page 2
