The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

by Charlie Huston

  Sort of.

  —Fuck it. Give me that thing.

  I held it while Gabe spilled rubbing alcohol from his first-aid kit onto a rag and carefully wiped down the jug, shifting my grip so he could get every surface.

  Done with the fingerprint wipe, he nodded and patted his pockets.

  —Don't suppose you have a light?

  I brightened significantly.

  —What? Hell no! I don't smoke! Wow, too bad, guess that means we have to delay the big firebombing.

  He reached into one of the milk crates, took out a bag of disposable lighters, and allowed the corner of his mouth to tip slightly upward.

  —I was just joking. Here, let me have that thing.

  I let him have the thing, delighted to have discovered just what kind of scenario brought out the prankster in him.

  I watched as he got out of the car and walked to a weathered brick building that I had taken for one of the garages, but saw now by its sign was not.

  —Oh, oh fuck. Gabe, shit no.

  But he was well beyond hearing my little gasps of dismay, and flicked the lighter and held the flame to the edge of the baggie, patiently waiting till it caught fire and ignited the fuel-soaked bandanna within. Pocketing the lighter, he raised the jug high and brought it down, throwing it at an angle under the van at the curb.

  The jug shattered, spilling flaming jelly over the asphalt under the van, fire tickling the undercarriage and licking up the sides. Gabe walked back to the Cruiser, silhouetted by the flames, and climbed in.

  He looked at the small inferno, looked at me, the fire in the lenses of his sunglasses.

  —Well, that should make it clear to them where we stand.

  He started the car and pulled easily from the curb, rolling slowly by the burning van as the front door of Aftershock Trauma Cleaning slammed open and a wiry bald man just barely five feet tall, brandishing a broom handle, ran out followed by Dingbang and several other Aftershockers.

  The wiry guy made straight for the Cruiser, the broom handle cocked over his shoulder. Behind him, Dingbang was fumbling with a set of keys, trying to find one to open the driver's door on the van, dancing side to side to avoid the thrashing flames.

  Gabe stuck a hand under his seat.

  —Stupid sons of bitches.

  The wiry guy was coming at my window, mouth moving, spittle flying, curses lost in the roar of the flames. My window rolled down as he reached the car, the broom handle bouncing off the chrome trim instead of shattering the glass.

  —Fuckinguslesslyingshitdogeatingfuckwadambushingdicksuckers!

  He started to bring the handle back up.

  I twisted around, trying to squirm between the seats to join the dead body in the back of the station wagon.

  Gabe shoved me back down in my seat, leaned across me, and stuck the gun in his hand out the window.

  —Drop that shit and back up out the way, Morton.

  Morton pulled up, dropped the broom handle and backed up out the way.

  —Fuckingniggerfuckingshitdogfuckingniggernigger.

  Gabe pointed the gun at the van where Dingbang was still trying to get the door open while the flames grew higher.

  —Cover your ears, Web.

  I covered my ears and jerked and screamed each of the three times Gabe pulled the trigger. My screams were somewhat louder than those of the men scattering on the street, away from the van where all three bullets had dimpled the hood next to Dingbang, sending him first to the ground and then crawling behind a dumpster at the curb.

  Only Morton kept his place, pointing at Gabe, mouth tight shut now. Shaping the finger of his other hand into a pistol, he pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger.

  Gabe shifted the aim of his gun, centered the bead on Morton's chest.

  —Not wise, Morton, threatening a man with a pistol in his hand.

  Morton seemed to make a similar assessment of the situation and dropped both hands to his sides. But was, I can only assume, the kind of man who can't leave well enough alone.

  —Fuck you, nigger.

  Gabe nodded.

  —That's enough of that.

  I covered my ears again, and the windows of the Aftershock shop exploded one after another while I did the flinch and scream thing again.

  He settled back into his seat, tucked the gun between his thighs, put the car in gear, and drove slowly past where Morton had thrown himself on the street, screaming newly invented obscenities that I couldn't hear for the sharp ringing in my ears.

  Of course, I did hear it when the van's gas tank blew and a fireball climbed up the sky, but we were some ways down the street by then.

  Gabe observed the detonation in the rearview and, nodding his head, raised his voice over the ringing in his own ears.

  —Stupid crackers, I'd have let them, they'd have climbed in that thing and tried to drive it off the fire, got their asses blown to hell.

  I turned from staring out the back window as he took us round the corner onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

  —You're a paragon of charity and compassion, Gabe. A real model to the rest of us when faced with the opportunity to think of our fellow man's well-being before our own.

  He took the gun from between his legs and put it back under his seat.

  —Good of you to say so, Web.

  He straightened his tie.

  —Now let's go drop that stiff.

  One of the keys on the big ring in Gabe's glove box got us into Woodlawn and we rolled the gurney down an empty tile corridor, one wheel balky and loud.

  Gabe stopped at a steel door.

  —Hold up.

  He took the ring off his belt, sorted keys, and unlocked the door.

  —OK.

  He pushed the door open and we rolled into the morgue.

  I held up.

  —Wow.

  Gabe looked at the butterflied corpse on the table in the middle of the room.

  —Yeah, it's a sight. Come on.

  He guided the gurney to the back of the prep room and jerked the handle on the door of a walk-in.

  —Park it here. OK. Got the legs, by the heels there. And lift.

  We swung the body onto an empty rack at the side of the walk-in.

  I looked at the dead in their rows.

  —Lotta dead people, man.

  Gabe took a look.

  —Yeah. And the world isn't running out of raw supplies to make more.

  We walked back down the corridor, the jittery wheel squeaking.

  Gabe pulled up and tapped it with the toe of his shiny black shoe.

  —Got to take that off and straighten it out tonight. No one wants their dead rolling out of their home on a gurney sounds like a shopping cart with a bum wheel.

  Outside he locked up behind us.

  I pointed at the keys.

  —So you work for Woodlawn?

  —No. Work for a company that does accommodations all over. Night shift I handle, never know if someone will be around to let you in.

  He pointed at the Cruiser and we took the gurney over.

  —Funeral homes contract with the service. Give us keys so we have access. Got keys to pretty much every home from the Valley down to Long Beach.

  We dropped the gurney down to its wheels, lifted it into the back of the station wagon and swung the door shut.

  I rested my ass on the gleaming chrome bumper.

  —So, Gabe, tell me, how's one go about getting the job as the grim specter of death?

  Gabe took a clean white handkerchief from his breast pocket, blotted his upper lip, tucked the handkerchief away and pointed at the car.

  —Let's go.

  I circled to the passenger door and got in.

  —That's OK. I understand you're the reticent type. I just thought that since we were accessories in a few felonies together that you might warm up a little and share a couple biographical details. For the sake of conversation.

  He pulled his seatbelt across the shoulder and buckled
it into place.

  —I make an observation here, Web?

  I buckled my own belt.

  —Sure, but don't go crazy. You've already spoke more in the last fifteen minutes than I thought was possible. Don't want you to sprain your tongue or anything.

  He nodded.

  —No danger. No danger.

  —Good. Well, as long as you're careful, what is it you've observed?

  He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed a spot on the inside of the windshield.

  —Some looks. A few silences.

  I nodded.

  —Wow, man. Fascinating stuff.

  He looked at the speck he'd rubbed onto his thumb.

  —It is. In its own way.

  —Uh-huh. Well. Thanks, Gabe. That was enlightening. Thanks for the observations.

  He took out the handkerchief again and wiped his thumb on it.

  —The way you and Po Sin talk about some things. Don't talk about others. The way I know Po Sin, and the way he is around you, that suggests things. About you, I mean.

  —Deeper and deeper, Gabe. Deeper and deeper.

  He tucked the handkerchief away.

  —Way I know Po Sin, how little he keeps from me, lets me know that whatever it is you two talk about where you're not talking about anything, that it's pretty personal to you.

  I scratched at a spot on my new old slacks.

  He turned his lenses on me.

  —A person, he's got a past. Everyone dragging one behind them. You want to know how I ended up driving dead people around? Cleaning up after them? Well, that's my past, ain't it?

  I nodded.

  —Yeah. I get it.

  He shook his head.

  —No. You don't. See, point here isn't mind your own goddamn business. Point is, Web, you want to know how it is I can be comfortable with the dead?

  He looked out the windshield.

  —You might first ask how you're so comfortable with the dead.

  He fired the engine.

  —What's that they say about familiarity that I read somewhere?

  —Breeds contempt?

  He checked his mirrors, began to back down the drive.

  —Way I read that, just means you're around something enough, you get used to it.

  We bounced down into the street and he dropped the gearshift into drive and pointed us east.

  —Me and Po Sin, there's just shit we have reason to have gotten used to when we were younger. That's all.

  SKEWED

  Chev's Apache wasn't out front.

  Whether that was good or bad, I couldn't say. Letting another day go past before I could do some serious ass-kissing, well, some serious sarcastic ass-kissing anyway, might be what the doctor ordered. Or it could be one step closer to him being done with my shit and throwing my possessions out the window for me to claim from the street.

  From the alley, a sudden burst of dialogue.

  —You fucking bitch, you fucked him, didn't you?

  —Fuck you.

  —You fucking cock tease bitch.

  —Fuck you.

  —You had his cock in your cunt, didn't you?

  —Fuck you.

  Going up the stairs, I considered the virtues of being homeless and friendless. The first of these being that no one would offer me a job that would turn into a crime spree.

  I unlocked the apartment door, found I was just a little disappointed not to see Dot inside waiting to irritate me, walked into the dark livingroom, got tripped by someone hiding behind the door and went face-first into the carpet.

  The someone lurking behind the door put his foot in my back and shoved me deeper into the carpet.

  —Where's our fucking can?

  My hands flailed and hit something solid and heavy and I grabbed it.

  —It's down the hall.

  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.