by Ed Kurtz
"Well, it's just, you being better and all. Lots of family and friends coming by to say sorry soon and, since you ain't really needed anymore—"
"You want me to drag out of here. Do I get my fee?"
Sween brightened at the mention of money.
"Sure enough. Like I said, ain't nobody blames you. By way of making up, Jack Bob threw in another ten grand. So you got a nice payday."
"That's good. When do you need me out?"
"I can drive you to the airfield now. There's a Clemoco helicopter waiting for you."
"Let me put my boots on."
The morning sun was bright, the heat somewhat less that day. Jack Bob drove alone in the Polaris UTV down the dirt trail, huge, meaty fists around the wheel. Camo cowboy hat at a jaunty angle, he parked and got out. He walked along the canebrake's edge, head bent low, and intently scanned the ground.
"Looking for this?"
Jack Bob spun around.
"Who in hell's that?"
Pargrew stepped out from the canebrake, dressed in woodland camo, face and hands obscured by green, white, and black streaks. He held a long blowgun in one hand.
"It was curare, wasn't it? Something super potent from some illegal lab?"
"God damn you, Pargrew, you trespassing sumbitch, why are you on my property?"
"I been waiting for you. Two days swatting flies and eating snakes. You took your sweet time. Guess you were busy grieving and all."
"How'd you get in here?"
"My specialty's security, remember? Your place has more holes than a Swiss cheese. You ain't as slick as you think, Jack Bob. You crow too much for one thing. That brag about the blowgun was a good tell."
"What do you mean? You're a crazy man."
"Crazy enough to add two and two. You knew nobody sensible hunts wild pigs alone in the canebrake without dogs. Plus you knew Daddy C was sick, how everyone guessed he'd die any day. You figured the pigs would tear him up so bad, no one would ever know. If an autopsy found any poison, you blame Irma Mae. I heard her threats; I bet she said that most every night. You spread those Internet rumors about the Black Block that got Sween all stirred up, thinking you'd cover your trail. The only thing you didn't count on was me. You got that dart, but I got the blowgun."
Jack Bob sneered. "So what? It's your word against mine. I'm richer than God. You're nobody. Ain't a jury in Texas that'll convict me. So just what do you want from me anyway, boy? More money?"
"I want you to admit you're a guilty, greedy sumbitch who killed his own father."
Jack Bob pulled out a long bowie knife.
"You're just stupid. I'm going to carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey. Won't nobody ever find you out here, once them hogs get done."
He charged. Pargrew dropped the blowgun and calmly waited, facing sideways. Jack Bob wildly lunged with his knife. Pargrew's side kick landed exactly on Jack Bob's right knee. His leg snapped neatly in two like a dry-rotted stick.
"AAAAUUUUGGGHHH."
Jack Bob fell to the ground, his awful cry more like an animal caught in a trap than human. He thrashed and cried out as Pargrew circled him with a rope in his hands, a loop at one end. Pargrew flipped Jack Bob's hat off and slipped the loop onto his neck.
"No, no."
Pargrew hit the ground, feet to Jack Bob's shoulders. He pulled with all his strength. Jack Bob bucked and pitched. He frantically clawed at Pargrew's legs. Pargrew pushed his feet hard against Jack Bob's shoulders and pulled the rope tighter.
Jack Bob's beet-red face tried one last time to choke down a breath of air. He bucked once more then lay still. An awful smell filled the air as his bowels relaxed in death. Pargrew still hung on for another good two minutes. When he was satisfied, Pargrew rose, removed the loop, and dusted himself off.
He shoved the body into the canebrake and left Jack Bob for the wild pigs to find.
Nothing You Can Do
by Ed Kurtz
The American awoke on the floor of Room 325 of the Hotel Terminus around noon. His heart was pounding against his ribs, his brow and back slick with sweat. For the first several minutes of dazed awakening, the American was not altogether sure where he was exactly. He could hear movement in the hall, beyond the door, and couldn’t remember whether or not he had put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign before he crashed out, or indeed if there had even been a sign. (Nicht stören? He wasn’t sure.) Then he got to thinking about how hard his heart was pumping and the rising anxiety it caused him—which revealed hazy images of the blow he’d done the night before and the loathsome working girls who gave it to him.
Right, he thought. Cologne.
The American hopped a train the morning before—the regional out of a sleepy little Bavarian town called Amberg, thinking he might eventually make his way out of Germany. The Netherlands seemed a safe bet, Rotterdam or Amsterdam maybe, someplace he could hole up for a few days and dry out a little, think about coming up with something approaching a plan.
The regional dropped him in Nuremberg, where he bounced up to Frankfurt, hung out in the Hauptbahnhof over a tall weiβbier and a warm pretzel for a short while, after which he bought a one-way on the ICE to Cologne. He’d never been, didn’t know a thing about it. By the time he arrived it was dark and cold and pissing rain, so the American decided against any further traveling until he’d had a chance to procure a proper meal and a decent night’s sleep. He slung his messenger bag over his torso and headed out of the Bahnhof, surrounded on all sides by squeaking, wet shoes and grumbling, wet Germans.
In the square out front, the Cologne Cathedral loomed imperiously overhead, massive and black and comprised of sharply jagged spires that seemed to rip at the charcoal rainclouds threatening it from above. The American stood in the rain for a while, marveling at the sight of it, before he realized he was the only one standing still or looking up. Everyone else was rushing away, out of the cold and the wet, to taxis and compact cars or just underneath awnings in front of closed shops. Mostly they had someplace to be, or so it seemed.
The American set out then, lighting a Gauloise cigarette and doing everything in his power to shield it from the downpour.
It was not long before he caught sight of a brewpub occupying the ground level of an old and ornate building in the Aldstadt; the place was called Karneval and had clown faces carved into the façade. He squinted against the rain, flicked the remains of his smoke into the street, and went inside.
“Ein dunkels, bitte,” he said to the dour-faced woman behind the bar as he sidled up to it, wiping his face with a damp sleeve. She nodded and set about pouring a glass of dark beer as the American took stock of his surroundings. The place was dimly lit, the walls made of dark wood and littered with framed illustrations of pre-war Cologne. Few of the tables were occupied—a couple here, there a small group of suited co-workers, a pair of singletons drinking on their own—and the music was turned down low. When the barwoman set his beer in front of him, the American asked, “Sprechen Sie englisch?”
“Nein,” she said. “Vier Euro.”
He paid, and as he stuffed his wallet back into his pocket, a soggy shape appeared at his side to occupy the barstool there.
“She speaks English just fine,” the stranger said in a pronounced British accent, shrugging off his sodden topcoat. “Fucking cunt, you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” said the American. He avoided eye contact and sipped his beer.
“Just the same. American?”
“More or less.”
“Come from York, me—though I been in Cologne most me life. Just got off the train, thought I’d pop in for a pint. This fucking weather, eh?”
The American nodded vaguely and glanced up at the mirror behind the bar. Between bottles of schnapps he saw the Briton’s reflection: a tall, rangy man with a pronounced nose and a tweed cap sort of squashed onto his head. In that moment the Briton looked right back at him, vis-à-vis the mirror, and grinned.
Quickly, the American dropped his gaze back to the glass i
n his hand.
“I’m from drought country,” he muttered. “Not much on the rain.”
“Texas?”
“You can tell?”
The Briton’s grin broadened. “I’m a great one for accents, me. I don’t reckon this cunt’s ever going to come round to serve me. Fuck’s sake.”
With that, he rose from the stool and poked his lank arms back through the sleeves of his coat.
“That’s it for you, then?” the American asked.
“Jesus, no,” said the Briton, laughing. “I know a dozen pubs better’n this one just off the top of me head. Karneval…bollocks.”
The American shifted his eyes from the Briton to the barwoman, who glowered at him from the far end of the bar, against which she was leaning with an unlit cigarillo between two fingers. He decided he wouldn’t outstay his welcome either and gulped down the last half of the beer.
“You coming, mate?”
“Why the hell not?”
In the room’s W.C. he splashed cold water on his face and tried to control his breathing. His heart didn’t seem to care how he breathed, so instead he fished around in his messenger bag until he found a little orange bottle of Klonopin. He swallowed two dry and sat on top of the toilet seat for several long minutes with his eyes squeezed shut. Gradually, minute by minute, his heart rate slowed and his breathing evened out to something approaching normal. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring directly at his own bedraggled reflection, into his own red-rimmed eyes in the mirror across from him. His jowly face was in bad need of a shave, and the bruise on his left cheek had gotten blacker while he slept. The American frowned at himself. He looked almost as terrible as he felt.
Somewhere outside somebody shrieked, followed immediately by a peal of raucous laughter and a noisemaker clacking away. He rose from his perch on the toilet and staggered back into the room in time to hear a throaty roar beneath the window: “Kölle Alaaf!” The clock read five to noon. Karneval was underway.
“Every bloody year,” the Briton had explained on the short walk to the next pub the previous night. “The fucking crazy days—it’s a kölsch thing. The eleventh of November, or really eleven minutes past eleven o’clock on the eleventh. People in costume, drunk as holy fuck and roaming the streets at all hours.”
“Sounds like Mardi Gras,” said the American.
“I suppose it’s our version of that. But it’s shit. Here we are—oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The Briton stopped in front of a shuttered place without any signage and weakly banged his fist against the door.
“It’s the bloody smoking ban,” he growled. “Thirty percent of the pubs here are gone now for it. Aw but Christ—this was such a good one. Fucking shame, that.”
His shoulders slumped as he heaved a deep sigh. The American lit a cigarette and patted him on the shoulder.
“Them’s the breaks,” said the American. “I ought to be going, anyhow.”
“Oh, sod that. Look, here’s a taxi—the night’s still young, mate. I’ll show you something I’ll wager you never seen in Texas.”
He was already hailing the cab before the American could argue. The taxi pulled up to the curb and stopped abruptly. The Briton leaned through the passenger side window and mumbled something in German before turning back to the American with a thumbs up and a crooked smile.
“Get in,” he said. “Assuming you fancy girls.”
He winked and climbed in beside the driver. The American narrowed his eyes, adjusted the strap of the messenger bag, and got in back.
It was a short ride away from the city center, through a less well-lit section of town, and around some narrow backstreets before arriving amongst a squad of taxicabs lining both sides of the road. The water pooling over the macadam gleamed from the blinding neon glaring down from above—signs screaming Das Bordelle and New York Nightclub, Nackte Tänzer, Girls Girls Girls. Drunks stumbled on the sidewalks, chortling and shaking their heads at one another. A group of Turks gathered around one of two entrances to the New York joint, smoking brown cigarettes and talking loudly. The American and the Briton stepped out into the now misting rain and took it all in.
“This is something,” the American said.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” said the Briton, putting on a faux American accent. “Come on.”
The tall man led and the portly one followed, across the wet street to the left side door of the club. There, one of the Turks broke away from the group and turned his round, stubbly face to the American.
“Hey!” he bellowed. “You speak English?”
“Sure,” the American said.
“It is fucking great in there,” said the Turk. “You will not believe. The German women, they are the best women in the world.”
“Good to know.”
With a throaty guffaw, the Turk returned to his group and the American resumed following the Briton into the club. Once they passed the doors, the Briton sniffed and said, “There aren’t any German women here. They come from Eastern Europe, mostly. Former Soviet blocs and the like. Some from Thailand too, sometimes. I’ll give you my hat if you meet a German girl tonight.”
“I don’t think it’d fit, hoss.”
At the front booth they each paid twenty Euros to get inside, whereupon they shuffled into the club proper to find a table. The girl on the main stage wore a black leather bikini riddled with shiny metal studs. A thumping techno track pulsed from the speakers in the ceiling. They sat near the front and ordered rum and coke. The girl quickly got rid of the bikini.
It was still early.
His nose got to bleeding at a quarter past noon. The people outside the hotel were still hooting and hollering, and the noisemakers continued to ratchet and squawk. The sheets on the narrow twin bed, though not particularly white to begin with, were spotted like a bright red Rorschach before the American realized what was happening. Panic swelled in his chest, all but canceling out the calming effects of the Klonopin before it could take hold.
“Kölle Alaaf!” someone screeched.
“Shut the fuck up!” the American screeched back. Laughter. He half-believed it was directed at him. He grabbed the pillow and smashed it over his face. The blood welled up in his nostrils, hot and pushing for escape. Tears spilled from his eyes and mixed with it, running pink down his chin. He tried to remember the emergency number in Germany, but all he could think of was the one for Great Britain—999—which he’d somehow retained from watching some English detective show years back.
He’d never seen a German detective show. The blood kept coming.
“Jesus,” he rasped. “Jesus Christ.”
His head swimming, the American hurled the blood-soaked pillow across the fusty room and dove for the floor, where the top sheet lay crumpled in a pile. He used it to press his nose shut, hard, when he noticed the scrap of paper poking out of the back pocket of his jeans, which were beneath the sheet.
Iwona, he thought.
He’d forgotten all about her.
“Wollen Sie einen Tanz?” she’d cooed into his ear, her ice-blue eyes twinkling and lips curling into a rose-petal smile.
He wrinkled his nose and said, “Wie bitte?”
“English?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like a dance, Mr. English?”
“American, actually.”
“Well?”
He leaned back in his chair, the music throbbing in his ears, and regarded her in the dim, red light of the small lamp on the table. She was tall with broad hips and a small bust that was hidden beneath a lacey red and white bra. Her bright blonde hair hung down straight and spiky at the tips, framing a heart-shaped face that needed none of the makeup she’d painted on it. She pursed her lips, playfully, and canted her head to one side, never taking her sparkling eyes from him.
The American said, “Sure.”
The girl said, “I’m Eva. Follow me.”
She pivoted on a four-inch heel and floated gracefull
y up the two carpeted steps behind the table, where an unencumbered table stood with two vacant, red pleather chairs on either side of it. The American cast a quick look at the Briton, who winked and said, “Don’t look at me, mate. She’s the one you want.”
Judging this to be a good advice, the American hurried up the steps to the table where Eva waited for him. She smiled again, stagily coquettish this time, and waggled a canister of whipped cream while she waggled her near-white, meticulously plucked eyebrows. The American sank into the nearest chair.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He said, “Yeah.”
Eight minutes and two songs later he had her stark naked on his lap, the too-sweet taste of aerosol cream in his mouth, and her lips brushing lightly against the soft flesh of his earlobe as she whispered, “My real name is Iwona.”
The American smiled. He told her his name, and she smiled back.
They talked awhile, shouting when the music was loud and lowering their voices between songs. He told her he was leaving Germany. She told him she wanted to go back to Poland, or maybe America. They agreed that it would be nice to someday see one another again, maybe in the States. Maybe anywhere. Maybe even soon.
She kissed him on the side of his neck, leapt up like a gazelle, and sped off and out of view the moment he paid the requisite twenty Euros for the pleasure of her company and performance. The next time he saw her, some thirty minutes and two rum and cokes later, she was back in costume and paused beside him only long enough to say, “Give me your hand.”
He did, and Iwona pressed a crumpled wad of paper into his palm. With that, she danced away, from table to table, until she found another fellow willing to part with twenty Euros. But the American didn’t care. By then he’d pulled the paper open to read what she had written:
Off at 3. Wait for me?
Iwona
The American went outside to smoke, the scrap folded neatly now in his back pocket, grinning ear to ear.
