by Laird Hunt
I had spent a good quarter of my earnings at the Horseshoe, drinking Cape Cods and hoping that, even though he didn’t work there anymore, Anthony would show up so that we could compare notes. He did not. I finally asked the bartender on duty about him and was told that Job, if that’s who I meant, hadn’t been there for weeks.
The knockout and all her nice proportions arrived a few minutes after I did. She was wearing a maroon slip, a black leather bomber, pink-tinted glasses, and a kiss-my-ass grin that she tore off and tossed in my lap as she sat down.
Hi, I said.
Get us some drinks, and soup, I want borscht, she said.
A waitress who had clearly been eating too many pierogi for too many years and who was wearing a lot of eye makeup and what looked to me like a wig she had possibly inherited from a great-aunt in the old country came over and called me sweetheart and I ordered.
While we waited, the knockout pulled out a cell phone and made a couple of calls, one to a guy named Bob, who apparently did bodywork for her, and one to Mr. Kindt.
He wants to talk to you, she said.
About what?
She didn’t bother to answer, just handed me the phone then got up and went in the direction of the toilets.
Henry? Mr. Kindt said.
Yes, I said.
Come to see me this afternoon, dear boy, after you have finished with your lunch and conversation.
I killed this lunch partner of mine last night, you know, murdered her, I said.
Yes, well, that is what she wants to talk to you about—listen to her, she is quite articulate and quite direct. She can be of great help.
Great help with what?
Mr. Kindt laughed. With any, if you should choose to carry them out, future murders, he said.
I knew what you meant.
I know you did. Was the pay satisfactory?
It was.
Good, and there will of course be more. So for now just think of last night as a test, a trial run. A little fine-tuning is in order, that’s all.
Does Cornelius know about this lunch I’m having? I asked.
Of course he does, my boy, he is in charge, how could he not? Now, finish up there, then come and see me.
I hung up just as the borscht arrived. A couple minutes later we were both eating sweet, airy challa bread, spooning up the red stuff, drinking Cape Cods, and looking at each other.
Yeah, I know you saw me naked, so what? she said.
She leaned forward, expressing some serious décolletage, and stuck one of her nails a little farther than was comfortable into my forearm.
Did you appreciate? she asked.
Yes, I appreciated.
Of course you did.
I had liked the afterimage so much in fact that after I had left the scene of the crime I went back to my little room in Mr. Mancini’s flop and wrestled around with it for a while. But of course I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I took a sip of my Cape Cod, or whatever we were drinking, probably just Coke, it doesn’t matter, and said, O.K., talk to me, tell me why I’m here, tell me what I did wrong.
Everything, genius.
That’s a lot.
You have a way with words.
So I’m told.
By who?
Who or whom?
Let’s say who.
Let’s drop it.
You talk tough, I think I like it.
Now it’s you who likes something.
Who says I just started?
I looked at her. I wished we’d just said all of the preceding, even if it sounded like bad noir dialogue. I wished, after she’d said, everything, genius, and I’d said, that’s a lot, that she hadn’t proceeded to tell me, in detail and pretty directly, how much I sucked.
I already told Cornelius you’re useless.
So what did he say?
He said I should meet with you and, if at all possible, straighten your sorry ass out.
He said it like that?
More or less.
Can you straighten my sorry ass out?
Of course I can.
Why? I mean, why bother? It’s not like I asked to do this.
Why do you think?
I took a bite of borscht-soaked challa and pretended to think about it.
But why does he want me to do this? I said.
You’ll have to ask him that.
I did—later, when I went over to his house.
We’ll discuss motivation another day, he said. Or perhaps I should say the motivation will become clear or clearer later. In the meantime, I will just ask you, as my friend, to help me and my partner, Cornelius, in facilitating this venture. Since my earliest days as a businessman I have been interested in unusual, even improbable, transactions. Don’t forget, after all, that I made my real start in affairs by swimming the length of a lake with my arms bound tightly behind me.
You didn’t mention your arms being tied before.
Well they weren’t, that would have been impossible. I said it just now for effect. But it was nevertheless a transforming experience. When the adventure ended I walked away from Lake Otsego a changed man.
Cornelius told me he was there.
Did he? It’s true that I have known Cornelius for a very long time. He wasn’t much more than a boy then. Nor, for that matter, was I. But at any rate, dear Henry, there is so very much demand for this service, and I am so grateful that you are willing to help and even indulge me.
I was. And had. I mean, the whole time I just sat there and let the knockout disparage me. Of course that hadn’t been entirely about making Mr. Kindt happy. Being insulted then instructed by a beautiful woman about the subject of murder, even fake murder, while eating borscht and drinking Cape Cods or Coke counts as positive in my book.
All right, I said.
All right, what?
I mean all right, I’m enjoying this.
Good, but let’s hope you’re understanding it too.
If you’re going to be sloppy, be sloppy in a big, big way, I said. But it’s better to be neat.
She nodded.
Anthony had his problems, things got out of control, but at least he was neat, I said.
That’s right.
I’m a neat thief, I said.
Even if you are, which I doubt, a neat thief and a neat murderer are not the same thing.
How so?
Degree. Other things too but mainly degree. Death is a different degree. Murder is death amplified and pinpointed. Big focused death. Big but not sloppy. What else?
It has to hurt, I said. Pain implies the actual. There has to be an implication of the actual to engender fear. Fear and the frisson that heralds it are ultimately why the checks get signed. That’s why it’s a good idea to knock them out, chloroform them or something.
Good.
Who writes the scripts?
It depends—sometimes the victim, sometimes Cornelius, sometimes me or the others.
What’s up with those others anyway?
She didn’t answer. Instead she pulled out a gun, placed it against my forehead, and pulled the trigger.
This is a story about murder—Mr. Kindt’s, several other people’s, my own. My own just about blew my eardrums out, scared the shit out of me, and stained my shirt paint-pellet red. The sound was so loud it slammed me back into my seat, and I just watched her as she stood, dropped a note in my lap, and, still holding the gun, which she lifted, menacingly, as if the other chambers had real bullets in them, when the waitress and one of the customers started moving toward her, walked out the door. It was only after I had wiped some of the fake blood off my face and, assuring the waitress and manager that I was all right and that, no, I wasn’t going to wait to talk to the police, left myself, that I opened up the note. It read, “Round two is tonight at three o’clock,” and gave an address on St. Mark’s Place.
FOURTEEN
It was so strange to see my aunt sitting beside my bed, her great fat face simultaneously beaming and anxious,
that I sat up, swung my bare legs over the side of the bed, and clapped her on the arm. This felt so good that I leaned forward and clapped her on the side of the head.
Go and tell them I need a shot, tell them that, then we can talk, I said.
My aunt shook her fat head, stood, walked a little way toward the door, looked back at me, and said, you’re a schmuck, Henry boy, you always were, and was gone.
A minute later she was back. She came at me so fast all I had time to do was start to raise my arm before she had slapped me, good and hard like the old days, across my face.
Jesus, Aunt Lulu, I said.
I’ll give you a shot, boy, you little schmuck, she said.
She raised her hand like she was going to slap me again but instead sat down, and after a couple of seconds the beaming, anxious look was back on her face.
Where you been, Henry? You left me, she said.
I shrugged.
I been worried, Henry.
I didn’t say anything.
So now you live in boxes on the street. Now you do bad, bad things and you hit your aunt when she isn’t looking out for it.
I’m sorry, Aunt Lulu.
Yeah, you better be sorry, Henry. I’m your aunt. I’m your Goddamn aunt, and I raised you, Henry. You’re the one who put an end to that. You’re the one with the special way of saying thank you. Don’t forget it.
I am sorry, I said.
She reached out one of her big fat hands and touched my knee with it. I suppressed a shudder.
I’m sorry too, boy, she said.
Why did you come, Aunt Lulu? I said.
She pulled her hand back and, though her eyes were still shining, frowned.
You know anything about these buildings falling down?
They didn’t just fall, Aunt Lulu.
She smiled. Extremely brightly.
Call me Mother, like you used to when you were little, she said.
I didn’t answer. I thought of her sitting slumped at the kitchen table, barely moving, that last time, her long, greasy hair covering her face. I thought of her in her dirty blue housedress feeding the cats, kicking the cats, washing the cats. Then I thought about buildings, buildings all over the city, falling down.
The hospital called you, Aunt Lulu? I said.
I told them I’m not paying a cent for any of this. I’m not paying a damn red nickel for you to live in a box and piss on the street and do bad things to people. I got nothing to do with it.
They can’t make you pay anything, Aunt Lulu.
I’m not, boy. Believe me. I’ve got bills.
We sat there. My aunt’s big fat face was beet red and she was breathing hard and I thought she might lean forward and slap me again, maybe pull the old spoon out of her bag and apply it medicinally to my skin, but somehow she was still beaming, like a smiling virus had infected her face.
I heard from that girl, she said.
What girl?
You tell her not to call me. Not ever. I got nothing to say to such as her. She was too fancy for you, Henry boy. The whole world you fell out of was too fancy.
Wait, who called you?
Aunt Lulu didn’t answer. Instead she smiled hard, winked at me, and began mumbling. As she was mumbling, Mr. Kindt poked his head in the door and gestured for me to come over. I pointed at Aunt Lulu. He threw his shoulders back, dropped his head, and began moving his lips and prancing around. I slipped out of bed. Mr. Kindt was waiting for me in the hallway.
My aunt, I said.
Ah, said Mr. Kindt. Well, I’m very sorry to interrupt. I just stopped by to see if you were interested in having a smoke. I was just sitting in my room remembering my Plato and thinking about justice and right conduct and so forth. I thought you might be interested in discussing it.
Well, any other time, I said, pointing back into my room, where Aunt Lulu was still sitting by the bed, still mumbling.
Of course, said Mr. Kindt. I suspect you are very happy to see her. What is her name?
Lulu.
That’s interesting.
I raised my eyebrows, flared my lips a little, and started back into the room.
One just wonders where all the wreckage gets piled, he said, where the dump trucks of history, as it were, unload the corpses they have accumulated, that they will keep accumulating. Right conduct or wrong, when a just or unjust man helps a friend or harms an enemy, the end result, if it is in any way remarkable, ends up in the dump truck. Everything else gets ground under the wheels.
That’s a little grim, I said, pausing at the door.
Oh, but it is grim, Henry, Mr. Kindt said. It’s very grim.
I squeezed Mr. Kindt’s arm, smiled apologetically, and went back into the room. I managed to slip back into my bed without disturbing Aunt Lulu. It was strange to see her sitting there, strange and somehow reassuring. It was part of our curious fate, Mr. Kindt had said to me that very afternoon, that we should so readily keep company with our most resilient horrors.
As I thought about this and looked at her, a familiar image came to mind, of Aunt Lulu and a friend playing pinochle. It was the week of Halloween and I was sitting on the little rocker in the corner looking at them through the poorly cut rubber eyeholes of a Creature from the Black Lagoon mask. My face stung. It was also hot. Every now and then I would growl and lift my arms. They both had on smeared costume makeup. Neither of them spoke. Earlier they had sent me out into the backyard with a trowel to “dig for the devil.” A cracked Coke bottle lay dripping in the middle of the floor where my father had thrown it. Before he left, for good as it turned out, he had come out to the backyard, taken the trowel from me, and told me first that he was going to go try to find my mother and second about a soda shop in the Bronx where ice-cold Coke ran nonstop out of a spigot attached to the wall.
I yawned, leaned back against my pillows, looked at the clock: Job wouldn’t be back for a while. Aunt Lulu was still mumbling. She had once attended a church that encouraged its members to speak in tongues. She had not forced me to attend, but she had tried to teach me the proper technique. I went around the house after her lesson talking with my tongue sticking out. When I spoke in tongues to her, she pinched my ear and told me it wasn’t something that was supposed to be done casually. Mumbling was fine though. There was a good deal of it around our household. Aunt Lulu liked to mumble to her cats. She also liked to sit in the kitchen, slightly hunched forward, and mumble to herself. Like she was doing now. Like she had been doing that day when I had stood in the doorway and, well aware that she had poured enough vodka and orange juice down her throat onto the palmful of Halcion she swallowed every day to take out a small stegosaurus, watched her head droop slowly downward toward her plate of macaroni and cheese.
After a while she took a deep breath, put her hands on her knees, and looked up.
They tell me you’re in trouble, boy.
It’s not that bad, Aunt Lulu.
That’s a lie, boy.
I’m not lying to you, Aunt Lulu. They’re doctors—they exaggerate. I’m getting good help. I’ve got friends here. It’s under control.
I watched her take this in, turn it around once or twice, then forget it.
I’m leaving now, boy. I just came to tell you I’m not paying for you to live like a dog and do more bad things and lie in a hospital bed reading books.
Good-bye, Aunt Lulu, I said.
Good-bye, boy, she said. She smacked me again, not so hard this time. Then stood and walked out.
FIFTEEN
My ears still ringing, I put the note in my pocket and walked across the park to Mr. Kindt’s. On my way, I stopped to watch some kids slugging it out over access to an open swing. It was a pretty good fight, as far as fights involving small kids go—there were actually some punches thrown and a couple of kicks—and I was a little sorry when a tall woman with a large mouth and hands the size of coffee cakes came over and broke it up. For a second it occurred to me to say something to her, to tell her to relax a little, let
the kids fight, a swing, for God’s sake, was worth fighting about, but then I realized I was about to pass out. I went over to a bench and sat very still, then leaned over and put my head between my knees, then, when I felt a little better, sat up and sneezed.
You’ve got blood all over your face and shirt, said a green-haired, well-pierced woman walking by with a three-legged wrinkle-faced dog.
I know, I just got murdered, I said.
She looked at me, the golden hoop in her right eyebrow rising significantly.
What’s your dog’s name? I said.
He doesn’t have a name.
Does he bite?
Yes, he probably does.
Look, I’m in an interesting line of work. If I had a business card, I’d give you one, I said.
Yes, she said. I bet you would.
Can I have your number?
No.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see a woman and a young girl tilting and gently shaking what I realized was a kind of trap when I saw two mice fall out of it onto the soft dirt next to an evergreen.
What you see in this city, I said.
Every day, the woman with the three-legged dog said.
Then I left the park and went to Mr. Kindt’s.
Oh, let’s get you cleaned up, he said.
When we were out of the bathroom and sitting over cups of Lapsang souchong in the living room, he asked me how the meeting had gone. I said it had gone well. My head felt like someone had started a lobotomy on it, and I felt like throwing up, but otherwise it had been very pleasant and extremely informative.
I don’t know her terribly well myself, but Cornelius recommends her highly, Mr. Kindt said.
I can see why he does.
I’ve had the privilege of seeing her at her work. She’s very good. She is able to lull her victims into acquiescence merely, it seems, by speaking to them.
She’s bald, I said.
I watched the corners of Mr. Kindt’s mouth rise then fall, but just slightly. We sipped at our tea. Mr. Kindt asked me if, in light of the meeting, that is, he said, in light of being insulted by a beautifully, if artificially, proportioned young woman and getting shot at by same with a blank plus paint pellet in the face, I was interested in committing further murders. I told him that I was on again that very night.
