Skunk Hunt

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "Oh great, the muff meisters," Yvonne said in disgust.

  "Don't knock it 'til you try it," Monique shot back.

  "Right after I try arsenic," said Yvonne.

  "Hey, Sweet Tooth," Jeremy half-laughed (the other half was a sob). "Flint just told us he offed your old buddies. Isn't that a work of shit?"

  "Oh," said Barbara.

  "A real Picasso," said Monique. Truly, sexy and educated. Just like Juliette Frette.

  "Let me explain," said Flint. "You are here because you saw a hole in Vern's story. Those two stooge friends of yours didn't live long enough to solve it. Sweet Tooth, you want to come over and sit next to your old Flint? And you darling…what's your name? You can take the other side…here…" He patted the vacant spot.

  Barbara came forward, but Monique, with her active rumpus radar, foresaw trouble and held her back.

  "We'll pass. So what about our two friends?"

  "They were still thinking of the Brinks money. That's what I think. We didn't do much talking."

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "I was waiting for you here," Flint said, adding a thick cough for emphasis, or necessity. "I thought you'd all figured out where Whacko was and had gone to dig him up. I wanted to be here to explain things when you got back."

  "Explain what?" Monique asked.

  "He killed Dr. Whacko, too," I told her.

  "Who the hell is Dr. Whacko?"

  "Later," I said.

  "Right," said Flint. "If you want the story, I have to tell the tale."

  A collective blink greeted this news.

  "I was waiting here, like I said, to tell you the tale, and instead of you I get two pricks walking in. The little guy holds a gun on me and the big guy says, "So where is it?"

  "But they knew where the Brinks money ended up," Todd said. "The house in the West End. We had just told them, and they came straight here anyway."

  "Guess they didn't believe you," Flint said. "Maybe someone planted a bee in their bonnet. How about it, Sweet Tooth?'

  "We all thought it was just money," my sister squeaked, clutching at a non-existent bib around her throat. "I mean, not just money. A lot of money…" She took a deep breath. "We didn't know about any body until Mute dug up that foot."

  "Anybody?" Flint looked confused.

  I held up three fingers.

  "What's that, a multiple flip-off?" Michael asked, still brushing pillow-dust off his head.

  "Three crimes," I said. "I mean, there are three crimes that we're concerned with—besides all the others." I summoned a smarmy glare to let them know I was letting them off the hook for all the crimes they had committed against me. I reserved my harshest look for Sweet Tooth. Where had the $20,000 from the pump house gone? I continued: "It's not so complicated. The Brinks money? Accounted for. The disappearance of Dr. Whacko? Solved. But do any of you remember Vern saying what happened with the jewels from the Bildass robbery? No."

  When I beheld all the bland faces staring at me, I blushed.

  "Oh..."

  "Yeah, 'oh'," yawped Jeremy, momentarily forgetting his dread.

  "We all thought of it," added Yvonne. She should switch her allegiance to the real Jeremy. She had his snottiness down pat.

  Slow out of the gate again, I thought. The problem with being learning-impaired is the difficulty with learning about your impairment. As soon as I caught up, I found myself behind again. Achilles had the same problem with the tortoise.

  "You think Dad hid the jewels here?" I said lamely

  "You didn't really shoot Whacko, did you?" Jeremy said, looking closely at the gun shaking in Flint's hand. "Why would you do that? He wasn't anything to you."

  "People on the Hill used to stick up for each other," Flint said sadly. "We beat the crap out of each other day and night, but we didn't allow outsiders into our business. We even roughed up the dogcatchers when they showed their face, which wasn't too often."

  True that. In my childhood, Oregon Hill swarmed with dog packs, cat packs, rat packs and feral human packs.

  "I knew Skunk's business. We all did. It was part of the community. We were always getting rooked by the cops, Skunk most of all. We couldn't do much except keep our mouths shut. But along comes Whacko, a real university mutt. I met him plenty of times. He would come over here to pry Skunk out of my den. Didn't like him much, didn't like him at all, and then I hated his guts. He said I was a prime specimen. He wanted my blood for his doo-waw test tubes. I said no thanks, I'd already given enough blood for my country. Then Skunk tells me this nuthead is blackmailing him, that he was forcing him to scatter his kids to kingdom come to save them from his blood-lust. Aw, I knew Skunk was worried about his own ass, too. I knew about the Glass Heads—Skunk was a boastful bastard that way. But seeing Whacko break apart the McPherson clan like that got my goat. Then one day he comes over to my place and starts threatening Skunk with the cops. That was one goat too many. I told him to hold on a minute, and him not thinking we were dangerous or anything, what a dummy, and I went into my locker and pulled out my trusty Bess and walked back in the den and he just stood there, acting big, thinking I was just trying to scare him off, and he got a little surprise. Pretty messy, come to think of it."

  "What did Skunk say?" I asked after a minute. A long minute.

  "Oh, he just said, 'Well, there it is, I guess we'd better clean this all up.' He was going to let me do the honors, but Mother came in and made him get off his lazy ass. She even had him using a mop!" Flint's mirth at the memory almost made him pee in his pants.

  "So it was...sort of self defense?" Jeremy ventured. "But I'm not threatening you. See?" He held out his empty hands. Flint pretended not to see or hear.

  "Just like your two friends, the way I see it," Flint asserted to Barbara and Monique.

  "You told them the Brinks money was in my room?" I said, truly annoyed. "Then they'd think I had known all along where it was."

  "What, you're embarrassed 'cause they'd think you'd been lying to them?"

  "Kinda," I admitted. "Believe it or not."

  "There are two types of folks," Flint orated. "One you always lie to, and the other you never tell the truth to. And these were both types, so there's no shame and only common sense in showing them up."

  "But not killing them," said Monique darkly. A lowlife would not take it kindly to having someone killing a pair of lowlifes, especially when the killer was the original lowlife trademark. "You know, Dog was just an actor."

  "Dog?" Flint said.

  "That was the little guy's nickname."

  "Well, he acted himself into an early grave. He was sure as shootin' planning to shoot me, so far as I could tell. And that big fella, he had a gun, too, but he was too full of himself to take it out. Not until it was too late. He must've thought his lard-butt was bullet-proof."

  "But where was your gun?" Todd asked. Like me, he was finding it hard to picture how it had all gone down.

  "You couldn't hide something like that in your belt," I said. "It's too heavy."

  "You're right about that," Flint said, shaking his head. "As soon as I pulled this sucker out my waistband my pants fell down. "Y'see, there are great advantages to being a decrepit old warthog. Folks think you're feeble, that you're gone in mind and body. If those two had made me lead the way up the stairs, they would've seen Bess bulging out like a backward pecker. But they didn't want me to get a jump on them, I reckon. Like throw the loot out of the window or something. They just told me to follow them, or they'd shoot me."

  "So when you got to the top—"

  "I shot them." He paused. "Believe you me, it's embarrassing to think the last sight they take to eternity is me with my drawers down."

  If this was all true—and it was difficult to conceive a different scenario—then there was nothing we could do but acquiesce to the killings. I looked at Monique, waiting to hear a protest. Her silence gave the story all the plausibility it needed.

  "But why did you bring a gun if all you were go
ing to do was tell us about Dr. Whacko, and how he came to be buried in that drive-in?" asked Yvonne, gnawing for details.

  "For the same reason I brought it today." He nodded at Jeremy. "To plug up his wide open asshole."

  "Aw crap," said Jeremy.

  "Yeah, let me see some of that crap. Cm'on, just a dribble. Maybe a few crusty turds, just for your ol' Uncle Flint."

  "Uncle!" I said mockingly. Tagging familiar neighbors with paterfamilial and matriarchalfamilial monikers was habitual on old Oregon Hill, where there was a good chance it could turn out to be true. Grandpa down the street might very well be your grandpa, even if he didn't share your last name. But I had never heard an affectionate avuncularation applied to Flint.

  "You heard me," said Flint.

  "Don't try to tell us you're Skunk's brother," Michael cried out in frustration. It was only then that I noticed he was balled up in the chair, so fetal he could have shit and barfed at the same time. The gun wasn't even aimed at him, and he was petrified. I recalled his reaction to the rifle shots on Route 6 and compared it to Jeremy's reasonably stoic performance of the moment. Jeremy might beg for his life, but he was not going to shit in his pants, no matter what. He had the McPherson family jewels, all right.

  "No way," Flint laughed.

  "Wait!" I said loudly. "You said Penrose wanted your blood, too? Why's that?"

  "I'm Skunk's father."

  "Last name, please," said Todd.

  "It's Dementis," I answered. "Dementis. As in 'demented'."

  "That's right, and I bear it with honor. Speaking of which, that's what I won in 'Nam. The Big One."

  "You won the Metal of Honor!" Michael scoffed nervously, not that he knew much about courage.

  "That's 'Medal', chowhead," said Flint. "The metal's in my head."

  "And you're saying you changed your name—" I began.

  "Hell no, your father changed his name. Think about it. He had a helluva prison record. Couldn't get a job. Couldn't vote. Couldn't get food stamps, for some bullshit reason. Maybe they wanted to starve him into submission. On top of it, Vernon Baldwin couldn't get him a job in a jewelry store, but that's only because no one wanted to hire someone who looked like Satan incarnate."

  If anyone looked like Satan at that moment, it was Flint.

  "Right, like we're not Irish," I vented.

  "Oh, some Irish, sure. You're also a little bit Greek, and uh..." Flint paused. "And a little bit wood pile."

  "Ugh!" said Michael, clutching his chest, a feeling some of us shared. The old Oregon Hillers had loathed blacks with a vengeance, but there was more than an ounce of black blood in our veins. Chalk it up to human relations.

  "I think," Flint quickly amended.

  "And after all that hassle with the legal system to change his name to McPherson—he got the name off a memorial brick down at Tredegar—does he go for a job? Once. Maybe twice. Then he threw up the whole business and rousted some pimp in Jackson Ward. Pretty ballsy, when you think about it."

  "You're lying," I said.

  "Think about it. All those times he was let out of jail, when he was way past three strikes. Should have been a lifer from the get-go. But a bunch of those wardens have a soft spot for old heroes."

  Immodesty becomes the demented and deformed, I thought sadly, and held my peace.

  "As soon as I went in front of the parole board and did my song and dance, those fellows just melted away. 'Let him go!' they said. 'His father's a fucking hero!'"

  "Criminy!" shouted Barbara. And she actually fell to her knees.

  "Would you get up!" I shouted. "Your own grandfather tried to rape your ear! Don't kneel to him!"

  "Oh, right," said Barbara, and scrambled to her feet.

  "Runs in the blood," Flint said sheepishly.

  "So...I'm...a...Demento?" Todd stuttered, justifiably horrified.

  "Dementis. That's right."

  "There you go," said Jeremy with false lightness. "You can't shoot your own kith and kin."

  "Says who?" Flint said. "It's the most common form of murder."

  "Man..." said Jeremy with a shake of his head, as though to say, 'You aren't going to buy this Buick, are you?'

  "If you're Skunk's dad, why did you say 'uncle'?" asked Yvonne, probably scrolling through some mental police blotter.

  "I only said 'uncle' because..." He licked the his scarified lips. "A man can be an uncle and a grandpa. I keep thinking about my twin brother—"

  "Ah!" Todd yelled. "Stop!"

  "Folks said Skunk was my spitting image," Flint mused on, changing the subject without changing course. "Shave a few years off, and I would've been—"

  "Ah!" I yelled. "Stop!"

  "Reginald was my twin's name," he said. "He drowned at a K-Mart when he was three."

  "How can you drown at a K-Mart?" Michael asked tightly, as though he had drawn up his sphincter to his mouth.

  "Mother said he was trying to steal some goldfish from the pet department."

  "He drowned in a fish bowl?"

  "It was a big bowl. And he was small." Flint began digging through his trouser pocket. It was a laborious process. The gun in his other hand zigged back and forth, the target shifting with every movement. Jeremy, then me, then Michael, then me again, then Todd, then Barbara.... "Vern told me the head games he was playing with you, Mute. He was planting money every which where. Seed money, he said, to get you going. He'd get you thinking it was part of the Brinks loot, and you'd be hot to check the hiding place. I dug most of that hole in Bartow, by the way. Mother wasn't around to smack Skunk's lazy ass."

  "You mean you…could've told him about the body at any time?"

  "Whacko was just a body," Flint said. "Even Skunk didn't know it was worth anything until a couple years ago, but he didn't tell me about no reward. I reckon he didn't dig it up himself 'cause his ol' pappy might go to jail." He narrowed an eye at me. "He trusted you, though."

  We swayed back and forth like bent pendulums as we strained to avoid becoming accidental victims. Todd and Michael were moaning and groaning. The weaker halves.

  "We found out...what Vern was...up to," I gasped, twisting sideways. "Why would he...tell you?'

  "Once I told him I knew the Brinks money was gone, he decided I must know more than I was saying. He thought I might know where the jewels were and save himself the trouble of bothering you. Save the money, too. How much did he tuck away for you to find?"

  A cool $70,000, less the $20,000 from the pump house Barbara had stolen from me and the $50,000 from the farm Yvonne had confiscated under false pretences. I mumbled something. No sense telling him I had made a whopping Zero out of all this.

  "Ever wonder where that money came from?" Flint managed to say, even though he was sticking out his tongue as he strained to reach deeper into his pocket.

  "I figured...it was his own. He's well off—"

  "Insurance," said Flint. "First for the car wreck on that morning Skunk and Winny got theirs."

  "Insurance?" Yvonne asked from behind a drawn knee.

  "Vernon and his family physician exaggerated that little scratch on his face. And then there was the claim for damages at the Ice Boutique. But most of that bait was reward money."

  "We're waiting for an explanation," I said after a moment.

  "The Glass Heads couldn't be robbing jewelry stores every week. They had to make up for slack times. Once Vern's musicians got out, they hooked up with their old crime buddies again. When they needed cash, they would hand over the names of their friends to Vern and claim part of the reward, minus Vern's service fees."

  "Why him? Why not keep...all the money themselves?"

  "So the friends of the friends wouldn't know who the real snitch was and come after him. They could honestly say they never said a word to the cops. Pretty sweet, really. Using crime to make crime pay."

  "Did Skunk ever...?" I began.

  "Turn anyone in? Don't know, but so long as it wasn't anyone from the Hill, it didn't matter."

&n
bsp; "So the money Vern gave me was blood money."

  "Don't take it too hard," Flint said.

  "I don't plan to give it back," said Sweet Tooth.

  "Good girl."

  "Well...I already spent it on a doctor...to get rid of my helicopters."

  "Huey's?" Flint said, alerted by a key word.

  "You're not whacking off, are you?" Monique hissed, turning her curves this way and that as Flint plowed through his trousers.

  "If I get shot now, after all this..." Yvonne, in no position to dodge a bullet, scrunched deeper into her chair, until it looked like I was a proud owner of a piece of modern art: Overstuffed Moldy Bun #1.

  All the bobbing and weaving loosened my tongue.

  "So Sweet Tooth...where did you disappear to...after you stole my share of the pump house money?"

  "I told you. I went...to the doctor. Someone without insurance pays an arm and a leg."

  What a cheapskate Carl had been. He had dealt in arms and legs. He could have allowed Barbara to take out the fee in trade.

  "He gave me medicine for my helicopters," Barbara concluded.

  "Helicobacter pylori, ninny," Monique fumed breathlessly as she scooted out of one line of fire, then the next. Calling your perverted spouse a ninny was not grounds for divorce, but it did not bode well for their marriage. Happy days.

  "Are you cured?" I asked Barbara, hopping up when Flint aimed the gun at my foot.

  "I don't know. He said...there would be one or two explosions, then the crap would be gone forever."

  "How do you...feel now?"

  "Not too...good."

  Music to my ears. We had a potent weapon, if only we could find a way to use it without wiping out half of mankind. But I had forgotten that Flint was already aware of the secret doomsday device, having suffered through Barbara's Alamogordo in his own bathroom. He keenly perceived the threat, and dug more frantically into his pocket. Finally, he found what he was looking for and pulled it out. The gun stopped its idiotic peregrinations and settled once again on Jeremy, who must have been kicking himself for not taking the opportunity to jump out the window. Maybe he was curious as to what lay hidden in Grandpa's pocket.