Without life’s miseries I doubt the titties would be so lovely.
That’s all of everything. The big wide picture.
And if I look at one inch of the big picture and ignore the rest, reality resolves and I see the only two scenes that matter.
Abraham Church killed Corazon and Chicago Mags.
“Been you the whole time.”
“I am what I am.”
“Things is rarely what they ain’t. The motel woman tell me about her sixteen year old daughter, Gloria. You killed her and her friends.”
Church’s head bounces small, like you got to look to see each jiggle. I bet behind that dozer blade he’s beat to shit. He rest his head on the metal edge and don’t answer.
“And you try to do the same with Tat and Corazon. See the black hair and you figure — ”
“No. Nghhghghgt.” He spits. “No. She came after me. She was going to murder me.”
“That’s on account you’re a pervert likes to fuck kids. Entirely justifiable and got nothin’ to do with what you did to them other girls.”
“That’s what the FBI told me,” Church say. “She chose her victims on the Internet and that’s how they picked me to wait for her. They had guys like me in six towns. Stakeout in each house every night for a week.”
“Ambushes.”
“So they could arrest her in the act of attempted murder.”
“And when they didn’t you decided to kill her back.”
“It fit.”
“It fit what?”
“Me.”
“Say more.”
“There’s a market for bodies. I sell them.”
“Sold.”
“A distinction with merit,” says I.
Rolls his eyes. “She would have come back for me.”
“That’s true. You don’t poke a stick at some people. You see that now, accourse?”
He float his gaze to my face and I bet if I was inside his head the world’d be lookin’ pretty fuzzy.
“Was risky, you goin’ after her. FBI and police was trackin’ the whole thing.”
“She said she knew everything,” says Church.
“What everything?”
“Everything I did. My whole operation. She looked like the other girls. I thought she was with the others, somehow. Looking for revenge.”
“Well I guess she was at that. Just she was with the girls you rape and not the girls you tear apart and sell. It’s real good we’re havin’ this conversation. So that’s the whole business. Make people into bodies and sell ’em. What they call the vertical integration in the business books.”
He look at me.
“I read.”
“That’s not true. Most of our bodies are sourced according to the rules.”
“What rules?”
“The Organ Procurement and Transplant Network has a rulebook. It was on the wall you drove through.”
“I guess it’s real good someone wrote the rules.” Spit, and too late realize I coulda spit on Abe Church. Next time. “How you do it? With Corazon and the car?”
“I knew the FBI didn’t have what they wanted on her and that they’d release her without charging.”
“How you know that?”
“The way it went down. They had agents in the back while your girl was trying to be smart with me on the couch up front. One of the agents sneezed and your girl ran. She never did anything illegal. They had to cut her loose.”
Fact she’s dead and at the hand of a man she didn’t do nothin’ illegal to… kinda grab me by the short hairs.
“When the police released Corazon my nephew called Frank on the cell. Bunny and Bambi waited up the street. Frank watched from his truck with binoculars and followed while they stole the Mustang and when they finally parked it for the night, he told the girls where.”
“And that’s all.”
“He had Bambi put a tracker on it, and a small charge of C4 on the steering column.”
“C4. How the fuck you get C4?”
“I can sell you some.”
“Un fuckin’ real. Bambi does C4 work.”
“Her dad raced cars and she grew up in the shop. Have her tune your Caddy before you kill her.”
“We talkin’ the same girls? Them skanks from the bar, led me out to the Ryder?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They play dumb real good.” I let the explanation settle out and fill the cracks.
“You know Baer, you don’t have to play it this way.”
“Pretty sure I do.”
“No, listen. We can work together.”
“Well let me say somethin’ I just thought of. If Frank Lloyd says I shoulda been in the Mustang, that means you and them was gonna sell my body too.”
Abraham look down but his gaze bounce back. “The fact is still the fact. Did you kill Frank Lloyd?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did — you’re a thousand times better. He had the drop on you twice and failed. You’re exactly what I need. So back this bulldozer off me and we’ll explain this whole mess easy enough. The Caterpillar brake didn’t work. That’s all. Then we form a partnership. Legitimate and legal. Papers drawn the right way — ”
“One more thing I’m curious ’bout.”
Broke him out the dream where everything turns out okay.
“What thing?”
“Where you get bodies to sell? The ones you don’t kill.”
“Regular people.”
“You just take ’em? Ain’t no use lyin’, Abraham. You know it and I do too, so let’s just say everythin’ truthful the first time.”
“Most folks we just tell them they get a free cremation if they donate their bodies to science.”
“A free cremation for donating their body to — you mean donate the ashes? To science to study the ashes?”
“No. Their body.”
“And you sell the parts.”
“I sell them through my other company, Vail Body Broker. I run it out of Eagle.”
“You run Vail Body Broker out of Eagle, Colorado?”
“I couldn’t name it Eagle Body Broker. Eagles are protected.”
“That was good thinkin’, but you don’t see the bullshit?”
“What bullshit?”
“You never cremate the body. You offer the free cremation but folks got to get their parts sawed up and shipped out first. You only cremate what you can’t sell.”
“So?”
“It’s a fuckin’ lie.”
Woman in the other room hear me raise the voice. She look up.
“You’re good. Just another minute, sweet Delma.”
Shit!
Church got a pistol up over the dozer blade — but he can’t get the wrist bent to aim it. I back away the other side a hair and level Smith.
“You want a bullet in the wrist? Or maybe just drop the gun?”
He open his fingers and the gun slips out his hand. Clang twice and no more.
“You know, Alden, it’s a hell of a lot easier to get what you want when you’re willing to see the world my way.”
“Almighty didn’t make the world for lies. You see ’em like I do. How is it possible in the fabric of the sensible world you and me ain’t allies in the good fight?”
“Why?” Church says
“Because you see the truth.”
He smirks. “It’s a hell of gift. Get anything you want.”
I don’t comprehend. It’s like he said the dragon soup is purple not four. He sees the love and respect and choose the hate and mayhem.
He choose it.
“I can understand a man does wrong and don’t know it. You call him out and he’ll feel like shit and mend his ways. Maybe backslide and maybe he don’t change at all. But at least he knows he fucked up and done wrong. He don’t change but he don’t escape the guilt neither. That’s the way it’s suppose to be, doin’ wrong. But you do it knowin’ full well. I can’t get the brain around it.”
Blood from a
cut on his noggin finally start flowin’ down his face, now his head rest on the blade agin.
Abraham Church says, “Good men do good things because they look like good men doing good things. They feel good with their honor all bright and shiny. But a man with no honor to begin with…”
“Why do good things?”
He nods and his chin hit the metal so he stops.
Church says, “Why is taking care of other people a higher value? Why is it worth more than taking care of myself?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. And you don’t either.”
“But I got time to noodle it.”
He let the wind out his lungs. “Yes you do.”
“Abraham, I need one thing. Them girls, Bambi and Boobs.”
“Bunny.”
“Ahh. Where I find ’em?”
Church smiles. “You aren’t persuaded by my other points?”
“Where I find the girls?”
Church shakes his head like to deny me but the Almighty moves his mouth and pushes air through his pipes and the words come out agin his desire.
“They live in the trailer court you see on the way to Carbondale. On 82.”
I climb back up on the dozer. Fire the gas engine, then the diesel. Exhaust fumes is still heavy inside and it’s time to back this beast out.
But first I push the hydraulic lever and the blade tilts forward. Church twist his head and barely get his chin over the blade agin and for two inches that’s a good thing. But the blade keep tiltin’ farther and pressin’ Church’s neck agin the wall. Meat and bone give and after a second the flesh rips — gash fills with blood so fast I all but quit watchin’ ’til Abraham Church’s head rolls over the blade and a single squirt of blood hits the wall afore his body drops behind and his neck paints the blade instead.
I meant to say some nice words to give him comfort, but I suspect he’s already over his disappointment.
Chicago Mags
I fold a leg. Realize both hands is cupped over my mess but if I move ’em that’ll draw more attention and she’ll know I was a pervert the whole time.
“Your brother, the one who tried to kill you — have you spoken to him lately?”
“Day he died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“I sent him forward.”
“That’s almost how I think of it too, but not forward in time so much as forward in experience. Do you think your brother deserved to die?”
“Don’t know. Use to.”
“What changed?”
“You.”
“How so?”
“You got me thinkin’. Ever since you hitch a ride. I wasn’t thinkin’ right afore that night, let alone since. The day my brother Larry try to kill me I kicked his balls so bad they broke. He was a mule and knew it was my doin’.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“The stuff he did later…”
She crosses hands. “I’m not going to finish the thought for you.”
“I set that in motion. I killed my brother ’cause he did shit I set in motion.”
Mags frowns and spends a good fifteen count studyin’ clouds.
“What did Larry do before you kicked him?”
“That’s when we was fighting after school. He said our mother was a whore.”
“Was she?”
Nod.
“What do you think about that?”
“I’m glad. We ate.”
“Your brother provoked you?”
“Some. Yeah, that’s right.”
“Isn’t he as culpable in his death as you?”
“Logical.”
“And the others….”
Tilt the head like I don’t know whether my left ear weighs more or the right. It ain’t a revelation. “I know what they did. But they didn’t make me do what I did.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I chose.”
“How?”
“I thought.”
“You thought? You questioned whether or not to kill? You reviewed the reasons pro and con and arrived at a studied opinion?”
“Well shit.”
“Baer, is it possible you thought about how to kill them, not whether to kill them?”
“It was a fairly creative moment.”
“At what level of consciousness did you arrive at the decision to kill them?”
I’m blank. The sidewalk don’t got the answer.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Feel bad ’bout leavin’ the dozer at the funeral home but it’s a chance for someone else to do good. Just a couple more positive things I want to see about.
I roll down the window. Man in a white jacket lockin’ the back door of the Vail Body Brokers Incorporated. Sign say VBB Inc.
“You the manager here?”
“We’re closed for the day, sir.”
“I got a special delivery.”
“I’ll have to ask you to bring it — ”
“Chester A. DeChurch.”
“What? What about Mr. DeChurch?”
“Mister DeChurch the boss here, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you do his biddin’? Or does he run the day to day operations?”
“What does this pertain to? I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”
“I’m Baer Creighton. I need to hear something, but I didn’t hear it.”
“Just who are you? Do you represent somebody?”
Well shit. I’ll be —
“Might say I do.”
Alla sudden I feel scrappy like I might invite this skinny dipshit for a donnybrook here on the blacktop. But with the busted arm I got to play it safe.
“I’m leaving for the day,” says the manager. “You can take up whatever issues you — ”
“Chester Abraham DeChurch got a severe issue. Let’s see what he got to say.”
Exit the Eldorado and pop the trunk. “Can you see? Or you need to come closer?”
“What? Where is Mr. DeChurch? Are you saying you have him? You mean you are in physical possession — ”
“Right here. Now I need to know afore you get to talk to Church, how much of the day to day ’re you responsible for?”
“Mr. DeChurch? Are you in there?”
He come stompin’ now like he found his nuts. He ain’t yet seen Smith on my hip and as I shift the right side away to protect the broke arm, he won’t either. Got the holster slung backwards so I can cross draw with my left.
Manager’s at the trunk.
“Oh, God! Is that him? WHERE IS HIS HEAD?”
He turn away from the trunk and see Smith in his face.
“How much of the day to day you do here?”
“Mister DeChurch does everything. He doesn’t trust — didn’t trust anyone. He said you never know when someone’s lying… and so he did everything himself. And I only just started. I started two weeks ago and I think I’m going to quit. Better opportunities in Portland. That’s where my mother is from. And my wife and children. Three small children who would grow up fatherless. On welfare. Oh please mister — ”
He’s throwin’ so much juice and red I’m like to make fruit punch. And it occurs, that electric don’t sting at all like it useta.
“Surely that ain’t all,” says I. “Don’t you support your disabled mother? Veteran of the war?”
“No, my mother wasn’t a veteran. But I do help her out with cash.”
“I thought so. Otherwise who’s gonna make all them apple pies?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sounds right. Folk lie all day and you call ’em on it, they don’t understand. Nobody suppose to call out the bullshit. Well, I got a lesson for you. Not you in particular, as you’ll see in a minute. No use. But I got a lesson in general. From this day on you might expect your lies to be called. That or a bullet in the back.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means shut the fuck up. What your name?”
“Richard.”<
br />
“You sure?”
“What? That’s my birth — ”
“I think your name’s Dick.”
“Dick is fine. Perfectly fine. I go by Dick all the time.”
“Dick, none of this shit’s real. Don’t worry too much.”
“What?”
“What I said. Now listen. Chester Abraham Church DeChurch, this fella here in the trunk with no noggin, says he wants you to sell his stupid assed body all over the world.”
“I… uh…”
“You uh. Here’s the deal. I know the corporate structure of the Vail Body Broker Inc. You see that bucket of gold by Mr. DeChurch’s — ”
“Did you trade his head for the gold, somehow?”
“Dick, you ain’t impressin’ me.”
“I promise to be more nuanced — ”
“Maybe try the truth instead.”
“That’s a great suggestion.”
“Now I already had the gold and like I say, I’m gonna own this VBB Incorporated in a couple day. I need DeChurch’s body to go away like all the others, and I want to profit from it. You understand?”
“I… think so…”
“Keep thinkin’ ’til you get an answer your nuts feel good about.”
“My nuts? Oh, I understand. You want the visceral answer. You want to know if I ran the operation for DeChurch, and if I would be capable of continuing to run the operation under new ownership. Is that the size of it?”
“That is exactly the size of it. Perfect size.”
“I can.”
“Your nuts feel good?”
“My nuts feel excellent.”
“And just so we’s clear. You got the connections to sell Church’s liver to one country and his kidney to the university, right. You know the ins and outs, what I’m sayin’.”
“Mister Creighton, did you say?”
Nod.
“Mister Creighton, Mister DeChurch knew almost nothing about the business. I approached him with the vision of what it could be and he bankrolled my vision. I’ve been at the center of this wheelhouse since day one. I am irreplaceable. Without me there is no Vail Body Brokers, Incorporated.”
The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6) Page 22
