by Rudy Yuly
“Consider the source.”
“There’s nothing you can tell me about Eddie and Joe Jones that I don’t already know. I’ve already taken about as much grief as I can stand for going down there in the first place and starting a workup. It’s just one piece of evidence—or it’s a piece of crap. We missed it. A halfwit janitor found it. But don’t you start jumping on my ass over it, too. Alright? We’ll do the workup and then probably forget about it, because there won’t be anything there. I’ll let you say I told you so once real good when we get there, okay? But meanwhile, just keep doing what you’re doing and back me up, alright? Just humor me on this.”
“Okay boss. You sure you don’t want me to call Eddie and have him do a little private investigation on the side?”
“Fuck you.”
Pinky laughed, genuinely this time. “Fuck you, too,” she said. “I’m right and you’re wrong.”
Chapter 42
Eddie lay perfectly still on the couch. LaVonne didn’t say anything. She just looked at him and adjusted his blanket. She noticed his eyes—almost feminine with their impossibly long lashes—fluttering under the lids.
Eddie heard the sound of running up the stairs, and then his mom was in the room. She slammed the door behind her and leaned against it. Her hair was all messed up, and it looked as though her nightgown was torn. She was breathing hard.
“Get out, boys,” she said. “Go through the window.”
Dad hit the door before anyone could move. The force knocked Mom to the floor, and Dad burst in.
He was standing over them all. He looked more than drunk. He looked crazy. And he was carrying a tiny little gun.
Joe was hysterical. “Dad!” he screamed. “Don’t hurt Mom! Please!” He pulled away from Eddie and ran to Mom, who was dazed. She’d hit her face when she fell. Joe tried to help her up.
Eddie was trying to figure out what to do, but his mind wouldn’t work fast enough. Dad grabbed at Joe to get him away from Mom. Eddie got up, not thinking, and started to pull on Dad from behind, as if to drag him from the room. Everyone was yelling.
Dad had Joe by the collar. “What’d you say?” he yelled into Joe’s contorted face.
“Don’t hurt me, Daddy,” Joe cried. “Please!”
“Damn it!” Dad said. “I’m not going to hurt you!”
Joe yanked away hard. Dad lost his grip. Joe fell, and Dad stumbled and almost fell on top of him. The gun went off. Joe fell limp, and blood started running everywhere from his head.
It got quiet.
“Oh my God,” Dad moaned. Mom was still in a daze. He glared at her. “You killed my boy,” he said quietly. He fell to his knees and cradled Joe in his arms. “Joey, Joey, Joey.”
Eddie was on the floor by the door. He felt Mom beside him, struggling to get to her knees.
“C’mon,” she whispered. She grabbed his hand and dragged him, crawling, toward the door.
“You’re not going nowhere!” Dad yelled. He twisted and grabbed at her nightgown, got enough of it to slow her down and grab her leg. Eddie stopped. He saw Mom turn and scream and kick at Dad.
Eddie kept going. He half fell, half ran down the stairs to the living room, and then down more stairs to the basement family room. He wanted to get as far away as possible.
The family room had a door, and he slammed it shut behind him. The door had a bolt lock, and he pushed it shut.
The television glowed behind him. Mom must have been watching it, waiting for Dad to come home.
Eddie looked at the TV, surprised. It was a huge, new color set. And a VCR. They’d been wanting one forever. Where had it come from?
Eddie walked over to the VCR and pushed the record button. A small red light came on.
The Sparkle Soda commercial was starting. Eddie looked at it, fascinated. Had he seen it before? It looked so normal, so wonderful. The colors were amazing. It was a whole new world.
Eddie heard a gunshot upstairs, and his heart stopped. Everything stood still. Only the television made any sound. The Sparkle commercial ended and the Shiny Gold commercial began. His Mom used Shiny Gold. The song was kind of stupid, but the colors were beautiful.
“If you’ve got a mess too big to hold, just grab a bottle of Shiny Gold,” the singers sang.
“It works, even when your messes are man-size!” the announcer said.
“Shiny Goooold,” the singers sang.
“Now that’s what I call clean!” the announcer said.
Another gunshot sounded upstairs.
Chapter 43
A lot of blood had splattered the room at the shelter, but it was a small square space—a simple job. If Eddie had been doing it, Joe would have suggested picking him up a couple of hours early.
In general, knife wounds were easier to clean up after than gunshot wounds. With a gunshot, blood could splatter all over the place, often producing tiny, farflung droplets that were hard to clean and harder to see. With knife wounds, the blood usually stayed on the floor; sometimes the walls, depending on how much the victim tracked the mess around.
These two guys had apparently just stood there and hacked it out until they both fell down on their beds and died. It didn’t get much easier than that.
Joe dragged the thin wrecked mattresses off the two ancient metalspring beds. He bagged them in thick, huge black plastic sacks and wrestled them into the hall. He’d drop them off with subcontractors specializing in biohazard disposal. That, at least, he knew how to do. He did it often. If it was a lot of stuff—mattresses, carpets, drapes—the subcontractors would pick it up at the jobsite. But these were two singles, and Joe wasn’t against saving a couple bucks by doing it himself. Soaked mattresses were hopeless, even for Eddie.
On rare occasions people would opt to have special things— drapes, or bedding—cleaned. It was expensive, with no guarantee of a satisfactory outcome. More often, they tried to save pricey rugs and carpets. Eddie could tell by looking whether it could be done. Usually it meant subcontracting the work. There were slow-working enzymes that could eat the blood out of nearly anything.
But most people wanted everything associated with the mess to be gone for good.
There were no rugs today. Only wood, a deeply finished oak that was a relatively easy surface to clean. If the varnish was sound and the seams were tight, you could basically wet-vac and wipe it up. This floor had been waxed often. On a difficulty scale of one to ten, it was a one.
Not that it was simple for Joe. Fifteen minutes into the job, he realized he’d been biting the inside of his cheek so hard it was bleeding. His urge to smoke was unbearable.
After a half hour, he felt nauseated and his head was pounding. The smell was horrible. It wasn’t the smell of death, but of the victims’ lives that got to him: cabbage, farts, vinegar, and old socks. Joe wondered if his house was going to smell like that someday.
An hour into the job, he gave up and lit a smoke. After that, he smoked one cigarette after another. He imagined the priest bursting into the room and ordering him to stop. Joe would tell him to go to hell and walk off the job. No one was going to deny him the only comfort available to him, not even some damn priest. He worked himself up playing the scenario out in his head over and over as he cleaned, but no one came around. In fact, the whole floor remained deserted.
Joe used the machines as much as possible. The noise helped some. The equipment couldn’t reach some places, though, which meant that he had to get down on his hands and knees and scrub.
He didn’t use Shiny Gold. That was Eddie’s fetish, not his. He couldn’t even stand the sight of a bottle. And the smell? Forget about it.
The longer he worked, the more his anger toward Eddie grew. He kept choking it down. His rage against life, against the priest, against these stupid old losers who killed each other, even against LaVonne for liking him. It all kept coming up and he kept choking it down. Of course, his blackest bile was for himself. He choked that down, too.
The waves of nausea kept get
ting worse. He finally barfed loudly into a cleaning bucket. There wasn’t much in his stomach, so it didn’t bring much relief.
When it was finally time for lunch, Joe went outside and sat on the curb by the van, smoking. He couldn’t have eaten if he’d wanted to.
After thirty minutes he trudged back upstairs, suited up again, and bullied himself for another five hours until the job was done, and done right.
Joe did his final checklist. It was an acceptable cleanup. He trudged downstairs and found the priest.
“I need you to sign off.” He held out a receipt.
“Of course,” the priest said. “Mind if I look around?”
Joe was sure he was going to get called on something, even though he’d done his best. If nothing else, the cigarette smell was probably going to get him in hot water.
“Sure, go ahead and take a look.”
After looking around the sad empty room for a few minutes, the priest turned and smiled at Joe wearily. “This is fine. Thank you. Where do I sign?”
Joe felt a wave of guilt as the priest scribbled his name. To him, it still felt like a room where something stupid and hideous had happened. When Eddie cleaned, it was always as though you were walking into a space that was brand new.
Joe turned and headed down the stairs with a load of gear. So. He’d proven it. He could do it. If he had to, he could do Eddie’s job.
He’d be damned if he was ever going to do it again.
But as he was loading the gear into the van, it hit him that he’d promised Detective Louis they’d do another little job tomorrow. Single head shot. Joe’s head dropped onto the steering wheel.
Joe and Eddie’s financial situation wasn’t that great. They’d had a few decent jobs recently, but not enough to live on for long. Joe had a thousand bucks or so in cash stashed in his dresser, and another couple thousand in the bank, but that wouldn’t last long. If Eddie couldn’t stay on track, couldn’t get his shit together, then Joe would have to find a new way to support them.
As far as tomorrow went…well, a promise was a promise. He was furious about it, though. If Eddie couldn’t make it, he’d have to do it. But that was it. After that, no more. If Eddie couldn’t get it together, Sparkle Cleaners was going to fold.
Joe slammed the back door of the van as hard as he could to punctuate the point. It bounced back and almost hit him. To add a final touch to this perfectly shitty day, Detective Bjorgeson drove up, parking her unmarked Crown Victoria behind the van as Joe was closing it up.
“You’re finishing up kind of late, aren’t you?” It was six-thirty. “I called the priest and he said you were still here. Where’s your boss?”
“Eddie wasn’t feeling too good today.” Joe struggled with the doors. It felt as though something might be bent.
“What’s wrong? He okay?”
Joe was too burned out to tell Pinky anything but the plain truth. “You got me,” he said. “He woke up with his head all banged up. Hurt himself sometimes.” He finally got the door to shut. He turned around and tapped out a Pall Mall, then held the package out in Bjorgeson’s general direction.
“People stopped smoking those about thirty years ago, Joe,” Pinky said.
“Whatever.”
Bjorgeson took one of the long, filterless cigarettes and lit up. “That’s strange. About Eddie, I mean.”
“Think so?”
“Did he run off again?”
“I d-d-don’t know, Detective,” Joe said, looking at her pale, inscrutable face for the first time. He gritted his teeth to keep from stuttering. “I’m really, really ready for today to be over.”
“Yeah, sure. Actually, I came by to give you some interesting news.” Bjorgeson looked at him hard. “That half a receipt Eddie found at the Red Lotus. I don’t know what possessed Louis—I thought it was useless—but the thing had a partial thumbprint on it, see? In the blood. Only visible in blacklight. He made me compare it against every victim in the place. Major pain in the ass, thank you very much. We had to go to the morgue for the prints.”
“Sorry for the trouble,” Joe said. He didn’t sound convincing.
“Yeah, well, it’s not called trouble when it’s something.”
“You l-lost me.”
“I thought the print maybe matched one of the victims. Louis disagreed—and he’s the boss. And he’s probably right. Since it was in blood it could have made by the shooter. Unless someone else just dropped in to watch. There’s not quite enough to run through the database—but if we ever get a solid suspect and it’s a match, it might end up being the most solid evidence we’ve got. That and some fibers we found under one of the victims fingernails.”
“So…it really was evidence?” Joe rubbed his face, hard. “Eddie found actual evidence?”
“Seems that way. Kind of blew me away.”
Joe looked at Bjorgeson and his throat went dry. “Oh shit. You feel like getting blown away again?”
Pinky just looked at him. Joe reached into his pocket, pulled out the rubber glove, and unfolded it carefully.
“I damn near forgot about this. I didn’t s-see how it could be anything. But, n-now I’m not so sure.” He gingerly held out the glove, the crumpled scrap of paper visible.
“Don’t fuck with me, Joe. You’re definitely not at your best when you’re trying to be funny.”
“I’m not in a funny mood. Eddie got coherent just long enough this morning to give me this. It’s another half a receipt. Also from the Goodwill. But get this. Eddie said he found it at the Silver house.”
“What?”
“He said he found it at the Silver house. That last m-m-multiple.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Just take it. I know it’s crazy. Do whatever you want with it. Maybe they’ve got cameras. It has a date and a time. And I think it might even have credit card info. Eddie’s no detective but he doesn’t tell lies. He’s not capable. If he says he found it in the Silver house he might have found it on M-m-mars, for chrissake. But he believes he got it at the Silver house—so maybe he did.”
Pinky reached out and took the glove like she was picking up a dead rat.
“You don’t think the same guy did both jobs, do you?”
Joe climbed into the van, shut the door, and rolled down the window. “I don’t think about shit like that, Detective. I’ve got enough problems of my own.”
“I don’t blame you.” Pinky gave Joe something like a conspiratorial smile. “So what do you want me to do with this?”
“That’s not my job, Detective. I’m just a cleaner, okay?” Joe blew smoke out the window.
Pinky sighed and looked at the lump in her hand like it was a piece of crap. Finally, she put it in the side pocket of her jacket. She shook her head. “You guys are something else, you know that? What are we going to do with you?”
Joe started the van.
Pinky forced a tight smile. “You still going to clean up that little head shot tomorrow?”
“Can’t afford not to. “ Joe blew more smoke in Pinky’s direction.
“Maybe I’ll come by and check on Eddie.”
“It’s a nice thought, but it’s n-n-not necessary.” Joe put the van in gear.
“Not so fast.”
“What now?” Joe sighed.
Bjorgeson dug in her pocket. “Here’s the twenty Louis owes you. He asked me to give it to you.”
“I told you he could forget about that.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t feel like it.”
“Fine. Thanks.” Joe took the bill, rolled up the window, and drove off.
Bjorgeson watched him go.
She pulled the blood-specked receipt out of her pocket. There was a partial account number on it. She looked shocked for a moment. How in the hell could this be possible?
Chapter 44
Eddie never moved. LaVonne could only sit there watching him for so long. One thing she’d always hated was hanging around doing nothing. The house was already clean.
No books. No magazines. She didn’t feel like spending another day in front of Joe’s tiny TV. She’d been doing her best to avoid talking to Vonelle about Joe, but the thick silence in the little house set her teeth on edge. LaVonne had a nearly irresistible urge to call the one person who knew her best and spill her guts about the weird way the relationship was unfolding—even though she knew she wouldn’t like hearing what Vonelle would have to say about it.
She sat down at the kitchen table, pulled out her cell and started to call, but put it down almost immediately. LaVonne stared at the phone for a minute, imagining the ten different and colorful ways Vonelle would say “I told you so.” Then she had an idea. She dialed 411.
“Seattle,” she said. “City parks department.”
It was a satisfying waste of time. After sitting on hold for fifteen minutes, getting transferred from person to person, being accidentally cut off and having to go through the whole thing again, then getting a totally different non-city number and going through a similar process there, she finally tracked down a real—and friendly—human being who told her gratefully and in detail how to sign Joe up to coach Little League.
It ate up a solid hour and made her feel a bit better.
When she looked in on Eddie he hadn’t moved a muscle “Sweet dreams, honey,” she said. Then she sighed, went upstairs, and made herself something to eat. Pretty much the only things she could find were bread, mayo, and tuna. She made a sandwich and ate it as slowly as possible.
By the time she’d finished and cleaned up, it was barely noon. LaVonne knew Joe and Eddie made it a practice to knock off at 5:00 p.m. Joe wouldn’t be home until 5:30 at the earliest. A long time to kill. She called Joe, but he wasn’t answering his cell.
LaVonne decided that it would be nice to make dinner for him when he got home. She’d already looked through the fridge and cupboards. The situation was bleak. She checked on Eddie again. Clearly, he wasn’t going anywhere. She decided it would be safe to go shopping. She had a couple of other quick errands she needed to do for herself. A couple hours away wouldn’t make a difference to Eddie—but it might keep her from going nuts.
