Dirtbags (3 page)

“No,” Calvin said. “No, I didn’t. I come over here because I want you to help me with this mess in Dallas. I want you to help me with that and maybe even a few other things, too.”

“What’s the mess in Dallas? You got to kill somebody?”

Calvin’s absence of an answer was more of an answer than necessary.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Phillip.

“Why?” Calvin looked both ways before he spoke. “Because I remember you back in school. I remember how you was and how you came in that day with that gym bag. I remember that look in your eye and could compare it with the look in your eye every other day I saw you at school, and it didn’t take much for me to realize what was in that gym bag. And I know if Principal Hostetler didn’t come up on us that morning, you were probably going to do something bad. Something very, very bad.”

Phillip said nothing. He held his coffee cup suspended between the countertop and his mouth and let hate burn through him.

“So that’s why I tell you,” Calvin said. “I remember that day clear as a bell, and I know you do, too, and I’ve long wondered what would have happened if I never ran across you that morning.”

“Me too,” Phillip growled. The cup shook in his hand.

“Now listen up,” Calvin said. “I aim to make a name for myself, and I think there are better ways to go about it than shooting up a school or a shopping mall or a Richmond disco-tech. I think there’s lots of things guys like you and me can do. This is our big chance.”

Phillip slammed the cup down to the counter. It ran thick as tar down the cabinet and to the linoleum. “My big chance? No sir, this is
your
big chance. Mine passed a long time ago.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.” Calvin took a couple steps closer. “I know you want to matter. Give these folks around this here shit town something to think about. You realize just how many birds you can kill with this here stone?”

Phillip looked to the wall. Hot water welled in the corner of his eye.

“What do you feel more than anything else?” Calvin asked quickly.

“Hate,” Phillip said, just as quick.

“Me too. It’s why I come here today. It’s why I think we don’t have qualms, you and me. Now what if we took all that hate bubbled up inside us and put it to good use? If we made a name for ourselves and maybe a little cash to boot?”

“If it were that simple,” Phillip said, “then you’d have done it a long time ago. And not need my help.”

“Maybe,” Calvin said. “Maybe rather I just needed a little push in the right direction.”

“How far you reckon to take it?” Phillip asked.

“We kill a woman for this guy, then maybe a few others.”

“A woman?”

“Yes,” Calvin said. “Guy wants me to knock off his ex-wife.”

“What do you mean a few others?”

“We’ll make a list,” he said. “Whoever we want. We’ll figure out a way to kill them that spreads some kind of message or something. Something eye-catching and maybe a few puzzles for the police to solve even. Then we’ll be famous.”

Phillip felt a small electricity within him, strange and alien, yet suddenly familiar. “You’re proposing . . . Your idea is that we become some kind of—?”

“Yeah.”

Phillip guffawed until tears formed in his eyes. He stopped when he saw Calvin wasn’t laughing.

“Hey genius,” he said, “serial killers don’t work in pairs. They’re loners and live by themselves. What kind of serial killer works with a team?”

“The Hillside Stranglers were a duo,” Calvin said, matter-of-factly. “The Copelands, Ray and Fay. They were old-timers—senior citizens—but they were a great team. Paul Ruiz and Earl Denton.”

“I ain’t never heard of them,” Phillip said.

“Yeah, they definitely didn’t do it right,” Calvin said, shaking his head. “And they were out in Arkansas and far from any major media markets. But don’t worry about that. I’ve got it covered.”

“Don’t you have to be crazy?” Phillip asked. “Like, a lunatic?”

“A minor detail that, if we work hard enough, we can overcome.” Calvin picked up the coffee and sniffed at it. He returned it to the floor by his feet, then said: “So can I see it?”

“See what?”

Calvin smiled and arched his eyebrows. “You know what. I want to see it. I know you still have it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do,” insisted Calvin. “The gym bag. I know you kept it. Let me see it.”

Phillip looked at Calvin. He’d long known that Calvin had the goods on him. He never knew when, but one day, he’d always felt Calvin would come calling, would bring it up. And here they were. How many years since high school? How many years of living six units down and passing on the tiny thoroughfares of the trailer park? Phillip knew, but had no idea it would be like this.

The gym bag was in his closet, beneath a stack of board games and musty, moldy T-shirts that had long been relegated to cleaning rags. Piled underneath enough shit but never completely forgotten. Its contents had been procured in his younger days, the youth spent bullied by meatheads and jerk-offs, rednecks and assholes, all fancying themselves more worthy of peace on earth and right of way than strange, weird Phillip. He’d been knocked around his fair share and, after a while, figured it all part of growing up. All the while, biding his time and waiting his turn.

So Phillip retrieved the gym bag and dropped it to the floor at Calvin’s feet. Metal on linoleum. Calvin flinched but quickly pounced on the zipper and hungrily ripped it open. He stared into the bag and the Ruger Bearcat .22 revolver and boxes upon boxes of ammunition. The survival knife Phillip got because he saw Rambo use it on a hundred Gooks in the movies. The map of the high school and where certain students would be at certain times of a morning long, long ago.

“This is it?” Calvin asked. He blinked, scratched his head. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“This will do the trick, I’m told,” Phillip said.

Calvin shook his head, but his fingers stretched forth and stroked the barrel reverently, as if it were a talisman or religious relic. No sooner had his fingertips brushed the steel—heat from his hand leaving tiny, steamy imprints that vanished immediately like ghosts—than he lightly recoiled and brought them to his lips, as if they were burned.

“It most certainly will,” he said.

“I’ve had this an awful long time,” Phillip said.

“It will serve us well, where we’re going.”

“Texas?” Phillip asked. Calvin nodded. “I have to get someone to take care of my cat if we’re leaving town.”

“Leave that to me,” Calvin said. He put his hand on Phillip’s back. “I’ll be sure to have your cat taken care of.”

3

The cat had long hair, yellowed with orange stripes—more than likely a tabby. Tufts of white sprouted from its ears and beneath its paws, and Calvin reckoned it a breed destined for colder climes, but here it landed. It purred and mewed and rubbed itself against Phillip’s leg, as if starved for attention.

“Are you going to shoot it or stab it?” Phillip asked.

Calvin eyeballed it and honestly had no idea. He’d brought the gun, the knife, and for all intents and purposes, his bare hands but realized he’d not thought that far in advance.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “What do you think I should do?”

Phillip looked around the park. Sure, it was a park, not the kind with swings and slides and such, but rather a spot of green reclaiming itself from what some folks had once called
progress
. Trails and tall trees sprung in all directions. People sometimes used it to walk their dogs, only a handful bothering to pick up the mess their pets left behind.

“I ain’t never killed a cat,” Phillip said. “What do them others do?”

“DeSalvo used arrows,” said Calvin.

“Who?”

“Albert DeSalvo, The Boston Strangler. He’d crate up the cats, then shoot arrows through the slats.” Calvin scratched behind the cat’s neck. “B.T.K. was a dogcatcher, so he’d euthanize them legal and proper, but get off on it all the same.”

“The B.T.K. killer also dressed in lady’s underclothes,” Phillip said. “You reckon to do that, too?”

“I don’t guess I’ve thought about it.” He stood straight and squinted into the sun. “The point is, all the great ones got their start with animals. Bundy, The Columbine kids . . . Dahmer dissected them, which allowed him to study people’s insides. You know he put a dog’s head on a stake one time?”

“I don’t imagine that would figure too well with your wife,” Phillip said. “Or the neighbors. If you think Miss Rachel raised ruckus about that pine tree . . .”

“We don’t have to go that far. You see, we kill this cat, and maybe a few others or a dog or two, and then we’ll have the taste for blood. It will be the practice we need to get started on our killing.”

“Why do you think they always kill pets?”

“I don’t know,” Calvin said. “Maybe it has something to do with them being helpless. You know, like if you can force yourself to kill a pet, then you can bring yourself to kill anything.”

“Children are helpless,” Phillip said. “How come you never hear anyone practicing on children?”

“I ain’t hunting down a kid,” Calvin said. “At least, not for now. We got this cat and it will do just fine.”

“Can I ask you a question and you not get sore?” Phillip asked.

Calvin shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

“You say we kill these animals so we can practice before we kill Tom London’s junkie wife,” Phillip said. “But we’re killing Tom London’s junkie wife so we can get practice before we can kill a mess of other folks.”

“Yeah. So?”

“What’s keeping you from suggesting we need some kind of practice to get us ready to kill this here cat?”

Calvin watched the cat. It stopped to lick itself. “Joke around all you want,” he said, “but it’s a necessary step. All the great ones do it. There’s a reason.”

“If you say so. So how you going to do it?”

“It’s a bit of a quandary,” Calvin said. “And don’t think I ain’t put good thought to it.”

“What kind of thought you need? Hand it over. Let me do it.”

Calvin pulled the cat away from Phillip’s reach. “I ain’t just talking about the cat. I’m talking about the whole overall scheme. How we do what we do is real important. Like, a calling card. Dahmer ate his victims. The DC snipers gunned down motorists and people at the filling station . . . Son of Sam shot brunettes in the face. Everybody’s got their own way of doing things, and damned if I ain’t stuck on how we’re going to do ours.”

“What did Mr. London say to do?”

“He said just make sure she’s got drugs on her when she’s dead.” Calvin shook his head. “It ain’t his fault; some people just don’t have a head for art.”

“Maybe you can make people have an overdose,” Phillip offered. “Sneak up on them and give them a deadly jolt of smack or crank or something. They can call you the OD Bandit.”

Calvin squinted and eyed him sideways. “If you ain’t going to take this serious . . . ”

“I am taking it serious,” Phillip said. “More serious than worrying about a calling card. All these people you talk about—”

“What people?”

“Those killers.” Phillip picked up a blade of grass and stuck the end of it between his teeth. Chewed. “Didn’t they all get caught?”

“Not all of them,” Calvin said. “Zodiac didn’t. Jack the Ripper didn’t. So it ain’t unheard of. There’s probably forty or so out there ain’t been caught. More even that didn’t get the proper media coverage.”

“Is it media coverage we want?” Phillip asked. “To be famous?”

Calvin stroked the cats back. It nuzzled its nose into the cranny between Calvin’s head and neck. “I haven’t thought that far on it,” he said. “But if we decide we want it, we’ll have a body of work to build on.”

Phillip nodded. “And we start with this here kitty?”

“That’s right.” Calvin repositioned the cat in his arms. They were face to face. “You know what cats and humans have in common?”

“What’s that?”

“There’s more of them than there needs to be,” Calvin answered. “Let’s stab it. I left the knife in the car.”

Calvin stroked the cat while Phillip went to the parking lot to fetch the knife. Left to his own devices, Calvin figured Phillip would have a number of kills under his belt already, perhaps himself included. That morning at school—so long ago—never left Calvin’s mind. The mill, freshly closed, school still full of folk and none with any idea where they would be in a week, much less the rest of their lives. In walked Phillip, ten minutes late for class. For the life of him, Calvin couldn't remember if the boy wore a trench coat or a hoodie or even a bulletproof flak jacket. All he remembered was the gym bag. The gym bag which now seemed so much smaller than the one in his memories.

Sure, the bigger kids made sport of him. Calvin thought more than once about speaking up, defending him, but what would be the point? It would be cosmetic, if anything. Phillip had a mouth on him and, if he truly wanted the other students off his case, he would make more an effort to fit in. Most folks swayed toward football or basketball or drag racing their pickup trucks down the back roads of town. Chasing cheerleaders and swilling piss beer. Phillip, with his comic books and all-black attire, never stood a chance.

Calvin, no big wheel himself, knew better how to bide his time. If he could revisit the past, he questioned if he would put a hand to young, strange Phillip’s shoulder and tell him:
wait.
To leave these people to their own devices. Billy Tavoe may be big shit now, but his father will never again find work after the mill closes and will fall drunk in the river. That alcoholism will take root, and Tavoe will spend his nights face down at the bar outside of town, not on any football field. Hoot Harrison won’t ever progress past checking dipsticks at Ricky Helmsley’s oil and lube shop.
Be patient
, Calvin would tell Phillip.
These people will take care of themselves.

Calvin saw him over the years, passed him on the streets, watched him mow his lot in the afternoon, and knew, without a doubt, that kind of hate never got tired. It never died. It only lay dormant. Calvin knew it because he himself harbored his fair share of hate.