Facial (4 page)

“Do you?”

“No. He’s going to Tommy’s house. He’s supposed to make it look like an accident.”

“Damn.”

“Why ‘damn’?” I asked.

“I was expressing disappointment.”

“I got that. I didn’t understand why.”

“Can I have some whiskey?” Carlton asked.

“I thought you quit drinking.”

“No. I just quit buying alcohol. I still drink it.”

I handed over the bottle and Carlton took a swig. “Thanks. That’s good stuff.”

“You were getting ready to explain why you were disappointed that I didn’t get to keep Tommy’s body.”

“Oh, that. Yeah.” Carlton took another swig and swished the whiskey between his teeth before he swallowed. “Before I explain, I want it noted for the record that you just admitted you’d hired a hit man. So we’re both on shaky moral ground tonight.”

“Understood.”

“I need a dead body.”

“Are you coming out to me as a necrophile?”

“No.”

“Are you coming out as gay?”

“No! Are you trying to say that gay people are all perverts who would screw a corpse?”

“Not at all. But Tommy is a dude. Maybe you were trying to shock me with the necrophilia thing so that I’d be less surprised when you said you were gay.”

“I’m not gay or a necrophile.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just so you know, you’re my brother, and if you’re gay, you will always have my love and support, and you and your partner are always welcome as guests in my apartment. If you’re a corpse-fucker, it’s going to take me longer to accept. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. Maybe it’s a lifestyle choice that I don’t understand…hell, maybe I could get into it myself if I gave it a chance, but until then, I’m not sure I can stand by and let you—”

“Let’s continue this conversation when you’re sober,” said Carlton.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’m saying some dumb shit. Do you see my phone anywhere?”

“Who do you need to call?”

“Gonna cancel the hit. I really can’t afford it anyway.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Not killing a human being is a shame?”

“Sometimes.”

“I called you over here to talk me
out
of my insanity.”

“I thought you called me over here to confess.” Carlton stood up. “Having Tommy killed is a big deal. I’m not trying to downplay that. But, let’s face it, the guy got your wife to do anal. She never did that for you. So he deserves to die.”

“I can’t give you Tommy’s body. It’ll bring too much heat.”

“The hit man. You said he was totally off the grid, right?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Maybe you could kill him.”

I just sat there for a while, absorbing the fact that my brother had suggested that perhaps I could kill the man I’d hired to kill one of my wife’s many boy-toys.

Absorption was slow.

To Carlton’s credit, he let me sit there and be stunned without prodding me for a response.

Finally, I spoke. “Did you put shrooms in my whiskey?”

“No.”

“I’m not going to kill anybody.”

“Okay. I didn’t think you would.”

“I’m glad you thought that.”

“You’re not going to tell anybody that I’m looking for a dead body, are you?”

“I assure you that I’m not.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Was there any other emotional support you needed?”

“Nah,” I said. “I think I’m just going to drink whiskey until I pass out on the floor. Felicia will throw a blanket over me when she gets home.”

“Sounds like a plan. Do you want a hug before I go?”

“Nah.”

“I could bake some cookies.”

“Since when do you bake cookies?”

“I meant the premade kind, where you just break off however many pieces of dough you need and most of the work is already done for you. I thought I saw those in your fridge last time.”

“We ate them.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“I’m not in a cookie mood anyway,” I said.

“What if I paid you to kill the hit man?” Carlton asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

Now that I’m sober, I could probably sit down and compose a list of six hundred and twenty-nine thousand appropriate responses. Examples include “Get the fuck out of my apartment!” and “Step away before thou contaminate me with thy contemptible insanity!”

Instead, my response was: “How much?”

5

More From Greg

It turns out that my price for committing murder most foul is six months’ rent paid on my shop in the strip mall. Hey, it’s three times what Dirk got for killing Tommy. (Or would have gotten. Obviously, after I shot him in the face, I kept the second half of his payment.)

I wouldn’t have killed a child, or even a woman, or even a man who was a decent human being. But Dirk was scum. His death meant that his future victims would live. By shooting him with an unregistered gun that another friend of a friend of a friend of Jasper’s had sold me, I had done the world a favor.

“It’s almost like we’re heroes,” I said to Jasper, as we drove toward Carlton’s house.

“It’s really not like that at all,” he replied.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Your brother’s not going to screw the hit man’s body, right?”

“He swore he wasn’t.”

“Because if I feel like things are starting to move in that direction, I’m outta there.”

“I understand.”

“If his hand so much as moves toward his zipper, that’s it for me. I’m done.”

“That’s not what this is about,” I said.

“So what is it about?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. But not that.”

“I’m trusting you, Greg. I will be psychologically scarred by the sight of your brother making love to a dead body. If it happens, that scarring is all on you.”

“Nobody’s making you tag along.”

“No, I want to come.”

I pulled into Carlton’s driveway. He had a nice home in a nice part of town. As always, his lawn needed mowed. If I lived there, it wouldn’t get like that.

Carlton opened his front door as we got out of the car. “Hi, guys,” he said with a smile. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

He shook hands with Jasper and said that it had been a while. Jasper agreed with his assessment about the length of time that had elapsed since their last encounter.

“Is it in the trunk?” Carlton asked.

“Yeah.”

“Let me open the garage door, then.”

* * *

“This place stinks,” Jasper said to me.

“I’m standing right here,” said Carlton.

“Your place stinks,” Jasper said to Carlton.

“You’re right. I keep pizza around longer than I should. It’s a known issue and I’m working on it.”

The three of us (four, if you counted Dirk, who was wrapped up in several sheets, but you don’t have to count him because he wasn’t an active contributor to the conversation) stood at the top of the staircase leading to the basement.

“What you are about to see may alter your perception of what is and what is not possible in our realm of existence,” Carlton said. “If you are not prepared to handle that, now is the time to leave.”

“I’m cool with it,” said Jasper.

“Me too,” I said.

“I’m not exaggerating,” said Carlton. “Greg, do you believe that a face could suddenly appear on your basement floor and ask you to bring it a freshly killed human?”

“No.”

“You will.”

We slowly walked down the stairs. Carlton didn’t offer to help with the body, which was the kind of laziness I’d expect from my brother, but since he was paying us, I didn’t complain. There was a white cloth in the center of the floor, and also…

“Is that a lion’s tail hanging from your ceiling?” I asked.

“It’s a souvenir.”

Jasper and I gently set the body on the floor. Obviously, we weren’t concerned about hurting Dirk; we just didn’t want to make a mess on Carlton’s floor, which looked like it had been recently mopped.

Carlton lifted away the cloth.

There was a face on the floor.

Jasper leaned closer. “Is that a puppet?”

“No,” said the face. “I am totally real.”

I screamed. Jasper screamed. I cancelled out some of the work Carlton had done mopping the floor.

“Knock it off!” said Carlton. “I told you guys that there was a face on the floor! Why didn’t you mentally prepare yourselves?”

Jasper and I continued to scream.

“Guys, c’mon, seriously. It’s just a face.”

Jasper quit screaming, though I continued for a few more seconds.

“So, anyway,” said Carlton, “that’s the face that wants to eat the hit man.”

“Hello,” said the face.

“Kill it!” I shouted.

I lunged forward, ready to stomp on it numerous times, but Carlton tackled me and knocked me to the floor. My younger brother had always been able to kick my ass.

He held me down for a moment. “Are you calm now?”

“No!”

He slowly counted to ten. “How about now?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“This traveler can bring us incredible power,” he explained. “But you can’t go around shouting ‘kill it.’ You have to play it cool, all right?”

I nodded. Carlton stood up, and then helped me to my feet.

“Allow the one who leaks to change his pants,” said the face.

* * *

“They brought you a fresh body,” Carlton told the face, after I’d changed into a pair of his pants.

“Then they shall be rewarded along with you.”

Carlton smiled. The face also kind of smiled. I did not smile, because I was too busy contorting my mouth in an effort not to shriek, “
There’s a face on the floor! There’s a face on the frickin’ floor
!”

It was a creepy-ass face, too. Why the hell would anybody get involved with it? You could tell just by looking at it that it was evil. This was going to end with me having to bash Carlton’s head in with a shovel, I just knew it.

Carlton unwrapped the body. He recoiled a bit as he saw that I’d shot Dirk in the face, but he didn’t comment about it, which I appreciated.

“Is it really going to eat the body?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Carlton.

“No,” said the face.

“No?”

“Not the entire body. I have no need for the nourishment of lungs or a heart. Merely the head. Cut off its head for me.”

Carlton winced and went a bit pale.

“A head in exchange for three gold coins.”

Carlton nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. Just give me a minute.”

Jasper raised his hand. “I don’t want you guys thinking that I’m some kind of psycho or something, but I wouldn’t mind cutting off his head.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, gaping at him.

“What? When am I going to get the chance to do something like this?”

“You were getting all judgmental when you thought my brother was a necrophile.”

“And I stand by that. I’m not going to do anything kinky. I’d just like to be the one to decapitate him if nobody else volunteers.”

Carlton stepped away from the body. “Hey, you’re more than welcome to it. I’ll get you a hacksaw.”

“In case you were wondering,” I told Jasper, “I do think you’re some kind of psycho. I absolutely do.”

“That’s fine. At least I didn’t shoot him.”

“Killing somebody is less depraved than severing their corpse’s head.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is. Everybody knows that. You shoot somebody, it’s revenge. You do shit to their dead body, it’s deviant.”

“Only if I get sexual excitement out of it.”

“That’s not the rule.”

“I’m doing this because it would be an interesting new experience. And it’s something that needs to be done. If I saw a dead body on the street, there’s no way I would offer to walk over and decapitate it, but this body
needs
decapitating, so what’s the problem?”

“I didn’t say there was a problem. All I’m saying is that you don’t get to play the ‘I’m Just A Regular Guy’ card.”

“Enough!” said the face. “If he wants to sever the head upon which I will feed, let him sever the head! Why complicate this?”

“Fine,” I said. Jasper could do whatever he wanted. I didn’t care. I didn’t say that out loud, because it would sound like I was being pouty, and I assure you that I wasn’t.