Sparkle (28 page)

“Sorry. He’s on his couch. He’s just sleeping. There’s food in the fridge. I’ll be back by five-thirty, six o’clock.”

“What happened?”

Joe finished loading and slammed the van’s back doors. “No idea. He took…off again. Only this time, he messed himself up.”

“What do you mean? Is he okay?”

“No…I don’t know. Physically, yeah, he’s banged up but okay, I guess. He hurt his head and his hands. I d-d-don’t think it’s serious. I don’t—I can’t really talk about it right now. Listen, LaVonne, I’ve really got to go. I’m really late. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate …” Joe rubbed his cheek hard.

“Okay,” LaVonne said. “You’d better get going.” Joe looked as though he were holding on by a thread. As usual, she was more worried about him than about Eddie. This had been one crazy week so far, and she was amazed at how quickly and deeply she had been drawn into Joe’s life. “Have you ever actually done one of these jobs on your own before?”

They were standing next to the van and Joe had a moment of panic as he remembered the flowers inside. If they weren’t good enough before, they were horrible now, wilted and depressing. He’d stop on the way home tonight for sure and get some decent ones.

He took LaVonne’s arm and steered her toward the house. “Eddie p-p-probably shouldn’t be alone,” he said. “You… Thank you, LaVonne. I owe you big time.”

Joe turned and walked back to the van. He felt like running. As he was climbing in, he knocked the half-dead bouquet onto the floor on Eddie’s side. Then he lurched off.

The Catholic Archdiocese’s long-term center for homeless men was a decent-looking brick building on a seedy street in the heart of downtown Seattle, right across from an X-rated video store.

Joe parked in the loading zone and started to un-stow the gear. He was trying hard not to think at all, but his heart was beating wildly. He had to fight the urge to get back into the van and drive away.

As usual, he didn’t know exactly what had happened. Two victims, both men, wounds inflicted by knives. On each other. Probably some longterm beef that finally exploded.

Joe needed to prove to himself that he could do it. Semiconsciously, he wanted to punish Eddie for screwing up. Mostly, though, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to beat the shit out of himself.

He wondered what his dad would have done in this situation. He probably would’ve dragged Eddie’s ass out of bed and tried to force him to do the job. Joe smiled grimly at the thought. At least he wasn’t as bad as his old man.

A weary-looking priest of about sixty came out to the curb. He was tall and thin and casually dressed, in a black short-sleeved shirt and collar.

“I’m Father Sundberg. Can I give you a hand?”

Joe didn’t look at him. “No, thanks.” He opened the back of the van. “Just show me the job.” After he had stowed the equipment on his cart, the priest led him to the main entrance.

“I’m afraid we don’t have a service elevator.” He held the door for Joe. “I’m also afraid you can’t smoke in here,” he said kindly. “I’m sorry.”

Joe looked around for an ashtray. “I’ll take it.” The priest held out his hand. He squashed Joe’s live butt between his thick, callused bare thumb and forefinger without blinking, then carefully dropped it in a trash can by the door.

In the lobby, ten or fifteen rough old men were watching television or reading magazines. Most of them were pushing seventy, burned-out alcoholics and druggies with their hell-raising days long behind them. They stared like kindergartners as the priest led Joe through the space.

“Our elevator’s rather slow, I’m afraid, Mr…I’m sorry, I guess I don’t know your name.”

“Joe.”

“Oh, yes. For some reason I thought your name was Edward.” Joe didn’t say anything. “Well, Joe, this was a shock to us all. These men were roommates. We try very hard to create a good environment here. We had no idea until the next—”

“Excuse me, Father,” Joe interrupted. “But soul searching is your job. I’m just a cleaner.”

The priest fell silent. The elevator opened, and he held the button while Joe made an awkward show of wrestling the cart out onto the floor.

The room was down a short tidy hallway. The crime scene tape was already gone. The priest pulled a fat jangle of keys on a retractable chain from his pants pocket. He opened the door without looking in.

“Will you need anything special?”

“Just some space.” Joe knew he was being an ass, but he couldn’t help it.

The priest looked at him carefully. “Take all the time you need, son.” He turned to go.

“Father…Sanders,” Joe stammered. He felt he should apologize in some way.

“Sundberg,” the priest said. “Yes?”

“I’m, um…kind of stressed.”

“I’ll pray for you, then,” the priest said. He walked away.

“I don’t think that’s going to help,” Joe muttered. He put on Tyvek coveralls, booties, gloves, mask, and goggles, and walked into the bloody room.

Chapter 41

“I want a full workup on the thing,” Louis said into the phone. “The whole nine yards. Yes. I know it’s not much. Look. You’ve got blood. I want to know whose it is. Yes. I’m personally authorizing it.” He hung up the phone looking frustrated.

Pinky, riffing through the big file cabinet in Louis’s office, laughed derisively. “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time on a stupid scrap of paper. Forensics must be laughing their asses off at us.”

“Yeah, well, you’re probably right,” Louis said, defensively. The fact was, he wasn’t exactly sure himself why he wanted to follow Eddie’s lead. “As usual.”

“I’m telling you, you should have crumpled that stupid thing up, tossed it in the trash, and told Eddie to go home and relax. This bullshit with Eddie’s just muddying the water.”

Louis and Bjorgeson rarely disagreed on the way an investigation should proceed. It was a small glitch in the big scheme of things, but the situation was an unpleasant off-note for them both.

“You’ve got a theory and no evidence, Pink—”

“Wha—?”

“No, listen. It’s a good theory, okay? But you’ve basically got a theory and nothing but circumstantial evidence. Me, I don’t have a theory. Okay? I’ve got—maybe—a piece of evidence. Maybe.”

“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 getting worse. He finally barfed loudly into a cleaning bucket. There wasn’t much in his stomach, so it didn’t bring much relief.