The Art of Disposal (18 page)

“It's like hanging out with your in-laws, but you have to pay for it,” Eddie said, turning his head to look at Dan. Then he looked back at Griffin. “We've got quite the menu here at the Huckleberry Chalet, don't we?”

“You're a dead man!” Griffin said.

“Au contraire mon frere… you're the dead man.” Eddie laughed again. You could see he was relishing each tasty word.

“Did he eat yet?” he asked Eugene.

“Nuhsing,” Eugene said. “Sree days and no eating. Plenty votter though.”

“Right there in front of him. See?” Eddie said to me.

I walked closer, but I made sure not to look right into Griffin Shaw's eyes; the same way you pretend not to see the homeless guy in front of the grocery store, holding up a cardboard sign with his newest sob story.

On a tray in front of him, on a white plate, sat three sausages; the dried and powdery sort that are usually seen hanging, chain-like, from a deli's rustic ceiling. A folded paper towel and a bottle of Grey Poupon mustard were sitting near the plate, making the cheap tin fold-up tray look like a prop on a movie set.

“From Brentino's,” Eddie said. “But Eugene doctored 'em up a bit.”

“I won't eat, you piece of shit,” Griffin said.

“Hunger strike. He's a regular Gandhi,” Eddie said.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Griffin pleaded. “This ain't right. I'm sorry about the dog, man. I'm real sorry. I gotta get out of here. Come on, man.”

“You hear that Dan? He don't like it in there.”

“I'm all broke up,” Dan the Man said.

“He screamy and banging around,” Eugene said. “Middle of night. Can't vait till he gone. Let me keel him now, quick like hammer to backs of head.”

“No,” Eddie said, his thumbs working his suspenders like they were the strings of a harp. “He's gonna die just like Barney did. Don't you dare do it different.”

They'd locked him in that cage, his only food some strychnine sausages like the ones he'd used to kill Eddie's pug. Tit for tat. Simple revenge. It wasn't like Eddie was pulling out his fingernails one by one or anything. All Griffin had to do was eat and die, or die from not eating.

“I got a heart,” Eddie said. “Only two of 'em's poisoned. Pretty good odds, if Mister Shaw feels like gambling.”

“Come on, Eddie. We're both businessmen. Forgive and forget, brother. I just want out of this box. If it's money… let's talk money.”

“There ain't enough money in all of America to get you out of that box, Shitkicker. You're gonna eat a last meal—just like Barney did.”

Griffin Shaw summoned up a wad of spit and launched it to the floor. “I ain't yer entertainment,” he said. He looked at me, and I made the mistake of looking right into his hollow eyes. “Come on, man. This is cold-blooded. Don't let him kill me like this. It ain't right.”

“It was all right for Barney though,” Eddie said.

“Look what you done to my boys.”

“
Allegedly
done to your boys.”

“Come on, man. I got money,” Griffin said, gripping the bars and looking like the worst dog in the pound. He was almost out of hope, but he wasn't going to let Eddie taste it. He was a scrawny hillbilly, but he was tough. You had to give him that.

“No more nights vith thees guy,” Eugene said. He was standing near his boombox and ABBA poster, fiddling around with some old cassettes. He loaded one into the machine.

“No music,” Eddie said. “I can't think with music on.”

“Boss. Vie we wait so long? You vunt pain, I geev pain… but now. I chop off zeh fingers; I very slow saw off leg so you hear plenty screaming.”

“It ain't so bad in here,” Griffin said with wide eyes.

“Don't you worry none. I ain't into torture,” Eddie said. “I got empathy. All you got to do is eat a tasty treat, just like Barney did.”

Griffin turned his head like a thoughtful bird. “I'll get my chance. I'll get—”

Eddie pulled his gun and fired a single round into the back of Eugene's head. The gangly Ukrainian dropped to the floor like a pair of huge scissors had just cut the strings of a marionette. The can of unopened beer he was holding hit the floor too, and it spun around, and sprayed and foamed, coming to life in stark contrast to its dead master a few feet away.

“Jesus,” Dan the Man said, checking his face and hands for blood spatter.

Eddie blew dramatically across the barrel of his gun. He walked over to the ceramic water pitcher, poked it with a single finger, and the pitcher crashed to the floor and burst into a thousand wet pieces.

“Hope you drank up,” Eddie said.

Then he walked over to the boombox and hit the PLAY button. “Heart of Glass” came on, already somewhere in the middle of the song: “
ooh, oooh, ahhh, ahhh
.”

“The Best of Blondie,” Eddie said, reading the cassette case. He threw it onto the workbench and motioned for us to get going. “Adios, Shitkicker.”

“Hey. Wait up. Wait up!” Griffin said.

We walked up the stairs, Dan the Man in the back running a handkerchief along the railing as we climbed, while the pleading sounds of Griffin Shaw drifted through my dull brain.

“Eugene's a loner!” Eddie called out. “No one's ever coming back. Could be years before they find you. Real old school. Skeleton in a cage!”

Eddie shut the basement door.

“Why'd you kill the Ukrainian?” Dan said.

“Greedy Pete Bruen. Said they picked up Eugene last night on a Dooey—that's why his truck ain't here. It's in the impound. Pete drove him home. Shitfaced. The Ukrainian lied to me. And Pete says he's got a real loose tongue.”

“They'll be up here for sure now; if Eugene's a no show,” I said.

“No show? Eugene don't do nothing.”

“His court date.”

“Ain't for three weeks. That's plenty enough time for Griffin to wither and die.”

“Then we torch the place,” I said.

“Bingo,” Eddie said.

“We should get rid of the Ukrain—Eugene,” I said.

“You wanna saw him up and dump him in a barrel, be my guest,” Eddie said. “Me, I'm going home to watch
This Old House
.” He looked at his watch. “I hope Irene hit record on the DVR.”

“I love that show,” Dan the Man said. “Norm Abrams is all right. I saw that guy build a little boat—a
boat
. And it was nice, too.”

“You all right, Champ?”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm fine,” I said. But I wasn't sure if I meant it.

I was doing my best to ignore the cackling hillbilly broad and her slew of unfortunate kids, perpetually in the parking lot, like somewhat-sentient weeds. I placed Nelson Scott's pocket-watch on my nightstand, and tried to nap. Sometimes I'd roll over, pick up the watch, turn it this way and that, with the hope of getting it started again. But its heart was dead. It stared back at me, a useless golden relic.

I must have drifted off completely, for I was back in Indiana at the farmhouse, and Uncle Carl was throwing handfuls of grain to the chickens. Aunt Stella was pinning my t-shirts and jeans to the line that ran from the front porch out to the monstrous oak tree. Then I found myself walking along the old road that ran from the farmhouse up to the trailer park, where my “Grandpa” Hallot lived. He was related somehow to Aunt Stella, and he would stop by sometimes after church, or on a summer evening to gab on the front porch swing with Uncle Carl. When I was fifteen or so, I took to walking all the way out to his trailer, where I would find him at work on a birdhouse, or a wooden train set for the Sunday School. He had a shed that served as a woodshop, and I could while away a whole day out there, where it smelled like sawdust and turpentine. But in this pleasant dream, just as I approached old Jim Hallot, looking as always like a tall water-bird, I was yanked cruelly from the soft depths of reverie, and assaulted by the low-class howling of my ugly neighbor.

I stuck my head near the window-screen, and I yelled out, “Keep it down!”

She looked up at my window, then she cupped her hands around her mouth.

“This here's my porch, dumbass!” she cawed. I've heard plenty of crows with sweeter voices.

“It's a parking lot, and other people live here,” I said.

She turned toward her own window and shouted something inside, no doubt to summon her old man to the rescue. Ten seconds later, he was standing in the middle of the parking lot, shirtless, a beer in one hand, and wearing a dirty baseball cap.

“You shout at my woman?” he yelled.

“She's a woman?” I yelled back. “I'll have to take your word for it.”

By now, a few of the doors had opened, and people were easing out into the parking lot to wait for any action that might result. There's nothing a hillbilly loves more than a good brawl.

“Get yer ass down here!”

“What fer?” I yelled with a twang.

“I'm gonna beat you down, that's what for.”

“You wanna beat me off? No thanks, buddy.”

A few of the people laughed. He puffed around like a rooster.

“Get down here!”

“I'm trying to take a nap up here,” I said. “Tell your old lady to shut up.”

One of the shirtless onlookers actually stepped up and sided with me. “He's right, Cody. I'm sick of hearing her too.”

“Yeah!” a scrawny woman joined in.

“Yeah!” another set of neighbors said.

Cody looked around and shouted some insults. Then he pushed a guy, and the guy pushed back. It was hard to see the details of it, but it ended with Cody down on the ground and a couple of redneck women slapping the fat broad around and pulling her hair. I shut the window and watched the scene unfolding, in silence, like the strange reel of an old movie.

I thought about the promise I'd made to myself: how I would move into my own house as soon as the Ricky thing was done. But my assets were all in cash. I could buy a two hundred thousand dollar house outright, but what about the knock on the door from the IRS? Guys like Eddie and Frank wash their money; mine just goes in a duffel bag, under the bed.

And I was still sad about Dan the Man. I always pictured me and Dan carrying boxes up and down the stairs, and drinking a few cold beers when the whole thing was done. Who would help me now? Dan's cells were dividing, unchecked, and Dotty was keeping him at home on the sofa.

Someone knocked on my door. I got my Beretta, just in case Cody and some of his tavern buddies had come to fight, but it was only a rough-looking blonde and a teenage girl.

“Just wanted to come up and thank ya pers-nally for what ya done,” the woman said. “That cow's been buggin' us since we moved in. My daughter Brandi kaint even do her homework some nights it's so loud.”

“I hate her,” Brandi said, twirling a length of her hair in her fingers.

“All I did was lose my temper,” I said.

“You done more than you know. We been askin' her to keep it down, and she don't care. And she's mean, real mean—and so's that man a hers. Just now, me and Brandi went 'round and got ever-one to sign this here petition, sayin' that she's in vio-lition of the rules and reg-uhlations.”

She handed me a piece of paper and a Bic pen. I read the paper:

“
To who it may consern:

The lady that lives in apartment 18233 is real loud and annoying. Her husband is a real peace of work to. They fight all the time and are real mean to there kids to. The fat lady is always in her lawnchair talking and yelling louder than anything you ever heard. All of us has tired over and over to get her to keep her voice down but she don't do it and we are all very sick of it. Consider this are formel complain. We very much want her and the husband eevicted
.”

There were a dozen signatures, none of them elegant. I added mine. She shook my hand, and Brandi even gave me a hug. When I'd shut the door, I went to the window and watched the mother and daughter walk back across the parking lot, Brandi skipping under the yellow light of the streetlamps; and I felt pretty good about myself, like maybe I'd just saved the whole apartment complex from that cackling monster. I did a few push-ups and brushed my teeth, and I couldn't help but pat myself on the back and think I was a pretty swell guy.

Me and Carlino were, unfortunately, paired up for a while. I was showing him around, and pretending to be okay with it.

“The statues on Easter Island… you know how they got there?” Carlino said as we drove to the mall to meet Bullfrog. Ever since Moe got killed, Bullfrog was paranoid. He didn't want to do business with any new guys. Eddie vouched for Carlino, but Bullfrog demanded to meet us in public first, at the mall courtyard near the arcade.

“Carved them out of the volcanic rock,” I said.

“Maybe. But, you know, like how did they get there, standing up?”

“It wasn't the aliens, if that's where you're going.”

“Aliens? Like Mexicans?” Carlino said with a smug grin.

“They cut them out of the mountain,” I said, “like they were unearthing a statue that had always been there. Then they used tree trunks to guide them along. Like train tracks. Stand them up. A whole process, like building the pyramids—”

“—
If
you believe we actually built those,” Carlino said, interrupting me.

“Some people say that there were two factions on the island, each of them trying to put up more statues than the other guy, to please God. The timber came down faster than it grew back. Resources got depleted. Finally nothing was left, including the people on the island.”

“Bullfrog,” Carlino said, scratching his ear. “What kind of name is that?”

“He's all right,” I said.

“But he's a Darkie.”

“So what?”

“Never met a Darkie I really liked,” Carlino said, lighting a cigarette.

“And maybe he never met a Dego he ever liked,” I said.

“If I was you, I'd be trying to stay on my good side,” he said, and cracked open the window. The smoke rushed out through the gap.

“Is that a threat?” I said, the trees and buildings running by on each side of the car.

“I don't make threats,” he said.

Sometimes I wonder why you have to waste so much time in this life just proving how tough you are to people who don't even matter.

“Heavies, real tough-guys, they don't talk trash,” I said. “It's always the nobodies who do all the talking.”