Charnel House (10 page)

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Luis,” he said. “I’ve been under a lot of stress. You know about the home situation. Then the job last week, and now this thing with her—” he waved a dismissive hand toward the trailer across the street. “Pressure must be getting to me. Thought I heard the old bag teasing me. Calling me names like she did on Friday.”

Luis glanced out the door, then looked back at Garraty and cocked his head to the side. His eyes narrowed. “You drunk?”

“No!”

But I could sure use a drink right about now.

“What she call you?”

“Pervert. You know I’m not no pervert, Luis.”

The handyman considered this for a moment, then nodded.

“Sure you not seeing things, too? What they called? DTs? There a pink elephant out there?”

Garraty laughed weakly. Luis seemed to be calming down some. Buying the story. If he could still joke around, maybe everything wasn’t lost.

“No pink elephants, my man.”

Just the boy I killed. I call him Toomey.

The smaller man seemed to relax. A grin swam to the surface of his face, and he said, “She
is
enough to drive you crazy, ain’t she,
hombre
?”

Garraty tucked the paper towels under his arm and clapped Luis on the shoulder with his good hand. “Let’s have that beer and let me tell you what
really
happened on Friday.”

“You go out after her in your underwear like she say?” Luis asked.

Garraty handed him the paper towels. “Clean off your pants while I get us another beer.”

“Wadded,” the dead boy said.

Garraty pushed the door closed in his face, thinking
wadded yourself, you little fuck.

He slid the deadbolt home. Time to give the best performance of his life.

“No chit, a fucking raccoon,” Luis said. He threw his head back and upended the last of his beer into his mouth, shaking the can to get every drop. Satisfied none was going to waste, he set the empty amid the growing collection on Garraty’s coffee table.

“No shit, man. Right there in her flowerbed in broad daylight,” Garraty told him. “Only time you see something like that is when it has rabies or something.”

Garraty felt pretty good. Now that a few beers had peeled back the thick layer of cotton wrapping his head, the story was beginning to flow freely. Luis was eating it up. The dead boy was nowhere to be seen, not since Garraty had slammed the door in his face, and that was a-okay by him. He didn’t need the distraction.

“I know what you mean,
esse
. My cousin Ernesto, he got bit by a rabid possum when he a little boy. Out in the daytime, same as this raccoon. It was in the trashcan and Ernesto try to pick it up. Had to get shots in his belly.” Luis grimaced, and patted his stomach. “He say it felt like someone sticking a hot poker in his gut.”

“Jesus,” Garraty said.

“No, Jesus is his father. M
e
tí
o
,” Luis replied sagely, pronouncing the name
Hay-soos.
He gave Garraty a lopsided grin.

The men laughed together, and Garraty thought he’d just inched a little closer to keeping the trailer. Luis had lived here for years. The owners had to take his word over that of the crone across the way. Hell, they trusted him with all their rent money, didn’t they? If he told them Garraty was an okay guy, they wouldn’t throw him out on her claim. Especially since it was unsubstantiated and she apparently hadn’t bothered to report him to the police.

“So as soon as I looked out and saw the damn thing creeping around under her porch I knew I had to go out there and try to run it off.” Garraty downed the last of his beer and stifled a belch. “I mean, she’s an asshole and everything, but I wouldn’t wish rabies on my worst enemy. Want another beer?”

“Sure, but I got to take a leak.” Luis stood, his knees popping like distant gunfire. “I get them for us on the way back.”

Garraty thought of the sprays of vomit decorating the kitchen and his stomach fluttered. He sprang to his feet so quickly he almost went over the coffee table.

“Nah, man, I’ll get them. Need to put these in the trash anyway.” He began to gather empties in his arms. “Kitchen’s a little messy, truth be told.”

And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to Mr. Joe Garraty! Listen to the roar of that crowd, folks.

Luis chuckled. “Chit, man, if you seen half the stuff around this place I have, you wouldn’t worry about a few dirty dishes. I seen where people piss in cups and leave them sitting on the floor cause they too damn lazy to get up and walk to the bathroom.”

“Well, it’s not quite
that
bad,” Garraty said with a rueful grin. “But since I’m going in there now anyway...”

He carried the cans into the darkened kitchen and deposited them on the counter, mindful of the dark splotches of puke puddled below. It wouldn’t do to step in it and track the stuff back into the front room, even though the stain-hiding brown carpet wouldn’t show it. Luis had already commented about the smell once. Didn’t need to rub the man’s face in it. Down the hall, at the far end of the trailer, the bathroom door clicked shut.

Garraty crossed the worn linoleum. Cold air cascaded over his hand when he pulled the freezer door open. He extracted one of the plastic bottles of vodka and broke the seal. By the time the toilet flushed with a whoosh at the other end of the trailer, he had taken a couple of hefty swallows of the clear liquid. White fire streamed down his throat, warming him from the inside out. Tears sprang to his eyes and his ears burned red-hot, but he felt himself loosen up and relax immediately.
Placebo effect
. Whatever. He’d take it. He screwed the cap back on and slid the bottle onto the rack next to its mate.

There were four beers left in the open carton in the fridge. He took two and carried them into the front room, his mood lightening already. The booze would erase the remnants of the cotton batting around his head that the beer had already peeled back a little. Clarify his thoughts. He heard the bathroom door open.

Garraty set a beer on the coffee table for Luis and popped the tab on the other. His mind seemed to be floating a little above his head, drifting on a gentle cushion of goodwill. He wondered if it was just mental or if the vodka was already starting to work for real. God knew how long it had been since he’d eaten. If it had been days, the alcohol was probably rushing into his bloodstream at a breakneck pace.

Not that he minded one whit.

Luis walked into the room wiping his hands on his pants. “Best thing bout beer is that it so easy to make room for another one.”

“Well drink up, buddy, because there’s plenty more where that one came from,” Garraty said, tipping his can at the one that waited on the table. Not that there would be much to drink once the fridge and freezer were tapped out; as it was, Garraty thought he might end up eating ramen noodles before too long. Booze would just be a fond memory until he was bringing home a steady income.
Don’t be such a party pooper
, the voice in his head told him, and he pushed the negative thoughts away. Tomorrow would take care of itself. There was plenty to go around right now.

Luis sat on the edge of the couch and opened his beer. “This got to be my last one,
esse
. Got to get up early tomorrow to work on that dishwasher. Miz Crenshaw gonna be pissed I never made it over today.”

“One more beer or two ain’t gonna hurt,” Garraty said. His voice sounded far off to him. “I want to finish telling you about Friday. Sit back.”

Luis settled into the couch and rested his can between his legs. His eyes seemed more closed than open to Garraty now, and a good-natured smile flickered on his lips. The beer was working as advertised.
Good
.

“So this raccoon was rooting around in the flowerbed like it fucking
lived
there, like her ratty trailer was home sweet fucking home, and she was just sitting up there on that stoop, oblivious,” Garraty continued. The story was starting to flow now as the vodka greased his wheels. He took another sip of his beer. “Like I said, man, she’s an asshole, but nobody deserves rabies.”

Luis nodded in agreement. Garraty wondered if it was with both parts of his statement.

But if anyone does deserve rabies
, the savage little voice whispered,
it would be her
. Garraty raised a hand and rubbed the fading bruise on his temple.

“I wasn’t even thinking when I ran out the door to warn her. Didn’t cross my mind that I’d only just woke up and was still in my underwear. All I wanted to do was make sure she didn’t get bit.”

“I bet you a sight, running out the door on those skinny white legs.” Luis wheezed with laughter and almost knocked the Pabst over.

Garraty laughed with him. “I’m sure it was quite the show. Probably could’ve charged admission.”

“Look like a chicken running at her!” Luis tried to cluck and flap his arms, sagging against the back of the couch because he was laughing so hard.

“She tell you what she did?” Garraty asked. He pointed at the bruise mottling the skin near his hairline. “Came from a glass of iced tea. Threw it at me without so much as a warning. It liked to knock me out.”

The laughter withered in Luis and his face grew more serious. “Chit, man, she din say nothing about
that
. You see a doctor?”

Garraty ignored the question. “When I was laying in the road, barely conscious because of what she did, did she ask me if I was okay? Did she fucking
apologize
? No! She mocked me and called me names. Standing up there looking down at me, like I was something she’d just stepped in and scraped off the bottom of her shoe. Laughing at me.”

He watched Luis carefully. Moment of truth time. He could tell by the look on his buddy’s face that the hook was in. The only thing he needed to do now was set it.
Bring it home, Joe.

“All that because I was trying to
help
her sorry ass,” he finished.

Garraty waited.
Let him chew on it.
He could practically see the wheels turning in Luis’s head. The story was good, he thought, but was it good enough? He finished off his beer and deposited the can on the coffee table, then stood. His mind, floating on a soft cloud of buzz, seemed to lag behind his body by an instant.

“Want another beer?”

“They doing you wrong, man,” Luis said. He plucked the beer from between his legs and took a quick pull from it, gripping it so tightly the side creased inward with a sharp metallic
pop!
The handyman’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “She din tell dem
nothing
about dat!”

All I have to do is reel him in now.

“I think she’s got it in for me,” Garraty said over his shoulder as he crossed the room to the kitchen. “I don’t know what I ever did to her.”

That much was true, at least. The old bitch never had a friendly smile or wave, just the glare of those watery eyes shimmering behind the perpetual pall of smoke that hung around her head. Maybe her dislike was instinctual. Garraty had certainly met a few people who rubbed him that way over the course of his life. People he disliked before they ever spoke to him, just because of the look on their face. Like they needed punching. He didn’t know what caused it, what tripped that little trigger of animosity in his head, but it was real. Maybe that’s all it was. Her problem, not his.

Or maybe she had sensed something else in him. Something that told her the things he was capable of doing—things he never would have imagined about himself before the night under the old Barlowe house.

“She a real piece of work, eh?” Luis called from behind him as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. Then, the words Garraty had been waiting to hear. “I think we can make this right,
esse
.”

Thank God.

Garraty smiled as he took the last two beers from the open case in the fridge and set the empty box on the floor next to the overflowing garbage can. He regarded the pile of trash with a critical eye.
Gonna have to sneak that stuff out of here. Don’t need to give anyone reason to gossip. Especially
her
.
Maybe he should take it somewhere tonight. Get that shit out of here—and the rest of the booze, too, while he was at it—under cover of darkness and
really
try to clean his act up. No more of that half-assed stuff like he did the other night, this time he wouldn’t stop until everything was gone and the kitchen returned to some semblance of clean. Was he okay to drive? He thought he was. He felt good, nice and loose, but not really impaired. Happily buzzed, and part of that was probably from the good news his friend had just delivered. One more beer with Luis, and when he was gone, Garraty could take care of business. Get straight, and start looking for work—for real this time.

“Sounds great,” he said, crossing the threshold into the front room. “You don’t know how much I appreciate you going to bat for me. Telling them what really happened.”

Luis finished the last of his beer and added the empty to the collection on the coffee table. “It’s the right thing to do, man.”

“Maybe they’ll kick her out instead,” Garraty said, grinning. “Wishful thinking, huh?”

Luis chuckled. “I think that might be asking—”

“Jew due,” croaked the boy from the doorway Garraty had just walked through, and it took every bit of his willpower to keep from whirling and hurling one of the full cans at the apparition. See if his aim was as good as the old bat’s. Instead, he continued to the couch and handed one of the beers to his friend before navigating around the coffee table and taking his seat.

Stay cool.

The boy stood in the entry to the kitchen, staring at Garraty with his half-lidded eyes.
Bedroom eyes, isn’t that what they’re called?
The crusts of blood ringing them shone black in the light from the lamp, like eyeliner, and Garraty thought he could see a gleam deep within. Anger.
No, not anger. Fury.
The boy’s arms hung straight at his sides, skin unbroken, marred only by dried blood where the splintered bone had punched through when the Prius ran over him. The split atop his head seemed even smaller than it had when he was outside an hour ago, though his head itself was still misshapen and his features twisted.

Garraty closed his eyes, wishing his imaginary visitor would leave.

“Jew due!” the dead boy repeated. The words had a sense of urgency to them.

What’s a Jew due?
the voice in Garraty’s head chirped.
About ten percent, if you believe the Torah.

“Gotta knock that shit out, my man,” he muttered, popping the tab on his beer. His
last
beer, for sure. Drinking could only exacerbate the hallucinations of the dead boy, maybe working as some sort of magnifier for the guilt he felt over what he’d done.
What I
had
to do.
The boy was some bizarro Garraty version of the pink elephants Luis had mentioned earlier. Not necessarily a product of the booze, but certainly amplified by it. Getting sober would be tough—if a million overwrought television shows were to be believed—but it would be worth it, he thought. And if he was contrite enough, perhaps Tina would let him come back, and then he wouldn’t have to go through things like this fight to stay in a shitty old trailer. He opened his eyes and looked across the room at the now empty doorway.