Ten Mile River (11 page)

‘They got every damn thing. Hey, how y'all feelin?' José said.

‘Me?'

‘No, the other loser behind you.'

Ray looked over his shoulder. No one was there. ‘Good.'

‘Liar.'

‘Think I sprained my wrist when I threw my fit there back in the boat.'

‘Punches the boat, he does. Like it's the boat's fault.'

Ray rolled his wrist. ‘It hurts a little when I do that.'

‘Then don't do that.' José chugged the cognac. ‘Wanna go shoot some pool?'

‘Nah. Okay. Maybe in a little.'

‘Sure,' José said. ‘They got foosball too, if that suits you any better.'

‘Foosball's lame.'

‘You're lame.'

‘They got a good library down the hall there,' Ray said.

‘Psh.'

‘Yo,' Ray said. ‘Thanks for savin my wretched lame-ass life.'

‘Say thanks again and I'll kill you. Anyway, I did it to spite you.'

‘Yeah, huh?'

‘Son, dyin's easy. It's the livin that worries me. Gonna let you drown, leave me to face the craziness on my own?' José winked. ‘First batch of flaps looks about done.'

‘I'll finish cookin.'

‘You will so,' José said. ‘Maybe we oughta eat that poor summabitch Dobie out back there too, so's not to waste him. A side of meat for the pancakes. Look at the way he's lookin at me. Dag, son, I'm just foolin. Think I'd eat a dog?'

‘You ate raccoon before. What we gonna do with that poor dead dog?'

‘Triple-bag it, pitch it in the garbage.'

‘The garbage? The regular old garbage?'

José threatened Ray with his flapjack flipper. ‘Son, you'd best shut the fuck up about the regular old garbage. I'm serious as gunfire. Stomp you like the redheaded stepson. C'mon, let's eat. We got a lot of work to do before we split. There's julery and such to be stole, praise Jesus.'

Ray cleaned the kitchen spotless. Leaving somebody's house a sty after jacking it was low-class. He left a list of what they took so the people wouldn't wonder what was missing.

The boys jammed their plunder into a Mercedes, the oldest of the four collector cars in the garage. They wore the old man's tweedy hunting clothes, tight on Ray. With his double-bill hunting hat cocked to the side, José was Sherlock Homeboy.

‘Takin the car is too much, I think,' Ray said.

‘Ray, let me explain somepin to you. We're criminals by need, not choice, see? I didn't make the world, son. I'm just makin it better, evenin it out, spread—'

‘Spreadin the wealth, I know, I know. Then if you're keepin the car, I'm takin the dog.'

José smacked the car roof. ‘You're
not
takin the dog. By the smell of tomorrow's breakfast, we got twenty whore dogs gonna show up from the Ten Mile woods, goddam hairy midgets. I'm not havin that nasty-lookin bastard in my house. Wolf. Look at 'im. He'll need to eat a cow every day to stay alive. Git out.' José yanked the dog out of the backseat.

The dog ran around the car, hopped back in from the other side, tail stump a-wag.

‘He's not comin, Ray.'

‘
C'mawn
. Look at his nails, man!'

‘What about 'em?'

‘They're crazy long, means he never gets walked or exercised. All that eye gunk, dry coat, never gets brushed. They dump cheap food in his bowl, that's all they do for him, he lets himself out the doggy door, starved for attention. Kinda life is that?'

‘I ain't listenin.' José stuck his fingers in his ears.

‘Leavin him and that other one alone all weekend.'

‘Lalalalalalalaaaa.'

‘No dog sitter, not enough food or water, locked in the damn greenhouse, shit and piss all over the floor. These people are the devil's hands.'

‘They're smart. If they left 'em in the house there'd be shit and piss on the rugs. They're
dogs
, man. They did fine out there.'

‘Until you killed one. Murderer.'

‘The dog was attackin me, man! Why you gotta sweat me so, son? First it's gettin me out on the goddam river—' ‘
Nin
ja Man!'

‘
Squir
rel Boy!'

Ray petted the dog. ‘J? Go to hell.'

‘I'm plannin on it, the fun part, where they keep the whores, booze and pizza.'

‘I'm still takin this dog with us. Don't even try to stop me. After what you done to the first pup, you owe me.'

‘If I owe anybody it's the dead dog.'

‘I'm not leavin this other dog here behind on his lonesome.'

José threw up his hands. ‘Hell with it. So take 'im. I don't know who's uglier, you or him.'

Ray kissed the dog, let the dog lick his lips.

‘That is true blue foul.' José pissed into a garbage can. ‘Know where his mouth's been, prob'ly?'

‘Lappin clean white snow.'

‘You keep tellin yourself that. Wind up with green mushrooms growin off your lips tomorrow.' José plunked onto the tailgate to change out of the old man's slippers into the old man's tennis shoes. The toes of his left foot were black and gray.

‘Damn, J-man. You're frostbit.'

‘Yeah, but it's gettin better. It don't even hardly hurt no more.'

‘J, listen. I think we might oughta go see Doc.'

José squinted at his toes. ‘You're tellin me they ain't comin back then?'

‘Let's let Doc have a look-see is all I'm sayin. Damn, man. J, I'm, like, I'm sorry, man.'

‘Say sorry again and I'll kill you.'

‘Can't say sorry, can't say thank you, anything I can say?'

‘That you'll leave that goddam dog here.'

‘No.'

José nodded. ‘To Doc's, then.' He went to the driver-side door.

‘Your foot, man. I can drive.'

‘It's my left foot's hurt. Right's fine. Think I'm gonna let you drive? You'll drive us off a cliff to avoid hittin a snowflake. Git in.'

Ray slumped into the backseat to be with the dog.

‘Where to, Miss Daisy?' José said. ‘Look at 'im poutin. The hell's wrong now?'

‘Serious? You wanna know?'

‘Am I gonna be sorry I asked? I am, I can tell. Here it comes. Shit.'

‘Right about now I'm wonderin if there's anybody up there that cares a whit about us.'

‘You have got to be shittin me. What, like, is there a God who got your back, you're sweatin?'

‘Damn straight.'

‘
I
got your back. Idiot. What else you need?' José fired up the engine. ‘Squirrels beware.'

15

Hospitals asked too many questions. Doc worked on the down low.

He lived out back of a liquor store, lost his license for doing surgery drunk. Rumor was he amputated the wrong leg of some guy with bone cancer. José sat on his good foot as Doc gave him Valium and vodka, shot his bad foot with Novocain. He almost didn't feel Doc cutting away his toes.

‘In a month you'll be running,' Doc said. ‘You may have a pimp limp.'

‘I pimp limp any damn way, Doc.' José tried not to grimace.

Doc sipped vodka between cuttings, nodded to Ray. ‘Squeeze your friend's hand to steal the pain off his foot. Squeeze his fingers hard.'

Ray did.

‘Damn, son, leggo my paw,' José said. ‘Never mind m' toes, you're crushin m' fingers. Vise grip he's got there, Doc.'

‘I'm strong as hell sometimes,' Ray said.

‘I guess you are sometimes, then,' José said.

‘I'm guessing by the sound of those coughs,' Doc said, ‘you both have something horrible in your lungs. On that shelf over there is a box full of antibiotics. Grab yourselves a fistful each.'

Ray poked through a dusty box. ‘All I see is rotgut brandy.'

‘In the box next to the brandy, but take a bottle of that too.'

Ray found packets labeled
BAYTRIL—CANINE
. ‘Says here this is for dogs, Doc.'

‘It's all the same stuff.'

‘Says here it's expired.'

‘It should still work.' Doc stitched José's foot.

They paid Doc with diamond earrings stolen from the mansion. José limped because he was getting used to his new balance. Ray limped because he felt bad he could walk when José couldn't.

They went straight from Doc's to Frankie the Fence's, unloaded the Mercedes and the rest of their booty. While José negotiated prices with Frankie, Ray read to the Dobie from a book he swiped from the Jersey mansion. This dude Siddhartha said life is suffering. The news got worse: You never escaped it, even when you died. You came back in another body to a more rotten situation or, rarely, a slightly cooler one based upon your previous actions. This was karma. Basically, you got back what you gave, good and bad. Being a thief was crappy karma, the book said.

‘Let's go, Ray-Ray.' José fanned himself with six thousand dollars, let Ray roll him out of Frankie's shop in the secondhand wheelchair Frankie threw into the deal. ‘Six grand and a don't-rate wheelchair for a Mercedes and all that bling,' José said.

‘Frankie got to eat too, poor bastard, one leg four inches shorter than the other.'

‘Yo?' José said.

‘Yeah?'

‘We got six grand!'

‘I know!'

Out on the sidewalk the boys hugged and howled in the dawn light until scavenger Richie darted out of the alley behind the methadone clinic next door, gun drawn.

‘Guess you're not here to give us the other three bucks you owe us,' José said.

Richie grabbed the boys' roll, ran.

‘Why the city got to put a methadone clinic next to a pawn shop?' José said. ‘That is just ass-out bad urban planning.'

Ray took stock: a lame old Doberman and two kids with pneumonia, one with half a foot gone, huddling to fight off the twelve-degree wind gutting the street, two hundred eighty bucks to their names. Ray nodded. ‘That right there was karma.'

‘No, that right there was my Ninja,' José said. ‘Thank God I'm still chill on Valium, or I'd be bawlin right now.' He was bawling.

The new dog fitted right in with the Ten Mile pack.

‘Quit that racket, dag dogs!' José had gritted out a month of bed rest by way of brandy, soup, and mutt medicine, but he was sick of being in bed smothered by the dogs who had come back at the smell of the first soup and who had nothing better to do all day than bug him.

Ray was working for a furniture mover, six bucks an hour but cash, no questions. The boss worked him like a freebie mule. His back and knees ached. Maybe he caused José to lose his toes. Maybe the junkies never would have picked the empty Ten Mile basement as their leaving Earth spot if the boys had been here to defend the house instead of in jail. Either way, watching the J-man loaf in front of the TV after a long day of humping couches up five flights of stairs was getting a little harder each night. Most annoying, the J-man gave running commentary on everything that flashed the TV. ‘Ever notice how commercials for feminal products got a light trombone soundtrack? I got a sneakin suspicion the news might be real sometimes. If cartoons of human people got four fingers, shouldn't cartoons of dog people got three?'

The Fatty dog settled in front of the TV, looked at José from the sides of its eyes.

‘Move, dog!'

The new Dobie came and sat with Fatty, yawned. ‘Dog gumbo,' José said. ‘Just you watch. I get back on my feet, there's gonna be some changes around here. You too.'

‘Hell'd I do but be your step-'n'-fetch every minute the last month?'

‘Sick of your mopin around. Look at you, you girl. Your hair all long and kinked like a cavewoman. Go on and get yourself a haircut.'

The boys eyed each other.

For a second Ray dared to dream that Yolie would rehire him, until he remembered he had just up and disappeared on her, no letter from jail to let her know he wouldn't be back. He didn't dare dream what Trini thought of him.

The teakettle whistled, Ray dumped hot water into a soup cup, served José.

‘You really wanna help me, Ray-Ray, you'll put this fat dope dog out the house. Them sideways looks.' José shivered. ‘He'll make a nice roast when we run outta money. Git him outta my
Tee
Vee line.' José threw a pair of balled socks at the dog. The socks bounced off the dog's head. The dog didn't move. José threw a blanket over the dog, put his feet up on Fatty. ‘Good footstool at least. Bring me a beer, son, and let's see what's on the cartoon channel.'

‘You're milkin this foot thing pretty good.'

‘It
hurts
, man.'

‘Wonder how them blue folks are makin out about now.'

‘Ray? Please. For like half a hour, stop thinkin so much. You think you could do that for fifty minutes? Your mind is a mystery of frights to me.'

‘Think they're still stuck together?'

‘Son, leave them poor blue folks be and toss me the goddam TV clicker.'

A week later José was at his crossword book, the kind for second graders. He figured if he was going to become a first-rate criminal, he at least would have to know how to forge bank checks. He licked his pencil. ‘Yo son, the word
scream
? Where's the
3
go?'

‘
What?
'

‘The letter
3
. After the
k
, right?'

And this guy wants me to go off on my own? No way. We're friends to the ends, dying together at good old Ten Mile River. ‘Sure, put the
3
after the
k
.'

‘Took you long enough.'

Ray checked the Helps in the local Spanish paper for shady moving companies, saw none. The guy he had been working for skipped town with his last week's pay. Ray shook the money can, nickels and pennies, no paper. ‘My dogs are two days from starvation.'

‘Time to start stealin,' José said.