The Art of Disposal (26 page)

“He did?”

“Moved them out of state. Now, you tell me: what kind of a woman loses custody of her own kids?”

I raised my eyebrows. “A bad one?”

“You dodged a bullet there,” he said, and bumped my shoulder with the side of his fist.

“Wha-what do you mean?” I said, feigning shock.

“You and Marcia,” Doc Brillman said. “I know. Believe me: I know. Back when she first started here, I kind of, well, I kind of made my own mistakes.”

He nodded, bright-eyed, over and over. Members of the same sleazy club.

Doc Brillman and Marcia. My mind painted a vivid scene, all legs and arms and Marcia's sharp teeth nibbling on Doc Brillman's crinkly red ears. It was horrifying. Sex, in general, is pretty horrifying unless you're the one doing it.

“Hey,” he said. “I'm just glad she's gone. Feel like I just got paroled.”

Doc Brillman is married. He heads up the local Kiwanis Club. He's well known in the community. What a dope. It's weird. You look at a guy who's a doctor, or a high-priced lawyer, or a CEO of some fancy company, and you think, “this guy's really got his shit together. People trust and respect him, and he makes a whole lot of legitimate dough. He must know what he's doing.”

But he doesn't. He's just some dumb monkey dressed up in a uniform, same as you.

Doc Brillman checked my heart-rate and studied my arms again to see if he could figure out the mysterious rash.

“Stress,” he said.

“That causes a rash?”

“Mind-body connection. You do any cardio?”

“I walk a lot.”

“Pffft. Walking. You need to step it up. Sweat. Get out there and do some running.”

“I hate running,” I said.

“Once you get out there, you'll see. Makes your focus razor sharp. Gets the blood going. Exercise is what you need. Stress reduction. Might get rid of the rash. And Ronnie: don't say a word, you know, about—”

“—About what?” I said.

Days passed. No tasty murder-suicide on the nightly news. Marcia and Kevin were gone from my little chunk of the universe, and they felt more and more like characters in some crummy pulp fiction novel I'd read many years ago, and only vaguely remembered.

Not a peep. The world kept on going, the people kept on driving to work and riding their bikes along the river. I heard (thanks to the gossipy new receptionist) that Marcia had followed him, to live near her kids and try to win Kevin back. She must have loved something about him. A good chump is hard to find.

It was funny to me, the fact that he'd asked me to put the snuff on her. Some amateur with a weak moral compass just might've taken the job, for peanuts. Five or ten grand. She was lucky that I have some scruples and am, all around, a pretty decent guy.

Hell, right now Kevin might be singing hymns at his local Presbyterian church, or helping Cub Scouts thread their neckerchiefs through those brassy wolf doo-dads; and no one would ever know that deep in the core of his mind he's a bad guy, a murderer, who almost brought his nasty daydream to life.

That's the only difference between me and you. Somebody pays me to put a bullet in the head of Joe Schmoe, so I put a bullet in the head of Joe Schmoe. Done. No more t.v. dinners and nightly news for that poor sap. There's an almost invisible line drawn in the sand, right there in front of you. All you do is step over it. But once you step over it, there's no stepping back.

And most guys can't step.

A guy can think up all kinds of terrible things, and it doesn't make him a terrible person. A guy might drive past a pretty hitchhiker and think to himself, just for a split-second, what if I picked her up and did bad things to her—then made sure she could never tell a soul? Or a doting mother might think, just for a second, what if I put the seatbelts on these goddamn screaming toddlers, cracked the windows, and left the car running with the garage door shut?
Ahhhh
, we'd all take the longest nap.

These little pinpricks of evil sting every Tom, Jeff, and Judy when the stress level gets high enough. But Tom, Jeff, and Judy don't act. They stand on the safe side of that line, afraid to cross over. And there's no crime in a thought. Not yet, anyway.

Me and Carlino were parked in his BMW M5 (with tinted windows, of course) out in front of Bullfrog's apartment. It was midnight, and I felt like I had a “kick me” sign on my back, the black BMW stood out like the sorest of thumbs. I told Carlino all about Dan the Man's concept of driving a car that doesn't scream criminal.

“What am I s'posed to drive, a Prius?”

“Great mileage,” I said.

“Sorry, Sam. You only live once. I can afford gasoline.”

We sat and waited. Carlino checked his watch religiously, a chunky gold number about as subtle as the BMW.

“Where the hell is he?”

“He'll be here,” I said, glad that Bullfrog was late. Gave me a chance to talk about my restructuring plans for the Corporation. And if Carlino wasn't interested? Well, he wouldn't rat me out to Frank Conese. Not for hinting at mutiny. Backstabbing and double-crossing? Just part of the game, no matter what line of work you're in.

“I've been thinking,” I said.

“Don't wear yourself out.”

“As soon as Dan the Man croaks, Eddie's gone.”

Carlino didn't say anything.

“Maybe there's a way around it. You and me, if we work together, maybe we could get rid of the real problem, and get you into a prime spot.”

“Like where?” Carlino said.

“Frank's spot.”

“Frank?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You're the new Frank.”

A truck rumbled past and let out a hissing sigh.

“I'm the new Frank?”

“You could be,” I said.

We were both quiet for a moment.

“How's Dan holding up?” Carlino said. “You seen him?”

“Not for a while. Eddie sees him quite a bit.”

“Thought you were friends.”

“That's why I don't want to see him.”

“He looks bad?”

“Real bad,” I said.

I looked at the wrinkly texture of the black dashboard.

“You can't whack Frank Conese,” Carlino said. He pulled out his pack of smokes. Lit one. Cracked the window. “And even if you could, the Corporation would put an X on you so big you could see it a mile away. Bad idea. Goddamn, Ronnie. Why'd you go and say that?”

I watched a distant cat start to cross the street, but a passing car spooked it back into the shadows.

“So how would we do it?” Carlino said. “You know—hypothetically.”

“We call a meeting with Frank. At Calasso's. Then we kill him.”

“What a plan. Genius. Wow. What about that marble-eyed freak, and the psycho beaner? If you so much as look at Frank Conese the wrong way, Mudcap'll knock your head off.”

“Bullfrog will help us,” I said.

“Oh, well, now that's different… that's totally different,” Carlino said. “I didn't know we'd have a fat brother, scared of guns, as our back-up.”

We sat for a while. I was just glad that he hadn't said no. Mocking or not, a little seed had taken root in his mind. Now I just had to water it, and wait for it to sprout.

Ahead of us, in the vast empty street, a man on a bicycle appeared, like he was drawn with fresh ink in the light of the streetlamps. He pedaled fast, but the bike went slow.

“Look at that bum,” Carlino said. “You never see a homeless guy riding his bike in the right gear. They always got it set to the lowest one, even when they're on flat ground.”

Carlino turned the key and flashed his high-beams. The bum lifted his arm and peeked out like he'd just seen the mother ship. The bike fell out from under him, but he didn't wreck. It looked like he'd simply shed the bike and landed smoothly on his feet. Carlino laughed. He killed the high beams, rolled down his window and yelled out, “hey! Change your gears, bro!”

The bum was tall like a scarecrow, and his jacket was filthy. He had a sparse beard. He walked up close to the car, his hand still up to his face to thwart off any possible threats. He looked like a man who'd just found the Holy Grail and was approaching with caution.

“Great,” Carlino said. “He's probably coming over here to take a dump on the hood of my car.”

“That's what you get for flashing your lights at him.”

Carlino opened his door and got out. I got a good look at the bum's face when a stripe of yellow light ran over it.

“Hey, hey,” I said, getting out of the car, “don't mess with him. I know this guy.”

“Old college buddy?”

“Z,” I said to the bum. “It's me: Bullfrog's friend.”

“Oh boy,” Mister Z said. “I thought you were two Rebbonia Blengins. One a whip-lash-tail, the other a sting-tail. Yeah, yeah, I remember you, Reggie.”

“Ronnie,” I said.

“Little bit cooler out today, huh Reggie?”

Mister Z always said it was a little bit cooler out today. Could be December, could be August: it was always a little bit cooler inside of Mister Z's brain.

“When'd you grow a beard?”

“I'm undercover,” he said. Then he looked over his shoulder, and back again. “They're after me. The government. I just met up with three Greys. They gave me this.”

Mister Z dug into his filthy backpack and pulled out a banged-up walkie-talkie. It looked like he'd found it in a trash can.

“Greys?” Carlino said.

“Those are the bad aliens,” I said.

“The ones with the anal-probes?”

“Shhhhh,” Mister Z said, “they'll hear you. He looked over his shoulder. Then he looked at Carlino. “Is he human?”

“We think so,” I said.

“Why'd he flash his lights?”

“'Cause he's a dick,” I said.

“Oh,” Mister Z said.

“You seen Bullfrog?”

“Not tonight, man. You waiting for him?”

“No, we're waitin' for Godzilla,” Carlino said.

“What's he look like?” Mister Z said, with real curiosity.

“Big lizard. Two hundred feet tall. Speaks Japanese.”

“Sounds like Chuck Hayashi. But he O-D'd three years ago. My research into his case was thorough. Possible android. Some kind of mercury chip in his arm, probably the work of those three-eyed toads from M one ten.”

I looked at Carlino and raised my eyebrows. “Mister Z used to teach high school science.”

“Galileo over here,” Carlino said.

Right then the beams of a car shone on the three of us. It was Bullfrog. He parked and got out, yawning.

“Where you been?” Carlino said.

“Your Mom's.”

“Did she ask about me?”

“Her mouth was too full,” Bullfrog said.

Bullfrog's place was pretty well laid out. Expensive blinds, artsy black and white prints on the walls, chrome light fixtures. Real high-class industrial. Bullfrog took off his floppy hat and tossed it on the kitchen counter. He weighed out two Ziploc baggies of product and gave it to Mister Z. Mister Z asked Bullfrog if he'd seen any green or red lights outside of his windows, possibly two nights before, and Bullfrog assured him he hadn't. They shook hands. Mister Z gave Bullfrog a quick hug and a pat on the back, and then he left.

“Don't he pay?” Carlino said.

“No,” Bullfrog said. “He's an employee. Keeps an eye on things around the neighborhood.”

“Oh, he's sharp all right.”

“Don't even,” Bullfrog said. He held a hand up, and his face was grim. “Don't say another word about him.”

We sat around and counted money, and we weighed up small baggies for the dealers on the street. Carlino and Bullfrog took small bumps while they worked, and they rubbed the dust along their gums, and they talked and they talked. They kept pushing it my way, but I told them it made me feel like hell, and I had a big day tomorrow.

Three drinks and a dozen bumps in, and Carlino got mighty chummy.

“Darnell,” he said, sounding like a hiring manager at an important company. “If I was to move up—real high up—in the Corporation, back in New York, I'd need a trustworthy person to run the narcotics division.”

“You movin' up?” Bullfrog said.

“Like George Jefferson. And I want you to come along with me. You're good at this shit.”

“Them wops in New York ain't gonna have me.”

“They will when I'm in charge,” Carlino said. “Shit's about to get real. Ron's gonna need some brothers like us, with street smarts, to help him get this thing done.”

Bullfrog blew out some smoke. He looked at me. He looked at Carlino.

“You gonna take out Frank Conese?” Bullfrog said.

“With your help,” I said.

Bullfrog laid back in his chair. He tried to make a few smoke rings, but failed. “You gonna put me up high in the Corporation? How high?”

“You'd be the man. West side,” Carlino said.

“What about Ronnie?”

“Ronnie wants out. That's the deal. We take over, and no one goes after him once I'm in charge.” Carlino looked at me. “That about right?”

I nodded. “That's it.”

We all sat for a while, Bullfrog cleaning his scales and rubbing his gums with the leftover dust from the baggies, and looking like his mind was cranking overtime.

“What's the deal with Z?” Carlino said. “I don't get you, giving product away.”

“He works for it,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Carlino said. “He's a moocher.”

“Mister Zastrow,” Bullfrog said. “My high school science teacher. Lotta cats gave up on me back then, but Mister Z always had my back.”

“Was he weird back then?” Carlino said.

“Shit, that fool used to walk like a damn crab right in front of the class while we was taking our tests. They canned him.”

“How come?”

“I heard he wouldn't change a kid's grade. Kid wanted a B but he earned a D. Kid's parent's complained and complained. They told Mister Z to just change the grade, make life easy, but he wouldn't budge.”

“Right on,” Carlino said. “That's what's wrong with goddamn kids these days. They all have to be winners. They all gotta get an A. Don't matter if they earned it or not.”

“'Bout five years after high school, I hear how Mister Z's wife left him. Turned boozer. Went homeless. Meth, heroin. You think a teacher has his shit together; turns out he don't. Well, maybe he was always kinda off. I was running a small pot thing back then. I went looking for him on the street, and I found him, and I gave him some money and I said to him, 'Mister Zastrow, you can come work for me,' and that's how it is. He's like a stray cat who got a few cans of tuna from me. Ain't no getting rid of him, but I don't mind.”