Canary (28 page)

As far as body dump sites go, the Lobster Trap is a pretty clever setup.

Best Ringo has seen in quite some time (not that he was dumping bodies in Nowhere, Kansas, but before that, back in the day). Head south down Delaware Avenue—yeah, Ringo knows it’s called Columbus Boulevard now, but it’ll always be Delaware Avenue in his heart—and all you see are big box chains, fast food places, a PA license center, a strip club, union halls, whatever. What you don’t see are the rotting piers behind all that. A billion years ago, Ringo’s grandfather worked on those piers as a dock walloper, heaving crates of pineapples or sacks of sugar or heavy train parts or whatever else came chugging up the river. Philly was a port town, and those piers fed thousands of families who lived in the neighborhoods surrounding them. But now those piers have either fallen into the river or stick out into the cold water, looking around like they’re asking,
What the fuck did we do?
Some are fenced off, awaiting possible development.

Like
this
fenced-off pier—number 63.

Back in Ringo’s grandpop’s day, this was a train yard for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. All that’s left now is a crumbling pier where trains used to be backed right up to the river’s edge so goods could be loaded. The metal rails themselves had long been stripped away, but the track work remained, sort of, and had been overrun by weeds and trees and garbage and feral cats. Not that you can see any of this from Delaware Avenue. A huge retail store—one of the ones that this year is holding a fund drive to help their employees with holiday bills because they’re too cheap to pay them a decent wage—blocks the view to the river. And yeah, there’s allegedly security back there, but when security is barely making more than minimum wage, it’s pretty easy to suddenly have security working for you.

Ringo and Frankenstein pull the white van into the parking spot that’s farthest from the store, then load the stiff into a shopping cart. Better than dragging it down to the pier. They carry the stiff through a hole in the chain-link fence—somebody else did that, not them—and then walk it out onto the tracks. The breeze off the river is seriously cold. Ringo regrets not wearing an extra layer. Even poor Frankenstein looks like he’s shivering, and Ringo didn’t think that bastard could feel anything.

“How many you think we got down there?”

“What do you mean?” asks Frankenstein.

“Bodies, how many? I’ve kind of lost count at this point. Then you’ve got the stiff that Lisa and Bird are bringing down here. I’m just wondering how many dead bodies are floating beneath our feet.”

“Why are you asking that, man? Why would you ask something like that?”

Ringo stares down through the slats into the dark, dark water.
Yo, show of hands, how many of you got chunks of concrete tied to your ankles? Come on, don’t be shy, I know your hands are free.

Thing is, he does wonder. Wonders how many bodies they’re going to stick down into the river before this whole thing is over. How many rats can there be in one city, anyway? How many nickels can he make?

There’s a moment when Frankenstein looks like he could just lift that piece. Lift it and point it at Ringo’s face and squeeze the trigger like it’s nothing, just to shut him up. But then he shakes it off, remembering himself, the paycheck, his boss.

“Come on let’s get the fuck out of here,” Frankenstein says.

“Be right there.”

While Frankenstein has his back turned, Ringo takes the snub-nose revolver from out of his tube sock and tucks it under the rails for possible future use. Hey, when someone as ugly as that eye-fucks you, you need to keep your defense options open.

It’s 8:00 a.m. and the snow is coming down in big, wet flakes. Marty received the email alert two and a half hours earlier, even before the first flake had dropped: All public and parochial schools are closed today. Which is the best news ever. That means nobody has to leave the house today, which means nothing bad can happen to anyone. Maybe Dad will let them bake cookies, put on a movie.

But no. Sarie’s already in and out of the shower and getting dressed.

“Where are you going? School’s canceled.”

“Unfortunately, final exams somehow find a way to carry on,” she says, rushing past him.

Marty checks the street from his bedroom window. It’s getting bad out there fast, and the Civic’s not exactly equipped for snow travel. Now he’s worried all over again. He plays around with Diggit for a few minutes but then starts hearing a fight downstairs. Marty moves down the staircase, perching himself halfway down to listen.

“If I don’t go, I fail history!”

“I’ll call your teacher. Give me his number.”

“He’s a
she.
But Dad, no, seriously, I’ll be fine. I know how to drive in the snow, I’m not like Mom. I keep it in second and pop it up into first when I hit some hills.”

“The news is telling people to stay off the roads unless it’s an emergency. Believe me, your professor will understand. She’s probably canceling it now—have you checked your email?”

“Jesus, Dad, are you really the only father in the world right now trying to talk his daughter out of taking a final?”

“You’re not going out in this weather.”

“I have to.”

“No you don’t.”

“I’m not like you, Dad, I can actually fucking drive!”

After a few seconds the door slams like a shotgun. Marty hears his father say the f word under his breath a few times. Before his father has the chance to come back into the living room, Marty spins around and pads back up the stairs as quietly as he can and makes it to his bedroom window in time to see Sarie driving away. Her tires leave perfectly symmetrical tracks in the snow. She is a good driver, but it’s not her driving that worries Marty. It’s the rest of Philadelphia.

Something Dad said sticks in his mind.
Have you checked your email?
Sarie left before she could. So Marty goes back downstairs, sneaking past Dad (who’s fuming in the kitchen, banging around dishes) and goes down to Sarie’s desk in the den, where he opens her laptop. Her email app opens up, no password protection. Sure enough, there is an email from her history professor, Calkins. Weird thing is, it’s from two hours ago. Marty clicks on it.

Whoa. Professor Calkins did postpone the exam, told everyone to stay safe out there, details on the rescheduled exam to follow. So where is Sarie headed?

It hasn’t worked worth a damn since he put it in her car, but Marty tries activating the homing chip again. He doesn’t want to worry Dad unless he knows for sure something’s wrong.

As Wildey sews the bug to her shirt he notices she’s trembling—a fast, fevered tremor that he’s only noticing now that his hands are just an inch from her body. She’s like a hummingbird.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I just have a lot to do. It’s finals week, and then there’s this …”

“Just relax.”

“I’m fine! I just have a lot of work to do and I’m really not sure about what exactly you want me to do!”

Wildey can almost hear the internal combustion engine rev up as she spits out the words.

“I used to do a lot of undercover work,” Wildey says. “Buy and busts, you know, that kind of thing. I was nervous, too, at first. But then a buddy of mine told me about emptying the bucket.”

She glances down at him, but Wildey keeps his focus on the bug and the needle and thread. He knows he has her attention now.

“The bucket?”

“Yeah, the bucket. The one we all carry around with us, full of our worries and doubts and fears. All that shit. So what my man told me to do was, before every undercover job, imagine that bucket in your hands. Count to three, slow as you can. Then dump it out.”

“Dump the imaginary bucket.”

“Yeah yeah, I know it sounds all new agey, but trust me, Honors Girl. This shit works. And don’t worry. The bucket fills itself up again soon enough. But for the next ten, fifteen minutes, maybe even an hour, you’ve got nothing but an empty bucket. Nobody can touch you.”

Wildey finishes up with the bug, then finally glances at her. She has this look on her face like, What the fuck are you talking about? But the funny thing is—that tremor, shaking her whole body? Not as strong. As if her nervous system downshifted to a lower gear.

“There. You’re all set.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“The button doesn’t match.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it! Anybody with half a brain will realize that one of these things does not look like the other.”

“Nobody’s going to be looking at your buttons. You’re not exactly, uh, busting out in that department.”

“Jerk.”

Wildey spreads his hands like, well, you asked.

“You should have told me what you were planning! I could have matched it better. Shit, Wildey … they’re going to spot it right away. And they’re going to know what I’m doing there.”

“There you go, pouring water into your own bucket.”

“Fuck your bucket! I need to go home and find a sweater or something.”

“Uh-uh. No time. You’re set to pick up your, uh, contact in about fifteen minutes, right? Besides, I don’t want another layer of clothes on top of the bug. I want to make sure I can hear
everything.
”