Authors: Quincy J. Allen
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary Fiction, #Dystopian
Chemical Burn (19 page)
“Alright, man. I guess I owe you that.”
“You
do
, and keep in mind … I’m a
scientist
. I’m pretty objective about things when I can see and touch them. And I’ve seen and touched quite a bit tonight. You know what I mean?”
“I think I do, Xen. Thanks,” I added sincerely. I selected a speed dial and hit CALL. Putting the phone to my ear, I waited for an answer.
Yvgenny picked it up almost immediately. “Da?” he said.
“Yvgenny, it’s Justin.”
“Justin! How are you my boy?” he asked, laughing lightly. “Isn’t it past your bed time? Or maybe milk and cookies have keeping you awake. What trouble are you getting into this evening?”
“Funny you should ask that,” I said not at all innocently.
Yvgenny picked up my somber tone. “What’s wrong?”
“I need a mop up. Fast. No questions. The guy I normally use is on vacation … in Norway,” I added with not a little disgust.
“Normally use?” Xen asked incredulously, shaking his head. He realized there was a
lot
he didn’t know about me. I held up my hand to shush him. Xen was always interrupting phone conversations.
“Norway?” Yvgenny asked.
“Yeah, his mother died.”
“Did
you
kill her?” Yvgenny chuckled lightly.
“NO! Yvgenny! Come on, this is serious,” I said, but I finally had a smile on my face. The old rage was, thankfully, gone. Yvgenny always managed to crack me up.
“How many?” Yvgenny asked.
I hesitated, “Uh …” I twisted my toe in the carpet like an embarrassed child.
“Two?” Yvgenny prompted.
“Well … you see …”
“Three?” Disbelief grew in his voice.
I sighed. “Guessing will take too long.…”
“Christ, Justin! How many?”
“There are eight bodies in here … most of them bleeding out.”
“Good God! What did you do?”
“Well, they started it,” I said like a child in trouble.
“I’m thinking you are saying that a lot to people these days.”
“There’s more, Yvgenny.”
“What?” the old man asked with a touch of anxiety and suspicion in his voice.
“Well … you see …” I cleared my throat nervously. “They … they’re not Italian.”
“Really? Then what are they?” Yvgenny asked in a deadly serious tone.
“Well, you know that Russian hit-man you warned me about?”
“Da …” he said slowly.
“He … he sorta’ brought friends.”
Yvgenny was suddenly very calm. “Before we continue, I need you to go to one of them. It is not mattering which. You may have placing me in difficult position.” I picked up the tone in Yvgenny’s voice and got a knot in my stomach.
“Alright,” I said carefully and walked over to the one Xen had killed by the TVs.
“Can you seeing any of their arms?” Yvgenny asked.
“They’re all wearing long sleeves.”
“Pull one up … a left sleeve.”
I leaned over, holding the phone between my ear and my shoulder, then unbuttoned and rolled up the corpse’s left sleeve. “What am I looking for?”
“Tell me what you are seeing on his wrist, on the palm side.”
“He’s got an iron cross, like those German ones, and some Cyrillic characters under it.”
Yvgenny let out a sigh of relief and quietly said something in Russian.
“What’d you say?” I asked.
“I said, ‘This boy will being the death of me.’ You are being most lucky these men are not part of our organization. Our crews only work together, and they all have double-skulls on left wrist. If they were ours, I could not help you.”
“I understand. So do you know anyone?”
“I can’t using one of our people. It would get …
complicated
.”
“I hear ya. Look, Yvgenny … I need these guys to disappear.” I changed my voice to one of a teenager in double-dutch. “I mean, when mom gets home, she’s gonna be
pissed
.” There was a pause, then Yvgenny and I both laughed, but Xen lost it completely. His laughter started out normal enough, but it quickly shifted into a slightly higher-pitched, nervous, frantic sort of cackle.
I heard an imaginary pop in my head as the weight of what happened hit Xen full on. His laughter was the kind people make when they’re straddling the fence between sane and … not so much. I turned my head away from Xen’s laughter so I could hear Yvgenny a little better.
“I am knowing a man, but he’s not cheap.”
“Can I trust him?” I asked cautiously.
“I do,” Yvgenny said with complete certainty. “We usually keep things in-house, but he’s worked for me before. He is professional, although, he is being sort of oddball.”
“If you trust him, I will.”
“How much do you have on you?” Yvgenny asked.
“Just shy of four grand.”
Yvgenny started laughing. “You’ll need five times that, and that’s if he is being in good mood when I
wake
him.”
“Make the call. Tell him to meet me at Grady’s in forty-five minutes … and to come in the back. If he wants, he can have their car or cars. I don’t know how many they came in.”
“That is … how do you say? S.O.P.? It will not change price.”
“I know. Just get him here. It’s eleven-thirty. If he’s here in forty-five, there’s an extra ten grand in it for him, okay?”
“That will most certainly putting him in good mood.”
“Thanks, Yvgenny.”
“Of course. And Justin.”
“Yeah?”
“Try not to kill anyone for rest of day. You are having thirty minutes before midnight, and if you are trying really hard, I think man like you can make it.” Yvgenny started laughing definitely
at
and not with me this time.
“I’ll do my best,” I said dryly.
I hung up the phone and looked at Magdelain. “Can you walk, girl?” She still lay on all fours.
She nodded her head and slowly got to her feet.
“Come on, Xen. We’re going back to my place.”
“Un-hunh.” Xen had finally calmed down and had a blank stare on his face. He took another gulp of bourbon, stepped around the bar and walked mechanically towards the back door.
“Wait up,” I called from behind him. “Let me go lock the front doors.” I went to the front of the place and found that the Russians had thankfully picked the lock rather than smashing the door. I locked the doors, hit the lights, and returned to the parlor. I looked around and still couldn’t believe all the damage. Marsha was going to flip out. I hoped a stack of cash would be enough to keep her from killing me. If not, I’d take it like a man. I walked past Xen who had stopped just short of the two dead bodies blocking the back door.
“Here, help me move them,” I said quietly. A series of short laughs snuck past Xen’s lips, and he covered his mouth to get hold of himself. “You okay?” I asked, real concern in my voice. He nodded quickly with his lips pressed firmly together. We each grabbed a body and pulled it a few feet away from the door. Stepping over the corpses, we walked into the alley. I opened the door of my Chrysler for Mag and closed it after her.
“What a night,” Xen said with complete disbelief.
“Mmm-hmmm.”
We drove back to my loft in silence, you know, that weird silence that only comes after you kill a bunch of hit men with your bare hands. Parking on the street, we got out and walked down the alley. I was about to lift up the sign but stopped myself. “Xen?” I asked cautiously.
“What?”
“Steady yourself, okay?” I tried to reassure him with a calm tone.
“What? Are there more bodies in there?” he asked a bit frantically.
I chuckled. I couldn’t help myself. “No,” I said still chuckling. “No bodies. Just steady yourself. Your world is about to get a little bigger.”
Xen had never been to the warehouse, just the place I have behind his. I slid up the sign beside the door, laid my palm on the reader and ran through the combination. Then I pushed open the door jam. Mag slithered between us and into the loft.
I stuck my head through the door. “Lights,” I called out, and we were both bathed in the light from inside. “After you,” I said to Xen, ushering him in.
Xen stepped through the doorway, took a few steps and looked around. Then he stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait a minute.…” He turned around with a baffled look on his face and stared at me. The alley was clearly visible behind me. Xen looked at the window again and could see a streetlight not far off, almost at eye level.
“It gets better,” I said smiling. “Hold on to your hat.” I closed the door and placed my hand on the panel next to it, using a different combination. I opened the door again, and it opened into my beach-house living room.
“Fuck me!” Xen yelled.
“You okay?” I asked worriedly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, but his voice was full of everything except fine.
“Look, I have to get back to Grady’s. If you go through that door, no one in the world will know where you are except me. I’m going to send Mag with you, okay?”
“Okay.” He was stupefied and seemed to be merely going through the motions. I probably could have told him to cut his own arm off and have gotten a positive response.
“If you go straight through the living room and kitchen, there’s a patio in the back. Down the path behind the house, there’s a nice beach. Make yourself at home. Get cleaned up and get some rest.” I looked at Mag. “Stay with Xen, okay girl?” She nodded her head and walked through the doorway.
“It’ll be okay, Xen. I swear. If you need to reach me, your cell phone won’t work. Only mine does down there. Use one of the phones around the house. If you can’t reach me, call Rachel.”
“Okay,” Xen said numbly.
“Oh, one more thing. If, for whatever reason, you absolutely, positively think you have to come back to the warehouse, tell Mag. She’ll lead you back, although you’ll have to crawl through her kitty-door. It’s big enough for her, so you should fit fine.”
“Okay,” he replied with a bit of unease.
I gently placed my hand behind Xen’s back and guided him through the door.
“Call me when you wake up,” I said to his retreating back.
“Un-hunh … one question.” Xen said quietly, stopping and turning around in my living room.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Where the hell am I?”
I locked eyes with him. “Costa Rica.” I winked and closed the door on Xen’s wide-eyed face.
***
Couple of Clowns
A wave of fatigue and some dizziness hit me as I closed the door. Even I have side effects from blood loss. I walked over to the fridge and grabbed a half-empty bottle of orange juice. Uncapping it, I poured in about a cup of sugar from the dispenser on the counter, turned, and opened one of the cupboards, pulling down a container of protein powder. I poured in a healthy amount and recapped the juice, shaking it vigorously to mix everything up.
Uncapping it again, I gulped the thick mixture, finishing it in seconds. Setting the empty container on the counter, I walked over to the standing closet, dropping my coat down on the sleeping mat along the way. I kicked off my shoes, pulled off my bloody shirt and slacks and threw them in a pile on the floor. I ran my fingers over the slightly red, swollen entry-wounds on my chest, wincing slightly as I touched them. They were still tender but had sealed up quickly during the fight. The exit wounds on my back were larger and hurt even worse.
“At least they came out,” I said to myself.
I grabbed a fresh shirt and some jeans, slipped them on and then put my shoes back on. I headed to the back of the loft between the cars and gym-mat. “Mat lights.” The back area lit up.
I opened one of the wide, eight-foot-tall double-doors along the back wall, revealing a twenty-five-foot hallway wide enough to drive a van through. There was a door a short way down the hall on the right, leading to my bathroom and shower. A second door further on opened to a utility and storage closet. A palm-reader was installed between the two doors. I walked in and put my hand on the reader, going through a lengthy and complex finger-sequence. I heard a loud metallic
THUNK
and then a hissing sound as air-pressure equalized between the two separate environments. A massive door the size and height of the hallway swung towards me with the quiet sound of servos. I quickly stepped through the widening gap before the door finished opening and walked across a cluttered cargo hold.
There were stacks two and three high of blue boxes three feet on a side made of something resembling dull plastic. The floor and walls were a uniform, egg-shell-white cerametal, and gray lockers lined both sides of the compartment. A single, closed door at the far end of the thirty-by-fifty-foot area had a palm reader beside it. Every locker had a small square made of the same material as the palm readers set in one side at chest-height. I walked up to one of the middle lockers on the right side and placed my left thumb on the reader. There was a soft click, and the door swung open. Inside were eight stacks of plastic bags, each one of them filled with ten wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills. I grabbed a bag, closed the door, and headed back to my loft. As I walked past the cargo-hold door, the servos whined and the door closed behind me. With another metal clunk, it finished the cycle. I closed the double-doors behind me. “All lights off,” I said, and the place went dark again.
I returned to Grady’s via a phase-door connected to the men’s restroom. The smell of blood and gasoline hit me hard, and I coughed once to catch my breath. I dragged the two bodies by the back door around the corner out of sight, and then I counted the rest to make sure all eight corpses were still there. One never knew, and I’d had bodies disappear on me before. I came up with the right number and walked behind the bar to the cooler. Opening it, I pulled out a pale ale, twisted the top off and walked over to the nearest conversation pit, taking up a position with a good view of both the front and back doors.
It was 12:10 a.m. and I suddenly craved a cigarette. I pulled a pack out, tapped it a few times to compress the tobacco, removed one and lit it up. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back and relaxed while I had the chance. The beer went down like ambrosia, but the cigarette tasted like shit. I put the cigarette out after only a few drags. I’d have to thank Yvgenny next time I saw him for turning me on to the pipe. A few minutes later someone knocked on the back door.
“Come in!” I hollered as I stood up. I was on my guard, but frankly, I was tired enough that I didn’t care what came through the door. I was ready for anything.
A clown stepped in through the back door and looked at me.
Except that,
I realized in an instant. I lost it completely. I couldn’t help it. I laughed so hard, I collapsed onto the couch. The guy had big red shoes, carnival-striped baggy pants, big red suspenders, a frilled blue collar, the classic white-painted face, and a great big red painted smile. He carried a small backpack, and if he’d wanted to kill me, he wouldn’t have gotten much of a fight. It occurred to me later that such a ploy might come in handy in the future.
“You the guy who wanted the clean-up?” the clown asked with a slight smile when I finally got ahold of myself. He was a clown, so I guess he was used to people laughing at him.
I looked around the room slowly, deliberately. Then I looked the clown dead in the eyes with a wry grin and a light staccato of chuckles. “I don’t know, what do you think?” I asked, my voice filled with irony.
The clown walked in and examined the parlor … and the carnage within. His eyes got a little wider as he slowly counted up the corpses. “I guess you are,” he answered flatly. We looked at each other and laughed like the couple of clowns we were.
“You’re not at all what I expected,” I said dryly, still laughing.
“I know, I know … the outfit.” He hadn’t stopped smiling. “I had a gig … some rich kid’s birthday party. I wanted to make your deadline. Ten grand is ten grand. The kid’s dad was nice enough to let me bail before the party was over.”
“No worries, man. I actually needed the laugh. It’s been a hell of an evening.”
“I can see that. Mind if I wash up?” he said, indicating his face paint.
“Go right ahead. You can use the sink behind the bar. Grab a beer out of the cooler if you want.”
“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” He moved behind the bar, set his backpack next to the sink, and pulled out some face cream. “This stuff leaves kind of a mess,” the clown warned.
“I’m pretty sure this place couldn’t look any worse if we slaughtered a hog in here,” I said, taking another tired swig of beer.
The clown looked around again, and I think he frowned, but I couldn’t tell through the red smile.
“Good point,” he replied. He remained silent for a few minutes as he continued to clean the grease paint off his face. “You do all this?”
“I had some help,” I said a bit evasively. The clown nodded his head. “Is your help one of these guys? I normally don’t ask details, but some people want special treatment for their …
help
.”
“No. He’s gone. I mean, he left. These guys are garbage.”
“Two of you did this?”
I nodded tiredly.
The clown raised his eyebrow, clearly impressed. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
“It takes a lot,” I reassured him, smiling. “I’m kind of an animal lover.” The guy raised a questioning eyebrow, but when I didn’t elaborate, he went back to cleaning his face. The last of the paint came off, and he rinsed his face one last time.
I looked at him and something occurred to me. The guy looked just like a young version of Leonard Nimoy. “Hey, you look just like …”
“Yeah, I know,” the guy said grinning. “I get that all the time. No relation.”
“You working like that?” I asked, referring to the clown-suit.
“No choice. I didn’t bring a change. I was headed home right after the party.”
“Okay. How do we work this? You want to just haul these bastards into your truck. You did bring a truck, right?”
“Van,” he corrected, “and let me go get some bags. Some of these guys are still damp.”
“Alright.”
He walked out the back door with his backpack over his shoulder. He returned a minute later with an armful of black body bags. He walked around the room and dropped a bag on top of each corpse, stopping at the Russian hit man with the goatee. He got a curious look on his face and flipped the guy over with his big red clown-shoe.
“Hey, I know this guy. I just did some work for him a few nights ago.”
“No shit? Friend of yours?” I asked cautiously.
“Hell no. He was a prick. The fucker even stiffed me five-hundred bucks.” The clown kicked him with a big red shoe. I had to control a burst of laughter.
“He
was
a prick,” I added, smiling. I had to marvel sometimes at some of the things I’d seen over the years. A guy in actual clown shoes kicking the corpse of a hitman was definitely one for my diary … if I kept one.
“You know, wasting this guy was a public service,” the clown said, nodding at the body.
“I think so, too.” I got to thinking about the rest of the mess. There were probably a few gallons of blood soaked into the carpet, and the room reeked of gasoline. “Hey, do you do abatement?”
The clown’s face brightened. “As a matter of fact, that’s one of my day-jobs. This work is a perfect lead-in for it.”
“Makes sense. What would you charge to replace the carpet in here and do a full clean up? Down to the concrete.”
“Oh,” he rubbed the back of his neck, looking around the room, “Figure about six-grand plus materials. I even know a bonded interior designer who knows how to keep her mouth shut. She does good work. She’s listed. Even done a few movie-moguls.”
“Hypothetically speaking, how much would it be for a house that might … just possibly … have had a few bodies catch fire inside? Living room and kitchen would need some work, too.”
The guy gave me a sidelong glance with a raised eyebrow, looking just like Spock when somebody says something illogical. “You
have
been busy.”
“Long story.”
“I bet,” he replied, not wanting to know any more.
“I’d have to see it first to spec it out. Here’s my card.” The guy reached into the inside of his clown pants and produced a card. He walked over and handed it to me.
“You have a card?” I asked, wondering if it said,
Fast, Reliable Body Disposal While You Wait
on it.
“For abatement services, I do, plus a few other things.” He paused and looked around the room. “This kind of work,” he pointed to the bodies, “is word-of-mouth only.”
“I bet.” We laughed, and I looked at the card.
Stanley-Fast Abatement Services
was printed across the middle with a phone number below it. “Stanley. Is that you?”
“In the flesh,” he said and gave me a big grin. All I could see in my head was the painted red smile that the guy had walked in with. “Yvgenny said there was eight. You got anything else around here needing disposal?”
“Naw. This is it.”
“Okay, then let’s get to work.” We spent the next thirty minutes wordlessly filling the bags with their grisly contents and stacking them near the back door. We searched each body and emptied their pockets, placing everything on the bar. We found three sets of car-keys, and all the corpses had wallets, but the wallets were empty except for small amounts of cash.
“Hey … that’s weird,” Stanley said.
“What?” Justin asked.
“Only two of them had guns?”
“Looks that way. They said they were supposed to make it hurt. Guess our asshole over there,” I indicated the goatee, “didn’t think they could keep their hands off their guns if they were carrying.”
“Lucky you.”
“You got that right. If they all had guns, it probably would have been my friend in a bag with these guys.”
The clown looked at me funny, thinking about what I had just said. “What, are you bulletproof?”
“Oh, I meant me and my friend,” I corrected quickly. “Not thinking straight after all this.”
The clown nodded his head. He walked to the back door, opened it and kicked down the doorstop so it would stay open.
“Well, let’s load ’em up,” he suggested.
We each grabbed an end of the top bag and carried it into the alley where he’d parked a white van with a large AC unit on the top. The clown backed in through the open rear doors with me trailing and unceremoniously dropped the body on the steel floor. The space was wide enough to get three bodies side-by-side. I felt cold air pumping hard and fast out of a vent in the ceiling and noticed that there were shelves of commercial heating dishes.
As I stepped out of the van, I peered around the open door and looked at the side of the van. In big colorful letters I read,
Stanley-Fast Catering and Clowning—Parties, Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs
.
My jaw dropped open, and I turned my head slowly at the clown retreating back into the building. The implications were a bit unnerving. I thought about the bodies and that big word
Catering.
“You do catering, hunh?” I yelled into the building with a mostly veiled look of suspicion on my face.
Stanley laughed. “I get that a lot, too. Don’t worry. My cargo never ends up in the kiddies.”
I let out a sigh. “Glad to hear it,” I added, truly relieved. We finished loading up the rest of the bodies. “Well, that’s the last of them.” I reached into a pocket as we headed back into the parlor to the bar. I pulled out three stacks of hundred dollar bills and set them on top of the wallets and keys. “It’s all yours,” I said smiling.
“Mind if I count it? I’m leery after dealing with that asshole,” he added, pointing his thumb back at the bodies in the van.
“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” I replied.
The clown reached into his pants and pulled out a yellow marker, the kind they use in banks to check counterfeit money. He thumbed through the bills, marking about every fourth or fifth one. The money and the number of bills checked out.
“It’s solid,” he said. “Got a bag?”
“Lemme check,” I replied, stepping behind the bar. I looked under the sink and came up with a small, clear plastic trash bag. “This ought to do it.”
“Thanks. About the cars …” Stanley said, placing the cash, wallets and keys in the bag, “I saw three black Lincolns in the parking lot behind the building next door.”
“I reckon the keys fit the cars,” I speculated. “They’re all yours.”
“Thanks. On the way home I’ll drop the keys off with a guy I know. The cars will be gone in a couple of hours, no sweat.” The clown grabbed the beer still on the counter and finished it.
