Skunk Hunt (73 page)

True that. In my childhood, Oregon Hill
swarmed with dog packs, cat packs, rat packs and feral human
packs.

"I knew Skunk's business. We all did. It was
part of the community. We were always getting rooked by the cops,
Skunk most of all. We couldn't do much except keep our mouths shut.
But along comes Whacko, a real university mutt. I met him plenty of
times. He would come over here to pry Skunk out of my den. Didn't
like him much, didn't like him at all, and then I hated his guts.
He said I was a prime specimen. He wanted my blood for his doo-waw
test tubes. I said no thanks, I'd already given enough blood for my
country. Then Skunk tells me this nuthead is blackmailing him, that
he was forcing him to scatter his kids to kingdom come to save them
from his blood-lust. Aw, I knew Skunk was worried about his own
ass, too. I knew about the Glass Heads—Skunk was a boastful bastard
that way. But seeing Whacko break apart the McPherson clan like
that got my goat. Then one day he comes over to my place and starts
threatening Skunk with the cops. That was one goat too many. I told
him to hold on a minute, and him not thinking we were dangerous or
anything, what a dummy, and I went into my locker and pulled out my
trusty Bess and walked back in the den and he just stood there,
acting big, thinking I was just trying to scare him off, and he got
a little surprise. Pretty messy, come to think of it."

"What did Skunk say?" I asked after a minute.
A long minute.

"Oh, he just said, 'Well, there it is, I
guess we'd better clean this all up.' He was going to let me do the
honors, but Mother came in and made him get off his lazy ass. She
even had him using a mop!" Flint's mirth at the memory almost made
him pee in his pants.

"So it was...sort of self defense?" Jeremy
ventured. "But I'm not threatening you. See?" He held out his empty
hands. Flint pretended not to see or hear.

"Just like your two friends, the way I see
it," Flint asserted to Barbara and Monique.

"You told them the Brinks money was in my
room?" I said, truly annoyed. "Then they'd think I had known all
along where it was."

"What, you're embarrassed 'cause they'd think
you'd been lying to them?"

"Kinda," I admitted. "Believe it or not."

"There are two types of folks," Flint orated.
"One you always lie to, and the other you never tell the truth to.
And these were both types, so there's no shame and only common
sense in showing them up."

"But not killing them," said Monique darkly.
A lowlife would not take it kindly to having someone killing a pair
of lowlifes, especially when the killer was the original lowlife
trademark. "You know, Dog was just an actor."

"Dog?" Flint said.

"That was the little guy's nickname."

"Well, he acted himself into an early grave.
He was sure as shootin' planning to shoot me, so far as I could
tell. And that big fella, he had a gun, too, but he was too full of
himself to take it out. Not until it was too late. He must've
thought his lard-butt was bullet-proof."

"But where was your gun?" Todd asked. Like
me, he was finding it hard to picture how it had all gone down.

"You couldn't hide something like that in
your belt," I said. "It's too heavy."

"You're right about that," Flint said,
shaking his head. "As soon as I pulled this sucker out my waistband
my pants fell down. "Y'see, there are great advantages to being a
decrepit old warthog. Folks think you're feeble, that you're gone
in mind and body. If those two had made me lead the way up the
stairs, they would've seen Bess bulging out like a backward pecker.
But they didn't want me to get a jump on them, I reckon. Like throw
the loot out of the window or something. They just told me to
follow them, or they'd shoot me."

"So when you got to the top—"

"I shot them." He paused. "Believe you me,
it's embarrassing to think the last sight they take to eternity is
me with my drawers down."

If this was all true—and it was difficult to
conceive a different scenario—then there was nothing we could do
but acquiesce to the killings. I looked at Monique, waiting to hear
a protest. Her silence gave the story all the plausibility it
needed.

"But why did you bring a gun if all you were
going to do was tell us about Dr. Whacko, and how he came to be
buried in that drive-in?" asked Yvonne, gnawing for details.

"For the same reason I brought it today." He
nodded at Jeremy. "To plug up his wide open asshole."

"Aw crap," said Jeremy.

"Yeah, let me see some of that crap. Cm'on,
just a dribble. Maybe a few crusty turds, just for your ol' Uncle
Flint."

"Uncle!" I said mockingly. Tagging familiar
neighbors with paterfamilial and matriarchalfamilial monikers was
habitual on old Oregon Hill, where there was a good chance it could
turn out to be true. Grandpa down the street might very well be
your grandpa, even if he didn't share your last name. But I had
never heard an affectionate avuncularation applied to Flint.

"You heard me," said Flint.

"Don't try to tell us you're Skunk's
brother," Michael cried out in frustration. It was only then that I
noticed he was balled up in the chair, so fetal he could have shit
and barfed at the same time. The gun wasn't even aimed at him, and
he was petrified. I recalled his reaction to the rifle shots on
Route 6 and compared it to Jeremy's reasonably stoic performance of
the moment. Jeremy might beg for his life, but he was not going to
shit in his pants, no matter what. He had the McPherson family
jewels, all right.

"No way," Flint laughed.

"Wait!" I said loudly. "You said Penrose
wanted your blood, too? Why's that?"

"I'm Skunk's father."

"Last name, please," said Todd.

"It's Dementis," I answered. "Dementis. As in
'demented'."

"That's right, and I bear it with honor.
Speaking of which, that's what I won in 'Nam. The Big One."

"You won the Metal of Honor!" Michael scoffed
nervously, not that he knew much about courage.

"That's 'Medal', chowhead," said Flint.
"The
metal's
in my
head."

"And you're saying you changed your name—" I
began.

"Hell no, your father changed
his
name. Think about it. He had a
helluva prison record. Couldn't get a job. Couldn't vote. Couldn't
get
food stamps
, for some
bullshit reason. Maybe they wanted to starve him into submission.
On top of it, Vernon Baldwin couldn't get him a job in a jewelry
store, but that's only because no one wanted to hire someone who
looked like Satan incarnate."

If anyone looked like Satan at that moment,
it was Flint.

"Right, like we're not Irish," I vented.

"Oh, some Irish, sure. You're also a little
bit Greek, and uh..." Flint paused. "And a little bit wood
pile."

"Ugh!" said Michael, clutching his chest, a
feeling some of us shared. The old Oregon Hillers had loathed
blacks with a vengeance, but there was more than an ounce of black
blood in our veins. Chalk it up to human relations.

"I think," Flint quickly amended.

"And after all that hassle with the legal
system to change his name to McPherson—he got the name off a
memorial brick down at Tredegar—does he go for a job? Once. Maybe
twice. Then he threw up the whole business and rousted some pimp in
Jackson Ward. Pretty ballsy, when you think about it."

"You're lying," I said.

"Think about it. All those times he was let
out of jail, when he was way past three strikes. Should have been a
lifer from the get-go. But a bunch of those wardens have a soft
spot for old heroes."

Immodesty becomes the demented and deformed,
I thought sadly, and held my peace.

"As soon as I went in front of the parole
board and did my song and dance, those fellows just melted away.
'Let him go!' they said. 'His father's a fucking hero!'"

"Criminy!" shouted Barbara. And she actually
fell to her knees.

"Would you get up!" I shouted. "Your own
grandfather tried to rape your ear! Don't kneel to him!"

"Oh, right," said Barbara, and scrambled to
her feet.

"Runs in the blood," Flint said
sheepishly.

"So...I'm...a...Demento?" Todd stuttered,
justifiably horrified.

"Dementis. That's right."

"There you go," said Jeremy with false
lightness. "You can't shoot your own kith and kin."

"Says who?" Flint said. "It's the most common
form of murder."

"Man..." said Jeremy with a shake of his
head, as though to say, 'You aren't going to buy this Buick, are
you?'

"If you're Skunk's dad, why did you say
'uncle'?" asked Yvonne, probably scrolling through some mental
police blotter.

"I only said 'uncle' because..." He
licked the his scarified lips. "A man can be an uncle
and
a grandpa. I keep thinking about
my twin brother—"

"Ah!" Todd yelled. "Stop!"

"Folks said Skunk was my spitting image,"
Flint mused on, changing the subject without changing course.
"Shave a few years off, and I would've been—"

"Ah!" I yelled. "Stop!"

"Reginald was my twin's name," he said. "He
drowned at a K-Mart when he was three."

"How can you drown at a K-Mart?" Michael
asked tightly, as though he had drawn up his sphincter to his
mouth.

"Mother said he was trying to steal some
goldfish from the pet department."

"He drowned in a
fish bowl
?"

"It was a big bowl. And he was small." Flint
began digging through his trouser pocket. It was a laborious
process. The gun in his other hand zigged back and forth, the
target shifting with every movement. Jeremy, then me, then Michael,
then me again, then Todd, then Barbara.... "Vern told me the head
games he was playing with you, Mute. He was planting money every
which where. Seed money, he said, to get you going. He'd get you
thinking it was part of the Brinks loot, and you'd be hot to check
the hiding place. I dug most of that hole in Bartow, by the way.
Mother wasn't around to smack Skunk's lazy ass."

"You mean you…could've told him about the
body at any time?"

"Whacko was just a body," Flint said. "Even
Skunk didn't know it was worth anything until a couple years ago,
but he didn't tell me about no reward. I reckon he didn't dig it up
himself 'cause his ol' pappy might go to jail." He narrowed an eye
at me. "He trusted you, though."

We swayed back and forth like bent pendulums
as we strained to avoid becoming accidental victims. Todd and
Michael were moaning and groaning. The weaker halves.

"We found out...what Vern was...up to," I
gasped, twisting sideways. "Why would he...tell you?'

"Once I told him I knew the Brinks money was
gone, he decided I must know more than I was saying. He thought I
might know where the jewels were and save himself the trouble of
bothering you. Save the money, too. How much did he tuck away for
you to find?"

A cool $70,000, less the $20,000 from the
pump house Barbara had stolen from me and the $50,000 from the farm
Yvonne had confiscated under false pretences. I mumbled something.
No sense telling him I had made a whopping Zero out of all
this.

"Ever wonder where that money came from?"
Flint managed to say, even though he was sticking out his tongue as
he strained to reach deeper into his pocket.

"I figured...it was his own. He's well
off—"

"Insurance," said Flint. "First for the car
wreck on that morning Skunk and Winny got theirs."

"Insurance?" Yvonne asked from behind a drawn
knee.

"Vernon and his family physician exaggerated
that little scratch on his face. And then there was the claim for
damages at the Ice Boutique. But most of that bait was reward
money."

"We're waiting for an explanation," I said
after a moment.

"The Glass Heads couldn't be robbing jewelry
stores every week. They had to make up for slack times. Once Vern's
musicians got out, they hooked up with their old crime buddies
again. When they needed cash, they would hand over the names of
their friends to Vern and claim part of the reward, minus Vern's
service fees."

"Why him? Why not keep...all the money
themselves?"

"So the friends of the friends wouldn't know
who the real snitch was and come after him. They could honestly say
they never said a word to the cops. Pretty sweet, really. Using
crime to make crime pay."

"Did Skunk ever...?" I began.

"Turn anyone in? Don't know, but so long as
it wasn't anyone from the Hill, it didn't matter."

"So the money Vern gave me was blood
money."

"Don't take it too hard," Flint said.

"I don't plan to give it back," said Sweet
Tooth.

"Good girl."

"Well...I already spent it on a doctor...to
get rid of my helicopters."

"Huey's?" Flint said, alerted by a key
word.

"You're not whacking off, are you?" Monique
hissed, turning her curves this way and that as Flint plowed
through his trousers.

"If I get shot now, after all this..."
Yvonne, in no position to dodge a bullet, scrunched deeper into her
chair, until it looked like I was a proud owner of a piece of
modern art: Overstuffed Moldy Bun #1.

All the bobbing and weaving loosened my
tongue.

"So Sweet Tooth...where did you disappear
to...after you stole my share of the pump house money?"

"I told you. I went...to the doctor. Someone
without insurance pays an arm and a leg."

What a cheapskate Carl had been. He had dealt
in arms and legs. He could have allowed Barbara to take out the fee
in trade.

"He gave me medicine for my helicopters,"
Barbara concluded.

"
Helicobacter
pylori
, ninny," Monique fumed breathlessly as she
scooted out of one line of fire, then the next. Calling your
perverted spouse a ninny was not grounds for divorce, but it did
not bode well for their marriage. Happy days.