BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2

by David Cranmer

  Miller nodded. He kept nodding for a long time, not sure what he was agreeing with or why. Ghosts. He could identify with that. He was starting to feel like he saw one every time he looked in the mirror. He climbed down of the stool and shuffled over to the door. The barman asked him three times if he was sure before sliding the bolt and letting him out into the evening.

  * * *

  Miller entered the house through the rear. He climbed up onto the back of the outhouse roof and then in through a bedroom window. The house was silent and cold. If anyone had heard him, they didn't show it. He went room to the room, finding nothing but slum conditions and drug paraphernalia. Pictures of naked women pulled out of magazines and newspapers stuck to walls above mattresses that had no sheets and a variety of interesting stains.

  He climbed the stairs to the front bedroom and eased the door open, leading with his gun. Moses was slumped in a ripped chair in the window, His head rested against the window sill, and his hands dangled down at his sides over the armrests.

  He looked for all the world like he was sleeping, but he wasn't.

  Miller stepped on close and touched the cold skin, the dark features already greyed and cracking with the marble-like appearance of death. There was a light film of drool across his lips and down his chin, leading down to the empty pill bag and half-full bottle of beer in his lap. His vacant eyes stared out at Miller, unblinking. Even in his neutral death mask, Moses seemed to be pleading with Miller.

  Whether it was an accident or deliberate didn't matter.

  The job was done.

  Miller thought back to Irene at the bar. He's scared. Can't you just leave him be.

  He slipped the gun back into the waistband of his jeans and touched the cold forehead while he said a silent prayer for the dead. Then he thought, no, he couldn't give Gaines any reason to back out on the deal. He though again of his family, and his promises, and the deal he'd made with Gaines. Appearances were everything, and he needed it to look a certain way when he showed the body to his boss.

  He stepped back and pulled out the gun, raising it to point at Moses.

  He said another prayer, this time for the ghost he knew he would be seeing next time he looked in the mirror.

  Jay Stringer is a novelist, drinker, and knight in shining armchair. OLD GOLD and RUNAWAY TOWN both available from Thomas & Mercer. Represented by Stacia Decker at DMLA.

  IT'S COMING

  Jen Conley

  The homeless people were screaming again.

  Mandy sat at the patio table in front of the citronella candle, its long flame fluttering, her stomach tense. She was frightened of the cries, which were occurring more and more these days. She rubbed her ankle—it'd been a tough week at school. Mandy was on the eighth-grade cross country team and her coach had run them hard.

  "They're fucking wackos!" Mandy's crazy Aunt Ettie barked. The smell of Ettie's cigarette smoke wafted through the night. The backyard was dark, devoid of any light because Ettie liked it that way. According to her, bright spotlights attracted the homeless.

  "It's coming!" she said. "It's coming, you'll see!"

  Mandy didn't ask, What's coming? because Ettie'd been saying It's coming for weeks and nobody knew what she was talking about.

  After a moment, Mandy heard Ettie toss her beer bottle into the recyclables, a plastic garbage can she kept next to the detached garage, which stood in the right corner of the backyard—a strange set up, but Mandy's parents had gotten a good deal on the house years ago because of the design. Ettie lived in the apartment above the garage.

  Mandy heard her aunt open another beer and slurp it.

  "They're gonna kill us, Mandy. One of them is gonna kill us!" Ettie paced the yard, her shadow and the glow of her cigarette flicking back and forth like a pendulum.

  Mandy shuttered. She wanted to go back inside.

  Suddenly, a pathetic long wail bellowed from the woods where the homeless lived in their camp. Mandy looked up, listening. The homeless camp was pretty far away, but still, there were so many people who lived there now, their tent and shack city tripling in the past six months. They wandered around like ghosts, the cop who'd come to Mandy's house in August said.

  The wail escalated and escalated. Ettie stopped pacing—her shadow and cigarette glow went still. The cry was joined by another cry, and then a banging, like someone was hitting a drum, but it was probably an overturned bucket. The noise soared and surged until it exploded into a bizarre crescendo and then faded. Mandy bit her nails. She wanted to be inside watching TV with her nine-year-old brother, Liam. The homeless people frightened her, and she sure didn't like hanging out with crazy Aunt Ettie on one of her benders, as her mom called them.

  But Mandy had come outside because she and her mom were fighting about Mandy not doing enough around the house, and her mother had banished her daughter to the backyard, a punishment for getting a little mouthy.

  "Go sit out back!" she'd said.

  Times were tough. Mandy's dad was gone so much these days, working long hours driving around the country delivering hazardous chemicals. He'd been out of a job for over a year and they had to catch up on the mortgage payments. Mandy's mom was grabbing as many shifts as possible at the hospital. Mandy had to pull her weight now. Lord knows they had to support Ettie and her goddamned drinking habit.

  "Get a life!" Ettie suddenly shouted. Then she yelled to Mandy: "I can't take this fucking crap. You know?"

  "Ettie, keep it down, ok?" Mandy said. "Mom will get mad."Another beer bottle hit the recyclables. "Assholes," Ettie mumbled.

  The homeless people were being relocated on November 15th. It was township land they were camped on, and after a year of fighting back and forth—the township against a homeless advocacy group and a church—the township won. "Thank God for fucking Republicans," Janice Benko from next door said to Mandy's mom. "No pity, no remorse, no give-a-shit. I love it."

  Mandy's mom, Renee, was not fond of Republican philosophies but she did say she agreed with Janice on this one. Mandy did, too. Sure, some of these people had hit hard times, some were just harmless alcoholics and drug addicts, and some were just there. But a few were convicted child molesters or mad nuts or violent ex-cons. That's what Mandy's mom and Janice were always saying.

  Ettie stepped out from the darkness and joined Mandy at the table. The candle illuminated Ettie's face and she appeared gaunt, wide-eyed, and garish—something risen from the grave. From the old photographs Mandy had seen, Ettie once had been pretty but now, at forty-nine, she wasn't. Her skin was yellow, her bottom teeth protruded, and her voice was scratchy like a witch's.

  "They're gonna get into this backyard, Mandy, and do something bad. It's coming. Listen."

  Mandy did listen and she heard clips of moans and cries and chatter.

  Ettie shook her head, all knowing. "It's coming."

  This spooked the girl. Sure, yes, of course, the homeless could get to them. But the backyard was secured with a six-foot stockade fence, the kind with pointed tops. Could they get over that?

  And Mandy didn't like the way her aunt kept saying this—It's coming. If she meant the homeless were coming to get them, then why not say, They're coming?

  Ettie leaned forward, closer to the candle and flame, her ragged hag face glowing wildly. "I seen one of them homeless walking in front of our house the other morning," she whispered in that scratchy voice of hers. "He's got a dog on a rope. I bet that's a child molester."

  Mandy swallowed. "Want me to tell Mom?"

  Ettie leaned back in the chair and said, "Nooooo. Don't do that, man."

  "Why not?"

  "'Cause you don't wanna go around accusing people of things they might not be guilty of, ya know? Ya gotta be cool in life, Mandy." Ettie pulled out a cigarette and offered her one. Mandy declined. When she was drinking, Ettie would offer a baby a cigarette.

  "Oh, I forgot," Ettie mumbled, lighting up. "The Regulator is up above us, huh?" She pointed to the second floor window, Mandy's mo
ther's room.

  Ettie was quiet and then said, "I started smoking at your age. It's good you're a stand-up kid, not running around. You're sticking to your studies, involved in team sports. I wasn't like that."

  Mandy wanted to go inside. It was Friday night. She was beat. She wanted to go to bed. And, she was disturbed by all the homeless talk.

  "They're all fucking child molesters, I bet," Ettie said, taking a drag on her cigarette. "Or murderers."

  The sliding glass door opened and Liam stuck his head out. "Mom says you can come in."

  Relieved, Mandy quickly stood up. "Good night, Ettie."

  "Yeah, yeah," Ettie said, coughing. "You lock up. Keep your brother and mom safe."

  * * *

  Ettie's stay with Mandy's family was way past its welcome. Three years was too long to tolerate, and Mandy's father knew that, as well as Mandy's mom Renee, who didn't care if Ettie was her husband's sister.

  "I know she's having a hard time, but really, she's got to go!" Renee yelled more than once. Ettie used to live with the sister, Donna, in Old Bridge, but after two years, that ended and she relocated to the apartment over the garage.

  Earlier in the week, Renee called Donna and asked her to take Ettie back, but within seconds, Mandy watched her mother's eyes water with tears. Then she saw Renee end the call, place the cell phone on the table, and walk upstairs. She didn't come down for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  Mandy woke a little after six the next morning, too early for a Saturday. Her mom and brother were still asleep, her father gone, and when she went downstairs to get some cereal, she found that there wasn't any milk. Mandy dressed and went upstairs to grab her wallet. Before she left for the 7-Eleven, she peered through the blinds that covered the slider door and searched the backyard. All was still. The patio table was clear—no ashtray or beer bottles—except for the citronella candle sitting in the center.

  Outside in the street, it was gray and damp and a bit chilly, even for September. Mandy walked through the neighborhood, enjoying the somber silence of the early weekend morning. She tried to jog a little, but her ankle was bothering her enough to make her stop. She usually ran on the weekends, even though her coach told her to take one day off a week.

  The 7-Eleven faced the highway, its back to Mandy's neighborhood. A patch of trees grew behind the small building. As she approached the store, the man with a dog on a rope—the one Ettie had mentioned—appeared from the trees, stepping in front of her. The man and the dog were both grubby and mangy, and the man wore long camouflage pants and a dark jean jacket, and he carried a small backpack. He spoke softly to the dog and when they reached the front of the store, he wrapped the rope around the bottom part of a pole. Mandy walked by him, catching a whiff of urine and stink.

  Inside the store, she quickly grabbed a gallon of milk, steering away from the man who was now making himself a cup of coffee. Mandy paid and left, passing the dog on the rope, who sat obediently under the pay phone.

  About ten minutes later, while she was home—her brother and mom still asleep and Ettie in her apartment—the man with the dog on the rope walked by her house. Mandy was sitting on the couch in the living room, eating her bowl of cereal and watching television, when she looked through the front window and there he was—the mangy man with the dog on the rope, both strolling along the road, the man sipping his coffee. Mandy stared at him and noticed he wasn't really old but not really young. Probably in his forties, she decided.

  Then the man stopped and stared at Mandy. She quickly turned from the window, faced the television. She sat still, her eyes on the TV commercial for toothpaste, and then another ad for McDonald's. Finally, she gathered enough nerve to slowly turn her head. The man and the dog on the rope were gone.

  Soon after this incident, Liam wandered downstairs and asked for a bowl of cereal. Mandy's mom was up next, her pink robe dragging behind her. Mandy made her toast.

  "I'm so exhausted," Renee said, sitting at the table. Mandy poured her mother a cup of coffee, then grabbed the gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, a spoon out of the drawer, and placed them on the table, next to the sugar.

  She set the toast in front of her mom and sat down. "There's a man with a dog on a rope."

  Renee stared at her. "A dog on a rope?"

  Mandy nodded. "Yeah, I just saw him. Ettie said she also saw him recently."

  Renee closed her eyes, sighed, and rubbed her head. "Ok, just keep away from him. If you see him when I'm not around and you feel nervous, call Janice next door. It's gotta be one of the tent people."

  "But Janice isn't home during the day. She works."

  Her mother nodded. "Then call one of the other neighbors. I'll leave you a list with their numbers."

  "Okay."

  Renee picked up her toast and appeared to study it. "Thanks for breakfast, honey. I'm going to try not to nag you so much, because you're a good kid."

  Mandy smiled. "Okay."

  * * *

  In the evening, it rained and Ettie remained in her apartment. Renee was working a four to midnight shift, so Mandy and her brother stayed in the house alone, watching TV, surfing the computer, eating a homemade pizza. Liam loved his sister's pizza. They didn't invite Ettie for dinner because it was Saturday night and Ettie usually got very drunk on Saturday night.

  After Liam went to bed at nine-thirty, Mandy went into her mother's room to turn out a small lamp. She walked to the window and peeked through the blinds. The violet glimmering of the television flickered in Ettie's apartment window. Beyond the garage, in the woods, Mandy noticed a few white glows—lights in tents. The church group that brought the homeless food, blankets, and other provisions also brought them battery lamps. Mandy remembered the cop in August standing in front on the porch with her mom and Janice Benko explaining how the tent people were getting their supplies. When he left, Janice was irate. "Goddamn church! We'll never get rid of these vermin. Why would they leave if they're getting everything for free?"

  Mandy stared at the glowing tents, wondering which tent the man with the dog on the rope lived in. Perhaps she had been wrong earlier—maybe she'd imagined him staring at her through the window. Maybe he just stopped to rest, or maybe something attracted his attention, something eye-catching—like a bright-red cardinal bird sitting in the tree near the living room window. She wondered if he and the dog were warm. She wondered if he was reading a novel or just staring up at the canvas, listening to the rain patter on the material.

  * * *

  At midnight, a thunderous pounding woke Mandy. She jumped out of bed and checked on her brother, who was sitting upright, rubbing his eyes. "What's that, Mandy?"

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Loud shrieks followed. Mandy ordered Liam to stay in his room and she took off down the stairs, realizing the noise was Ettie.

  Mandy unlocked the door and let her aunt in. Ettie was in a frenzy, panicked and shaking, her face shiny with tears, her hair sweaty and unruly. The rain had stopped so she wasn't wet, yet she reeked of alcohol. "They're out there, Mandy. They're coming!"

  Mandy didn't know what to say, but she was frightened. "Who's coming?"

  Ettie pulled out her box of cigarettes and then put them away. "Them tent people, Mandy. I felt them sniffing around my place. I felt them out there."

  Mandy didn't know what to do. "You want me to call the police?"

  Ettie said nothing, just looked around, searching the kitchen with her wild eyes. "I can't stay in here, can I?" she asked, pulling out her cigarettes and then putting them away again. "The Regulator won't like that."

  "I can call the police," Mandy offered again, trembling, spooked. "Was it the man with the dog on the rope?"

  Ettie stared at her and nodded. "Maybe. Maybe."

  Just then, Liam appeared in the kitchen. He was crying. Mandy told him to bed.

  "I don't want to," Liam said.

  Mandy took his hand and walked him to the stairs. "I'll be up in a moment."

  "Is Ettie ok
ay? I don't mind if she wants to stay with us tonight."

  Mandy shook her head and hugged him. "Go upstairs. I'll be there soon."

  The boy slowly climbed the steps, turning around a few times until he reached the top. Mandy waved. "I'll be there in a minute."

  When she returned to the kitchen, Mandy found her aunt sitting at the table. "Ettie, do you want something to eat?"

  Ettie, who was rail thin, declined.

  Mandy sat with her aunt and watched the woman turn the cigarette box over and over. "It's coming, Mandy. You watch."

  Ettie sat and sat until she calmed down and grew more lucid, asking Mandy about her cross country meets, where she ran, how well she did. Mandy, who was still scared but feeling better, answered, saying she was not the fastest on her team but she was in the top five. "We compete against all the schools in Ocean County and Monmouth counties."

  "I don't know how you do it, hon. I hated to run. Do they still make you do those stupid physical fitness tests every year?"

  "Yes."

  Ettie clicked her tongue. "Yeah. I was no good at the running like you but I was good at chin ups." Her voice was scratchier than usual. "I used to be real strong back in the day."

  At twelve-thirty, Ettie stood up to leave. "Have a nice night, hon." She said stepped out onto the wet porch and lit a cigarette. Mandy switched the porch lamp on and watched her aunt walk away. Ettie waved without turning around, using the hand with the cigarette.

  When Mandy returned upstairs, Liam was in her room, curled up in her bed with a teddy-bear Mandy had won at the boardwalk earlier in the summer. "What does she mean, It's coming?" Liam asked. Mandy explained that Ettie'd had a bad dream and she felt like some type of monster was coming to get her. (Mandy and her mother tried very hard to play the homeless people down in front of Liam.) "It was just a dream."