The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

by Charlie Huston

  She took the wet hand towel from my forehead.

  —I know. Still. It's not as bad as it looks.

  I looked at the blood on the towel in her hand.

  —Well then, that explains all the relief pouring over me at this moment.

  She bent and peered at the gash in my forehead, reopened when Jaime kneed me and I bit the floor.

  —This should be stitched up. Want me to take a crack at it?

  —What? No. What the hell with people who don't have any medical training at all wanting to stitch my tender flesh?

  She straightened and dabbed the towel on my head again.

  —I don't know. Just something I always kind of wanted to try.

  —Stitching up an open wound?

  —Yeah. Weird, huh?

  I didn't bother with an answer, the weirdness of such a desire going without saying. The sexiness of it not being something I wanted to get into. As it would suggest too much about my own weirdness. A quality already on abundant display in my current mode of employment. Also by the fact that I was sitting in a motel bathroom at one thirty in the morning with a bag of ice in my bruised crotch and a beautiful and bookish and emotionally complicated young woman tending to my hurts while her brother got tanked in the adjoining blood-splattered room.

  Instead, I got straight to the most important matter at hand.

  —You smell great.

  She took the towel away again.

  —It must be the rose petals I've been bathing in.

  I inhaled.

  —Could be.

  She tossed the towel in the sink.

  —Or the deodorant I've been spraying on myself to cover the fact that I haven't bathed since my dad died two days ago.

  I nodded.

  —So I am kind of an asshole, huh?

  She boosted herself on the sink and dangled her feet.

  —You do have some moments of impropriety.

  I took the ice bag from my nut bag and touched my numbed genitals.

  —Yeah, certain things bring it out in me.

  She picked up a pack of cigarettes sitting by the basin and put one between her lips.

  —Like having the future generations of your family name put at risk?

  I dropped the ice bag in the tub.

  —Like being asked to an apparent murder scene to clean it up.

  She struck a match and placed the flame to the end of the cigarette.

  —Oh, that.

  She shook the match out and let it fall to the floor.

  —Jaime didn't actually kill anyone.

  She blew some smoke.

  —He just cut him up a little.

  I rose from the can, testing my ability to move with a dangling pendulum of agony between my legs.

  —Oh, is that all? Well then, let's get to work.

  —He was being an asshole, asshole.

  —One assumes.

  —What?

  I took my head from under the bed, where I was shining a flashlight looking for stray blood, and looked at Jaime.

  —One assumes he was an asshole. Otherwise, one assumes, you would not have cut him up a little.

  I looked at Soledad, standing by the open door of the bathroom, arms crossed, a cigarette she only occasionally bothered to drag from between the fingers of her left hand.

  —That was the phrase, was it not? He just cut him up a little.

  She looked from the floor.

  —Yeah, that was it.

  Jaime waved the latest in a long line of Malibu nips.

  —A little? I just about did a Silence of the Lambs on him. Just about peeled him raw.

  I looked again at Soledad.

  She shook her head.

  Based on the amount of blood I'd seen at her house, and how much less there was here, I was inclined to think he was full of it. But thinking isn't knowing. Is it?

  So, not knowing which of them to believe, I went back to work.

  I'd done as I saw Po Sin and Gabe do at the Malibu house, started at the top and worked my way down. Like cleaning a dirty window. There hadn't been anything on the ceiling, but along one wall next to the bed there was a nice spackling of blood that rose nearly to the top. I'd worked my way down it, spraying with a bottle full of Microban and sopping it up with paper towels that I dropped in the room's waste basket. To be disposed of later.

  Jaime narrated as I worked.

  —See, if he'd just come in here and conducted business in a responsible manner, I wouldn't have had to cut him. I mean, I understand that in this business contingencies sometimes arise without having been accounted for, but it's not the exclusive burden of the producer to absorb those costs. The deal starts going all Waterworld, I don't see where I should be on the hook for the overages. He got all the situation has changed. Shit like that. I told him, said, Dude, I'm working this deal on a short schedule with, like, no budget at all. So maybe you should get out of my fucking face before I fucking cut your ass. He didn't listen. All that blood up there, that's where he freaked out, started waving his arms around after I'd cut his hand. He'd stayed still he wouldn't have got blood on my new jeans and I would have left it at that. As it was, I had to stick him to make him sit down and shut up. Gave him a poke in the shoulder and he settled down. Wadded up those sheets and got them over the hole to stop the bleeding.

  By that point in the conversation I'd shot about my hundredth look at Soledad, all of them saying pretty much the same thing: What is the nature of his birth defect, and do you have the same one?

  Her looks in reply clearly indicating: I know, I know, just please don't provoke him because I don't want to fetch any more ice for your swollen testicles.

  Still unsure if Jaime was a congenital moron or just your average drunk fucking idiot infected by a particularly nasty form of the Hollywood Virus, I was working my way down the wall, deliriously happy that the blood hadn't had time to seep through the wallpaper, as he drew his tale to a close.

  —Asshole wanted to take the sheet with him. Fuckin' believe that? Told him, No way, man, I'm on the hook for this room. Those sheets end up on my bill if they go missing. That's not an expense I'm gonna carry. Asshole.

  That detail bringing me up to where I was looking under the bed, finding nothing worse than more almonds.

  Jaime pointed at the sheets.

  —Way I figure it, some bleach'll get those spic an' span. 'Course, I'm not much when it comes to cleaning, doing laundry, whatever, but I knew Sol would be able to help.

  He smiled at his sister.

  —She's always good for lending a hand. Any wonder I got pissed when she told me some asshole'd been messing with her today of all days. Then she's gonna call that asshole to help us out over here? I mean, what the fuck, right?

  He pointed at her.

  —Above-line expenditures kill a production, Sol.

  She looked at the long ash on the end of her cigarette, tipped it and watched it fall.

  —I'm just trying to help, Jaime. I can leave at any time.

  —Aw, don't be like that. Get all bitch on me.

  —A bloody hotel room's not the same as when you dropped the cookie jar. Something happens to that guy you cut, you want this room to be more than spic and span.

  —Nothin's gonna happen to him. He was fine. I just didn't want to pay for, you know, room damages and shit.

  She stared at the tiny coal at the end of her nearly dead smoke.

  —Fine. Whatever you need. Taken care of. No problem.

  —Shit, Sol. C'mon.

  I got to my feet.

  —Well, I don't think the room's gonna pass any kind of close scrutiny by a team of crack experts with ultraviolet lamps, but it's as clean as I can make it.

  And it was. Walls and furniture gleaming in the lamplight. The only signs remaining to tell that the carpet had been bloodied were patches where the original color showed brighter from my scrubbing. The offending bedding stuffed in the wastebasket with the paper towels.

  A job well do
ne.

  A potentially very criminal job, well done.

  Details, details, details.

  Jaime lurched up from his chair, scattering the litter of tiny bottles at his feet, and toed the wastebasket.

  —So all you gotta do is wash those out an' you can get the fuck out of here.

  I peeled the rubber gloves from my hand and dropped them on top of the stained sheets.

  —Jaime, my man, I don't know how to tell you this, and I don't much want to, but I'm afraid you're going to have to eat the deposit on the sheets.

  He watched me as I packed the cleaning gear back into the carrier.

  —Fuck is that supposed to mean?

  I wedged a pack of disposable paint scrapers into the carrier.

  —It means that shit is not coming out.

  —Little bleach. Fuck do you know?

  I pointed at the sheets.

  —I had a girlfriend once, had the heaviest periods you ever saw. Dated the girl for over a year, and I threw away enough sheets in that year to know a lost cause when I see one. Those are dead soldiers.

  Soledad came over.

  —Can you get rid of them for us?

  I nodded.

  —Yeah, I can get rid of them. I can do that.

  She nodded.

  —Thanks.

  I bent to pick up the wastebasket and Jaime slapped my hand away.

  —Fuckin'way man. Sheets stay here.

  I looked at the clock. Almost four. My eyes ached. My head and my mouth throbbed. I don't want to talk about how I felt below the waist. Suffice to say I was really looking forward to lying down.

  I picked up the carrier.

  —OK by me, the sheets stay here.

  I started for the door and heard his knife snap open behind me.

  —Fuckin' freeze, asshole. No one leaves till these sheets are clean and this location is wrapped.

  I turned and looked at him, swaying drunk, knife in hand.

  I set the carrier on the dresser, between the TV and the lamp.

  —Do you have a gun?

  —What?

  I looked at Soledad.

  —Does he have a gun?

  She tossed the stub of her smoke through the bathroom door in the direction of the tub.

  —No.

  Jaime twirled the knife, almost lost his grip on it, recovered, settled into a credible kung fu stance that I was pretty sure I recognized from Chev's copy of Game of Death.

  —Don't need a gun.

  I picked up the lamp, knocked the shade from it, yanked the plug from the wall, turned it upside down and showed him the pointed corners of the heavy wood base.

  —And I have a lamp. If you take one more step toward me with that knife, I will hit you as hard as I can with this lamp. If you die, I will clean up the mess and leave. If you don't die, you can clean up your own blood. Asshole.

  He looked at his sister.

  —Sol?

  She went to the closet and got a jacket and pulled it on.

  —Don't look at me, Jaime.

  He jabbed the knife at the air.

  —Dude's threatening your brother. Gonna let that happen?

  She walked to the wastebasket.

  —Still willing to get rid of this stuff?

  I hefted the lamp.

  —Yeah. Sure.

  She picked up the wastebasket.

  —Can I come with?

  —Sure.

  She came to my side of the room and picked up the cleaning carrier.

  —Let's go.

  I followed her to the door, eyes on Jaime, the lamp held out.

  —It won't cost much, they're crap sheets.

  He dropped his arms to his sides, knife dangling from his fingers.

  —Fuck do you know? Didn't even clean up the almonds, asshole. Fucking don't call me, I'll call you, fucker.

  And I backed from the room, pausing to set the lamp inside the door before I closed it and ran for the van, taking the carrier from Soledad, she taking my hand, running along with me. Laughing.

  ONLY A SMALL EARTHQUAKE

  —How'd you get out here?

  —Taxi.

  I took my eyes from the road.

  —You took a taxi from Malibu to Carson?

  She kept her eyes closed.

  —Yeah. They say when you've had a loss in the family, a sudden and unexpected loss, they say driving is a bad idea.

  —Why's that?

  —Because you're distracted, I guess. I mean, I don't know by what. Unless they mean the memory of finding your dad with his head blown all over the room.

  She opened her eyes, shook her head, pinched her cheek.

  —I think I'm going to have to learn not to be so flippant about that. I'm not handling it as well as I thought I could.

  —So the taxi was probably a good call.

  —Probably. Of course, the driver no doubt assumed I was coming down here for a late-night hookup with some rough trade I'd been chatting with online. But I'll live with the dim opinion of my cabby this once.

  —We should all be so well adjusted.

  She waved a hand.

  —Well, well adjusted, let's not get carried away.

  I smiled.

  —Yeah, especially as your brother seems to have the market cornered on that particular quality.

  —He's really just my half brother.

  —Yeah, same mom, I got that.

  She stopped inspecting the glories advertised on the massive illuminated signs looming over the 405 North mega car lots of Torrance, and looked at me.

  —How'd you get that?

  I hit my blinker and changed lanes to get out from behind a Pinto stuffed with the amassed possessions of its owner; boxes and bags heaped from the floorboards to the headliner and smashed against the windows, leaving just enough space for the driver, one of the rolling homeless of L.A. I glanced at him, talking endlessly to himself, as we passed.

  I looked back at the road ahead.

  —He kept saying your dad. I just assumed that meant you had different dads is all.

  She looked back at the signs.

  —Oooh, Detective Web at work. Did you suss out any more family secrets?

  —Just that the black sheep of the family back there is also a fucking moron.

  —Hardly a secret, that one.

  —Yeah, he does rather wear it on his sleeve.

  She began going through the pockets of her jacket, searching.

  —He's actually kind of OK. Or he was, anyway. When we were kids. Just spoiled mostly. And starved for attention.

  —Interesting combination.

  She came up with a hair bungee from her pockets and began to pull her hair into a ponytail.

  —Well, my mom is an interesting woman with strange abilities. Especially when it comes to screwing with her kids' heads.

  I adjusted the shoulder strap of my seatbelt where it snugged too tight across my neck.

  —Yeah, moms are tricky that way.

  She got her hair where she wanted it, a couple wild curls poking loose, and settled back into her seat.

  —Our mom is a little more than tricky. Her special talent with Jaime was to give him anything and everything he asked for. This being the easiest way she knew to keep him occupied, and keep her from having to actually deal with him as, I don't know, a human being. Jaime's response was to ask for more and more extravagant toys, trips, parties, whatever he thought would force her to deal with him, I guess.

  —How'd that work out for him?

  —Well, I didn't witness much of it, not wanting to be around her myself, but the way I put it together, the more he asked for, the more she worked to make the money to see he got it, the more he got, the more he asked for, and the more she worked … and so on.

  —Kind of a perpetual motion machine of familial alienation, then?

  She slid her eyes at me.

  —That was clever.

  I rubbed my eyes.

  —Yeah, clever, that's me, always d
oing clever stuff. That's why I'm in this van at the moment with a load of someone else's bloody sheets and all.

  She went in her pockets again and came out with a pair of big black plastic film star sunglasses.

  —I said it was clever, not smart.

  —True.

  She took off her regular narrow black-framed glasses and slid the sunglasses on.

  —Anyway, Mom just worked and worked to get Jaime what he wanted, which meant she was never around to look at him, which is what she wanted. Until he turned eighteen.

  —Then what?

  —She kicked him out. Of course. If behavioral scientists had designed a scenario meant to create an adult utterly unequipped to provide for themselves and emotionally cope with the world, they could not have done a better job than my mom did with Jaime. And, to make it more interesting, when she set him loose, she did it in Hollywood.

  The lights of a jumbo jet cruised over the freeway on approach to LAX. Inglewood sprawled low and wild to the east, endless stucco blocks of small houses with barred windows and dead lawns.

  —It's a tough little town, ain't it.

  She shrugged.

  —It's designed to fuck the weak is all.

  —And how'd you avoid the mommy treatment?

  She leaned forward and adjusted the heater.

  —Dad divorced her when I was three. Seeing as she didn't want to have the responsibilities of actually raising kids, it wasn't much of a challenge for him to get custody. And by then I'd already started loathing her pretty well. I mean, Dad didn't have to run her down at all to make me not want to see her. Not that he would have done that. Still, holidays, occasional weekends, he'd pack me up and drive me over to the valley. It sucked, but it got better when I was five and she had Jaime. He was cute. And fun.

  —Till he grew up and turned into a prick.

  —Like I said, he had help.

  —We all get help, that doesn't mean we all end up cutting guys up in motel rooms after a drug deal turns sour.

  She fingered her sunglasses lower on her nose and gave me a look over the tops of the lenses.

  —My, how very hard-boiled of you.

  —I'm just saying.

  She pushed the sunglasses back into place.

  —I know what you're saying. And you're mostly right. He's definitely defective. But he's my brother. So I. You know.

  —Sure.