Don't Be Cruel

by Mike, Argento,

  Except his enunciation wasn't as clear. His words whistled through his broken tooth. He looked like a homeless stroke victim with poor dental hygiene.

  People passing him on the sidewalk gave him a lot of room.

  Elvis and Polamalu stayed behind with Grandma. For one thing, they figured she – not to mention Nunn and Traci With an I, who had retired to Spew's room – could use the protection. For another thing, she was making pork chops for dinner. Elvis loved pork chops.

  As Smith, Spew and Kathy left, Grandma called after them, "You kids have fun!"

  "We will, Grandma," Spew said.

  Grandma looked suspiciously at the large, inked man standing beside her. Polamalu could feel her gaze on him and asked, "Is something wrong?"

  "There's something on your head."

  "I know."

  Grandma brightened up. "OK. Would you like some iced tea?"

  They waved from the porch as Smith pulled the truck from the curb, Slim Sam riding in the bed.

  "So let me see if I have this right," said Kathy, riding between Smith and Spew in the cab. "We're going after Papa. Is that right?"

  "Yep," Smith said.

  "And once we find him, what are we going to do?"

  Smith didn't want to answer that question. He mulled it, thought briefly about lying, and then reached over and turned the radio on, still tuned to the station with the UFO guy.

  "The end is closer than you think," the UFO guy said. "The signs are all around us. War and rumors of war. Pestilence. Disease. Depravity. Economic calamity. The Christians have it all wrong. Jesus won't come back. He won't have time. Twenty-twelve. Write it down. It all comes crashing down in the year 2012. The Mayans, they predicted it. The Mayan calendar runs out in 2012. The Mayans, they knew. They knew. The world isn't going to end with a bang. Time is just going to run out."

  Kathy snapped the radio off.

  "I asked, what are we going to do?"

  Smith considered his words carefully. "I really think our choices are limited."

  "I'm not sure I like what you're saying."

  "I'm not sure I like it either."

  They rode in silence for a minute. Smith didn't like his options at this point. He thought maybe they could outrun Papa. But he'd never been able to outrun anyone in the past. He never really had to. Confronting him would lead to, well, what? He knew he couldn't talk his way out of this. He'd have to do something more, something he didn't want to do, something he knew he would regret. He was a lot of things, but he didn't think of himself as the kind of person who could shoot someone in cold blood.

  Spew twisted in his seat to check on their cargo.

  "Uh, I think maybe we should check on the Elephant Man. He's rolling around pretty good back there. Maybe we should have bungeed him down or something."

  Smith pulled to the curb. Slim Sam slid, stopping when his head dented the front of the bed.

  Smith and Spew got out and met at the tailgate. Smith lowered the gate and dragged Slim Sam to the back of the bed.

  Slim Sam wasn't moving.

  Smith pulled the pillowcase off Slim Sam's head.

  "He don't look too good," Spew said.

  Smith felt for a pulse. There was none.

  "But then, he didn't look too good to begin with," Spew said.

  "He's dead," Smith said.

  They looked at the body.

  "What do you suppose happened?" Spew asked.

  "He stopped breathing," Smith said. "Fuck do I know. I'm not Quincy."

  "Who the fuck's Quincy?"

  "It doesn't matter. All I know is we can't be riding around with his carcass flopping around the bed. We have to do something with him."

  Spew said, "How about we get a big jar of formaldehyde and freak show, here he comes!"

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It took Papa about an hour to make it back to The Happy Beaver. He pushed through the door and was blasted immediately by "You Make Loving Fun."

  "Fleetwood fucking Mac," he mumbled, glancing up at the stage where the sociologist was once again confusing sultry with spastic.

  He leaned on the bar and motioned to Soshi to come over.

  "Yeah, boss?"

  "Where the fuck is whats-his-name, Bradshaw, the guy with the shit on his head?"

  "Haven't seen him, boss."

  "What about Cat? Has she been in?"

  "Haven't seen her, boss."

  "How about a little skinny guy, face like a hatchet? Seen him?"

  "Nobody like that in here today, boss."

  Papa was exasperated.

  "What's with the 'boss' thing?"

  "Just thought I'd try it."

  Soshi looked him over. He looked like the unholy offspring of a homeless guy and a junkyard dog.

  "You really look like shit, boss," she said.

  "Thanks for your concern," he said as he turned to his office.

  It had seemed like such a good idea, a very simple formula. Insurance plus homicide equals money. And it would have worked perfectly, with him relaxing on a beach in Costa Rica with his millions by now, had it not gotten all fucked up by fucking idiots.

  He opened his office door and stepped in.

  Behind the desk was The Boss.

  "Hiya," The Boss said.

  "Well, hello. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

  "I sent Slim Sam down here with specific instructions, easy to follow really. And now, he's in the wind. Last I heard from him, he had taken care of one of your problems and was on his way to take care of some others. And seeing as I hadn't heard from you, I stopped by to check up on things. One of the things I wanted to check on was where the fuck is my fucking money."

  "I don't have it."

  "Wrong answer."

  The Boss stared at Papa with heavily lidded eyes.

  "You don't seem to understand," The Boss said, speaking slowly. "I performed a service for you. You pay me. That's how this thing works. It's called a service economy. So, again, where the fuck is my fucking money?"

  "I'll get it for you."

  "I am a patient man," The Boss said, his tone of voice betraying the meaning of his words. "I will charge you a mere 20 points on my money, starting now, compounding hourly."

  "You've got to be fucking kid…"

  The Boss held up a finger.

  "Did I mention that there are penalties for missing payments? Some of these penalties can be, shall we say, excessive. But that's how the business works. You understand?"

  Papa could feel the veins throbbing in his temples.

  "Sure," he said. "That sounds more than fair."

  The UPS guy gone, D'Onofrio turned his attention to the manila envelope the head fed handed him.

  Inside were several insurance policies and some articles of incorporation and other legal papers that were seemingly incomprehensible. Something to do with a nonprofit organization about breast implants that was affiliated with something called the First Church of Elvis, Scientist.

  He held the papers up and said, "What the fuck?"

  He studied the rest of the documents, and then sat back in his chair, looking at the ceiling.

  "Fucking Wiley."

  He studied the papers and came across a familiar name – Philo Papadopoulos. He fanned the papers on his desk and looked them over. Papadopoulos had done a good job of insulating himself. D'Onofrio pieced the thing together. But it was based on a lot of assumptions and speculation and not much in the way of evidence.

  As he pondered the papers, something dawned on him.

  Wiley was at the heart of all of this bullshit. He could see it. The strip club, the church, the nonprofit organization about the boobs. His name might not be on the papers, but the pattern was clear. Wiley was in all of this shit.

  And Wiley was conveniently dead. Dead men can't hire defense lawyers.

  But he was a cop. And you can't go accusing dead cops of multiple homicides and attempted homicides and attempted insurance fraud and shitload of other things that D'Onofr
io was sure were illegal.

  He rubbed his chin, trying to think how he could make it work.

  He had no idea. His wife had one of those rubber bracelets bearing the initials, WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? He pondered that question. What would Jesus do?

  After giving it some thought, he figured Jesus would pin all of this shit on Wiley and get on with walking on water or whatever it was Jesus did for kicks in his spare time. He wasn't really up on all of that Gospel stuff.

  Still, if Wiley were behind all of this shit, he wondered, who killed the FedEx guy?

  He picked up the phone and punched in a number.

  "Yeah," he barked, "find out which asshole from DHL delivers to Green Acres."

  The Elephant Man was a gift – a gift from a benevolent God.

  "Don't you see?" Smith asked. "This is the best thing that could have happened to us."

  Kathy furrowed her brow.

  "Um, hate to break this to you, but I think you need to check your math there Einstein," Kathy said. "We're driving around in a pickup truck that doesn't belong to us with the corpse of the Elephant Man rolling around the bed. I'm not sure whether 'best thing that could have happened to us' is an adequate description. I think it's more along the lines that we're fucked."

  "See, you're looking at it all wrong," Smith said. "We have a dead body. You can do all sorts of things with a dead body."

  "Um, remember when I made that crack about necrophilia? I was just kidding."

  "Listen. We have a body. A guy who killed someone, and we have his gun. He's not just a dead body. He's evidence. We can use him."

  Spew had been asleep, but he woke up with a jerk.

  "What was that about necrophilia?" he asked.

  Elvis, Polamalu and Grandma sat side-by-side on the couch, watching "Blue Hawaii," part of an Elvis-a-thon being aired on Turner Classic Movies. Grandma loved the movie, not because she loved Elvis or the music or the acting. She loved the vivid colors, the motion, the almost kinetic pace of the movie. They stimulated areas of her brain that made her feel good.

  She felt right at home with Elvis and Polamalu. They were good boys.

  "Elvis," she said, "now share the popcorn. I'm sure Santonio would like some."

  "Thanks, Grandma," Polamalu said, making a face at Elvis behind Grandma's back.

  Elvis mouthed, "Fuck you."

  "I saw that," Grandma said. "Now, you be nice or you won't get a root beer float."

  "Yes, Grandma."

  Nunn and Traci With an I were upstairs. They had spent the last few hours in Spew's bedroom talking. Traci With an I let Nunn know that his past repulsed her and that she thought while he wasn't as bad as, say, Hitler or Stalin or that British guy on "American Idol," he was close. Nunn explained he was trying to be honest for once in his life and they had a moment, a singular moment when honesty and trust shined a bright light on them and their souls opened and they heard the music of the spheres.

  Then, they fucked like monkeys testing a new hard-on pill.

  Grandma didn't seem to notice.

  Elvis and Polamalu traded a knowing glance.

  "Jesus," Elvis whispered, "it sounds like a gorilla's up there fucking Bambi."

  Polamalu considered that analogy for a moment and then said, "It seems highly unlikely that a gorilla would fuck Bambi. For one thing, I don't think gorillas and deer share a habitat. For another…"

  "What are you, the National fucking Geographic?" Elvis said.

  "Boys. Language," Grandma said.

  "Sorry Grandma," they said in unison.

  Nunn and Traci With an I finished their copulative disturbance of the peace and came downstairs, Traci With an I a little unsteady on her feet.

  Nunn stood in front of the TV and held his arms out.

  "I have an announcement to make."

  "Down in front," Polamalu said. "We're going to miss Patti Page's cameo."

  "In a second," Nunn said. "Traci and I are getting married. We want you, Elvis, to do the ceremony."

  Elvis wasn't sure whether he could perform weddings, legally anyway. But he agreed just to get Nunn to move because the big scene in which Elvis confronts the "Murder She Wrote" lady about not wanting to work in the family fruit business was just beginning.

  The front door swung open and standing there, holding a .38, was Papa, looking like he just came from the set of a "Bum Fights" video shoot and he was the loser.

  "My Lord," Grandma said, "you poor man. Come in and I'll get you something to eat."

  Papa pointed the gun at Nunn and said, "I should kill your ass right now. You're supposed to be dead anyway."

  Elvis pulled his .44 from under his jacket and pointed it at Papa's head.

  "Mine's bigger," he said. "And in this instance, I really do think size matters. You should see what this thing does to a TV set. I can imagine what it would do to your head."

  Grandma got up and headed to the kitchen. She was laughing.

  "You boys and your toys, playing cops and robbers," she said. "Who wants s'mores?"

  Smith pulled up to the kitchen entry at The Happy Beaver, backing the tailgate of the truck to the door. It was perfect. The only thing to the rear of the club was the slag heap from the neighboring quarry.

  He and Spew met at the tailgate and began dragging Slim Sam's body out of the bed. Kathy poked her head out of the cab and asked, "I don't mean to pee on anyone's parade, but are you sure this is a good idea?"

  "No," Smith said.

  "OK," Kathy said, "as long as you're aware of that."

  Smith peeked in the kitchen door. The coast was clear. Nobody ever ordered food at The Happy Beaver so it was rare that anyone was even in the kitchen. The kitchen help, a guy named Luis, usually sat out back smoking or hung around at the end of the bar ogling the dancers. That's where he must've been because he wasn't out back and he wasn't in the kitchen.

  They dragged Slim Sam through the kitchen to the hallway outside Papa's office. Smith crept up the hallway and peeked into the dancer's dressing room.

  At the same time, Kathy walked through the club's front door. The investment bankers, in the middle of a routine honoring credit default swaps, stopped and stared at her. The sociologist abandoned the software engineer she was hustling for drinks to bounce over to Kathy. She was a returning hero.

  "We didn't think you were coming back," the sociologist said. "Not after that business with Papa."

  "The boss," Soshi added, "is pretty pissed off at you."

  They hovered around Kathy while Smith and Spew went to work. It was harder than they thought it would be. Rigor mortis had started to set in and Slim Sam was stiff as the software engineer's dick at that moment. Some rubbing and other manual stimulation, though, made him easier to handle. Slim Sam, too.

  Smith and Spew took one last look at their work before leaving.

  "Fuckin' A," Spew said. "This is fucked up."

  "That's the idea," Smith said. "That's the idea."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  D'Onofrio walked toward the back office at The Happy Beaver. On the way, he passed the investment bankers standing in the doorway of the dressing room. Their routine based on the AIG fiasco had been interrupted by screams when Soshi made a grim discovery in Papa's office.

  "Hiya, Seamus," the investment bankers chirped in unison.

  "You know them, sir?" the uniform asked.

  "Just by reputation," D'Onofrio said. "What have we got here?"

  "You aren't going to believe this shit."

  They entered the office and seated behind the desk with his feet up was the Elephant Man.

  "Jesus," D'Onofrio said. "What the fuck happened to his face?"

  The medical examiner was poking at Slim Sam's face with something that looked like a chopstick. In fact, it was a chopstick. The ME got the call in the middle of a quart of shrimp lo mein. He was still eating as he examined the body.

  "It doesn't appear to be post-mortem," the ME said.

  D'Onofrio approached an
d took a close look at the deceased. He noticed a drop of dark fluid on his cheek.

  "That fluid, what do you make of that?" he asked the ME.

  "Soy sauce."

  D'Onofrio looked closer. The deceased's shirt had been ripped open. On his chest, someone had written, with what appeared to be a Sharpie, "I am not an animal."

  "Who found him?" he asked.

  "Bartender," another uniform answered. "She's out there."

  He left the office and headed out into the bar. Dancing had been temporarily suspended while the police locked the place down and collected statements from the dancers and patrons. The uniforms took turns questioning the dancers. Two of them had to be pried apart when they got into an argument over who would get to play the bad cop with the Hellenic doctoral candidate.

  D'Onofrio stopped to ask a uniform what the witnesses were saying.

  "Nobody saw anything," the uniform reported. "I mean, in regard to the body. They saw lots of other stuff. That AIG routine must've been something."

  He went to the end of the bar where Soshi sat sipping a cosmopolitan, propping up her head with her hand.

  "Rough day, eh?" he asked.

  "No shit," Soshi said.

  "Isn't every day you find a body in your boss's office."

  "That?" Soshi asked. "I don't give a shit about that. You how much in tips I'm getting screwed out of right now? I should've dragged that dead Elephant Man fucker next door to the doughnut place."

  D'Onofrio straightened up.

  "Too late for that," he said. "Now, just a few questions. Where is the person who usually occupies that office?"

  "Beats the hell out of me," Soshi said.

  "When did you last see him?"

  "I don't know. A while ago."

  "You didn't happen to have seen him in the company of a dead body with a swollen head?"

  "Nope."

  "Did you see anyone else in the office? Or going into the office?"

  "Nope."

  "What time did you discover the body?"

  "I'm not sure. It was pretty much right before all you guys got here."

  D'Onofrio stared into the distance.

  "Thanks for your cooperation. You've been a lot of help."