Best Ringo has seen in quite some time (not that he was dumping bodies in Nowhere, Kansas, but before that, back in the day). Head south down Delaware Avenue—yeah, Ringo knows it’s called Columbus Boulevard now, but it’ll always be Delaware Avenue in his heart—and all you see are big box chains, fast food places, a PA license center, a strip club, union halls, whatever. What you don’t see are the rotting piers behind all that. A billion years ago, Ringo’s grandfather worked on those piers as a dock walloper, heaving crates of pineapples or sacks of sugar or heavy train parts or whatever else came chugging up the river. Philly was a port town, and those piers fed thousands of families who lived in the neighborhoods surrounding them. But now those piers have either fallen into the river or stick out into the cold water, looking around like they’re asking, What the fuck did we do? Some are fenced off, awaiting possible development.
Like this fenced-off pier—number 63.
Back in Ringo’s grandpop’s day, this was a train yard for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. All that’s left now is a crumbling pier where trains used to be backed right up to the river’s edge so goods could be loaded. The metal rails themselves had long been stripped away, but the track work remained, sort of, and had been overrun by weeds and trees and garbage and feral cats. Not that you can see any of this from Delaware Avenue. A huge retail store—one of the ones that this year is holding a fund drive to help their employees with holiday bills because they’re too cheap to pay them a decent wage—blocks the view to the river. And yeah, there’s allegedly security back there, but when security is barely making more than minimum wage, it’s pretty easy to suddenly have security working for you.
Ringo and Frankenstein pull the white van into the parking spot that’s farthest from the store, then load the stiff into a shopping cart. Better than dragging it down to the pier. They carry the stiff through a hole in the chain-link fence—somebody else did that, not them—and then walk it out onto the tracks. The breeze off the river is seriously cold. Ringo regrets not wearing an extra layer. Even poor Frankenstein looks like he’s shivering, and Ringo didn’t think that bastard could feel anything.
“How many you think we got down there?”
“What do you mean?” asks Frankenstein.
“Bodies, how many? I’ve kind of lost count at this point. Then you’ve got the stiff that Lisa and Bird are bringing down here. I’m just wondering how many dead bodies are floating beneath our feet.”
“Why are you asking that, man? Why would you ask something like that?”
Ringo stares down through the slats into the dark, dark water. Yo, show of hands, how many of you got chunks of concrete tied to your ankles? Come on, don’t be shy, I know your hands are free.
Thing is, he does wonder. Wonders how many bodies they’re going to stick down into the river before this whole thing is over. How many rats can there be in one city, anyway? How many nickels can he make?
There’s a moment when Frankenstein looks like he could just lift that piece. Lift it and point it at Ringo’s face and squeeze the trigger like it’s nothing, just to shut him up. But then he shakes it off, remembering himself, the paycheck, his boss.
“Come on let’s get the fuck out of here,” Frankenstein says.
“Be right there.”
While Frankenstein has his back turned, Ringo takes the snub-nose revolver from out of his tube sock and tucks it under the rails for possible future use. Hey, when someone as ugly as that eye-fucks you, you need to keep your defense options open.
FOX CHASE
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10
It’s 8:00 a.m. and the snow is coming down in big, wet flakes. Marty received the email alert two and a half hours earlier, even before the first flake had dropped: All public and parochial schools are closed today. Which is the best news ever. That means nobody has to leave the house today, which means nothing bad can happen to anyone. Maybe Dad will let them bake cookies, put on a movie.
But no. Sarie’s already in and out of the shower and getting dressed.
“Where are you going? School’s canceled.”
“Unfortunately, final exams somehow find a way to carry on,” she says, rushing past him.
Marty checks the street from his bedroom window. It’s getting bad out there fast, and the Civic’s not exactly equipped for snow travel. Now he’s worried all over again. He plays around with Diggit for a few minutes but then starts hearing a fight downstairs. Marty moves down the staircase, perching himself halfway down to listen.
“If I don’t go, I fail history!”
“I’ll call your teacher. Give me his number.”
“He’s a she. But Dad, no, seriously, I’ll be fine. I know how to drive in the snow, I’m not like Mom. I keep it in second and pop it up into first when I hit some hills.”
“The news is telling people to stay off the roads unless it’s an emergency. Believe me, your professor will understand. She’s probably canceling it now—have you checked your email?”
“Jesus, Dad, are you really the only father in the world right now trying to talk his daughter out of taking a final?”
“You’re not going out in this weather.”
“I have to.”
“No you don’t.”
“I’m not like you, Dad, I can actually fucking drive!”
After a few seconds the door slams like a shotgun. Marty hears his father say the f word under his breath a few times. Before his father has the chance to come back into the living room, Marty spins around and pads back up the stairs as quietly as he can and makes it to his bedroom window in time to see Sarie driving away. Her tires leave perfectly symmetrical tracks in the snow. She is a good driver, but it’s not her driving that worries Marty. It’s the rest of Philadelphia.
Something Dad said sticks in his mind. Have you checked your email? Sarie left before she could. So Marty goes back downstairs, sneaking past Dad (who’s fuming in the kitchen, banging around dishes) and goes down to Sarie’s desk in the den, where he opens her laptop. Her email app opens up, no password protection. Sure enough, there is an email from her history professor, Calkins. Weird thing is, it’s from two hours ago. Marty clicks on it.
Whoa. Professor Calkins did postpone the exam, told everyone to stay safe out there, details on the rescheduled exam to follow. So where is Sarie headed?
It hasn’t worked worth a damn since he put it in her car, but Marty tries activating the homing chip again. He doesn’t want to worry Dad unless he knows for sure something’s wrong.
DECEMBER 10
Living with the lie of the final exam means I have to pretend like I’m reporting to class to take the exam anyway. I sit in the library with D.’s $4.99 beat-up paperback copy of Naked Lunch, trying to wrap my head around it. His scribbled annotations don’t help much. For one thing, I can barely read them; his handwriting is that shitty. But it’s also the story (if you could call it that). I find myself drifting away from the text and looking outside. The snow is really piling up on the streets. What if I’m stranded here in the campus library?
Dad texts me; I ignore it, as I’m supposed to be in the middle of a two-hour exam. I hit him back an hour later telling him I’m joining an honors program study group for the philosophy exam tomorrow. He asks if I’ll be home for dinner. I tell him I’ll let him know. (I know I won’t.) The snow continues to fall as I continue to plow through the book. One line from Naked Lunch jumps out at me:
“A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts.”
And there’s one that D. underlined twice:
“Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don’t if the shot is right.”
I have to admit the part about the talking asshole is pretty funny.
Then, four to six inches later, it’s finally time to leave. I have a busy evening ahead of me.
; Despite the raging storm, I somehow make it alive to NFU-CS, where I’m wired up. Wildey ushers me into his classroom/office. I resist the urge to ask him if his asshole talks.
Like everything else, it doesn’t go the way I expect. For starters, there is no wire.
—What do you mean there’s no wire?
—You watch too much cable TV, Honors Girl.
Wildey plucks something off his desk and shows me this tiny black circle, no bigger than a dime, pinched between his two meaty fingers. And now I understand why Wildey asked me to wear a button-down shirt, preferably one with dark plastic buttons. I thought that’s because it would make it easier for him to tape a wire somewhere on my torso.
—Come here. Need to sew this onto your shirt.
—Wait. You don’t have someone real who does this? Like a tech guy?
—We’re a small unit.
—Do you even know how to sew?
—I’m a bachelor. I know how to sew.
There’s a supremely awkward moment where I debate what would be easier/not quite as creepy—me, taking my shirt off so he can sew on the bug, or him, working with a needle in close proximity to my chest. The former seems way too stripteasy, so I go for the latter.
As Wildey sews the bug to her shirt he notices she’s trembling—a fast, fevered tremor that he’s only noticing now that his hands are just an inch from her body. She’s like a hummingbird.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. I just have a lot to do. It’s finals week, and then there’s this …”
“Just relax.”
“I’m fine! I just have a lot of work to do and I’m really not sure about what exactly you want me to do!”
Wildey can almost hear the internal combustion engine rev up as she spits out the words.
“I used to do a lot of undercover work,” Wildey says. “Buy and busts, you know, that kind of thing. I was nervous, too, at first. But then a buddy of mine told me about emptying the bucket.”
She glances down at him, but Wildey keeps his focus on the bug and the needle and thread. He knows he has her attention now.
“The bucket?”
“Yeah, the bucket. The one we all carry around with us, full of our worries and doubts and fears. All that shit. So what my man told me to do was, before every undercover job, imagine that bucket in your hands. Count to three, slow as you can. Then dump it out.”
“Dump the imaginary bucket.”
“Yeah yeah, I know it sounds all new agey, but trust me, Honors Girl. This shit works. And don’t worry. The bucket fills itself up again soon enough. But for the next ten, fifteen minutes, maybe even an hour, you’ve got nothing but an empty bucket. Nobody can touch you.”
Wildey finishes up with the bug, then finally glances at her. She has this look on her face like, What the fuck are you talking about? But the funny thing is—that tremor, shaking her whole body? Not as strong. As if her nervous system downshifted to a lower gear.
“There. You’re all set.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The button doesn’t match.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at it! Anybody with half a brain will realize that one of these things does not look like the other.”
“Nobody’s going to be looking at your buttons. You’re not exactly, uh, busting out in that department.”
“Jerk.”
Wildey spreads his hands like, well, you asked.
“You should have told me what you were planning! I could have matched it better. Shit, Wildey … they’re going to spot it right away. And they’re going to know what I’m doing there.”
“There you go, pouring water into your own bucket.”
“Fuck your bucket! I need to go home and find a sweater or something.”
“Uh-uh. No time. You’re set to pick up your, uh, contact in about fifteen minutes, right? Besides, I don’t want another layer of clothes on top of the bug. I want to make sure I can hear everything.”
I excuse myself, and Wildey asks where I’m going. I tell him the ladies’ room. Which is actually a boys’ room, as evidenced by a row of urinals along one wall. Whatever. A quick check in a fogged-over mirror confirms it. The button’s like two sizes bigger than the others. Different shade of black, too.
Back in the classroom/office, I ask Wildey what he wants me to do. He leans back in his chair, clasps his big hands behind his head, and smiles.
—Empty your bucket.
—It’ll be empty, okay? Enough with the bucket. What next?
—Next, get your boyfriend’s contact man to talk business in front of you.
—I have a feeling I might be escorted out of the room before anyone discusses business.
—Then be all clingy with the boyfriend.
—What? Are you serious?
—Pretend like you don’t give a fuck about what they’re talking about. You’re all about the boyfriend. You’re thinking about being alone with him. Or maybe you’re all impressed with him. Yeah, that’s it. You love your Oxy, and you’re impressed your man’s such a player.
—Uh, I don’t know about that. Why don’t you just let me try it my way.
—Your way, huh. Okay, Honors Girl. Do it your way. Just keep ’em talking.
—Okay.
—One more thing, I’m gonna give you money. Buy some shit if you can. If the opportunity comes up.
—You want me to buy drugs?
—Yeah. I’m going to give you the money, you’re going to give me the drugs later. That’s how this works.
—Great.
—Buy a gun, too, if you can.
—What!?
—Okay, I’m messing around with you about that. But if it comes up …
—Why the hell would I buy a gun?
—A weapons charge on Chuckie would make my job a whole lot easier.
—Sure. A gun. Some drugs. Anything else? Want me to see if he has a suitcase nuke, maybe some ricin?
—The gun sure would be sweet.
And then he laughs and I tell him fuck you, which makes him laugh even harder.
FOX CHASE
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10
Three sad beers in, Kevin Holland comes to the revelation that he’s been completely dropping the ball when it comes to his firstborn child.
He wants to call Laura in Mexico City (even though he knows she’s not there, it’s just easier to pretend she is) and confess to her that he’s been parenting on auto-pilot, assuming that everything is okay. Sarie was supposed to be the stable one, she’s always been the stable one. In fact, when Sarie started at St. Jude’s U., she treated it like high school—report for classes, drive straight home, do homework, do chores, go to bed, repeat process. Which struck Kevin as the wrong way to do it. Bizarre as it sounds, Kevin started fighting with Sarie over staying on campus longer, while she insisted on coming home. Was she just being petulant about not being able to go to UCLA? Who knows.
Now she’s taking the opposite tack, staying out all hours doing God knows what (with that kid Drew—had to be that fucking no-good-news kid), and, ha-ha, joke’s on you, Dad. Because you did this to your parents, too, didn’t you? How does it feeeeeeel, his inner Bob Dylan whines.
Well, Laura, I promise, swear to God, enough of this shit.
When she comes home Kevin’s going to have that hard talk with her. That if she fucks up her grades now it’s going to make transferring to UCLA all that more difficult. Yeah, he’ll have to ruin the surprise (the possible job out in L.A. was by no means a sure thing but is looking good). Then again maybe the prospect will help snap things back into place. He cracks another can of Yuengling and perches on the couch, flipping channels, waiting for his daughter to text to let him know when she’ll be home.
He falls asleep before she does.
DECEMBER 10 (later)
In the car, D. goes through the tapes in my glove box again, saying we need appropriate party music. I’m not thinking about parties. I’m t
hinking about the mismatched button on my shirt that’s transmitting everything we say to Wildey’s ears. When I picked up D. and he heaved himself into the passenger seat, I put a finger to his lips and widened my eyes. But he misunderstood and kissed my fingertip. I pulled my hand away and shook my head. What, he said, then I handed him a Post-it note I’d scribbled beforehand: DON’T SAY ANYTHING YOU DON’T WANT RECORDED. He looked at the note, looked at me, looked at the note, then made some frenzied, bug-eyed gesture at his chest that I assumed was the universal sign for, Oh fuck, you’re wearing a wire? I said nothing, snatching the note from his hand and crushing it up into a tiny ball that I shoved deep into my jeans pocket.
So tonight on my to-do list:
1. Get Chuckie talking business
2. Buy Oxys
3. Buy a gun
4. Prepare for my 8:30 philosophy final
Wildey follows the Civic down icy Broad Street, careful to keep a few car lengths of distance. He loses sight of it half a dozen times between campus and City Hall. Okay, yeah, he’ll admit it: Tailing somebody is not exactly one of his strengths. Wildey didn’t learn how to drive a car until he was twenty-five—where he grew up, you didn’t really need a car unless you were involved in the life. Five years later, he’s still very like a new driver.
Canary Page 24