The Cleanup
Page 6
And the dream propelled him forward . . .
Buenos Aires, Argentina 1966. Nine years old. Dad's State Department had taken them across the equator, through two years in a different land.
A different world.
The sky was the color of the Argentine flag: bright blue, clear white clouds throughout. The last of the kids were just making it down to the field. Three separate soccer games were organizing themselves, Americans and Anglo-Argentines of all grade levels mixing and matching. There were kids hanging out on the bleachers. There were kids chasing each other around. The half-hour recess was just beginning.
Surrounding the field was a thirty-foot-high wire-mesh fence, with another foot of curled barbed wire anointing the top like a crown of thorns. Beyond it was a thirty-foot drop, ending in a ravine that climbed eight feet back up and resolved in a long straight line of abandoned railroad tracks. Beyond that, on a ten-foot shoulder of dirt and gravel, stood the hovels: eight of them, squat and ramshackle, constructed with mud and random outcroppings of cinder block or corrugated tin.
The people in the shacks were Chilean immigrants. They had come all the way around the tip of the continent, avoiding the Andes mountains—through Tierra del Fuego, Land of Fire, the closest continental point to Antarctica—and then back up the Argentine coast, to camp outside the American school overlooking the Rio de la Plata.
Billy was three feet away from the fence, manning the scaled-down soccer goalposts. There were twenty minutes left to play in, and the game had already begun. Though the action was nowhere near him, Billy was absorbed in the scurrying at the far end of the field, where it looked like Donald Foley was about to boot one in.
Then the first military police vehicle had rolled down the hill beside the school, stopping at the dead end at the foot of the playground.
Another followed.
And another.
And another.
His team began to scream, "GOL! COLASO!" but Billy had missed Don's triumphant scoring kick entirely. He was staring at the first armed military men, mustachioed and sharply creased, getting out of the sedans and paddy wagon and moving along the railroad tracks.
One of them lit a torch. Another brandished a Thompson submachine gun. Two dozen others quickly followed suit, one way or the other. Billy moved away from the goalposts, wrapping his thin fingers around the thin gray wire of the fence. A few other kids came to join him.
It was the shouting of the children that alerted the Chileans. They had all been inside. Now the first one came out, just in time to catch a boot in the face from one of the officers.
The first real scream of anguish and terror was what brought the rest of the thousand-odd kids running toward the fence. A woman, evidently the bride had shrieked as her husband fell. The air was soon full of screams.
Billy remembered digging his face into the wire, trying to get closer to the madness at hand. Each hovel had sent out an explorer by now. All of them were facing extradition at best, imprisonment at worst. Both options promised violence and terror, delivered them up front.
The woman and her three children were dragged from the nearest hovel. The first torch twirled in through their doorway. Three doors up, a bald man raced out with a butcher knife in hand. The first gunfire went off. The man caved in at the knees and buckled, screeching and spraying.
He hit the dirt, and the children of Lincoln American School began to lose their minds. A howling erupted, hundreds strong, that overwhelmed the screams and automatic-weapon fire from below. Teachers were pressed up against the fence as well, now; some of them were also screaming.
Three other huts went up. Billy found himself wondering how mud could burn like that.
Then he spotted the monsters, for the second time.
Behind the madness.
Behind the smoke.
In the fifty yards between the hovels and the bank of the river, where river rats the size of cocker spaniels were rumored to dwell, Billy saw them. They were not rats. They were not anything that had been born of earthen egg and sperm. Their front legs were too long. Their heads and bodies were all wrong.
Behind him, the first end-of-recess bell ignited into sound. It put a ripple into everything: the voyeurs, the victims, the cops, the creatures. It was Pavlovian in its impact, jerking everyone to attention for a moment of disorienting conditioned response.
One of the soldier-cops paused only a second, then brought his billy club down on the head of the man from the seventh doorway. There was a pulping-melon sound.
And then the bell went off again.
The teachers at the fence were sobering up, joined by reinforcements from the administrative office. The back line of students was being peeled away, pulled from the fence and led back to their classrooms. Recess, as such, was over for the day.
The monsters began to dance.
Billy watched it all.
From the eighth and final doorway, a handsome Chilean in his mid-to-late twenties emerged with an Argentine flag in his hands. He waved it frantically, shouting over and over, "Yo soy patriota! Yo soy patriota!"
I am a patriot. The words, like the horrors, twirled and swirled through the air. I am a patriot. It seemed to amuse the officer, who reached out and snatched the flag. He was smiling as he kicked the Chilean, dropped the flag to the dirt, ground it in with his heel, and then lit the last of the hovels.
Ugly plumes of thick black smoke rose up toward the heavens. An ugly smear of mud adorned the flag. Billy couldn't get over how much they resembled each other.
The last of the illegal immigrants were being loaded up. The last of the students were being dragged up the steps. He couldn't get over the similarities there, either.
Dimly, through the smoke, he could still see the monsters.
It took them five minutes to pry his fingers from the fence.
Tossing and turning, as the dream dragged him onward and onward and down.
Thought his life.
And the first night.
Of the change . . .
EIGHT
THE TROUBLES
"Well, for starters," Larry said, "we're three months behind on rent. Albert is threatening to throw us out, which is nothing new, but he always means it. If we let it go to four months, we're finished."
"I know," Billy said through a mouthful of foam.
"You know," Larry sneered. Billy went back to brushing his teeth. "Then you probably also know about the disconnect notice on the phone and the overdue electric bill. You may even have noticed that there's nothing in the house but beer."
"I thought you liked beer." Shooka-shooka-shooka.
"Oh, yeah, I love it. I want to eat, sleep, and fornicate it. Unfortunately, all I can do is drink it. And that's not even easy around here, because you usually get to it first."
Shooka-shooka-shooka. "This is all true, Larry. Keep going." Shooka-shook.
"Keep going!" Larry was working up his own lather now. His terry-cloth robe dangled halfway open; his hair was wild, and the eyes behind the glasses were slightly askew. "Well, then, how about the shit piled up in the sink? You're brushing your teeth on last week's dishes. You're up to your kneecaps in last year's garbage. You owe me two hundred dollars. You never have it, but you always have cigarettes, and you always have beer. You refuse to hold a steady job, because you're determined to make it as a musician; but you never bring home more than forty dollars a day, and you hardly ever make that, because you hardly ever stay out there more than a couple of hours.
"Meanwhile," he continued, "you ride on the dubious laurels of your fucking rock opera, which any industry person will tell you is a punch line in search of a joke that will make it funny.
"I've been watching you for almost seven years, man. I've been watching you make the grossest mistake a creative person can indulge in, year after year after year. You build the top of your goddam monument first, then try to fill in the rest of the thing before the apex crashes down on your pointy little head. Which it always d
oes.
"And for an extra fringe benefit, you alienate all of the people who ever believed in you: Mona, Lisa, your family, me. You make us feel stupid for ever having believed it at all.
"Am I getting through to you, man? Do you hear what I'm saying?"
There followed a full fifteen seconds of silence.
"Huh?" Larry demanded.
Pause.
Shooka-shooka-shooka.
"GOD DAMN IT!" Larry bellowed. "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"
Billy turned on the cold water and stuck his face under it, filling his mouth. Then he spit a couple of times, turned off the water, straightened, and turned.
"In case you hadn't noticed," he said, "that was a purely symbolic act."
"You brush your teeth of all responsibility." Larry laughed. "Clever."
"More like a cleansing," Billy said. His eyes were calm. His voice was steady. He was even smiling a little. "Rinse away the shit that clings to you, then start again clean."
"You might wanna try eating the shit instead."
"I swallowed a little."
"Whoa. Sorry I missed it."
"Listen. Larry." Billy was no longer smiling. "Cold water was part of the metaphor, too. To cool me off, lest I decide to kill you. Okay?"
"My heart! My heart!" Larry cried, staggering backward, clutching his breast. "The terror! It's too much!"
"Larry, I shut up and listened to you. Now you shut up and listen to me. Everything you said was true, alright? You've pointed out everywhere I'm fucking up, straight across the board. You're right. No argument whatsoever."
"No argument?" Larry was incredulous. Now he held his heart for a reason.
"Nope. I agree with everything you said."
"Why?" Larry asked, suddenly suspicious. "What's the matter with you?"
Billy smiled softly, a hint of hidden stress behind it.
"Come on," he said. "I'll show you."
Larry couldn't stop staring at the white chalk line. Billy knew how he felt. And then some.
The story of the murder had just been spun, in all of its intimate glory. It included his forcible eviction from Avenue A, which Larry had been somehow polite enough to keep from mentioning. It had not included Christopher or the rat-things, however; Billy hadn't quite reconciled himself to their reality yet.
Despite the fact that the note was still in his pocket.
Despite the fact that he knew it was true.
Billy had awakened this morning with the strangest feeling, so far from his customary state that he had to check and make sure that he was still himself. The feeling was one of well-being: his body rested, his mind acute, his spirit at unprecedented peace. He couldn't understand it, but he couldn't fight it, either—no more than he could wipe the blissed-out grin from his face.
And in the hour before Larry had awakened to assail him, something strong and clear had taken up residence inside him. It was the sense that his life was about to come together.
The sense of standing on destiny's edge, one step away from flight.
So when the ledger of sins had been read, Billy had been able to bite back his rage, throttle his defensiveness with an ease that was almost scary. Larry's amusing quip to the contrary, Billy had swallowed most of the shit. It was far from tantalizing, but it really hit the spot.
And the truth shall set them free, said a voice in his head.
Larry was speechless now, refreshingly enough. Billy took the opportunity to join him at the window, draping one arm around his shoulder, before speaking.
"Kinda gives one pause for thought, don't it?"
"I'd say." Larry's voice was barely there. He couldn't stop staring. Billy followed his gaze.
"I stared into the face of death last night, man. And it was a sobering sight. I feel"—hesitating—"like I've been knocked out of my body somehow. There's this incredible detachment. It's weird. It's nice. It's like there's this higher part of myself that experiences it all, but is somehow outside of it. Unaffected. Not jerked around, more specifically. You know what I—"
"You realize what this means, don't you?" Larry cut in.
"What?" Billy realized that Larry'd switched him off, somewhere along the way.
"It means we're gonna hafta be on the lookout for a fucking maniac, man!" Larry said, his voice suddenly loud. He turned to Billy, eyes wide and distinctly frightened. "This is crazy! I mean—"
"I know."
"Do you really?" Larry turned, backed away, took Billy by the shoulders at arm's length. "I don't think so! God! That guy knows where we live, Billy! He—"
"I'm the one who saw it happen, remember? I think I know more about it than you do." His voice was low and deadly. His higher self was momentarily subsumed in a blood-red wave of anger. "Talking straight to me is one thing. Patronizing me is another. Just chill out and talk straight with me for a minute; we'll get this thing under control. Okay?"
"But—"
"This is a life-or-death situation, yes." Billy's voice was cutting, intense. "I'm sorry that it's happening, but it wasn't my idea. Find another place to crash, if it makes you feel better. Wouldn't be a bad idea. If any nasty shit goes down, you won't want to be around for it."
"But you do, right?"
"I want to find him. Absolutely." Billy grinned, both enlightened and vengeful at once: the bottom line of balance. "But I have some other things that I need to do, too; and they pertain directly to the little speech you made a while ago. So listen.
"Here's my plan.
"I'm going out early every morning, and I'm not coming home until I've made at least a hundred bucks. Then I'm gonna clean the apartment until I nod out. Then I'm gonna wake up and do it again. By the end of the week, I'll have two months' rent and a spit-shined residence to pay on."
"Unless the maniac finds you." Larry's voice had lowered, but the terror was far from gone.
"In which case, I'll nail his ass."
"Of course."
"Just watch."
Their eyes were padlocked together for a long, unbending moment.
"Billy, you're nuts."
"That makes us even." Billy smiled. "And it makes me even with the whacked-out bastard who killed that girl 'cept that I've got God and the NYPD on my side."
"They're just using you for bait, beanbrain! Can't you see that?"
"I'll tell you what I see, Larry. I see a week that will be completely thrown away if I run away and hide somewhere. Chances are good that the guy won't even come.
"And if he does . . . well, I've got it on good authority that nothing can stop me. So we'll see."
"You're fucking nuts," Larry maintained, but he had visibly lost the desire to debate it further. Which was fine with Billy.
"It's gonna be okay," he asserted.
"Honest to God, everything is going to be okay."
NINE
MONA AND LISA
When the phone rang, Mona was deep in the midst of a furious workout. Sweat flew from her forehead, arms, and back, spattering the hardwood floor and universal gym.
Lisa, meanwhile, was just lying on the sofa, skimming through Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique again. They were both clad only in T-shirts and panties; Lisa's shirt was purple, with tiny letters over her left breast reading NOSY LITTLE FUCKER, AREN'T YOU? Both the rotating fan and the old square baby-blue Kmart special were going full-blast; humidity had crawled into the misery-zone, and 10 P.M. found the temperature lingering at an unseasonable eighty-two degrees.
The phone rang again. Lisa set the book down, a folded handbill for MRS. KAY: ASTROLOGY AND CARD READING, stuck in after page 312. It was the chapter called "The Forfeited Self." The phone rang again, and she sat up, looking at Mona.
"Oh, Jesus," Mona sighed, tight-lipped with exertion and more. Her T-shirt was red, and said MY LAWYER CAN BEAT UP YOUR LAWYER. Her panties, like Lisa's, were black; but her legs were darker, and slightly less muscular.
"Whoever it is, I'll tell 'em you're in traction," Lisa said, getting up and moving
through the living room. Mona nodded. The phone rang again.
Lisa walked through the doorless doorway, parted the delicate Indian-print drapes, and stepped into her bedroom. Beyond her, in the kitchen, the phone rang again. She stepped around the Kmart fan and glanced quickly at her unmade bed, the blouse that Jody had left there. Flashes of last night's loving flickered, happy and excruciating, through her mind.
Jody worked for the video production company that taped Dave's videos. She had bright red hair and an incredible amount of freckles, spilling off of her face and down her neck and across the expanse of flesh revealed by her off-the-shoulder apparel. They'd kept glimpsing each other throughout the party, with increasingly-probing eyes and smiles. By one they'd struck up conversation together. By three they were in bed.
God, she was fantastic, Lisa silently enthused, moving into the kitchen. She caught the phone before the seventh ring.
"Mel's Lobster Emporium," she said.
"Hi, Mel," said the voice from the other end. "Can I speak with the lobster, please?"
"Billy!" Instantly, her conversation with Larry raced through her mind; the murder had been all over the news today, and it hadn't been easy to keep him of her mind. "How are ya? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I made seventy bucks in the park today, playing. My head feels really clear, and my stools are firm." Pause. "How's Mona?"
"Never mind about her; I'm worried about you! Jesus, when I heard the news, I . . . it's just so horrible—"
"You talked to Larry?"
"Yeah..."
"Was he still scared half to death?"
"Aren't you?"
"Not really. Not for myself, anyway. I think I've seen the worst of it already."
"Knock on wood."
"The thing I'm really worried about is Mona. Does she still want to kill me?"
"Well, uh . . ." There were a couple of things that she couldn't tell him, and it didn't make her happy. She loved Billy, in her own way, as much as Mona did; the thought of keeping secrets from him sat in her stomach like a moldering thing. "She's very upset, to say the least. She's been loaded since nine last night."