Pest Control

by Bill Fitzhugh

  No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his dream that made her leave. She was stressed because they had no money and Bob had lied to her.

  But wasn’t there a bright side to all this? Sure, she was mad at him now, she had every right to be, but that would pass. Besides, Mary could use some time off and Katy always liked visiting her grandma. With them gone, Bob would be free to work on his experiments and maybe make this thing happen. Then Mary would come back and things would be alright. Hell, when he thought about it, this was a blessing in disguise.

  But his optimism rang hollow, even in his own head. Bob had lied to the one person who believed in him; he drove her out and now he was trying to rationalize the results.

  Whenever Bob had to mull things over he went to his Bug Room and sat in the beat up old swivel chair. He took as much comfort in the eerie blue lights as his bugs did. As he listened to the pitter and chirp of the crickets, he realized they were somewhere in the baseboards. The crickets must have escaped and taken up residence in the wall space.

  He checked the crickets bugquarium, but there were no signs of an escape. Perhaps the ones in the baseboard had come to free the others. Screw it, he thought, he’d worry about that later. Right now he had bigger problems.

  Bob wondered if he would have to abandon his dream in order to get Mary back. He wondered if Katy would be emotionally scarred for life by this little melodrama. And, as the crickets in the baseboard continued chirping, he wondered if they were communicating with their colleagues in the bugquariums. If so, what was the message?

  As Bob contemplated these questions, he fingered Mary’s gold locket. Maybe he’d mail it to her with a letter begging her forgiveness. In the letter he would include a renewed promise to use heptachlor or chlordane the next time he got a job. After all, what was a little exposure to carcinogens when compared to his marriage? His experiments could wait.

  Bob was beginning to sort things out for himself when the doorbell rang. Bob reluctantly got up and answered it.

  “So you think I’m jokin’ about this rent money or what?”

  “Listen, Dick,” Bob said with an edge in his voice. “Since I lost my job, things have gotten pretty tough.”

  “Tough? Yeah, I bet. Especially with your wife packin’ up and leavin’…and who can blame her? Who’d wanna be stuck with a limp-dick like you?”

  “Look, that’s none of your goddamn business.”

  Pratt stepped close to Bob and began poking him in the chest with his index finger as he lectured. “Hey, I ain’t here for shits and grins, pal. I got a UPS package at my house with your name on it and you ain’t gettin’ it till I see some goddamn green! You still owe me three-twenty, you useless douche bag!”

  Bob was tired of Pratt’s verbal abuse and, since he wasn’t expecting anything from UPS, he spoke with some extra bravado. “Keep the goddamn package,” Bob said. “It’s probably my Publishers Clearinghouse money.”

  “Funny guy. You know, you’re a real scumbag, Dillon. You can’t keep a pissant job more than a couple of months at a time, so you got your own kid out there sellin’ cookies to pay your rent. Whatta friggin’ loser.”

  Bob had no idea what Pratt meant by that and he was afraid to ask.

  Pratt turned to leave, then he stopped and turned back to Bob. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “that 24 bucks your kid gave me…consider it interest on what you owe.”

  Now Bob understood. He stood at the front door, paralyzed with shame, his doleful expression not unlike that of Burt Hooten after Reggie Jackson hit that first home run in the bottom of the fourth in game six of the ‘77 World Series. Even the Bug Room wouldn’t console him now. Finally he roused himself to go for a walk.

  The storm clouds were moving in and Bob could smell the impending rain. As he shuffled down Twenty-First Street looking like a dejected member of the Dodger’s pitching staff, he saw a Birch Skeletonizer (Bucculatrix canadensisella), bright brown, its wings crossed with silvery white bars. Perched on the oak tree, it munched contentedly. Bob felt a large, warm drop of liquid land on his head. When he heard the rolling thunder and saw the black clouds he knew a hard rain was going to fall.

  The swollen drop tickled Bob’s scalp as it rolled toward his neck. He thought about turning around and going home instead of skulking down the streets in a downpour, but he decided the latter tableau would suit his dampened mood, so he resolved to get wet.

  More thunder in the distance coincided with a ravenous growl from Bob’s stomach. He had been so preoccupied with Mary and Katy leaving and the visit from Pratt that he hadn’t eaten all day. Now he was hungry.

  Ahead, an unpleasant-looking hot dog vendor worked the corner. Bob approached just as the surly weenie merchant decided to call it a day. The man was eager to close shop before the flood, so he waited impatiently, tapping his tongs peevishly against the relish container as Bob groped around in his pockets for some change. When Bob came up with nothing but rabbit ears, the vendor plopped Bob’s pink weenie back into the water and hurried away for cover. Bob’s stomach growled like an angry little shih tzu.

  The downpour began in earnest. Buckets of rain indulged Bob’s desire for a scene pathetique, so he walked on, trying to decide whether to abandon his dream to get back the women he loved.

  That’s when he noticed the sign just ahead:

  THE BEEBE AVENUE MISSION

  LEAVE YOUR TROUBLES AT THE DOOR

  ALL WELCOME FOR SOUP AND SERVICES

  Not one for religious services, Bob stood on the sidewalk considering the offer of soup. But before he made up his mind, the door opened and a sturdy black woman with an odd scar above her left eye, near the bridge of her nose, looked out at Bob.

  She shook her head like a disapproving mother and smiled a big friendly smile. “Child, you better get in out of that rain before you catch your death.”

  “Huh?” Bob hadn’t heard what she said.

  “Come in,” she said. “I’ll give you shelter from this here storm.”

  Bob accepted the offer and stepped into the mission, where it was warm and dry and clean and the soup smelled good.

  “I’ve never been in one of these,” he said self-consciously.

  “Nothing to be ’shamed about. Lotsa proud folks in here eatin’ my soup; enjoyin’ it too.”

  “It sure smells good,” Bob said.

  “Yes it does,” Gertrude said, looking Bob over. He appeared hungry and defeated like most of the men and women she helped. “Looks like you been waiting for that trickle-down money them Republicans promised a while back. Mos’ folks come in here, only trickle-down they know is they jus’ got peed on.” Gertrude laughed and got a smile out of Bob. “There you go. I knowed they was a smile in there somewhere.”

  Gertrude continued her political analysis. “’Course, now we got that Democrat in the office. That nice Mr. Clinton and all those promises he made…I expect I’ll be outta bidness any minute now the way he say he’s gonna fix everything up, so you better hurry and help me get rid of some of this soup.”

  She wiped her hand on her apron, then held it out to Bob. “My name’s Gertrude, what’s yours?”

  “I’m Bob,” he said, stepping out of the puddle that had formed at his feet.

  “Come on and have some soup, Bob.”

  Bob hesitated; he felt awkward.

  “What’s wrong?” Gertrude asked.

  “I don’t have any money.”

  Gertrude reacted in mock horror. “Whoo, mercy! That is a problem. Yo ain’t gcttin’ no window table then!” She laughed at her own theatrics.

  “No, really,” Bob said, “I’d feel bad eating your soup since I can’t pay for it.”

  Gertrude sized him up before seizing on a way around this problem. “Okay, that’s fair enough. I’ll let you work it off, but I wanna gets my money’s worth outta you, so you�
��re gonna have to eat first, otherwise you be too weak to work.”

  Gertrude served Bob a bowl of soup and a large piece of sweet corn bread cooked in a cast-iron skillet. They chatted as Bob fed the shih tzu in his belly. Gertrude, it turned out, was originally from Yazoo City, Mississippi, but had moved to New York soon after the good people of that state elected a governor named Clay Scaggs, whom she described as a dirt-farming, tobacco-chewing, white-trash peckerheaded redneck cracker with less mental horsepower than a broke-down mule.

  She moved to New York to get away from all the South stood for and because she had friends there. The scar above her left eye was from her childhood. She was hit by a rock thrown during what was supposed to be a dirt-clod fight. When she got home, her mother sewed up the resulting gash with a needle and thread. The result was a funny cockeyed look that made Bob wonder whether her left eye ever closed completely.

  After mollifying the noisy mutt in his stomach, Gertrude took Bob to the kitchen, which was filled with massive stockpots and battered old skillets that needed washing. While they cleaned, Bob told Gertrude all his problems. He explained why he quit his last job, and how he had this idea to kill insects with other insects, and how he wanted to get his own truck with a fiberglass bug on top.

  He also told her about the woman from Con Ed coming by to turn off their electricity. “So what was I supposed to do?” Bob asked rhetorically. “We pretty much have to have electricity, right?”

  “That’s right,” Gertrude said.

  “So I sold some records at one of those used record stores.”

  “Ain’t that a shame,” Gertrude said.

  “I sold my ‘Superfly’ soundtrack plus my entire ‘Iron Butterfly’ collection, including the ‘Metamorphosis’ album, just to get enough to make the minimum payment. But at least they didn’t cut off the power.”

  “You did the right thing, child,” Gertrude said.

  Bob told Gertrude about how upset Mary was when she found out he lied about using the poison at Maison Henri, and how she took Katy and left that morning and Katy was crying. And he was ashamed when he learned that Katy had given Pratt her twenty-four dollars in Girl Scout cookie money. As Bob blathered, Gertrude listened patiently, occasionally interjecting “uh huh” and “I know what choo mean” and “I heard that.”

  Bob picked up a large pot and started scrubbing. Gertrude stood next to him, drying a pan.

  “Sounds like she jus’ worried ‘bout Katy, that’s all,” Gertrude said. “I think she loves you a lot.”

  “You really think so?” Bob asked.

  They stopped working for a minute as Gertrude spoke.

  “Honey, I know so. I can tell. You a good man. You jus’ gotta get this bug thing workin’ and start payin’ the bills and she’ll be back jus’ like that!” Gertrude snapped her fingers.

  “I hope so,” Bob said.

  Gertrude put her big pink-palmed hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Listen to me. You got somethin’ burnin’ in you that I try to git lit agin in everybody that comes in here. And that’s a dream. Without your dream, you got nothin’. Lord knows this city’s as bad to dreamers as the South is to a nigger. It tries to kick the dream out of everybody what’s got one, but don’t you let it die. You gotta make it happen. And you can do that.”

  They turned back to the pots and pans.

  Bob was curious. “What’s your dream?” he asked.

  Gertrude laughed. She spoke without looking up. “To fix all them broken dreams out there.” Gertrude turned to Bob, a twinkle in her cocked eye. She winked the one that would close.

  By the time the kitchen was clean, Bob had decided to take Gertrude’s advice and go home and spend some time in the Bug Room, trying to get his bug thing workin’.

  Gertrude helped him with his jacket.

  “Thanks for the soup, Gertrude. I—”

  Gertrude cut him off. “You jus’ get out there and do what you gotta do. That’s my thanks. Don’t you worry, it’ll all work out. I know about these things.”

  Bob paused for a moment, smiled, then gave Gertrude a hug before heading back up the street toward home.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Wolfe rifled through the large pile of documents stacked on his desk. Parker stood by, listening attentively to his mentor.

  “Birth certificate, high school transcripts, tax returns, marriage license…this is the best goddamn cover I’ve ever seen,” Wolfe said.

  He gestured across the hall with his head. “Those chuckle-heads over in witness protection don’t get nearly this detailed. Of course, that’s why most of those people end up dead. We’ve got to get this Dillon guy on the payroll. And look at this,” Wolfe said conclusively as he stabbed at Bob’s file with a meaty index finger, “absolutely no travel records. He doesn’t even have a passport, for chrissake! Makes it look like he’s never even left the city. This guy is very, very good. And you know what I like best about him?”

  “No sir,” Parker said obligingly.

  “I’ll tell you. He’s a traditionalist, none of that high-tech crap for this guy, no sir.” He jabbed at another document in the file. “See this? He works with poisons. I like a man who works with poison. By God, I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t use one of those pussy laser sights when he does a shoot. I bet he just lines ’em up in the old crosshairs and…Pop!” Wolfe smacked his hands together and smiled at the thought of a good, old-fashioned killer.

  “What about the Madari and Pescadores assassinations?” Parker asked. “Do you think this guy did them?”

  “That’s where the good money is,” Wolfe said as he leaned back in his chair. “Look, no one else has taken credit for them and they were both every bit as clean as the Huweiler hit. I think it’s safe to say they were ‘exterminated’ and, if that’s true, then this guy is making a serious assault on the top ten hit man parade. In fact, it’s starting to look like our old friend Klaus may soon find himself replaced as king of the hill.”

  A young, low-level security clearance employee, possibly an intern or maybe a Junior Achievement placement, entered the office carrying a batch of albums and cassette tapes.

  “Excuse me, sir, someone said you wanted these Dylan records?”

  Wolfe stared at the intern and worried that he represented the future of intelligence gathering. Oh, what the hell, he thought, it really wouldn’t be any worse than what they’d had in the past. He gestured for the kid to put the stuff on his credenza.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As the cab hurtled northward on the Bronx River Parkway, the driver cursed under his breath in a Punjabi dialect at the White Admiral Butterflies (Limenitis arthemis) splattered on his windshield. The profanities grew louder as he tried to wash them off with the windshield wipers, causing them to smear messily on the glass. He groused at the thought of having to dislodge the winged beasts from the grill of his cab. As the driver swore at the smashed Lepidopteras—unaware that the name came from Greek words meaning “scale” and “wing”—a large, unidentified bug smacked into the windshield with a frightful slap, startling him and prompting more obscenities. Allah’s name was eventually taken in vain.

  Katy had regained her perspective on her parents’ argument, and the bugs on the windshield reminded her of a joke.

  “Mom, do you know what’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s head when it hits a windshield?”

  “No, honey, I don’t,” Mary replied, only halfway paying attention.

  “His butt.” Katy laughed. “Get it? His butt?”

  “Yes, I get it.” Mary rolled her eyes and smiled. “Thank you for sharing that with me, honey.”

  Mary stared out the window and thought about Bob. Yes, he had lied to her, but his intentions were good. He wasn’t pursuing this for his own gain; he wanted to provide for them and accomplish something they could be proud
of. She also knew he couldn’t, with a clear conscience, keep poisoning the planet with parathion and disulfoton and methamidophos. Who could?

  Was one lie the limit of Mary’s love for her dreamer? No, that wasn’t it. It was the money. If they weren’t so far behind on rent, she simply would have torn a strip off him for lying. But she had no idea how far Bob was from completing his experiments. And the farther away he was, the farther behind they’d get in rent payments.

  Mary knew the importance of money. That’s why she studied finance in college. College. Those were the days—when being poor wasn’t a problem; it was an art form.

  She remembered her second date with Bob. Like most college students, he didn’t have the resources for fancy restaurants, so he took Mary to the IHOP that night, followed by a folk entomology lecture sponsored by his department.

  The lecturer pointed out that with the exception of bats (the only true flying mammal) only two types of animals shared the gift of flight—birds and insects. But whereas the bird’s ability to fly had elevated it to godlike status in cultures around the world (the Phoenix, for example); insects were not so well treated by the myth makers. The obvious exception was the Scarab Beetle (Scarabaeus sacer) of ancient Egypt, which was associated with the sun god Ra.

  The lecturer’s theory was that since insects were more despised than deified, they were more likely to be the source of superstitions rather than the stuff of mythology. He explained that Pliny (the Elder), the famed Roman encyclopedist, was the most frequently cited source of superstitions involving insects.

  As Mary listened to the catalogue of old wives’ tales, Bob turned to her occasionally with exaggerated expressions of horror, surprise, or disgust. He liked to make Mary laugh and he usually succeeded.

  Mary recalled fondly that she let Bob kiss her good-night after that date, and kiss her he did, long and hard. She might even have let him cop a feel.

  Suddenly, another unidentified bug slapped the windshield with a frightening smack bringing Mary back to the cab as it hurtled northward toward Tarrytown. She had let Bob kiss her many times in the intervening years and she didn’t have a body part he hadn’t touched. But now he had lied to her, and now she had left him. And now she hoped only that she was doing the right thing.