The First Cut

by John Kenyon

  “You putting them up by the house?”

  “No, out in the back corner. I hate hostas, but I guess out there they'll be all right.

  Damn things spread so much, I’ll have hardly anything to mow back there in a couple of years.”

  I took another sip of beer and then grabbed the shovel. As he reached out to take it, he gestured with his other hand to the spot in our yard where I had buried Lenny and Toby.

  “Did you bury something? Looks like you’ve got a little burial mound out there or something. You finally do something with that bare patch and you make it more obvious?” he said, ribbing me about a sore subject.

  He was right; there was a pronounced hump there, like a pitcher's mound. I knew the ground had been flat when I’d buried Toby. This wasn’t good.

  “It’s Toby,” I said. “Hit him with the car a couple of days ago. Janice was pretty busted up about it.”

  “Oh, wow. I guess I haven’t seen him around in a while. Well, did you just open a hole and throw him in? Probably bloated on you in this heat. If you want, I can help you dig him back up and put him deeper.”

  “No!” All I could picture was him putting a spade into Lenny’s gut and me headed to prison. “I mean, you don’t have to do that. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Well, I’d better leave your shovel then,” he said.

  “OK,” I said, patting him on the back. "Thanks."

  I thought I’d wait until dark, but Janice came home and immediately noticed the hump.

  “What’s that,” she said when she got out of the car. “Why is the ground all raised up like that?”

  I told her Toby had probably bloated and that I was going to wait until later in the evening to take care of it.

  “Why would you wait until you can’t see? Just do it now. Dig him back up and see what you can do.”

  “Because, I, um, I don't want you to have to see that," I said. "You need to remember Toby the way he was."

  I looked up to see if she'd bought it, and was relieved to see that she had.

  "I think I know how to fix this," I said. "Why don't you go inside?”

  "Even better; I'm going shopping." She went and got her purse, got in her car and headed out.

  I went to the garage to find what I had in mind. After a couple of minutes of digging around, I unearthed a ski pole. I pulled off the plastic tip and took it out into the yard. I held it high above my head like a sword and drove it as hard as I could down into the ground. It went in about an inch and the force of it hitting the dirt made my hands slip halfway down the shaft, scraping my palm on the handle. I pulled it out and tried again. I didn’t hit the same spot, so I ended up with another hole about an inch deep and sore hands.

  Bill must have heard me, because he came around the corner of the garage and said, “Need any help?”

  I figured that as long as Lenny was underground, I was safe. And, I could use the assistance. I came around the garage and explained the situation with Toby. I asked if he had any suggestions.

  “Why don’t you just dig him up?” I expected it this time, and didn't protest too much when it came.

  “No, I would imagine he’s pretty ripe by now. I’d rather keep him under there if I can,” I said.

  Bill nodded. Then he rubbed his chin as if in thought.

  “I know. Hold on a minute.” He went back to his place and into the garage. He came out a couple of minutes later with an old metal stake used to prop up overgrown tomato plants.

  “Why don’t you try this? You probably only need to get one good hole in there, I mean, him,” he said. "But if you do, back up quick, 'cause that'll be one little stink volcano you've unleashed."

  I took it. It was about four feet long. I looked at Bill with a raised eyebrow. He wagged his chin toward the hump. I grabbed the stake tightly, raised it, then plunged it down and pulled it back out. Nothing. I did it again, and still nothing. It slid pretty easily into the dirt, so I kept doing it. I didn’t notice it at first, but each time I thrust the skewer down, I shouted, “Ha!” like a tae kwon do master. I felt like I was hitting something, but I couldn’t be sure. I tried to step onto the dirt to get it to go down, but nothing happened.

  The last time I stuck the pole in, I came out with a twenty dollar bill on the end.

  “Whoa!” Bill said. “That’s never worked for me before. What do you have down there, a money well or something?”

  I looked at it for a minute, then realized it must be Lenny’s. I probably stabbed through his pants pocket and speared the money. I tried to think fast.

  “I, uh, buried Toby with it,” I said. “He, uh, he was supposed to get a new bowl that day… that’s where I was going, actually, when I hit him. So, I thought I’d drop the money in there as kind of a way to say I was sorry.”

  Bill was looking at the bill. He pointed. “What’s that?”

  It was a red stain on the underside: blood.

  “Wow, I must have got him then, huh? Why don’t I just wash off your stake and get that back to you and--”

  “I don’t remember Toby being that big,” he said. He pointed again, this time at the ground. “You were sticking that thing all over. You were over here when you started,” he said, pointing a few feet away from where we stood. “And you speared that money over here,” he said, pointing at our feet. “Did you chop him up before you buried him or something?”

  I felt a line of sweat forming at my brow and on my upper lip. "What? Ha ha, no!" I couldn’t let this thing unravel. I pretended the cell phone in my pocket was vibrating, and pulled it out. I flipped it open. “Hello. What? OK, I’ll be right there.” I hung up and told Bill that Janice needed me to check something for her and that I had to go.

  “Well, go ahead and keep the stake for now. I’m not sure I’m going to want that back.” He walked backward for a few steps, keeping his eye on me, then turned and walked slowly to his house.

  I ran to the house and called Mr. Sharp. This was a desperation move, I knew, but I needed help. I might get iced myself, but he also might get me out of this and keep me out of jail.

  He and Carl came out about 20 minutes later. I brought them into the kitchen to survey the situation. Mr. Sharp had questions.

  “You carried Lenny around in your trunk all day?”

  “Yes.”

  “You buried him in your own backyard, not in the place we had talked about?”

  “Yes.”

  “You couldn’t even be bothered to dig a deep enough hole that he wouldn’t be found?

  “I guess not.”

  He furrowed his brow and looked down at me.

  “I mean, yes. Er, no. I mean--”

  He put up a hand to shush me. “Enough. You screwed up. You know that. And you have placed this problem at my feet.”

  They walked out to survey the spot. Mr. Sharp walked in a slow circle around the grave, then tapped his wingtip on the raised mound of dirt at the center. He walked over to Carl and whispered something in his ear, then came up to me.

  "Go get your shovel and dig all of this up. The only way to fix this is to start over."

  "But my neighbor is—"

  "Tommy, just do what I say."

  So I went up to the house, grabbed the shovel, and came back to start digging. It took about an hour, Mr. Sharp standing next to the hole the entire time, for me to get it all dug out.

  "Now, please remove the dog and Lenny and get in there to dig it out deeper."

  "You want me in the hole?"

  "Yes, Tommy. You need to go down farther. It's the only way."

  I reluctantly jumped into the shallow hole and began digging it deeper. As shovelful after shovelful was moved from the bottom of the hole to the grass above, I began to shudder as if cold. This was beginning to look like a grave built for three, or at least two men and a dog. I began to whimper a little bit, trying to keep quiet.

  At one point, Mr. Sharp told me to stop.

  "I'm not going to cap my sister's kid, no matter how
stupid you are, so quit blubbering," he said quietly. "Now climb out of there and put the dog and Lenny back in."

  I scrambled out as quickly as possible and did as he instructed. Standing on the edge of the hole, I panicked, waiting to feel a gun barrel pressed to the back of my head.

  I turned as I heard Carl return. Bill was with him.

  "You wanted to see me?" he said to Mr. Sharp.

  "Yes, Deputy, look at this," he said, pointing to the hole.

  "Oh my God," Bill said. "Tommy, what is this?"

  He knelt down and reached a hand out to Lenny when Carl came up behind, pressed a silenced pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. There was a soft "pop" and then Bill pitched forward and into the hole. Mr. Sharp nudged me and I fell down after him.

  "Arrange their bodies with the dog on top," he said. I pulled Bill's body over so it was next to Lenny, then grabbed Toby and laid him over top of them.

  I climbed out before Mr. Sharp got any ideas, and stood next to him. Carl, with Bill's tomato stake in his hand, jumped into the hole and jabbed it into Lenny, Bill and Toby.

  "That'll keep 'em from bloating," he said, sounding like he was talking from experience. He then pulled out a knife and began hacking at Bill.

  Mr. Sharp put his arm around my shoulder and steered me away from the hole.

  "Stop doing dumb things, Tommy," he said.

  "But what about my neighbor? The sheriff isn't just going to let one of his guys disappear."

  "It will be taken care of," he said.

  A week later, I was sitting on the porch with Janice. She was thumbing through the paper, reading bits and pieces to me while I drank a beer.

  "Oh my God," she said. "Bill is dead!"

  "What?" I said, "How did you know?"

  "It says so right here," she said, pointing at the paper. "His hand washed up on the shore of Lake Bernard. 'The sheriff's department would not confirm rumors that Deputy Vincent had run afoul of the Luchese crime family after a recent investigation.' Do you know any of those Luchese guys?"

  "Me? No. They're the real deal, Jan. Cold-blooded."

  "That's so sad. Bill was a good neighbor," she said.

  I nodded in agreement.

  "He would have been surprised that you finally did something back there," she said, nodding toward the patch behind the garage. "He always gave you such grief about that."

  I had planted a honeysuckle on that spot. They're supposed to do well in the shade, and I knew its blood-red berries would add a nice splash of color to the yard.

  "Well," I said. "Maybe Bill is somewhere where he can admire that bush."

  "First the gardening, and now you're getting spiritual on me, too?" she said, punching me lightly in the arm. "The way that thing is growing, it's obvious you have a green thumb."

  "Yeah," I said, draining my beer. "Something like that."

  Clean up

  Clark leaned back in the seat, took a long pull on his cigarette and then sucked down a slug of bourbon. He put the glass down on the scarred tabletop and blew out a thin stream of smoke. It was a practiced move meant to impress. It didn’t.

  “Sure, I like to kill. Love it actually,” he said. “Who doesn’t?”

  “Not everyone has had the pleasure,” I said. “If you could call it that.”

  “True. I should say, ‘Who wouldn’t?’ I suppose. Given the chance, I guarantee the pope himself can think of a person or two he’d like to terminate.”

  “Interesting theory,” I said, picking up my drink for a generous gulp.

  We were in the Sun, a bar literally on the wrong side of the tracks and certainly misnamed. It was a dingy hole carved out of a converted train depot that sat next to about five fully functioning rail lines. People of our ilk frequented the place because the near constant rumble of trains going by drowned out any bit of conversation not spouting forth from a mouth directly across from you. It was the kind of place where no one saw anything.

  Clark and I both worked for Sid Hart, a guy with his finger in a lot of pies. I was a right-hand man; Clark was a hired gun. Sid asked me to interview Clark to see if rumors he’d heard were true. Seems Clark was talking a bit too much about his work, and Sid rightly thought this was a problem.

  He was bragging about his latest hit before his ass hit the seat, and while I was here to put a stop to it, in a way I couldn’t blame him. He’d capped a liquor store owner who decided he didn’t want to pay protection anymore and was trying to organize others to join him.

  “So, I staked out his place and saw a pizza delivery guy drive up. I got out and met him, telling him we were having a little poker game and that I’d pay him there and bring the pizza in. I gave him a $15 and told him to keep the change and he beat it. I went up on the porch, rang the bell and held the pizza out in one hand.” He mimed holding the pizza in one hand, a gun in the other. “I popped him in the gut and then put one in the head. Best part? He had a $20 in his hand for the pizza guy. I grabbed it after he fell, and ended up with a pizza and five bucks.”

  I told him it sounded like he got off on it. He leaned in now, clearly warming to the topic.

  “Look at the video game industry,” Clark said. “Grand Theft Auto? Come on! Kids grow up doing this, living in a fantasy world. This is my job. I get to case places, follow people, wear disguises, and eventually I get to sneak up and kill people. And I get away with it every time.”

  “You have a point,” I admitted.

  “So, why are we here?” Clark asked. “You said we needed to discuss something.”

  Now I was the one taking a long, slow drink. I hadn’t really thought this through before calling Clark, figuring the fact that I was smarter than him would be enough.

  “Sid just wants me to check in with everyone,” I said. “We only seem to communicate when there’s something urgent going on, when we need you to take care of something for us. He wants to see how everyone is doing. Make sure we’re all on the same page.”

  “Oh, so it’s like one of those, what, skip level meetings?” he said.

  “What, you been watching ‘The Office’ or something? It’s not one of those, because that would mean you talking with Sid’s boss, and Sid doesn’t have a boss. Let’s just say it’s your annual review.”

  “So now you’re my boss?” he said, bristling a bit. This wasn’t going well.

  “No,” I said. “Forget I said that. It’s just us talking. Then I tell Sid how things are going.”

  “Why can’t I just tell Sid? Why do you have to get involved?”

  Was he purposely making this difficult? Probably not. He was smart enough to pull a trigger, but mind games were surely beyond him.

  “Because I’m talking to everyone, and then I talk to Sid. That way he has one guy to hear from instead of dozens.”

  That seemed to appease him.

  “So, what do you want to know? Everything’s fine. As I said, you guys tell me who to cap and then I cap ’em. Pretty simple, really.”

  It was simple, I realized. For Sid and me, that is. No blood on our hands. Clark was the one who did the dirty work, and we benefited indirectly. Hell, the benefits were direct. Sid didn’t order a hit on someone unless there was an impact on the bottom line.

  “Sid wanted to know how you’re handling things,” I said. “I mean, you’re not just shaking down shop owners for protection money any more. You’ve capped a few people now. That’s gotta take its toll.”

  “Look, you wanna know how I handle it? You’ll laugh, but here goes. After I clip a guy, as soon as it’s safe to do so, I go to a payphone and I call my mother.”

  “She likes hearing about it when you shoot someone? Nice family.”

  “I’ll respect the chain of command and refrain from smacking you in the face for disrespecting my mother,” he said. “I call because she immediately launches into some story about one of brothers or somebody in the neighborhood. It takes my mind and puts it in a different place.”

  Clark finished his drink, then
signaled for the Sun’s lone waitress. She came over to retrieve his glass. I waved my hand over mine to let her know I wasn’t ready for a refill, and she went to get Clark another. While we waited, he pulled a pack of smokes out and lit one. When she returned, Clark picked up his glass and took a long pull. Then he leaned back and pulled out another cigarette.

  “So, Sid’s worried about me? Seriously? That’s what this is about? He should know better. He started as a button man, or so I’ve heard. He seems to have turned out all right.”

  I decided to take a different tack and be direct.

  “True, but to Sid it was a job. A means to an end. When he got the chance to move up and really start earning, he left the gun behind.”

  “And? Your point is what?” Clark asked. “You looking to promote me?”

  “My point is that Sid thinks you would probably give up that chance if it was offered. That you like this too much.”

  “Sure, I enjoy it. What’s wrong with liking your work? Hell, if everyone could do what they liked, the world would be a better place, would it not? Of course, we’d probably be out of business, because people wouldn’t feel the need to drink, or drug, or whore or gamble if they had nothing in their regular nine-to-five to escape from. If they loved their work, they’d all come home and grill a burger, play with the kids, bang the wife and go to bed content every night. Better for us, I suppose, that I’m in the minority.”

  “I suppose,” I said. “That’s a rather vocal minority, from what I hear.”

  “Oh, so that’s the deal, huh? Sid’s worried that I talk too much? Look, it’s to his benefit,” Clark said. When I come around, people know that it’s serious. I bet some people would toe the line just because they see me walking by their front window. He should thank me.”

  This was getting away from me again. It was clear that Sid’s concerns were well founded, and that I was going to have to do more than talk.

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way,” I said. “You’re like a walking billboard, huh? Good thing for us you don’t charge us extra for marketing.”