Bust

by Ken Bruen

  “You okay?” Angela asked.

  “Yeah,” Bobby said. “It’s just the memories are, you know… painful.”

  Angela shook her head in sympathy then said, “You know what I think? I think you’re lucky.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Look at you – you’re strong, healthy, not too old. If he shot you in the head you would’ve died and you never would’ve met me.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Bobby said, thinking only somebody who wasn’t paralyzed would say a thing like that. He remembered what it felt like, lying on Tanya’s floor, realizing he was a cripple. In twenty-plus years, pulling heists and shit, he never got a scratch. Then some jealous fuck walks in a room and shoots him in the back. There was nothing lucky about it.

  They started to talk about other things. Then Angela said she had to go to the bathroom, but instead she stopped behind Bobby and started kissing the back of his neck, running her hands over his chest. He had no idea what to do next. He felt sweat building under his arms and he couldn’t remember if he’d put on deodorant. He was positive that he reeked and that he was going in his pants. Angela rotated the wheelchair around, away from the table, and climbed on top of him. As she undid his chinos he said, “There’s something you gotta know.”

  He told her how he couldn’t stay hard for more than a couple of minutes and how he didn’t think he’d be able to screw. It was hard for him to say all of it, to find the right words and then get them out, but when he finally did he was surprised how much better he felt. Still, he was ready for her to make up some phony excuse and go home. But instead she put her hands over his cheeks, and moved her face right in front of his, looking into his eyes and said, “Don’t worry, everything’s gonna be okay. Think of my mother looking down at us.” Bobby was going to say, Think of that black fuck looking up at us, but managed to keep it to himself.

  After about ten minutes had gone by, Bobby was going to tell her that it was a waste of time, that they should just forget about it. But then Angela looked up at him and by the way she was smiling he knew they were finally getting somewhere. She climbed on top of Bobby in the wheelchair and started thrusting. At first, all Bobby could think about was how he was going to shit and make a big asshole out of himself. But then when he saw Angela starting to come Bobby felt a way he never thought he’d feel again.

  “See?” she said. “I told you everything was gonna be okay, didn’t I?”

  Later, they went into the bedroom.

  “Hey, who took all these pictures?”

  Bobby was afraid Angela would think he was some kind of loser, but he didn’t see any point in denying it.

  “I did,” Bobby said. “Why? You like them?”

  “It looks like something they’d have hanging in a museum,” Angela said. “You didn’t tell me you were an artist.”

  “It’s just a little hobby of mine,” Bobby said.

  “I love the way they’re all different sizes. It’s like you’re saying that women are different, but they’re the same, like – I don’t know what I mean, but I like them.”

  It crossed his mind that maybe she wasn’t playing with a full deck.

  Now that they had gotten the first time out of the way, Bobby’s old confidence was back. They went at it again and this time Bobby wasn’t worried about anything. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to meet a girl like Angela who didn’t treat him like he was a freak.

  Angela lay next to him in the dark. Cool jazz was playing, the soft music seeming to fit the mood. Angela was running her long fingernails through Bobby’s thick, sweaty chest hair.

  “You know it could be easier for you the next time we get together,” Bobby said. “I can use a vacuum pump or get one of those injection devices. You just shoot some medicine into the side of your dick and you stay hard for hours.”

  “Maybe you could take Viagra.”

  “Tried it,” Bobby said. “Didn’t do shit for me.”

  “You know what would be great?”

  “If you moved in here and I could fuck you stupid every night?”

  “That too.” Angela caressed his chin and stared into his eyes. “But it would be great if you could get rid of Popeye.”

  “What do you mean, get rid of him?”

  “You have that gun. I mean, I saw it. Maybe you could, like, scare him, or do something to make him leave, go back to Ireland.”

  “That’s where he’s from?”

  “Or maybe you could… I don’t know. I’m just worried about him, that’s all. I think if he kills you, Max might send him after me next.”

  “Kill me? Whoa, I did two tours in Desert Storm. Nobody’s gonna kill me, especially some crazy, grey-haired Irish fuck. No offense.”

  “So you’ll protect me?”

  Angela was twirling the hair below his bellybutton now and he couldn’t believe it – he was getting more liftoff.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll take care of Popeye,” Bobby said, grabbing Angela and pulling her back on top of him. “Now how about you take care of me?”

  Nineteen

  I pictured his mouth open and the powerful cleaning fluid filling his mouth, his lungs, stomach – pooling in his ears, penetrating into his skin, burning through the tiny pipe of his cock, tearing its way like a knife up his asshole. He would soon be cleaner than any human ever got. His stench would be filtered and dumped with the toxic waste.

  VICKI HENDRICKS, Miami Purity

  Homicide Detective Louis Ortiz pressed the record button on the digital recorder on the desk and said, “As you might’ve heard we have a suspect in the case. There’s also been another victim.”

  “Why are you taping me?” Max said. “I don’t get it – am I being interviewed or interrogated?”

  “Maybe you should answer that question for me.”

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. I thought you were going to fill me in on what happened to my wife and niece. But if this is some kind of-”

  “If you want to call a lawyer you can.”

  “What do I need a lawyer for? Only guilty people need lawyers.”

  “Then shut up and answer my damn questions,” Ortiz said. “As you may have heard, my partner, Kenneth Simmons’ body was discovered this afternoon.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that on the news.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “That a Detective Simmons was killed.”

  “And you realized that this was the same man who was working on your wife’s murder case?”

  “The name rang a bell.”

  “Did the news come as a surprise to you?”

  “Excuse me for getting off topic here,” Max said, “but I don’t see why you’re talking to me. From what I heard on the news the suspect you’re looking for is a skinny guy with gray hair. Does my hair look fucking gray to you?”

  Max had some extra edge in his tone, letting this prick know he was a respectable businessman, a pillar of the community, the guy who paid the cops’ goddamn wages.

  Ortiz breathed deeply then said, “Kenneth Simmons was following you when he was killed.”

  “Following me?” Max said. “What the hell for?”

  “That’s not important now,” Ortiz said. “What’s important is we found his car in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania on Thirty-third Street. Can you tell me what the car was doing there?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Max said. He had always been a horrible liar, especially under pressure. Foggiest. What the fuck was he, British?

  “Maybe it’ll come back to you,” Ortiz said. “I questioned the clerks at the hotel. They said at around eight o’clock on Monday evening, Detective Simmons inquired at the desk about a couple that had checked in under the name Brown in room 1812. You don’t have an idea who that couple is, do you?”

  Max was shaking his head.

  “I don’t have to tell you what I think,” Ortiz continued. “Unfortunately, the woman who was working at the desk that night
said she couldn’t remember what the couple looked like, but I have people taking a look at the security video from that night and I think it’s going to show you and a woman checking into that hotel. Now if you’re as innocent as you say you are you could just save us some time and tell us who that woman is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max said as calmly as he could. “I was never in that hotel.”

  “All right,” Ortiz said. He turned off the recorder then got up and went behind Max. Resting his hands on the back of Max’s chair, his mouth almost touching Max’s left ear, he said, “You wanna do this the hard way, we’ll do it the hard way. But I’ll tell you right now – if I find out that was you in that hotel I’m gonna make your life a fucking nightmare. You ever get fucked up the ass? Well, I hope you enjoy it because I’m gonna put you in a cell with a psychotic, white-boy-hating motherfucker who’s got a big, fat, fourteen-inch dong. Then we’ll see how much you like fucking around with Louis Ortiz.”

  Ortiz stayed there for a few seconds, letting his words sink in, then he returned to his seat and turned the recorder back on.

  Max felt wetness on the back of his neck – either sweat or his spray-on hair was dissolving. He wasn’t sure what he was accomplishing by not admitting he was in that hotel; when Ortiz saw that surveillance tape that ridiculous wig would be no disguise. But, at this point, he didn’t see what he had to lose by continuing to lie.

  “Look, I want to do everything I can to help you,” Max said, “but I think you’re forgetting that my wife and niece are dead. You know what it’s like to come home and find the brains of your loved ones splattered on your wall? Believe me, it’s not very pleasant. But what’s even worse is having to put up with some ignorant fucking detective, making up ridiculous stories, trying to implicate you. Don’t you people have any sense of decency?”

  Max thought that his speech had affected Ortiz and was proud of himself for performing so well, but then Ortiz said, “You want me to spell it out for you, Fisher? I think you hired somebody to kill your wife. I think your niece was just unlucky, got mixed up in it by accident. Detective Simmons thought the same thing – fact, he was more sure about it than I was. That’s why he was following you that night. Oh, and by the way I do know what it’s like to lose somebody close, like a partner you’ve been working with for the last seven fucking years.”

  Max said, “That’s it. I’m not doing any more of this bullshit without my lawyer.”

  “I thought you told me only guilty people need lawyers?”

  “Guilty people and people who are being harassed.”

  “All I’m asking is that you tell me the truth.”

  “I’m telling you the fucking truth, but you don’t want to hear it.”

  “All right,” Ortiz said, “then tell me – where did you go Monday night after work?”

  “I took a cab home.”

  “You have anybody who can vouch for that?”

  “Not unless you can find the cab driver who drove me.”

  “Speaking of cab drivers,” Ortiz said, “we did find a driver who claims he picked up a man fitting Kenneth Simmons’ description in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania at approximately eight-forty Monday evening. Simmons ordered him to follow another cab which ended up going to the corner of Twenty-fifth and First. A woman got out of the first cab – the driver couldn’t ID her except that she was white and had ‘big blond hair’ – and Kenneth Simmons got out of the cab and followed her. The driver of the cab that the woman was in hasn’t been found. You don’t, by any chance, know anybody who lives around that area, do you?”

  Shit, Twenty-fifth was Angela’s block. But she hadn’t mentioned anything about talking to a cop that night.

  “No,” Max said after taking a few moments to mull it over. “I don’t.”

  “What about a gold pin, two hands almost touching? You ever see one of those suckers?”

  Max had no idea what Ortiz was talking about, said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “My partner had a pin. It wasn’t on his body when his body was discovered.”

  Then Max remembered the weird pin that Popeye had been wearing at the pizza place. Like the idiot didn’t have enough heat on him already, he had to steal the pin off a cop he’d killed.

  “Lemme ask you something,” Max said. “Let’s say I was in that hotel with a woman that night – which I absolutely wasn’t – and let’s say we checked in under – what did you say the name was?”

  “Brown.”

  “All right – let’s say we checked in under the name Brown. How the hell would that help you find out who killed my wife?”

  “We think the gun that was used to kill Kenneth Simmons was the same one used to kill your wife and niece. He was either killed on Twenty-fifth Street or else he was taken to Harlem and killed up there. But the only reason he ended up in either place was because he followed your girlfriend – excuse me, Mrs. Brown – out of the Hotel Pennsylvania. If we know what went on in that hotel it may tell us why he followed her when she left.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “So, then, Mr. Fisher,” Ortiz said, “are you ready to tell me anything?”

  Max thought for a moment, then shook his head.

  “What about the man in the sketch?” Ortiz took out a copy of the sketch from his drawer and slid it across the desk for Max to look at. “You ever seen him before?”

  Max stared at the sketch of Popeye for a good ten seconds, trying to make it look like he was really studying it, then said, “No, never.”

  Ortiz glared at Max. “Where were you before you got home today?”

  “I was at work. You gonna try to book me for that too?”

  Ortiz pressed the stop button on the recorder.

  “Maybe we should do this again,” he said. “This time without all the bullshit.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “How about taking a polygraph?”

  “Not without my lawyer.”

  “It won’t matter anyway,” Ortiz said, “after I take a look at that surveillance tape.”

  Twenty

  A rotting old woman in the bedroom in black plastic bags would be a sure tip-off. He had to find a way to get rid of her. Feed her to some dogs or something.

  JOE R. LANSDALE, Freezer Burn

  Dillon’s book of Zen wisdom wasn’t weaving its magic no more. He poured a shot of Jameson, the bottle nearly empty. Everything was running down. The tinker he’d killed crossed his mind and he gave an involuntary tremor. He downed the whiskey, then waited for the hit and muttered, “That shite burns.”

  To erase the tinker, he dredged up another memory, a dog he’d owned. Mongrel called Heinz, cos of the 57 ingredients it had. That mutt loved him, completely. He’d deliberately starved it for a week, see how it fared. Not so good – lotsa whining in there. He’d got back to the shithole he was living in then, put out his hand to the pooch and the fooker, the fooker bit him. He almost admired the sheer balls of the little runt. But, of course, no one, no thing, ever bit Dillon, at least not twice. He got his hurly, made from the ash, honed by a master craftsman. Dillon had never used it, except to bust heads. He’d stolen it at a match in Croke Park, and if he remembered correctly, Galway had their arse handed to them by fookin Cork.

  The dog had backed away and Dillon cooed, “Come on boy, come get yer medicine.”

  Took him fifteen minutes to beat the little fook to death, gore all over the walls, the tiny animal not going easy.

  For devilment, Dillon had told this story to Angela, hoping to get a rise out of the bitch.

  She’d been horrified and then he asked, “You ever been hungry, alanna?”

  She didn’t know what he meant and he said. “There’s a little moral here mo croi, and it’s don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  Then, near to tears, she’d said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  And he laughed, delighted, said, “And isn’t that the
bloody beauty of it?”

  Bobby popped a wheelie coming out of the D’Agostino supermarket on Columbus. He was in a good mood, still thinking about last night with Angela. He couldn’t wait to call her later – maybe she’d want to come over and listen to some Ted Nugent.

  Then, looking over his shoulder, he saw the guy walking about ten yards behind him. It was him all right – same thin, gray guy with the lips who was in the police sketch on TV and in all the newspapers. He was wearing faded jeans and his hands were tucked deep into the pockets of a leather jacket.

  It was cooler than it had been on recent nights and there were still a lot of people on the street, shopping or coming home from work. Bobby didn’t think Popeye would try to shoot him here, with all these witnesses – but he might use a knife.

  Instead of crossing Columbus, Bobby turned left on Eighty-ninth and headed toward Central Park. It was a darker, emptier, quieter block, with mainly four-story brownstones. Bobby rode at a slow, steady pace and listened closely to what was happening behind him. He had always had great ears. In Iraq, he used to hear the towel-head snipers even when they were a hundred or so yards away. Now he listened to Popeye’s footsteps, hearing them get gradually closer. There was something unusual about the way he was walking. He was taking one solid step, followed by a softer dragging step, like he had a limp. But the footsteps were definitely getting closer. Just before he reached the darkest part of the block, which was shaded by dense, overhanging trees, Bobby braked and wheeled around. The bag of groceries fell off his lap and crashed onto the sidewalk, gushing dark purple liquid. He raised his arm in one fluid motion, taking his Glock from his jacket pocket and aiming it between Popeye’s eyes.

  Obviously surprised, Popeye stopped about ten feet from Bobby, his left arm by his side and his right hand in the lower pocket of his leather jacket.

  “Look what you did, asshole,” Bobby said. “You broke my fuckin’ grape juice.”