Uncle Dust

by Rob Pierce

  “Yeah, sure.” She brought two glasses, sat down beside me. I took my glass, put my other arm around her. “So, how’s work?”

  “Same. A bunch of drunks. You?”

  “Doing shit until I can afford not to. But I ain’t stuck.”

  “Stuck?”

  The wine was okay. I moved my hand off her shoulder and onto her leg. “Last time I did this, I let it interfere with what I wanted. This time, I’ll be free and clear before I do my own shit.”

  Olive held her wine glass with her right hand, held it just above where I held her thigh. “And what’s your own shit?”

  “Not having a boss. Bringing money home and not sharing it. Except where I want to.”

  She smiled, like she liked that last part. Good, I didn’t want to say more. “What do you do, Dust?”

  Exactly what she wasn’t supposed to ask. “I won’t talk about that. It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “What if I don’t want what’s better?”

  “I still won’t talk.”

  She finished her wine. I’d barely touched mine. She got up and my hand came off her. She stepped into the kitchen and poured herself another. “After a while, you talk or you don’t stay.”

  She sat back down beside me with her new glass.

  “After a while,” I said. “After a while.”

  ***

  We got along, but mainly we fucked and barely saw each other otherwise. Which was good with me, but I expected Olive to start wanting answers to her questions. I wished she’d start asking me about sports. My other interests, besides my job. But she was with me because she knew I was a criminal. She was excited by the stuff I wouldn’t talk about. Some days my knuckles were sore and my hands needed rubbing and she liked that. I’d tell her it was only work, and that was all I’d say, but I could see her eyes light up and it was better in bed those nights. In a couple weeks I’d have enough money saved to move out if that was what she still wanted, but I liked those hurt knuckle nights.

  I wanted to hit people. The job wasted my time, it made me deal with scum and I was glad to take their money. But I wanted to hurt them first, I wished I got to beat the hell out of them and take all their money and keep it. It wasn’t even right to beat the shit out of motherfuckers if the money wasn’t mine. But that was stupid thinking; I was good with working for Tenny, so long as I was a temp. I was pissed off because I hadn’t figured it out before, but I had it figured now. I wouldn’t even plan a bank job until I had enough of Tenny’s money to quit completely.

  Until this was over, everything was shit. I had to pay off my debt, then collect my regular money for a while, and if I was lucky I’d be fucking this beautiful woman the whole time.

  ***

  I liked Theresa but I’d expected to leave her, I leave them all. Jeremy was different, I didn’t expect anything, I’d never latched onto a kid before. We’d wrestled and I’d thrown him and it was like we weren’t through. It was okay to hurt a woman, she could always hurt me back. It was wrong to hurt a boy.

  I had to find him. I knew where he went to school, but I couldn’t talk to him there. I also knew where he used to go afterward, and he’d better be done doing that.

  I had to know for sure. There had been days when I finished work early, and I could have been at Jeremy’s school at three o’clock, but those days were gone. Since I’d come back for the Super Bowl collections, my work days all ended long after dark.

  The things I wanted to deal with would have to wait. I’d break away from Tenny, but first I had to collect for him. And I’d already taught Jeremy how to fight other kids, but I couldn’t leave him to the Hell Dwarf, the guy who wanted minions. Davis was nothing but a rejected lover, and not the dangerous kind, but he knew something, even if he didn’t know what it meant.

  I waited another day, worked til eight o’clock. It was too late to meet Davis before he got home so I stopped at a bar for a beer. The idea was to wind down, but I left at ten still fired up. Not so much from my day of scaring money out of losers, but from the thought of what I was about to say.

  I left the bar and stopped at a liquor store, bought a tall bottle of scotch and drove to Davis’s building, pressed the outside buzzer.

  “Yeah?” he asked through the intercom, his voice thin and metallic, near impossible to recognize.

  “I want to talk about Evil.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “He fucks little boys. You don’t. I brought scotch.”

  A moment of silence.

  “Dustin? You need to leave. I’ll—”

  “Call the cops? Take a picture if you want. You’ll catch me drunk in public. That’s all. I’m here to talk.”

  “I ain’t lettin you up.” His voice still sounded like tin.

  I nodded to myself, unscrewed the cap, took a drink and pushed the button to speak again. “I’ll talk to you tonight. If you let me in you can drink with me. If you don’t I’ll hold this button down and talk anyway.”

  “You’ll still be outside.”

  I spat on the ground, took another slug, pushed the button again. “I can get in when I want.”

  Davis didn’t answer and the door didn’t buzz. I waited a minute. There wasn’t a rear exit, had to be a fire escape. I backed down the front steps, bottle in hand, ran around the building and looked up. Sure enough, the little fuck was crawling fast down the outside stairs. My bottle was too big to wedge into a coat pocket, so I took a couple more steps back and folded my arms across my chest, bottle in one hand, stood on the sidewalk and looked up as Davis scampered down toward me.

  He was at the third floor when he turned his head and saw me. The foot going down missed its step, dangled between steps a second. The other foot tried to come down but it missed too.

  Both his feet were off, both his hands let go, and he fell back. He screamed and kept his eyes on me, like I was still after him. He fell fast. I pulled my head back, looked away as his head hit the street and smashed. It sounded like a dozen pumpkins crushed at once. It echoed. I turned away, didn’t see his body crumple, but I knew it did. I’d scared that poor motherfucker to death.

  I forced myself forward so I was against the building wall and sidled my way down the block. I stepped into the middle of the sidewalk as lights came on in Davis’s building. Just a guy walking away. I was in my car and driving home by the time the sirens started.

  ***

  I didn’t kill him, that was important. I didn’t even want to, maybe that was important too. The thing that mattered now was I couldn’t be seen near the building. Get away and hope the cops didn’t talk to Theresa. She might suspect me, she might let something slip.

  Halfway to Olive’s place I pulled over, called Rico.

  “Yeah?”

  “Davis jumped.” I turned off the phone, didn’t want a call back. I was meeting Rico in the morning anyway.

  ***

  It wasn’t late enough for Olive to be home from work. I stopped at a liquor store, bought some beer to go with the scotch and drove to her place. When I’d killed Peach he deserved it, but I felt covered with death anyway, blood in my throat every time I swallowed. Other guys kill and it doesn’t seem to bother them. I was afraid I could get like that. I killed a rapist child-murdering bastard. It shouldn’t have bothered me that I might do that again.

  Tonight I didn’t kill anyone but it wasn’t because I couldn’t – Davis was just the wrong guy. I wanted people dead left and right. That was my job, wanting to kill people without ever killing, taking their money instead, then giving that money away. I was the fucking middle man, dealing horror for someone else, collecting Tenny’s cash and getting little for myself. Now I’d seen death I didn’t want, and it stuck with me in a way it shouldn’t. I wanted something back.

  I got to Olive’s, turned on the stereo and drank. I waited for her, tried to think of her, but I kept seeing that body hit the pavement. I needed Olive’s body now, a body I could see and hold, the security of flesh that stays sol
id. I drank instead. Kept seeing the head smash, the body crumple like I knew it must have. Kept drinking the scotch. Tried to separate myself from what I’d seen. Couldn’t get away.

  ***

  I heard the door shut, reached to my hip like I had a gun there.

  “Jesus.” Olive shut the door behind her. “How fucked up are you?”

  I wasn’t really awake, sat up from where I’d leaned over. I held the scotch bottle tight. It was two thirds empty. I looked at her. “This much.”

  “I think that’s too much for tonight.” She stepped toward me, leaned down, and swooped the bottle from my hand. She took it to the kitchen, poured herself a glass, capped the bottle and put it in a cupboard.

  She sat on the opposite end of the couch, out of my reach. “What the fuck happened?”

  I couldn’t tell her. I went to see this guy I used to want to kill, but not anymore, and he fell to his death. The details had to do with the woman I used to be with and the job I couldn’t talk about. Details about what I thought Davis hadn’t done, but he put himself with children and they liked him and I couldn’t understand why he did that.

  “I…” I said.

  She whirled one hand, prompting me.

  “Got ratfucked.” I didn’t know what else to say. “It’s business I can’t talk about.”

  “If you can’t talk to me, you need a fucking therapist.”

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “I think you need to talk to someone.”

  “Yeah, well.” I almost told her but I kept my mouth shut. There’s a dead guy and people might think I wanted him dead. And I was there the night he died. Tonight, just now. I scooted closer to her, leaned my head forward, shot my hand out and took the glass from her. I drank half of it and handed it back. “There’s no one I can tell this.”

  “That’s fucked up, Dust.” She finished the glass, stood, returned to the kitchen for a refill, came back.

  “Yeah,” I said, when she sat down next to me again. “That’s nothing.”

  “And you ain’t gonna say what’s something.”

  “Can’t.”

  Her arm went around me. I barely felt it. “I don’t know how long this can last, Dust.”

  I nodded, reached for her glass but came up short, ran my hand down her side, let it stop at her hip. I leaned over and kissed her and she set her glass down. My hands settled at her shoulders. Her arms went around my back and I let my weight fall onto her. I was drunk and no lover but I kissed her and I shivered and her hands kept me where I needed to be.

  ***

  I woke up fully clothed next to Olive. My head throbbed, the clock said eight, she snored. I lay there, rolled over, put my hand on her ass, hoped she’d wake up or I’d fall back to sleep. I must have dozed off a few minutes. The clock said nine and my hand was still on her ass and she was still out. I rolled away and got up.

  I was late for meeting Rico. That never happened, but this whole thing was fucked up. I needed coffee before I talked to him. I put on some pants and walked into the kitchen. Never make coffee naked; fucking shit’s hot.

  I made a pot of the stuff, poured a cup, picked up my phone.

  Rico answered. “Where the fuck you been?”

  “I’m late. You wanna meet at the same place?”

  “Nah, nah, I’ll give you another address. Half an hour.”

  I wrote it down, slammed back my coffee and grabbed a thermos. My head throbbed but that was nothing. I washed down a half dozen aspirin as I walked out the door.

  ***

  Rico liked to meet at restaurants. Nine o’clock was always just coffee, but for ten he’d picked a deli. I was okay with that, I could stand something to eat. I saw him at his table, with a thick submarine sandwich and a coffee. He saw me, barely looked up from his sub.

  It wasn’t the kind of place to have table service but I sat down across from him without ordering.

  He shook his head. “What the fuck was that? Gimme your phone.”

  “What?” My hand was already in my coat.

  He took the phone from my hand. “Don’t talk stupid shit on my line. I already changed phones. Fuckin pain in the ass.”

  I shook my head. “I thought you should know.”

  He set down his sandwich, took the chip out of the back of my phone, put it in one pocket and the phone in another. “You got shit to tell me, you just say we gotta meet.”

  “Fuck, Rico. I didn’t say anything.”

  “You said a name. I got nothin to do with that name. If I did, I sure as shit wouldn’t wanna hear it. You make a mistake, you fuckin live with it.” He took a bite from his sandwich.

  “I didn’t do shit. But I was there.”

  Rico took his time chewing, set down the sandwich and leveled his eyes at me. “Try sellin that, you won’t make a penny.”

  I nodded. Rico was off my end of this, I had no protection. “We still doin business?”

  He reached inside his coat, pulled out the list and handed it to me. “You get busted on this personal shit, you’re an independent contractor, no one knows you from Adam.”

  “Fuck you, Rico.” I stood and smiled at him. “It’s been like that forever.” He looked as strong and ugly as I’d ever seen him, but something was wrong, he wasn’t as scary. “I’m getting a sandwich.”

  Rico took a bite from his own. His mouth was full but we were done talking anyway. I’d wait at the counter while they made my food, take it with me without another word.

  ***

  Another day, another pile of dollars. Tenny’s of course, and I wasn’t dumb enough to rip him off, but the thought wouldn’t go away. Things had already gone too far. I was hungover and pissed off and worried and I didn’t know my next move.

  I collected and I hit. No one gave me cause to throw a punch, but I threw anyway. Belly shots that crumpled good-sized men, dropped them to their knees or left them bent over. The smaller ones fell back and hit the floor. I tried to empty myself. I’d feel better empty.

  But I waded through them, saw them lurch, saw them topple, tried to give them my hate but it wouldn’t go away. I took their money and I gave them pain but they took nothing from me. It was not a fair exchange.

  I got done with my list by the regular time, bought a new phone and called Rico. He picked a bar I didn’t know. I didn’t like that, but I could find any bar in town. I got the HK 45 semi-automatic out of my trunk, put it in my coat and drove.

  ***

  Rico sat alone at a table facing the door. I walked to the bar, got a scotch and a beer and sat down on his right.

  “What the fuck you doing?” His voice was low. “Sit across from me, don’t make this obvious.”

  “I ain’t turning my back to the door.” That didn’t need explaining.

  “You think,” Rico whispered, “I’m setting you up?” He ran a hand through his dark, thinning hair. “You’re the one who fucked up. I just want the money.”

  “I didn’t bring it.”

  “What?”

  “We meet in a bar I don’t know and you want me to bring money and sit with my back to the door. Jesus, Rico. Would you be friends with someone that stupid?”

  Rico shook his head. “So we look like fucking fruitcakes. Fine. I ain’t sittin with my back to the door either.”

  “So we have our drinks then take care of business after, right? You know I’m always good with business. But we’re in a new place. You showing me around town?”

  Rico almost laughed, caught himself like that would be too much and smiled. Not like him to play at being polite. He turned and looked at me. He talked soft. “It had to be somewhere loud.” Rico tipped his head back a little at the crowd. “This place is always like this.”

  “So there’s nothing weird going on.”

  “Tenny don’t give a fuck.” Rico whispered in a rasp I could barely hear. “So long’s your stupid shit don’t touch him.”

  I took a drink, looked at Rico, looked at the door. I shouldn’t have made the
phone call, but I didn’t mention Tenny, didn’t mention anyone but Davis, just tried to make it clear I didn’t do it. And no one cared about that.

  ***

  Olive wasn’t home yet so I drank. Nothing I could fix right now, it felt like death was on me and everyone besides Olive was gone. I waited for her. I needed her and I hated need. I drank, and I thought about Tenny and Davis but nothing came clear. I turned up the stereo, had a few more drinks and turned it back down.

  When Olive finally showed up I had her big living room chair turned to face the door instead of the TV. Music played behind me. I wanted to look at her legs but her knee-length skirt didn’t show enough.

  “Oh.” She seemed surprised to see me like that but I wanted to look at her the second she walked in. She shut and locked the door behind her and hung her coat on the rack next to it.

  My glass was empty on the long coffee table beside me, next to the half full scotch bottle and another empty glass. I filled both glasses, stood and nodded to Olive. She walked over to the couch and I met her in front of it, handed her a glass and we clinked them together. My lips were on hers before she could drink. We kissed gently and we sat, my hand on her skirt over the thigh.

  She looked at me, started to smile and stopped. “Rough day?”

  It was nothing she should hear, but I’d leave out the names. “For a minute I thought they might kill me.”

  “Who?”

  “If they kill me it doesn’t matter who.”

  That wasn’t enough for her. She licked her lips and took a short drink. “Are they still after you?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “You piss somebody off?” There was lust in her eyes.

  “The work I do,” I shrugged, took a drink. “Ain’t meant to make people happy.”

  “You hurt someone dangerous?”

  I held out the hand that wasn’t on her skirt, made it into a fist. “Hold my hand.” She hesitated but it was what she wanted. Her little hand closed around my fist. “Those knuckles feel used to you?”

  They weren’t any different than usual. Mostly I hit soft bellies and the hand comes out fine. Anything from hitting a bone or something else hard had been there a while. Olive smiled anyway. “You been workin.”