Where the Dead Lay

by David Levien

  “Wait up,” Jenny said, swimming toward them as Susan and Chad slipped and slid over the inflatable, finding their spots.

  “Come on, Jenny-girl,” Chad said. Behr tried to spot a look of disappointment on Chad’s face at the intrusion, but the glare off the lake was too bright.

  “Hold on,” Ed yelled and powered up. The boat cut the lake. Behind them the inflatable bounced and churned in their wake. The three riders howled and held on.

  “Thanks for having me out, Ed,” Behr called over the roar of the engine. “Real nice spot.”

  “Sure thing, Frank. The more the merrier. Been wanting to meet you. Susan always talks about you so—” Ed looked forward and turned the boat and his last words were carried away on the humid summer air. Behr didn’t bother asking him to repeat it and instead leaned against a rear-facing seat and looked behind them.

  Susan’s smile traveled back to him over the forty-foot distance of the towrope. The sun bounced golden off her hair. Behr took a seat in the stern, his beer between his knees, and watched for a moment, then turned his face straight up at the sun until it burned white in his eyes.

  FOURTEEN

  Peanut Marbry sat in Killah, his stock-to-shock Dodge Neon, and fucked with the bass setting on the Alpine, waking up the Bazooka tube mounted in the back window. The car started to thump and shudder to “Soulja Boy.”

  “When they come, I’m gonna go with them,” Peanut said over the music. “You follow. You know where we going. Let us back on down first, then you come next. Back on down too, don’t front in. Keep it runnin’, won’t be long at that point.”

  Nixie Buncher, sunk low in the Katzkin leather passenger seat, nodded one time. Peanut knew he had the drill. Nixie only needed to hear a play once and he was locked on. That was why Peanut ran with him, even though homey was skinny as a greyhound track dog.

  “You notice bad shit always go down when them Schlegels around?” Nixie asked.

  Peanut said nothing.

  “Hear they walk some dudes out they bar one night and nobody see ’em since?” Nixie said.

  “Bad shit happen to good people, yo,” Peanut answered. “Ever notice we get paid when they around?”

  “Shit-talking white boys,” Nixie said, tsking through his teeth. “What you oughta do is take him out. Charlie. Bim-bam,” he went on, sticking out a left-right combo. “The minute any one of ’em say shit. Once Charlie Boy’s on the ground, them others scatter.”

  Nixie reached out a long arm and slapped the crown-shaped pump bottle on the dash two, then three times, filling the car with the scent of Tropical Rainbow.

  Peanut shook his head. “Nah, man, first off that’s bad fiscals. Second, them Schlegels’d just keep coming.”

  “They only three.”

  “Don’t forget they daddy. He the worst of the bunch. Who knows, momma prolly too. I bet they got a basement full of ’em—they keep coming like ants out a hill …”

  Nixie went to hit the air freshener pump again.

  “Hol’ up,” Peanut said. Nixie looked to him, his eyes red even though he was only a little high. “Shit’s nineteen dollahs a bottle.”

  Instead, Nixie eased a tiny squirt out on his fingertips and rubbed it on his hands as the Durango pulled up next to them.

  The window slid down revealing Charlie Boy Schlegel behind the wheel and that Crazy Kenny across in the passenger seat. No doubt Deanie was in the back behind the smoked window glass.

  “Whassup, my negro?” Kenny shouted across the front seat. Peanut’s face went granite. Nixie tsked and spat out his window.

  “Yo, man, don’t be testing me like that,” Peanut said. Kenny just laughed.

  “So we follow you, or we gonna do a Chink fire drill?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah, dat,” Peanut said, getting out of his car. More car doors flung open as Nixie went to take the wheel of Peanut’s car, Kenny got in the backseat of the Durango, and Peanut climbed into the front passenger seat. “You paying enough for full service—” He stopped talking when he saw the man in the backseat. It wasn’t Dean, but an older guy with black coal eyes and a nasty pink rope of scar running down the side of his face. “Where Dean? Who you?” The man didn’t answer, just stared at him.

  “Deanie’s not feeling too good,” Charlie said. “That’s Knute.”

  “Newt?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, and took off.

  The man shot a hand forward, gnarled, hard, and small. “What the fuck’s up?” Peanut saw the tattoo on the side of the man’s hand, a pale green shamrock. He knew the man had been to prison, and he knew damn well who it meant he was with. Then the dude wiggled his teeth.

  Freakshow, Peanut thought, but he didn’t say shit.

  “Chad doesn’t think we’re right for each other,” Susan volunteered after they’d said their good-byes to her colleagues and were well into the drive home.

  “Is that so?” Behr said, steering around a chugging tractor-trailer.

  “He says you’re ‘too dark’ for me.”

  “What’d you say?” Behr asked.

  “I thanked him for the input. But told him I wasn’t shopping opinions,” she said. “I would’ve told him you’d just lost your friend if I thought it was his business …”

  Behr kept driving, trying to keep his hands loose on the wheel.

  “He’s harmless, Frank,” she said.

  “So you keep saying.”

  “I wouldn’t have repeated it to you if I thought he was right. Guess I shouldn’t have anyway.”

  Behr grunted a one-syllable response.

  “You didn’t help things, standing out there like a freaking gargoyle on the shore,” she said.

  “I tried, Suze,” Behr said, “I tried.” That was it for the talking until they reached her apartment.

  He pulled up in front of her building and put it in park, the engine idling in the twilight. Their usual practice would have had them going out to dinner, or a movie, or both, and spending the night at one of their places, but this was no regular Saturday. Tonight something bigger than his mood was hanging over them.

  “Here you go,” he said.

  “Thanks for coming along today. I know you weren’t really up for—”

  “Listen,” he interrupted. “I saw you holding those beers, carrying them around all day. And I saw you not drinking ’em. I’m thinking … Well, I don’t know what I’m thinking. What am I thinking, Suze?”

  They looked at each other across the expanse of the front seat for a moment, and then she just said it. “I’m pregnant.”

  He felt like an express bus broadsided the car. The air went out of it, and him, too. His mind ran in twenty different directions.

  “Did you plan on saying anything?” is what came out of his mouth.

  “Of course. I didn’t know how. And I was hoping to give what happened to Aurelio some time.”

  “I see,” he said, knowing the words weren’t enough, and worse, knowing his tone was all wrong. “How the hell did—”

  “How do you think, Frank?”

  A cold darkness squeezed his chest so that he was unable to breathe.

  “Well, I can see you’re pretty excited about—”

  “Susan—”

  “What?” Silence settled.

  “I don’t know.” He looked at her, pressed against the door, her arms crossed over her chest. He couldn’t tell if she was going to smile or cry. She’d never seemed so small to him. “Well, we should talk about—”

  “I’m not raising a kid on my own. I can’t. You know what I’m saying?” she asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Does that make me a horrible person?”

  “Doesn’t make you anything—”

  “So. Sorry, but it’s on you, Frank. You let me know what you want to do. And quick.” With that, in a blur of smooth speed and action, she was out of the car.

  FIFTEEN

  Sound track,” Kenny said, leaning up between the front seats and hitting the CD p
layer. A low swaying beat kicked out of the speakers. Notorious B.I.G.’s voice filled the Durango.

  “… Glocks and Tecs are expected when I wreck shit,”

  “Respect is collected, so check it…,” Kenny rapped along, “I got technique dripping out my butt cheeks, Sleep on my stomach so I don’t fuck up my sheets—”

  “Dude, I’ve seen Mom dealing with your sheets,” Charlie cut him off, turning the volume low. “Something’s dripping out on ’em.” Knute laughed in that silent way of his, while Peanut snorted out loud.

  “Yeah, and don’t you got any new shit? From some motherfucker who ain’t dead?” Peanut asked. They’d followed his directions to Stringtown, past an endless stretch of by-the-hour screw motels, and parked in a little notch on Belmont where they could see the house on Traub Avenue.

  “Biggie’s not dead,” Kenny said. All three heads in the car swiveled toward him.

  “What you talkin’ about—,” Peanut said.

  “He’s alive. He knew if he stayed in the game, he’d get killed eventually, so he stepped out,” Kenny told them.

  “Stepped out?” Peanut asked.

  “What the fuck?” Knute said.

  “Look at the signs. He practically told everybody he was gonna do it. Albums: No Way Out. Even early on he realizes he’s fucked. Life After Death, he gets the idea. Ready to Die, he puts the plan in action. Then he’s “killed” in an L.A. parking garage. No one apprehended in the shooting. He’s “dead,” but does the music stop? Hell no—”

  “Man, they got tracks and tracks laid down in the studio. They only release the best. Then, when they dead, it get valuable so they keep pumping it out. Anyone know that—”

  “Oh, sure. But the style changes. It evolves,” Kenny said, sounding sure. “How do you explain that?”

  Charlie just shook his head. “Don’t get him started. He can go on for hours.”

  “He let his family mourn. He let P. Diddy mourn. Lil’ Kim. Where he at then?” Peanut asked.

  “Probably Africa,” Kenny answered.

  “Africa, shit!”

  “He’d blend in. Live like a king. Think about it…,” Kenny said.

  “Look,” Charlie said, pointing to the house. Several cars were now parked in front, and several others were arriving, trolling slowly down the street, searching for spots.

  “Diddy probably visits him over there,” Kenny added.

  “What about ’Pac? He alive too? His music keep coming out,” Peanut asked, seemingly unable to help himself.

  “Nah. Music shows no growth. He’s really dead. Shot in Vegas for real—”

  “Guys, shut it,” came Knute’s voice, low and gravelly, and shut it they did. They all watched as people exited their cars and entered the house. From the assortment of race, sex, and age, it looked like an AA meeting or a factory shift change. But it wasn’t.

  “Lookit ’em all,” Charlie said.

  “If the Latinos and negroids poured all this money back into their communities it would virtually stamp out poverty in the city,” Kenny said.

  “Yo, dead that ‘negroid’ shit,” Peanut warned.

  “You a social scientist now?” Knute asked.

  “I read it in the paper when I was taking a dump,” Kenny laughed.

  “I don’t like the approach,” Charlie said. “Too open. I don’t give a fuck about any neighbors,” he went on, referring to the few houses around the one in question. With their broken windows, dirt lawns, and wrecked paint, it was clear they were abandoned. “But it’s a dead-end street.”

  Knute nodded. “Car could get boxed in by some late arrival.”

  “Uh-uh,” Peanut said, “this was for looks. They’s a back alley. Cut across Belmont over there …”

  Charlie glanced back at Peanut in the rearview with a look of near respect.

  They reached the head of a shared back alley, pocked by tipped-over garbage cans and spilled refuse, which led to the back of the Traub Avenue house. There was a detached garage, but no cars visible on this side.

  “Don’t front in,” Peanut advised, “back on down, then you be ready to leave quick.” Charlie jacked the Durango into reverse and backed quickly and smoothly toward the house. Through the windshield they could see Nixie doing the same with Peanut’s car. Reaching a place he liked, about ten yards from the back door, Charlie put the Durango in park. For a moment there was only silence in the car.

  “Well…,” Charlie said.

  “Hammah time,” Kenny said, drumming on the back of the seat. His was first, and then the other three doors opened. Kenny went to the back and popped open the rear hatch. He handed Knute an aluminum baseball bat, took a length of pipe filled with iron filings and capped on both ends for himself and a six-battery metal flashlight for Charlie. That was in addition to the .40 Smith & Wesson Sigma Charlie usually had in his belt when they did this.

  “You sure you don’t want in? We’ll find you something fun to use …,” Charlie offered.

  Kenny spun his length of pipe like a martial artist and struck a pose out of a chop-socky movie, topping it off with a “Waaahhh.”

  “Just the cheese and thirty seconds to fly,” Peanut said. Charlie pulled out the money—ten crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  “We’ll talk to you soon about the next one,” Charlie said. “And about that other thing …”

  “A’ight,” Peanut said, without much enthusiasm. He took the money and hurried to his car. He got in the passenger seat.

  “Go on, dog,” he told Nixie. He glanced out the back in time to see Charlie lock the running Durango with a second key. “Them Schlegels is sick, sick, sick.”

  Behr drove as if he could beat the night. After dropping off Susan he hadn’t even gone home. The information she’d laid on him was resting heavy and cold in his gut, and he wasn’t going to be able to sit around on it. He knew the news was the kind that most people reacted to with much happiness. But he wasn’t most people. This was an awareness he dragged around with him every day. He’d had his child. He’d had his wife. He’d experienced the chest-swelling joy that they’d produced. But that had all died, literally and figuratively, and he had been forced to move on to a different kind of life. He knew you’ve got to be bullish, as the financial guys said, on the world to have a kid, and his days of unbridled optimism were long past. His time with Susan was also pretty close to done, of that he was fairly certain. They’d had a good run, but she was just a kid, and if he stared it down in an honest light, this is the way it had to end sometime.

  He had a pair of jeans and his laptop in the car, so he’d changed and driven to a coffee place with wireless Internet, and parked outside. Using their signal he accessed a pay database reverse directory and ran the phone number marked by the “F” in Aurelio’s book. He got an address on West Elm Avenue and headed for it.

  He came up on the building and pulled over. It was a low-slung two-story stucco job that looked like it had been built as a motor inn thirty or forty years back but had been converted over to apartments. Behr clocked the unit, 11-B, on the far corner of the second floor. The curtains were drawn and it had no lights on at the moment. He got a look at one of the doors on the ground floor in front of him and it caused him to lean over and root around in the glove box until he found his fish-eye. Then he got out of the car and trotted up the stairs.

  Behr tapped at the door a few times, waited, and then gave it a good whack. There was no one home, or no answer anyway. He tried to peer between the curtains but couldn’t get much of a look. He glanced around, saw no activity about the building, and produced what he’d brought from his glove box: his fish-eye lens peephole viewer. He placed the conical piece of plastic over the peephole on the door and leaned close. The convex lens gave him a super-wide-angle view inside the apartment. The wide lens and the darkness combined to create a somewhat distorted picture, but it was clear enough for him to see that the place was vacant.

  Behr heard a thin, raspy cough behind him. He palmed the fish-eye
and turned to see a bony, aged black man standing there. The man sported a swollen and blackened eye with a broken blood vessel in it that had spilled red where it should have been white around the iris.

  “Who you looking for, Officer?” the man asked. He was hunched over a bad leg and supported himself with a cane.

  “Who are you?” Behr asked, flat and cop-ish.

  “Ezra Blanchard,” the man said. “I’m the on-site building manager. The real manager works at an office.”

  “Then you know who I’m looking for,” Behr said.