by Angel Colon
Tulsa hit Salva's knees at full speed, and they both tumbled into the ditch on the opposite side of the road. Although the tall grass hid their struggle from view, I have to assume there was ball chomping, among other things. When Tulsa came out of the ditch, he was covered in blood and still mad at the world. He spotted Grady and me and headed in our direction with murder in his beady eyes.
Grady was still bent over dry-heaving, so I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him upright. He caught a glimpse of Tulsa getting near. That gave him a burst of energy and we high-tailed it down the road with the pig in pursuit.
We ran about fifty yards at a full sprint before Tulsa started to slow. I looked back over my shoulder and saw him stagger a little, then stop. Grady and I paused for a breather, fully prepared to take off again should Tulsa make the slightest move.
All the bullets must have finally taken a toll on him, because Tulsa didn't come any closer. He gave us a hateful stare and breathed deeply, his sides expanding and contracting. He lowered his head slowly until his snout was resting on the ground, let out a loud wheeze, and collapsed.
Grady and I were cautiously inching our way closer when Boots' rattletrap truck came up behind us. Boots was behind the wheel and he had three filthy, rough-looking men in overalls standing in the back.
Boots pulled alongside of us and rolled down his window. He was gray-haired, with a thick, bushy beard and a gimme cap pulled so low over his eyes, I was surprised he could see to drive.
"I am disappointed to find my pig dead in the road," Boots said. "Where's my money?"
Between the kick in the ass and the lengthy run, Grady was in no shape to talk, so I once again found myself answering for him. I told Boots the money was in my car. Then I said, "Oh, and that fella in the ditch has some of it in his pocket."
Boots nodded and drove on past us. When they reached my car, the three men in back jumped out and went into action like a well-practiced pit crew.
One of them found the bag with the money and passed it on to Boots while the other two tossed Dooley's body into the bed of the pickup. Then the same two men approached Salva. There must have been a little life left in him because one of the men fished a pistol from the pocket of his overalls and shot Salva before they tossed him alongside Dooley. Next they pushed my car out of the ditch while the third man steered. With that task complete, the two that were pushing hopped back into the truck, then the other man slid behind the wheel of Salva's car and drove off. It took them less time to do all that than it took me to tell it.
When Boots pulled back alongside us, he motioned for Grady to come closer. I took the hint and stayed back. Boots talked for a moment while Grady just nodded. Boots slipped him a wad of folded bills and drove away, leaving Tulsa laying in the road.
"They just going to leave him here?" I asked, gesturing at the pig. "Seems like a waste."
Grady shook his head. "Boots didn't want to eat it. It was supposed to do the eating. What do you think they're going to do with those bodies?"
I looked at him blankly.
Grady said, "Oink," and pointed a finger at his open mouth.
For all their work, Boots' men hadn't bothered to change my tire, so Grady and I had to do it. We worked silently, which gave me time to think about how close I'd been to taking a bullet in the head. My hands shook as I jacked up the car. I noticed Grady's were none too steady handling the tire iron.
On our way back into town, Grady asked if we could stop and eat. I pulled off at a greasy spoon, and we got a booth in back where Grady passed me the money I had seen him take from Boots.
"Uncle Boots was pleased with the way we handled this," Grady said. "He wants you to work with me regular, if you're interested."
"I'll think about it," I said, but I was just dragging things out, trying to convince myself that my step over the line wasn't permanent. One glance at the money and I knew what my answer would be. It was nice to be able to afford to eat something that didn't come out of a can.
When the waitress brought the menu I saw that the day's special was pork tenderloin.
I had the catfish.
Turnpike
by Bryan Paul Rouleau
Before the interstate opened in '93, the only connection between the cities was a stretch of dark windswept turnpike littered with sad single-story motels bragging about free HBO. Places with names like Metroside, Motor Inn, Pacific Motel. Weedy parking lots without painted lines. Flickering signs without all the letters. A stray cat slinking in the shadows of a dumpster. A whore screaming in room 112.
These were places for used-up men. Men stuck between the cities. Men at the ends of their ropes. Men with business prospects to the south and expectant bosses to the north. Men with wives, kids, and floppy-eared dogs. Men who just got out of prison. Men on the run, men on the hunt, men on the dole, men on dope. Men with their dicks in their hands. Men with guns in their mouths.
I found a suicide once. I wished he'd have stopped at some other motel. They made it a crime scene, so I didn't have to clean it up right away. When it was time to get it cleaned, I had the day off. On the turnpike, we called that good luck.
I was working at the Comfort Lodge in those days. The owner was a nervous Bangladeshi man who called himself Sal because he was trying to assimilate. He wore collared flannel shirts buttoned-up to his throat and maintained an ambitious potbelly. I was one of his housekeepers.
I changed the sheets, sprayed window cleaner on the surfaces, took out the little garbage bags and their shallow deposits of crumpled paper and gum wrappers and toothpicks and used condoms. You can tell a lot by the contents of the trash can and the order in which those items appear.
The guy in Room 140 had a chocolate shake and burger with no pickles for dinner. Then he came back to the room, threw out the receipt, and jerked off. Before bed he smoked his last Pall Mall, chucked the box, and fell asleep with the television tuned to an episode of Twin Peaks. I knew that last part because I kept walking by his room all night and it was blaring.
I'm a housekeeper by trade, but I'm an investigator at heart. I like to know things. It gives me the advantage. And when you're a 37-year-old man still working in housekeeping, you need advantages. I wanted my own motel on the turnpike, someday. This was my ambition.
One thing I knew that gave me an advantage was that Sal was in debt. He owed money to some shady people. At least monthly he'd get a visit. His creditors sent over this guy named Benny. Sal's moustache would droop whenever this guy came in. I always thought Benny was just a real friendly gentleman.
"Donald, buddy," he'd say when he saw me. He had a big, firm hand and he used all of it. Put it on my shoulder, like he was about to confide in me, like he was about to tell me how he fucks his wife.
"Hey, Benny," I'd say.
"Where's Sal? I've been calling."
"Well, I don't know Benny—he's in and he's out, you know."
"Sure, sure, but it always seems he's more out than in. Why don't you tell him I stopped by?"
"I'll do that, Benny."
"Okay, Donald. Did you call up that girl yet? I gave you her number."
"Oh, no, I didn't call her yet, Benny."
"What's the matter with you? It's been months. Get your hand out of your pants and pick up the phone. Give her a call, I'm telling you she's into you."
"Ok, Benny. I'll do that."
"You'd better!" Then he'd leave grinning, with the door chime rattling on the glass.
I'd make the rounds.
Knock, knock. "Housekeeping." No answer. Go in. Inspect the sheets. If they looked clean enough, I'd leave them on and just make up the bed. Spray down some window cleaner. Flush a pubic hair down the toilet. Take out the trash. Find some loose change, a silk tie, sometimes a nice watch. Things people leave behind. I'd keep it all as a tip. When the room looked like new, I'd move onto the next.
One afternoon, I got back from the rounds and Sal was in the back office on the phone with the cord twisted up arou
nd his forearm. His phone was bright red like the one the President uses to launch nukes at the Soviets. It gave the impression that everything Sal was doing was urgent. I think he did that on purpose. I planned to use the same phone in my office when I got my own motel.
I would always listen in to Sal's calls. Sometimes, if it was late at night, it would be a phone sex line. Before he called the line, he always pulled off his brown woven leather belt and neatly coiled it on top of the filing cabinet. Sal would be saying things like, "Come on me. Yes, please. Oh my, yes." I listened the whole time and picked at my fingernails until he fell asleep in his office chair with the dial tone buzzing.
Other times it was his wife, or cousin, or sister-in-law, or uncle, or niece's fiancée, or some other relative removed by four degrees. There were hundreds of them. I got the impression that they all lived together in a two story house, packed like sardines into filthy rooms with piss and nicotine-stained cots strewn across the floors, and they were always calling him at work for one thing or another.
This time, though, it was too early for phone sex, and he did not seem irritated, so it wasn't his family. He was far beyond irritated. He was frightened. He was pacing. He was rubbing his hand across his hair, flinging confetti showers of dandruff. The pits of his shirt were soaked through with sweat. He was quiet for a long time, trying to solve a problem.
"I don't know his name, Detective," Sal was saying, exasperated. "He says he's called Benny. But how am I to know…how am I to know that is his real name? He's more like Lucifer when he comes here. He threatens me. My family! I cannot stand for it another day." He ended the conversation by yelling, "If you can't do a thing about it, I will!" and smashing the red phone onto the hook over and over and over until he was sobbing. I thought he'd finally lost it.
Lucifer, though. I thought that was pretty good and got a laugh out of it. Benny was a good guy, really. Just a guy doing his job like the rest of us. Can't blame a man for working hard.
Later in the day, I stopped into Sal's office.
"Sal," I said. "I know I'm just the housekeeper, but I've always been good at figuring things out. I can fix problems. I know you're running into some hardship with your money. Let me see the books, see what I can do to help. I need this job. I need you to hold onto the Comfort Lodge for my own sake. I don't want this Benny guy coming around any more than you do. He's got a streak of evil in his blood, anyone can see that plain."
Sal blinked at me. "Donald, I don't keep books. I'm a fucked man, can't you see that? That's all. I don't own this place any more than you own that wristwatch."
I looked at the Rolex ticking on my wrist.
"Well," I said. "You don't own it, who does?"
A couple days later I found a four-year-old issue of Playboy left in a bathroom. I kept it, brought it to the front desk, and read it cover to cover. No one came in or out past the desk the entire time. Not even Sal. When I finished the magazine, I picked up the phone and called Shelly.
Shelly was the girl Benny wanted to set me up with. Benny knew her somehow, and she'd said to him I was cute after we were introduced that one time. In particular, she'd liked my eyes. She was ok herself. I liked big fat girls.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Hi, is this Shelly?"
Breathing. "Well, yeah. Who's this?"
"I'm Donald. We met through Benny. At that barbecue joint back in April. Do you remember me?"
"Sure, I remember. You knew Uncle Benny from work, right? Donald, yes, of course."
"That's right. Shelly, I was wondering if you wanted to meet up for wings and a drink tomorrow night. How would you like that?"
"Oh, I don't know. Tomorrow night I was going bowling with a fella I been seeing."
"Come on now, Shelly. They've got a wings special tomorrow and one-dollar Blue Ribbons. Those bowling pins will be standing up there every night from now till rapture. Knock them down later."
She laughed. She really did like me. "Well, Donald, you're quite the salesman. I suppose that's why Uncle Benny talks you up. When could you pick me up?"
I didn't own a car. I got a cab and swung by Shelly's apartment at seven. I'd made sure to wash my jeans and trim up my moustache and comb my hair. I felt like a new man. She came out in gray sweatpants and a matching bleach-stained sweatshirt that said NAVY across the front.
"See, I got a first-class driving service just for you, Shelly," I said. Shelly laughed.
The cab driver, a pock-faced Mexican with cigarette dying in his lips, winced at us through the rearview. I kept looking at Shelly's sweatpants as we rode to the bar. I could hardly talk, I wanted to rip them off the entire time.
When we got to the bar, I asked the driver to come back for us at eleven and tipped him a dollar to make sure he was prompt.
Shelly was friendly. A good girl locked up in a pass-through town. She told me she just loved my eyes because they were chilly, like they were ice. I liked hearing a compliment, but saw it differently. I always thought my face would look best on a Wanted poster from the old west. They were dead, mean eyes.
Shelly got drunk on canned beer and wings and I told her to come back with me, I knew a good place we could curl up and watch a T.V. show. I took her to the Comfort Lodge and opened up a room for the two of us that was far from the front office.
"I lived out of one of these motels once when I was a girl. We was going through a rough spot," she said shortly before I got her sweats off and made love to her. Her ass was big and glowed in the street light coming through the slits in the shades. You could knead it in your hands like it was dough. I liked pulling her hair back and leaning in to kiss her, feeling her cheap beer breath all over me and down my throat. I came quick because I hadn't had a woman in two and a half years.
While she cleaned up, I slipped out, went to the lobby, and found Sal snoring in his chair in the back office. The red phone was hanging over his shoulder, the dial tone buzzing. I went in, found his coiled up woven belt, and went back to the room, stopping by the janitor's closet for a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Shelly was still in the bathroom, so I put the gloves on and turned the T.V. to a sad show about polar bears. I turned it up loud as it could go, and that made it sadder.
Shelly came out, and I wrapped Sal's woven leather belt around her throat before she ever laid eyes on me. I pulled it tight. She lunged, jerked, and tried to throw me off her, but I held strong until she collapsed onto her knees. I was using every muscle just to hold her. Hot piss was running down my pants. I thought about quitting and telling her it was just a joke, I hope you found it funny. My face was twitching and cramping. For a whole week after, my muscles would be sore.
She got heavier and heavier the tighter I squeezed, and when she was finally done breathing, she went completely limp. I let her fall onto the carpet and returned Sal's belt to the top of the filing cabinet in a neat coil. I dropped the room key in his side pocket. His pants were unzipped.
I came across her body on my morning rounds and called 911. I was glad there was no blood to clean up this time. I wasn't so sure I'd have the day off.
"My goodness, a murderer. Suicide, ok, but how could we have a murderer?" Sal was exasperated when I told him. He was even more confounded when he was arrested later in the afternoon. I saw the detective eyeing Sal's woven leather belt as he wore it under his potbelly.
The detective had been mulling it over in the room with some uniforms while I was out by the dumpster earlier in the day. I'd listened through the window.
"A week ago, Sal placed one of about a thousand calls to the station. Going on about Benny Carter paying visits. Going on saying he took a bad loan and some sharks were after him, making threats. Finally, here we have it folks, he went loose cannon and said he'd take matters in his own hands. I guess this is how he decided to do it. Raped and killed Benny's niece, right in his own motel. Jesus. Let's get a warrant. Shouldn't take long."
I was interviewed, of course.
How did I know Shelly Carter?
Had I seen her since that time?
No, I hadn't till I found her dead this morning.
Is it true Benny Carter gave you her phone number back in April?
Yes sir, but I never called it. Benny can attest to that.
How would Sal have known Shelly Carter?
Well, he wouldn't, I don't think, sir. Unless he overheard me and Benny talking about her. Benny was always trying to get me to call her when he came in.
Donald, do you know that the night before she died, Shelly Carter rang up her Uncle Benny and told him that you'd called her up for a date?
No sir, I did not know that.
Donald, can you explain how that's possible?
No, sir. Well, unless Sal found the number I kept at the front desk and called it faking to be me.
Do you think she fell for that, Donald? With Sal's strong Bangladeshi accent?
God, I hope she didn't, sir. I'd feel awfully guilty.
No one from Sal's family came to pick up the pieces. I heard they up and left town, probably in a couple Greyhound buses before Benny's men could take revenge. I stuck around Comfort Lodge and ran things as normal. A month in, Benny stopped by with his big hands. I'd been reviewing the old Playboy and threw it on a shelf when I saw him out in the lot.
"Donald, buddy" he said. "You're running the shop now, looks like."
"Yes, Benny, that's right. Trying my hardest, anyway. I'm no good with the books, though."
"Where are you keeping the profits?" He looked around like he might find money banded and stacked in the corners of the room.
"Well, Benny, I opened a savings account for the time being. I've even been paying the bills."
"That's good. Good work, Donald." Then he got somber. "It's an awful thing with Shelly. I wish you'd taken the girl out. I said she liked you. How many times did I say it? You should've heard how excited she was when she told me you called."