by Andrew Post
“See you around, Frank,” Ted called from where he remained sitting on the edge of the raised flower bed. “Been nice knowing you.”
* * *
Amber used her elbow to slide open the workroom door, stepped out, closed it behind her, and slipped and slapped across the hardwood floor to the kitchen. She laid down an old newspaper before sitting. Her suit felt like it was sticking to her – wet on both sides, sweaty inside and bloody outside. She felt shrink-wrapped. Jolene was at the stove, with her back turned, pushing around pieces of bologna in a frying pan with one hand, smoking with the other.
“I did it,” Amber finally said. “He’s taken apart.”
Jolene turned around. “God, what did you do?”
“I followed Rhino’s instructions,” Amber said, red head to toe. “Can I bum a smoke?”
“Go take a bath first.”
“Take a drag and blow it in my face,” Amber said. “I’m too tired to move.”
Jolene stepped over to the bloody mess sitting at the kitchen table and held the cigarette for Amber to take a drag.
“God, I didn’t realize how much work would be involved. I had to bend his fucking knee backward until his toes were touching his hip before the thing finally gave. It sounded like a gunshot when the cartilage.…”
Amber paused, watching Jolene take the frying pan off the burner and scrape the bologna into the trash.
“Sorry.”
Amber stared in the general direction of the refrigerator, her bloody arms resting on her bloody knees. One strand of hair that had fallen loose from her painter suit’s hood hung glued to her cheek. “Rhino asked us to use a marker to write on the plastic wrap what their blood type was. Do you think he’ll be pissed we didn’t know our guy’s?”
“I’m sure he has a way of figuring it out,” Jolene said, filling the sink with hot water. She started scraping the pan. “Would you please go take that shit off? I can smell you.”
“Do I stink?”
“Yes, like you just cut up a Russian guy.”
“Did you get the two others done and ready for their showings? Because I was kind of in the zone in there. I was taking off his head and I said something to you, looked up, and you were gone.”
“I finished them. They’re in their drawers ready to be moved over into their boxes. I got those moved by the door so we can just drop them in tomorrow morning and the day after.”
“Shit, I just realized I never did laundry,” Amber said. “Can I borrow something of yours for the funeral tomorrow?”
“Before you ask, the leggings don’t fit you.”
“They probably do now. I feel like I sweated off fifty pounds in this thing. Oops.” Lifting her arms, a long strip of something unidentifiable peeled off from Amber’s arm and splatted, loud as a clap, to the kitchen floor.
The undertakers stared at it.
“What do we do with what you can’t pack?” Jolene said. “There has to be leftover shit they can’t use, right?”
“A few things. Ribcage and stomach are no good. I was thinking we’d just put them in the cremator.”
“We haven’t turned that on in years.”
“Yeah but it’s not like the gas has gotten turned off.”
“Yet.”
“Yes, smartass, but what I mean is it probably still works. I figure we just throw in the shit we can’t pack for Rhino and torch it, dust it out after, and toss the ashes in the toilet.”
“Who do you think he was?”
“No. I spent the last four hours kicking back that question. We’ve got to look at this like we’re farmers or something. We start giving things names, our constitution for it will never hold out.”
She had a point. Jolene stepped over the piece of mystery meat on the floor and sat across from Amber. She butted out her smoke in the ashtray. “I’m sorry I didn’t help.”
“It’s fine, you had the other two to do. I was kind of sad when I saw you had gotten them drained and were starting the embalming pump. And before you say anything, no, I didn’t cut them up after you left. They can’t use stuff in that condition, after it’s been chemically treated. I just mean if we took a few extra things with us, maybe Rhino would take them.”
“That’s being greedy,” Jolene said.
“I know but that’s the thing. I keep looking at everything now with price tags on it. Like the whole time we were at Mega Deluxo, I kept looking at the other people shopping there thinking, oh, she’s got two kidneys, that guy’s got two lungs. We’re all just money bags walking around.”
Jolene inclined her head. “I hope you know how psychotic that sounds.”
“I wouldn’t actually do it. Jesus. I just mean, I think I found my ambition again.”
“Great.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just wish you could’ve found it a few years ago, back when we still had a chance of pulling ourselves out of the hole without having to become criminals to do it, but whatever, that’s just my two cents.”
“Jo. Please. I’ve had a very long day.”
“And I’ve had several years of long days. Where’s my reprieve?”
“Do we have any beer left?”
“Yes. But don’t change the subject.”
“If we’re gonna argue, I need something for my throat.” There was a sticky sound as Amber got up, leaving a perfect red butt-print on the chair where the blood had soaked through the newspaper. She stepped over to the fridge, paused, looked at her bloody gloves and then made a sad face at Jolene. “A little help?”
“Go take that shit off, like I said. You can have a beer after you shower. Christ, you’re like a child.”
“I might as well stay in this thing, I still have to clean up. Just open the fridge for me, please?”
“And then what? How’re you going to open the beer?”
“Well, I’d probably need you to do that too.”
“And how will you drink it? Without touching it, that is?”
“We have straws around here somewhere. Come on, I’m like dying of thirst here.”
“No. Beer can be your reward. Go clean up the workroom, take a shower, and I’ll bring you a beer afterward – with or without a straw, your choice.”
Amber squelched and smacked her way across the kitchen in short, slow shuffles. She halted abruptly in the kitchen doorway and made a red half-circle on the floor as she turned in place to face Jolene.
“What?” Jolene said.
“What’re we gonna do about Cornelius?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. And, well, we either let him fuck one of the corpses, or pay him off with some of what we get from Rhino. I mean, just letting him fuck one of them isn’t any worse than us cutting them into tiny little pieces, really.”
Amber, face framed by her plastic hood, frowned. “How do you figure?”
“It’s still desecration of a corpse. Chopping it up or fucking it is about the same.”
“Now, hold on. Heaven forbid what I’m about to say happens, but us getting busted for trafficking in human body parts and Cornelius getting busted for diddling a dead person are two totally different cases. A judge would throw the book at him, maybe a whole fucking library for that nasty shit. And us, well, we’re just two gals who fell on hard times and decided to utilize unexplored channels of an unorthodox means to get ourselves out of debt. We’re broke. He’s a pervert. End of discussion.”
“But when you start dreaming out loud about what else we could do after paying off the mortgage and the bills and everything, talking about moving away from here or just retiring completely…is that not for jollies too? Is that not greed rearing its ugly head? Especially with you looking at living people at the store and wondering how much their parts would go for?”
“Greedy, sure, but it’s pretty goddamn different from stick
ing a wiener in a cold, dead vagina or butthole or whatever Cornelius’s predilection is. And I was just saying that I was looking at the world differently now that I have this new, temporary job going for me. If you become a guy who sells used cars who had no idea he’d ever be a used car salesman, don’t you think after he’s got the job he looks at all cars, his to sell or not, from a slightly different perspective? My world view has opened up is all. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Either way,” Jolene said, “we need to be thinking of what we’re going to do with him.” She took off her glasses to wipe the lenses. “Cornelius hasn’t stopped knocking before and now that he thinks he’s got something on us he’s certainly not gonna now.”
“It’ll make for good shower-thinking,” Amber said, and turned to leave. “I’ll report back.”
Jolene noticed the strip of flesh was still on the kitchen floor. “God above. Amber! Can you please learn to clean up after yourself?”
* * *
An hour later, the workroom sparkling clean and Amber’s clothes packed into the incinerator, she stepped back into the kitchen with her hair hanging dark and wet around her shoulders and a clean T-shirt and jean shorts on. Jolene sat at the kitchen table – since it was the only place to sit anymore – painting her toenails. “Where’s the beer you promised?”
Jolene showed Amber her wet nails. “Can you get it yourself?”
Amber sat with the beer and took a deep swallow. “So, here’s what I came up with in the shower. I say we kill Cornelius.”
Jolene continued dabbing the little brush down the length of her middle toe’s nail. “I thought you’d say something like that.”
“I mean, it’s the best course of action, right? I’ll show my work. Three things. One, he knows something that could get us in trouble. Two, he is irredeemable already, which nominates him as somebody okay to expel from the population. And three, we have a pretty good way of making a person disappear.” Amber paused. “You know I’m just kidding, right?”
“Are you? Or were you just gonna come in here, say all that, see how I react, and then decide if you were only kidding?”
“I was kidding,” Amber said. “I think we should just let him fuck a body. Maybe if he gets it out of his system, he’ll leave us alone.”
Jolene snorted. “Sure he will.”
“Yeah, good point.”
“Let’s say we let him. Which one, though? After Sunday there won’t be any bodies for him to fuck. And before you even say it, no, he is not allowed to fuck one of the ones I already got ready. Speaking of which, I still need you to do the makeup – you don’t have to do both, just Missus Tamblyn. I did Mister Wicks.”
Amber reached across the table for Jolene’s cigarettes and lighter. “Then we’ll give Cornelius a rain check, take his number, and tell him when somebody’s come in.”
“And in that time he’ll probably have gotten antsy and called the police just for something to do,” Jolene said. “Nah. I think we should kill him.”
“Okay, well, when we do, we should just jump on him and you can hold a pillow over his face and I’ll hold down his arms and—”
“Amber. For fuck’s sake, I wasn’t serious. What is wrong with you?”
Amber put her face in her hands. “I think the heat is getting to me.”
“Drink your beer. Stop contemplating murder.”
“But it freaks me out to know that he knows, you know? Maybe Rhino knows somebody. Should I text him right now?”
“No. I feel like his trust in us is tenuous enough right now. I mean, with him having to walk us through everything step-by-step like that.…”
“He wants things done a certain way. He wasn’t a dick about it. It’s just steps he probably copied down a long time ago and sends to all the newbies. I still think we should talk to him, see if he has any suggestions about what to do with Cornelius.”
“Call me silly, but I don’t really think it’d be wise to tell the guy who’s buying body parts from us that another guy, who shouldn’t know what we’re up to, does. Just a thought.”
“Fair. Back to square one then. Do we let Cornelius fuck a corpse or do we not let Cornelius fuck a corpse?”
“I really don’t know,” Jolene said and started on her other foot. “What about the other guy, that Frank guy?”
“He isn’t dead.”
Jolene’s eyes went half-staff. “For Christ sakes.”
“Sorry, sorry. Kidding.” Amber took another sip, then a drag. “What about Frank?”
“Should we be worried about him too? He seems kind of shaky.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I’ll admit I was a little…apprehensive to the idea and being faced with what I thought was Frank’s murder victim was, yes, a touch nervy for me – but I’m okay with it now. Not okay, but, you know, dealing. All in all, I’d say I’m handling things pretty well. Dude was just a gangster who probably pissed somebody off and ‘got disappeared’ – like they say in the movies. We just happened to be the method by which that disappearing happens.”
“But what about Frank, Jo? How much do we pay him?”
“I kind of think we won’t have to. He seemed over it when we saw him. Seemed to me he just wanted rid of it. I say we let it ride. You gave him our card. If he wants the money he can call and we’ll haggle – once we have the money. When are you due to drop off that stuff with Rhino, anyway?”
“He said to text when I have everything packed.” Amber picked up her phone, opened it, closed it, set it back down.
“Did you have any trouble with the dry ice?”
“I spilled some on the floor and it made this weird crackly sound – we might need to replace a couple tiles in there later. But, other than that, no, I used the gloves and all that and everything went in the right container the way it was supposed to. I just feel like I’m forgetting a step.”
“Did you wrap everything six times or whatever he said to do?”
“Yep. I wrapped each piece in seven layers of cling-wrap and then in a towel and put each in a cooler, stacking things like he said to, and put a sponge soaked in dry ice on either end and closed the lid, sealing the outside with one strip of packing tape and marking the tape with the code system he sent me yesterday: A for arms and L for legs and E for eyes and H for heart, et cetera and so forth, with the kidneys in a container by themselves because they can’t be packed in tight like other shit can.”
“So, what are you waiting for? It sounds like you’re ready to me.” Jolene, done with her toes, screwed the lid back on the nail polish bottle. “The sooner we can get that shit out of here, the happier I’ll be. Maybe things can finally go back to normal.”
“I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna text him this, ‘The cow is packed. When can I drop off?’ Does that sound all right?”
Jolene shrugged. “Yeah, sure, sounds fine.”
Amber’s phone made a swoosh sound. “And there it goes. Text sent.”
“Can you get me a beer so I can join you in celebrating?” Jolene said.
“Actually…this is the last one. Shit, I’m sorry, honey. Do you want the rest of this? I didn’t spit in it.”
“It’s fine. We can celebrate after – because then we’ll have money.”
“Fuck yeah we will, girl. High five.”
“Nails.”
“Air high five.”
Jolene laughed – and they almost touched palms.
“We’re gonna be okay, babe, you know that, right?” Amber said.
Jolene nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Shit was pretty awful there for a minute, but I think, yeah, we’re gonna be okay.”
“Wow, he’s a quick text-backer. He sent an address. Says to be there in two hours for drop-off and immediate payment.”
“I’ll help you get loaded up.”
“Gim
me a hug first.” They hugged. “This is gonna be good, Jo. Everything is going to be fine.”
“I believe you,” Jolene said, unable to hug Amber back except by pressing her sides with her wrists, fingers splayed. I really, really want to believe you.
* * *
Frank went into the gas station, paid for his gas, smokes, and a soda, and was walking back to the Lexus when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number. Ignoring it, he got back in, started his car, and sat there a moment, holding his phone as it continued to ring in his hand, looking at the number he didn’t know, wondering if this was the end, the Petroskys somehow found Vasily’s body and they were going be nice and give him a running head start. No, they wouldn’t do that. Like Ted said, they wouldn’t let him know they knew. They’d just find him and kill him.
He answered it. “Hello?”
“Frank, it’s Bryce. I’m at my place. Aunt Tasha’s taking a little longer than expected getting ready so she asked me to call you to tell you we won’t be by until seven.”
“Any luck?”
“Finding Vasily? No. Nothing. No hospitals have admitted him, the cops haven’t picked him up anywhere. But thank you for your concern, Frank, that really touches me in the bottom of my heart.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with him running off, Bryce. I was asleep. I woke up and he wasn’t on the table, he was just gone, he—”
“You really like telling that story, don’t you? We can’t prove anything, but I think you had some deal with fucking Robbie Pescatelli. He was probably waiting around the block, waiting for the minute I left. You might not have pulled any trigger, but looking the other way when somebody else does is the same thing.”
“Why would I do that after trying so hard to save him?” The golden ticket.
“I don’t know, Frank, why would you? Maybe you’re fucking nuts. Maybe that was all part of the guise.”
“What fucking guise, Bryce? It’s not like I knew you were going to bring your bleeding-from-the-balls cousin to my fucking house. Why would I have all of that planned? I think maybe you’re overthinking this. I’m sure Vasily is somewhere. He may not be well, he may not be alive—”