Chop Shop

by Andrew Post

  Amber brought her hand to her face, thumb to nose, curled in all her fingers except the pinky, and looked into the camera lens – she could see the layers of glass within expand and contract, zeroing in on her.

  “Okay,” Becky said, “I think they saw you. You can put your hand down now.” She leaned across the bar, her breath sweet like peppermints. “Go down that way, past the shoe counter, make a left, go past the bathrooms and at the end of the hall there’s a door marked employees only. Knock and wait.” With her fingertips, Becky pushed Amber’s untouched drink toward her. “You can take that back with you, if you want.”

  Amber passed the guys at the arcade cabinet, the pinball machines, and turned the corner. She went up the narrow hall, the walls covered in more framed photos of champion bowlers, past the men’s room, the ladies’ room, and knocked on the door marked employees only. Her glass in her hand, down at her side, rattled its ice.

  The door pulled open a gap. A man’s heavy face, finely shaped goatee, a flat-bill baseball cap. “Que?”

  “I’m here for a drop off.”

  “Name.”

  “Amber.”

  The door opened. Two desks facing each other, low drop ceiling, buzzing fluorescent lights, half of them dead. A rack of booze behind padlocked chicken-wire doors. Rust climbing the side of a filing cabinet. Becky sat behind the desk on the far side of the room. For a moment Amber wondered how she’d gotten back here so quick – but then noticed the second door leading in off the kitchen where Spanish hip-hop was blaring along with bleating ovens and hissing deep fryers.

  “Sorry for the Wizard of Oz routine,” Becky said, “but we have to play it safe.”

  Next to her on the floor, with their backs to the wall, were a couple of young children, a boy and a girl – probably four, maybe five, if Amber had to guess – both holding a tablet together, little faces pressed cheek to cheek, lit by whatever they were looking at, transfixed, their ears blocked up with headphones. They had a handful of toy cars with them, scattered around. A race car, a fire truck, an ambulance with a crooked wheel – far less interesting to them right now than whatever the tablet was showing them.

  “Mind pulling that chair over here for her, Fernando?” Becky said as the Mexican guy closed the door behind Amber.

  Fernando took the second chair from the other desk and wheeled it over to face Becky. He made a motion toward the seat, several gold bracelets jangling on his wrist. Once Amber had sat, Fernando took his place next to Becky, leaning against the wall with his phone, a cigarette burning between his fingers.

  “Are you Rhino?” Amber asked Becky.

  Fernando didn’t look up from his phone, issued a little laugh. Becky swatted him on the side. “Stop, she’s new.” Then to Amber: “No, I’m not Rhino, and I’d recommend not throwing that question around much.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all good, honey. Don’t sweat it. So, you brought a load for us?”

  “Yeah. It’s all out in the car.”

  “I was gonna give you shit about driving a hearse here,” Becky said with a grin, “but I guess that’s sort of hiding in plain sight, huh? Kind of like a mask, but one you drive instead of wear.” She mimed turning a steering wheel. “Anyway, do you mind giving Fernando your keys so he can go out and get your stuff while we talk?”

  “Okay.” Amber handed Fernando her keys and he left.

  Amber glanced again at the children in the corner as they smiled as one, miles away. Becky must’ve noticed Amber looking at them.

  “They’re my friend’s kids. I’m watching them while he’s at work. You don’t mind they’re in here while we talk, do you?”

  “Not at all,” Amber said.

  “You can put your drink on the desk here if you want, Amber. You don’t have to sit there holding it.”

  “I didn’t bring my coaster.”

  Becky wouldn’t look anywhere else but at Amber. “You’re sweet. How is it? Did I make it strong enough?”

  “I haven’t tried it yet.”

  “Looks like you could use it right now.”

  Amber raised the glass, shaking in her hand, and sipped. She’d made it strong. “It’s good,” she said.

  “Good. I gave you the Stoli but wrote it off as the cheap shit. Nobody orders Stoli because it’s expensive and then it ends up having to go back to our liquor distributor after a certain date and we end up losing money, so…yeah, you got the Stoli.”

  “Thanks.” Pay me, pay me.

  “So you and your girl run a funeral home, huh? We work with a few in other towns like that. Did your first drop-off at your place go okay? Some back-alley surgeon, I hear. The surgeon being who dropped off, not what was dropped off, I mean.”

  “It went fine.” How does she know that? Amber decided not to ask.

  “Rhino walked you through it okay? All of his instructions nice and clear?”

  Amber nodded, sipped her drink again. “Uh-huh. Just fine. He was very clear.”

  “Cool. Well, when Fernando gets back with your drop-off, we’re gonna go through it quick and make sure the order’s filled. You had the male, twenties, whole, unknown blood type, right? The one missing a nut?”

  “Yeah. He was ours.” Cash, bitch.

  “Okay, so once we make sure everything’s accounted for – two arms, two legs, one head, heart, lungs, those two glorious little nuggets more commonly known as kidneys, intestines, jugs of blood, and everything – we’ll send you out of here with half the pay. Since this is your first time working with us, we’ll need to make sure everything checks out with what you brought us. Run it through the X-ray, make sure there’s no whoopsies in there like bullets or broken-off knives or needles. This isn’t meant to sound like we’re doubting you, Amber. Absolutely not, you were great to work with – punctual, professional, easygoing – but it’s routine protocol, the same as we do with all our new sourcers. I’m sure you did a great job. Once our tests come back from our guy who does the lab stuff, we’ll give you a call and you can come and get the second half of the payment. And here’s Fernando now with your load. You can set those down anywhere, honey.”

  “Okay.” Fernando, struggling with his arms full of three coolers and milk jugs of blood in the shopping bag, kicked the door closed behind him and set the load down on the opposite desk. He tossed Amber her keys back. “Thanks. Nice ride. Is that the eighty-three Ford hearse?”

  “I think, yeah.” She had no idea. It ran. That was the important thing.

  Becky got up, patted each of the little kids on the head as she passed – going unnoticed – and walked around to where Fernando had a small penknife out to cut the tape holding each cooler closed. Becky opened the first lid and looked inside, a curl of steam rising out of the blue Coleman cooler.

  “Wow, you must be a rock star at wrapping Christmas presents,” Becky said. “Fernando, come look at this. It’s like a machine did it.”

  Peering in, Fernando made the not-bad face. “Looks good.”

  “Rhino will really appreciate this.” Becky peeled the Mega Deluxo shopping bag from around the three milk jugs of blood. “And this is all his too? Everything’s from the same guy?”

  “Yeah,” Amber said. She took another sip from her drink. “That’s his blood.”

  “You cleaned these jugs out real good before using them again, right?”

  “Yeah, with the soap Rhino said to use.”

  “Awesome. And you kept these under thirty-five degrees, same as everything else, right?”

  “Uh-huh. Just like Rhino said to.”

  “Awesome, very awesome. Okay, Fernando, can you go take this to the walk-in cooler while I get Amber here her money so she can be on her way?”

  “Cool.” Fernando hugged his arms around the three coolers and the milk jugs and bumped the door to the kitchen open with his back. As the door swung shu
t, Amber was relieved to have the load out of her hands. Even if it meant no pay, or whatever may come, at least she wasn’t in possession of a murder victim anymore. But in the back of her mind, she kept wondering what Frank was talking about needing the body back, wanting her to leave some random part for the police to find so somebody could know, for sure, the nut-shot guy was dead. But it didn’t matter now. It wasn’t Amber’s problem anymore. Out of her hands.

  Becky hopped to sit on the corner of the desk, close to Amber. “You were telling Rhino it appeared to you he’d been shot?”

  Amber nodded. “Once in the crotch and once in the head. Point blank, the one in his head.”

  “Did you beachcomb him?”

  “I don’t think I follow.”

  “Did you dig out the slugs and/or slug fragments?”

  “Didn’t have to,” Amber said. “He came to us with them already removed.”

  Becky nodded. “Good. Doesn’t matter who did it, long as somebody did. What’d you do with the scraps? Meaning, the ribcage and stomach and whatnot, the hot dog stuff.”

  “We have a cremator at the funeral home,” Amber said. “We ran it through that and flushed the ashes down the toilet.”

  Becky was nodding. “That’s what a lot of the funeral home sourcers do. If you hadn’t, I would’ve recommended that method. Clean. Better than tossing it in a dumpster somewhere to let somebody’s dog find it, right?” She laughed briefly. “So, before we get down to talking about money, Rhino always wants me to ask if you plan on bringing us anything else. Because the shipment we have going out on Monday – you probably noticed the refrigerator trucks out back – is pretty much full, so you might need to hold off until the fall unless you got something you can bring tomorrow.”

  “I think this was a one-time deal for us,” Amber said. She thought she might want to do this again, until she was here, doing it.

  “Well, reason I ask is we’re short on A-negative bone marrow with our next delivery going south. If you had anything small A-negative, just a leg maybe, we’d be willing to throw in a little extra more.”

  “Sorry, we don’t have anything available.”

  “It’s all good. Just thought I’d ask. Rhino’s breathing down my neck for it but our sourcers can only scrape together what they can, when they can. And don’t feel bad making this a one-time thing. You’re not indebted to us for anything, Amber. We’re actually indebted to you, for all your hard work. And for the amount of money you get per body, well, it can set you up pretty nicely just doing it the once, can’t it? Though, if you don’t mind, Rhino said he’d like to keep your name handy next time we’re up here in Minnesota.”

  “That’d be fine,” Amber said, figuring that was the most diplomatic way of saying no without actually coming out and giving a firm negative to these people.

  “Why didn’t your partner come with you tonight? If it’s okay to ask something that personal.”

  “It’s fine,” Amber said. “She didn’t want to. She helped me with the load, but didn’t want anything more to do with this.”

  Becky’s smile dissolved. “You trust her, right?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Amber said. “She won’t say anything. She was just nervous about doing it, is all.”

  “More nervous than you? I can hardly imagine a person more nervous than you are right now.” Becky’s smile returned. She touched Amber on the knee, two fingers. “It’s really okay, Amber. We’re not killers. Rhino doesn’t want us to go around snatching up homeless people and runaways and hookers. Other groups do that, but we don’t. He calls us vultures, we just pick up the scraps. Let the mafia and the gangbangers all kill each other and then we can swoop in and clean up while cleaning up.” She laughed. “Don’t think that was me who came up with that joke, I’m not that clever. That’s pure Rhino. Kind of dark, but you gotta have a sense of humor in this line of work. Like cops or EMTs. It’s like a pressure valve. Laughter, that’s the best medicine. Shit, sorry, listen to me rambling on. You probably wanna get paid so you can get back on the road, huh?” Becky leaned down in front of the children. “Excuse me, babies, but Auntie Beck-beck’s gotta get in the safe.”

  The kids, without breaking focus on the tablet, got up together, walked past Amber, never looking her way, went to the other end of the office, sat down, and continued their tablet-gazing, unbothered.

  Amber watched Becky kneel to twist the dial on the safe, left, right, left, and pull it open.

  Inside were several stacks of money, each banded and shrink-wrapped in clear plastic. Becky leaned over to her desk to snatch a paper bag, snapped her wrist to open it, and began depositing the money, two stacks at a time, inside, her lips moving as she counted. Amber stared at the money as it came out of the safe and into the bag meant for her. She’d never seen so much cash in one place before. A white-hot thrill rose in her, making her throat clench and her stomach feel warm – she could’ve squealed with happiness right then, but bit her lip, and watched Becky continue to put the money in the bag, stack after stack after stack.

  “It’s all gonna be in twenties, I hope you don’t mind,” Becky said as she put another set of stacks, then another set, into the bag. “Rhino thinks it makes it easier for our sourcers to use right away. Can’t find too many places that’ll break a hundred.”

  “That’s totally fine,” Amber said.

  “And, in case you were worried, it’s all a mix of old money and new, nothing’s in sequence or anything like that.”

  “I wasn’t worried. Not at all.” Amber finished the final four swallows of her drink in one gulp and set the glass aside, rubbing the glass’s perspiration between her fingers until it was gone. She was practically drooling looking at the money as Becky continued to move stacks over into the bag. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.

  But when Becky did stop, she had difficulty picking up the bag with one hand – the muscles in her arm rippling from the effort – to set it on the desk.

  “First half, four hundred and seventy-five thousand smackaroonies. Do you want Fernando to walk you out to your car?”

  Amber stood, knees knocking together with excitement now instead of fear, and picked up the bag, hugging its weight close to her chest, the smell of money washing out and directly into her nose where it splashed over her brain and doubled her excitement. “I think I can manage.”

  “Well, thank you so much for working with us, Amber. We’ll give you a call sometime around noon tomorrow so you can pick up the other half. Seriously, though, awesome job on the packaging. You’d be shocked how many people – men, usually, sorry Fernando – just cram the stuff in the coolers like squirrels burying a nut. Anyway, here’s to you,” Becky said and put out her hand.

  Amber uncurled one arm from around the money to shake Becky’s hand.

  “And we look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” Becky said, “when we get our results back from our guy. Oh, and give Wednesday nights some thought; we could really use one more Pink Lady this season.”

  Amber smiled. “I will. I look forward to your call tomorrow.”

  “And I look forward to making it. See you, Amber.”

  “Bye. Nice to meet you, Fernando. Bye, kids.”

  Only Fernando smiled and said goodbye; the kids never even knew Amber had been in the room at all. It didn’t matter. Amber walked down the hall, past the bathrooms, past the two guys playing at the arcade cabinet, the pinball machines, and the bar, her flip-flops smacking against her heels as she moved quickly toward the back door of the bowling alley. She stepped out into the cool night air and went to the hearse, opened up the back, lifted the panel underneath the carpet where the spare tire was, and mashed the money in its bag down deep. She looked around, closed everything up, got inside, and started the engine. As she waited for the car to warm up – and to stop making that awful squealing sound it did every time the engine was first turned over – Amber dia
led Jolene.

  No hello, just: “How’d it go?”

  “Went fine. We got our first half. I’m on my way home now.”

  “Stop somewhere, get something to celebrate.”

  “Seriously?” Amber laughed. “Who are you and what’d you do with my friend Jolene?”

  “It’s me. And yes, I’m serious. I’d say we’ve earned it. We can have one crazy night before thinking bills and mortgages and getting our furniture back and all that shit.”

  “Well, what do you want me to pick up?”

  “Booze. All the booze you can fit in the car.”

  Amber laughed. “Anything else, Bukowski?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you. Just get what you’re gonna get and come home so we can finally, finally enjoy ourselves.”

  “On my way,” Amber said, pulling out of the bowling alley lot. “We did it, Jo-Jo. We actually pulled it off.”

  “And we still have another half coming tomorrow?”

  “That’s what Becky said. And she’s super cool, by the way. I think she’s Rhino’s girlfriend or something. You’d like her.”

  “I’ll like anybody who’ll give us a few dollars shy of a million bucks. God, Amber, I’m so sorry I ever doubted you.”

  “It’s really okay. I’m just glad I was able to make this happen. Anyway, I gotta watch the road. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  Given the hour, every liquor store Amber slowed down in front of had its neon sign reading CLOSED in the window. She had thought since it was Fourth of July Eve some might have extended hours, but no. Groaning with frustration, she moved on down the block, slowing at the next she spotted, same deal.

  Coming into Dinkytown, taking the Twin Cities in a reducing spiral circling the funeral home in a desperate search, Amber spotted a cozy little tavern with its light still on. Most appealing was the sign that read they offered on/off sale. She parked the hearse, went around back, reached under the cover of the spare tire, and pulled out a stack of twenties. She peeled away half of the stack of one bundle, tossed the rest back in, made sure nothing was showing, closed up the hearse, and double-checked to make sure she’d locked it.