Daddy's Gone a Hunting

50

On Tuesday morning, the cleanup process to remove the rubble of the Connelly complex began. After intensive investigation, the origin and cause of the explosion and the ensuing fire had been determined beyond any doubt. The gas line, which had been partially unscrewed, a clear sign of tampering, had sent gas flowing into the museum until it was ignited by an exposed wire in the Fontainebleau suite there.

The insurance investigators had found burned and broken claws that had once graced stately antique chairs and tables, as well as bits of material that had been woven three centuries ago. Some of the exhibits had been found as far as a block away in the driveways of warehouses. But now it was time to remove the shattered and potentially dangerous debris.

The forklifts were hauled in on carriers. Dumpsters were lowered from other trucks and placed in the area where the cleanup began. The workers started with the museum, which for years had housed the exquisite antique furniture that Dennis Francis Connelly had been so proud to copy. “It looks like a war zone,” Jose Fernandez, one of the young workers, commented to the supervisor. “Whoever set this off meant business.”

“It is a war zone,” the supervisor agreed. “And whoever set it off did mean business. We’ve got to watch out for sinkholes. I don’t want anybody to get hurt and I don’t want to lose any equipment here.”

All day, pausing only at noon for a lunch break, the large cleanup crew set about clearing the smoke-charred ruins and knocking over the broken stone walls that were now jagged and listing.

At five o’clock, as they were wrapping up, a sinkhole appeared in the pavement near the area where the vans had been parked. “No harm done,” the supervisor said. “Put some yellow tape around it in case some dope decides to come scavenger hunting here tonight.”

Grateful for the decision not to do any work on the sinkhole now, they quickly placed four stanchions around the crumbling pavement; bright orange-yellow tape, bearing the word DANGER, was looped from one to the other of them.

Sufficient unto the day, Jose thought as, stretching to relieve his aching shoulders, he got behind the wheel of one of the trucks. With a master’s degree in ancient history, and more than one hundred thousand dollars in college loans, he had been grateful to get this job, promising himself that it was just a temporary tide-over until the economy got better. Raised in a housing project in Brooklyn by his parents, who were hardworking immigrants from Guatemala, he was fond of looking for a quotation that might fit the particular circumstance he was in.

Sufficient unto the day, he reflected. What’s the rest of that one? I’ve got it, he thought as he turned on the engine. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Pleased with himself, Jose put his foot on the gas.

In the distance behind the departing trucks, the evening shadows had already begun to cover the figure that was almost fully concealed under the broken slabs of pavement. It was a skeletal form, still wearing a grimy, tarnished chain with the name TRACEY engraved on the medallion.