The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

OTHER THINGS BLOWN

Down Gaffy, under crisscrossing phone lines, between once decorative and now weedy palms, past a glut of gas stations and fast-food places and the Ono Hawaiian BBQ, just across from the Payless Supershine Car-wash, but before the Club 111 at the Holiday Inn, Jaime pointed at the curb.

– Here.

And I parked us outside the one-stop shopping opportunity promised at the Bait-n-Liquor.

– Wheres the can?

– Around. This is the first stop.

He opened the door and I grabbed his arm.

– Im not waiting while you get stocked up on Malibu and go all shitfaced on me again.

He looked at my hand.

– Dude, I could just beat the hell out of you if I wanted to.

I didnt let go.

– Yeah. You could. So what?

He pulled his arm free.

– So come in. Fuck do I care. Just keep your mouth shut. Let a man conduct some business.

So I went in with him.

The shop was, as advertised, devoted to both bait and liquor. Although liquor seemed to have the upper hand.

Jaime raised his chin at the old salt central casting had sent up to play the proprietor.

– Homero.

Homero looked away from the screen of the laptop he was playing Free-Cell on, pushed up the brim of his fishing cap and took the pipe from between his teeth.

– Jaime.

He stuck out his hand. Jaime looked at it, took it.

Homero smiled.

– You come down to do some fishing, boy?

Jaime ducked his head.

– No, no, man. Just saying hey. Business, she calls as usual. No leisure.

Homero nodded, waved a fly from in front of his face.

– Sure, man. You want leisure, you got to grow old. No one young should be standing still. Sitting around with a fishing pole in your hand, thats for old men like me. You got to hustle up there, eh? Dog-eat-dog, that business, eh?

– You know it, man. And the more success, the harder you got to work. Everyone, they come for you.

– Gunning for the top dog. Yes, yes.

Homero smiled and nodded.

Jaime shifted from foot to foot.

– Homero, that stuff? You know?

The old man rubbed the stem of his pipe across his lips.

– Yes, yes.

– I need that now. It ready?

Homero tugged at the collar of his baggy V-neck T.

– Yes, yes.

He turned back to the laptop, closed his card game, opened a browser and typed in an address. From beneath the counter he uncoiled a cable and plugged it into the laptop. His index finger slipped across the touch pad as his thumb tapped left-right a few times, and a printer began to whir as the carriage zipped back and forth. The printer clicked twice and went silent and he reached under the counter and came out with a couple pieces of paper.

He held them up, both sheets dense with print, and pointed at a bar code.

– Theyre gonna have to scan this. Your driver gotta show his license, but this is what theyre going to scan. OK?

He came from behind the counter and passed the papers to Jaime.

Jaime took them and folded them in half.

– That other thing?

Homero nodded and walked to a row of Styrofoam coolers sitting on upended milk crates down one wall of the shop.

He waved me aside.

– Make way, make way.

I scooted and he shuffled past, down the row of coolers to the last one.

He took the lid off and set it aside and looked back down the shop at Jaime.

– You talk to your mama?

Jaime was staring at the rum bottles behind the counter, he kept staring at them.

– Sure. All the time.

The old man stuck his hand into the cooler.

– Good. Youre a good son.

He pulled his hand from the cooler, the tentacles of a small squid wrapped around his wrist, a plastic bag dripping water between his fingers.

– Your mama, she take care of you, then you take care of your mama. So many sons, they dont know that.

He peeled the squid free, looked at me.

– For the sharks. Gray smoothhound. Leopard.

He dropped the squid back inside the cooler.

– Maybe for guitarfish.

He put the lid back on the cooler and came back to the front of the store with the dripping bag.

I made way for him and he walked past, wiping one hand on his T.

– Or mackerel. A nice bloody piece of mackerel for rays and for sharks.

He circled back around the counter, untwisting the neck of the bag.

– Jaime, what did I teach you for croaker? When your mama left you with me? What did I teach you?

Jaime never stopped looking at the booze.

– Mussels. Bloodworms. Ghost shrimp. Live ghost shrimp for croaker.

Homero smiled, putting a hand inside the bag and coming out with a zippered vinyl bank envelope.

– Mussels are easiest. Dig them up.

He showed Jaime the envelope.

– But ghost shrimp are best.

Jaime reached for the envelope, the old man pulled it back.

– Still owe a hundred.

Jaime knuckled the corner of his mouth.

– Gave you a grand.

– Yes, yes. Paid the grand. That was for the paperwork.

He nodded at the cooler full of squid.

– For storage, its another hundred.

Jaime looked at me.

– You got a C?

– What?

– You want this deal greenlighted or what? I need a hundred fucking dollars.

I went in my pocket for what was left of the cash Po Sin had paid me the last couple days, what I hadnt spent or given to Chev.

– I got seventy-nine and some change.

I walked over and dropped it on the counter. Jaime looked at it, looked at the old man.

The old man shrugged and handed Jaime the envelope.

– You owe me the rest.

He scooped the money from the counter.

– Dont forget, ghost shrimp for croaker.

Jaime headed for the door, I followed.

Homero opened his cash register to put the money inside.

– And tell your mama I said hi.

Jaime pushed out the door, mouth closed, waiting for me at the truck until I unlocked his door. He jerked it open and climbed in.

I walked around and got in and put the key in the ignition.

– Uncle or something?

He shook his head.

– Moms first pimp.

He looked at me.

– Croaker is the worst fucking fish in the world. Rather eat shit.

He looked out the window at the old man waving from inside the shop.

– Rather eat shit like a fucking dog.

– What went wrong?

Jaime took his eyes from the water below us as I worked the Apache up the steep incline of the bridge, past the parti-colored bulk of a Swedish cruise ship moored on our right.

– Mean, what went wrong? Motherfucker turned her out. Thats what went wrong. Not that I give a fuck. Bitch wanted to whore, thats her business. Not like she stuck with it anyway. Moms is talent. Adult films. Got a name.

Feeling, I will admit, more than a bit awkward, I clarified.

– No, I mean, what went wrong with the almond deal? Whyd you cut Tal-bot and all that?

He played with the zipper on the envelope.

– That shit. What went wrong. What went wrong with that shit was Soledads dad went totally off script and started improvising. Killed himself. Fuck do you think went wrong?

– But you didnt get involved until he was already.

– Yeah. So? Still, motherfucker had been alive, it all would have worked out.

I kept my own counsel, unable to find a hole in his logic.

He provided enlightenment.

– Not my business, this shit. Im a dream merchant, yeah? Commodities arent my thing. I mean some X, sure, but not produce. Took me a bit of time because they needed someone on the other end.

– Like who?

– Like a buyer. Harris, he lost his buyer on the other end, the one his relative had him hooked up with. He came down here, it wasnt just that he needed to get the load shipped, he needed a new buyer. Soledads pops supposed to have one all lined up.

– So?

– So? So whatever the buyers name was ends up splattered all over the wall with the rest of the contents of Westin Nyes brain. Asshole. You, not him.

We crested the midpoint of the bridge and the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach rolled away below us, spiked with endless cranes, crossed with rail sidings, piled with containers. Industrial wasteland parceled and fenced and knitted together by wide roadways traveled by caravans of eighteen-wheelers, all of it reeking of oil and exhaust.

L.L. loved it down here. Wrote it into any number of unmade screenplays.

One of the great American metaphors, Web. The outer reach of manifest destiny, the point from which we ship the material instruments of our cultural dominance. The physical bookend to the work we do in Hollywood. Fuck, you could shoot an amazing chase scene here. Blow the shit out of The French Connection.

Other things could be blown the shit out of at the port. I remember drinking a milk shake in a diner between a truck wash and a strip club up on East Anaheim Street while L.L. had his pipes cleaned by one of the strippers who worked both long-hauler conveniences.

I put aside my reverie.

– So, no buyer. What else went wrong?

He looked back at San Pedro, over the bridge and across the water.

– I couldnt find a forwarder who would handle the load. Turned out I was gonna have to deal with people I didnt want to have to deal with. Horn ero. And he wanted that grand for the paperwork, up front. Seeing as all my liquid capital is tied up with the YouTube kids, Im a little cash poor just now. So I had to move some X and that took time.

– You blew your end of the deal.

– I did not blow my end. Obstacles came up that I hadnt been able to avoid. Shit took longer than I thought. They wanted turnaround like yesterday. But from working in the industry, Im geared toward things moving at a steady pace. Im used to weighing the pros and cons of decisions when millions could be at stake. Someday. These guys, they want to sell shit and get paid right away.

– Strange how thieves might be in a hurry.

– Fucking cool it with the smartass, asshole. Here, over here.

– Here?

– Yeah.

We came off the 47 onto Ocean Boulevard, past the twin domes of the waste reclamation plant, a monstrous installation far too evocative of colossal and perfectly symmetrical breasts for Jaime not to comment.

He pointed.

– Looks like big tits.

I declined to respond.

– Big titties.

I changed the subject.

– So what happened when you couldnt do what they wanted when they wanted it?

He threw his hands up.

– Fucking Talbot gets all in my face. Starts talking about the delay means costs and how theyre gonna have to come out of my ten percent. Bullshit.

– Yeah, total bullshit. And that was before you knew they werent even paying the full ten percent.

– Fucking right! Shit. Telling me I was gonna have to cover their hotel and meals for the extra days. As if.

I took a moment to replay what hed said. Decided I had to be wrong. Realized I probably wasnt. Thought Id ask. Thought Id rather not know for sure. And finally couldnt help myself.

– Um, they wanted you to cover their expenses?

– Believe that shit?

– For like a couple days, right?

– Fucking gall!

– They wanted you to cover their room and board for a couple days was what they wanted? Am I correct about that?

– Yeah, thats what Im saying. You need it in some other brand of English?

– You cut Talbot and started this whole round of shit because?

– Because motherfucker was reneging on a business agreement. I mean, shit may fly in Butte County, but not in Hollywood.

I stared at the rear of the bobtail we were stuck behind.

– Jaime. You cut a man. His boss, his uncle got pissed. He got so pissed, he killed the man you cut.

– And?

I cranked the wheel over and took us off Ocean onto the access road to Terminal T and pulled to the side of the road.

– Dots not connecting, are they? Pointless for me to continue? Yes, I can see thats the case. I wont even bother with the part where they must have been watching your hotel room when I showed up. The part where they followed me and Soledad up to L.A. and snatched her and, by the by, stole my bosss van. Oh, and that, that bit of grand theft auto, for the record, that led to another van being firebombed and shots being fired into a place of business. But I will refrain from lining it up so you can see how all these events result from you not being willing to pick up someones fucking per diem. Asshole.

He brushed his hand at me.

– Not my fault. People responsible for themselves. Nobody in this, nobody that didnt put themselves in it.

I raised my hand.

– Id beg to differ. My ass is in this because I got dragged in by a psycho cowboy who told me to get his almonds or something bad would happen to someone I like.

He leaned close.

– No, youre in this because my sis called you in the middle of the night for a little help and you came running as fast as you could because you wanted to get in tight with her and tap that ass.

It would have been nice to tell him he was wrong. More to the point, it would have been nice if he had been wrong. But he wasnt.

I slumped back in the seat.

– OK. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck us all. Were all fucked. Now what?

He unzipped the bank envelope and took out a pistol and pointed it at me.

– Now we discuss terms. Points of gross and shit.

– They have your sister!

– Man, I dont care. I mean, I care. And Im gonna get her back, but I dont want any misunderstanding, Im getting my fucking ten percent.

– Wait, is that the real ten percent, or the fake ten percent you were too stupid to realize wasnt really ten percent because you are so fucking stupid?

– Man, did I show you this?

He picked up the gun from the dash again and showed it to me.

– Thats all youve shown me for the last half hour.

He pointed it at me.

– So stop fucking around.

– You stop pointing that thing at me! I told you in the first place, I cannot think when you point that at me! Im like a freak that way, all my brain juice runs out my ass when some moron who doesnt know his multiplication tables points a gun at me and might accidentally pull the trigger because he thinks its his nose and hes trying to pick it!

– OK, OK, chill, chill!

He put the gun back on the dash.

– There, its down. Chill.

I chilled. Or I tried to chill. My ability to chill being seriously hampered. My sense of proportion, already in sorry shape before I first walked into a cockroach-filled apartment and started hauling little plastic bags of shit out of it, was fucked beyond recognition.

And I was having some very creepy thoughts.

Like…

What if none of this is real? I mean, does it seem real to you, Web? Have you ever had experiences like this? Has anyone you know had experiences like this? Does this not seem rather more like a bad screenplay L.L. might have brushed up in the ‘80s than like real life? Are you, perhaps, going a little more loony than you first suspected? Or, wait, how about this? Maybe youre not going crazy, maybe, wait for it, maybe youre dead? Get it? Like, you got hitby one of the bullets on the busi Like you died on the bus and all of this is like after-death experience, like your journey into the afterlife? Or maybe youre still alive, still on the bus? Like it all just happened, is happening, right now? What about that shit?

I shook my head.

– No. No way. Too weird.

Jaime shot me an eye.

– Say what?

– Nothing. Im cool. Im here. This is happening. I know this is happening. Im here. This is here and now. Im here.

– Dude, are you?

– Im fine. Im cool. So. You were saying, ten percent?

He tilted his head.

– OKaaaaaay. So, Mr. Scary Asshole, what Im saying is, I want it understood that if we bring them their can, with the almonds, Im not sacrificing my ten percent. Theyre the ones pulling out of the deal. I took the time and expense of arranging a buyer for their property and all that shit. Im not just walking away with nothing.

I finished taking the deep breaths that seemed to be doing very little to help calm me.

– Yes, but you will not be getting nothing. You will, in fact, be getting your sister.

– That wasnt the deal! I want my ten percent! And the real ten percent. Whatever you said that was.

– OK, fine. So how do we?

He picked up the gun.

– With this. Motherfuckers try to duck out without paying my due, Im taking action. So you know how I roll. Thats what Im saying. Respect, gotta have it.

That bit of dialogue coming straight from Boyz N the Hood if Im not mistaken.

I stared at the gun in his hand. I thought about how my brain might react to a sudden outbreak of gunfire. Another sudden outbreak of gunfire, I mean. I thought about how my body might react to a sudden outbreak of bullets hitting it. I thought about cops, and who would be screwed if I called them, and found I couldnt keep track of all the details. I thought about thinking about what I said next, but knew if I did I wouldnt be able to say what I said. If that makes sense. Which, of course, it does not.

– Ill cover it.

– Huh?

– The ten percent, Ill cover it.

– What? How?

– I can cover that. If they dont come through, and I kind of think we shouldnt even bring it up, Ill pay it.

He weighed the gun on his hand.

– Bullshit. You clean up after dead people. Where you gonna get twenty-two Gs?

I waited.

He shook his head.

– Twenty-six four! I mean twenty-six four! Were talking twenty-six four here.

– I can get it. I have savings and shit. I can cover it. Ill cover it. If they wont pay you, I will.

He looked me over, licked his lips.

– Know if youre fucking around what will happen, right?

– Youll cut me bad, is what Im thinking.

– At the least.

– Yeah, at the least.

He nodded.

– OK. OK. Deal. We give them the can no matter what.

– After they give us Soledad.

– Yeah, right, whatever.

I pointed at the gun.

– And you leave that behind when we meet them.

– Fuck that.

– Fine, fuck it. Forget the deal then. Go shoot it out. Get all the respect you want. Shit wears well in the grave.

– Maaan.

He set the gun on the dash.

– Shit. Fucking sister. Fucking Soledad.

I thought about Soledad.

Man, I liked that girl. A lot. And man it sucked that I was right and shed dragged me into this deal knowing there was a deal to be dragged into.

Shit. Id really thought… I dont even know what. But hey, she could have all kinds of reasons for being involved deeper than shed let on. She could just be trying to clean up a mess her dad left behind. Not like she was thinking clearly or anything. Girls dad commits suicide, shes all screwed up and… oh. Oh shit.

Suicide.

Criminal enterprise.

Violent suicide.

Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney

You see how long it takes me to put these things together? Thats because Im not as smart as I think I am. But you probably gathered that. Because youre probably not as stupid as I am. I know that because no one is as stupid as I am.

No one except maybe Jaime.

– What kind of gun is that?

He looked at it.

– Nine.

– Again?

– Its a nine-millimeter. Gun of choice for all.

– Whered it come from? You get it off a set like the knife?

He raised an eyebrow.

– I got it from Soledad.