Where the dead lay

SEVENTEEN

Dean Schlegel was in his room crying in the dark when he got their call. It was the vodka and Percocet he was using for his mouth that must’ve made him this way, because he couldn’t remember crying since he was a kid. Then again, things had gotten plenty fucked up over the last little while.

“Yo, D., where you at? We’re down at the bar.” It was Kenny. He could hear the sounds of glasses and music and voices in the background.

“I’m home, man,” Dean answered.

“We’re down at the bar,” Kenny said again. “Me and Charlie, and Knute, and Dad, too. You gotta come out.” But Dean just didn’t feel up for the Tip-Over tonight.

“I don’t know, Ken-”

“Don’t be a puss, brah. Marcus is spinning down here and you know the hos flow where he go.”

Lately, it seemed every time that Dean left the house, something happened that he either didn’t like right away or after some time had passed, he liked even less. He felt guilty for all of it, especially that old man he’d busted up. Still, locking himself away in a dark room wasn’t an option that was paying off.

“Come on, meet some new, get that scurvy bitch off your mind-”

“Don’t go there, dick,” Dean said.

“All right. I’m just saying. Get your ass down here, drink your face off, you’ll feel better.” Kenny hung up. Dean sat there for a moment deciding, and then he reached for his pants.

Behr arrived at Flavia Inez’s new address and saw that her old building manager had been right: she’d found a much nicer place. It was a ten-story brick job with casement windows and a new awning. She lived in 9-F, according to the Post-it. Behr went to the building’s outer door and saw the apartments were marked “F” and “R,” front and rear, only two per floor. It was a real way of life she’d found for herself compared to where she’d been. What Behr didn’t find, however, was her name on the list. Instead, the resident of 9-F was listed as “Blanca White.”

Bullshit, he thought. White White? He checked his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. Too late for a proper, polite first interview. He hesitated for a moment before he pressed the buzzer. He waited but there was no answer. He tried again several more times. Then he took out his cell phone and dialed the number. Once again he got the pop song, but no voice on the outgoing message. At least it hadn’t been disconnected. “Hello, this is Frank Behr calling about Aurelio Santos again…” He left his numbers and asked her to call. He tried the lobby door, which was locked with a solid-looking brass Baldwin. It wasn’t going to happen, he realized, not tonight.

• • •

The Tip-Over Tap Room’s got one hell of an identity crisis, Marcus Daudre, better known as DJ M.D. or simply “the Doc,” thought to himself. It had the bones of a low-end outskirts Indy pub that should’ve been full of fifty-year-old rummies and blue-collar factory shit-kickers. But thanks to the Schlegel boys, the fact that Kenny loved hip-hop and every damn one of ’em loved fresh white females, they’d been hiring him to spin tunes. Now there were no rummies in sight, and the place was pulling more white shorties than Nicky Blaine’s. The little dance floor was currently filled with blondes in belly shirts who were freaking to his mash-up of T.I. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was chemical, M.D. figured, two parts black music, with a base of redneck, and the white folks just couldn’t help themselves. He wound it down and hit an extended mix playlist on his Mac and headed to the bar to take a break.

The Schlegels were generous owners and let him have the run of the place, with no tab, on the nights he worked. It was about the safest place he’d ever DJ’d, too. He looked at them there, lying up along the corner curve of the bar: Kenny, Charlie, Papa Terry, and Papa Terry’s partner. If you thought about throwing a punch in this place, you might as well step in front of a bus-it’d be faster and the results would be prettier. M.D. slid under the counter and moved in next to Pam, who was pouring Jameson into shot glasses. Half a dozen pints of Guinness were already drawn and settling when Dean Schlegel walked in the door. Now the gang was all here.

“Deanie!” rang out from the Schlegel section in the corner. Dean walked over to his crew, sporting a puffy left jaw and dark circles under his eyes.

M.D. slid behind Pam and took the opportunity to appreciate her fine ass as he helped himself to a Michelob Ultra. She started topping off the Jameson with Baileys Irish Cream, and M.D. caught some low banter that he did his best not to listen to. What he did hear led him to believe the Schlegels had robbed or otherwise taken off a place, and it even sounded like Kenny had kicked a girl’s ass.

“You want one of these?” Pam offered as she doled out the Jameson with Baileys floaters and Guinness to the Schlegels.

“Nah, I’m good,” he said.

“Come on, bro,” Kenny said, dropping his shot glass into his Guinness, “do an Irish Car Bomb with us.”

“You don’t gotta be Irish,” Papa Terry said, smiling. “We’re not.” He dropped his shot into the Guinness as well, and then picked up the pint. He crooked a finger at a young blonde Kenny ran with a little. “Kathy, get over here.” She broke off from a pack of other white high-school-age chicks.

“What’s up, Mr. Schlegel?” she said.

He made a big show of looking around behind him, under his bar stool. “Who you talking to with the ‘Mr. Schlegel’? I don’t see my father here. Terry,” he said. “How old are you? You got ID?” She reached for her pocket, causing them all to laugh. Terry stopped her. “Here, try this.” He handed her the pint glass.

“Okay, Terry,” she said. The others drank theirs quickly, their gullets moving like wolves’ taking down meat. Kathy struggled with hers, but got it about halfway before breaking off.

“Tastes like dessert,” she said. Papa Terry reached out and wiped off her Guinness mustache with his finger, then stuck the finger in her mouth. She sucked the foam off it, and then he put it in his own mouth.

“You’re right, it does,” he said. Kenny, his brothers, the partner, they all cracked up. Papa Terry waved Kathy away back to her friends. He turned back to the bar.

“I don’t drink that shit either, Doc,” he said to M.D., “unless you’re doing one with me, Pammy.”

“Oh, no, Terry,” she said, “you remember what happened last time? Clean up, aisle six!” They all laughed.

“Give me one of them Michelobs like my man Doc is having,” Terry said. “He’s a man of taste.” M.D. raised his bottle in return, real friendly. But he didn’t kid himself. They weren’t his friends, and he wasn’t planning on ever getting comfortable around here. He remembered a pair of big, tall, tough-looking white guys who’d recently become something like regulars over the course of a few weeks. The guys were real snazzy-blazers, white dress shirts, and shiny wingtips. It looked to M.D. like they were in the process of getting into some business with Papa Terry and his partner. Then one day M.D. had heard Papa Terry and partner talking between songs about a meeting they were gonna have that night after the bar closed-one that wasn’t gonna go the way those slick boys planned. He hadn’t caught the details, but he got the gist, and it was nothing he wanted to know. M.D. cleared out before closing that night. The snazzy white dudes hadn’t, and he had not seen those snazzy white dudes again.

The Schlegels fell silent as Kathy showed up next to them. She held up the pint glass, which was now empty.

“Good girl,” Papa Terry said. “You want another?”

“Sure, Terry,” she said. He looked at her.

“You like cars?” Papa Terry asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“My shop’s right next door. You should come see some of what we got in there,” he offered.

“Okay,” she said. Papa Terry got off his bar stool and started walking for the door. She followed. The rest of the Schlegel crew acted like they hadn’t seen or heard a thing, and that’s just the way M.D. acted as well. He moved down the bar to go back to his faders. He’d be leaving before closing tonight, too.

Behr returned home, entered, and left the lights off. He dreaded the nights, black and endless, when the work was done and all that was left was time to think. He was fine while there was work. That was when he was at his best. But it never lasted long enough-or he didn’t. He needed to shut it down and rest so he could function properly the next day, but that’s when things went slippery in his head. He had gotten a chance to forget how bad it could be this last year and change, spending most of his evening time with Susan. Maybe he’d let himself believe that things had changed for good. Now he sat for a while with the phone in his hand, considering whether or not to call her. He looked around his place at the evidence of her presence-her organic cereal on the kitchen table, her hairbrush thrown on the couch, a stack of CDs on the coffee table on top of the tabloid magazines she loved. She was probably going through hell, and doing it alone right about now.

He went to dial, but even that simple act felt traitorous. He couldn’t do it-any of it. Not to himself, to his past with his son Tim, to his ex-wife Linda, even though there was nothing between them now but dead memories. He stood and dropped the phone onto the cushion from which he’d just risen. He walked down the hall, flicking on a single light as he went. He stopped when he reached the linen closet, which he used as storage since he didn’t have much linen, and opened it. There was his one extra set of sheets and a blanket and pillow inside. There was also several years’ worth of phone books, hunting boots and insulated bib overalls, camping gear, road salt, coffee cans full of change, and extra lightbulbs among other household detritus. He pushed some of it aside and found a cardboard box, which he pulled to the front of the shelf. He opened the flap. It had been a long time since he’d done this-a lifetime it seemed. He peered down into the box and saw them. Tim’s old things. A policeman figurine, Thomas the Tank Engine, Matchbox cars, a squishy vinyl football, some lifelike rubber dinosaurs. Behr felt a grim smile burning on his lips. They were Tim’s favorites. Nothing would replace either his boy or that time, Behr knew. Nothing. He handled the items for a few moments, feeling for the past, numb and distant between his fingers. Then he closed the flaps. He walked back down the hall with the box in his hands and continued right out the door. He went around back to where the building’s trash area was and lifted the lid on the small Dumpster. He heard the toys rattle around as he threw the box in. He slammed the lid down with a hollow metallic clang and marched back inside, his heart empty. When he reentered his place, the phone was ringing, but he didn’t answer it. He just let it ring.