The BOYS
Episode FORTY-NINE
When Walter finally woke up on the
sofa in the Alford Extended Stay, room 222... his reward for having lost
another toss of a nickel to Kline... his neck felt like a junkyard of cricks
and twinges and shooting pains, his head like a hollowed-out, rotten pumpkin,
his mouth a flooded orchard of swollen, rotted fruit. After being let out of jail somewhere around dawn, he’d gone to
the title pawn place, waiting until it opened, cashed his check and proceeded
posthaste to the Palestinian-run liquor store on the next corner – the better
to lose the day or, as it seemed, a day and a half…
He sat up. It was Sunday noon, the second of November… no longer Halloween...
that had been yesterday or, wait, the day before. And hadn't there been something else, that problem with the
clocks that they had twice a year, so it might still be morning, or later in
the afternoon. The two-dollar digital
watch from Double Dollar said it was twelve-twelve so, on another Sunday, he'd
still be at home, maybe watching a game, getting ready for his shift at four,
which would be an easy one... subordinate to clueless Kenny for an hour or so,
then high times and low jinx with Louie.
The entire Dog Pound staff had been
hauled off to the San Cris lockup… since nobody confessed nor volunteered to
give up the perpetrator of the crime (less out of loyalty to the murderer than
plain shock and confusion… the suspects isolated from each other to preclude
their conspiring together. So, instead
of Tex or Joe or even… thank God or Louie the Devil for small favors… Ed
Musgrove, he’d shared a cell with two sleepy gangbangers and a Mexican man who
spoke some English and reminded Fales of the leaf-blowers of Alta Vista which
was, in fact, a fact. Someone in some
other gated community had complained about the neighbors who’d hired him… now
the poor dude was on an INS hold.
“I’ll be back,” he promised before the
police… without even bothering to interrogate him… sprang Walter from the pen,
mentioning that they had it on excellent authority that it was Joe Sybco who’d
decapitated his boss, and that he should contact them at once if he saw, heard
from or, even, sniffed the presence of Joe… a promise Walter also parroted
back, since it was obvious that the killer had simple strolled (or darted) out
the back door, unseen by all except the mindless, clueless gnome…
He couldn't go to work anymore, not
after... well, he knew the difference between a dream and what this was, which
was worse than any nightmare in his memory.
He stared... at the wall, alternately at the ceiling, the carpet and
back at the wristwatch... at twelve thirty, precisely (or 11:30, or half past
one, depending), he stood up, let the blood rush to his ankles, and looked
about the room. On the counter, next to
the sink, was an empty bottle and a scribbled missive from Kline... "you
drink me WINE i'm saved, MUTHFAUCKER!" which explained the pounding in his
head and taste in his mouth... it was a full fifth of Mad Dog which, he now
remembered, had been about three quarters full when he'd returned from the
police station. He threw up in the
sink, ran some water over the vomit, gagged, spat a thin line of puke and
blood, then opened the fridge. Kline
had brought back a plastic bag of garbage from his nocturnal, limpy-gimpy
wanderings, when left to his own devices, the little lame gnome was a lot less
discriminating than the strip mall family; one of those lost souls who crack
open a dumpster behind a restaurant or market and just scoop out whatever is on
top into any old container lying around.
Walt dug his fist into the bag,
removed some garbage without looknig and put it in his mouth... there was some
fish there, with bones that stabbed at his gums, something slimy that might
have been uneaten pasta or okra, flecks of salad, coffee grounds. He vomited again, rinsed his mouth with
water and felt in his pockets, in case any of the smokes he'd pilfered from
Michelle and Fran's trailer in the Precious Joy Estates remained. They were gone, but there were butts in the
ashtray on the coffee table, and a book of three matches, so he smoked what
remained of the longest, then went into the bathroom and unleashed a long,
burning rope of piss and pus. Wiping
up, he lit the second-longest shortie, then the third, which efforts killed off
time until a quarter past one, or noon... in the afternoon, at any rate.
Then Kline came back with another,
white, plastic bag, parts of a scavenged newspaper and a miserable face...
"hey, heard there was some wild shit goin' down at the DP last night. But, if you wanted a drink, at least you
could've asked..."
"Didn't want to wake you
up," Walt excused himself.
"Well, and I'm not trying to dis
you, man, personally, but I can't hack this deal. I don't think that you are a bad
man, you're just one of those fuckahs bad things are always happening too and,
like, I'd rather not be around when the trouble finally comes this way. Sorry... hey, they were givin' out candy and
donuts at this church, leftovers from Halloween... they don't believe in it,
though, call it October Extravagaza.
Something alternative for the little Christian kids to go to... I got
some candy apples and there's even a cup of coffee on the bottom, I think...
yeah," his grimy fingers groped the bottom of the bag, "it didn't
spill."
The three butts hadn't purged the
taste of wine and garbage, but they'd sort of coated it over with a surface of
slime, so Walt could speak, through dry lips...
"You're cuttin' out?"
"Bad karma, man."
"And the money, the seventy-five
bucks you were going to give me on Monday, or was it Tuesday? You never had any intention of paying your
share, ain't that what this is all about?"
"Hey man, I don't work in a job where guys get their heads chopped off. I got problems,"
Kline cringed. "I got to get
satisfied too... smoke a little rock, drink a little wine. I ain't no addict... last two weeks of the
month, most months, I'm sober as the President of the United States, because I
have somethin' worth livin' for, somethin' to look forward to. First o' the month! So keep it," and he sat the bag down on
the coffee table, in front of Walt.
"After all," he shook his head, "you drank my wine..."
"So you won't pay? Go ahead, then, rip me off... everyone else
does." And, despite his own best
intentions, Walt reached for the plastic bag of snacks.
"Hey like, man... I can see that
you're depressed. I'd be too, virgin
like you, seein' somebody get his head whacked off. There's a lot of killing that goes on San Cris, never makes those
papers 'cause it's about the drive-bys and bums knifin' each other over
quarters, even the cops never bother with half the murders... but some straight
guy gettin' his head cut off? That's radical. Hey, lemme cheer you up," and, holding
on to the shuddering coffee table for support, Kline lowered himself to one
knee. "C'mon, lemme suck your
cock. It'll do you good, Fales, get
your mind off all that murder and shit..."
Walt leaned forward on the sofa, his
face level with Kline's, though the latter was still on one knee. "I am a man," he said, "I
screw girls. I ain't in the army and I ain't in jail...
not yet, and I ain't some cocksuckin', piss-drinkin' wino doing bj's in the alley
for spare change. I have an MBA from
State, Financial Planning. I don't need
any of your fuckin' charity..."
"I know," Kline said,
breathing heavily. "It's not like
I'm askin' you to suck my cock..."
"I don't care, no matter what the
Hindoos think, there ain't gonna be unnatural activities around here. You may think
that's what you want to do..." and he couldn't help scratching his burning
groin, "but it ain't. I'm doin'
you a favor, man, trust me."
"Okay," Kline shrugged,
resting his right palm on the edge of the couch to pull himself erect, again,
staring down at Walter's itching groin as if he knew something. "Don't ask, don't tell. Give my best to the family down by the DP,
tell 'em that I'll be thinkin' about 'em..."
"You ain't goin' back?" Walter almost added the word
"either", but he wasn't quite so stuporous as an hour ago - brain and
nerve cells that had winked or sputtered out when Barry's head bounced into the
frypit were beginning to regenerate... God in Heaven, he'd even started to
entertain thought of going into work
that afternoon...
"I mean, after this... I wouldn't
blame you for gettin' into bed, sorry, with that mean guy who manages the
dayshift. I'll just go, don't take it
out on them, they didn't do anything to you, I did. That's who I am... and you did drink my wine..."
"Kline, there is no way that I am
ever going to help that morning manager run you or anyone else out of your
place."
"Yeah," said the troll,
edging towards the door as he gathered up a few loose things lying around the
room. Dirty clothes, his buck knife, a
plastic razor... Kline had, at least, taken full advantage of the shower while
Walt was tossing and turning in his decapitatory dreams, his clothes still reeked,
but the man, himself, did not.
"Think what you want,"
Walter said, fingers into the bag, now, probing for the coffee and one of
three, four donuts... preferably one with something inside, cream or jelly (but
not lemon). "But there is absolutely
no way I will ever get Barry down on your case, or on anyone else's case. Ever! Promise..."
"Yeah, sure, man..." Kline
sputtered, closing the door to 222 behind him as Walter Fales bit into a
powdered gutbuster with jelly in the center... grape, probably, but, maybe,
strawberry... sipped lukewarm coffee and closed his own eyes.
Never!
ä ä ä ä ä
Walt napped and, in napping, the
coffee slid from his hand and dribbled all over his jeans without even waking
him up... it was just at that temperature of the rest of his bodily fluids and,
save for a wet, mid-dream encounter with a nameless, voiceless female, he slept
on until about three, waking with stained pants and powdered sugar on his
chin. He washed the trousers, and
himself, in the sink, turned the television to the Chargers at home against
Cincinnati with the joystick of a candied apple in his fist and thumbed through
Kline's left-behind papers, waiting for the stroke of four, at which point his
tenure with the Dog Pound would have reached its official end.
They printed up the Sunday papers
early on Saturday night, so there was only a box on the inside of the local
section, a few lines, suspect being sought.
No mention of the details of deceasement - but that would change, and
soon. The past week's rain had
generated legions of unsold pumpkins that remained in their fields, rotting
away, some floating away, other discards being hurled from freeway overpasses
and blown up with explosives. A
five-year-old Arizona girl become the latest victim of the West Nile, a
sailors' brawl downtown and six new lions presented to the zoo. Ads for soap and cars and a 'puppy
discipline center' in Shirmer, Alta Vista actually winning a football game and, of course, the war. And politics, they were still looking for
poll workers for Tuesday... Walt wondered if they background-checked applicants
with the police short-handed as they were. Less than minimum pay when you
factored in the overtime and training, but a soft gig, nonetheless.
Something worth thinking about.
It became 3:40, then 3:50, then 3:55. San Diego was pounding the hapless Bengals
as he practiced counting down, but he was still a couple of seconds off,
waiting for 3:59 to become 4:00, but the numbers finally turned, and he was
officially Absent With Out Leave. He
was free! Walt stretched out on the
bed... he might not have a job anymore, but he was paid up for the week and
there were still a couple of donuts left.
And he was owed... all day, Friday, a couple of hours Saturday, he
probably even hadn't clocked out. Claim
the time being detained at the scene for questioning as part of his time on the
job, that would be worth a few bucks, as for the hours in the police station...
well, they were negotiable. Half time,
maybe. And, with dollar signs and
decapitated heads bouncing through his dreams, he slept again, the all-nighter
at SCPD had plain wiped him out, could've claimed a sick day, if the DP had sick-days.
He emptied his pockets, counting the
change, and found that he had just enough to cover the dollar-fifty admission
to the dollar grindhouse. So he slapped
some water across his face, drank a glass of lukewarm tapwater and hoofed it on
down to hide out with the losers, the abusers and a hundred others scattered
throughout the sixplex with, perhaps, a thousand warrants between them –
scanned the handwritten program and lay his coins down on the next show
beginning.
The double-feature he sat through
wasn’t very good, even though the feature just starting was the latest
installment… well, sequel… in the Batman, Dark Knight franchise and was only a
few weeks gone from the ten dollar theatres.
The prior Batman had quit… some Hollywood flap over money… and had been
replaced by a capable young man, an actor who’d just concluded five seasons in
a highly rated network sitcom. He’d
tried, Walt admitted, but every time the bat-signal summoned him to combat this
or that crazed villain, a bunch of kids in the front… delinquents, Walt
suspected, skipping school… started shouting out taglines from his hit comedy,
just the way they’d done when the sequel had opened in the real movieplexes
without sticky floors, a projected summer blockbuster that had just gone bust.
ä ä ä ä ä
The curtains at AES were yellow and heavy,
reeking of nicotine and illegally boiled cabbage... they didn't let much light
into 222 by day and, when the knocking started, it was twilight (an early
twilight, though Walt hadn't fixed the digital watch, yet). The knocking was soft and furtive, a
twilight tattoo, words that sluiced through the reinforced plywood door in a
hiss. Walter Fales sat up...
"Walt, man, lemme in."
He frowned.
"It's Joe, man. Gotta talk to you."
Walt let the classifieds slide from
his lap... he'd been looking through the "Apartments" section and
what was there wasn't promising.
Studios, furnished... $820 per month, and up. Unfurnished, 2 bdrm. $1,400.
One bedroom units, no utilities $1,050 (and Walt recognized the
neighborhood as being smack in the middle of the DMZ between Mexican and
Vietnamese gang territory. He'd removed
his shoes to let his socks soak in the sink, so the large, bare feet made
barely a sound as he walked to the door and drew aside about an inch of curtain. A bald man stuck his face into the crack and
gave a jolly wave, like a hired clown, it took him a moment to recognize the
guy whose job had been taken by a foreigner, who'd lost his family and mopped
floors and, then, had killed the boss.
"You alone?" Walt asked.
"'Course I'm alone, I'd be in the
crapper if I weren't, the slammer, if they knew where I was. Walt... my life's in your hand. Open up, I need to talk to you."
It did occur, to Walt, that, of all of
the witnesses in the Dog Pound... both shifts, and a few customers, too... he
had been the only one to actually see Joe raise the machete, separate Barry's
head from its body and put the machete down to walk out the security door with
that little salute to the troops. Start
to finish. But the guy couldn't be so
dumb as to think that, with Walter out of the way, they wouldn't be able to
make a case against him - there was all of that physical evidence too, that
cop-show stuff with the magnifying glasses and the photography. Except that it took a certain...
something... to chop off somebody's head in public, even granted that the
somebody had been Mister C.
"Just a moment," Walt said,
depressing the lockbutton and lifting the frail little chain from the bolt,
some pissant bagatelle you could probably cut with a pair of kids' scissors, if
you had to. He stepped back from the
door, towards the far side of the bed near the sink, where he would have access
to... what, wet socks, a bag of donuts?
He did figure that the distance would give him an opportunity to take
out Joe if he'd come with a knife (though, if the outsourced codewriter had
brought a gun, he was probably done for).
But who goes around rubbing out witnesses with gunfire in a place where
dozens of people would have a clean look at him from behind their windows as he
tried to escape.
Same crazy fuck as would cut the head
off a man in a fast food joint during the dinner rush!
Walt settled himself, feeling the
carpet (and something sharp - Kline had been cutting toenails on the edge of
the bed, Friday night) on the balls of his feet as he readied himself. "Door's open," he said.
Joe entered, nothing in either hand,
closed the door softly behind him and said, "Man, don't let me hang out
there like that."
"Why not?" He pointed to the crumpled papers on the
bed, and those that had slid to the floor.
"Don't got your picture, yet.
He looked at his watch... quarter to seven... that would make it quarter
to six. "News ain't come on,
yet."
"Yeah, but, you know... this
ain't like parking tickets or, even, dealing dope. This is the real fuckin' deal."
"Is that what you were thinkin'
last night?"
Joe spread his arms, like the unwanted
baritone of an opera, singing for his life.
"Walter, mi compadre, I
wasn't thinkin' anything! I was just in the moment, know? All
that crap Barry laid on me, on all of us... and all of what those other fuckers
did to me, I got a case, you know, maybe not self defense, but manslaughter, at
least. Diminished capacities. Who didn't know Barry that would've killed
him, too, if they had the chance? You?"
Walter held up a hand, palm out,
fingers extended. "Fifth
Amendment."
Then Joe Sybco asked if there was
anything to drink in 222, and Walt said "Water, from the tap." He asked if there was anything to eat, and
there were two donuts left... one chocolate, one glazed. Walt let the killer have the chocolate, and
they washed their dinners down with water in used, dirty cups, and then it was
time for the news.
Of course there was other stuff,
first, more important... war, the elections... the station ran local news after
the first commercial break, and the murder (they called it a
"slaying", which Joe thought of significance, "...they're as
good as admitting justified homicide..." he said, pumping his fist like a
fan in a good seat at a Padres game) ran second to a powderpuff lead about all
of the confusion engendered by moving Halloween around.
Then, they did put up an old snapshot
of "Joey Sibisco" from back in the days when he had a good job, and
looked straight ahead with confidence in a white labcoat over his dark suit,
glasses and tie, modishly long brown hair and that moustache, all gone
now. "Handsome devil," Joe
pointed... his own bald scalp was nicked with cuts and scrapes (he told Walt he'd
cut the hair off in a restroom stall at Costco, earlier in the day, finished up
the job in the sink) and he had on a dirty white sleeveless T under his down
jacket.
"I had time, man, I'd get bunch
of tattoos... that'd confuse 'em long enough for me to get away."
The station messed up, stating that
the police were looking for a black SUV (instead of Joe's Ranger) and that the
suspect was presumed armed and dangerous.
And then they cut to a promo for the weather... more rain on the way...
"Armed and dangerous, man... what
a friggin' joke! Hey, you wouldn't be
able to get me a gun or something, huh?" Joe looked up expectantly at the
taller man. A scab on the top of his
head had cracked and had started to ooze blood... Walt involuntarily scratched
his sore groin, and thought of Scottie, and the gun...
"Not without too many
difficulties," he said.
"So... Joe... to what do I owe the pleasure of your company."
"I ain't gonna lie to you,"
said the killer. "I need money." Walter tensed.
"Figure I can get my ass over the border and south a ways, maybe round
Mazatlan, doin' independent contract work for the narcogreasers. Won't be easy, but with my credentials, now,
I figure somebody might gimme a break in the business..."
He nodded at the TV, and Walt decided
not to ask him to specify the nature or details of the business that he planned
to enter.
"You need money, you sort of came
to the wrong place," Walter smiled, in spite of himself. He dug into his pocket. "I got seventy three cents... won't El Patron help out a fellow white
guy?"
"You shittin' me? Those bigshots get big by makin' the right
connections, not by doin' the right thing.
He knew where we were, he'd haul me in himself, and then the government
would owe him a favor. That's why they
toss the sticks and we bark and roll over... I damn well ain't playin' the
stooge for El Patron or for any of
those rich fuckers."
He tapped his bald head, just above
the right ear.
"Besides, I got a plan!"