Authors: JJ DeCeglie
Drawing Dead (10 page)
She left first and I waited another fifteen minutes before I did the same. I told her to get back there and to hop to it baby. We had about five hours of subdued sunlight left and she really didn’t even need it to get her magnificent ass noticed. The whole thing was outta my hands now. Evie had to do what I’d said and do it like I’d said it. I had a couple of hours to kill before I saw Chenko down by the beach. I rode the train back to my car without a ticket again and skipped the beers awhile and in its place went and drank a couple of espressos and read the newspaper.
Still killing and raping each other, never misses a fucking beat.
I got to the beach early and drank a beer in my car watching the ocean roll in and out. The sun was lower now and reflecting off of the immensity like a thin strip of molten mirror. After a time I took a walk without shoes on and let the water rush over my feet. It had the same effect as dousing your burning face in snow. It was only hot enough to have a few babes prancing about but it was enough to keep a man occupied. I checked and rechecked my mental list. I drank one more beer as I went. I had everything I needed bar the documents, syringes and hotel key that Chenko was bringing. And that other specimen I’d promised him some more cash for. He was gonna come through like clockwork as he always did and it wasn’t that that was scraping at my mind.
It couldn’t be figured and it was unintelligent to try at it without the proper information but my head keep ringing it up anyhow.
Where in holy hell did she get the money?
And was there a grand jackpot just waiting there to be gotten into because of it. Seemed more than likely, but who the fuck knew?
I headed back up the beach and drank that last beer waiting for Chenko to get his reliable as daylight ass down there. Mother didn’t let me down either. Pulled up swift and on the button. He stayed in the car. Lit a cigarillo for me first and then handed me the envelope and a two-pack of syringes.
You check it over?
Of course Jack.
And?
Undetectable flawlessness and perfection. You paid for it and got it.
I smiled at him. He didn’t return it.
You get the other thing?
Yep.
You better have boxed it.
And here’s me hoping to hand it to you gloveless with shit still smeared on the tip.
Who’d you let fuck you in the ass to get it Chenko?
Your mother.
I laughed and he handed me the package. It was in a Styrofoam container and I looked inside to make sure he’d tied that sucker off and iced it. He had.
Nice work son. Hope it wasn’t too hard for you.
He finally gave me a go fuck yourself grin. I handed him the money I owed for it and took one more swipe.
I hope he gave you a reach round Chenko, tell me he had the common decency to give you at least that much. You still got your dignity don’t you?
He smoked a second through his smile. Adjusted his hat. Then he let me have it.
Next time you need a condom full of some stranger’s spunk I’m gonna put rohypnol in your beer and then let some junky animals fuck you bareback for a few hours before I get finally put protection on one of their diseased dicks. Then I’m gonna dump you drugged and naked on your front lawn with the condom still in your ass.
It was very fine retort and I let him keep it on account of me making him recover a used prophylactic from most likely a bin, located probably in a homosexual bath house. If you ever need to pick one up, and you never know right, that’s your place pal. Freshly squeezed and ready to put on ice to use as false evidence. Some faggot was gonna have his sap on file.
I said thanks to him and meant it. He handed me the hotel key then. It was for a hellhole just back from the beach about a half click down the road. Chenko had checked in but Evie was gonna hole up there a few days with the ‘Do Not Disturb’ on the door for the duration. I went and placed the things he’d bought in my car. Then we went over the tactics for tonight. Pretty much just repeated them to one another and at the end of that Chenko reiterated his price of another two and I said sure that’s groovy buddy, you’ll get it when we’re done.
I asked him whether there was word on any chunk of cash missing and he just shook his head and said no, nothing. He offered me another smoke for the road and I took it. I killed the one I was on and then he lit me up expertly on the succeeding followed by him firing the ignition. He drove off and back toward the city.
I stood there smoking a minute. Looking out over the sea and sky and sun. On some sudden suck of the ground my mind expanded outward in a whoosh, toward and over the spinning, traveling planet, then shifted rushing quickly to the solar system, and I wondered was it all doing the same slow waltz, floating, moving, shifting about, soon I had the galaxy there and then all the galaxies too and then pretty much the entire fucking incalculable and incoherent universe. White dots of powder perched in a possible sphere or sheet or whatever else they say or can prove. Like lit dust in a section of sunbeam. Then there was Lexy. Then Evie. Then today, yesterday, tomorrow. Then the vast realization that nothing mattered or ever could. I told myself if I stopped thinking I’d buy myself a beer. It didn’t take. Nothing but the inside of the inside an atom in a molecule on a planet in a solar system in a galaxy among billions and billions. Better make that three kid.
No way, no day!
Chenko had no dope on the situation and if he didn’t there wasn’t a sucker who did…
If she could spend fifty large plus expenses on me then you had to figure she had maybe ten times as much…
You just had to…
Maybe there was more…where’d she get it…who was she running from? …
It was the grandest of jackpots brother…just waiting to be won…she must have ripped off the money from the man…perhaps men she was running from…
Had to be criminal currency, had to be…otherwise I woulda read about it in the godforsaken fucking paper today…stare with unclosing eyes unfathomable into the limitless void…suffer it bawl deafening in your face undyingly and from one inch away... what could there possibly be but this...
You’d better make it a sixer son…
Couple of shots to follow.
Deal!
I had a few hours to kill. Started off by doing just as you’d predict and buying those beers at the first liquor store I came across. Typical. After that recent abrupt expansion and retraction of my senses I decided to take it easy for a time. Let those brews slide down in measured swallows rather than forceful aggressive jolts. You’re only ever about two to three drinks away from disaster, any journeyman of the alcoholic booze hound wasteland knows that, and knows it better than any damned thing else he ever will. I had at least five hours to wait through. And what is most of this life but waiting. Evie was gonna be where I’d told her ass to be at eleven and I wanted to be there at least forty-five minutes beforehand to make sure that everything was in working order and that I didn’t fuck anything up.
I drove around for no other purpose than to think something through for about thirty minutes. Always helps me elucidate the disorder. This time was no different. I thought I had a shadow for ten or so of those minutes but the car just turned off into a side street of its own volition. Still didn’t mean that it wasn’t a tail, maybe not a planned one but some jerk-off who ran past me by chance and knew the word was out and called it in. Could have followed Chenko down. Nah, he was too smart to be ghosted without knowing it. I drove in circles a few times to see if he this asshole tried it on again and there was nothing of the sort.
Coulda been I was going crazy. I pulled over and drank a beer in a smooth loving sip. Got myself together. Easy Jacky boy, get a goddamned grip.
I drove my ass back in front of the city and then over to about two kilometres from my house. I parked it undercover at a shopping centre and flagged a cab down and told him where to go and what to do. We went to where my place was and circled the block twice. The coast looked clear. But I wasn’t about to take any asshole chances. I told the driver if my friend’s car wasn’t in the drive then he wasn’t home and when asked which one I was the fuck talking about I picked a house about four down from mine.
That done we drove back to the shopping centre and he dropped my ass off. Got in my car and I drove back to near my place but not past it. I cut off the highway and through a petrol station that had dual exits letting me onto the street behind mine and off the highway. I found a spot easy enough and walked down about a hundred metres to the place directly behind mine. I knew the guy who lived here. He once wanted to hack down some branches from my place that went over to his. I said buddy, I only rent the joint, so do whatever the shit you like. He had to do it from my yard you see, so we had a beer together. I had nothing better to do so I helped his ass out awhile. Real chums we were. Ended drinking round about six each. Talking rubbish for some time after. That was a year ago. We still said ‘Hey’ when we could. When one chump noticed the other bumbling about in the backyard. It was enough.
I knocked on the door and he answered pretty quickly. I threw him a fast one about thinking that the other night in my drunked up state that I may have heaved my phone over his fence. I did it all roundabout and awkward.
He drinks, so he understands.
We wander about out the back ten minutes or so. Shoot a little shit. Have a quick drink. Scotch on ice. Then another. When I can’t find it I say man I think I’m just gonna jump the fence right here 'cause I been drinking and don’t have it in me to walk all the fucking way back. He just laughs, says be my motherfucking guest. I do as I say and hey presto boys and girls, I’m at my house and on a drunk and have a witness to it. Not to mention I can lay down awhile and get some real and possibly refreshing sleep.
I get in via the back door. Nothing’s changed. I thought they mighta been through and leveled the place but it hadn’t happened that way. No there was just the usual pall of death and despair and the stench of the booze that wiped it out. Of the hustling and dying and yet living through it and how all that rough and mindless fucking seemed to help. Blonde hair and dried blood and how in hell could she still be so attractive without a heartbeat.
I didn’t have the beers with me and that hurt me real bad.
Stashed the cash, still down my pants in the freezer.
I took a shower staring at the wall seeing her freckled pretty nose on the back on my eyelids when I tightly shut’em and then set my alarm for three hours time and went to bed naked. I had a plan. A good one. I just had to wait to play the son of a bitch out.
I woke up in a sweat. Shook it off and had a cold shower. Dressed afresh and messed the house up a bit. I took a whole bunch of empties from the garbage and spread them around the place. Beers and vodka bottles. I knocked over a few things to add authenticity. I had about an hour till I needed to be where Evie would meet me at. I wanted to be there forty-five minutes early. I went out back and jumped over the fence again. It was at the beginnings of a murky sunlessness. Made enough of a racket for my boy to hit the floodlights and get his ass out there. When he asked me what I doing I said looking for my phone and he said you already looked this afternoon numbnuts. I stumbled about and blathered some more and he laughed and said again you already looked for it before pal, hells bells you musta had some drink.
This time I took heed and asked him for a sniff and he went and bought me one back. It was beer this time and I needed it and hit it with three swift sucks. Drained. He asked me if I was alright. I said yeah, yeah, yeah, you know how damn sinister the nights can get and all the fucking rest. He agreed that indeed he did. Then I said I’m heading home partner and jumped the fence back to my joint.
I made a point of taking a few times to do it. And when I did get it done I went ass over head to really put on a show. He called out and asked if I was ok and I said back you bet your balls I am boy and then made like I was making a jackass commotion and headed back up into the house. I never went in, just opened and closed the door and waited for him to do the same. When I heard it shut I waited another ten minutes then jumped that fence like a cat and stalked back through his yard then down the bricked side of the house to an easy stealth getaway through the front and out onto the street my car was parked on. I shuffled with my hands jammed in my pockets down to my vehicle, jumped in immediate and made a clean exit.
Like a knife from a wound.
I drove over to a gathering of office buildings with undercover parking lots that I knew would be empty at this time of night.
That precious piece of information was collected through years of trawling my car for city whores and then needing a place to be private.
Well I wasn't gonna have'em over for dinner now was I?
I was wondering if Evie would be executing my plan as instructed and it concerned me a little that she might stray some on account of the booze and also that I didn’t know what in hell she was capable of. So I downed a warm beer and then got to it with a fuck it sigh of acceptance. I went to the boot and got out the suitcase I’d bought yesterday. It was filled with everything required excepting the stuff still on the front seat of my car which I’d transfer over to it when done.
I could smell the rotting rubbish of the dumpster in the corner of this place and everything I did echoed in its hollowed vacant covering. A filthy rat ran desperately along the near wall and it rang true to me in a way that sobered my ass up some more. I had much in common with that disgusting lonely rodent. Back against the wall, nowhere to go but where you could, no one to trust but yourself.
In fact he was probably better off than me and had more of a chance of going to whatever in the hell heaven was or could be. If instead it went a Buddhist way he might come back as a dog at least, if that’s how things went, I was figuring I’d be lucky to get back as a tapeworm, or possibly a mosquito, yeah in truth I’d probably just turn to dust is all. Blow away like wind from a fat man’s ass. There was hardly any doubt about that. I shook that off though. Threw an empty at the rat. It sounded like a fucking earthquake and I cussed myself out for doing it. Shook that off too. Started preparing.
What I’d done was bought some clothes and shoes that were believably oversized. I wanted to look bigger than I was. I put on two shirts and then a bulky hooded jacket with stiff broad shoulders. A pair of jeans that hung down over my feet and were two sizes too large. Had a bulky belt to hold them up. Then I taped about an inch and a half thick strip of hard foam I’d bought at the hardware store onto each sole of the heavy working boots I’d got. Gave me some more height and wasn’t a problem being spotted because the jeans hung down over the shoes. I had a three day growth on my face that I’d shave straight afterward and I was thinking of cutting my hair although it wouldn’t matter because the hood was gonna never let anyone get a look at my face. I also put a cap on, tucked my hair into it as tight as it would go. I checked over the suitcase again. Surgical gloves, bottle of bourbon, knife, heavy duty pull-ties, bleach, duck tape…I put in the syringes, semen sample and papers. It was go for launch.
I drove back to the street behind my house where I had parked earlier and lucky me the same spot was still vacant. I parked the bitch in swift and then walked about maybe a kilometre and half along the road lugging that suitcase and then turned left and on to the highway where I flagged a cab. I had him drop me at a strip-club just over as the highway headed east. Sat in the back and looked at the floor and said next to nothing. Even spoke in a British accent to throw the driver off. It took ten minutes and after that I walked inward a block and then right and parallel to the highway until I reached the spot where Evie was gonna meet me. Faint lit car park of a dive bar. I sat on a bench and minded my own business. I was sweating like a guilty man on trial by then. The heft of the clothes coupled with the carting and walking added up. I needed a drink, so I took a swig from the bourbon buried in the suitcase. I considered that the shitfight sector of the plan. But it was done and done well and all was going just as sweet as teenage pussy.