David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

He followed the sound down a dark narrow corridor past a grease-stained washtub, startling himself as he passed the filthy mirror. The wound at his temple had stopped bleeding, but the scab was fresh and large. His eyes were hollowed out by shadows and he still had a handkerchief wrapped round his blistered hand.

He turned into a dingy room lit from the ceiling by buzzing fluorescent tubes. Two battered file cabinets and an ancient Frigidaire lined the far wall. Across from them, soiled work orders fixed to clipboards hung by chains from a pegboard panel.

Eddy sat at an old metal desk, loading a Browning shotgun with buckshot. A Smith & Wesson.357 Magnum with two speedloaders sat on an oilcloth at his elbow. His eyes were wired, his skin wan. His bald spot gleamed from the overhead light, hair curled and tufted around it like he’d jumped out of bed and come here running.

“Got the call on my machine,” he said, not looking up from his task. “The line forwards through to my house after hours. Saw the light blinking when I got up.” He shook his head, kept loading. “God damn lucky Polly didn’t pick it up. Tried to reach you. Then I called that doofus at the newspaper.”

“Waxman,” Abatangelo said.

“That’s the one.”

Eddy pumped a round into the Browning’s chamber then stuffed extra shells into each of the breast pockets of his coveralls.

“Why all the firepower?” Abatangelo asked.

“She said ‘we’ on the phone,” Eddy said, leaning back and setting the shotgun in his lap. “I don’t know who ‘we’ is.”

“Are,” Abatangelo said.

“Don’t fucking start with me,” Eddy responded. Glancing up, he added, “You look like death warmed over, by the way.”

Abatangelo collapsed into the empty chair across the desk. He rubbed his eyes. “Ed, bear with me here a minute, okay? I just came away from a…” He waved his hand, struggling to claim a word. Nothing came, so he settled for “nightmare” and took a deep breath. “First I watched Frank Maas, the character Shel was involved with, blow himself to shreds with a homemade bomb. I mean, pieces of him just lying around, some on fire. Then I sat out near a marina along the Carquinez Strait as somewhere between thirty and fifty men went at each other with guns and more guns. I photographed the dead, among other things. They looked a lot like meat by the time I got to them.”

Eddy heard him out, waited a moment, then shot him a peace sign. “That’s deep,” he said.

Abatangelo felt the air in his throat turn thick like cotton. “Excuse me?”

“Stop preaching.”

“Oh, that’s rich.” Abatangelo shot out his hands, as though to measure the insult. “You know, I remember sharing a motel room in Corona Del Mar one time with a guy looks a lot like you. There was two million cash stowed under the bed. I don’t remember any weapons around.”

“We were young and dumb,” Eddy said. “Dumb with luck. I don’t get the sense your old lady’s bringing any luck with her.”

“Let me handle it.”

“This is my property.”

Abatangelo sank a little in his chair. “That what this is about?” He looked around the small, dim, grimy room. “Just to fill you in, Ed, the last guy I heard extol the virtues of private property was one of the numbnut rednecks out at Shel’s place. He came waving a shotgun, too.”

“Can you promise me this numbnut, or somebody just like him, won’t be coming through that door?”

“He’s probably dead.”

“Probably. Great. You want rich, try that.”

Abatangelo sensed he was losing and felt a little desperate. Feeling the Sirkis in his pocket, he reached in, grabbed it, and set it down on the desk between them.

“What the hell is that?” Eddy said.

“It’s one more weapon, Ed. I don’t want it. This place means so much to you, if it’s worth putting up this kind of a fight, you take it. Feel safe. Go on.”

Eddy’s mouth dropped open but failed to produce a sound. Gathering his wits, he sat forward, eyes locked with Abatangelo’s. “I told you. Your old lady’s bringing somebody here. I don’t know who, I don’t know how many, and I’m not even real sure why, except she said they needed a car.”

“So kill them.”

“Fuck you. Listen up. Ten years went by, Danny. You don’t call the shots anymore.”

The fluorescent tube overhead cast a sickly light across their skin. It made them both look old.

“Ed, nobody’s giving orders. I’m asking. I saw- ”

Eddy slammed his hand on the desk.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you saw or how bad it spooked you. You didn’t hear her voice on the machine. I did. If this thing wasn’t fucked, she would have sounded a hell of a lot different, trust me.”

He got up, tossed the empty cartridge box into the trash and checked the clock. “You want to talk love and brotherhood, be my guest. But the final say here, inside these walls, is mine.” He picked up the.357, shoved it into one hip pocket, and put the speedloaders in the other. He looked at the Sirkis, too, but left it where it was.

“Now you can sit there contemplating the horror of it all,” he said, his tone softening a little. “Or you can spend a minute here with me so we can figure out how we’re gonna do this thing.”

The ferry arrived and disembarked on schedule. Shel and Cesar crossed the bay drinking hot coffee and looking out at the seagulls keening out across the waves, tailing back to land along the rocky, fogbound shore of Alcatraz. Cesar seemed increasingly abstract. He disappeared twice into the men’s room to inspect his arm, returning with a look of grim concern. He’d stare at the clock, rocking in his seat, murmuring to himself. He wasn’t calling her names anymore. He didn’t seem to have the strength.

Shel sought out a phone booth once they reached the dock in San Francisco and tore out the ad in the Yellow Pages for I-GO YOU-GO BODY REPAIR. They caught a cab on the Embarcadero, gave the driver the address and, after a reeling drive through the Tenderloin, the Western Addition then the Park, they arrived at Eddy’s green-and-yellow body shop in the Sunset District. Cesar paid the cabby with the last of Hidalgo’s money as Shel got out, gathered her balance on the sidewalk, clutching a street sign. Looking up and down the street, she noticed that no pedestrians were out as yet, but she did notice Danny’s Dart parked halfway down the block, across the street. As she spotted it, she thought she saw someone dive down, out of sight, behind the wheel. As the cab drove off, Cesar grabbed her arm, drew her toward the shop and peered through the window glass into the waiting area. Seeing no one, he nudged her in front of him toward the door, gesturing for her to open it and go in.

Sitting in Eddy’s office, Abatangelo heard the bell at the body shop’s front door. He had a fresh bandage on his scalded hand, one on his temple as well. Pushing up from his chair, light-headed from fatigue, he mustered the will to move by telling himself, It’s almost over.

He walked down the long dark hallway to the front and entered the waiting room blinking at the change in light. As his eyes adjusted, he felt startled at what he saw. Shel’s bruising rivaled his own; she looked on the verge of collapse. Breathing through her mouth, eyelids fluttering, she needed the wall to stand up straight and her skin lacked color. For all that, the mere fact she was here, alive, seemed a miracle- a miracle to which he had no claim. The saint in this particular miracle was the little guy with her, who looked even worse than she did.

“Hey,” Abatangelo said to him in greeting, and offered a nod. Turning to Shel, he added, “You okay?”

“No,” she admitted, leaning toward a vinyl chair and collapsing. “I’m fucked up.”