Timothy Hallinan - Incinerator

“Blow your brains out,” I suggested.

He looked up at me quickly, and I glanced away. “Mr. Used-to-Be-Clever. Your paper was really good, you know.”

“What paper?”

“ ‘Faces of God.’ I broke into Blinkins’s office one night and read it. It infuriated me. I had spots in front of my eyes. I knew how little work you’d done. You broke appointments with me, yawned when I gave you facts and even pictures, wonderful pictures, probably cranked the whole thing out the weekend before it was due. And it was better than anything I could have written. Graceful, you know? All airy and light. If I’d written it, it would have taken me months, and there would have been quotes everywhere and footnotes speckled all over the pages like someone sneezed on them with his mouth full. You didn’t even put a colon in the title. Didn’t you know that all serious academic papers have colons in the title? I’d have probably named it ‘The Faces of God: Representations of the Divine Visage in Post-Carolingian Northern Europe’ or something like that. You just called it ‘Faces of God’ and said the hell with it.”

“I barely remember it,” I said.

“You don’t have to tell me that.” His voice was louder, and I could feel him looking at me. “I know that you were more important to me than I ever was to you.”

“And why does that matter?”

“It doesn’t,” he said shortly. “Not any more.”

“You haven’t got much longer,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound wishful. “Sending Eddie out to meet me was like calling the cops yourself.”

“We’re waiting for the cops,” he said. “Have you been shaving points off your IQ or something? Maybe people are right to avoid reunions, they’re always a let-down. Here I’ve been thinking about you for years-not often, but from time to time and bang, you surface in the newspaper, and what are you doing? You’re a detective. Well, I think, could be he’s remained interesting, although so few people do. Aging seems mainly to be a matter of getting duller. Do you think I’ve gotten duller?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, you have. It’s actually funny. You’ve gotten little and pinched and tiny, and I’ve gotten, well, enormously interesting, and you’re the one who doesn’t remember me. Don’t you think that’s funny?”

His mother moaned again. I heard Hoxley’s feet scuff against the floor as he turned toward her, and I put both hands on the counter and swiveled toward him, ready to leap, and found myself looking into the end of the gun.

“Not yet,” he said. Then he smiled, his teeth yellow in the smeared gray-and-white face. “We’ll just ignore Mom for now. I’m sure she’d prefer that to the alternative.” He looked around the truck. “It’s sort of cozy, just the three of us. You never came over to my house when we were in school, did you? No, of course not. I never went over to my house when I was in school. Not with the little Hebe there. ‘What a falling-off was this.’ Another quote. The beast with two backs and so forth. Not much of a quoting man, are you? I should have known from your paper.”

“I’m too dull,” I said. “Quoting requires an original mind.”

“The little greaseball,” Hoxley said scornfully, not listening to me. “He was a bookie, did you know that? A real, honest-to-God Damon Runyon bookie. Took me to the track from time to time, you know, get to know the boy, make like a best pal.” He shuddered from head to foot, and I became aware that the gun in his hand was shaking violently. “A pal. Me and that revolting gob of phlegm. Shame you never came around. What fun the three of us could have had, him spitting numbers at Lady Luck and you writing airy prose with your left hand and me figuring out how to burn a horse. I did, too, finally. Working my way up, I burned one for Eddie.”

“Do horses have vocal cords?”

“Nay,” he said, and released the shrill laugh from its cage again. “That’s a pun, nay. Do you get it? Say you get it.”

“I get it.”

“Then explain it.” His eyes twitched toward the windows. “Never mind. What time is it?”

“Past eight.” I was watching the gun. It was jumping around in his hand like a live fish.

“Okay,” he said. He pulled his eyes away from the windows and slid his tongue over his lips again, as if unsure what came next. “Here’s the deal. I hate to cut this short, just as we’re getting to know each other again, but fuck it. Get off the counter and turn around. Do it very slowly.” He retreated a step to watch me.

I slid my fanny over the edge of the counter until my feet hit the floor and turned my back to him. “Hands behind you,” he said. “Knot your fingers together. Good and tight now, hear?”

“I hear.”

“I want your knuckles to turn white. You’re doing fine. Now over there, under the counter next to Mom. First, get the stool.”

A tall, four-legged wooden stool stood beneath the counter. I went slowly to it, not looking back at Hoxley, unknotted my fingers, and pulled it out.

“Put it behind you,” he said. “Don’t turn around. Just slide the stool around you until it’s behind your back. Good. Now kneel down-try to do it gracefully-and put your hands back between the legs of the stool. You’ll have to unlace your fingers, of course, and you have my permission to do so. Do it now.”

As I knelt, my knee touched Mrs. Lewis through the plastic sack, and she started violently. Then she began to weep. Small air holes had been torn in the bag covering her head.

“Calm down, Mom,” Hoxley said. “Everything’s going to be fine. Simeon, I want one hand on either side of the leg of the stool. The leg farthest from you. Now put your fingers back together. Shake hands with yourself, my little man. Be your own best pal.” I knotted my fingers together, the wood rough and thick between my wrists. My elbows were captive between the nearer legs. Hoxley opened a drawer behind me, a grinding metallic sound.

Mrs. Lewis went on crying, long, gulping sobs that seemed to tear her soul up by the roots and scatter its pieces into the air. She was quivering, the plastic bags rustling and shaking.

“Now I’m going to have to use both hands for a minute, Simeon,” Hoxley said, “but don’t revert to your youth and get clever, because by the time you pull your arms free, I’ll have lots of time to pick up the gun and blow your head off. Clear?”

“Clear,” I said. My voice sounded like a raven’s croak.

“A little fiber,” Hoxley was saying, “can do us all a world of good.” Something thick was being wrapped around my wrists, pulling at the hair. “Of course, I think you’re suppose to eat it.” Whatever it was went over my fingers, and then I felt him reach around the leg of the stool and wrap it around my forearms. “When in doubt,” he said, “wear it. There we are, fiber tape. Tensile strength, three thousand pounds per square inch. Stronger than affection, stronger than the ties that bind. Stronger than hate? Good question. And while we’re at it, shut up, Mom. Did you know that the web of the common garden spider is the strongest fiber in nature?” He paused, and then knocked something against the stool.

“No,” I said promptly.

“Well, it probably isn’t. Anyway, this will have to do.” He gave my hand a proprietorial pat, and I heard him stand up. “Fine,” he said. “Like the turtle, you carry your home on your back. Now turn around, on your knees, so you can see me. I’ve really lacked an audience, did you know that? Here I am, the greatest act since Houdini, and all the people who’ve seen me in action had short attention spans. Distracted by the here and now, although I can’t really blame them. The here and now was pretty diverting. Still, there have been times when I felt like a great painting hanging in a miser’s basement. For whom, after all, does the Mona Lisa smile? Turn around.”