David Levien - Where the dead lay

“Count it, bro,” Kenny said, evoking noises of displeasure from Peanut and Nixie.

“Man, it’s all there,” Peanut said.

“I know it is, ’cause if it’s not, I’m gonna take a reciprocating saw to that piece of shit ride you’re so proud of,” Charlie said, jutting a thumb over Peanut’s shoulder toward the Neon. Kenny smiled; the other two did not.

“Lemme know when you need more,” Charlie said.

“Uh-huh,” Peanut answered, turning back for his car.

“Yeah,” Kenny said, “don’t smoke it all in one place. We know how you folks get.”

Peanut stopped and turned.

“Yo, what fucking ‘folks’?”

“Dirty African folks,” Kenny said, smiling and squaring with Peanut. Charlie tucked the money into his pocket and smirked.

Peanut shook his head, looked down, then swung a right hand, open palmed, and bitch-slapped Kenny hard across the face. Everything froze for a moment, as if none of them could believe it had happened. Then Kenny, eyes full of rage, lunged forward, dropped his level, and laced an arm under Peanut’s and around his back. Kenny pivoted and flipped him to the concrete. Peanut landed on his shoulder and the side of his face with a slapping sound that forced the air out of him. Kenny dropped a knee on Peanut’s chest and began punching.

Charlie shook off the momentary surprise and stepped forward toward the action and right into the point of Nixie Buncher’s Piranha automatic knife. Charlie staggered back, swatting ineffectively at the blade, which landed two more times. Liver-stuck, Charlie sat down and landed heavily on the sidewalk. Kenny looked up and met eyes with Nixie. The knife, slippery with blood, hit the pavement with a clink. Kenny jumped to his feet and went to his brother, who was slowly reclining back onto the ground. A groan of air escaped him.

“Chick,” Kenny said, coming close and seeing the massive amount of blood spilling out through his brother’s hands. “You motherfucker!” Kenny screamed, yanking the Smith amp; Wesson out of Charlie’s belt. Nixie had already started sprinting and was halfway down the block by the time Kenny was done fighting with the safety. Peanut had struggled to his feet as well and was making a run for it, weaving unsteadily away, when Kenny fired half a dozen times and lit him up. Hit all over the back and legs, Peanut tumbled forward onto the ground, his cheek pressed against a crack in the cement. Kenny stood and put two more rounds into Peanut’s upper back, ending him.

“Cocksucker,” Kenny said, kneeling back down, cradling Charlie’s head. His brother sputtered but couldn’t seem to talk. “Goddammit, Charlie, what good is a piece if you don’t pull it, asshole?” Kenny groaned. Charlie’s breath came heavy in his chest and sounded like a kettle on its way to a boil. Kenny scrambled Charlie’s cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.

“Yo, send an ambulance!” Kenny yelled the location off Lambert. “There’s a white guy stabbed down here. Forget the spook who’s been shot, he’s done. Just treat the other guy.” He snapped the phone shut and wiped greasy sweat from Charlie’s face.

“Don’t fucking die, bro,” he said quietly. “C’mon, Charlie boy.” He waited there for another minute, until he heard sirens in the distance. He wiped off the gun with his shirt and then placed it in his brother’s hand. He felt a slow, heavy drumbeat kicking in the base of his skull and heard the echo-effect lyrics in his head:

You’re nobody, till somebody kills you… I don’t wanna die.

He tried to shake the stupid shit off, took the envelope of cash out of Charlie’s pocket, left the bag of weed, climbed into the Durango, and drove away as slowly as he could make himself go.

The heat had finally broken. The day had started much cooler than had any in months, and it had stayed that way. Vicky Schlegel went through the empty house turning off the air conditioners. Why keep the house cool when no one was home? Everything was costing a fortune now: electricity, food, gas, booze. Well, maybe not booze. They had plenty of that. Terry brought home cases’ worth from the bar. And he and the boys had been coming home with a real snootful lately, too. They were under a lot of pressure, she supposed, and needed to blow off steam. They were all handling it well enough it seemed, except for Deanie. He was the one she was worried about. He’d sicked up all over the place that morning and made a big racket over something he’d seen in the paper. The rest of them had tried to calm him down, but nobody would tell her what it was about when she’d come out of the bedroom. She’d make Terry tell her later, but for now she didn’t know. And then they’d all gone out. She went to take a shower, and when she was done the cars weren’t there.

It was when she’d finally shut the last window unit off that she heard it, the low hum of a running vehicle coming from the garage. The odd thing was, they never used the garage, there was too much crap in there to park inside, and any work on the cars took place down at Rubber House where there were countless Latino mechanics to do dirty work like oil changes. The sound of the engine grew louder as she reached the door and opened it. A cloud of exhaust and horror hit her and she staggered and pressed the button raising the door to the outside. Household junk had been pushed to one side to accommodate Dean’s Magnum. Fresh air flooded in as she crossed to the driver’s side of the car, where a figure was pressed against the window. Even distorted like a horror-movie monster because of the plastic bag stretched over his head she could see it was Dean, her boy, his face bright red and lifeless…

“This is it,” Behr said into the phone as he raced toward the Speedway address. “I got you what you wanted.”

“Linkage,” Pomeroy said.

“That’s right, by witness statement. A shake girl.”

“Schlegel?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s the girl?” Pomeroy asked, and Behr gave him the location.

“They don’t know where she is-,” he added.

“I’m gonna pick her up anyway,” Pomeroy said.

“Good idea.”

“And you?”

“On my way to the home address-”

“Behr-”

“I’ve got something to settle.” Behr turned off Crawfordsville Road and onto the Schlegel’s street and started scanning house numbers.

“Your friend? Let’s not get stupid here-”

“It’s more personal than that now.”

“Behr!”

But Behr hung up on him and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. He saw the rambling house he was looking for at the end of the block. It was fairly well kept, with a slightly yellowed yard and a chain-link dog run poking out from around the back. The garage door was open and a slender blond-haired woman was pounding on the driver’s side door of a Dodge Magnum and screaming. Behr rolled into the short driveway, jammed his car into park, and paused. The woman didn’t seem to notice him as she began to yank on the door handle, but the door appeared to be locked. Her head whipsawed around the garage, and she moved to a workbench. She ran her hands over a pegboard, selecting and discarding car keys. Now Behr got out of his car and watched as she scrabbled around the loose tools on the bench and came up with a wooden mallet. She went to the Dodge, which Behr could hear was running, and began pounding on the driver’s-side window. He noticed a shop-vac hose taped over the tailpipe and running into the cracked rear passenger-side window. The heavy odor of exhaust was in the air. Behr crossed the driveway toward her as the driver’s-side window shattered, the safety glass pebbling into a thousand pieces. Mad piano, baroque guitars, machine gun drums, and a distinctive voice playing on the car radio spilled out of the gaping hole. Behr recognized the song. It was Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.” A bereft wail escaped the woman as she reached inside, opened the car door, and a body slumped out.