Don Bruns - Stuff to die for

He gave it a quick glance. “We’ll unload and take off. Nobody can prove we did the damage.”

Of course, he was right. The aluminum siding was damaged, but it could be repaired as well.

James reached into his pocket and took out the key. He turned it and gave a tug as the garage door opened into the cavernous storage space.

I fought with the heavy metal latch on the truck, finally forcing it open. The sliding back door eased up as dozens of boxes and envelopes spilled out onto the concrete apron.

“Shit.” James stared at the four weeks’ worth of mail strewn across the front of the unit.

“Help me pick this up.” I gathered an armful of envelopes and put them back into an open box.

“What the-” James picked up a manila envelope.

“We’re not going to make much progress one envelope at a time,” I said.

“Something is wet and sticky here.”

“Did you break something?” I didn’t see how that could matter. Someone was probably going to haul this stuff away in a couple of months and sell it or take it to a dump.

James examined the envelope, then tore it open. He peered into the opening and froze.

“What?”

He didn’t speak, just kept staring.

“What is it?”

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit.” He dropped the envelope and shuttered.

“James.”

I picked up the envelope and glanced inside.

“Take it out.”

“Oh, God. You take it out.”

“No, man. It’s gross. It can’t be-”

I shook it out of the red-stained envelope and it fell to the concrete. Coagulated blood covered the stub of the severed finger. A blue-stoned class ring circled the knuckle. I shook the brown envelope again and a smaller gray envelope fell out. I stared at the finger, wanting to believe it was something else. Wanting to believe it was a magicians trick or a joke that James was playing. But deep in my stomach I knew it was real. Someone in Miami was missing a finger and we were the lucky guys who had found it.

I lost my Long Island Ice Tea on the cement.

T HERE’S A LINE IN THE MOVIE The Mexican that says, “Guns don’t kill people, postal workers do.” Despite James’ affinity for that quote, he had a belief that bank tellers would be the next group of employees to go ballistic.

“Seriously, Skip,” he had said one afternoon on the patio. “Tellers stand there for six or eight hours and watch people come up to their windows. Some of these people have nothing, and the teller feels sorry for them. They’re taking out every last cent they’ve got and the teller knows they have nothing left. After a while they start to feel really bad.” He sucked on his green bottle and puffed on a cigarette. With Psychology 101 behind me, I’ve always felt he has an obsessive personality.

“Then, they get all these rich assholes who come in and deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or take that much out. They tell the teller that they’re making a down payment on a yacht or a cottage in the South of France, or whatever. After a while, these bank employees should go nuts. They’re making what? Ten bucks an hour. More than the poor people and a whole lot less than the rich.”

“What’s your point?” I asked.

“Bank tellers are going to start to kill people out of frustration.”

“Who? Which class?”

“The rich people. They’re going to start shooting the wealthy.”

I got to thinking about that. In a way, Rick Fuentes was a banker. He arranged financing for business people. He’d raise the money, make the loan, and collect the interest. Maybe the people who gave him the cash weren’t happy with the way he was lending it. Or maybe a client who had borrowed money from Fuentes wasn’t happy with the terms. Seriously, maybe this was a banker thing.

We’d found a neighborhood bar about a mile from the unit. In a back corner booth we nursed our drafts. I hoped that this drink would stay down.

“Read it again.” I waved at the bartender and he pulled two more Buds from the tap.

James pulled the letter from the small gray envelope.

“ We ask you to reconsider your decision. If you agree with us, we will give you the rest in relatively good shape. Jesus, Skip, what the hell does it mean?”

“It means we should go to the cops.”

He shook his head. “No way, compadre. It’s a federal offense to open someone else’s mail.”

“James, my God. It’s someone’s finger.” I left the rest of our discovery hang in the air.

“Not just someone’s finger.” James wasn’t going to leave it alone. “Someone who graduated from St. James High with us.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” We were both silent for a moment. The St. James ring with our graduation date engraved on it was firmly planted on the severed digit.

“And, Skipper, now that our fingerprints are all over the fucking envelopes and the letter, we’re going to get our asses kicked. The cops will fuck us, man. I have experience-or at least my old man had experience! I think we take it back to Jackie Fuentes and explain what happened.”

“What? That you don’t know the difference between forward and reverse with a fucking automatic transmission?”

He looked at me through half-slit eyes.

“I’m sorry. Now isn’t the time to start on each other. You’re probably right. We need to go back to the Fuentes house and give her the finger.”

James smiled, the first time since he’d wrecked the truck.

The bartender brought the two beers, picked up the money and silently walked back to his bar. Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffet sang It’s Five O’clock Somewhere on the juke box, and two good-old-boys in cowboy hats at a table up front sang along. Other than that, there was no one in the room.

“Well, I want it out of my truck. I sincerely do.”

“Let’s go back to Jackie’s right now.” It was way past five o’clock.

“I’m ready.” James slammed the full glass down on the table and stood up. I’ve known James Lessor since third grade and I have never, ever seen him leave a full beer on the table or anywhere else for that matter. This time he did, as he headed for the door. I remember taking a fast swallow and following him out. After all, I’d paid for the beer.

T HE GUARD ASKED FOR OUR IDs and James opened the rear of the truck.

He gazed up and down at all the boxes. “Someone moving in?”

“We’re moving some stuff back to the Fuentes house.” James kept nodding his head.

“Nothing on the sheet here. I’ll have to call the house.” He picked up the phone and closed the door to the booth. We waited, not saying anything to each other. We’d been in trouble before. That was nothing new to us; however, it had never been this serious. The guard opened the door.

“Mrs. Fuentes said she is not available for dinner tonight. She said that would be clear to you.”

James opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Can I speak with her?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, she said she can’t be bothered any more this evening. Perhaps you could call her tomorrow.

James had fire in his eyes. “Look, bud, I’ve got something of hers that she needs and I need to get back there and give it to her.”

“You look, bud.” The guard frowned. “We have our own police force here, and with one touch I can summon a patrol car that will be here in sixty seconds. Would you like me to do that?”

“Cops?”

“Cops.”

“No. I’ll call Mrs. Fuentes later.” James spun on his heel and I followed him. I checked on the rear door latch to make sure it wouldn’t spring open and we got back in the truck.

“Want me to call Em?”

“Why?”

“She can call Jackie.”