Matt Hilton: Dead_s men dust

"I wouldn't ask, but it is pertinent," Cain said.

"Eighty-three." Saliva popped at the back of her throat.

"Hmmm. Quite elderly." Cain gripped her shoulder. He kneaded with a masseur's skill. "Frail under all that padding. I bet you suffer from arthritis, eh?"

She showed him her misshapen knuckles.

"Thought that might be the case." His sigh sounded genuinely remorseful. "What about osteoporosis?"

He was offering hope, and she wasn't so distraught that she didn't recognize it. Even after such a long life, when faced with dismemberment, an octogenarian can still desire further years. "I'm riddled with it. I only have to sneeze and I can break a rib."

"Doesn't bode well."

"What do you want from us?"

"Nothing."

"You cut off Daddy's thumbs…"

"I did, Mabel. I have a purpose for them. But you needn't fear. You have nothing that I want." "Thank the good Lord!" Mabel sobbed. "But only for small mercies," Cain concluded as he slipped the knife back in his pocket. He didn't require a knife when dealing with an invertebrate. The heel of his shoe would be all he'd need.

Ten minutes later he was back on the road.

The Mercedes SUV he drove made a?ne chariot. Interstate 10 stretched out before him, an umbilical cord drawing him ever westward, toward the fertile stalking-grounds of Los Angeles.

Billy Joel was cranked high on the SUV's CD player. A window open so that the warm breeze ruf?ed Cain's fair hair. He was a happy man. Beside him on the passenger seat were the tools of his trade,?agrantly displayed in total disregard of law or common sense. If someone saw them, well, so what? A cop died as easy as any man did.

With that thought in mind, he reached over and lifted the?ap of the pouch. Inside was an array of knives, scalpels, and other cutting utensils. Tap, tap, tap. He danced a?nger over the dozen or so hilts. Tap. Rested momentarily on the sturdy hilt of a Bowie knife.

"Ah, sweet baby," he said. Such fond memories.

A would-be knife?ghter back east in Jacksonville had bestowed the knife upon him. What unashamed southern generosity. Such a polite man, too.

"You're going to have to take it from me?rst, sir," he'd offered.

"Gladly," Tubal Cain had agreed.

The blade was broad and easily a foot long. Whenever it was thrust into?esh, it made a satisfying thunk! A?rm favorite for instilling fear in the hearts of his victims. Sadly, it lacked?nesse. If carnage was your only desire, then?ne. Ever the artist, he preferred a little more delicacy to his cutting.

Now this was more to his liking. Black plastic hilt, slim and unadorned. Grasping it lightly, he teased out the cutting edge. Muted moonbeams played on a curved, very utilitarian blade backed by saw-toothed serrations. Beautiful in its simplicity. It was a?sh-scaling knife acquired during a northern foray to Nova Scotia. The blade had seen employment on a number of occasions since, but never on anything so mundane as trout or salmon.

Happy with his choice, he pulled the scaling knife free and held it up for closer inspection. With a thumb, he tested its keenness. "As keen as I am, eh?"

The knife went into an inside pocket of his sports jacket.

Billy Joel was winding down, Christie Brinkley demanding his full attention. The CDs spread over the passenger seat beckoned. Cain selected a Robbie Williams disc: Stoke-on-Trent's best-known export doing his best to capture the cool of Sinatra and not doing a half-bad job. He changed the CD, then bobbed his head along with the tempo swinging from the speakers.

"My kind of music," he whispered. An aptly named track-a cover of "Mack the Knife." He cut lazy?gures of eight into the air with his right hand. Like conducting a big band, but instead of a bandleader's baton he imagined a blade in his hand. With each swing of the music, he cut another strip of meat from a faceless victim.

"Swing while you're sinning." He grinned. A nod toward the title of the album.

That evening, after the episode with shank, i returned home to a house in darkness. Nothing new there. It's been like that since Diane and I divorced.

The auction car wasn't registered to me, so I was happy to leave it in place. A cab took me to the lock-up garage I used, so it was my other car, an Audi A6, I parked on the tree-lined street. My two dogs, Hector and Paris, were inside the house, and I could just make out their forms as they pressed their noses to the glass doors leading to the patio. I must have made an indistinct shadow against the deeper night. Hector, largest of my German shepherds, huffed once, then I watched as the two dogs became animated.

I was conscious of disturbing my neighbors, but it was pointless trying to be quiet; Hector and Paris were making enough racket to wake the neighborhood. I pushed open the patio door. Instantly I was assaulted by twin black-and-tan whirlwinds. We went through a round of play?ghting before the dogs would obey my command to sit.

As always, the TV cabinet became a receptacle for my car keys and wallet. It was a habit my ex-wife used to frown upon. It was only one of the many things that annoyed her before our split. Probably the very least of them.

Sometimes I wished Diane were still there to keep me right, but she wasn't. As soon as I tendered my resignation from the army, the death knell for our marriage was rung. Probably she understood me in a way that I never could. Physically I'd resigned, but mentally?

"Married men can't just rush off, placing themselves in life-threatening situations all the time," Diane told me the night she left.

"So you want me to sit at home and die of boredom?" I demanded.

"No, Joe." She'd shaken her head sadly. "I just don't want to be the one who has to bury you."

Diane wanted someone she could grow old with. Understandable, but it wasn't something I could promise her. I'm way too impulsive for that. My promise to Jenny was nagging at me to get going. I wanted to make a start with some phone calls.

The clock on the wall had to be telling lies. Not too late, though, I decided. Hector and Paris ran out into the backyard. I followed them, pulling out my cell phone. Four years on, I still had Diane's number on speed dial.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Simon," I said, concealing any trace of jealousy. "Can I speak to Diane?"

Diane's very safe, of?ce-bound husband grunted, muttered something unintelligible, but handed over the phone.

"What do you want, Joe?"

"I'm going away," I told her.

There was a momentary hitch in her voice. "So why are you telling me?"

"Thought you might want to wave me off at the airport."

I heard her sigh. "I already did that. Too many times."

It was my turn to sigh.

"Can you take the dogs for me for a few days?"

"Simon has allergies," she said.

"Shit," I said. "Isn't it a good job we never had kids?"

Her silence said everything.

"I'm sorry, Diane. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, Joe. You shouldn't have." In the background, Simon was whispering something. "Simon said we can take them, but they'll have to stay in the shed." My dogs were gamboling around the yard, play?ghting among the rhododendrons. Full of life.

"So long as they're exercised they'll be?ne," I said.

"Okay, then."

"I'll drop them off in the morning," I said.

"No," Diane said, way too quickly for my liking. "I'll come there with Simon." Then she hung up. With the dogs sorted, I returned indoors, settled into an armchair, and dialed a number in Tampa, Florida.

"Hey, Hunter, what's up?"

Jared Rington's voice is a rich southern drawl that always reminds me of that guitar-playing wedding suitor in the John Wayne movie The Searchers. He has the honky-tonk twang of a country-and-western singer, which always surprises people; it's a strange anomaly coming from a mixed parentage of Japanese mother and Scottish father.