Charlie Huston - The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

Except I doubt they have nachos and margaritas there.

We felt our way past the bar and into the dining room, Po Sin apparently guided by second sight, or an interior compass that always reads true to hot ceramic platters heaped with chili relleno. At the back, under one of the nicer bullfighters on black velvet I've come across, we found Gabe in a red leather booth, his black jacket on against the blasting AC, tie knotted, sunglasses on his face.

We slipped into the booth and he gestured at the food.

– I ordered.

Po Sin grabbed a fork and started digging into a beef-stuffed bell pepper covered in melted cheese.

– Thanks.

Gabe looked at me.

– Eat something. It's good.

I pointed at my face.

– Yeah, I'm sure it is, but aside from the fact that chewing sounds like a bad idea right now, I just don't like eating in an environment where I can't see my fork coming at my face. This crazy fear of stabbing myself in the eye.

Po Sin grabbed my plate and pulled it in front of him.

– Fine by me.

I took a chip from the basket on the table and tried nibbling the corner and the salt got in the cut inside my mouth and I winced and picked up one of the margaritas Gabe had got for us and took a big swallow, but I didn't see the salt all over the rim because it was so fucking dark and that really hurt like a son of a bitch.

– Son of a bitch!

Gabe pushed a water glass my way.

– Sorry about that. Didn't know if you liked them with or without.

I filled my mouth with cold water and swished it around, and that hurt, too.

– Crap.

I looked at Po Sin as he mopped his first plate with a tortilla.

– So look, man, I don't want to be ungrateful for the dinner I can't eat or anything, but are we at the part where I get to know what the fuck, or what?

He scooped guacamole onto a chip.

– Yeah, we're there. We're there.

He ate the chip. And then a couple more. Gabe sat behind his sunglasses.

I slapped the table.

– So what the fuck then? What's the deal? What the hell is the guild? Whatwhatwhat?

Po Sin wiped his lips with a red napkin.

– Aftershock.

– Huh?

– Aftershock is the name of another trauma cleaner. They have a lot of contracts, mostly on the west side. Hotels, office buildings, property management. And they get most of the law enforcement referrals over there. Cops, sheriff's deputies, they're at the scene of a violent crime, someone asks them, How do I clean this up? My baby Huey my little boy was shot here, how do I clean it up? Baby Huey, mind you, is six and a half feet and over three hundred pounds and he's bled all over the house after getting shot on the porch by the guy who used to be his best friend before one of them fucked the other one's baby mama or some such crap. So the law officer suggests a reliable trauma cleaner who will come in and take care of the situation.

I found a paper-wrapped straw on the table and unpeeled it.

– And he gets a bribe for doing it.

Po Sin waved a finger in the air.

– It's not a bribe. It's a referral fee.

– It's illegal as hell.

– It is that, but it is not a bribe.

I dipped the straw in my margarita and took a sip.

– And the guild?

He lined up the second plate of chili relleno.

– The guild is a racket. Guy who owns Aftershock, Morton, is trying to get all the cleaners to join a guild. Guild will distribute jobs and contracts. Set prices. Broker health coverage, that kind of shit. The more cleaners he can get to sign on, the more pressure he can put on the remaining independents. They don't join, they're gonna have to find a way to live off the scraps of jobs that don't go through the guild.

– And you don't want to join an organization that will help to set the market in your favor and allow you to pool resources because?

He licked his fork clean and set it in the middle of his equally clean plate.

– Because it's a scam, Web. Because the work won't be distributed throughout the guild equally. Because it's set up so that Morton is the president and administrator of the guild, which, seeing as he owns Aftershock, is a rather large conflict of interest. Because the jobs come in and he assigns two out of every three to his own fucking company. So, what, I join and give the guild access to my contracts and contacts, my 7-Eleven gig, my Hyatt contract, my Amtrak deal, all my public housing call-lists, I hand that all to the guild and then what? Fucking Morton takes the sweetest plums for himself and I have to wait and get some shit call to clean up in front of a gas station where a dog got hit by some old lady who couldn't see over the steering wheel.

He propped an elbow on the table and jabbed a finger at me.

– Clean Team is my business. I created it. I built it. I made the contacts and sweated the contracts. Someone calls me, they know what they're getting. Twenty-four hours a day that goddamn phone is on. Someone calls, they have trouble, they're in pain, someone they love has died messy and they are traumatized, I pick up that phone any hour of the day or night. I talk to them civil and gentle. I come as soon as I can. I tell them straight what is involved and what it will cost. The job is harder, takes longer than I thought, costs me more than I estimated, that's my problem, I eat the loss. That's my reputation. Doing the job the way it should be done, that's all I do. And that is worth something.

He leaned in, the tabletop tilting slightly under his weight. I remained very still, having, not for the first time, a sudden awareness of his crushing bulk.

– And I don't give that to anyone. What is in my house is mine. Who is in my house I take care of. My name, my reputation, those are in my house, those are for the well-being of my family. And I will not have my house fucked with.

He inhaled through his nose, a long wheeze, and leaned back into the depths of the booth.

– Especially not by an asshole like Morton.

I poked my straw into the melting ice at the bottom of my margarita glass.

– OK, then can you advise me as to how you will be making allowances to ensure I won't be getting beaten again? Because a police complaint is sounding like a pretty good strategy to me.

Po Sin looked at Gabe. Gabe looked at something, but I don't know what, all I could see was darkness and tiny red flames reflected in his glasses.

Po Sin picked up his margarita and drained half of it.

– The thing you have to remember here, Web, this isn't what you'd call a heavily regulated industry. They set the bar pretty low. Two hundred bucks, proof of a fixed address, and a contract with a licensed hazardous waste disposal company is all you need to be a certified trauma cleaner.

My eyebrows went up.

– Bullshit.

– No bullshit at all. You got employees, you have to pass an OSHA class, but that's it. So, see, you get a mixed bag of types drawn to the trade. At worst, mostly, you get people who are just fucking incompetent and lazy. They give the trade a bad name, but they also go out of business pretty fast. But there is a higher class of worst-case scenario, because some folks are just plain crooked as hell. Whether that means overbilling or maybe cutting corners on a job, whatever. Kind of stuff that Deputy Mercer was talking about with Aftershock. Worser case, you get some straight-up thieves. Go into a house, take advantage of being there while the family is staying in a motel because they don't want to look at the bloodstain that used to be daddy, and they clean it out. Family says, Where's the TV, where's the stereo, where's my stamp collection? These guys say, Oh, that stuff, it was all contaminated, had to be disposed. Contaminated? Shit was on the second floor at the back of a house where daddy did himself in the downstairs bathroom. Or maybe your aunt dies, chokes on her chocolate-covered cherries, lays there for a week with her Pekinese so hungry it takes a few nibbles. These guys come in, they do a great job with the cleaning, you're happy as hell with the deal. Two months later, new charges start showing up on auntie's credit cards. Stuff like that, we'd like it to stop. But we'd also like it not to have too bright a light shined upon it. Those kind of stories get too much coverage, that's bad for everyone's business.