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

– Fuck! Ow! Fuck!

I pushed myself off the floor and went to the wall and turned on the light and looked at him, a guy for whom the terms wiry and ‘pockmarked had been invented. He may also have been the inspiration for gap toothed, scraggly haired and waxen. White trash, I assume, goes without saying. But if one needs to have the point emphasized, I can draw attention to the oversize Dale Earnhardt, Senior, memorial-motif tank top he was wearing.

I blinked and looked at his bandaged shoulder and hand.

– I don't know you.

– You know me, son?

I turned, looked at the guy on the couch who had just spoken. He was tall and lean and wore well-used cowboy boots, jeans, Levi jacket, and a face that was just slightly more weathered than his clothes. Oh, and the gun in his work-gloved hand was really fucking big.

I figured answering him was a good thing to do.

– I'm gonna say no and hope it's the right answer.

The guy with the bandages picked up the phone and hit me in the back of the neck with it.

– Want our fucking can.

He may have said more nonsensical shit, but I was way too knocked out to hear it.

– Guy wake up, come on, get it together.

I got it together. No, that's a lie. I woke up, but I did not get it together. Not even a little bit. What I did was come to and discover a wrenching pain at the back of my neck, my hands tied behind my back, and the dude with the bandaged hand shoving a cellphone against my ear.

– Someone wants to talk to you, asshole. Wake up and listen.

The phone was ringing. It stopped, the line clicked, and one of those robot voices started talking.

Hello, you have reached 209-673-9003. Please leave a message.

I looked at the guy.

– What should I say?

– What? Say? Just answer the question.

– I. What question? It's voice mail.

– What? Jesus fucking.

He held the phone to his own ear.

– Sonofabitch.

Fingers snapped.

We both looked at the cowboy on the couch with the gun.

– Just dial it again, Talbot.

Talbot disconnected and started to dial.

– Fucker doesn't have any sense.

He listened to the phone ring, nodded at the cowboy.

– Here we go. Hello. It's me. Yeah. Well why the hell didn't you pick up? So take it off vibrate and turn on the damn ringer. No, do it later. OK. She there? Fuck you, I know she's not going anywhere. I meant is she next to you. So put her on.

He stuck the phone against my ear.

I cleared my throat.

– Uh, hello?

– Web?

– Yeeeah?

– Is that you?

– Yeah.

– What the hell are they doing with you?

– I.

I looked at Talbot.

– She wants to know what the hell you're doing with me.

– She? Damn it.

He took the phone from my ear and spoke into it.

– Bitch, just tell him what you were told to say. Jesus.

He put the phone at my ear again.

– Fucking people.

The voice on the phone spoke again, still a little blurred by my ringing ears.

– Web?

– Yeah?

– I think I've been kidnapped.

I swallowed.

– Soledad?

– They want their container, Web. They say to get it for them fast or they'll do something to me.

– Wait. Hang on. I.

I looked at the Talbot.

– What container?

He slapped me.

– The can, fucker. Listen to the girl.

I listened.

– Go ahead.

– They want their container. They'll give you a number to call when you have it. They want it by tomorrow night.

– OK, OK, I can…

My brain did a few doughnuts in the mud while I tried to figure out what words should come next. What exactly could I do? Could I call the cofsi Could I rescue her? Could I crawl under the wheels of a speeding vehicle and let myself be crushed if it meant having some peace?

And wait just a fucking second, my brain screeched to a halt and declaimed, are you totally being set up or is it just me?

I shook my head, almost laughed, was too pissed to actually do it.

– You're totally setting me up, aren't you, Soledad?

– I? Web?

– This whole deal has been one long setup. Like, that shit with your brother, all this. Even fucking me. It's all a setup. I'm so being used here. You have been totally working me.

Silence on the line as she struggled to find something to say to squirm her way loose from my accusation.

Silence broken as she found the words.

– Web, you are such an asshole.

And she hung up.

Talbot poked me in the neck.

– Stop fucking around with her, she's not setting you up. Just listen to the bitch.

I looked up at him.

– She hung up on me.

He looked at the phone screen.

– Jesus.

He started to dial again.

– Man, you are one asshole. Girl calls and needs your help, been snatched, and you make like she's in on it. Way to trust people, man.

He put the phone to his ear.

– Fuck, going straight to voice mail. Bet he's calling me back now.

He looked at the cowboy.

– Should I hang up and let him call or keep dialing?

The cowboy rose from the couch.

– Put the phone away.

Talbot put the phone away.

The cowboy scratched the whiskers on his neck and walked over until his boot heels were inches from my face.

– She tell you what we want?

I looked up the length of his denim legs, past the scratched longhorn belt buckle to his leathered face.

– The can?

He tucked the gun into the belt at the small of his back.

– Yeah, that's it.

He squatted, held up a finger.

– She tell you what we'd do?

– Something bad?

– Yeah. Something pretty bad.

He looked at Talbot.

– Go take a look out that window and see what's to be seen.

Talbot limped to the kitchen window and looked out.

– Nothing. Just the stairs and part of the parking lot and the street.

– Keep looking. Been here awful long without no one else coming home.

He rested a hand on the phone I clobbered Talbot with, and with which Talbot returned the favor.

– Old phone.

– Yeah.

– Must have hurt.

– A lot.

– Uh-huh.

He hefted the phone.

– Talbot's been spoiling a bit to put a hurt on someone. Since he got himself cut.

Talbot turned from the window.

– That wasn't my fault.

– Just keep your eyes out there.

Talbot looked back out.

– Not my fault.

The cowboy rested the phone on his knee.

– Was his fault. Fella like your girl's brother, he shouldn't be no trouble for no one. Talbot, he just isn't the kind who can admit he screwed up and let someone get the better of him.

He stood, took three steps, heels loud on the linoleum, and pounded the phone into Talbot's face as he turned. And pounded it again as he went down. And again when he was on the floor. And again.

He hunkered next to the bloody rag-dolled man and stuck a gloved finger deep under his jaw alongside his throat. Apparently not liking what he detected, he raised the phone and brought it down once more.

For luck, I suppose.

This time, when he checked under Talbot's jaw, he felt the stillness in the man's pulse that he was looking for, and he dropped the phone on Talbot's dead body.

He stood and looked at me.

– You took that pretty well. Figured you for the screaming and crying type.

I shook my head.

– No, not me, I've seen that kind of thing before.

He nodded his head, went to the sink, looked in the cupboard underneath, and came out with a plastic garbage bag.

– Yeah, guess you would have, with your job and all.