Christopher Buehlman - The Lesser Dead

After we told him what we had to tell, he said, “I see why you came to me. This needs thinking about. I’ll talk to the others, and either way I won’t say nothing.”

“We are grateful,” Cvetko said.

I thought he would go back into the hole now, but he didn’t. He stood even a little closer to us.

“Meantime, you wanna hunt?” he said, grinning like a bastard. His eyes caught what little light there was in the room and shone like raccoon eyes. I later learned from Cvetko that’s what mapache means. Raccoon. At the offer to hunt, Cvetko shifted his weight, which meant he was nervous, but I answered for him before he could cough up some chickenshit excuse.

“Hell yes.”

I have to give it up to the Latin Hearts; these guys had fun hunting. You’re not going to remember all these names, but there was a husky one who looked older, Gua Gua. I think that means van . He wasn’t quite van-sized, but he was a little more than person-sized. He was the uncle of the two brothers. Anyway, we went to a little alley not too far off 1st Avenue, between a pizza joint and a pawnshop with a shitty saxophone behind the bars, like even the musical instruments here were felons. Gua Gua was all camped out in a wheelchair, blanket around his legs, Greek fisherman’s cap on his head, his greasy hair uncombed. He had a PLEASE HELP BLESS YOUcardboard sign on his lap and a half a milk carton next to it to collect change. Here’s the brilliant part: He parked his rig out in the sidewalk, near the street. If you were actually moved enough by the human tragedy of this big coughing slob on wheels to put money in the carton, you were walking closer to him than the alley and you got by safely. If you weren’t feeling generous but weren’t repelled by him, you walked in the middle of the sidewalk and you got by safely. But. If the phlegmy coughing and the sight of the poor fat fucker drove you far enough away, you walked close to the alley. If Gua Gua sneezed, that meant the coast was clear. And that was bad news for you.

Mapache snatched the first one, an artist-type lady older than she was dressed, wearing a man’s hat and a big pair of round earrings like a second pair of eyes. He moved so fast she didn’t have time to make much noise, just went EEP! , kinda cute actually, but still the younger brother stuffed a pillow over her face, pushed her up against the wall, and went to work on her neck. A little guy they call Bug actually darted up her skirt, sucked her femoral. This whole thing took like forty seconds, during which Gua Gua rolled his chair back against the alley to block the view with his girth. When it was done, he turned around, he was the best at charming, and told her, “Nothing happened to you, lady, just count to five real quiet, then give me your money and go home. Go to bed.” She did exactly as she was told, emptied the green, foldy stuff in her purse into the milk carton and stumbled away in a daze, her scarf knotted around her neck, dripping blood from up under her skirts, but that stopped soon.

A couple came down the sidewalk, then a black guy who gave Gua Gua a quarter. It only cost a quarter to get down that street safely.

The next one who came too close to the alley was for Gua Gua. Kind of a badly shaven PLO sympathizer guy with a— What’s that word for the Yasser Arafat scarfy thing? I don’t know. He looked all hard and flinty, hawk-faced like he practiced it, though I only saw that look for a second before Bug and I caught him and flung him in. Mapache pillowed him, but he was strong, wiry-like, punched me a good one, which started me laughing. Like he finally gets to hit a Jew and this is how it goes for him. Anyway, nobody bit this one. Mapache pulled out a little knife and did his wrist, bled him down into a plastic McDonald’s glass with a picture of the Hamburglar on it. Then Gua Gua coughed twice and Bug draped a big garbage bag around us and we lay still. A laughing, carousing bunch went by the alley, somebody saying something Spanish, somebody else belched real loud like on purpose and kicked a bottle. Then three more coughs and we finished with Arafat. Bug licked his bleeding wrist with the flat of his tongue, it’s the spit that makes the wound close up, and sure enough the well sputtered and went dry. We stood him up, straightened up his kerchief, and Gua Gua charmed him off home. Then Mapache pulled out a little bottle of rum and poured some in the glass, stirring with a straw. He gave us each a sip—rum and blood is good , they called it ronrico —then wiped the rim with his shirt and passed it on to Gua Gua. Cvetko and I fed next, then we moved on to another ambush site, splitting up on the way there, moving in ones and twos. Always Mapache and his brother.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mapache walked with a cane. Made him look a little like a dirty, smiley pimp. I really liked these guys and their system; getting into somebody’s house was safer, but this was downright fun, like trick-or-treating. Give the fat man a quarter or else! Even Cvetko seemed amused by it.

Until they peeled a guy.

I didn’t like that either.

They jumped a very brown, white-haired man on his way home from working at a taquería or some beaner place, he smelled like beef fat and beans and olive oil, he must have been fifty. Too old for a job like that. But he was alone and more interested in his beer in a paper bag than in his surroundings, so they flipped him up into a Dumpster next to an old broken couch and started drilling him to make more ronrico . But he was a little drunk and stubborn, wasn’t taking well to the charm, even when Gua Gua tried it—sleepy drunk is good for charming, angry drunk is not. He yelled a lot, he wouldn’t shut up, and now people were coming. Mapache full-on cut his throat. Just cut it. We put him in the old couch, which had about a thousand mice in it, we had to shake the mice out, and dumped him in the river. When it was done, Cvetko made that uncomfortable face he makes where really he’s just not sure what to do, but it looks like maybe he smelled a fart, and it’s easy to take it the wrong way. Mapache was a guy who took things the wrong way.

“What?” he said.

“We aren’t supposed to kill them.”

“No, viejo , we aren’t supposed to kill them and get caught .”

Cvetko should have shut up then, but he was so smart he was dumb, one of these guys who couldn’t let something go if he knew he was right. And mostly he was right.

“Not to differ, but we need not get caught for the body to be discovered. If a great many bodies are discovered, the police will increase their scrutiny of this area.”

Cvetko really should have shut up.

“Hey! I don’t know where the fuck you’re from, but I’m from here . People die here. Every day. As long as they’re poor or brown, and that guy was both, the cops could give a shit. That poor motherfucker couldn’t get in the newspaper if he flew to the moon.”

Shut up Cvetko shut up.

But he was going to say something else. I knew he was.

“Still,” he said. Just that one word, but one too many.

Mapache walked over, stood real close like he does, making Cvets pull up his lip in that uncomfortable, fang-showing sneer like a dog waiting to get hit with a rolled-up magazine.

“What the fuck are you makin’ that face for, man? And talkin’ that talk? Police will increase their SCREW-TIN-KNEE. Fuck you, man. This is how it is, and you know it even if you wanna act like a priest, fuckin’ maricon vampire priest. What, you never peel nobody? It was a accident !”

Cvetko just sneered, actually closed his eyes like maybe his aggressor would just go away if he ostriched.