Matt Hults - Anything Can Be Dangerous

For that box, he dabbed his own left pinky in the ink and rolled it on the paper.

He took the original fingerprinting sheet out of the file—the one Doc. Harrington had done when the Sheriff first brought the corpse in, Jimmy guessed—and crumpled it into a wad, using it to wipe away the excess ink from his hand. Once finished, he stuffed the soiled paper in his pocket, slipped the new form into the file, and gathered up the folder.

“I still say it should be your print on that paper,” he commented. “This was your plan, after all.”

“I got a record,” Jimmy said. “You don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that’s my end of it… Your turn.”

Jimmy reached into his back pocket, extracting a sandwich-size Zip-Loc baggy and a dirt-flecked pair of pruning sheers.

He met Stuart’s eyes… then looked to the cadaver’s left hand.

To the smallest finger.

His heart hesitated in his chest as his hands moved forward, positioning the tool’s cutting edge between the first and middle knuckle. Then, after one last glance at Stuart, he squeezed down on the sheer’s handle with both hands as hard and as fast as he could.

Shick!

Stuart grimaced as Jimmy lifted the severed digit from the table, holding it between thumb and forefinger.

“You really gonna eat that thing?” Stuart asked.

“I ain’t gonna eat it,” Jimmy corrected as he slipped the finger into the Zip-Loc bag. “I’m going to do like we talked about and just… chew it a little.”

“This is nuts,” Stuart said.

Jimmy eyed him. “Hey, we’re in this together, man. Don’t start getting fidgety on me! Just keep thinking about that old lady who burned herself with the coffee from McDonalds. What’d she get for her lawsuit… a million? Two million?”

“Actually, I think it came closer to three.”

“Exactly! Now imagine what a big-ass chain like Smokey’s will have to shell out when I find a human finger in my food!” He clapped his hands together. “Hot damn, boy! Even split fifty-fifty we’ll both be rolling in it! I’ll make sure a couple of guys from the worksite are with to see me spit it out. Then those patty-flipping pricks will have to pay through the roof for emotional stress.”

Stuart’s expression remained as serious as ever, but Jimmy noticed a renewed gleam of determination in his eyes at the mention of the money. “Just remember to cook it,” the kid said. “You gotta simmer it in the chili for at least three hours at 180 degrees so the spices will permeate the flesh. That’ll give any prosecutor in the country an uphill battle to prove it wasn’t in the mix from the start. Especially since Smokey’s meat supplier just got busted for hiring illegals. I Googled the case settlement last week and…”

Jimmy shook his head and laughed.

“What?” Stuart asked.

“Nothing,” Jimmy answered, heading for the door. “I just knew hanging out with a nerd like you would pay off eventually.”

Jimmy waited three days, just like they’d planned, allowing the police time to do a fingerprint check on the Mexican, and when no word came from Stuart to abort the mission, he drove to work on the forth morning with the finger in a Styrofoam cooler full of ice on the passenger seat.

With the lid on, the white rectangular box hardly looked worth the three dollar price tag. Because he knew what lay inside it, however, Jimmy couldn’t help seeing the container as something secret, something important, and for part of the drive from the Shell station, he imagined himself as a character on one of those TV medical dramas transporting an urgently needed donor organ.

He arrived at the job site just after nine, coming to a stop amid the larger pick-ups and SUVs of the regular work crew. Construction had been suspended for the last few days due to the rain, but today the steel skeleton of the new Park Street mini-mall bustled with activity.

Before getting out, he peeked in on the finger. It lay in the Zip-Loc bag like a half-curled worm. Smiling, he closed the cooler’s lid and got out of the car.

The ground remained soft and moist from the recent rainfall, and Jimmy’s feet made loud smacking sounds in the mud as he walked to the construction company’s mobile office. He noticed Tom Ryder, the foreman, talking with two of the subcontractors working the same site, animatedly clapping them on the back as he always did during conversations, acting like a father congratulating his sons on a well-played little league game. Jimmy ducked into the trailer to clock in before the man spotted him.

He found Jeff Densi, the lead mason, out by what would become the entrance to the mall’s parking lot. Jeff crouched beside his brother, Roy, near the first of two walls that divided the lot from the sidewalk, and when seen side by side, the two looked like the working-Joe equivalent of Laurel and Hardy.

Jimmy waved hello as the men looked up.

Jeff had been kneeling alongside the guide wires that outlined the wall’s base, and he stood up as Jimmy approached, maneuvering his bulk with ease. He returned the greeting eagerly enough, but his features appeared grim. “You’re a half hour late, Cooley. What gives?”

Jimmy put on his apology face. “I’m sorry—”

“I gave you a break with this job,” Jeff went on without pause. “You wouldn’t have it if my regular bricklayer hadn’t wrecked his back.”

“I know, Sir—”

“With your work history you’d be lucky to get hired at a firecracker stand, let alone anywhere else. I took you on ’cause I didn’t have another choice.”

Jimmy nodded, trying to look humble. “It won’t happen again, man. I just couldn’t find my lunch box this morning… I think Meg must’ve taken it with her when she split.”

Jeff had been glaring at him with what Jimmy had come to know as his “business look,” but at the mention of Megan, his true amiability reappeared and his face softened. “Your woman left you?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Shit, pal, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Roy had stopped his work to listen and now leaned on his shovel like a farmer watching his crops grow. “Women,” he said.

Jimmy shrugged. “Like you said, I’d be damned if I could hold a decent job for long, and that doesn’t look too good on a home loan application… She must’ve just got fed-up with living with a loser.”

Jeff waved his comment away. “Hell, kid, I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I guess.”

The big man hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and simply nodded, looking uncertain of what else to say.

“Here comes Slappy,” Roy commented, breaking the silence. He tipped his head in the direction of the company trailer, and Jimmy spotted the foreman making his rounds.

Jeff clapped his hands together and gestured at the wall base. “Okay, let’s get back to it,” he said, sounding relieved to have gotten off the subject of Jimmy’s muddled love-life. “I hope everything works out for you, Jim—I really do—but we got a schedule to keep.”

Jimmy nodded. “Don’t worry about me. Besides, I got a plan to get her back.”

“Yeah?” Jeff asked.

Jimmy looked at the Smokey’s restaurant across the street and thought about the finger in his car.

“Why don’t you boys join me for lunch, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Just before lunch, Jimmy went to his car under the pretext of retrieving his wallet. Using his body as a shield, he reached into the cooler and snatched up the Zip-Loc bag, slipping it into the pocket of his jean jacket.

Jeff and Roy had already started across the road to Smokey’s, and Jimmy caught up with them as they fell into one of the lines behind the bank of registers along the counter. The lunch rush had the small building packed to capacity. He wiped his brow in an unconscious reaction to the crowd, and his hand came away covered in sweat.