Read Online Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body by Charlie Huston - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charlie Huston
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herd on the three people with black bags on their heads, while me and Digga bring up the rear.
--Funny how shit works itself out.
I’m not laughing.
Digga observes this fact.
--You not laughin’, Pitt.
I pause in the midst of sucking the life out of another cigarette.
--Just wondering.
--Do tell.
I toss the butt into some frost-dead weeds at the side of the path.
--Just wondering how I come out from under my rock after a year, try to mind my own business, and still find myself doing exactly what someone else wants me to do. He shrugs under his topcoat.
--Like I say, some shit just funny as a muthafucka.
He flips up the collar of the coat.
--Ain’t that big a big anyhow. We got what-who they want. They got what-who we want. It’s Friday fucking evening before prime-time TV. No one wants to cause a ruckus. Why we do it out here. Lessen the itch in a muthafucka’s trigger finger.
I hook a thumb at the cars at the bottom of the park.
--That why Jenks tried to drop me?
--Our half of the park down there. Figure they ass come that far, they get what all they got comin’.
My new smoke is ready, so I put it to work.
--How’d they get Percy?
He grunts from his chest.
--By bein’ scumbags is how. Percy come up here under a truce flag. Negotiate some shit about how and when we can engage. Rule of law in war and shit like that. Shit right up Predo’s alley. War on the Q.T. But this muthafucka up here.
He makes that same grunt, deeper.
--This mutha is crazy. Rule of pay no mind to nuthin’.
He casts his eyes my way.
--Which is why, open-air meeting an all aside, I can use a cruel gunsel like yourself this fine evening. Cuz this is a muthafucka jumps eccentricwise.
The cigarette is working.
--Who they got up here now?
--Old lady Vandewater went missing ‘bout a year back. Know anything on that?
I know. I know the word missing is a good enough metaphor for beheaded, but I don’t feel like covering the details for the man, so I keep the cigarette busy.
He doesn’t need a map.
--Yeah, thought so. Thought that might have involved you.
I don’t tell him it wasn’t me made her gone. Hate to ruin his good impression of me.
He tilts his chin up the hill.
--Since she got lost somewhere, Coalition decided to dig deep in the crazy hole. Came up with something must have been stuck at the bottom for a lot of years.
I try to picture someone crazier than Vandewater.
Digga points to where the path levels on a bend just ahead.
--And here we go.
I look up.
Fate laughs at me again.
Half a dozen enforcers. Large to extra large, the only sizes the Coalition goes for. Black suits that would get them past any wardrobe check in the city. Small flat black firearms of the type that like to empty themselves when the trigger is breathed on. I get that much of an impression of the overall scene before a voice drags my eyes to a slightly lower plane.
The bottom of the crazy barrel. Or maybe the thing that lives in the mud under it.
Looks like he’s wearing the same crusted bathrobe and pleated tux shirt as the last time I saw him. Bent nearly double in his rusting wheelchair, tufts of long greasy hair springing from his scabbed scalp.
Spittle flies off his lips as he opens them.
--You, I know you. Shiftless, yes. That’s your name.
He spits a thick wad of yellow mucus at me.
--Shiftless.
He points at Digga.
--It resonates so naturally with nigger.
Digga takes it in stride.
--Fuck you, Lament. Where the fuck’s Percy?
Seeing Lament, lots of things start to itch. My missing eye. The stump of my toe. Places in my memory. But mostly my trigger finger.
And it turns out I have the gun in the exact right place after all. I get it out and put it to use before anyone can stop me.
Once the first three bullets are in Lament’s chest, Digga knows the score and doesn’t waste time scolding me. His hands come out of his pockets, each with their own ebony-handled revolver, and he starts plugging. The enforcers are
--Funny how shit works itself out.
I’m not laughing.
Digga observes this fact.
--You not laughin’, Pitt.
I pause in the midst of sucking the life out of another cigarette.
--Just wondering.
--Do tell.
I toss the butt into some frost-dead weeds at the side of the path.
--Just wondering how I come out from under my rock after a year, try to mind my own business, and still find myself doing exactly what someone else wants me to do. He shrugs under his topcoat.
--Like I say, some shit just funny as a muthafucka.
He flips up the collar of the coat.
--Ain’t that big a big anyhow. We got what-who they want. They got what-who we want. It’s Friday fucking evening before prime-time TV. No one wants to cause a ruckus. Why we do it out here. Lessen the itch in a muthafucka’s trigger finger.
I hook a thumb at the cars at the bottom of the park.
--That why Jenks tried to drop me?
--Our half of the park down there. Figure they ass come that far, they get what all they got comin’.
My new smoke is ready, so I put it to work.
--How’d they get Percy?
He grunts from his chest.
--By bein’ scumbags is how. Percy come up here under a truce flag. Negotiate some shit about how and when we can engage. Rule of law in war and shit like that. Shit right up Predo’s alley. War on the Q.T. But this muthafucka up here.
He makes that same grunt, deeper.
--This mutha is crazy. Rule of pay no mind to nuthin’.
He casts his eyes my way.
--Which is why, open-air meeting an all aside, I can use a cruel gunsel like yourself this fine evening. Cuz this is a muthafucka jumps eccentricwise.
The cigarette is working.
--Who they got up here now?
--Old lady Vandewater went missing ‘bout a year back. Know anything on that?
I know. I know the word missing is a good enough metaphor for beheaded, but I don’t feel like covering the details for the man, so I keep the cigarette busy.
He doesn’t need a map.
--Yeah, thought so. Thought that might have involved you.
I don’t tell him it wasn’t me made her gone. Hate to ruin his good impression of me.
He tilts his chin up the hill.
--Since she got lost somewhere, Coalition decided to dig deep in the crazy hole. Came up with something must have been stuck at the bottom for a lot of years.
I try to picture someone crazier than Vandewater.
Digga points to where the path levels on a bend just ahead.
--And here we go.
I look up.
Fate laughs at me again.
Half a dozen enforcers. Large to extra large, the only sizes the Coalition goes for. Black suits that would get them past any wardrobe check in the city. Small flat black firearms of the type that like to empty themselves when the trigger is breathed on. I get that much of an impression of the overall scene before a voice drags my eyes to a slightly lower plane.
The bottom of the crazy barrel. Or maybe the thing that lives in the mud under it.
Looks like he’s wearing the same crusted bathrobe and pleated tux shirt as the last time I saw him. Bent nearly double in his rusting wheelchair, tufts of long greasy hair springing from his scabbed scalp.
Spittle flies off his lips as he opens them.
--You, I know you. Shiftless, yes. That’s your name.
He spits a thick wad of yellow mucus at me.
--Shiftless.
He points at Digga.
--It resonates so naturally with nigger.
Digga takes it in stride.
--Fuck you, Lament. Where the fuck’s Percy?
Seeing Lament, lots of things start to itch. My missing eye. The stump of my toe. Places in my memory. But mostly my trigger finger.
And it turns out I have the gun in the exact right place after all. I get it out and put it to use before anyone can stop me.
Once the first three bullets are in Lament’s chest, Digga knows the score and doesn’t waste time scolding me. His hands come out of his pockets, each with their own ebony-handled revolver, and he starts plugging. The enforcers are
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