In the Shadow of Sadd

“You have no idea how hard it is to be a sensitive person in this society, Jack. You just do your radio thing and get invited to premiers and receptions. You have it all. You don’t understand what it’s like to have talent that isn’t recognized. I can tell you that it’s pretty depressing to fight for lyricism and poetry in a city that has no interest in those things. A city that doesn’t love, and doesn’t understand.”

“Could it be that you just need a little action?”

“Sensitivity is hard to come by these days.”

“Ha! And here I thought you writer types were swimming in babes!”

“Women are very scrupulous, Jack. They can’t see the genius in lyric poetry if it hasn’t been published. The pain of unrecognized talent is a precipice of damnation.”

“You’re boring me.”

“I have a poem I’d like to read.”

“Make it snappy.”

“Okay. Hm-hm.

In this jungle

Of concrete and cold hearts

I walk alone.

Between illness and distress.

Overlooked and unrecognized.

There is only poetry.”

“Was that it then?”

“Yes. It says a lot about life, I think. There just aren’t many publishers or women who can see it.”

“Perhaps you exist on a higher level than the rest of us.”

“That could be right, Jack.”

***

“It’s number seventy-two. Can you see any numbers?”

The flatlands had once been a grassy plain on the south side of the long-lost city wall that once encircled the City. In the Middle Ages, there were several bloody battles fought at The South Flatlands, and it is said that the bloodstained soil would remain red for weeks. Today, the name is all that remains. The grass plain is gone. The last lot was used to put up town houses in the 40s.

“I think I just saw sixty-four.”

“Then just stop here.”

Bruno swings the Chevy into a parking lot and shuts off the motor. The wipers stop at a crooked angle on the windshield. Bruno looks at George.

“What now?”

“Now we go in and get the bicycle. It’s a guy who works for me now and then, when I need some extra help. His name’s Sante.”

“Okay.” Bruno’s gaze rests on the body under the rug. “Let’s get it over with.”

A few minutes later they arrive at number seventy-two, with their shoulders up around their ears, and their hands deep in their pockets. George rings the bell. A moment later, a sleepy-eyed, swarthy man appears at the door and stares at them.

“Oh, George, yeah. Right, the bike, I forget all about. Come in. Come. Weather is very bad, no?”

They follow him into a small and cluttered living room. Toys and laundry are scattered everywhere.

“I have bike, just in here. Is still in box. Very good bike, yes?”

“Yeah, good, Sante. I’m kind of busy, you know, work and everything. I’m just gonna grab the bike and take off, okay?”

“Ahh, you no have the beer? I have real Spanish beer in fridge, yes? From my sister.”

“Another time, but thanks. What do you want for the bike?”

“One thousand.”

“A thousand? Are you still sleeping?”

“No. Cost much money to buy cycle in other country. Is special bike, no? No kidding. You say yourself. This kind, yes? You look,” he says, smacking the box with a flat hand. “And then I buy little gift to your boy. Yes. Look here.” He rummages through a black garbage bag and finally fishes out a plastic assault rifle. “AK 47, is perfect copy, yes? Every detail. Like real thing. Yes. Kalashnikov. Your boy, he be happy for Uncle Sante, no?”

“I’m sorry, Sante. It’s really nice of you, but I don’t want Sofus playing with guns.”

“No? Why you no want?”

“Kids become what they play. I’m sorry.”

Sante stares at him with his mouth open. “You no make fun?”

“Nope. Listen, I’ll give you a hundred for the bike.”

“One hundred? You want me to ruin? I do for you big favor. Buy bicycle all the way in France, no? So you come here and say one hundred? No. No. Seven hundred fifty. Then I go so far I can. For old friend, yes? We are old friends, no?”

“Two hundred.”

“Two hundred?” He sighs deeply and shakes his head. “George, we go back long way, no?”

Bruno can’t stand still, so he shuffles around the apartment. He goes out into the kitchen and looks out the window. The Chevy is parked out in the rain. He doesn’t like it. Some curious idiot might look inside. Maybe the rug doesn’t cover the body completely. Maybe one of the feet is sticking out a little. Maybe he hasn’t draped the rug in the right way. Maybe George left a finger or a hand visible when he lifted the rug to have a look at the body. Maybe the rug slid off while they were driving.

“Hurry up, George. Let’s go!” he shouts, looking at the van one last time before turning and going out into the living room.

George passes some bills to Sante and removes the cycle from the box. “Don’t you think Sofus will like it?” It’s a blue boys’ bicycle with a training wheel. A very small bicycle. “He’s two tomorrow.”

“It’s great, George. Can we get moving?”

“Yeah ...” He pats Sante on the shoulder. “See you, Sante.”

Bruno hustles through the rain over to the van. He opens the side door and checks that the rug is covering the body. He tries not to notice that his hands are shaking. George arrives with the bicycle, which he places next to the body.

“Don’t you want to keep the box?”

“Let him keep it. I hate all that unnecessary packaging.”

They hop into the van. “F*cking weather ... So now can we ditch the body?”

“Yup. Let’s go to The Villa Grove.”

“The Villa Grove?” Are we gonna bury the body under a tennis court? What are you thinking?”

“I know a place. I’ve dumped a couple of stiffs there over the years. They’ve never been found, and there’s room for one more.”

“Okay, let’s go to The Villa Grove.” Bruno starts the van and backs out. “You’re the only one who could end up going to the good side of the tracks to bury stiffs.”

“I don’t know about that ...”

When they’re down at the end of the road, Bruno spots Sante in the rear-view window and stops the van.

“What now?”

“It’s your friend Sante, he’s running after us.”

George turns around in his seat. “What the f*ck is he doing?” He opens the door and sticks his head out. “Sante, what’s going on?”

Sante is gasping for air. His hair is stuck to his forehead, and his shirt is soaked with rainwater. He is clutching a large, blue toolkit. “I ... I forgot to give you this. Thanks for loan. Very nice you loan to me.”

“Oh, my toolkit.” George hops out and takes the toolkit. “I’m glad you remembered, Sante. I needed it the other day.” He opens the sliding door and sets the toolkit next to the body.

“What you have under the rug?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Sante. It’s the body of a guy who tried to cheat me out of a few hundred bucks. He’d bought a bicycle for me.”

Sante swallows a few times while he stares at the rug. “You ... They ...”

George starts to laugh. “Damn, Sante. You’re pretty gullible. It’s just some clutter. Man ...”

“You make joke with me?” Sante laughs. “I believe you. I believe you!”

“Can we go now or what?” Bruno honks a couple of times. “Come on.”

George hops in and waves to Sante, who is still laughing in the rain, shaking his head at himself.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bruno thunders.

“I was just joking with him.”

Bruno shakes his head and turns on the radio.

***

“I know what Angelina, one of your previous callers, meant when she was talking about sex in advertising.”

“I thought that was a topic for women.”

“I wouldn’t say that. No, not at all. I mean, for a long time now I’ve had a thing for these Cocknetto ice creams – delicious vanilla ice cream in a crispy cone with nuts and chocolate. None of that over-the-top nonsense with cookie dough or peanut butter – just a simple, honest ice cream. That’s what an ice cream should be, in my opinion. But then one day I saw the new commercial for Cocknetto. It’s a beautiful woman with big red lips, and she’s holding the ice cream up to her mouth, and she’s just about to take a bite. You know the commercial?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty hot. But she isn’t naked.”

“No, it’s the way she’s holding the ice cream, Jack. The pleasure in her expression, the angle, her hands, her tongue ... I realized that the ice cream wasn’t just an ice cream. It was a phallic symbol. The chick was about to give a blowjob. That was the sexual message in that commercial, I’d say.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Of course there is. I can’t eat Cocknetto ice cream anymore. When I have a Cocknetto in my hand, I always get this image of a big, fat weenie. It’s like I expect to get a schlong in my mouth. I think that’s the commercial’s fault, and it’s disgusting.”

***

Bruno’s face is stiff with exhaustion. Especially around the eyes. The heat inside the van doesn’t make it any better. He rubs his face with his hand, then blinks a few times, but it doesn’t seem to help.

George is lost in his own thoughts, and hums along with an old Oasis tune that Alley-Cat Jack has just put on. A tot of his hair has fallen down on his forehead without him noticing it.

The body continues to lie discreetly under the rug in the back.

The old Chevy is doing sixty miles per hour in the inside northbound lane of the E-666. The rain is falling steadily, with the wipers keeping time and the engine purring evenly and efficiently. Bruno’s eyes want to close.

“F*ck, I’m gonna fall asleep.” He shakes his head and stretches his neck.

“We’ll be in The Villa Grove soon. Open the window if you need some air.”

“I don’t want the body to stiffen up.”

“F*ck that. It won’t. We’re almost there.”

Bruno looks at his watch. It’s almost nine-thirty. It’s the longest morning of his life. He rolls down the window and gets a face full of cold and wet.

“HANDS UP! THIS IS THE POLICE! FREEZE. YOU’RE SURROUNDED!” a voice suddenly shouts from inside the van.

“That’s my cell,” George says as he pats at his pockets. He’s wearing blue overalls with oil stains on the thighs. He finds the phone in his breast pocket and looks at it. “It’s Helena.” He presses the button and holds it up to his ear. “Hi, honey.”

Bruno slowly rolls up the side window, as his heart struggles to return to a normal rhythm.

“What palm? Can’t it wait? I don’t have time right now.”

Bruno checks the side mirror. Has that white Volvo been lingering behind them a little too long? He isn’t paranoid, but in his business, it pays to notice those things.

“Okay ... All right, I’ll pick it up right away. Right ... Yes, I love you too. Bye.”

“What now?” Bruno trains his tired eyes on George.

“We just have to pick up a palm for Helena.”

“A palm?”

“Uh-huh. A date palm from Iran. For the patio.”

“And of course it has to be right now? It can’t wait until we get rid of the stiff?”

“No, we should do it now.”

Bruno goes silent for some time. He’s let off on the speeder, and the van is quickly losing speed. He slowly fills his lungs with air and looks at George. “So where to?”

“The Congo.”

“The Congo? Out by the zoo?”

“Yeah.”

Bruno shakes his head, but signals when the next exit arrives. He turns and drives over the bridge, then merges back onto the freeway in the opposite direction. “A palm,” he mumbles, but the words are lost in the hum of the heater and the noise from the radio, and George doesn’t hear him.

The van is quiet for the next few minutes. Alley-Cat Jack takes another call, which is followed by a block of advertisements.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” Bruno says, his eyes fixed on the taillights of the car in front of him. “You and Helena ...”

“What about us?”

“Is it love?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just want to know what it is.”

“It’s f*cking difficult.”

Bruno repositions himself in his seat. “It gives life meaning, doesn’t it? Having someone to care about, someone who cares about you?”

George wrinkles his forehead and looks at Bruno. “What’s the story with you?”

“It’s everything. I’m getting pretty tired of all this. It’s real cool when you’re fourteen, and you’re in a gang, but now ... I don’t know. It just gets a little lonely, watching DVDs at home all by yourself. It might be nice to have someone to come home to.”

George starts to laugh. “F*ck, Bruno, are you in love?”

“No way, f*ck you.”

George laughs on.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“What’s her name? Is she one of Sadd’s girls?” he laughs. “Come on, you can tell your big brother George. Shit, Bruno, if it was me ...”

“F*ck!”

“What is it?”

“Look! It’s a police roadblock. I’m turning around!”

“You can’t do that, we’re on the freeway. Is there an exit?”

“Not a f*cking thing, man! Just a shitload of cops.”

“Easy ... It’s probably just a lights-and-tires inspection”

“In the middle of summer?”

***

“The Muslims are onto something, Jack. Women shouldn’t be running around without any clothes on. It’s offensive. There ought to be a law against that kind of thing.”

“What’s wrong with it? They’re nice to look at. We have a lot of beautiful women in the City.”

“Women were equipped by nature to stir lustful feelings in men, Jack. It’s in their nature. If a woman wants to spread her genes, she has to attract a man.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“We want to live in a civilized society, Jack. Man has risen above his animal impulses, so it can be a pretty intense experience, when these impulses are stirred and provoked by scantily clad women who, without giving so much as a thought as to their surroundings, walk through the City with bare midriffs, push-up bras and short skirts. It’s offensive for a decent person to witness such things.”

“Have you had such an experience yourself?”

“Yes, a few weeks ago. The day after the marathon. I was down by the flea market. There was a young woman with long red hair. She was wearing an open shirt, and when she moved, like if she was bending over to look at something, you could see her breasts. She had small, firm breasts with very light-colored nipples. Something happened to me. The animal in me took over my soul, and I began to follow her. I didn’t know any longer what I was doing. After a while she left the flea market and went down through the small, cobblestone roads in the area. I grabbed her and pulled her into a dark doorway, where I ...”

“I’ve heard enough! You are a sick man.”

“But I’m completely innocent in this case. I’m the victim. Don’t you understand? If she’d just dressed in an appropriate manner, nothing would have happened. I’m a peaceful man, and now I’m going to prison.”

***

“F*ck-f*ck-f*ck-f*ck-f*ck,” Bruno drones as he stops the Chevy behind the line that has formed at the police checkpoint.

“This is weird,” George says, stretching to get a better look at the policemen. “They don’t usually do this on the freeway. It’s too dangerous.”

“Maybe it’s an accident.”

“Then there’d be ambulances and paramedics.”

They slowly pass a squad car on the shoulder with blinking blue lights. Farther up there are four more cars and a police transport van. There are flashing blue lights everywhere. Bruno checks his rear-view mirror. The line behind them is already long, and farther back motorcycle cops are stopping the traffic.

“Can you see anything?”

“They’re inspecting the cars,” George says, squinting to see.

“F*ck. Oh, f*ck me ...” Bruno can now see them as well. Two cops in each lane with luminescent raincoats – one checking the driver and the inside of the car, the other slinking around and examining the exterior of the car. “Maybe I can slip through on the shoulder.” He puts the van into first gear and checks the side mirror.

“Bruno, stop!” George says. “Be cool. You’re a professional. Remember that. Okay? Stay cool. Are you a professional?”

Bruno looks at him, nods and releases his grip on the gear stick. “I’m a pro,” he says.

“Good. Look to the left, up in the air.”

Bruno cocks his head and looks out the side window. He sees a small, black police helicopter. He nods again. They’d never be able to lose it.

“Okay, we’re f*cked.”

Bruno swallows the lump in his throat and nods again. He looks down at his feet, at his new, black, leather sneakers. They cost him a fortune. Now they seem a little silly.

“Okay,” George says, as he tries to gather his thoughts. George always tries to find a solution – not the type to give up – but his hands are shaking as he opens the glove compartment and looks inside.

Bruno steals a glance at the dead body. It’s lying right there under the rug. He sees something. The rug has shifted a little to the side, and two blue fingers wrapped in clear plastic have been exposed. He can feel his stomach contract. He is suddenly freezing, even though the heat is still on.

“George ...” he says with a new lump in his throat.

“Pull up, the line’s moving,” George says, tapping him with the claw.

Bruno turns and looks out the front windshield. He clears his throat and begins to manipulate the gear stick. Now, of course, he can’t get the van in gear. Piece of shit van. The cops are quickly alongside the next car, and they allow another car from the line to pull up. The hole up to the Skoda in front of them grows to twice the size. Bruno finally gets the Chevy in gear, as he tries to calm his beating heart. Sweat drops from his eyebrows. He tightens up and gives it too much gas instead of easing off on the clutch. The engine roars, making a sound one might anticipate when an old lady is backing into a parking space.

“Easy,” George says. “New Walther?” He takes Bruno’s pistol out of the glove compartment.

“Leave it.” The words come out in a hoarse gasp.

George puts it back and shuts the glove compartment. “Is it loaded?”

Bruno nods.

“I used to have a Walther. I got a Sig Sauer now.”

“The rug shifted. You can see some of the fingers.”

George fills his lungs. “We have to stay calm, Bruno. They’re not looking for us, right? They don’t even know there’s a body, right?”

“No ...” Bruno says, scratching the back of his bald head. “No, they don’t.”

“So let’s just take it easy. We’ll slip right through. Your lights and tires are okay, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So we’re just two brothers on our way to pick up a palm at the Congo.”

“But what if they see the body?”

“We’ll just have to hope that they don’t.”

The lines moves forward again. Now there are only three cars ahead of them. Bruno shuts off the radio and nods to himself. It’s all good. It’s all good. He takes a deep breath, then slowly lets the air out again.

They both remain silent, following the policemen with their eyes. Two cars. They move up again. The lead car in the other lane, a silver-gray Audi, has been told to pull over onto the shoulder, where a group of police officers sets about removing the seats and emptying the trunk. Resigned, the owner stands in the rain and watches.

The line moves up again. Now it’s the Skoda’s turn. The cop on the left leans in to the driver. Bruno’s foot slips on the brake pedal, and the Chevy stops with a jerk.

A sound comes from the dead body, like a moan, or a sigh. Bruno stiffens and squeezes the wheel in his hands, so his knuckles turn white.

George lifts an eyebrow and looks at him without speaking.

Bruno gives a little shrug. “Probably just ‘cause I stopped short.” He wipes the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Just air getting pushed out of the stiff.”

Outside in the rain, the cops allow the Skoda to drive through, and motion for Bruno to pull up.

“Here we go,” he whispers, praying to whoever receives prayers from gangsters that no more air will escape from the corpse for the next few minutes.

“Good morning. License and registration, please.” The officer appears particularly grouchy – but who wouldn’t be, if they started their workday standing on a freeway in the freezing rain.

The other policeman walks along the right side of the van. Bruno pulls out the wallet from his back pocket, fishes out his driver’s license and hands it to the first officer.

“Where are you going?” he asks while examining the license.

“We’re on our way to the Congo to pick up a palm for his wife.” Bruno points his thumb at George.

“A palm?” He passes the license back to Bruno. “What have you got in the back?”

“Just a bunch of crap. Tools, a bike ... I keep meaning to clean it up, but I never get around to it.”

“Uh-huh ...”

The other policeman looks through one of the windows in the back, Bruno’s heart implodes and stops beating.

“What’s this all about?” George asks, leaning over to address the first cop.

“Routine check.”

“On the freeway?”

The officer laughs. “Counterfeit money. We got a tip on a large shipment.”

Bruno nods, as though he understands what the cop is saying – as though he is even listening. He is harnessing the full force of his will to prevent himself from turning around to see what the other policeman is doing somewhere behind him.

“Good hunting.” George nods as well.

The second cop comes around to the front and gestures to the first.

“Thank you, you’re free to go,” the first says. Bruno smiles to him and puts the van in gear.

There is complete silence inside the van until they turn off the freeway six miles up the road, and only at this point does Bruno’s heart resume a normal rhythm.

***

The Congo was parceled out in the 1880s, at the same time the City’s zoo was constructed in the same space. The zoo started out with nothing but a camel, an ostrich and a number of owls. Still, the newly founded residence complex on the west border of the zoo was named after an African country to make it sound exotic. ‘Exotic’ probably wasn’t the first word that came to mind in the 1880s, when the small, leaky, drafty two-room apartment blocks were revealed to the masses. Today, the entire area around the zoo is heavily developed, and the name Congo has been stricken from the maps. The entire area goes simply by the name of Zoo, but the term ‘Congo’ survives among the people, as the oldest and poorest part of the Zoo has a high concentration of immigrant families from Africa.

Bruno pulls the Chevy over to the side of the road, behind a big and shiny, new BMW X5, and looks at George. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“Okay. It won’t take five minutes.” He’s out the door in a flash, running through the rain to a floral boutique – or rather, a palm store. Voodoo Palms specializes in the import of palms and general voodoo/witchcraft paraphernalia such as authentic dolls, needles and weapons, and so forth, from Haiti. Potted palms of all sizes adorn the sidewalk, and underneath the red-and-white striped awning, cut-out masks dangle from bast-fiber strings. A veritable lake of rainwater has accumulated atop the awning.

Bruno remains behind the wheel until George has disappeared into the shop, then he opens the door and goes out into the rain. He examines both sides of the Chevy. There are few people on the street. He waits a few long, wet seconds for an old black man walking a white mutt to pass by before he slides open the side door. From this side he can see the one hand sticking out from under the rug. How the cop could have missed it, he doesn’t know. But who does know what goes through the mind of a cop?

He quickly readjusts the hand and rug, so the body is completely covered. He then runs around the van and gets out of the rain, back behind the wheel.

George is still nowhere in sight. How long can it take to buy a f*cking palm? Bruno starts tapping on the wheel. Come on!

He looks at the BMW in front. He doesn’t think much of those CEO off-roaders. It’s like frosting on chopped liver – it just doesn’t work. An off-roader should be tough, with mud on the sides, and it should be owned by a woodsman or a hillbilly – but not a CEO who has it vacuumed and washed once a week.

He checks his watch. George has been in the shop for almost fifteen minutes. What’s going on?

He grinds his teeth. It pisses him off to wait – he’s never been good at it – and it doesn’t help matters that he’s got a stiff in the back. Come on, George. COME ON!

He considers going into the store to get him, but decides not to. He doesn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than necessary. He turns on the radio instead.

***

“God, the Creator, does not want us people to live like this! Just look at our City! Look how crime is booming; see how the Enemy, Satan, leads man astray; leads our children and youth into a life of sin; see how violence fills our streets; prostitution and gambling joints, organized crime, narcotics and sex wherever you look – there’s no longer even an effort to hide any of it – as if it was all normal. But God has a plan for all of us, God loves us all.”

“Well, that’s fine, but I think you called into the wrong radio program. The Savior Channel broadcasts on 123.9 MHz.”

“Jack, are you not listening to what I’m telling you? Don’t you want the violence and crime to stop?”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“We cut down trees that do not bear fruit! We have to bring back the death penalty! It’s the only way to deal with evil.”

“Would you execute anyone else, now that you’re in a groove?”

“The infidels. Those who do not follow God’s word; those who inspire sinful behavior through pornography and salacious speech; those who diverge from virtue’s narrow path!”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me. This is Alley-Cat Jack. Give me a call, if you’ve got someone on your mind. Here’s an oldie but a goodie from Boney M.”

***

Bruno checks his watch again. Twenty minutes. How long can it take to get a palm? He smothers Boney M’s ‘Rasputin’ and checks to see if there are any more rolls in the bag from the bakery. There are not. He smacks the bag onto the floor of the van, which is wet with rainwater from their shoes. He is now angry, boiling on the inside. He decides to go in and get George.

He slams the door a little too hard and trots through the rain with his shoulders up around his ears. He barely feels the rain.

George exits Voodoo Palms grasping a large green palm. Both of his arms are wrapped around the clay pot.

“Can you give me a hand with this?” he says, as he tries to maneuver around the awning and the masks that hang from it. “It’s not easy when you only have one hand.”

“You took your sweet-ass time!” Bruno says, ripping the pot out of George’s arms and quickly heading off to the Chevy. The palm fronds prick his face, and he can barely make out the van between them. “I’ve been waiting for you for twenty f*cking minutes!”

“I had to ... hey, look out!”

Bruno just manages to avoid bumping into a very well-dressed black woman, but her umbrella gets caught up in the stiff fronds of the palm.

“Damn, Bruno,” George says from behind, with a big smile. “Watch out for the ladies.”

Only now does Bruno realize that there are two ladies: the well-dressed one, and another with short, bleached-out hair. “Excuse me,” he mumbles, sending George a furious glance.

George gestures with his arms, and says something to the two black women. He laughs.

Bruno wants to get rid of the palm, but he can’t open the sliding door of the van with the women there. “George! We have to get going!”

“I was just saying sorry.” And then in a whisper: “You didn’t see who that was?”

“I don’t give a shit – I just want to get this f*cking palm in the van.”

“Okay, okay ...” George slides open the door. “Okay, put it in.”

Bruno does as he says, then quickly goes around to the other side of the van. He steps in a puddle by the curb and feels the water seep into his socks. When it rains it pours.

“This is the worst day of my life,” he says through his clenched teeth as he gets behind the wheel. “I can’t hold out much longer.”

“Of course you can.” George shuts the door behind him and puts on his seatbelt. “You’ve just got to stay cool. We’ll get through this. In a few months we’ll share a bottle of whiskey and a little coke, and we’ll laugh about all of this. We’re professionals. We’ll get through this.”

“Shit, it’s easy enough to say so. I thought you were shell-shocked and all washed up. Now you’re f*cking sitting here and ...”

“It’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. I take pills, and they help a bit, but I still have nightmares and flashbacks. If I don’t have my pills, I can’t get through an ordinary day at the garage. All the noise, the angry customers ... It isn’t easy.”

Bruno starts the van and pulls out. “But it doesn’t bother you to crisscross around the whole City with a stiff in the back? You’re too much, George. Way too much.” He smacks the van into gear and pulls out, back tires squealing. A second later there’s a loud bang as the right-side mirror hits the BMW and snaps off the van.

“F*ck!” he shouts. “F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!”

“I’m not too f*cking fond of loud noises, Bruno. Maybe it’d be a good idea if you backed up to the curb and got your insurance papers ready. We wouldn’t want the police to get involved, would we?”

Bruno takes a deep breath and shakes his head. He puts the van into reverse and slowly backs up to the curb. In front of him, the door of the BMW opens and one of the two black women gets out.

“She’s the singer from that TV show,” George says. “Randi Zandi – isn’t that her name?”

“Who gives a rat’s ass ...” Bruno jumps out into the rain and goes over to the woman.

“I’m really sorry about that.” He gathers up the crushed mirror and shrugs his shoulders. “My mistake.”

***

“You got any more of those pills you take?” Bruno asks moments later, when they’re back in the Chevy. “’Cause if you do, I want a couple.”

George fumbles through his pockets, finds a pillbox and takes out two pills. “Here you go.”

“And no more bullshit. We’re going out to dump this body.”

“You got it. We’re going out to The Villa Grove.”

Bruno looks down at the pills in his hand, hesitates for a moment, then swallows them. He repeats to himself that this is the worst day of his life, as he puts the van in gear and carefully pulls out into traffic.

George nods to the women in the BMW with a ‘such-is-life’ expression. Bruno sinks back into the driver’s seat, silently promising to make any number of changes in his life.

***

The Villa Grove is located in the hilly woodlands north of the City. The woodlands used to serve as the King’s hunting grounds in the Middle Ages, and as a sort of natural law, the ‘best’ of the citizenry tended to follow in the wake of the royals. There’s a lot of old money in The Villa Grove, especially up by the gold courses and along the coast, where the houses can easily run you ten million dollars. The air is clean. There are private beaches, boat docks, plastic surgeons, freemasons, the Rotary club and charitable get-togethers.

“Make a right here and go all the way down to the end of the road,” George says, pointing with his claw.

“Damn, pretty big-time real estate, huh? This is the place to live.”

“Jimmy’s got a house out here. Have you seen it?”

“What are you talking about – of course I’ve seen it!”

“It’s enormous. Looks like an old castle. Swimming pool that’s shaped so it looks like a dolphin from the air. Tennis court, the whole works. It’s totally out of control when you get a little farther north, up by the golf course.”

“They’re a little smaller here, but still, man. It’s a good place to live. House, garden, and a little station wagon for the missus.” Bruno shakes his head. “How in the world did you get the idea to dump a body in a place like this?”

“Göran the Swede showed the place to me. I’ve put five or six in the ground up here over the years. They haven’t been found yet.”

“Göran? Wasn’t he the guy the Chinese whacked?”

“Yup. Word is they sold him as chop suey.”

“You ever wonder what our lives would have been like if we’d been born in a place like this?”

“Nah ... You can get into the woods over there. You can park over there, just a few yards into the dirt road, but be careful, ‘cause it’s probably muddy. There’s a little creek that’s hard to see – careful you don’t drive into it. We’ll never get the van out again.”

Bruno does as George says, and a few moments later they’re standing outside the van in the rain. George gets the shovels and passes one to Bruno.

“We’ll dig the hole first, then come back for the body.”

“Are you sure we can get away with this? In broad daylight?”

“There aren’t too many people in this part of the woods. We’re going up over the hill and straight to the left. There’s a valley that can’t be seen from the road – no one’s ever there. There’s a marshy area in the middle of the valley. The water smells like dead animals, so it keeps people away. Come on.”

The tall beech trees shelter them from the worst of the rain, but the ground is soft and sloppy. The treetops rustle, and Bruno gets goose bumps. Some birds are cawing in the distance.

“Creepy place,” he mumbles. He’s freezing, and has a sense that he’s catching a cold. The air feels extra chilly compared to the inferno of the Chevy.

They turn to the left at the top of the hill, and the valley soon reveals itself to them. It is about thirty feet deep, nearly oval in shape, maybe two hundred yards in diameter on the long side and open in the opposite end, with the entrance obscured by fallen trees. The steep sides are covered with scrub brush and zigzagging animal tracks going up and down. They follow one such track down to the bottom.

“Let me just think here,” George says. “We don’t wanna dig any of the other bodies up. Over here, I guess. Yeah, let’s try here.”

The earth is wet and heavy and entangled with roots that make it difficult to dig – almost impossible without spades, but they have no choice. The hole must be dug. They have to go at least three feet down to be sure that the body won’t be unearthed by foxes or dogs.

“I was thinking, what do you think Mom would say if I dropped by one day?”

“You can give it a try.”

“It’s just, sometimes I think ... There has to be more to life than this. I ... Maybe I could ... I don’t know.”

“Don’t think so much about life, it’ll drive you crazy. We’ve just been surviving the only way we know how. All that crap about love and fairness and doing something with your life, Bruno ... Those are luxury problems. The CEO’s wife can go around worrying about that stuff. People like us from the projects have to play by a different set of rules.”

“What about you and Helena?”

“Dig that f*cking hole and shut your ass up!”

Bruno moves the shovel to his other hand and looks at George.

“Dig!”

They dig on in silence. Bruno can’t help but cast long glances over at his older brother. He’s always admired him, and really, all you have to do is look at how he handles that shovel with one good hand and a claw! George is tougher than most others.

It takes a couple of hours to dig down to an acceptable depth, and by the time they’re ready to get the body out of the Chevy, they are soaked with rain and sweat, with mud caked to their trouser legs and blisters all over their hands.

“I’ve been thinking about moving far away and starting from scratch,” Bruno says. “I got enough money now. You can make another life for yourself if you just give it a chance. Maybe find a nice girl to share it with.”

“Okay, fine. But what can you do? Aside from being Jimmy’s muscle? You have to have something to do. Lying on a beach staring at women would get tired pretty quick.”

“I thought about taking a course in painting. I was good at drawing in school, you remember?”

“You never went to school.”

“No, but ...”

“Did you talk to Jimmy about this?”

“Nah ...”

“You think he’d just let you go your own way?”

Bruno shakes his head. He knows the answer. He had to whack a guy who wanted out a few years back, and that guy wasn’t nearly as important to the operation as Bruno. He’d have to vanish from the face of the earth, and never come back to the City again.

Down the hill, at the edge of the wood, he can see his white Chevy van with the red fender, and suddenly he’s able to see it as it is: an old bucket of bolts. It’s as though he’d always seen it as it eventually would appear, once he’d done all the work and shined it up. But he’s had it for three years now, and hasn’t done a damn thing with it, and never will. He is what he is, and it isn’t anything to be proud of.

“Now there’s just the nasty part left,” George says when they arrive at the van. “Can you carry the body alone? I can’t really hang on with this claw.”

“Yeah, he isn’t that big.” He walks to the back of the Chevy, opens the back door and freezes to ice. “George,” he croaks.

“Uh-huh.”

“The body’s gone.”

“What?”

“It isn’t there. It just isn’t there.” He turns and looks in every direction, as George comes over and looks through all the windows of the van.

“I’ll be goddamned ...”

“You think it’s the cops? The Latvians? The Chinese? It can’t just ...”

“I think we should get in the van and be on our way, nice and easy.”

“But what if ...”

“Let’s go.”

“But we left the shovels by the grave.”

“Forget ‘em. Can you drive?”

Bruno nods while he continues to survey the entire landscape at once, without seeing anything but a blackbird. He nods again, then smacks shut the back doors, hurries behind the wheel and starts the van in one long motion. George gets in beside him, and in a calm voice says, “Drive carefully. We have to get out of here. Okay?”

Bruno pulls out and calmly drives past the large villas. He blinks the tears away, but he can’t hold it in anymore. He just can’t.

George turns on the radio.

***

“This is Alley-Cat Jack. We have Sofie on the line. Are you there, Sofie?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Jack.”

“Are you crying? You sound a little ...”

“I didn’t get a minute’s sleep last night. My fennec, Josef, died yesterday.”

“A fennec? What’s a fennec exactly?”

“It’s a sweet little thing with big ears.”

“There, there, Sofie. I understand. Alley-Cat Jack is here for you. I once had a cat that died. And it hurts. It’s like losing a family member.”

“That’s so true, Jack. I was tossing and turning all night. My bed is way too big and empty without Josef.I miss him so much.”

“What do you look like, Sofie?”

“Why?”

“I was thinking that I might be able to help you with that whole empty bed thing. You need help – we people need each other. I’m finished with the show in ten minutes.”

“Would you really do that?”

“Maybe. What do you look like?”