Milo and I agreed. None of us had the stomach for something that disgusting.
“The head and hands have to go,” Milo said. “I made a thermite bomb last night, and I have enough gunpowder from my reloading outfit to pack his mouth. We can put the bomb in his hands. It will burn at about three thousand degrees. His hands will disappear, along with most of the rest of him when the bomb goes off. When the gunpowder ignites, his teeth will be reduced to powder. The car will explode and there won’t be anything left but a smoking black frame.”
“How did you make the bomb?” Sweetness asked.
“It’s mostly just aluminum and iron oxides. Stuff you can get at hardware stores. I had some lying around.”
“Isn’t there a less dramatic way to get rid of him?” I asked. “We just need to make him disappear. No body, no murder.”
Sweetness takes some nuuska and jams it into his gum. “Dad worked as a welder at the shipyards. He got me a job there one summer. They got barrels of acid in shipping containers. They’re for industry, like paper and nuclear factories. We could just stick him in one and seal him up.”
Milo’s eyes sunk deeper into their black pits as he pondered. “Do you remember what kinds of acid?”
“Hydrochloric and hydrofluoric are two that I remember.”
Milo half grinned. The less-than-gentle giant knew such big words.
I tried to sip my coffee. It was still too scalding to drink. “There are workers around the shipyard. And we have to dump out part of the barrel so he fits in it. So we need an empty barrel. And those barrels are big and heavy. We need something to pick it up with so we can tip the full barrel and pour part of the acid into the empty one. And we need protective clothing, head to toe, in case we slosh it and get it on us. The concept is right, but we can’t do all that at the shipyards.”
Milo slapped the table, slopped everyone’s coffee and burned Sweetness’s fingers. “Goddamn it,” he said.
Milo laughed. “I got it. Filippov Construction. Everything we need is there, and we have the privacy.”
Filippov Construction had been closed since Arvid murdered its owner, Ivan Filippov, a few weeks ago, and his wife, Iisa Filippov, disappeared. The business specialized in industrial waste disposal. Work there had ceased, the site stood empty.
“How do you know they have acid, and the right kind?” I asked.
“I read their inventory.” He looked at Sweetness and, for the sake of one-upmanship, because Sweetness knew big words, said, “I remember almost everything I read. They have sulfuric acid. It’s not as effective as hydrochloric or hydrofluoric for our purposes. The body will take some weeks to dissolve. It will turn to goo, then viscous liquid, and eventually just be gone. Not even a trace of DNA will be left.”
“And the other problems I mentioned?” I asked.
“There are six two-hundred-twenty-gallon barrels of sulfuric acid, and four empty barrels designed for storage. Closed-loop portable tanks that meet safety requirements. Reusable three-eighths-inch-thick stainless steel construction with extra protection for valves and fittings. Minimum one-hundred-psi pressure design meant to be handled with a forklift, so Sweetness can use one and tip the forks to pour acid from one container to another. And of course, all the protective clothing is there, too.”
“Maybe after, we should take the car to the woods and burn it up with your bomb,” Sweetness said.
“I can’t picture the place re-opening within the next few weeks while the gangster decomposes to goop,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”