Eleven
Rags was so freaked out, in fact, he told Curly to go home and stay home, until Rags gave him the all clear. As the older brother, he was always looking out for Curly, and tried to keep him out of the more largely illegal endeavors. Curly was fine with that. He could spend hours lifting weights and listening to tambourine music, while Rags took care of business. Rags knew right where he needed to go - Jimmy's, the floating casino out on the Wetford River. Owned by the legendary Jimmy Kruzel, the old riverboat was where every important underworld decision took place. Fripperone and his gang were, as a rule, not allowed on board due to their lightweight status, but an exception was made for Rags on account of his old man, who had performed some legendary feats in his day.
Nobody saw Mr. Jimmy Kruzel himself, not ever. The highest level you could hope to attain was an audience with his number one, a short but powerfully wide man known only as Dennis, who spoke with a voice so deep and so soft you could never be quite sure exactly what he was saying. He loved nothing more than to speak of his ancestors, who'd been dragged across the ocean against their will so many hundreds of years ago. A meeting with Dennis required at least a half hour preamble of which you could understanding nothing. Rags had expressed the urgency of his visit with such visible anxiety that the crewmen who related his request were ordered by Dennis to let him in.
Dennis' cabin was down at the very bottom of the vessel, deep in the hold underwater. The room was small - barely ten by ten - and half-filled by Dennis himself on a white leather couch he had had personally built for his frame. The little den was thick with smoke from his eternal cigar, penned in by the lack of windows and having nowhere to go but settle throughout the otherwise empty space. A small aluminum folding chair was the only other furniture in the room. Rags remained standing, barely glimpsing Dennis, and hardly hearing him either. Dennis began lecturing the moment Rags had shut the door on his command. What he said sounded to Rags like this:
"Derminuh alubba bub. Forja seph, ookula pair dish! Sem arah slagis nod, ep fertie grass?"
Rags nodded and continued to listen, gradually becoming used to the rumbling murmur, and eventually determining that Dennis was probably speaking a dialect of ancient Arabic. He was an erudite man who enjoyed showing off. He had unrolled a large map of North Africa and was gesturing at it with his cigar. After a time, his monologue petered out and in the resulting quiet, Rags nervously spoke up. He told Dennis about Fripperone's encounter with Davey Connor by the riverside, and then waited for a long time in the stench and the gloom while Dennis considered the tale.
"I thought you killed that boy", he finally grumbled.
"I did kill him", Rags said. "Dead as doughnuts. Buried him too, just like you told me."
"And you sprinkled the grave site with jalapenos and lemon peel?"
"Lemon peel?", Rags stuttered. "I don't remember anything about lemon peel!".
Dennis was silent for quite some time. Rags glanced nervously about him, wishing he was anywhere but there. He realized he'd screwed up, but the whole thing was a mystery to him. He was extremely superstitious, but even his ignorance had its limits.
'Lemon peel?' He thought to himself, 'come on, that is just ridiculous'.
Dennis might have read his mind, because he spoke up in a slightly louder tone to indicate his maximum rage.
"Jalapeno to burn his soul, of course. Lemon peel to keep him in the ground!"
"Keep him ...?" Rags ventured.
"In the ground", Dennis firmly replied. "So now he's back, you tell me. Well, no wonder. Half a job is worse than none."
"How come?", Rags asked.
"Because you failed to complete your assignment", Dennis informed him.
"I know that", Rags said. "I mean, why do they come back?"
"Oh, why zombies? Lots of reasons", Dennis relaxed and sat back in his couch. He was already over his slight pique. The truth was, nothing really bothered him. He only made a show of irritation on occasion because it seemed to be what people expected. Jimmy Kruzel had told him it was important for a leader to be feared. Dennis thought it rather a bore. He would rather have a genial conversation. He motioned for Rags to sit down and offered him a cigar, which Rags politely refused.
"Sometimes", Dennis continued, when Rags had at last taken a seat. "Sometimes the dead come back to life by mistake. There's really no reason for them to do so. It just happens. Other times, they have a mission, some unfulfilled purpose they must complete before they gain their so-called eternal rest. Still others will themselves back to life. These are the ones to be reckoned with, oh my, yes. The others, pah, you merely chop off their heads and have done with it. I'm certain our friend Davey is one of those. The man had no life to speak of. His death was a relief to him, no doubt. One less lazy slob, as useless as your friend Fripperone. Good riddance, I'd say. I don't think there'd be any unfinished business on his part. Well, avenge his murder perhaps, but he should be grateful for it. It was the kindest thing anyone ever did for him."
"But what do we do now?", Rags pleaded, thinking, this guy never said anything about lemon peel, I'm sure of it. And I did the jalapeno thing so it isn't my fault.
"Nothing to it", Dennis sighed. "Find him. Chop his head off. Stick him in the ground again, and this time don't forget the orange peel."
"Lemon", Rags replied.
"Orange", Dennis insisted. "It's only lemon the first go around. Second time orange. Third time lime."
"Third time?", Rags said nervously.
"Sometimes it doesn't take", Dennis said. "You know where to find him, I presume?"
"No", Rags admitted, "but we're looking for him. He can't hide forever."
"Don't waste your time", Dennis advised. "A zombie always returns to the scene of the kill. You simply have to wait for him there."
"Wow", Rags said. "That'll be easy."
"As I said", Dennis told him. "A piece of cake. Now go."
Rags got up and hurried to the door. He was already half asphyxiated and intimidated nearly to death himself. He mumbled a hurried 'thank you, sir' and was already out the door when Dennis, speaking even more quietly than usual, uttered,
"Just watch out for Racine."
He leaned back in his chair and sighed. If it wasn't one thing it was another, and didn't he have enough to deal with already? As if on cue, the wall behind him began to shake with an insistent pounding from behind it.
“I heard that!” came a woman's voice. “You gonna let me out now?”
“Soon enough,” Hobbs grumbled, not even turning around.
“It isn't right, you know,” she continued, then paused, forcing him to ask the question.
“What?” he finally responded. “What isn't right?” and immediately wished he'd managed to refrain. Now he was going to get the full litany of things that weren't “right”.
“Keeping me locked up, for one thing,” she declared. “And using those losers. I'll never understand why you do that.”
“It's like any organization,” he began to explain for the hundredth time. “You have your essentials, like us, and you have your expendables, like them. You got to have 'em. Take the dead guy. He was one of their ten-percenters, just like we got ours. Set 'em on each other, nobody that matters has to get involved. When you need to shed one, you got one. Keeps it clean. Keeps it tight.”
“Call that tight?” she complained. “All they ever do is mess things up. Clean is what I do.”
“Hardly,” Hobbs stifled a laugh. “What you do ...” he trailed off.
“What?” she demanded but he didn't say anything more. After a minute or two of silence she began pounding on the wall again.
“When are you going to let me out?” she asked.
“Thinking about it,” he mumbled. “Remember what happened last time?”
There was a long pause before she reluctantly admitted,
“There were stabbings.”
“Multiple stabbings,” he reminded her. “Unnecessary multiple stabbings.”
“But not too bloody,” she piped up. “I kept it pretty clean.”
Hobbs shook his head. Sometimes a thing had to be done, and when it had to be done, the rest was details. He stood, waving away the smoke as he made for the door, ignoring the pounding that started up again as the woman behind the wall sensed his departure.
“Don't you leave me in here,” she was shouting as he stepped out of the cabin and closed the door behind him.
“Monsters,” he mumbled as he walked off. As if there weren't enough of those in the world as it was.
“It's not like there's any shortage,” he said aloud and then added, to himself, “including the ones I've created myself,” but he didn't want to think about the sweet little orphan girl he'd befriended all those years ago, and what had become of her since. It wasn't entirely his fault, or so he liked to think. It was the nature of the business. It was all in the details.