The Mystic Arts Of Erasing All Signs Of Death Part 30

He reached into one of the milk crates, took out a bag of disposable lighters, and allowed the corner of his mouth to tip slightly upward.

-I was just joking. Here, let me have that thing.

I let him have the thing, delighted to have discovered just what kind of scenario brought out the prankster in him.

I watched as he got out of the car and walked to a weathered brick building that I had taken for one of the garages, but saw now by its sign was not.

-Oh, oh f.u.c.k. Gabe, s.h.i.t no.

But he was well beyond hearing my little gasps of dismay, and flicked the lighter and held the flame to the edge of the baggie, patiently waiting till it caught fire and ignited the fuel-soaked bandanna within. Pocketing the lighter, he raised the jug high and brought it down, throwing it at an angle under the van at the curb.

The jug shattered, spilling flaming jelly over the asphalt under the van, fire tickling the undercarriage and licking up the sides. Gabe walked back to the Cruiser, silhouetted by the flames, and climbed in.

He looked at the small inferno, looked at me, the fire in the lenses of his sungla.s.ses.

-Well, that should make it clear to them where we stand.

He started the car and pulled easily from the curb, rolling slowly by the burning van as the front door of Aftershock Trauma Cleaning slammed open and a wiry bald man just barely five feet tall, brandishing a broom handle, ran out followed by Dingbang and several other Aftershockers.

The wiry guy made straight for the Cruiser, the broom handle c.o.c.ked over his shoulder. Behind him, Dingbang was fumbling with a set of keys, trying to find one to open the driver's door on the van, dancing side to side to avoid the thrashing flames.

Gabe stuck a hand under his seat.

-Stupid sons of b.i.t.c.hes.

The wiry guy was coming at my window, mouth moving, spittle flying, curses lost in the roar of the flames. My window rolled down as he reached the car, the broom handle bouncing off the chrome trim instead of shattering the gla.s.s.

-f.u.c.kinguslesslyings.h.i.tdogeatingf.u.c.kwadambushingd.i.c.ksuckers!

He started to bring the handle back up.

I twisted around, trying to squirm between the seats to join the dead body in the back of the station wagon.

Gabe shoved me back down in my seat, leaned across me, and stuck the gun in his hand out the window.

-Drop that s.h.i.t and back up out the way, Morton.

Morton pulled up, dropped the broom handle and backed up out the way.

-f.u.c.kingn.i.g.g.e.rf.u.c.kings.h.i.tdogf.u.c.kingn.i.g.g.e.rn.i.g.g.e.r.

Gabe pointed the gun at the van where Dingbang was still trying to get the door open while the flames grew higher.

-Cover your ears, Web.

I covered my ears and jerked and screamed each of the three times Gabe pulled the trigger. My screams were somewhat louder than those of the men scattering on the street, away from the van where all three bullets had dimpled the hood next to Dingbang, sending him first to the ground and then crawling behind a dumpster at the curb.

Only Morton kept his place, pointing at Gabe, mouth tight shut now. Shaping the finger of his other hand into a pistol, he pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger.

Gabe shifted the aim of his gun, centered the bead on Morton's chest.

-Not wise, Morton, threatening a man with a pistol in his hand.

Morton seemed to make a similar a.s.sessment of the situation and dropped both hands to his sides. But was, I can only a.s.sume, the kind of man who can't leave well enough alone.

-f.u.c.k you, n.i.g.g.e.r.

Gabe nodded.

-That's enough of that.

I covered my ears again, and the windows of the Aftershock shop exploded one after another while I did the flinch and scream thing again.

He settled back into his seat, tucked the gun between his thighs, put the car in gear, and drove slowly past where Morton had thrown himself on the street, screaming newly invented obscenities that I couldn't hear for the sharp ringing in my ears.

Of course, I did hear it when the van's gas tank blew and a fireball climbed up the sky, but we were some ways down the street by then.

Gabe observed the detonation in the rearview and, nodding his head, raised his voice over the ringing in his own ears.

-Stupid crackers, I'd have let them, they'd have climbed in that thing and tried to drive it off the fire, got their a.s.ses blown to h.e.l.l.

I turned from staring out the back window as he took us round the corner onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

-You're a paragon of charity and compa.s.sion, Gabe. A real model to the rest of us when faced with the opportunity to think of our fellow man's well-being before our own.

He took the gun from between his legs and put it back under his seat.

-Good of you to say so, Web.

He straightened his tie.

-Now let's go drop that stiff.

One of the keys on the big ring in Gabe's glove box got us into Woodlawn and we rolled the gurney down an empty tile corridor, one wheel balky and loud.

Gabe stopped at a steel door.

-Hold up.

He took the ring off his belt, sorted keys, and unlocked the door.

-OK.

He pushed the door open and we rolled into the morgue.

I held up.

-Wow.

Gabe looked at the b.u.t.terflied corpse on the table in the middle of the room.

-Yeah, it's a sight. Come on.

He guided the gurney to the back of the prep room and jerked the handle on the door of a walk-in.

-Park it here. OK. Got the legs, by the heels there. And lift.

We swung the body onto an empty rack at the side of the walk-in.

I looked at the dead in their rows.

-Lotta dead people, man.

Gabe took a look.

-Yeah. And the world isn't running out of raw supplies to make more.

We walked back down the corridor, the jittery wheel squeaking.

Gabe pulled up and tapped it with the toe of his shiny black shoe.

-Got to take that off and straighten it out tonight. No one wants their dead rolling out of their home on a gurney sounds like a shopping cart with a b.u.m wheel.

Outside he locked up behind us.

I pointed at the keys.

-So you work for Woodlawn?

-No. Work for a company that does accommodations all over. Night shift I handle, never know if someone will be around to let you in.

He pointed at the Cruiser and we took the gurney over.

-Funeral homes contract with the service. Give us keys so we have access. Got keys to pretty much every home from the Valley down to Long Beach.

We dropped the gurney down to its wheels, lifted it into the back of the station wagon and swung the door shut.

I rested my a.s.s on the gleaming chrome b.u.mper.

-So, Gabe, tell me, how's one go about getting the job as the grim specter of death?

Gabe took a clean white handkerchief from his breast pocket, blotted his upper lip, tucked the handkerchief away and pointed at the car.

-Let's go.

I circled to the pa.s.senger door and got in.

-That's OK. I understand you're the reticent type. I just thought that since we were accessories in a few felonies together that you might warm up a little and share a couple biographical details. For the sake of conversation.

He pulled his seatbelt across the shoulder and buckled it into place.

-I make an observation here, Web?

I buckled my own belt.

-Sure, but don't go crazy. You've already spoke more in the last fifteen minutes than I thought was possible. Don't want you to sprain your tongue or anything.

He nodded.

-No danger. No danger.

-Good. Well, as long as you're careful, what is it you've observed?

He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed a spot on the inside of the windshield.

-Some looks. A few silences.

I nodded.

-Wow, man. Fascinating stuff.

He looked at the speck he'd rubbed onto his thumb.

-It is. In its own way.

-Uh-huh. Well. Thanks, Gabe. That was enlightening. Thanks for the observations.

He took out the handkerchief again and wiped his thumb on it.

-The way you and Po Sin talk about some things. Don't talk about others. The way I know Po Sin, and the way he is around you, that suggests things. About you, I mean.

-Deeper and deeper, Gabe. Deeper and deeper.

He tucked the handkerchief away.

-Way I know Po Sin, how little he keeps from me, lets me know that whatever it is you two talk about where you're not talking about anything, that it's pretty personal to you.

I scratched at a spot on my new old slacks.

He turned his lenses on me.

-A person, he's got a past. Everyone dragging one behind them. You want to know how I ended up driving dead people around? Cleaning up after them? Well, that's my past, ain't it?

I nodded.

-Yeah. I get it.

He shook his head.