The Guilty - Jason Pinter [71]
son, other than just repeating shit that's already happened?
You're a goddamn stenographer with a fancy business card,
my friend, and just because you happened to look under a
log nobody else wanted to get dirty enough to look under
doesn't make you any less of a maggot than the dirt you find
underneath."
"Like you," I said. "The maggot I found underneath."
"Maggot, whatever. All depends on your perspective," he
said, dropping his cigarette onto the floor where he stubbed
it out with the toe of his sneaker. "Funny thing about maggots
is, people hate 'em, but the whole world would go to hell
without 'em. Maggots strip dead flesh from bone, make sure
the smell doesn't bother your pretty nostrils."
"Billy the Kid," I said, tasting my own blood. "What do
you..."
"Shut the fuck up," the boy said. Without warning, he
stomped on my leg hard with his foot. I let out a cry of pain.
"You don't know anything. You know what you do, Henry
Parker? You write about history. Me?" he said with a sharp
laugh. "I am history. I decide what makes tomorrow's headlines. Without me you'd have nothing to write about Athena
Paradis, her shitty singing, and David Loverne screwing some
whore instead of his wife. Without me Jeffrey Lourdes would
have nothing to write about except no-talent hacks getting
high and crashing their cars. Fact is, guys like you need a guy
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like me to survive in this world. You reap what I sow. Nothing
you can do to change that."
"So why are you here?" I said, the words spilling out of
my mouth. "You say I can't live without you, but I didn't
break into your home and whack you over the head."
He laughed, one time, sharply.
"See my problem is, ungrateful asshole like you doesn't
even know I'm doing you a favor. You might not be able to
see it past your six-dollar coffee cup, but Athena Paradis,
Lourdes, those people are ruining this place. You take the
spotlight off of them you find what really matters. You talk
about maggots? They're the vermin. Guys like you put a spotlight on the vermin, pretend you can't see how diseased they
are. Then they infect you and everyone else. And what do you
do? Blame people like me. And since you, Parker, are too
chicken-shit to do it yourself, I'm going to do it for you. At
some point there won't be no Athenas left. No more maggots
to celebrate. And then you'll thank me."
"So why are you here, exactly?You have some grudge against
the world?You didn't get laid until you were eighteen 'cause the
girls didn't like some freak with a chip on his shoulder?"
He looked at me, as though confused and saddened by my
ignorance. "You're even dimmer than I thought. Maybe I
would be doing folks a favor 'n' get rid of you."
"Then go ahead, get rid of me or get the fuck out of here."
"Trust me, I have something better in mind." His mouth
curved into a vicious smile that made my skin crawl. "The
real reason I'm here is because there's some history best
stayed buried. I've seen you going to talk to all those people.
I watched you leave that college professor's office this
morning. And you know what I was thinking when you left?
When I saw that broad's face watch you from her dirty
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window? I pictured what her head might look like with a rifle
slug going through it at five hundred feet per second."
"A magnum slug," I said. "From your Winchester, you freak."
"That's right," the boy said. He took a step back. "I know
about your woman. Amanda, right? Pretty hair, got that cute
little birthmark under her neck. I know how she saved your
life, Henry. Funny, she keeps your ass out of the ground and
all you do is keep bringing 'maggots' like me into her world.
What I'm wondering, Henry, is if her skin is that pretty on
the inside. Rifles aren't the only things I know how to use
pretty well. You don't get any smarter, we're going to find out
what her skin looks like when we turn that girl inside out."
"Amanda," I breathed. "You go anywhere near her..."
"I could walk up to her on