The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death - Charlie Huston [39]
—Son of a bitch!
Gabe pushed a water glass my way.
—Sorry about that. Didn't know if you liked them with or without.
I filled my mouth with cold water and swished it around, and that hurt, too.
—Crap.
I looked at Po Sin as he mopped his first plate with a tortilla.
—So look, man, I don't want to be ungrateful for the dinner I can't eat or anything, but are we at the part where I get to know what the fuck, or what?
He scooped guacamole onto a chip.
—Yeah, we're there. We're there.
He ate the chip. And then a couple more. Gabe sat behind his sunglasses.
I slapped the table.
—So what the fuck then? What's the deal? What the hell is the guild? Whatwhatwhat?
Po Sin wiped his lips with a red napkin.
—Aftershock.
—Huh?
—Aftershock is the name of another trauma cleaner. They have a lot of contracts, mostly on the west side. Hotels, office buildings, property management. And they get most of the law enforcement referrals over there. Cops, sheriff's deputies, they're at the scene of a violent crime, someone asks them, How do I clean this up? My baby Huey, my little boy was shot here, how do I clean it up? Baby Huey, mind you, is six and a half feet and over three hundred pounds and he's bled all over the house after getting shot on the porch by the guy who used to be his best friend before one of them fucked the other one's baby mama or some such crap. So the law officer suggests a reliable trauma cleaner who will come in and take care of the situation.
I found a paper-wrapped straw on the table and unpeeled it.
—And he gets a bribe for doing it.
Po Sin waved a finger in the air.
—It's not a bribe. It's a referral fee.
—It's illegal as hell.
—It is that, but it is not a bribe.
I dipped the straw in my margarita and took a sip.
—And the guild?
He lined up the second plate of chili relleno.
—The guild is a racket. Guy who owns Aftershock, Morton, is trying to get all the cleaners to join a guild. Guild will distribute jobs and contracts. Set prices. Broker health coverage, that kind of shit. The more cleaners he can get to sign on, the more pressure he can put on the remaining independents. They don't join, they're gonna have to find a way to live off the scraps of jobs that don't go through the guild.
—And you don't want to join an organization that will help to set the market in your favor and allow you to pool resources because?
He licked his fork clean and set it in the middle of his equally clean plate.
—Because it's a scam, Web. Because the work won't be distributed throughout the guild equally. Because it's set up so that Morton is the president and administrator of the guild, which, seeing as he owns Aftershock, is a rather large conflict of interest. Because the jobs come in and he assigns two out of every three to his own fucking company. So, what, I join and give the guild access to my contracts and contacts, my 7-Eleven gig, my Hyatt contract, my Amtrak deal, all my public housing call-lists, I hand that all to the guild and then what? Fucking Morton takes the sweetest plums for himself and I have to wait and get some shit call to clean up in front of a gas station where a dog got hit by some old lady who couldn't see over the steering wheel.
He propped an elbow on the table and jabbed a finger at me.
—Clean Team is my business. I created it. I built it. I made the contacts and sweated the contracts. Someone calls me, they know what they're getting. Twenty-four hours a day that goddamn phone is on. Someone calls, they have trouble, they're in pain, someone they love has died messy and they are traumatized, I pick up that phone any hour of the day or night. I talk to them civil and gentle. I come as soon as I can. I tell them straight what is involved and what it will cost. The job is harder, takes longer than I thought, costs me more than I estimated, that's my problem, I eat the loss. That's my reputation. Doing the job the way it should be done,