The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death - Charlie Huston [69]
He felt in the plastic bag in his lap, found it lacking, turned it inside out, found it still lacking, and dropped it on the floor.
—Well how the fuck ’bout that. Ain't that a bitch?
He pawed in his pockets and found the twenty I'd just given him in order to persuade him to let me into the room.
—Need to go hit the store. Back in a sec.
He stood with the great care and instability of the tragically inebriated. I watched him take a step and place his foot squarely on a couple empty bottles that rolled from beneath him, and let gravity take it from there.
—Ow! Fuck! That hurts.
I got off the bed and walked over and held out a hand.
—C'mon.
He took my hand and I pulled him halfway up and let go and watched Newtonian physics at work again.
—Ow! Fuck!
—Sorry. My bad.
I stuck out my hand. He took it. I pulled and let go.
With anticipated results.
—Ow!
—Whoops.
I stuck out my hand. He eyed it. And decided, I imagine, that based on a model of the universe drawn from the Hollywood catalogue, no one could be so cruel as to intentionally abuse a poor drunk in such a manner.
I proved him wrong.
—Ow!
I held out my hand.
He slapped at it. Missed.
—Fuck you. Fuckin'.
He got to all fours, crawled to his chair and climbed back aboard, where he knew he'd be safe.
—Cut you bad, motherfucker.
I bent over and picked up the knife that had fallen from his back pocket.
—You might want this.
I tossed it on his lap.
He looked at it.
—Right. Thanks.
He picked up the plastic bag from the floor and stuck his hand inside.
—How the fuck ’bout that.
He dropped the empty bag.
—Fuckin' tragedy that is.
He pushed himself up, the knife falling to the floor.
—Gonna go hit the store.
I put a finger in his chest and pushed and he dropped back in the chair.
—Jaime, that guy you cut. Talbot.
—Yeah, weakass Talbot, cut him bad.
—What did you steal from Talbot and his friend?
He squinted.
—Fuck you talking ’bout? Didn't steal shit. 'M a producer. I facilitate the vision of the talent. Bring it together with the money.
I kicked some bottles aside and picked up something from the floor and held between my thumb and forefinger and showed it to him.
—What about this?
He looked at it, looked hard.
—Fuckin' almond.
—Right the first time. What can you tell me about it?
He grinned, winked.
—'Sa nut.
I nodded.
—Yeah. Dead on. But a little outside the point. What I'm getting at here, Jaime, is why would someone kidnap your sister and, just out of pique as far as I can gather, kill Talbot over some nuts?
—I didn't kill Talbot. Jus' cut his ass up.
—Sure, cut him bad. Cut him like he was a Turkish prisoner in Midnight Express. But his buddy or boss or whatever, the guy who looks like Sam Elliot without the moustache, he killed him.
His eyes flicked back and forth a couple times, looking for connections between things that seemed impossible to unite.
—Killed him? Harris killed Talbot?
—Is Harris a tall cowboy with a big gun?
—Yeah.
—Then I'm going to go out on a limb and say that yes, he is the one who killed Talbot.
He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
—Damn. That's. Damn. That's fucked up.
—Yeah. Especially when you take into account that he beat him to death with my telephone.
His face scrunched, he opened and closed his mouth a few times, he stuck out his tongue.
I recognized certain signs I'd seen many times in college, and took a big step back as he bent over the side of the chair and heaved a half gallon of Malibu rum onto the floor.
I edged from the puddle.
—Think it's bad to think about, you should have seen it.
He shook his head.
—No, no, man, ain't that bothers me. Just.
He spat.
—It's just