Sandy had just gotten home from
working a Barmitzvah out in Long Island.
It was the usual deal, four hours acting like an idiot for two hundred
bucks. She’d led a conga line wearing plastic fruit on her head, dressed up
like a nerd for the sock hop set and handed out maracas for people to shake as
they lowered themselves for the limbo. How
low can you go? Pretty low, Sandy thought. Pretty damn low. The worst, though, was the big band set. The performers had to be dressed up as
musical instruments and Sandy was a xylophone, which meant she had to endure
people beating her with her own mallets.
This is
not a very smart boy. Stupid really—pockmarked and hungry. I could barely get
two straight words out of his mumbling mouth.
Reminds
me of that other filthy- haired vagabond I had my man Grusha chase yesterday.
That rag-tagged little snipe leaning on his crutch begging outside my building.
A government building! What has the world come to when the rabble believe they
have a right to beg there? I see old women and their chickens, and Gypsies and filthy
boys all in rags and muck with their greasy hands out every day. Please,
please, please. Give, give, give. It’s those liberals—those intellectuals that
gave them that idea! Next thing you know, they’ll be stealing the coats off our
backs.
I guess I’d
been skip-chasing about a year when the girl got killed. The job suited me.
George said it made use of what he called “my feral nature.” He was the bail
bondsman I did most of my work for. I met him after I got nailed boosting a
car. Somebody’d written his number on the wall by the phone in the stationhouse
and I didn’t know who else to call, so I called it.
Wind
blasted off the sea and salt-spray stung his lips. As he walked, the sun broke
through cloud cover and lit up wind turbines on the horizon. They fanned out to
sea like a giant military graveyard. Beautiful, he thought.
He stumbled when his collie Tess skidded
to a halt on the packed sand at his feet. She dropped the thing she was
carrying: a human hand and forearm, severed just short of the elbow joint.
