It wasn’t like he signed it.
Done.
Grade hesitated for a second. Back in LA, he’d have trusted himself on that, but it had been a while since he’d had a full cut-and-scrub like this. He stripped off his jumpsuit—PPE was in short supply still—and balled the stained fabric up to stuff in the bag with the rest of his gear.
No, he’d thought of everything he could. Time to clock off. He checked the time. Not quite dawn. He’d worked fast.
Grade stretched both arms above his head, fingers linked together, until he felt the knot between his shoulders unravel. Then he started to pack everything up. Flammable items—clothes, hair, stained fabric, fingertips—in one bag, non-perishables—rings, teeth—in the other. Grade tied them up and dumped them in the drum he had already loaded onto the dolly. It was heavy enough he had to throw his weight against it to move it, but once it did, it was easy enough.
One foot hooked the door open, and he dragged it out into the bar.
The last stragglers had gone home. Only the barman and the woman, who’d donned a miner’s heavy jacket to ward off the chill, were still there.
“Thought you might need a hand,” the woman said. She pushed the plate of congealed nachos she’d picked over to the barman and hopped off the stool. A wry smile played over her face as she shrugged. “Buchanan was a big man, and you’re… well… not.”
There was a trick to not retaining information. It was like unfocusing your eyes, just a slackened muscle that let what people said wash over Grade’s brain without leaving an impression. The trick was easier if Grade knew not to pay attention, but he still did his best not to take any note of the name or how memorable it was.
It was best not to know.
“Thanks, but I’m fine. This is what I’m paid for,” Grade said. He leaned over and slapped the side of the drum. It made a heavy, stuffed sound. “And our mutual friend is more travel-sized now. I can get him out to the van easy enough.”
The woman looked queasy. People did, sometimes. Oddly enough, even the ones who’d made the corpse, as if disposing of someone was somehow worse than killing them. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked away.
“I’ll call Ezra and let him know you’re finished,” the barman said. “Do you need anything?”
Grade braced his sneaker-clad foot against the bar at the back of the dolly to hold it in place. He pointed his chin to the heavy double doors into the bar.
“Could you get those for me?” he asked.
The barman wiped his hands on his apron and came out from behind the bar. He stretched his legs to get to the doors ahead of Grade and pushed them open, stoppers kicked under both to keep them open. Grade wheeled the remains outside and bumped it down the two steps to the parking lot.
“You’re Pulaski’s boy, right?” the barman asked suddenly. “How’s he doing?”
Grade nearly tipped the dolly over as he fumbled the turn in surprise. He leaned forward to grab the top of the drum and pull it back. The weight shifted inside it as it settled back against the uprights of the dolly. It had been a while since anyone had asked him about Tommy Pulaski.
“Still missing,” he said.
The barman chuckled and pulled a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his back pocket. He tapped a slim cylinder out and lit up. The paper flared, and the tobacco glowed dully as it caught.
“Sure,” the barman said, cheeks hollow as he took a drag. He exhaled a cloud of gray-white smoke that drifted upward into the predawn light. The sharp mint smell made the bugs veer away from him. “Missing like a fox, eh?”
He winked at Grade as he took another long draw on the cigarette. Then he stubbed it out on the rail and took it back inside with him.
Grade leaned on the duct-tape-reinforced handles of the dolly and shoved it up the ramp. Irritation gave him a burst of energy to make it easier.
There weren’t a lot of good things about having a probably dead dad. That people felt sorry for you was about all you got. Except Grade didn’t even get that, since everyone assumed he was in on some sort of ten-year-long con. Like his mom scrubbed down toilets and cut old ladies’ fingernails just to keep up appearances.
But a good story was better than a miserable truth, Grade guessed.
He strapped the drum into place and jumped out of the back of the van to fold the ramp back up. Once it was out of the way, he slammed the doors and headed around to boost himself up into the driver’s seat.
One good thing about being back in Sweeny, he didn’t have as far to drive to dispose of the remains. Grade started the engine, and the playlist switched from his ear to the stereo system. He reversed out of the spot and pulled out into the road to the breathless beats of Perfume Genius. It was fifty minutes up the road to the old lake.
With any luck, he’d be home in time to get a couple of hours in bed before his mom got him up to make him breakfast and tell him he’d wasted his potential.
That was the curse of the “gifted child.”It didn’t matter how much money criminals paid you to destroy evidence for them; if you weren’t a doctor, your mom wasn’t impressed.
§
