I'm a Criminal Hired to Dispose of Bodies

The call came in a little after three in the morning. When I reached over to the nightstand, I accidentally knocked over my alarm clock. It crashed to the ground, shattering into jagged shards of plastic and glass. Not a good way to start the day.

I answered the phone. “Look, whoever this is, you owe me a new alarm clock.”

“Get over here.” I recognized Troy’s voice immediately. “We have a problem.”

“A please would be appreciated.”

“Stow the snark, James,” he said. “This is serious.”

I looked around my empty bedroom. There were piles of clothes strewn about the floor, along with old gin bottles and spent cigarette butts. Last night was a haze of loud music and endless drinking. I couldn’t be sure, but my breath said I’d ordered a pizza too.

Looking down at the bits of plastic and glass, I said, “Fine, but while I got ya on the line, let me tell you a little about this new alarm clock you’re gonna buy me.”

While I got dressed, I went on and on about the clock. I wanted one that could connect to the internet, play music, and use Bluetooth. Troy was quiet as I rambled, and when I was finished, he said: “I’m at a brownstone on thirty-second. Apartment twenty-five. Move your ass, we’re burning daylight.”

Outside the bedroom window, the sky was dark and amassed with clouds. There wasn’t daylight yet to burn.

The call disconnected, and I pocketed my cell phone. I swiped my jacket from the floor. There was a slight bulge in the breast pocket. My cigarettes were still there. Then, I grabbed my keys, wallet, and handgun from the dresser. On the way out, I stopped in the bathroom to brush my teeth, but even after relentlessly scrubbing with cheap cinnamon-flavored toothpaste, my breath still smelled like greasy pizza and gin.

Some things never come out no matter what you do.

Driving to the south side of town, I found the brownstone Troy had told me about and stepped inside. The inner walls were white and barren save a few odd holes and yellow cigarette stains. The carpet was fuzzy and mottled by discolored blotches. I’m not one to judge, my place wasn’t much better. The rent was a little more expensive because I lived on the east side, but otherwise, they were pretty much the same.

In the city, in life, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get by. Even if it means living in rat-infested apartments where neighbors blared screamo music and there was asbestos in the walls.

Climbing two flights of stairs, I knocked twice on the door to apartment twenty-five. Footsteps thundered from inside, followed by the rattle of a chain-lock being disarmed. The door opened, and Troy peered out at me through a crack in the door.

“This better be good,” I said, rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes. “I was having a great dream—”

“Yeah, yeah. You can tell me about it later,” he said, throwing the door open and pulling me inside. He slammed the door shut behind us, locking it again. “Word of warning, situation’s a little tricky.”

In our line of work, when wasn’t it “tricky”?

Troy had your typical bouncer look. Broad-shouldered, short blond hair, lantern jaw, built like a linebacker. He wore dark denim pants and a grimy leather jacket with more years on it than most cars.

He was the kind of guy Mr. Rousseau liked to keep for the first half of the day because he was well-read and personable. Intimidating at first glance, but in private company, he was quiet and reserved. These were the hours Mr. Rousseau handled the legitimate side of the business.

Plus, mornings and early afternoons were the only hours that worked for Troy’s schedule since he had a wife and two kids.

“Wait a minute.” Troy leaned in close and sniffed. “Are you drunk?”

“Not entirely.”

“What the fuck, James! It’s a Thursday.”

“Yeah, and Mr. Rousseau usually has me on at night. So, why the hell am I being called in at three in the morning?”

He gestured for me to follow as he started down the narrow hallway. I didn’t recognize the apartment. Mr. Rousseau lived on the north side of town, and Troy had a house on the west side. The south side of the city was reserved for addicts, deadbeats, and broke college kids. There weren’t many in Rousseau’s personal circle that fit the bill.

We turned at the corner and followed the rest of the hallway to a closed door. Troy hesitated with his hand on the knob, looking over his shoulder at me. There were shadows in his eyes. Despair. He sighed and turned the knob, pushing the door open. Instantly, before I even entered the bedroom, I could taste the metal and copper in the air. Smell the early stages of decay.

If something like that doesn’t wake you up, nothing will.

The bedroom was a dingy space with splintered floorboards and a sagged ceiling. Next bad rainstorm would probably knock out a few tiles. The furniture was ancient and dilapidated. In the far corner, an old boxy TV displayed a screen of black-and-white fuzz, hissing quietly in the background as we examined the scene.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked.

Any semblance of drunkenness had abandoned me, replaced by a stone-cold sobriety that made me want to scream or punch something.

“There was an incident,” Troy said haphazardly. Always the professional. “It’s a bit complicated.”

That was one way of putting it.

On the queen-sized bed was a partially naked girl lying limp on the mattress. Sheets and blankets swirled around her, splattered in blood. Her limbs were splayed at odd angles, lifeless. The back of her head was caved open with a jagged rim of exposed skull peering out through her long black hair. I kneeled to inspect the wound, thinking Troy had maybe brought me in for amateur medical attention. I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life working on a farm, caring and tending to animals. Whenever I wasn’t slaughtering them.

Adjusting the head of a nearby lamp on the nightstand, a bright yellow light shined against the top of the girl’s head. Her injury was untreatable in given circumstances. Blunt-force trauma with noticeable swelling and severe hemorrhaging. The skin was ruddy red with a slight undertone of blue. There were tiny bits of bone, hair, and flesh amongst the exposed grey matter of her brain.

I almost suggested a hospital in the area, but reality dawned on me. I would’ve been better off suggesting a morgue.

Then, as I was examining the wound, the girl’s brain began to shift beneath the undulating pool of blood. For a moment, I thought she might open her eyes and sit up in bed. This expectation died in its cradle as I watched a fly crawl out from the mixture of blood and membrane. Its wings fluttered a few times, and once they were clean, it took off into the air.

I quickly turned away, gagging against last night’s dinner. Shouldn’t have had so much pizza or gin, but I’m a creature of habit.

“Seriously,” I stammered, leaning against the wall, staring down at my shoes, desperately trying not to think about the dead girl. “What the fuck happened?”

“I already told you: there was an incident.”

“Yeah, no shit there was an incident.”

“It was an accident, James.”

You don’t get an injury like that from an accident unless it involves a head-on collision or a flight of stairs.

“Oh, an accident? That makes it so much better.” I glimpsed at the girl again, my heart swelling with a mixture of disgust and pity. “Is she dead?”

I don’t know why I asked. She had the pale complexion of a corpse. The putrid stink of a corpse. Probably had the sour taste of one too.

Troy shrugged. “My gut tells me she’s most likely dead.”

“Most likely?”

“No, yeah, she’s dead.” He considered this for a moment before nodding. “Definitely dead. Mr. Rousseau clubbed her over the head with an ashtray.”

I exhaled carefully. “That oughta do it.” I reached inside my jacket pocket and removed a pack of Viceroy cigarettes, lighting one the instant it met my lips. “Why’d he do it?”

“Lost his cool for a second.”

“Really? Only for a second.”

Troy threw his hands up defensively. “Look, I was just chillin’ in the living room, reading a book, when I heard her scream. By the time I got in here, well, it was finished.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He wants us to clean it up.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I mean, did he say anything about why he did it?”

Troy scoffed. “He actually wrote a ten-page essay about it if you’re interested in reading it.”

I considered punching him, but the only reason Troy and I had lasted as partners was because we knew not to take it out on each other. We had an unspoken policy: ‘Just do the job and get out. No questions asked.’ In situations like that, though, it was hard to refrain from asking any questions.

“Well,” I said, slowly regaining my equilibrium with the help of nicotine calming my nerves, “where the hell is Rousseau?”

“Don’t worry about it. I called some guys to take him back to his penthouse. But we’ve gotta fix this fast. The girl has a roommate. She’s outta town right now, but she’ll be back around noon.”

“We’re so fucked.”