The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death Read online

  ALSO BY CHARLIE HUSTON

  The Shotgun Rule

  In the Joe Pitt Casebooks:

  Already Dead

  No Dominion

  Half the Blood of Brooklyn

  Every Last Drop

  In the Henry Thompson Trilogy:

  Caught Stealing

  Six Bad Things

  A Dangerous Man

  Sweet Virginia

  again

  on the sharp edge of a flat world

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  By necessity there was more research involved in the writing of this book than in any other I've written before. Which is not to say I'm not a lazy bastard who happily made up a great deal of BS that flies in the face of many of the true facts as related to me by people who are experts in their fields. For instance, while the profession of trauma cleaning may not be well regulated, and competition may be intense, the range of warfare described herein is not at all factual. All errors and liberties are mine, and should not reflect in any way on the people who helped me.

  Many details about the operations and history of the Port of Long Beach were shared with me by Art Wong, that port's assistant director of communications and public information officer. A man whose enthusiasm for his place of work is truly infectious.

  Such workings as could be revealed about customs and border protection and security at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were illuminated by CBP press officer Michael Fleming and his associates.

  Above all I am indebted to Mike and Carol Nicholson, owner-operators of Clean Scene Services, Inc. Trauma cleaners of Los Angeles. Their warmth and honesty as they talked to me at length about the often gruesome, and just as often blackly hilarious, nitty gritty of their work was without stint. Companionate human beings, and experts in their field, they share only the best possible traits with the fictional characters in this book. They are the only people I could imagine anyone wanting to have show up at the door should life take a sudden and violent U-turn.

  PROLOGUE

  I'm not sure where one should expect to find the bereaved daughter of a wealthy Malibu suicide in need of a trauma cleaner long after midnight, but safe to say a trucker motel down the 405 industrial corridor in Carson was not on my list of likely locales.

  —Ouch. That looks painful.

  I touched the bandage on my forehead.

  —And if that's what it feels like to look at it, imagine how it feels to actually have it happen to you.

  The half of her face that I could see in the chained gap at the edge of the door nodded.

  —Yeah, I'd imagine that sucks.

  Cars whipped past on the highway across the parking lot, taking full advantage of the few hours in any given Los Angeles county twenty-four-hour period when you might get the needle on the high side of sixty. I watched a couple of them attempting to set a new land speed record.

  I looked back at Soledad's face, bisected by the door.

  —So?

  —Uh-huh?

  I hefted the plastic carrier full of cleaning supplies I'd brought from the van.

  —Someone called for maid service?

  —Yeah. That was me.

  —I know.

  She fingered the slack in the door chain, set it swinging back and forth.

  —I didn't really think you'd come.

  —Well, I like to surprise.

  She stopped playing with the chain.

  —Terrible habit. Don't you know most people don't like surprises?

  I looked over at the highway and watched a couple more cars.

  —Can I ask a silly question?

  —Sure.

  I looked back at her.

  —What the fuck am I doing here?

  She ran a hand through her hair, let it fall back over her forehead.

  —You sure you want to do this, Web?

  That being the kind of question that tips most people off to a fucked up situation, I could very easily have taken it as my cue to go downstairs, get back in the van and get the hell gone. But it's not like I hadn't already been clued in to things being fucked up when she called in the middle of the night and asked me to come to a motel to clean a room. And there I was anyway. So who was I fooling?

  Exactly no one.

  —Just let me in and show me the problem.

  —Think you can fix it, do you?

  I shook my head.

  —No, probably not. But it's cold out here. And I came all this way.

  She showed me half her smile, the other half hidden behind the door.

  —And you're still clinging to some hope that a girl asking you to come clean something is some kind of booty call code, right?

  I rubbed the top of my head. But I didn't say anything. Not feeling like saying no and lying to her so early in our relationship. There would be time for that kind of thing later. There's always time for lying.

  She inhaled, let it out slow.

  —OK.

  The door closed. I heard the chain unhook. The door opened and I walked in, my feet crunching on something hard.

  —This the asshole?

  I looked at the young dude standing at the bathroom door with a meticulously crafted fauxhawk. I looked at bleached teeth and handcrafted tan. I looked at the bloodstains on his designer-distressed jeans and his artfully faded reproduction Rolling Stones concert T from a show that took place well before he was conceived. Then I looked at much larger bloodstains on the sheets of the queen-size bed and the flecks of blood spattered on the wall. I looked at the floor to see what I'd crushed underfoot, half expecting cockroaches, and found dozens of scattered almonds instead. I listened as the door closed behind me and locked. I watched as Soledad walked toward the bathroom and the dude snagged her by the hand before she could go in.

  —I asked, Is this the asshole?

  I pointed at myself.

  —Honestly, in most circumstances, in any given room on any given day, I'd say Yeah, I'm the asshole here. But in this particular scenario, and I know we just met and all, but in this room here?

  I pointed at him.

  —I'm more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you're the asshole.

  He looked at Soledad.

  —So, yeah, he's the asshole then?

  She twisted her hand free and went into the bathroom.

  —He's the guy I told you about.

  She closed the door behind her.

  He looked at me.

  —Yeah, you're the asshole alright.

  I held up a hand.

  —Hey look, if you're gonna insist, I can only accept the title. But seriously, don't sell yourself short. You got the asshole thing locked up if you want it.

  He came down the room in a loose strut I imagine had been meticulously assembled from endless repeat viewings of Tom Cruise's greatest hits.

  —Yeah, I can tell by the way you're talking. You're the one fucked with her today. Made jokes about her dad killing himself. You're the asshole alright.

  The toilet flushed, Soledad yelled over it.

  —He didn't make jokes!

  The dude looked at the closed door.

  —You said he made jokes.

  He looked at me.

  —Asshole. Fucking go in someone's home, there's been a tragedy, go in and try to make money off that. Fucking vulture. Fucking ghoul. Who does that, who comes up with that for a job? That your dream job, man? Cleaning up dead people? Other kids were hoping to grow up to be movie stars and you were having fantasies about scooping people's guts off the floor?

  I shifted, crushing a few more almonds.

  —Truth is, mostly I had fantasies about doing you
r mom.

  He slipped a lozenge of perforated steel from his back pocket, flicked his wrist and thumb in an elaborate show of coordination, and displayed the open butterfly knife resting on his palm.

  —Say what, asshole?

  Say nothing, actually. Except say that maybe he was right and I was the asshole in the room. Certainly being an asshole was how I came to be there in the first place.

  JEALOUS, BITTER, CYNICAL, HOSTILE AND PRETENTIOUS

  Chev was getting in my ass.

  —Give me a hand here.

  —Just a sec, I wanna finish this.

  —A sec my ass, get the fuck over here and give me a hand.

  I got up and walked across the shop, the copy of Fangoria folded open to an article about a new wave of bootleg Eastern European ultrahorror DVDs.

  —Put that down and hold this.

  I lowered the magazine, looked at the girl lying frozen on the table, her shirt pulled up, one tit untucked from her bra, tension in every muscle of her body, a thin stream of tears running from her eyes, flipped him off and took hold of the Glover Bulldog clamp locked on the tip of the girl's nipple, stretching it taut for the needle.

  The girl banged her heel on the table.

  —Don't pull on it, don't pull on it.

  —I'm not pulling on it.

  She squirmed.

  —You're sooo pulling.

  —I am not, you're moving.

  I looked at Chev.

  —Did I pull on it or did she move?

  Chev turned from his kit, a large needle between the fingers of his left hand.

  —Just hold it steady, both of you.

  The girl froze.

  I looked back in my magazine and read about a scene in a movie called Amputee where a guy has his eyes gouged out and his toes are amputated by the bad guy and sewn into his empty eye sockets.

  —I'm holding steady.

  The clamp vibrated slightly as Chev ran the needle through the girl's nipple and she jerked.

  I peeked at her over the top of the magazine.

  —Not too bad, huh?

  Part of a smile crossed her face and she shook her head.

  —No, not too bad.

  I nodded.

  —Yeah, here comes the bit that really sucks.

  Chev twisted the jewelry into the hole he'd just put in her nipple, and gripped the ends of the open hoop of surgical steel with two pairs of needle-nose pliers, torqued until they lined up, popped a tiny bead between them and pinched them together so they held it tight. The girl's mouth flew open and she made a long whining noise and a little urine stained the crotch of her way too fucking expensive for their own good jeans.

  I looked at the photo spread in the magazine.

  —See, hurts like a motherfucker.

  Chev took the clamp from my fingers.

  —Asshole. Get the fuck away.

  —What? I was helping, you said I should come over here and help.

  He released the clamp and the girl's nipple snapped back.

  —Just get out of here, will you? Go get me some smokes.

  I twisted the magazine into a tube and stuffed it in my back pocket.

  —Give me some cash.

  Chev looked up from the blood he was swabbing off the girl's tit.

  —No.

  —Fine, I'll tell them we're not using money anymore, that we've moved beyond outdated concepts like commerce and that they should just give me your American Spirits because it's a goodwill society now.

  He placed a gauze pad over the girl's nipple and had her hold it there while he taped the corners down.

  —I gave you money for breakfast this morning and you never gave me the change. Use that in lieu of goodwill and go buy my smokes.

  —Thought the change was a tip.

  —It wasn't. Go. Get out.

  He took a card full of cleaning instructions from his work table and handed it to the girl and started telling her how to care for the piercing, blotting her eyes for her with a Kleenex.

  —You're gonna want to take the bandage off in a couple hours, in the shower with water running over it so it doesn't stick to the dry blood. Then you gotta clean it, rotate the jewelry under the water.

  She made a face and he stroked her hair and she leaned her head against his hand.

  —It'll be cool. It'll hurt, but not bad. The hard part is over.

  I leaned against the wall by the door.

  —Until mom sees it and you have to explain why the hell you let some creepy tattoo artist poke a hole in your tit.

  Chev stepped away from the girl.

  —Go be useful. Now.

  I slid my shades over my eyes.

  —I am useful. I serve a constant reminder that you're not as cool as you think you are and that you used to run home early from school every day so you wouldn't miss Star Trek and it wasn't till you shaved your head and got inked and opened this shop that chicks like her would even look at you.

  —Now, out, the fuck out!

  I pushed the door open.

  —And you have the whole original series on deluxe DVD and an autographed William Shatner picture that you got at a convention when you were fifteen and had chronic acne.

  The door swung shut behind me as I walked into the sunlight, whatever Chev was saying to me muffled and lost.

  I didn't need to hear it. I'd heard it all before. Anything Chev has to say to me, I've heard it. Most of it starts with asshole and ends with such a dick.

  I dug in my pocket and found the six odd bucks left over from the breakfast run I'd done over to the Denny's on Sunset. I'd planned on using it for some tacos later.

  —Crap.

  I stuffed the money back in my pocket and headed out.

  Mostly Chev is cool. Until a chick he thinks is hot comes around. Really, it's not any different from our whole lives. Only difference is, back when we were kids, Chev turned into a worse stuttering dork around hot chicks than he already was and tried to make up for it by being a dick toward me. He doesn't get nervous anymore, mostly, but he still acts like a dick toward me. Which, sure, sometimes I deserve it, but mostly he's just trying to be cooler than he is. So who's the dick?

  I walked up Mansfield, cut east and made for the big red Las Palmas Market. I could have just gone up Melrose from the shop and gotten the smokes from the gas station at La Brea, but everything's cheaper at the Market. Save some money on Chev's smokes and there'd be enough for a soda and some gum. Chev can't ask for change I don't have.

  Well, he can, but I can't give it to him. So that gets us both off the hook.

  Coming back to Melrose with the smokes, I saw the girl coming out of the shop, Chev holding the door open, thumbing the digits of her phone number into his cell. I stood there and watched him watch her ass as she walked to the 2008 Z her mommy and daddy bought for her. She climbed in and waved and pulled into traffic and Chev held up his phone. I'll call.

  I waved at her as I crossed the street and she punched it and almost ran me over.

  Chev laughed and I walked past him and into the shop.

  —Jailbait.

  He let the door swing shut and caught the pack of smokes I tossed him.

  —Asshole.

  —Total jailbait.

  He stripped the cellophane from the pack.

  —Just turned eighteen. Her folks gave her the car as a birthday present.

  —Bull. They gave her that car as a bribe to keep her from dropping out of high school and going up to the valley to become a porn star.

  —Dude, she's eighteen. I carded her when she came in.

  —Fake.

  He dropped into one of the two old barber chairs customers sit in for easy arm and leg pieces.

  —I know a fake when I see one. She's eighteen. Legit. And smokin' hot.

  I unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck it in my mouth.

  —She's a spoiled piece of high-maintenance ass that thinks it'll be cool to fuck a tattoo rocker because she's already taken it in the ass f
rom every rich boy in Beverly Hills and variety is the spice of life and her family's money makes her life boring so she has to slum with losers like us.

  He lit up and blew smoke at me.

  —Losers like me, Web. Losers like me.

  I took the magazine from my pocket and opened it back up.

  —Well I hope you enjoy the fatal case of cockrot you're gonna get if you nail that chick.

  —Jealous.

  —Gonna be like this movie Corrosion.

  —Bitter.

  —Your flesh being eaten away.

  —Cynical.

  —Consumed by the billions of infected sperm monkeys that have been pumped into her by the Beverly Hills High football team since she was thirteen.

  —Hostile.

  —Excoriated to a nubbin with a shriveled sack hanging off it.

  —Excoriated?

  —Look it up.

  —I know what it means.

  —No you don't.