The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

swore revenge and crawled back under my covers. Then the phone started ringing. Very loud and just outside my bedroom door. It rang. And it kept ringing. And it kept ringing. And I got up and opened the door and picked it up.
    —What? What the fuck?
    —Is this Web?
    —Yeah, what the fuck?
    —Yeah, my name is Curtis.
    —What do you want, Curtis?
    —Nothing. I was in White Lightning last night and I got this boss Tasmanian devil on my shoulder and the guy, Chev, he said he'd knock twenty bucks off the price if I got up at six and called you and made sure you were up. So?
    —What?
    —You up?
    I hung up the phone and threw it across the hall and it put a dent in Chev's door and I heard laughing behind it.
    —Fuck you, Chev. Fuck you!
    But I was up so I turned on the coffeemaker and got in the shower.
    The Cutlass Cruiser station wagon idled at the curb, all gloss black paint, buffed chrome and dark tinted windows. One of the windows slid down and a driver just a shade lighter than his car looked out from behind mirrored sunglasses.
    —Web?
    I pulled my hoodie tighter around my body, the morning air still carrying a chill.
    —Yeah.
    The driver tilted his head at the passenger seat.
    —Let's get rollin'.
    His window zipped up and I walked around the car. He pushed the door open and took a black suit coat from the passenger seat so I could sit. I climbed in, glancing at the rear of the cruiser where the back seats had been removed to make room for a gurney. And stashed just behind the front seats, a tightly packed bedroll and three milk crates filled with various pieces of camp gear tucked neatly on the floorboards. Coleman stove and lantern, hand generator emergency band radio, tent bag, ground tarp, a coffee can of rattling iron stakes, four small red fuel bottles, shrink-wrapped bundle of flares, boxes of waterproof matches, a hatchet with a well-worn leather handle, binoculars, a large plastic canteen, an Army surplus mess kit in a nylon pouch, a black cast-iron skillet with a heat-warped bottom. And more.
    I pulled the door closed.
    —Going on a trip this weekend?
    He dug a finger behind one lens of his glasses and rubbed an eye.
    —Do me a favor and buckle up, OK?
    I pulled the seatbelt over my shoulder and lap and clipped the silver tongue into the buckle.
    He stuck out his hand.
    —Gabe.
    I took his hand, calluses on his palm scratching my skin.
    —Web.
    He loosened his black tie and undid the top button of his white short sleeve shirt.
    —Some coffee there if you want it.
    I took the large white cardboard cup from the holder clipped to the dash.
    —Thanks.
    He put the car in drive and pulled from the curb.
    —No problem. Didn't know how you liked it. Some creamers in the glove box.
    I opened the glove box and found a couple creamers bouncing around on top of registration papers weighted down by a huge ring of at least a hundred keys, and a thick flipper of leather with a little plastic handle jutting from it. I closed the box and peeled back the top of my creamer and poured it in my cup.
    Gabe pointed at the paper bag in the middle of the front seat.
    —Garbage in there.
    I dropped the empty creamer in the bag.
    He drove us a couple blocks up Mansfield, past several two-story apartment buildings stacked like stucco cakeboxes in pink, aqua, terracotta, yellow and mint. Across Fountain the street gentrified slightly into a sprinkle of trendified craftsmans and renovated 1930s Spanish revival apartment blocks that were going to be squeezing out the drifters at the BHS Hollywood Recovery Center in due course. He stopped at the corner next to the Off Broadway Shoe Warehouse, and I watched some skater kids across the street working the steps of the Liberal & Household Arts Building at Hollywood High. He found a hole in the commute traffic and turned right, the Hollywood Hills rising just north of us, early summer smog settled on their tops. We started and stopped our way down past a few motels and strip clubs