Part 54 (2/2)

She squeezes Xing's shoulder as she goes by.

-Try not to kill Web.

Xing sticks her tongue out.

I take the kitty from the bag and toss it out the open door and it hits her in the back of the head.

She looks at it and turns up her nose.

-I don't like like kitties. kitties.

I push the door closed.

-Some other little girl will find it, then.

Before the door closes she has the kitty in her arms.

I go down the hall, following the sound of the TV, the blare of a late-afternoon talk show; couples fighting, a conversation made up almost entirely of bleeps. bleeps.

I raise my chin as I come into the room. Po Sin lifts his cane at me, reaches for the remote and hits mute.

-I love that s.h.i.+t. This one, those two there, they're sisters, they both married the same guy, but he's not a guy, he's a transs.e.xual. Used to be a girl. Got a fake d.i.c.k. Funny thing, the two who married him, both of them trannies, too. Both used to be guys. Brothers.

He goes to push himself from his chair and I wave him down.

-Sit. No, don't get up.

He gets up.

-Need to move around. They want me getting exercise. Took a walk yesterday.

-Yeah?

-Around the block. Thought my lungs would explode. Give me that s.h.i.+t.

I hand him the bag and he takes out the invoices.

-What's this?

I look.

-Decomp.

-You bill this?

-That my handwriting?

-Don't f.u.c.k around.

-I billed it.

-You underbilled for materials.

-You want it out of my pocket?

-No. I want it out of your hide. What's this expense?

-Day labor.

-For what?

-We had to do the job at night. Gabe was doing accommodations. I needed to pay someone.

-Who?

I look at the families fighting on the TV.

-Dingbang.

He grunts.

-He show up on time?

-Pretty much.

He looks at another invoice.

-Shotgun job?

-Gabe did the invoice.

-I know.

His eyes go over it.

-What was it?

I sit on the edge of the bed.

-Guy put it to his chest. Knew his wife was the open-casket type, didn't want to blow his own head off. Maybe, I don't know, upset someone. Did it out in the backyard in their drained swimming pool. Blew out half his lung, missed his heart. He flopped around, actually tried to climb out of the pool, pumped blood over the whole thing. Handprints on the tile all the way around.

-How'd you?

-There was pathology on the side of the house from the blast. I did the detail work there while Gabe got the chunks out of the pool. We couldn't just hose those.

-Yeah, clog the drains.

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