The air conditioner roared against his knees, the constant thrum of the fan cooling his fever some, but the thick fluids leaking from his stomach had begun to ice up. Clay kept chewing his tongue, wondering why he’d never bothered to try and leave Brooklyn and make a run for a better life. What it was that kept him rooted in the Heights when he could’ve just as easily moved Kath and Edward up here, gone for hay rides in wagons every Saturday afternoon. Raked his lawn and trimmed the hedges and gone cherry picking in summer.
It sounded like it might’ve been all right, so long as he didn’t go shit-smearing insane from boredom.
Clay didn’t wait in his seat for the cop to come right up.
With a groan, he shifted sideways, grabbed his service revolver from under the seat, and pocketed it. The obscenely colorful frost on his torn shirt and exposed stomach cracked loose and disintegrated. He zipped up his jacket knowing he had to make some kind of play before the cop ran his plates.
There was still a little time left, maybe just enough for him to finish the job. He patted Kathy’s hand, rubbing at the small rosebud tattoo on her wrist and upsetting the flies. “Nice place up this way. You can smell them cooking cider in the valley. This could’ve worked for us, I think. Christ, Kath, they got oak trees all lined up and down the roads like an estate.”
It was tough leaning over into the passenger seat, but he had to snatch another wad of paper towels before he did anything else. Clay wiped his sweaty face down with them, and then jammed a handful up under his jacket against his rotting belly. The stink of his own shit oozing over his belt buckles gave him the dry heaves again but there was nothing left to bring up. Straining, he managed to clamber out of the car without letting loose a scream.
The cop couldn’t have been more then twenty-one at the outside, rail-thin but trying to puff his chest out, showing off the badge with pride. Bet he polished it every night before his bedtime prayers. Tremendous shoulders that proved he did plenty of military presses in the gym, spent at least four days a week on the machines. The kid was new enough on the job that he still chased after every small street infraction he found on the road. It was a pretty good way to buoy your manhood, Clay remembered, until you saw your first shotgun victim. You quit worrying about writing up tickets for loose mufflers right around then.
Crew cut, blonde hair, but with a touch of Asian in his features. He had no radio on his belt, and Clay had watched him park and get out. He hadn’t called in the stop. The hell kind of county was this? What sort of training program did they give the rookies up here before sending them into the sheriff’s department or the state patrol? The kid didn’t even unsnap his holster, didn’t place his hand on his gun.
They were five hours out of Brooklyn, and it was a whole other world.
“Please get back into your car, sir. I need to see your license and registration.”
“Sure, Officer,” Clay said. “Gotta make the streets safe.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice-amazing how the old habits could bubble up even now, with Edward eyeing him from the back seat.
“Excuse me?”
“Never know when those produce smugglers might come through and try to filch a few apples.”
“Sir, there’s no need to take that tone with me.”
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“License and registration please, sir.”
“Just take a second.”
Only a slight breeze stirred the treetops, and the grass of the meadows gently rippled as if some unnamable sorrow or beauty were slowly shrugging closer. The kid hadn’t even looked inside Clay’s car yet. These people up here weren’t prepared for anything.
Clay’s wallet had been soaked through with blood and digestive juice, and the contents had dried together into a filthy lump. If he could just work the leather flaps open and get his badge out, maybe the ignorant cop would get back into his cruiser and go home and mow his lawn for the third time this week.
But the flies started coming after Clay, and the wind shifted enough so that the kid finally glanced up and furrowed his brow.
“What’s that smell?”
“I don’t smell anything.” Clay tried pulling his wallet open again but flakes and chunks of his own shit fell to the ground. The flies kept after him-he hadn’t shut the car door all the way and the heat had roused the insects inside. They congregated now on the window, crawling over the glass. The buzzing grew louder.
“Jesus…what…?” The kid said the name “Jesus” the same way that Clay’s mother and grandmother used to, with reverence and a hint of very real fear.
“Okay, I lied,” Clay said. “That would be me. Peritonitis.” His fist was crusted with black blood from his seeping intestines.
The young cop started to pick up on the fact that something bad was going on here that he’d never run into before. He took his ticket book and held it out in front of him as if it might help him to figure out exactly what was happening. He still thought all the answers were in the manual. The kid’s mother probably had a pumpkin pie waiting for him on the kitchen table, fresh out of the oven.
A rush of rage and jealousy burst inside Clay. His mouth began to frame his son’s name but he couldn’t speak it aloud.
“Jesus God,” the kid whispered as he started to choke, trying to hold down his puke. “The flies. Your car.”
“Yeah, it’s getting pretty rank in there.”
The kid spotted Kath in the passenger seat, her ashen face slack but inflexible, still beautiful in its own way. Clay watched the cop turning now, looking through the back window at Edward strapped into the car seat, lips black, and his once tiny face now bloated to three times its normal size. The crushed Chihuahua was lying near his lap, almost bent in two, with its muzzle frozen into a snarl. Edward’s eyes were half-open and somehow sharply focused into a bitter glare.
“They’re…”
“I’m a New York City Homicide Detective,” Clay said. He’d never sounded more ridiculous in his entire life.
The young cop drew his gun and pointed it with a trembling hand at Clay’s chest. Finally a reaction that Clay could understand. It instantly relaxed and comforted him. Maybe he’d brought a little of Brooklyn along with him.
“Why don’t you do your job, kid?” Clay said, holding his wet and slithery stomach, surprised at the frenzy in his own voice. He thought he’d been holding up pretty good until then, considering. “There’s a killer on the loose.”
“What? Who?”
The young cop tried to keep it together but he started to gag, lips quivering, eyes damn near popping out of his head. He covered his mouth with one palm and turned his face aside, trying to keep the gun steady, but his mother must’ve fed him a greasy breakfast with lots of bacon and juice, and it all came up in roaring waves.
While the kid was barfing, Clay took three steps over, smacked him to get his attention, and took the gun away. Clay wasn’t moving too well, and he was weak as hell, but the last few days had given him a new resolve.
Hey, you did what you had to do.
“What’s your name?”
The cop wiped ropy strands off his chin and said, “Officer Yahmi.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“My father’s from Indochina. You need medical attention. You’re going to keel over any second.”
“I’ll make it long enough.”
“To do what?”
“What’s your first name?”
“Thomas.”
It stopped Clay. “Tommy?” he said. Then the laughter boiled up in him, a squealing acid that felt like it was tearing him in half, but still he couldn’t stop. “Tommy Yahmi?”
It hurt the kid’s feelings, laughing at him like that. He chewed his lower lip, trying to get tough inside, deal with everything the way he knew he should’ve been able to, but he came up short. Could bench press 350 easily but this took his breath away.