Little by little he got control of himself again.
He seized the wino’s legs and dragged him across to the edge of the hole. He dropped them, skidded sweat from his forehead with the heel of his left hand, and stood absolutely still for a moment, thinking harder than he ever had in his life.
Then he seized the spade and began to deepen the hole. When it was five feet deep, he got out and shoved the derelict’s body in with his foot Todd stood at the edge of the grave, looking down. Tattered bluejeans. Filthy, scab-encrusted hands. It was a stewbum, all right The irony was almost funny. So funny a person could scream with laughter.
He ran back upstairs.
‘How are you?’ he asked Dussander.
‘Ill be all right Have you taken care of it?’
‘I’m doing it, okay?’
‘Be quick. There’s still up here.’
‘I’d like to find some pigs and feed you to them,’ Todd said, and went back down the cellar before Dussander could reply.
He had almost completely covered the wino when he began to think there was something wrong. He stared into the grave, grasping the spade’s handle with one hand. The wino’s legs stuck partway out of the mound of dirt, as did the tips of his feet — one old shoe, possibly a Hush Puppy, and one filthy athletic sock that might actually have been white around the time that Taft was President.
One Hush Puppy? One?
Todd half-ran back around the furnace to the foot of the stairs. He glanced around wildly. A headache was beginning to thud against his temples, dull drillbits trying to work their way out. He spotted the old shoe five feet away, overturned in the shadow of some abandoned shelving. Todd grabbed it, ran back to the grave with it, and threw it in. Then he started to shovel again. He covered the shoe, the legs, everything.
When all the dirt was back in the hole, he slammed the spade down repeatedly to tamp it Then he grabbed the rake and ran it back and forth, trying to disguise the fact the earth here had been recently turned. Not much use; without good camouflage, a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in always looks like a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in. Still, no one would have any occasion to come down here, would they? He and Dussander would damn well have to hope not.
Todd ran back upstairs. He was starting to pant.
Dussander’s elbows had spread wide and his head had sagged down to the table. His eyes were closed, the lids a shiny purple — the colour of asters..
‘Dussander!’ Todd shouted. There was a hot, juicy taste in his mouth — the taste of fear mixed with adrenalin and pulsing hot blood. ‘Don’t you dare die on me, you old fuck!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Dussander said without opening ins eyes. ‘You’ll have everyone on the block over here.’
‘Where’s your cleaner? Lestoil… Top Job… something like that. And rags. I need rags.’
‘All that is under the sink.’
A lot of the blood had now dried on. Dussander raised his head and watched as Todd crawled across the floor, scrubbing first at the puddle on the linoleum and then at the drips that had straggled down the legs of the chair the wino had been sitting in. The boy was biting compulsively at his lips, champing at them, almost, like a horse at a bit. At last the job was finished. The astringent smell of cleaner filled the room.
‘There is a box of old rags under the stairs,’ Dussander said. ‘Put those bloody ones on the bottom. Don’t forget to wash your hands.’
‘I don’t need your advice. You got me into this.’
‘Did I? I must say you took hold well.’ For a moment the old mockery was in Dussander’s voice, and then a bitter grimace pulled his face into a new shape. ‘Hurry.’
Todd took care of the rags, then hurried up the cellar stairs for the last time. He looked nervously down the stairs for a moment, then snapped off the light and closed the door. He went to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and washed in the hottest water he could stand. He plunged his hands into the suds… and came up holding the butcher knife Dussander had used.