“Where’s the car?” Desie asked with a cough.
Palmer’s arms flopped at his sides. He began squeaking like a lost kitten.
“Don’t tell me.” She struggled not to gag on the stink. “Dammit, Palmer. My Beemer!”
Haltingly he began to circle the rancid dune. He raised an arm, pointing in outraged stupefaction. A cloud of flies buzzed about his face, but he made no effort to shoo them away.
“Goddammit,” Desie cried. “Didn’t I tell you to put the top up? Didn’t I?”
3
Twilly made it back to the Italian restaurant in time for the show. Under the amused supervision of several police officers, a detachment of workers with rakes and shovels had begun the unsavory task of digging out the BMW. This Twilly watched through field glasses from high in a nearby pine tree. There was no sign of the press, which was a shame—here was a story made for TV. Over the rhythmic crunch of digging, Litterbug’s voice could be heard admonishing the sanitation workers to be careful, goddamn you, don’t scratch the paint! Twilly found it comical, considering the likely extent of the Beemer’s contamination. He imagined virgin leather upholstery ripening under an ambrosial lode of orange rinds, cottage cheese, Heineken bottles, coffee grounds, eggshells, crumpled wads of Kleenex, potato skins, sanitary napkins, pizza crust, fish heads, spare ribs, leaky toothpaste tubes, bacon grease, coagulated gravy, cat litter and chicken necks. Twilly wished he could infiltrate the cleanup crew, to see the ghastly sight up close.
Litterbug’s wife/girlfriend could be observed pacing, arms folded, beneath a flickering streetlight. Twilly couldn’t make out her expression, but the clip in her step suggested impatience. He wondered if she truly cared about the BMW; in any event, the insurance company would buy her a new one. Twilly also thought about the sanitation workers, being called out so late on such a strange job. He had a feeling they might be enjoying themselves, exhuming a fancy red sports car from a heap of refuse, but still he hoped they were getting overtime.
It was quite an extensive operation, and Twilly wondered why he wasn’t feeling a commensurate sense of satisfaction. The answer came with a sour jolt as he studied the litterbug through the binoculars; watched the man unwrap a piece of candy—probably an after-dinner mint from the restaurant—then crumple the wrapper and drop it nonchalantly to the ground. The dumb fuckwad didn’t get it! Didn’t make the link between his piggish misbehavior on the turnpike and the malicious defilement of his automobile. He probably figured it was the random mischief of vandals; a prank.
I should’ve left a message, Twilly thought glumly. I should’ve made it crystal clear. He muttered a curse and climbed cautiously through the darkness down the trunk of the tree. By the time he reached the parking lot, the excavation of the car was complete. Litterbug and his wife/girlfriend could be seen leaving in a taxi. The soiled BMW was being hooked to a tow truck, whose burly driver wore a baby blue hospital mask and joked with the sanitation crew, which was shoveling the last dregs into a Dumpster.
Twilly asked one of the cops what had happened to the red convertible.
“Somebody emptied a garbage truck on it,” the officer reported with a harsh chuckle.
“Jesus,” said Twilly. “Why?”
“Who the fuck knows. It’s the sick society we live in.”
Twilly said: “I saw all these police cars, I was afraid there was a murder.”
“Naw, just some big shot left his ragtop down in the wrong neighborhood.”
“He famous or something?”
“I never heard of him before tonight,” said the cop, “but obviously he’s got some juice. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, I’d be home in my underwear watching basketball. Stand back now.”
The tow truck driver was maneuvering out of the parking lot, the cop waving directions. Twilly knew better than to press for the litterbug’s name; he didn’t need it anyway. He approached one of the sanitation workers and asked if the Beemer was totaled.
“Yeah, and it ain’t right. A sweet car like this.”
Twilly said, “Completely ruined, huh?”
“You can’t never get the interior clean, not after somethin’ such as this. We’re talkin’ about a minimum—I’m guessin’ now—four tons of raw garbage.” The man stopped working and rested his weight on the stem of the shovel. “I mean, hell, an expensive car like that—why trash it when you can just steal the damn thing? Any fool leaves the convertible top down deserves to lose his wheels. But this? This is evil shit, you ask me. Taking this much trouble to destroy a perfectly splendid vehicle. Deeply evil shit.”