Under Angels: Chapter D

February 12, 2009

Under Angels
by Jace D. Albao (b. 1969)

Deaf? Far from it. I can hear everything Pete hears, I can feel everything he feels. I know everything he’s thinking, even when I’m not there. It’s one of the secret skills we dogs have. Our labor of love.

Pete got up from the couch and walked to the front door. Like a careful electrician handling loose wires, he hesitated as the knocks continued in a relentless encore.

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK–

“Who is it?”

“Sent by Rip Greamer,” a deep voice declared from the porch. A mashed up southern drawl.

“Greamer?”

Pete turned the knob and swung the door open. A man stepped through the doorway, lumbering past Pete and into the living room toward me. I hadn’t seen him since the night I was born. The man who took my mother.

“Shadow,” he said in a friendly growl, crouching down to the floor. “How ya doin’, Lucky Thirteen? I knew you’d be a big one, brother.”

“What is this?” Pete said. Spooked.

The man scratched his unclipped fingers on my upturned belly. “That’s good,” he said. “Kick that leg, dog. You like that, don’tcha?”

Do you have to ask?

Pete stood over us, nudging the man’s hand away from me with his combat boot. For the first time in my life, Pete felt like I was out of his control.

“Little soldier?” Pete asked, stupefied. “What’s the–”

The man wore scrubs from the waist down and an old knit poncho with the sleeves cut off, revealing a dirty cast on his left wrist and a mermaid tattoo on his defined right arm. He smelled like sweet smoke. I lied on my back as he got to his feet and held out his leathery hand.

“Name’s Mick, brother.”

Standing a foot taller than Pete and outweighing him by a hundred pounds of solid muscle, Mick looked about ten years past his prime. He exuded a youthful spirit with a hard wisdom lurking behind bloodshot eyes.

Pete kept his hands deep in the pockets of his shredded cut-off fatigues. “How do you know Greamer?”

Pete had never met another person who knew Rip Greamer, nor had he ever talked of his meetings with the slimy businessman. The fact that Mick knew Greamer’s name made Pete nervous.

“I’m just a subcontractor, brother,” Mick said. “Extra work.”

“Any friend of Rip Greamer is no friend of mine.”

Mick laughed. Despite his dominating physical presence, he had a playful, almost childlike smile, riddled with missing teeth and fillings.

“Rip ain’t no friend, brother. He done me wrong since jumpstreet. Always sticking me with the dirty jobs.”

“Then why do you work for him?”

“He owes me,” explained Mick. “Can’t quit without getting paid, you know? Matter of fact, son of a bitch already stiffed me two-hundred-thirty-three times. Two-hundred-thirty-three times, brother.”

Pete bit his lip, his unblinking eyes searing through the debris on the floor, calculating. “What exactly do you do for Greamer?”

“This, that, and the other thing, you know? It’s all numbers with Rip.”

And letters.

“As long as he make quota, it’s all good,” Mick continued. “I just hump hump hump ’til sunrise. Then I do it all over again.”

“Sunrise?”

“Sunrise when they gotta be in,” Mick said. “Just got one stop today.”

Pete walked to the front window. Pulling the curtains aside a few inches, he peered outside, looking for others.

“One stop,” Pete said. “You mean for Greamer. You alone?”

Mick smiled. “Always alone.”

“And I’m your stop,” Pete said. “Greamer sent you to close our deal.”

“Deal?”

“That’s what he called it,” Pete said. “But he left out the raw part.”

“I don’t know about no deal. I’m just the delivery man, brother. Here to pick up the soul.”

Pete walked from the window. Thinking quietly for a long moment, he looked around the room, taking a visual inventory of his tacked notes, his memories, his thoughts. Recapping years of research in an instant.

Greamer changed his mind. Pete looked relieved. The game ends here. I don’t have to go into the tunnels. He’s sent for me.

Pete looked like a prisoner that’s been told he can leave before his last meal. He took a deep breath, slapping his palms together.

“Get up, little soldier,” Pete said to me. “Hell just froze over early. Looks like we’re out of here.”

Mick shook his head. He took a knee beside me, his fingers softly grabbing the furry flesh behind my ears. He looked up at Pete.

“Sorry, brother,” Mick said, standing up. “Damn. I don’t think you understand.”

Pete grabbed my leash from the hook near the door and stood in front of Mick. He looked like David with a sling trying to pick a fight with Goliath.

“My dog goes where I go,” Pete said. “He was there when this all started, he’ll be there when I finish it.”

Mick shrugged. An apologetic smile.

“You don’t understand, brother. I ain’t here for you.”

The words hit Pete like a sledgehammer to the groin. He didn’t need an explanation, but Mick explained anyway.

“I’m here to pick up Shadow.”