Inherit the Dead

apartment building. Then you slide into the rental car and eat the Oreos one by one, splitting them open and licking the cream with the tip of your tongue, the whole time staring up at the PI’s fifth floor, waiting.

10
JAMES GRADY
    A nother trek out to the Hamptons. It was almost three when Perry finally pulled into the garage. He needed to see and hear what Randy had to say about Angel’s car. Thought if he was smart, he’d have ol’ Randy check out his Datsun, too, all the miles he was putting on it with this case.
    “You don’t belong here.”
    The woman behind the counter who snarled those words at Perry as he entered the office of Gil’s Gas & Auto wore too much makeup that did too little to cover the hard miles that had plunked her here in this Long Island garage. Her twentieth high school reunion had come and gone, but local gossips often noted she was “still” pretty. Her perfume, white blouse, and dark slacks cost more than necessary for working this auto shop’s computer, credit card reader, cash register, and customer counter. She kept coffin eyes on Perry, shook a cigarette out of the pack on her desk, flicked a blue flame from a lighter.
    Swirling cigarette smoke carried Perry’s eyes to the gas station wall, hung with five framed photos faded by sunlight and weighted by dust. He hadn’t noticed them last time, but now he took them in.
    Perry saw the five photos were all of the same man as he aged through life, from a high school football player to a soldier in twophotos of American soldiers in desert camo fatigues. Soldiers in one photo held a banner: LONG ISLAND NATIONAL GUARD MECH. DIV. ZULU—OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM . The fourth photo showed the same man, but older and looking lost. The fifth photo showed him even older and standing beside the thirtysomething ghost of the woman smoking at the desk. The ghost clutched a bouquet, wore a workday dress and the brave smile of some last best hope.
    Perry nodded to the photos. “So that’s Gil.”
    “Like you care,” said the woman. “I got told what you look like. You’re not supposed to be here.”
    Perry shrugged. “Free country.”
    “Since when.”
    “I’m here to see Randy.”
    “He doesn’t want to see you again.” She sucked on the cigarette. Made its ember burn traffic-light orange. “He told me. You got nothing for him. Nothing on him.”
    “It’s heartening to see a boss who cares so much about her employees.”
    She billowed a cloud of smoke toward Perry. “I’m not the boss.”
    Perry nodded. “Sure.”
    Left her with her smoldering cancer stick and walked into the garage bay.
    “Randy!” she yelled past him. “If you need me, I’m here! I’m here!”
    Perry found Angel’s ex- whatever Randy standing beside a car lift that held a luxury sedan suspended above their heads.
    A gray work shirt hid Randy Hyde’s tattoos, but not the bulge of his muscles. His empty hands flexed with the ambition of fists.
    Perry stopped beside an overturned fuel drum covered with tools.
    Randy said: “We’re done talking.”
    “We’re done with your bullshit, but we’re not done with talking about Angel.”
    Randy drew his lips back over his teeth. “So, guess you’re just another hotshot wannabe hooked by that blond cunt.”
    That brutally degrading term keyed Perry’s cop savvy of how much multilayered malice could trigger the word. Beyond that alarm, he felt as if an affront had splattered him or someone he loved—someone not like his ex-wife and certainly not like his daughter but . . . He felt himself shimmer from smart to street .
    Perry said: “So, if that’s what she is, guess now you’re just a worthless dick.”
    The mechanic lunged like a barroom brawler.
    Perry grabbed a two-foot steel pry bar from the oil barrel’s pile of tools and police-baton rammed it into his attacker’s guts.
    Randy gasped, shoved Perry under the suspended vehicle. Randy stumbled with him, wrestling for the steel bar. A twist of Randy’s hands flung it from their grasp.
    The steel pry bar clanged off the lift control wand hung on a wall hook, hit the wand’s green button marked Lower.
    A black steel cloud sank toward the two fighting men.
    Perry fired his fist into the mechanic’s ribs. Randy’s head bumped the transmission shaft of the car sliding down from heaven. Perry dodged a knee strike, pulled Randy into the police academy’s ogoshi hip throw. Randy’s legs swept up off the oil-stained concrete but hit the