New Orleans Noir

back down at Chad’s staring eyes, and noticed the congealing blood again. “Oh my fucking God, Phillip! How long has he been dead?”
    He bit his lips. “Um, I didn’t know what to do. I freaked!”
    “How long has he been dead?” I gritted my teeth.
    “Maybe about an hour.” He shrugged. “Or two.”
    My legs buckled and I had to grab the edge of the table to keep from falling to the floor next to Chad. We couldn’t call the cops. It had been too long. I could hear the homicide detective now, see the look on his face: And why did you wait so long to call us? Why didn’t you call 911? It looked bad. What if Chad hadn’t died instantly? What if they could have saved him? What if he’d bled to death?
    And once the history of physical abuse came to light—and there were any number of Phillip’s friends who’d only be too glad to tell the cops all about it, not realizing that they’d be sealing Phillip’s indictment, thinking they were helping by making Chad look bad, like he deserved killing.
    Phillip was going to jail.
    Jesus FUCKING Christ.
    I was going to have to help him.
    “What are we going to do?” he asked, his voice hinting at rising hysteria once again. “I’m telling you, Tony, we can’t call the police! I can’t go to jail, I can’t.” He suddenly burst into tears, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking.
    “Well, the first thing is, you need to calm the fuck down,” I snapped. My head was starting to ache. I definitely didn’t need this shit. I was on deadline—I couldn’t exactly call my editor and say, Sorry, I need a few more days, I had to help my tenant dispose of a dead body and come up with a story for the cops. I raced through possibilities in my mind; places to dispose of the body where it might not be found for a while. Almost every single one of them was flawed. Seriously flawed—though an idea was starting to form in my head. “Is Chad’s car here?”
    Phillip wiped at his nose. “Uh-huh.”
    “Well, we’re going to have to get rid of that, too.” I refrained from adding dumbass , like I really wanted to. But there was no sense in getting him all worked up again, since he seemed to finally be calming down. And if we were going to do this—and, more importantly, get away with it—I needed him calm. “Give me a cigarette.” I’d managed to finally quit a few months earlier, but I needed one now. Get ahold of yourself, look at this as an intellectual puzzle, shut off your emotions. I lit the Parliament and sucked in the bitter smoke. I took a few deep breaths and decided to try one last time.
    “Phillip, we really should call the cops. I mean, if this was self-defense—”
    “What do you mean, if it was?” Phillip’s brown eyes narrowed. He pointed to his cheek, which was purple. “He slugged me again, Tony. He threw me against the wall—I can’t believe you didn’t hear him screaming at me.”
    I hadn’t, though—no shouting, no crashing, no struggle. Sure, I had the headphones on, but—no, it was probably self-defense, there was no reason to doubt Phillip. Chad was an egotistical bully with no problem using his fists whenever he decided Phillip had looked at him cross-eyed. I looked down at the pale face, the sticky pool of blood under his curly brown hair. His eyes were open, staring glassily at the ceiling. He was wearing his standard uniform of Abercrombie & Fitch sleeveless T-shirt and low-rise jeans, no socks, and boat shoes.
    “What exactly happened here, anyway?” None of this made any sense. But then, death rarely does.
    “I don’t know, it all happened so fast.” Phillip’s voice shook. “Chad called and wanted to come over. I said okay, even though I was kind of tired. So I started making spaghetti. He came in the back way—” he gestured to the door I’d come through, “and he just started in on me. The same old bullshit, me cheating on him, me not being good enough for him, all of that horrible crap.” He hugged himself and shivered. “Then he got up and shoved me into the wall and punched me—” he touched his cheek again, “and was about to punch me again when I shoved him really hard, and he fell back and hit his head on the edge of the counter … Then he just kind of gurgled and dropped to the floor.” He gagged, took some breaths, and got control of himself again. “Then I called you.”
    Two hours later—what did you do for two hours? “Well, good enough for him,” I finally said,