The Sound of Broken Ribs(22)

Fat Tom had asked to stay behind at the house, or, as he’d put it, to “man the fort.” Tony hadn’t argued with him, had only shaken his head as he’d angrily dragged the bed out the back door.

Before leaving the bedroom, Tony had cut a slit in the mattress with his pocket knife and jammed his bloody baseball bat in between the springs and padding. He said it would burn like everything else, and Belinda had no reason to believe it wouldn’t. She also didn’t blame him for not wanting to have to carry the bat as they wrestled with the queen-sized mattress.

Going was hard, and it didn’t help that Belinda had no idea how far they’d have to go to appease Tony’s apparent paranoia. She was also concerned that burning Paul and the mattress in the woods would cause a forest fire. It wasn’t until they reached a clearing the size of a soccer field that Belinda understood Tony’s plan.

The old derelict cabin in the center of the field was a testament to early settlers’ architectural prowess. For a building made of timber and mud and moss to have lasted centuries boggled the mind. It was also a tragedy, seeing as how Tony wanted to burn the structure to the ground.

“He’ll look like he was squatting, and this fell over.” Tony pulled a candle from his front right pocket. It was broken in the middle, but the wick held it together. Belinda hadn’t seen Tony put the candle in his pocket, but she hadn’t been paying that much attention to his every move, either. “We’ll stack some kindling and twigs and pine straw and whatnot around the candle, light it, and hang around to make sure it burns. Can’t use an accelerant. Them CSI guys and gals can detect that shit.”

“You ain’t got a lantern?” Frank asked.

Tony stared at the man with a perplexed look on his face. It took Belinda a moment to realize that this was what his brother looked like when he was thinking.

“Fuck, yeah, I do,” Tony said, grinning. “Good one, Frank. We can make it look like the lantern fell over and spilled kerosene all over the fucking place. Good idea, brother.”

Frank smiled, obviously pleased with himself.

“I’ll run back and get it. Don’t nobody move. Be back.”

Tony jogged off into the tree line, leaving Belinda with Carl and Frank.

“Why didn’t he just send me?” asked Frank.

“Probably because he didn’t want to have to explain to you where it was. Nothing personal, I’m sure.” Carl clapped the other man on the shoulder.

The Paul burrito lay between Belinda and the two men, and the bloody mattress lay off to the side. Belinda said, “Think we should drag this… this stuff inside? Set everything up so that we can go ahead and burn this down as soon as Tony gets back?”

“Good idea,” said Carl. He bent and grabbed the Paul burrito and dragged the wrapped body into the cabin, which had no porch to speak of, only dirt and grass leading right up to the front door.

“Help me?” Frank asked as he grabbed one corner of the mattress. Belinda obliged. Together they lifted and carried the mattress inside.

The ammonia smell of old urine inside the cabin was overwhelming to the point that it reduced Belinda to tears and sent Frank outside in the throes of a coughing fit.

Carl didn’t seem to mind.

“You don’t smell that?” Belinda asked the giant of a man.

Carl made a sound akin to a dog snoring. “Allergies. Sometimes they’re a pain in the ass. Times like this, I thank God I got ‘em.”

“I don’t blame you. Smells like a rest stop bathroom squared in here.”

Carl grimaced. “Yuck.”

A moment or so passed in silence before Carl said, “Paul ain’t the first man your brother’s killed.”

Belinda didn’t respond. Didn’t know how to. She just stared.

“He, uh, he killed four men. At least that I know of.”

Belinda recalled Carl’s reaction to finding Paul with his face bashed in.

“Not Paul,” Carl groaned. “Goddamn it, man.”

Belinda had assumed that Carl couldn’t believe that Paul had raped her. Now his words made a different kind of sense.

“Who?” was all Belinda said.

“Some guy we was fucking with at the gay club over in Chestnut was the first one. Pretty boy. Damn, but he was pretty. Thought he was gonna steal Frank. I threw some words at the asshole, told him to leave my man alone—we’re gay, by the way. Me and Frank. Not sure if—”

“I knew. Saw you guys sleeping together last night. Cute.”

Carl smiled. Smiling made the giant handsome. “Not many can believe that a big ol’ dude like me likes dudes, but it is what it is. I get grief from people who don’t know me, and I don’t tell those who don’t suspect. Shit’s my business. Well, mine and Frank’s. Anyfuck, I didn’t like this guy who was talking to Frank. Didn’t like the way he was talking to my man, calling him baby and whatnot, so I told him to come outside with me. He looked me up and down and said, ‘No way!’, so I grabbed him by his dick through his pants and carried him outside.

“I shoved him around for a while, but he wouldn’t fight back. I’m a stubborn asshole, so I kept right on shoving until he was back up against the wall by the dumpster ‘round the side of the building?” His voice raised at the end as if this last part was a question. Belinda nodded to keep him talking. “Yeah, well, I was about ready to slug him, teach him a lesson about talking to another guy’s man, but then Tony come out of nowhere and stabbed him in the neck with this long piece of wood. Looked like a two-by-two that’d been snapped in two. One side was all jagged like, and Tony, he stabbed the guy with that end. We vamoosed after that. Don’t guess there was any cameras ‘round the side of that bar. Don’t guess a bar like that one had much use for cameras, given the swing of their clientele—know what I mean?”