Emily's Seams

He had a goose-egg the size of a golf-ball just above his left eye. His right eye was boasting a shiner and his bottom lip was fat and purple. He was out cold.

Just then, Angus came from the bathroom. He looked at the prisoner, then saw that I was up. His face took on a hint of shame.

“Oh...Em. Sorry about this. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Oh, uh...well. Look it, there’s no reason for you to be getting involved in all this, alright? Just go on back to bed. I picked you up some tomato juice and aspirin.”

I was about to ask for what and then my head filled in the blanks. I jumped out of bed and ran for the bathroom. I couldn’t have been asleep long because my vomit was speckled with bits of maraschino cherries from the one-too-many MaiTais.

“Oh, fuck my life,” I shuddered. After I rinsed my mouth out, I filled up a cup from the tap and searched for the aspirin Angus had promised.

“It’s the sugar. That’ll get you every time.”

I just looked at him as I popped back two pills. “Like I said. Who the fuck is that?”

I don’t know if Angus thought that by reminding me I was hungover I would magically forget that there was an unconscious man bound by rope in our room. It kind of seemed like that’s exactly what he had been hoping for.

“I dropped you off last night and went looking for that Tula Bing lady you told me about.”

This memory was a wash. I decided that arguing the point wasn’t worth the pain it would cause, so I just waited it out.

“Well, I found her and then we had a good chat about Dolly and such, and she gave me some names of officers that had been at the party with Dolly. Looked up a few and this was the first asshole I found alive.” he said as he kicked the man’s foot.

“Alright. But did you find him like that? All bruised and bundled up, ready to go?”

“Oh no, ’course not. He was having dinner so I waited for him. I told him I just wanted to ask some questions, but once Dolly’s name came up he got all pissy and threatened to kick the crap out of me. Just didn’t have the energy to duke it out with him. Guess I’m not the man I used to be. Just a swift tap to the head with a tire iron instead.” There was regret in Angus’s voice.

“So then you roped him up and brought him back here?”

Angus thought this over and nodded. “Yep, that’s about what happened. And this fucker is gonna sing. Dolly’s not gonna be some piece of trash they threw out. Not anymore.”

We named him Fat Fuck. I suggested Fat Fred, but it turns out Angus used to have a dog named Fred and sharing that namesake with this guy was not an option.

Fat Fuck woke at around three in the morning. He was a little disorientated until Angus threw a bucket of ice water on him.

“Alright you sonovabitch. Where is she?”

“Look, I don’t know!” Fat Fuck’s voice was kind of whiny.

“Well ain’t that just shitty for you.” Angus sounded like a snake. The coolness of his voice made me shudder. Fat Fuck was not getting out of this one.

It took until seven-thirty in the morning before the cop was finally ready to talk. I have no idea where he’d gotten it, but Angus had a video camera set up and ready to record the cop’s confession.

“My name is Lieutenant Herb Cooper.”

Angus was looking through the man’s wallet and nodded for him to continue.

“I’ve been part of the Las Vegas police force since 1972. In 1978, we had a retirement party for Captain Micheal Reich. We hired a dancer to entertain. Things got out of hand and she got hurt.” He stopped and started sobbing.

Angus didn’t say a word. It had been made perfectly clear to Fat Fuck what was required of him.

“We dumped her body two miles outside of town.”

Angus turned off the camera and told me to pack up. We were checking out.

An hour later we were digging away at the second plot. Fat Fuck insisted that it wasn’t a deep grave and we should have found her by about three feet. Angus had set up the camera on the tripod to watch the dig site and carefully directed me on where to dig so I stayed out of the shot.

After twenty minutes on the second plot, I brought up a shovelful of dirt with something shiny in it. Blue and red sequins. I dropped my shovel, turned around and barfed.

Angus came over and patted me on the back. I could hear him moving some more dirt around and then he sighed heavily. We had both known she was dead. But like this? Dolly, all by herself, spending night after night in the lonely desert.

Angus stabbed the shovel into the dry dirt and tied a red handkerchief to the handle. “Come on. Let’s dump off this trash and be on our way.”

We left Fat Fuck bound and bruised in front of the hospital with a note regarding the whereabouts of some remains and a video. The note requested that someone watch the video before handing it over to the police.

We headed straight out of town, not having played one nickel.

I don’t remember falling asleep. I just remember waking up because the car lurched to a stop and Angus jumped out of the driver’s seat and started hacking.

I groggily got out and went around the front of the car. We were on a completely empty highway in the early evening. Angus was spitting up gobs of bloody mucous. He heaved a few times and breathed as deeply as his rotten lungs would let him.

“Get in, I’ll drive.”

Angus just shook his head. “Nah, I’m alright. Sign back there said there’s a motel coming up soon. We can stop there,” he said, motioning to the empty road behind us.

I nodded. “Alright, let’s go.”

Thankfully, the motel came up in only another twenty minutes of highway. In fact, a whole town came up but both of us were too worn out to care.

“I’ll get us a room. Be right back.”

I could see that Angus was about to protest, saying he’d get the room, but instead he just nodded and slumped back in the driver’s seat. He was so tired.

The Juniper Inn was old and smelled like it, but the room was clean. I couldn’t complain.

Angus lay down and was out in two seconds. I left him a glass of water and went out in search of a gas station to buy Mr. Puggums a can of cat food. Poor thing had been living off of hamburger scraps since we’d sent off Jude with the wind.

There was a small gas station across the street that looked open. I grabbed a couple cans of pop, or should I say soda pop, chips, a package of Ring Dings, and then I cleaned them out of tinned cat food.

The guy at the counter had a grimy baseball cap on and looked like he hadn’t seen a razor in about a week. His shirt had easily visible pit stains on it. He looked at me like I had three heads.

When I got back to the hotel, I realized why. My eyes were bloodshot, I had dirt smeared across my face, my clothes were still dusty from the digging that morning and my hair was a complete disaster. He had probably been afraid that I couldn’t pay.

Mr. Puggums ate up the canned food like a Hoover. I left him to it and showered. The water was so warm and calming. I didn’t know when the hysteria was going to hit. I’d dug up a woman that’d been dead for thirty years. We left a cop bruised and battered at a hospital with a video of his confession. Angus was real. Dolly had been real. I was not insane but everything else about my life was.

The towels felt like soft hugs. I don’t know how long I stood there, holding the fluffy towel around me. This place might have been a dump, but it had great towels.

I crawled into bed and fell asleep to the sound of Angus struggling to breath.

I woke up to the rustling of a bag of chips. It was two in the morning. Angus was getting a snack.

“Hey, sorry Em. Thanks for picking this up.” he whispered.

“Why are you whispering? I’m clearly awake now.”

The cowboy laughed and sat down. “Sure, sure. Ring Ding?”

I sat up and took one. It tasted really good on my sawdust dry mouth.

He turned the night-table light on and flicked the television to life. Sleepless in Seattle was playing. I didn’t ask him to change it and he didn’t bother. We watched the whole thing except for the first fifteen minutes. By the end, we’d downed both cans of pop and one and a half bags of chips. Mr. Puggums was on his second tin of food.

“That movie...” Angus started.

“What?” I said.

“Ah nothing. Must have been to Seattle or something.”

“Nice city.” I wasn’t sure if I should ask the question that was worming its way through my mind. Mostly because I wasn’t sure I would like the answer. “Angus, do you think the cops will come after us?”

Angus shrugged. “They might. Can’t see what good it’d do them. Tula’s got a copy of the tape and she’s going to show it to her niece or something or other. Says that this kid’s into journalism or something. Besides, we’re in Idaho now.”

I sat up a little straighter. “Really? Where?”

“Twin Falls.”

I couldn’t believe that I had no idea where I was. This was the first time I’d thought about it. “Wait, I thought you left the tape with him.”

Angus shook his head. “I made the bastard say his confession a few times. The official one with the dig site and all got mailed to Tula while you were rinsing your mouth out. I don’t trust anyone else with it.”

I nodded. “That was pretty fucked up.”

“Yeah, sure was. Can’t believe it took that long for someone to find her.”

I knew Dolly wasn’t waiting on anybody, but it was still good to know that this time at least one villain got a right good kick in the ass.

I woke up again at six to the sound of Angus hacking away in the bathroom. The people in the next room banged on the wall and yelled at us to shut up. I just yelled back, telling them to go fuck someone and to come over if they wanted a foot up their ass. I can’t insult anyone worth shit at six in the morning, but they did stop banging.

I knocked on the bathroom door and gently pushed it open. Angus was leaning over the sink. It was covered with bright red splotches.

“I’m done Em,” he gasped. “But I know where I need to get to.”

“Where?”

“God love him, Tom Hanks and that blond girlie. I need to get to Seattle.”