Small Apartments (5 page)

Franklin froze. He listened. He waited. He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears. Nothing happened.

Franklin knew that if Mr. Allspice were to materialize from behind his apartment door, the jig most definitely would be up. He worked the outside door around Mr. Olivetti’s stiff elbow and pulled him onto the porch. Franklin, hands on knees, was panting. Five stone steps and twenty feet of sidewalk separated Mr. Olivetti and the trunk of Franklin’s Pontiac T1000. Franklin could not recall when he had been so winded. Good golly, thought Franklin, I’m having a hell of a time moving this fat bastard.

From the sidewalk behind him Franklin heard the jingle of a dog’s collar. He could not bear to turn around but he looked anyhow. Across the street was a young man he did not recognize wearing a leather jacket with chains jangling around the shoulders, walking his Rottweiler. The dog walker was looking right at him but Franklin had no idea what he was able to see. He and Franklin locked eyes for an instant. Franklin nodded like a good neighbour. The dog, sniffing the ground and pulling the leash, tugged the dog walker forward a few steps. He turned the corner and headed north up Dewitt.

Thank god nobody in this city gives a good goddamn what you’re up to anymore, he thought. Hey buddy, I have my dead landlord here wrapped in blankets. Want to have a looky-loo?

The dog walker gave Franklin a powerful surge of adrenaline. He pulled the body to the edge of the porch and let Mr. Olivetti’s feet dangle over the first stone step. Franklin grabbed the red Radio Flyer wagon and placed it at the base of the steps. He pulled Mr. Olivetti by the feet down the steps (bumpitybump) and hoisted him face up onto the wagon. Franklin went around to the front of the wagon and began to pull it towards the street by the handle. The hard, plastic wheels ground against the cement and created an awful racket. (This was a bad idea. Bad idea.) Franklin started running backwards, pulling the wagon with both hands clenched firmly around the handle. Suddenly he heard the creak of flimsy metal and the arm and handle of the wagon snapped off in his hands.

Franklin let out a girlish shriek and whipped the broken handle into the neighbour’s shrubs.

He dashed to the rear of the wagon, grabbed two fistfuls of Mr. Olivetti’s flabby thighs, and started to run on the balls of his feet towards the Pontiac’s open trunk. The hard plastic tires roared against the pavement. The end of the sidewalk was not flush and the front tires slammed against the lip, sending Mr. Olivetti sailing ass over teakettle. Franklin found himself snarled in the green army blanket and shrieked again as he spun 360 degrees to see if anyone was witness to this morbid burlesque.

Mr. Olivetti was on his back, smiling. Franklin squatted beside him (keep your back straight, lift with your legs) and slowly lifted Mr. Olivetti like a wounded dog.

“Oof,” groaned Franklin as he rose to his feet. He waddled over the curb and deposited the body into the trunk, nearly falling in with it.

Franklin slammed the trunk shut and the porch light popped on. He wheeled around in terror to see Mr. Allspice standing inside the breezeway in his blue-striped flannel pyjamas. Mr. Allspice stepped out onto the porch.

“Why was the porch light off?”

“Um (pant), I (pant), uh (pant),” Franklin struggled to catch his breath. His clothes were soaked in sweat. “I think it’s busted.”

“It’s not busted, you fool,” said Mr. Allspice. “All I did was turn it on.”

“Oh. Good job then,” said Franklin. “I think you fixed it.”

Mr. Allspice moved another stride closer to the stone steps.

“What is all the commotion out here?” asked Mr. Allspice.

“I’m packing.”

“Packing?” said Mr. Allspice. “At this hour? Are you leaving on a trip?”

“I’m moving,” said Franklin. “I’m moving to, um … Switzerland.”

“Oh, well that is good news,” said Mr. Allspice. “Let the Swiss deal with you and your ridiculous horn. Good riddance, I say. If I weren’t so old, I would help you pack. Maybe this time Mr. Olivetti can bring in a suitable tenant.” Mr. Allspice turned and walked back through the breezeway. “I’m sure you’ll love their chocolates, you fat twit. Keep this light on!” The inside door slammed shut.

Hot dog, thought Franklin. The goomba is in the trunk. Speaking of hot dogs, I haven’t eaten all day. He looked at his watch, two minutes ‘til ten.

THE DRIVE DOWN
to Lackawanna was not as treacherous as Franklin had feared. There were only a few turns after he turned off Rte. 5 and there was barely another car on the road. He remembered the turn-off from the main drag and started down a gloomy, meandering country road. He drove for about five miles and began to look for a white picket fence on the right-hand side. After the fence it was two, maybe three mailboxes. Franklin remembered Mr. Olivetti’s mailbox had a red reflector screwed to it. Despite the bright moon, the road was black and seemed to pitch into a 45-degree turn every hundred yards. Twice Franklin shrieked as deer materialized on the side of the road, their eyes shimmering in the headlights like tiny mirrors. Mr. Olivetti was beginning to get a little ripe in the back. The Pontiac T1000 was a fine machine, but it was also a hatchback. So even though technically the dead body was in the trunk, only the back seat separated Franklin’s olfactory system from Mr. Olivetti’s carcass. Franklin turned on the interior light and looked at his watch, 10:24. Mr. Olivetti had been dead for almost eleven hours. He rolled down the window.

Franklin recognized the white picket fence and turned down the radio. He wondered why people always do that, turn down the radio as they near their destination.

Three mailboxes later he spied the red reflector and turned right onto the long gravel driveway. He did not think it was possible, but the driveway was darker and gloomier than the road. All these damn trees, he thought. The headlights rolled across Mr. Olivetti’s white clapboard house as Franklin followed the driveway back to the barn. He executed a perfect three-point turn, backed the car up to the barn door and killed the engine. Franklin extricated himself from the Pontiac and stepped out onto the gravel driveway. The tiny stones crunched under his rubber sandals. The crickets sounded like they were ten feet tall and closing in on him. The woods were alive with a thousand pairs of eyes. He popped the trunk, looked down at Mr. Olivetti’s twisted corpse and was struck in sharp clarity with the criminal thing he was about to do. He turned away from the trunk and vomited his Moxie cola onto the driveway. There wasn’t much to it since he had not eaten all day, mostly foam. He smoothed gravel over it and stamped it down with his sandal. Franklin walked around in a little circle trying to get his bearings.

“Okey dokey,” he said. “How do you want to die the second time, Albert? How about death by … cigarette? It’s a hell of a lot more dignified than the way you died this morning.”

He opened the barn door, pulled a rubber ball dangling from a string in the workshop and a bulb popped on. Franklin pulled the blankets off Mr. Olivetti and lifted him out of the trunk. He laid him on the blue blanket, dragged him into the barn and propped him up against the worktable.

“I’ll be right back,” said Franklin. “Don’t you go anywhere.”

Franklin used Mr. Olivetti’s keys to get in through the back door. He stepped into the kitchen and immediately recognized the lingering stench of Parmesan cheese. He ripped off a paper towel from above the sink and used it to start pulling open drawers, looking for a box of kitchen matches.

He threw open several cupboards and found a half carton of Salems. Franklin removed a pack and put it in the pocket of his
T
-shirt. No matches in the kitchen, so Franklin walked into the living room. There were dozens of framed photographs nailed to the brown paneling. In a homemade wooden rack above the television Mr. Olivetti had a collection of two dozen chrome Zippo lighters. The lighters had all sorts of designs and phrases painted on them: a colourful, bald eagle, an American flag, the
Playboy
bunny logo, the insignia of the U.S. Navy. Franklin selected one that had the Chevy symbol painted on it.

He put the lighter in his shirt pocket and used the paper towel to rearrange the others so it did not look like one was missing.

He wanted to poke around the house a bit more. He knew this would be his only opportunity. Part of it was curiosity, but it was also an unfamiliar sense of power. He knew that at that moment he could take anything he wanted from Mr. Olivetti’s house.

On top of the television set were several photographs. Mr. and Mrs. Olivetti’s black and white wedding portrait was the largest. The pose showed them from the chest up, smiling at some far-off point of interest. There were also colour photos of Mr. Olivetti’s daughter with her husband and two daughters.

Franklin stared into the eyes of Mr. Olivetti’s daughter. He focused on the red dots inside her pupils as she smiled over her shoulder in front of a Christmas tree.

“Your father was a bad man,” said Franklin. “He was worse than you’ll ever know. I’m sorry I killed him, but I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

Franklin checked the time: 10:54. No time for this, he thought. I have to get this show on the road.

FRANKLIN PULLED DOWN
a can of turpentine from Mr. Olivetti’s supply shelf. He read the side of the can,
WARNING: FLAMMABLE
. Let’s hope so, he thought. He soaked a rag in the turpentine, rubbed it onto Mr. Olivetti’s shirtsleeves, then poured some onto the worktable. The liquid flowed quickly across the table, spilling off onto an oilcloth draping a bale of hay Mr. Olivetti used as a chair. Franklin shook the remaining contents of the can onto the walls like a bishop distributing holy water.

He dropped the rag on the table in front of the body. For good measure, he placed a hammer in Mr. Olivetti’s cold, right hand.

“Whatcha working on, Albert?” asked Franklin. “Don’t forget that you have to fix the drip on that pothead Tommy Balls’ kitchen sink. You’ll need a plumber’s wrench for that Al, not a hammer.”

Franklin lit a cigarette with the Zippo, touched it to Mr. Olivetti’s lips, then dropped it onto the rag. The cloth ignited instantly. The flames simultaneously advanced up Mr. Olivetti’s shirtsleeves and rolled across the worktable. The fire leapt onto the oilcloth and began to incinerate the hay bale. Franklin trundled over and held the Zippo’s blue flame to the wall until a fire fluttered to life and orange and yellow waves danced seductively atop the plywood.

In seconds the fire had begun to consume the body. Mr. Olivetti’s smiling face grew darker behind an orange veil of fire.

Good golly. This is the real thing, thought Franklin.

The smell of burning flesh was almost too much for him to bear, but he forced himself to watch long enough to be sure the fire was raging. He wiped the Zippo clean with his
T
-shirt and dropped it in the dirt at Mr. Olivetti’s feet.

By the time he reached the end of the gravel driveway the fire had spread to the barn’s supports and crossbeams. By the time he reached the Lackawanna town line, the structure was totally engulfed in flames and fire departments from three towns were on their way to the scene.

L
ACKAWANNA FIRE INVESTIGATOR
Burt Walnut was asleep next to his wife, June, when the phone rang. It was a quarter to midnight and the voice on the other end of the telephone was Lackawanna Fire Chief Billy Browski.

“How’s about it, Burt? I’m sorry if I woke ya. We got a crispy critter here at a barn fire off Old Post Road. Italian fella named Olivetti. You know him?”

“Nope. Can’t say as I do.”

“Uh huh.” Billy was calling on his cellular phone from the scene and his voice was drifting in and out. “Looks a little fishy here, Burt. We got the fire out, but you’re gonna wanna look at the scene tonight before the boys get to clearing this shit and debris.”

“Uh huh,” said Burt Walnut.

“What’s that you said, Burt? This goddamn cellular phone.”

“What’s the number out there?” asked Burt.

“It’s 340 Old Post,” said Billy. “You won’t be able to miss it.

We got pumpers from three districts out here, though I imagine they’ll be gone before you can get here.”

“I’ll be along. Don’t touch nothing you don’t have to,” said Burt.

“How about my pecker?”

“I don’t suppose anybody can stop you from touching that, Billy. It’s a wonder you ain’t blind.”

“Ha, ha. All right Burt. Tell June I’m sorry if I woke ya’s. We’ll be seeing ya shortly.”

June rolled towards Burt with her eyes still closed tight. She had the calm disposition of a veteran fireman’s wife. She knew a call in the middle of the night was more likely work than tragedy, although Burt’s job was a marriage of the two.

“What is it?” asked June into her pillow.

“Barn fire off Old Post Road. You know any Olivettis?”

“I know a Mandretti,” said June.

“Nope. This one here is Olivetti and he’s dead.”