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It takes the better part of an hour and a half to haul the heavy bags down into the basement, to mix the cement in the plastic tub, to shovel the concrete into place, and then to smooth it out using one of my dad’s old trowels. When it’s all done, I wipe the sweat from my brow and gaze upon my masterpiece.
“Dad would be proud,” I whisper to myself, knowing that come morning, every muscle in my body is going to scream in pain.
The floor isn’t perfectly smooth. Not by dad’s standards anyway. But it’s not a bad job, if I don’t say so myself. Maybe it’s in the blood. But back when I was in high school and dad made me work as a construction laborer all summer long, I hated every minute of it. At the time, it felt like slavery and all I did was silently bitch and moan about having to lift this pile of cement blocks here, and shovel that ditch there. But hey, now that I see the relatively decent job I managed to do on the basement floor, I realize it’s possible I missed my true calling.
The new concrete is darker than the old concrete that surrounds it. It will take a while to cure. Maybe a full month or so before the new concrete blends in with the old. But that still doesn’t mean a policeman might not take notice of the new concrete should he come snooping around. Probably the best idea is to get to work on a full renovation of the basement. New carpeting that will hide the floor, new wall finishes, and a drop ceiling.
“The whole nine yards,” I say out loud. “We need to get to work on the upstairs bathroom too. We’ve got the money. It’s just a matter of being able to spend it.”
Then, a shout from the top of the stairs.
“Bradley,” Joanne says. “I’m just about finished with the counting.”
“I’ll be right up,” I say.
Grabbing a big green garbage bag filled with the now empty sand and ready-mix bags, plus other assorted debris, I sling it over my shoulder like Santa, and climb the stairs. Right now, I’m so parched, I could really use a beer.
At the top of the stairs, I step inside the kitchen. Gazing over my left shoulder into the dining room, I’m shocked to find my neighbor, Sean MacDonald, sitting at the dining room table directly across from my wife. Speaking of beer, he’s got a cold can of Budweiser open before him. He’s the rubber-necker guy that passed me by while I was being detained by the soon to be Detective Danish, back when he stopped me for the first time earlier in the day.
“Sean,” I say, not bothering to hide my annoyance. “Grab yourself a beer. Oh wait, I see you already have one.”
When he smiles, his round, red, booze injected face gets even redder. His brown, Just-For-Men dyed hair is receding drastically, but still maintains some of its original curl. He maintains a mullet, like he’s still sixteen. His eyes are brown and little, and they are framed by bushy, almost out of control eyebrows on top, and black and blue bags on the bottom. His nose has grown bulbous over the years and the tip is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer red, just like his chubby cheeks. As usual, he’s wearing his forest green Irish sweatshirt that’s got an orange Celtic cross printed in the center. His job is selling caskets for dead people, but his career is most definitely boozing.
“You know me, buddy,” he says in a voice that’s so high-pitched and squeaky, dogs from miles around head for the hills. “It’s always five o’clock in my house.” He drinks a little. Then, “Say, you get a speeding ticket? You got yourself a lead foot there, buddy.”
His voice is already piercing my eardrums and rattling my overheated brain.
“Bad taillight,” I say in a voice that also says, this conversation ends now.
“Gotcha loud and clear, buddy,” he says, clearly getting my drift.
I carry the bag with me out of the kitchen, through the dining room, then down in the family room. I head out the back, sliding glass door, make my way over the wood deck and down onto the lawn to the big blue garbage cans pressed up against the old wood-slat privacy fence. Opening the recyclables can, I shove the green bag inside and close the lid. Turning, I start back for the door.
But that’s when something dawns on me. Is it such a good idea getting rid of this particular trash by conventional means? I’ve also stuffed the empty acid bottles in there. Maybe I should be burying the stuff somewhere. Maybe I ought to be burning it.
“I’ll just have to think about that later,” I silently speak to myself. “Besides, what’s wrong with my doing some home renovations? Renovations that also included repairing a badly damaged basement concrete floor. That’ll be my story anyway.”
Heading back into the house, I enter the dining room, and attempt to make sense of what I’m looking at. Sean is sitting at a dining room table that’s covered in stolen cash and big translucent plastic bags of powdered drugs or product (Not sure I’m ever going to get used to calling it that). He seems so comfortable with the situation, it’s like he’s seated before a platter of cold cuts.
“Darling,” Joanne says, just a little too chipper for my tastes, considering she killed two men today and assisted with disposing of their bodies, “Sean is going to help us with the laundering of the cash and the distribution of the—”
“—product,” I jump in before she can say it.
Sean pounds more of his beer...no scratch that...my beer, and slaps the wood table with his free hand.
“Well look at my buddy Bradley getting the drug lingo down,” he says, along with one of his squealing giggles. “You must be binging the same Netflix shows as my wife, Patty. She can’t survive a day without them.”
“Oh, me too, Sean,” Joanne says, while she continues to count the cash. “I just love me some Netflix when I get into bed.”
In my brain, I see us get into bed at night, the same way we’ve been doing it for years and years. Same bedroom, same bed, same sunken mattress, same walls, same furniture...The big difference between now and a long, long time ago, is that we didn’t have Netflix, or the Internet, or even a television in our room. When we got in bed, we paid attention to one another, and more often than not, we’d fool around for a little while and then maybe read a book until our eyelids got heavy. Nowadays, Joanne brings her iPad into the bedroom to binge one of her crime shows. I try and watch along with her, but I can barely get through five minutes before I drift off into a peaceful nothingness.
I stare at the beer can that seems biologically attached to Sean’s palm.
“What the hell,” I whisper to myself. “It’s almost five and it’s been a hell of a long day.”
Heading back into the kitchen, I go to the fridge and pull out a cold one.
“I’ll take another, buddy,” Sean barks, his voice cutting into my flesh and bone like a razor.
Feeling a slow burn run down my spine, I grab two beers and carry them with me back into the dining room. Setting the full beer beside Sean’s old beer, I pull out a chair and sit down hard.
“What’s the plan, Stan?” I say to no one in particular. “What are we gonna do, shove the drugs and the money into one of Sean’s new caskets and magically turn it all into gold?”
Downing the last of his first beer, Sean slaps the empty can onto the table. He stares at Joanne and she stares back at him, like they’re both thinking the same thing. He picks up the new beer, pops the tab. The carbonation makes a loud hiss as it escapes the opening.
“Funny you should say that, buddy,” he says.
Joanne places her latest stack of counted cash beside the other dozens stacks of counted cash.
Jotting the subtotal down in her notebook, she says, “Bradly, we’re getting into the casket and funeral home business.”
Popping the tab on the can of beer, I steal the best sip of the day.
Casket and funeral home businesses...
“And what exactly do we know about the casket and funeral home businesses?” I pose.
“Sean has a wonderful plan for us,” she goes on. “And it’s all quite simple.”
I drink some more beer.
“Great,” I say. “How much is Sean’s simple plan going to cost us?”
My neighbor laughs another one of his squealing laughs and slaps the table again, causing a jolt in my heart.
“Ain’t that just like you, Bradley buddy,” he says. “Always the jokester.”
“Go ahead and explain, Sean,” Joanne pushes.
He sits up in his chair, wipes the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“It goes something like this, Brad,” he says. “For years I’ve been wanting to break away from the casket distributor I’ve been schlepping for, for more years than I care to count. They’ve been driving me to drink, you might say.” Another laugh, another slap on the table, another jolt in my heart. “It’s time for me to break away, start my own business, even at my advanced age. A partnership to be specific.”
“A partnership with who, Sean?” I ask.
“With you and Joanne, silly,” he says with pursed lips and a scrunched brow, like he believes I’m genuinely that dumb.
We both drink a little more beer.
“Don’t you think that sounds exciting, honey?” Joanne says.
“Oh, I get it,” I say, “we front the money and you get your partnership. Right, Sean?”
He extends his arm across the table and makes a pretend pistol with his index finger and thumb.
“Correctamundo, buddy,” he says. “But here’s what you get for your money. You’re not only gonna get the Northeast corridor territory I’m presently representing for my casket company, we’re gonna open up this bitch to a global economy.” He glances at Joanne. “Excuse my language, Jo.”
“Never mind, Sean,” she says. “My Bradley swears all time.”
“Damn straight,” I say. My eyes back on Sean. “So you were saying...”
“You put up the cash,” he says, “and I start selling caskets for us. The cash you got spread out all over this table not only gets laundered properly, we also move your, ummm, product. Between the profits that come in from both operations, you stand to ten-X your initial investment within weeks.”
“Of how much precisely?” I ask.
Joanne finishes counting the final stack. She enters some keys into the adding machine and comes up with what I’m guessing is the final tally.
“Seven-hundred, thirty-three thousand dollars, and some change,” she says, jotting the precise number onto the notepad. She sets the pencil down and looks up at me. “Not bad for a day’s work.”
My heart skips a beat and for a quick moment, I feel like the floor under my feet has turned to mush. If my wife knew about the extra thousand in my pocket, the grand total would be seven-hundred thirty-four thousand and change, not that it makes much of a difference.
“What the hell just happened here?” I whisper to myself. “This morning I was a broke nothing. Now I’m worth close to a million bucks. No, that’s not right. When you combine the drugs I’m worth well over a million dollars. Maybe even multiple millions.”
I chug my beer, head back into the kitchen for another.
“How’s your beer, Sean?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Always ready, buddy,” he says.
I grab two more beers which leaves me with only two left for the night. This had better be Sean’s last one, unless he wants to head out and buy me another twelve pack. Carrying the beers to the dining room table, I set it beside Sean’s two, now empty cans and take a seat. I crack the tab and steal a deep drink. I’m starting to feel good. Optimistic even. Optimism isn’t something you experience a lot in the postal field.
Remember when there were a rash of shootings in postal worker facilities across the country? There was a reason for that. It’s not exactly a glamorous job, sorting and carting other people’s junk. Sure, you wear a uniform some men and women would be proud of, but no one respects the mailman. You’re the guy who hands people their long overdue bills, their bad report cards, their divorce papers, and their foreclosure notices. You hand desperately drunk and broke men their Dear John letters. Yeah sure, the internet cut down on a lot of so-called snail mail, but you’d be surprised by the people who still pen actual letters and send them in the mail. The sad fact about being a postal worker is this: half the people you deliver to hate and fear your arrival. The other half could give a shit if you live or die. I’m surprised there aren’t more postal facility shootings.
But I digress.
“Sean,” I say, “what about moving the drugs?”
“Product, honey,” Joanne interjects.
I shoot her a quick glance.
“Product,” I repeat.
His new beer in hand, Sean sits back and works up a serious expression. I get the feeling he’s got this all figured out.
“Caskets don’t just have to be used for dead people,” he says. “There’s a lot of places inside them for storing powdery material, if you get my drift.” He winks his left eye, and makes a smirk when he tells us to get his drift. “You can put stuff under the lining, or even inside the wood structure itself. The cheaper caskets and the ones they use for cremation are all hollow core. There’s a ton of space there.”
“Okay,” I say, “but we still need customers. Who will be the buyers? We need living people with real money. Not a bunch of dead stiffs.”
Sean holds up his hand like he knew the question was coming.
“Let me tell you something, Brad buddy,” he says, “death is a twenty billion dollar a year industry. On top of that, there’s only about ten corporations that run the bulk of the show. Did you know that Walmart is one of the top sellers of caskets in the United States? I shit you not.” Eyes back on Joanne. “Pardon the French again, Jo.” He says pardon like par-done, as if he speaks French.
“Walmart,” I say like a question. “Kind of letdown getting your casket from Walmart after living a long, hard life.”
“Yeah, but their product is priced to sell, buddy. The discount chain store undercuts me and my company all the time. It’s not only frustrating losing a contract to Walmart, it’s downright humiliating.” He tosses up his free hand and steals a moment to quench his seemingly never-ending thirst. “But I’m getting just a wee bit off track here. So where were we, buddy?”
“Product stuffed caskets,” I say. “Chain funeral homes.”
Sean leans up, wraps both his hands around his beer can like it’s a warm, soothing cup of cocoa.
“So here’s the deal,” he says. “A company called Sleepy Time Services is the fifth largest publicly traded funeral home chain in the States. Altogether they employ over a thousand people. Mom and pops mostly who used to own private funeral homes but who sold out to make ends meet. Their quarterly revenue is around fifty mil, give or take.”
“Sleepy Time Services,” I say. “Cute.”
“Stock ticker call sign, STS,” Sean adds, like he trades funeral home stocks all the time. And maybe he does. “The parent company owns something like one hundred fifty funeral homes in thirty-five states including the one I have my good eye on. They make a lot of money doing five and six funerals at a time under a single roof, but where they really make their cash is people who plan ahead and purchase interment rights, grave sites for themselves and the loved ones, plus lavish crypts and big mausoleums way in advance.” He drinks a little more, sets the beer down and goes empty handed for a change. “But here’s how they’re also rumored to make money.”
Joanne sighs.
“Don’t tell me,” she says.
“Sleepy Time is owned not by an American,” Sean goes on, “but by a Russian by the name of Alexander Carcov. Originally a soldier and then an undertaker, he was impoverished after the fall of Communism in the old USSR, but then fought his way to get passage to the States where he started his first funeral home, backed with money from the Russian mob. The mob kept feeding him more cash so long as he did them a very small favor.”
“Moved product,” I interject.
“Now you’re catching on, Brad buddy,” Sean says. “Well, along with the growth of the funeral parlor business, old Carcov has become a multi-billionaire.”
“Not on a quarterly revenue of fifty mil,” I say.
“That’s just what’s reported on paper. Their actual quarterly revenue is in the billions when you count their crystal meth and heroin operation.”
“How do you know all this, Sean?” Joanne asks. “It’s very dangerous information to be privy too, if you ask me.”
“I do my snooping,” he says. “I’ve also been in the business a long time. To be honest, I’ve never met Carcov in the flesh, but I’ve met some of his underlings.” He smiles, picks up his beer, drinks. “They trust me.”
And that’s when it hits me. My mild mannered, always drunk, coffin salesman, family man, split-level Colonial owning, church going, mow-the-lawn on Saturdays, watch football on Sundays, neighbor sells drugs.
“Jesus, Sean,” I say, “how long you been in the business?”
He smirks and cocks his head over his narrow shoulder.
“I just toy with it in my spare time,” he says. Then, his eyes lighting up. “Hey, living with Patty ain’t cheap, and last year if I relied on my casket sales alone, we’d have to put the house up on the chopping block.”
“Oh, dear God, you poor soul,” Joanne chimes in. She turns to me. “Darling, why don’t you get Sean another beer.”
He downs what’s left of his third beer, wipes his mouth again, and belches.
“If you don’t mind, buddy,” he says.
Feeling yet another slow burn up my backbone, I go into the kitchen, grab one of the two I’ve got left, carry it back into the dining room with me. I guess it will be up to me to go get more.
“That’s the last of it, Sean,” I say. “Unless you wanna go out on a beer run.”
“With the cashola we’re gonna make, buddy, we’ll build our own brewery.”
“Okay, so how exactly, are we gonna do this, Sean?”
“Carcov...Sleepy Time...is looking to establish a new funeral home in Upstate New York. They’ve got New York City and all of downstate covered and even the western part of the state with funeral homes in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. But Albany and points north are badly neglected. Carcov wants in on this territory. He also knows there’s buyers here, and that one of them could potentially be someone you’ve both become intimately involved with whether you like it or not.”
“Juan Perez,” I say.
“You did away with his two little brothers,” Sean goes on. “But so long as that remains our little secret, we can more than likely do business with the cartel man. Having Perez on board for buying our product would be good business.”
“Sounds like McDonalds,” I say.
Sean shrugs his shoulders.
“Same concept,” he says. “Carcov isn’t burying people so much as buying up real estate and providing a service to certain men and women who regularly imbibe in illicit substances.”
Joanne sighs again.
“You have such a way with words, Sean.”
Okay, this is the part of the story where I think I’m gonna puke. Why Joanne feels the need to suck up to our perpetually drunk neighbor is beyond me, other than maybe she feels as though he is our only great white hope in getting our money laundered and our product sold. And maybe he is. Doesn’t mean I have to be all that nice to him, however.
“Last I looked, they don’t deal drugs out of the McDonalds, Sean,” I say.
He goes wide eyed.
“Wake up, buddy,” he barks. “Where do you think I got my pot as a teenager? You pull up to the drive through menu, order a number sixty-nine, then pull up to the window. You get a Happy Meal that makes you real happy.”
His words take me a little by surprise. “You seriously get a real Happy Meal and the pot in the same package, Sean?”
He laughs.
“The food comes in real handy after you get the munchies,” he goes on. “But back to Carcov and his need for a new funeral parlor. You wanna start laundering this money, start selling that heroine, and make some serious casheshe at the same time, I strongly suggest you and the missus make that investment in a brand new casket business, but also the newest Sleepy Time Funeral Parlor.” He slugs more beer. “It is quite simply a win, win, win for everyone seated at this table.”
I think it over for a quick, quiet moment. Like I’ve said a dozen times, Sean is a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to the booze. But I have to admit, his plan does seem like a sound one. It also sounds like something he’s already thought through on a thousand and one occasions already, but just didn’t have the cash to act on it.
“How much is the total buy in, Sean?” Joanne asks, crossing her arms over her chest. Her expression is serious. Deadly serious.
“Five hundred K, plus or minus a couple bucks,” Sean answers without hesitation. “That’s for a new casket distributorship, the funeral parlor, and the men to work the operations, who Carcov will be supplying of course. By the looks of things, you have more than enough. We pay cash, which we are, I can bet the Russian bastard comes down ten percent, especially if he knows we will eventually have Perez on board.”
Now Joanne is all smiles again.
“That means we’ll have quite a bit left over,” she points out.
“Which we still need to clean,” I add. Then, my eyes back on Sean. “Okay, Sean, your plan is not half bad. But won’t people get suspicious if the Jones’s suddenly decide, at our advanced age, to get into the funeral home and casket business?”
“That’s the beauty of having me around, buddy,” he says. “I’ll run the whole show for you, soup to nuts.”
Mine and Joanne’s eyes magically gravitate towards one another. We both know what one another are thinking and it’s a matter of who says it first. She clears her throat.
“Sean,” she says, “we’ve known one another for a long time. I don’t have to tell you that Bradley and I think the world of you and Patty. Our boy grew up with your kids, we spent Christmas Eve’s together, enjoyed block parties. You and Brad watch football together just about every Sunday in the Fall. On occasion you go out for beers, and sometimes both families get together for Saturday night suppers. But there’s one thing I must ask you. It’s going to sound a little awkward coming from someone who’s known you for over thirty years. But the question must be posed.” She crosses her arms over her chest again, like the move gives her more courage and conviction. “But can you be trusted?”
There, she said it. The exact words I wanted to say but didn’t have the cajones to speak up first. But her saying it first makes me feel a profound sense of relief. You might think this is the part where Sean gets really insulted, rises quickly from the table and storms out. But he doesn’t go anywhere. In fact, he plants a smile on his face. It’s not like a big Cheshire Cat, ear to ear smile. It’s more like a sly grin.
Setting down his beer, he extends his index finger and draws an X over his heart.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says.
“Let’s hope you don’t,” I say. Then, turning to Joanne. “Shall we give him the cash?”
My wife holds her hand out over the table center.
“Let’s all shake on it,” she says.
I place my hand on top of hers and Sean places his hand on top of mine. We move our connected hands up and down as if to shake them. When we release, I can’t help but feel the warmth that comes from Joanne’s hand, and the cold, almost dead feel of Sean’s hand.
...Hope to die...
As for me and Joanne, we hope to live. Then the doorbell rings.