Feels Like Dignity by Louise Guardino Copyright © 2001 "You can't make love," she said, pulling away in anger. "Sex, yeah, but not love." She was right. I couldn't. I couldn't get Allen's bloated body, caught on a rotting branch at the edge of the river, out of my head. A dead man in a river wasn't new. I'd seen it all before. Smelled it, too. But not here; not in my backyard. Elsewhere, with Allen. Long ago, in the jungles and backwaters where death and decay were as common as maggots on meat. Where we fought for whoever paid the best. Allen used to say it didn't matter who the paymaster was, do the job right and we'd have dignity. Touching Laura didn't banish the feel of Allen's skin slipping from his body, peeling away like rotted fruit. Again, I saw the bloated face. But for his trademark Washington Grey's "K" belt buckle, almost hidden in the bulging folds, I wouldn't have been so sure it was Allen at first. All doubt left when I saw the thin gold chain entangled in his swollen fingers. Attached to the chain was a gold skull's head engraved with the numeral three. Even in death he'd been the thinker; probably hiding it in a fist now relaxed in death. Deciding to take Allen up on his offer, I'd dropped by unexpectedly. Not soon enough it seemed. Having found his truck parked outside, his door unlocked, and his three-legged walking stick lying on the bathroom floor, I'd known something was wrong. I'd found him snagged a half-mile downstream from his property. It was clear that Allen, recuperating from a fracture of his good hip, hadn't fallen into the river behind his home by accident. The golden skull told me who had put him there. I told the cops. There'd been just five of us in the unit-Allen, twenty years our senior and our leader and master of stealth. We'd all gotten skulls, each engraved with our position in the unit. "Three" was -Renny "Renegade" Hamilton. I'd given the cops his name. What they did with it was their business. I got up, got dressed. Time to leave. Laura had turned away. There was nothing left to say. It was still dark out, heavy with humidity. The pick-up came alive with a deep-throated rumble. A new muffler forgotten in the aftermath of finding Allen. He hadn't drowned in the river, just been dumped there. It had cost to get a copy of the autopsy report. And it would cost Renny, now that I knew how he'd killed Allen--drowning him in his own toilet. To die like that- without dignity--was unforgivable. Allen's death was my business now. If the cops got there first, so be it. If Renny was still in country, my bet was he was in Miami, living it up. I went home, threw some clothes in a bag, and put funeral clothes and dress shoes in the truck. The tools I might need were already stashed. What I didn't have could be found at the local home maintenance superstore. There was nothing in what Allen had talked about weeks earlier, when he'd suggested I come out and do a little fishing sometime. He'd mentioned the guys-- Joe doing okay as an associate professor in some northern college, Mike still in the game somewhere in South America, but nothing about Renny. I thought Renny, like Mike, was still in the hunt somewhere. Some guys never got out. A shattered hip ended it for Allen. In a village full of the dead and mutilated, I'd faced my own almost dead and empty soul and escaped before the last spark died. I settled into a cheap tourist hotel a few miles outside of the strip. The truck went to Midas and I took a nap. By night, I was ready. I did the tour--in and out of Latino clubs, hip-hop roosts, and jazz joints. Ten p.m. to six a.m., walking the streets, watching the hip hoppers and salsa-heads party, skate, and snort. Not a sign of Renny. Escaping the pastel stuccoed facades, I stood looking out at the waterway. Maybe I was wrong. Not about Renny, but about where he was. Maybe he was hunkering down, not partying. He'd mentioned a place once, a peninsula or island on the west coast where he used to go for quiet. It had been his mother's place. I went back to my truck and pulled out a map, finding the town on the fourth pass. Some memory nudging, a telephone book, and an hour-plus driving brought me to the dirt and gravel driveway leading to Renny's hideaway. It was one among many, in the midst of town. I drove past, parking near a busy pier. Jogging back, I glanced down the driveway. The back end of a blue pick-up peeked out from the curving drive behind the house. Either someone was home or a junker was rotting in the back yard. There was almost no cover, a few palm trees, sparse shade. A frontal approach, bold as the glaring daylight was the best option. I approached, scrunching gravel, and knocked sharply on the door behind the screen. When no one answered, I turned away, knowing Renny was watching from inside. The door creaked. "Tomas. What you doing here, man?" I turned back. Renny stood at the door, tense hand on the screen. "You don't know?" I asked. "Know what?" "'Bout Allen. He's dead." His expression remained flat. "No way. Why'd you come all the way out here? You could have called." "That's the thing, Renny. I figured you already knew. Maybe that's why you're here." "Yeah? Why'd you think that?" He offered not a sliver of light between himself and the doorframe. "You could say Allen as good as told me you'd been there. So I figured you knew." "You whacko, man? What you talking about, he tol' you?" Renny's jaw tightened and eyes hardened. I looked around. "You going to keep me outside, or what? Not a friendly gesture, you ask me." "Who said you're a friend?" "That's a strange thing to say to a guy you were tight with for so long." "Yeah, well you left the business. It ain't the same now." "So it's okay to blow old friends off?" "Yeah. Unless we got business." "Oh, we got business, all right. You made sure of that when you left Allen for me to find. Big mistake, that." "It's not what you think Tomas." Renny scanned the nearby area. "Okay, come on in." He stepped aside and backed into the house. I followed. Distance meant nothing, both of us being good with the knife. Inside, it was dim, the shades drawn. Sparsely furnished, there was a neatness about it that fit Renny. I went right for it. "Why'd you do it? He didn't deserve that." "You're speaking outta your ass, man. You know nothing about what he deserved. You didn't know the man." I laughed. "Not know him? You don't eat grubs and shit with someone for ten years and not know him. A guy who saved your life many times over." "Yeah, you do. You do when you don't want to see what's there." I looked at the man who had killed Allen. Renny had rarely known remorse, if ever. I'd known that in all the hellholes of the past and I knew it now. What did it matter what quirk had driven him to bring his sick ways home with him? I drove the edge of my hand at his neck. Inactivity had slowed me by a few seconds too many. Renny slipped by, grabbing my arm and throwing me off balance while planting a knee in my back as I flew past. "Don't be stupid, Tomas. You never were fast enough. You want to see why I snuffed that piece of shit? He got less than he deserved." I rolled over and sprang up, going for Renny's knees. He went down and scrambled to avoid the killing blow. "Listen to me," he screamed. "He took my kid down. You hear me, man? She's just a kid." We were both on our feet now, looking for the opening. "Don't waste time on half-ass stories. I'm not buying." Renny's body slammed me into a piece of furniture. We both went down. He twisted my balls. I got my thumb in his eye. He grabbed my wrist, trying to keep me from digging deep enough for the souvenir I needed for Allen's casket, the little bit of justice to restore some dignity to his remains. "I'll break you, man. Listen to me. Look in the other room. She's a crack-head. Remember Bangkok? Remember the little girls he liked? Seven was too old. Remember? Or were you too stubborn to see?" My thumb eased up as I remembered Bangkok. Allen used to give baht by the handfuls to the street urchins. He said he was reminded of his own bleak childhood. I'd seen him buy clothes and food and find shelter for hordes of the beggars. This one night, though, he had a look that made me uneasy. He spoke about the sweet meat. I figured it was an act to gain entry into the kiddie flesh market. Except for that look in his eyes. Unforgettable. Hunger, lust, whatever-it had turned me away. Renny pulled my hand from his eye and yanked me up. "Look. Go see for yourself the big man's work." He pushed me towards a door. "He couldn't get the young ones here so he made do." I opened the door. The room was dark. When my eyes adjusted I made out a curled form on the bed--thin arms, dirty blonde hair. The smell of puke and sickness surrounded me. I backed out and closed the door. Renny was crying. "You see her, man? Fourteen and a crack-head. Should have seen her when I found them. I lost it. I'd a cut him up if I hadn't wanted her out of there so badly." It was afternoon by the time I left. Renny hadn't wanted my help. His kid was screwed up pretty bad. From what he said, she didn't know what her father had done, couldn't remember much of anything. It was the fault of her mother, Renny's ex, that she even knew Allen. The woman had taken the girl to Allen's once when Renny was out of the country. The two had hit it off. A month ago, the kid and her mother had had a bang-out fight and she'd run off, ending up at Allen's. Renny said she'd been there a couple of days by the time he'd found them. Allen had gotten the kid cracked-up right quick. I told Renny I'd given the cops his name. It seemed only right that I help him now. We'll be taking Renny's kid to this rehab place out west. He's done with the warrior business for now. He wants to stay near his kid and do what he can. You think you know someone. You think you know yourself. Right. Wrong. Justice. Revenge. It's all a mess in my head. Allen was wrong. Nothing feels like dignity-not the past or the present. Maybe nothing ever will. So be it. Louise Guardino writes short fiction and has had several short stories published in "Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine," "Blue Murder Magazine," and "Plots With Guns."