= Kills Bugs Dead
  by Anthony Neil Smith


Wendy has the exterminator come to the house for the third time that month, complaining, "What did I pay you for if the roaches are still here? They're running around like the Olympics."
  
So Peter visits again, smile on his face. He meets Wendy at the door and goes inside. It's ten in the morning. The baby is sleeping and her husband's at work. Peter sets his spray can down and wraps Wendy in his arms. She smells clean and turned-on, overpowering the fumes he deals with all day. She's a redhead, pale and dark-freckled, twenty-five, still hanging on to some of the weight from the baby, but Peter likes her soft that way. She giggles into his uniform as he holds her. Her long hair is loose, spread across her back, still damp from the shower. He slides his hands down--she is wearing nothing under her bathrobe.
  
Wendy steps back and moves her hands to the zipper on Peter's uniform jumpsuit. "This time, you have to check everywhere. Even if it means getting on your knees and sticking your nose in there."
  
"What happened to 'whatever you do feels good'?"
  
Wendy shrugs. "It's been so long. I used to get it all the time, but it's like he's scared of it now. Like a lost twin might pop out and choke him."

Peter was scared of it, too, but would give it a good try. Here he was, thirty-two and single, never had a very long relationship, maybe a year. He had been with a few older women, sure. And a handful of eighteen-year-olds fresh from his old Catholic high school. But a new mother, well, Wendy was unmapped territory. 

The first time he sprayed the house, Wendy had followed him around, talking with her shirt tugged up to cover her mouth and nose. She had told him she expected an older guy with a gut, not a slab of beef with short blond hair. They had a nice little house, even it was only a step up from trailer life. Wendy was proud of the place. The furniture was nice but obviously had been given to them. The TV was small, the tables scratched but polished. Most noticeable were the gun cases, beautiful dark wood cabinets with frosted glass doors. Two in the living room, one in the hall, one in their bedroom. Peter peered through the glass, saw hunting rifles and shotguns, automatic pistols and revolvers, impressive collection.

"Your husband likes guns?" Peter asked then.

Wendy wrinkled her nose. "All little boys do, I think. It's his leftover little boy thing. But that's why he's excited about the baby. Now he's got a son he can teach to shoot."

After Peter had sprayed, Wendy offered coffee. Peter said no. She offered a beer. Peter said, "Why not?"

While he sat on the couch and sipped the beer, she straddled him. She unbuttoned her shirt, unfastened her bra. Her breasts were big and saggy with wide flat nipples. A little hair grew between them. Peter ignored that when she lifted one to his mouth.

"What about your husband?" Peter had asked as the image of a redneck gun nut loading a prized twelve gauge flashed in his mind.

Wendy exhaled sharply and said, "Look, I don't want it complicated. Do you want to fuck or not?"

And Peter, after all, just wanted to fuck.

This visit, Wendy takes him by the hand and leads him down the hall to the bedroom. She giggles the whole time, turns and says "Dah'ling," giggles louder. Peter smiles but doesn't speak. Hard to speak. His dick is rock hard, straining against his work pants. In the bedroom, Wendy turns the light on. She lets go of his hand, pulls the robe loose but leaves it on, hint of nipples, corridor of hair between her thighs. She sits on the corner of her bed, legs parted, toes wiggling. She reaches out a hand and waves him over. Peter takes her hand. She kisses his fingers one by one, kisses his palm, leaves wet circles with her tongue. And then she sings, off-key from any pitch ever, "On your knees, please. Please me on your knees." 

* * *
  
Wendy pays him in cash after a lazy sweep with the spray wand. He is exhausted, a little woozy, and he wonders, Why cash? The first time he visited, he tried to explain the packages to her--the more expensive, all encompassing "Bug Apocalypse" down to the thorough but less intense "Bug Vacation"--but she just wanted the basic spray.
  
Peter leaves Wendy in the kitchen, taking slow steps outside into the June heat where the sunlight was heavy-duty squint-level. He shields his eyes with curved fingers, having left his cap in the truck. The round stepping stones that lead from the driveway to the front door are split in two, sometimes three places, the stones cheap crap from a big Superstore. At the van, he opens the back door and sets his spray can inside. He walks around to the driver's door and climbs in, already seated by the time he realizes there's a man in the passenger seat pointing a revolver at him.

"Stay still, do what I say," the man says. He is dressed better than his hick accent would let on, in slacks and a white dress shirt buttoned to the top. The hair is dirty, a scraggly dark mullet framing a thin face that droops like a sad dog. Peter compares the face to something vague in his mind that's not coming in clearly. A few moments later, it does: Wendy's husband. A better dressed version of the guy from those photos on the coffee table by the couch. He remembers looking at one of the pictures while Wendy was blowing him last week, trying to place the background in what looked like a honeymoon shot.
  
"There's a misunderstanding here. The gun might get us hurt," Peter says.

"How much did she give you?"

Peter waits a moment, decides he means money. "Forty bucks."

The man with the gun--Peter thinks the name is Gene--smiles and shakes the barrel. "How's that feel? You're a bug whore, man. How much action you get on this gig?"

Peter holds his hands up, fingers curled just a little, because he's never had a gun pointed at him before. It feels right to have them up, flinching, alive.

"I don't know what you think you know? But I just answer my calls. Your wife needed the kitchen sprayed. With the baby and all--"

"Stop it," Gene says. He sighs, stares out the windshield at nothing, long seconds that feel warmer than regular ones to Peter. Then Gene says, "Drive."

Peter thinks this is the last thing he wants to do, the last thing he'll do anyway if he does. He stalls. "Where? Drive where?"

More barrel wiggling. "Just go, anywhere. I'll tell you after we get started. Crank this up."

The gun is a heavy cannon of a revolver, stainless steel and looking well-cared for. Maybe it's a bluff, maybe a scare tactic, Gene wanting to get the point across, knowing about the Wendy-fucking, but not really wanting to kill him with his own gun. Peter wonders about Gene and his guns--just art objects for display at home, or real hunting? Maybe some target practice at the local range once a month, leave it loaded by the bedside in case of burglars, take it out and hold it while watching football games and point it at the screen, do a fake recoil and pop his lips like he's Elvis.
  
Peter starts the van and pulls out into the street. The barrel isn't pointed so straight anymore, Gene relaxing or getting nervous, turning his head back and forth. Peter takes a left at the four way stop on the corner. This neighborhood was built in the fifties, small houses with big yards and roadside mailboxes, tidy but with the rough edges showing: dirty sewer grates, fences with holes in them, cracks in the pavement. At the end of the road, Peter turns onto a wider avenue that borders the public golf course. There are small businesses to his left, and he is sweating because he forgot to turn the air on.

"We need a place to go, don't we? No matter what, we can't drive in circles. I've got other appointments," Peter says.

"Where do you keep the money?" Gene says.

"What money?"

"You do this all day, taking money from people and spraying stuff that doesn't work that good so you can come back a month later and do it again. I'll bet you're more rich than you let on. Have you got a box, or is it in your pocket?"

"I don't take any money."

Gene flicks the tip of the gun barrel against Peter's earlobe. It throbs and Peter shouts, "Damn it!" and grabs his ear. Hurts, but there's no blood. Peter remembers something he saw on Discovery Channel one night about Israeli martial arts, something like that. One thing was, If anyone points a gun at you, grab the gun. You have to grab the gun. Get it away. Fight for dear life, but don't let go of the gun.

Peter grabs the revolver and pushes it down and back, catching Gene by surprise, takes him a moment to fight back. Peter holds on, got the barrel, the hammer, part of Gene's hand.

"Let go of the gun," Gene says. He's scared. The voice gives it away. "Let go, I'm going to start shooting anyway."

Peter is still driving, trying not to swerve but it's hard. "You're not going to do that. Start shooting with me driving, what happens if I hit a tree? What if we get in a wreck? You're just as dead."

Both are quiet for a moment--Peter seething--before Gene says, "About the money."

"I don't have any money. We bill people, and we take checks. Your wife and maybe a handful, maybe, of others give me cash. She's the only one today. I can give you back what she gave me. I've got another twenty or so in my wallet."

But Gene isn't listening. The van passes a vegetable stand, a gas station and a Fast Lube, traffic beginning to close in on the four lane avenue. The light ahead turns yellow, then red, and Peter brakes. Both men grip the gun. Peter thinks that Wendy told Gene about the spraying, and about paying cash, and Gene thought up the quick-score scenario.

Peter thinks he's got the upper hand. He says, "You just want money?"

"What the hell else would I want? Bug spray?"

Peter yanks the gun hard, rips it from Gene's hand and spins it, holds on to the rubber grip. Gene lunges but Peter pulls the gun back out of reach. He holds it to Gene's head, and the guy settles back into his seat.

"I mean, you don't know that I'm fucking your wife? You didn't figure that out, you stupid fuck? Wendy was pretty loud today, waking the baby, when I was taking her from behind and she was rubbing herself, shouting, 'Oh, it's sweet, baby, so sweet.' Surprised you didn't hear her." Peter still has her taste in his mouth, and it's not sweet at all, but salty. He waits. Gene's face screws up like he wants to say something, wants to cry.

Gene finally huffs, "You sonabitch, son of, fucking bastard...."

The light turns green, and Peter floors the van. Gene falls into the back in a heap. Peter tries to watch the road and Gene at the same time, takes wobbly aim.

"We could just call this off, call it a mistake," Peter says.

Gene grunts, tries to regain balance. Looks like he bashed his head pretty hard. 

Peter says, "I can drop you off at your house, or at work. Whatever's best."

The road ahead looks rough, asphalt giving way to crushed oyster shells as they approach a parking lot by a loading dock. They are surrounded by older cars and the tall pine trees of the nearby hedge. Large beige sheds block the view of the bay. No people around. Peter throws the stick into park and braces himself. Gene slams into the back of the driver's seat.

Peter stabs the seatbelt button with his gun hand and panic-pulls on the door handle with his other. The belt comes off the shoulder, but then the spray wand is in his face, Gene pumping the shit into his eyes, nose, mouth, burning but sweet. Peter swings the gun hand back, pounds Gene's arm, wipes his face with the other, screaming, "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Gene grabs the gun, but Peter is half-blind, trying to hold on. Then the door falls open and he spills out, the gun coming with him. He sprints and turns around, wants good clearance so he can either talk Gene out of this or shoot his ass. Yeah, either one, but I've got to get out of here. 

Then Gene climbs out of the driver's side, a gash on his forehead streaming red. And he's got another gun aimed at Peter. A big black automatic.

Gene says, "You think I'd just carry one?" He squeezes the trigger. The gunshot goes off loud and Peter yelps, but the slug clangs into a car off to the right. He dives in front of a Plymouth on his left and crawls down the line, ignoring the cuts on his knees as the broken shells rip him up.

Gene yells, "I'm not going to play this way. You come out and let's make it quick."

Peter runs, ducks, fires behind him wildly, but the shots go into the van, into the air, into the ground. Three out of six gone. Peter crawls under a car and tries holding his lips tightly closed, not breathing so loud. He wants to draw Gene away from the van, wants to desperately get back there without getting plugged. He inches towards the front tires of the car and watches for Gene's feet. 

He could crouch down and shoot me, plain and simple. He could.

Shoes grinding shells, moving slow. Gene's voice: "Hiding makes me hurt you more. You want it that way? Slow and rough?"

Peter takes easy breaths, hard to do. They want to come out with sound, ragged, spit, chattering teeth. Something drops onto the back of his neck and he nearly jumps out and yells right then, but calms down. He rubs his palm across his neck--oil. The car has an oil leak. He lifts his chest and looks at the ground below. A slick on the white shells, a smudge on his clothes.

More crunches from Gene's shoes. Peter looks at the van, maybe ten feet. You can talk to him about this. It's a misunderstanding, the money, Wendy, there's a reasonable answer.

If he stays low, Peter could be out of view long enough to run the last few feet.

He's emotional, but he wouldn't really pull the trigger, would he?

Peter takes aim at the ankles coming his way, careful, steady, and then fires. Like an explosion. The shot nicks Gene's ankle, and he screams. Peter rolls from beneath the car. Gene's grabbing his leg but starts limping around the row of cars. Peter makes a flat run to the van. A shot thuds into the ground beside him. "Ohgodohgodoh, shit, shit!" He jumps inside, locks the door. Goes to crank it. The keys are gone.

Gene took the keys. Peter looks out the window. Gene is hobbling up fast. Peter hops out of the driver's seat into the back of the van. Another shot from outside, and another. The driver's window shatters as Gene's gun hand comes through, the glass falling in crackling chunks. The hand is snakelike, lethal. Peter lifts the pesticide bottle and lunges into the hand, then again, then again, and the gun drops. The hand pushes the bottle and fumbles for the lock-release. Peter takes the spray wand and points it out the window, lets loose a spray. Gene screams like an alien and claws his face. Peter keeps spraying, choking on the sweet poison odor. He points the gun outside and pulls the trigger, empties the revolver. He grabs the automatic, fires until it's empty. The blasts hurt his ears. But then it's all quiet. 

Peter eases to the hole where the window used to be. Gene is on the ground. He doesn't have a face anymore. His chest is a bloody pool.

Peter climbs out of the van, looks around. Someone should have heard those shots, that's what he thinks, but there's no clue. Nobody at all. Peter thinks about how it would make sense if it was over Wendy, but to rob the van? Wendy would be better off without the guy. How's he going to tell her this? She'll blame him, taking away the baby's father. He thinks, It was just about sex, but she loved the asshole, didn't she? 

He would have to tell Wendy. Maybe should would understand. Maybe she wouldn't.

* * *
  
At the house, Peter's hand slips weakly as he tries to knock, and he holds the .44 in his other hand, needs to get rid of it. He tries to get a grip on the door knob, finally turning it and stepping inside. The living room was quiet and empty. He hears the sink running in the kitchen, clattering plates and glasses.

Peter says, "Wendy," but it comes out high and croaking, not like his own voice.

"Gene, you're back? Gene?" Wendy's voice, sing-song and loud over the stream. The water kicks off and Wendy says, "Did you get the money, Gene?"

Footsteps closer. 

"Was he scared?"

She rounds the corner, dressed in shorts and a tank top with a dishtowel in her hand, and sees Peter there, his face a question. Her eyes go wide and she whispers, "Holy shit."

"You knew about this? You were in on this the whole time?" Peter is steady.

She can't answer. Her lips tremble and she's taking in quick breaths, but she shakes her head.

Peter says, "I don't understand, no. You thought people paid me in cash all the time? Think I keep a fucking fortune in my van with me?"

Nothing from Wendy. She looks around. The phone is too far. Peter takes a step forward, closer. 

"He didn't know I was fucking you, did he?"

She's still quiet.

"Answer me, bitch!"

She flusters but gets it out. "No, Gene didn't know about the sex, okay? We needed extra money for the baby. The sex, oh Peter, it was so nice the first time I called again, and then Gene said you must be cleaning up, so I thought we should at least try, you know?"

"He wasn't going to kill me?"

Wendy chews her dishtowel, cries into it.

"I said--"

"Fuck you, Peter, I heard you. What do you think, huh? You think I want you alive to tell him what a slut I am? You think I'm so stupid because I'm young white trash? Shit, it was good sex, and you would've died happy."

Peter lifts the gun, the weight of it like a cold brick. He takes four quick step and swoops the gun in an arc, barrel colliding with her face. She screams and goes to fall but Peter grabs her, holds her up. He gives her a shove towards the bedroom, where he'd been that morning, kneeling beside the bed as she scooted her crotch towards his mouth, hanging her legs over his shoulders. And she knew Gene was waiting outside the whole time.

In the bedroom, he throws her on the bed and tells her to lie face down, holds the gun at her neck. She shrieks, cries, "Oh please, no, don't, Jesus. My baby, what about my son? Please, my baby."

Peter pulls the trigger. Nothing--the gun is empty. He remembers. He steps to the gun cabinet, tries to open it. Locked. He smashes the glass with the revolver, tosses the piece aside and reaches in. Grabs a .45. Aims, click. Empty. He throws it back and tries another, a .22 rifle. Aims, click. Empty. He thinks, Just one. One of them has to work. They'd have a private funeral, just him and the baby. And then he'd drop the kid at his sister's. She keeps saying how she wants one.


ANTHONY NEIL SMITH edits Plots With Guns and writes stories, some of which get published here and in Exquisite Corpse, Barcelona Review, Blue Murder, and other places. He recently received an honorable mention from Best American Mystery Stories 2001, as did several stories from authors he edited. He lives in Mississippi, is not scared of flying, and wishes James Joyce had written hard-boiled stories instead of that Finnegan's Wake bullshit.

Copyright (c) 2001 Anthony Neil Smith


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