The Caveman's Valentine by George Dawes Green Read Free Book Online

Linda. We’re not done with P.J.’s staring.”
    “Yeah, but I’m sick of hauling other people’s slops! You hear me, Albert? I’m fed up with hauling your slops!”
    “
My
slops?”
    “Tuesdays
you’re
supposed to haul the slop pot!”
    “BUT IT’S NOT MY
SHIT
! I DON’T EVEN SHIT HERE!”
    “THAT’S A FUCKING LIE! I’VE SEEN YOU!”
    “WILL SOMEBODY GET THE BRATS OUT OF HERE!”
    “SEE, THEY’RE
MY
TITS, OK, P.J.? SO GET YOUR EYES OFF OF THEM!”
    Romulus stepped in quietly. They all looked up—this circle of fiery eyes under a naked bulb. The wire for the bulb went out the window and over to the next building.
    “Caveman!” said someone.
    “Yo, Caveman, tell us about The Guy with No Face!”
    “Stuyvesant! What’s that old fucker Stuyvesant up to?”
    “How’re the Y-rays tonight, Caveman? Bad out there tonight?”
    “Tell us about Homeowner’s Pride!”
    “Give us a fucking tirade, man!”
    Romulus scanned the eyes, spotted Matthew’s. Matthew was sitting against the wall, outside the circle, with a demeanor of utter catatonia.
    “Matthew.”
    Matthew got up and came to the door. Romulus gave the group a smile before he led Matthew out.
    “Rage on, people.”

17
    O ut in the hall by the grime-frosted window, a seep of gray light. The sound of water dripping from the snow-melt. Romulus said quietly:
    “Matthew, they say he froze to death.”
    Matthew shook his head. “He was murdered.”
    “Yeah, right. But they say there’s no evidence.”
    “They just don’t give a shit. There’s a videotape, Rom!”
    “Maybe there
used
to be. But I guess when Leppenraub killed your man, he must have got the tape, too.”
    “I bet not every copy.”
    “There’s another copy?”
    “Rom, listen—when Leppenraub was doing all this sadistic shit to Scotty, there were other guys there—and there was this one guy who was running the camera. Scotty said this guy didn’t seem to be
into
it, you know? He just made the movie like he was doing what he was told.”
    “What was his name?”
    “Scotty never told me his name. He just told me that one day this guy slipped him a manila envelope. ‘I made a copy for you,’ he says. ‘Just in case you ever need it.’ And that was the tape—that’s how Scotty got hold of it, all that sick stuff.”
    “But Scotty never showed it to you?”
    “Uh-uh. He said he was hiding it somewhere. Somewhere far off, safe.”
    “And that other guy?”
    “The guy that gave him the tape? Well, right after that is when Leppenraub kicked Scotty out. He never saw the guy again.”
    “So if we could
find
the guy . . .”
    “Maybe . . . Oh, damn, Rom, I’m crying again. I can’t stop crying, Rom, I gotta stop crying.”
    “Where do we look for the guy?”
    “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know something like that? Ask the cops. Ask Leppenraub.”
    “Yeah. Right. That’s about it, Matthew.”
    They stood and listened to the bustle and commerce of the echoes. Romulus said:
    “I mean that’s it. You’d have to go up there, right? To Leppenraub’s farm. I mean, you’d have to meet the murderer in his lair, and get him to
cooperate
somehow. You’d have to be fucking crazy.”
    “Yeah.”
    Then Matthew gave him a look.
    Romulus shook his head. “Oh no, not me. I’m paranoid—that’s a
special
type of crazy. Not good for this kind of work, uh-uh. No, this . . . this takes the kind of crazy that thinks it’s
sane.
”

18
    A ll the way back home the temperature kept climbing. Though without spirit, just climbing dull-footed into a drear drizzle.
    Romulus got back to the cave and sat there in the dark, and zapped the remote control on his TV set.
    Since the set had been disemboweled before he had found it, and since it wasn’t hooked up to anything, it took a while to warm up. The images came in blurry, ghosted.
    Romulus watched, and munched. In a bag he had Doritos crumbs and shrimp scampi and hunks of somebody’s wedding cake, and extracts from an