The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

barely misses shattering every window in the neighborhood.

– You have to use the gate and walk on the -pathl

I go back out to the sidewalk, use the gate and walk on the path.

– Better?

She shakes her head at me.

– You suck. You can't do anything right.

I reach in the bag I'm carrying and show her the fuzzy white kitty I brought for her.

– See this, Xing.

She claps her hands and her eyes get big and she nods.

– For me for me for me?

I drop it back in the bag.

– Nope. Not this trip. Maybe if you're nice next visit you can have it.

I walk past her and she kicks me hard in the back of my leg.

– You suck! Yousuckyousuckyousuck!

I knock on the door and open it and walk in.

Lei is coming down the hall.

– You sure?

– Yeah, but just two hours, right?

– Yeah. Yes.

She grabs her purse from a hook next to the door.

– I'll be back. I just have to take Yong to his speech therapist or.

– Yeah.

– Yong!

Yong wanders down the hall, zipping his backpack. I reach in the bag and take out a fire engine Lego set and hold it low where he can see it. It catches his eyes and he comes toward it in a daze.

I shake the box.

He looks up at me and I nod and he grabs the box and runs out the front door.

Lei follows him.

– Thanks. Back in two hours. Xing needs a bath and dinner then a half hour of TV and then bed.

She squeezes Xing's shoulder as she goes by.

– Try not to kill Web.

Xing sticks her tongue out.

I take the kitty from the bag and toss it out the open door and it hits her in the back of the head.

She looks at it and turns up her nose.

– I don't like kitties.

I push the door closed.

– Some other little girl will find it, then.

Before the door closes she has the kitty in her arms.

I go down the hall, following the sound of the TV, the blare of a late-afternoon talk show; couples fighting, a conversation made up almost entirely of bleeps.

I raise my chin as I come into the room. Po Sin lifts his cane at me, reaches for the remote and hits mute.

– I love that shit. This one, those two there, they're sisters, they both married the same guy, but he's not a guy, he's a transsexual. Used to be a girl. Got a fake dick. Funny thing, the two who married him, both of them trannies, too. Both used to be guys. Brothers.

He goes to push himself from his chair and I wave him down.

– Sit. No, don't get up.

He gets up.

– Need to move around. They want me getting exercise. Took a walk yesterday.

– Yeah?

– Around the block. Thought my lungs would explode. Give me that shit.

I hand him the bag and he takes out the invoices.

– What's this?

I look.

– Decomp.

– You bill this?

– That my handwriting?

– Don't fuck around.

– I billed it.

– You underbfiled for materials.

– You want it out of my pocket?

– No. I want it out of your hide. What's this expense?

– Day labor.

– For what?

– We had to do the job at night. Gabe was doing accommodations. I needed to pay someone.

– Who?

I look at the families fighting on the TV.

– Dingbang.

He grunts.

– He show up on time?

– Pretty much.

He looks at another invoice.

– Shotgun job?

– Gabe did the invoice.

– I know.

His eyes go over it.

– What was it?

I sit on the edge of the bed.

– Guy put it to his chest. Knew his wife was the open-casket type, didn't want to blow his own head off. Maybe, I don't know, upset someone. Did it out in the backyard in their drained swimming pool. Blew out half his lung, missed his heart. He flopped around, actually tried to climb out of the pool, pumped blood over the whole thing. Handprints on the tile all the way around.

– How'd you?

– There was pathology on the side of the house from the blast. I did the detail work there while Gabe got the chunks out of the pool. We couldn't just hose those.

– Yeah, clog the drains.

– Yeah. Had to cover that. Ended up.

– I know.

– Filled the pool partway.

– Chlorinated the shit out of it. Scrubbed and pumped it out.

He runs a finger over the invoice.

– That's a good one.

We sit there till I stand up.

– You gonna eat? Want me to?

He shakes his head.

– The stuff I'm allowed to eat, I'd rather fast. Lost fifty pounds. I'd known I could do that, I'd have had a stroke ten years ago.

– Start a diet craze.

– Man, it's sweeping the nation.

I go to the door.