Old Ghosts

OLD GHOSTS

Nik Korpon

PRAISE FOR OLD GHOSTS

"Who you are is who you’ve been, for better or for worse. There’s old ghosts everywhere, but, now, as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one Old Ghosts, and it’s Nik Korpon’s." —Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels

"Nik Korpon brings us back to a Baltimore we haven’t seen since The Wire and answers the question of what might’ve been if The Grifters’ Roy Dillon had tried to settle down, go straight and have a kid. A story of brothers and sisters or lovers, Old Ghosts reads like a horror story down one man’s memory lane. Not to be missed!" —Seth Harwood, author of Jack Wakes Up

"Nik Korpon’s Old Ghosts is about old friends and older dreams getting in the way of your present, and then totally kicking the shit out of your future. Plus rebar. Moody, smart, sexy, and tension-filled, Old Ghosts is a whip crack of a crime novella." —Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts

Copyright © 2011 by Nik Korpon

First Down & Out Books Edition February 2019

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Old Ghosts

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by the Author

Preview from All the Way Down by Eric Beetner

Preview from Main Bad Guy by Nick Kolakowski

Preview from Silent Remains by Jerry Kennealy

It’s a trap.

—Ancient Mon Calamari proverb

Chapter 1

Just before we finished the crown-molding, Will Watkins cut off his finger with the miter saw. He jumped back and screamed like an attacking eagle, swinging his arm all around and flinging blood everywhere. It mixed with sawdust and metal chips, turned the plywood floor into a Jackson Pollock painting. Hank took one look at it and—being hemophobic—quickly scuttled away from the scene. But in his haste, he stepped on the cord, ripping the circular saw from his hand, which sent the blade chewing across the wood, which scared the shit out of Dwaine the foreman, who proceeded to knock over the twenty-pound sledge and send that through an adjoining wall, taking out half the wiring in the adjacent room with the home theatre system. One of the Guatemalans tried to shove Will’s finger back into its place, setting off a chain reaction of vomiting. I watched in abject disbelief as one fucking finger set us back more than six days.

I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed.

With a T-shirt turning red around his hand, Watkins shuffled into the truck and one of the plumbers took off for Hopkins Hospital. I just sat there, shaking my head, sipping from the cracked thermos of iced tea Luz packed. I imagined us reading in bed this morning, her long black hair spilling over the pillow like eternal night. My watch said it was four-thirty, so I guessed she was almost done her shift at Esperanza Community Center, two blocks off Broadway, leading kids through yoga poses with a voice like wind through tall grass or helping some of the abuelas fill out health and citizenship forms. Meanwhile, I was sitting on rebar, sipping tepid tea and drawing shapes in the coagulated-blood-and-wood paste with the tip of my boot.

Dwaine’s feet came into my line of view. I looked up. He pursed his lips and shook his head, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

Beer, Picasso? he said. He always said the ahs like ass, thinking it was funny. I assumed it was the only artist he’d ever heard of.

I nodded once. Beer.

The November sun tried to warm us, but the clouds choked it to little more than a pallid orb. Leaves crunched under our feet. At the crosswalk, I scraped my boot against the curb to remove the glass of a crushed vial. The Baltimore wind licked at our exposed necks. Ash hung in the air, yard waste or a rowhome burning somewhere close. Luz said she’d meet us after work, and I thought it’d be a good evening to walk home.

Dwaine lit a Marlboro. Kind of funny when you think about it.

How so?

I mean, we was worrying because we only got one more job. Now we got this one for another weeks.

They going to pay for another week, especially if it’s because we screwed up?

He smirked. I got ways.

Clapping my hand on his shoulder, I said, Dwaine, I’ve never doubted the revisionist tendencies of your bean counters.

Damn right. He opened the door to Santo Sangre. Ranchero music wove through the air. Hey, first round’s on me.

We were halfway through our beer when he told me about the contract.

Some hotshot—I dunno—lawyer or some shit. Lots of Yankee dough. Bought one those fixers by the Park and wants us to remodel it.

I shrugged, looked over his shoulder for Luz. A wrinkled couple played touch-screen poker on the machine at the end of the bar, silver streaks in their shadow-black hair. A stack of quarters sat next to their beers. Without looking, the man reached for a coin, touched her wrist for a gentle second, then resumed his game.

Was gonna have Watkins watch over it while I finished up the finger trap house, but seeing as how he’s outta commission, I’ll do it for now. But I want you to plan the job.

Sure. Whatever.

Guy says he wants it aesthetically pleasing. You being the art fag, figure you’re the one for him. He tipped his mesh hat to the back of his head, scratched at his scalp. Bits of dirt and sawdust fell like dirty snow. Something not right bout them two, though.

What two?

The door opened, Luz entering on a gust of wind. She scanned the bar for us, ponytail swinging.

The hotshot and his wife. Like— he snapped his fingers in the air, —what’s that movie with the bastard and the chainsaw?

I waved my hand to get her attention. I thought it was a good sign that, after eighteen months of being together, her smile still turned my knees to water. Dwaine had told me that the honeymoon ends two weeks after you put the golden shackle around each other’s finger, but we’d been married over a year and still said I love you every time we parted company.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I said to him as an afterthought.

She came over to where we sat. Cotton jacket zipped to her throat, cheeks still flushed from class. Her yoga pants halted just below her knee, a small line where she’d cut herself shaving.

Bueno, amor, she said with a kiss. Her sweat could be bottled as an essential oil.

Hey, chica. Dwaine raised his hands over his head, made the Walk Like an Egyptian motion. I might could learn you something.

She just smiled. Hi, Dwaine.

Something to drink? I stood and motioned for her to sit.

She plopped down with a sigh. Just a water.

I waved to Consuela the bartender, pointed at mine and Dwaine’s glasses then asked for agua con limón. A few months ago, after we finished a total rehab in under a week, Dwaine told all the guys on the job that he’d get them drunk to show his appreciation for our hard work. The brother of one of our new hires owned a bar nearby, so we took our business to him, and we’ve been drinking here ever since. Dwaine still loved to ask me to translate for him, despite the countless times I’d said my parents were from Portugal, and that I didn’t speak much of it anyway in the first place, and that I sounded like a racist gardener when I spoke Spanish because I fucked it up so bad.

I squeezed Luz’s thigh. Your day go okay?

She shrugged. Not really. You remember Hortencia? From San Salvador?

Sure, I said, but couldn’t recall.

No, you don’t. She shook her head. She made those pupusas for us a couple weeks ago.

Ah, right, right.

Of course, you remember food. I shrugged. She continued, She’s been having problems with this lawyer, trying to get her niece’s papers together to bring her up here.

I nodded remembering now. Her niece’s boyfriend had been forced to join Barrio 18, which meant she became part too. She’d been beaten near-blind for walking through an MS-13 neighborhood—because she didn’t know any better—and her mother was