Shade
He was talking about Farquhar. He was their employer. He'd paid them to snip off the boy's toes and now he'd hired them to shoot and kill a young man in Pittsburgh. They had never killed anyone before. They would try it. It was very simple. NooN TilE NEXT DAY PAXSON picked up Gus in his Corolla. Weary of the turnpike, he took interstate twenty-two west to Pittsburgh. It took longer but the memories it provided were of childhood, of snowy banks and stiff carcasses, spent shells and casings glistening in the snow like ornaments dropped from holiday firs. At a stoplight Paxson glanced at Gus, asleep in the passenger seat, his laptop with wireless modem open in his fat lap. Its screen saver showed images of women bending over washbasins. Unlike Gus, Paxson had kept in shape since high school. He gave up dreams but not lifting. If he cou ld stop smoking he'd be in good health. He had trophies. His picture had been in the sports section twice. Then, snow. He lit a cigarette, looked over at Gus. Maybe you ought to wake him up, he said to himself. Tell him, hey Dumbass, take a look at the snow. They reached Pittsburgh and they marked the city's bridges and shadowed graffiti-emblazoned underpasses, Three Rivers Stadium, Heinz field, signs for the Andy Warhol Museum, a bar called The Decalogue. Gus checked his investments on the wireless internet. They listened to a C. D. Gus' cousin had copied for him. Spit yo game, talk yo shit, grab yo gat, call yo clicks, squeeze yo clip and hit the right one, pass that weed I gots to light one. Paxson turned the volume up. It was early yet. They would not approach the man's apartment until after dark. They had directions; they knew his apartment number and the code for the entry gate and that there was no alarm system. Go in, pop him. That was the plan. "Let's go to the museum," Paxson said, embarrassed for being what his father would call artsy-fartsy. "We have time." Gus's cell phone rang. He looked at it, saw who was calling, turned off the ringer. "Which museum," he said. "Did you say museum? That Randy Robot guy?" "I'll pay for you," Paxson said. "Just for a joke. Let's sec it." "That was my creditor who called. From New York. The want to charge off some loan. I wish I knew what that meant." Paxson thought of the drawings he'd done years before. The still life of a plastic pineapple his mother kept on the kitchen table, the nudes he'd sketched-and later burned-of women from Hustler magazines. He'd tried to make the pineapple life-like, the women pleased with his renditions. He didn't expect to be a major artist, just draw comic books. 12
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