Free Greely's Cove by John Gideon Page A

instead had gotten drunk at Liquid Larry’s.
    Well, not exactly drunk. Just loose. Loose enough, in fact, to get thrown out of the place by Liquid himself. Loose enough to decide that his boss, old Matthew Kronmiller, could take his assistant embalmer’s job and shove it up his rosy ass, for all Mitch cared.
    Now it was morning and the sun had dawned, revealing the world in all its bleak clarity. Mitch’s body had burned off most of the alcohol he had poured into it the night before, which included ten beers at home after getting a taste of Liquid Larry’s size eleven. Now he had a throbbing head, aching joints, and a different attitude about his job.
    He needed that job, damn it, despite its less attractive aspects. The money, while not great, was decent—especially for an ex-con who had barely made it through high school. It was the closest thing to a future that he owned.
    He ransacked his closet in search of a clean shirt and a presentable pair of jeans, neither of which he found. He settled for stuff he’d worn earlier in the week but had not yet washed. They would have to do, despite the wrinkles, and he hurriedly pulled them on over his skinny body.
    He heard a car door slam and then another—more than one person, apparently, meaning that Kronmiller had not come to roust his ass to work after all. Kronmiller always came alone when there was rousting to be done. Mitch breathed a little easier, but not too easy. If he knew what was good for him, he would haul his butt over to the mortuary right now, and he would start cleaning up that suicide if the old batfucker hadn’t already done so. Mitch hoped that his visitors, whoever they were, would not stay long.
    He heard the scuff of shoes on the cement stoop, the ticks and snaps of someone pushing the doorbell button (the doorbell didn’t work), and finally, the thump of heavy knuckles on the splintered, rain-bleached door. Boom-boom boom-boom.
    Mitch stepped into a pair of tattered loafers and dashed out of his cluttered bedroom, stuffing his shirttails into his jeans. He whirled and lunged around the living room, snatching up empty Olympia beer cans and Big Mac wrappers, which he crammed into a black Hefty bag that usually lay next to his Salvation Army armchair.
    Boom-boom boom-boom.
    He pounded into the kitchen, tore open the back door, and flung the bag onto the rickety rear porch, where it landed atop a pile of half a dozen such bags, all bulging with beer cans and burger wrappers and wadded cigarette packs.
    Boom-boom boom-boom .
    “All right, I’m coming, I’m coming!” he yelled, and he heard a barking laugh that was somehow familiar. He attacked the scatter of porn mags that lay on the couch, on the carpet, beside his armchair—memorable publications with names like Cocktail and Honey Pit and Beaver , all with gynecologists’ views of young women in blazing color on the covers. He chucked the pile behind the couch.
    Boom-boom boom-boom.
    He fumbled with the safety chain and dead bolt and finally managed to jerk the door open. The face on the other side caused his stomach to flip-flop. It had exaggerated brows that knitted above a fleshy nose, a blockish jaw covered with stubble, and hazy eyes that could not quite hide a wild anger, even when the mouth was smiling, as it was now. The face belonged to Corley Strecker.
    Or, more accurately, to Corley the Cannibal Strecker, recent graduate of Washington State Prison in Walla Walla.
    “WHOOOOAH, Marvelous Mitch! How in the fuck are ya, boy?” Corley the Cannibal—a mountainous man who chewed bubble gum with loud, pistonlike strokes that caused the muscles in his face to roll and ripple—flung his beefy arms out wide.
    Somehow Mitch got his unhinged jaw under control. “Fuck a bald-headed duck!” he breathed, wanting badly to disbelieve his own bulging eyes, wanting even worse to escape the bear hug, and failing on both counts. Cannibal swung him around as though he were a loose-limbed toddler,