I Know Where the Dead Ones Go

3

"It's a funny thing about this bakery we're going to," Marty says as he drives me to what many in the city consider the wrong side of the tracks. It's a matter of perspective.

"What is?" I say as the car bounces in and out of a pothole.

"That was a big, industrial-sized bakery back in the day, and when it burned down some years ago it fuckin' burned down. The filters that kept flour dust out of the air stopped working. So there was all this tinder floating around that caught a spark from one of the ovens. It was like the air itself caught on fire," Marty says. "How do you get away from something like that? The fire killed a bunch of the bakers because the place wasn't up to code. They were mostly immigrants, though, but still. The poor bastards."

"How is that funny?" I say.

"Here's the kicker. That bakery made sweets, so half the city smelled like grandma's kitchen while the place smoldered. So all these dipshits in the city were walking around and talking about how nice the air smelled, how good it made them feel. They'd breathe in real deep. But the truth is they were breathing in cremated bakers as much as they were cream puffs," Marty says. He elbows me with his free arm while he turns the steering wheel. "It's funny, right?"

I remember being one of those "dipshits" until I heard the news. I avoided it as much as I could, but it was everywhere. Just like this heat. It's since separated itself from its source and taken a life of its own. The sun remains hidden behind clouds, but the heat grows and grows.

I play along with Marty's stab at gallows humor. It's the only kind we get anyway.

"Yeah, what a bunch of dipshits," I say and force a chuckle.

Marty grins and says, "Now that's the Juan I remember. You'll be at 100 percent again. I know you will. And look at that, we're here."

The car turns a corner and stops in front of the ruins of the bakery. It took years and countless lawsuits before someone took enough blame to clean the mess up. They did a half-assed job of it. The intensity of the heat melted a city block's worth of metal into a single, solid mass. Some joked that the warped beams should remain as an art installation.

That's the thing about humor in this city. The better the joke, the worse the tragedy.

For reasons that defy conventional wisdom, one room inside the bakery made it out relatively unscathed. Standing like a mausoleum within the rubble, it's marked by a door facing an alleyway. It must be the one Penny mentioned. It's the only door here. If what she says is true, there's a pile of dead bodies on the other side.

"That's funny," Marty says as puts the car in park.

"You're just full of jokes today," I say and start my now daily struggle of getting out of the car unassisted.

"No, I mean weird-funny, not funny-funny. Look around," Marty says. "There's no one here."

Distracted by the bakery, I hadn't noticed the absence of anyone on the block, or the next one, or the one after that. Deserted. The business window fronts have long since been boarded up, but even the bus stops, typically jammed with people in any other stretch of the city, are abandoned.

"Yeah, that is strange. Maybe they know we're police even though this is your personal car," I say, brushing off my gut's reaction.

Marty huffs and opens his door. "Must be it. You know how these cockroaches scatter when the light hits them."

That's true, but we came up on the bakery quickly. No lights. No sirens. No warning. Just a regular car like any other john would drive.

It's no wonder Penny and the other "wifeys" work this part of town. If people stay clear, she can go on her "dates" unnoticed, forgotten. It's not quite dark yet, though. Maybe that's why she's not out here now.

"I don't suppose you brought a key for this door, did you?" Marty says as we walk to the bakery. Profane graffiti and gang markers cover the concrete slabs stacked into loose pyramids.

"I'm hoping it's unlocked," I say.

"Doesn't matter. In this heat, we'll smell what's behind the door before we see it," Marty says. He stops in his tracks a few feet from the door. "Wait a minute. You smell that?"

Keeping a tight grip on the crutches, I pause and breathe in deep. "I don't smell anything."

"Try again," Marty says. He closes his eyes and inhales hard through his nose.

I do. Still nothing.

"It's...it's...cinnamon rolls," Marty says and grins.

I ignore the joke. There's nothing in the air but the old stink evaporating out of the hot concrete.

It doesn't take more than a few seconds at the door to realize the impossibility of Penny's story. There's no way anyone could make it in or out, seeing as how the handle is now a drooping roll of mangled metal. Even if the handle worked, the door itself is dented inward a good six inches, as if a car collided with it. It couldn't swing on its hinges if it wanted to.

"I told you this was a waste of time," Marty says. "It's not like there's some other door around here, either."

I test the door with a crutch for good measure, resigning myself to telling Marty, "You were right."

"You've got a good heart, though, I'll give you that. Makes you good at what you do," Marty says, his tone surprisingly academic. "But there are realities that come with the job, too. Some of them are harder to accept than others. It doesn't mean you're a bad person for recognizing them. Certain people can't be trusted. They get out of line, and you have to think back to everything people like them did up to that point. It's hard logic. Prostitutes lie all the damn time. Penny is a prostitute. Therefore, Penny lied to you."

In an attempt to save face, I say, "Isn't justice supposed to be blind?"

"Blind, sure, but not stupid," Marty says on the way back to the car.

I wonder about that logic, and exactly who qualifies as "certain people," on the ride to supper. A few minutes later, I sit at a diner across from Marty, keeping the conversation distracted with sports news, eating an overcooked hamburger for free because of the time he and I pulled the owner out of a burning car. Everything is on fire in this city.

But Penny isn't through with me yet. Not by a long shot.