In a small corner of Philadelphia, a funeral director steals a man’s car as payment on a debt… “Where’s my fucking car?” Joey shouted over the phone. “Where’s my fucking money?” Dean shouted back. “You can’t just—” “But I did,” said Dean interrupting him. “I need the money you owe me.” “You don’t understand,” Joey implored. “This ain’t a fucking charity, Joey.” And he hung up. Dean Sassuolo tossed his cellphone onto the stainless-steel table next to him and went back to preparing Mrs. Chalmers for embalming. As he tied the rubber apron around his substantial girth, the phone buzzed angrily on the table, resonating with the steel. Joey again. He could wait. Friendships, good intentions. That’s what fucks you , he thought. Not that Joey was a friend. Not really. His father, Old Joe Tedesco, had been someone Dean looked up to, and for Old Joe’s sake, he had tried to be kindly with Little Joe, had agreed to work with him when he was short on funds for burying his...
I t never failed. Alex Ingram would approach the checkout counter at the downtown King Drug—it didn’t matter what he was buying, it could have been a birthday card, a newspaper, a Snickers picked up at the register—and there, just ahead of him, would be a senior citizen, on their own or with a husband, wife, or friend. This snowy early spring day was no exception. This one, solo and full-bore into her eighties, a dusty burgundy wig slipped forward, to starboard from Ingram’s perspective, was making an additional purchase besides the items in her cart, the holiday-decorated tin of remaindered hard Christmas candy and a cellophane packet of black support hose. “I’ll take five of them scratch cards,” she said, pointing at the scuffed fiberglass lockbox. “And one of those, just one. For the $100,000 prize.” The cashier pulled the cards, rang them up, told the elderly woman the cost. Burgundy Wave—the name Ingram christened her with while he waited, leaning against the counter—her face p...
Z eke’s head was splitting from a migraine. The foreman Mariano was showing the new guy over in molds how to pull parts, how to be sure the resin had set before pulling the snowmobile cover from the mold. “We let you make a couple mistakes when you’re new,” the foreman said. “After that, it comes out of your paycheck.” Zeke watched the guy spraying the resin gun poke a wire into the nozzle. The women hired to polish the molds stood around griping that the mix wouldn’t set. Trouble was, if he came in drunk or hungover, his problems became your problem. Everything depended on getting the part out not a minute too soon or a minute too late. Same lecture he’d had years ago. Now stuck on the drill press, Zeke was miserable. Zeke Pattison didn’t need to be told he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He’d been mocked all his life for lacking the brains or willpower to improve himself. His parents died disappointed in him and left their house and small savings to charity. “ A minimum-...
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