The Drip, a novel by Michael Gullo
“Hi, I’m Enrique.”
“Hola. Michael.”
“Yeah. Nice to meet you.”
“Thees the site. It looks good. You got a site plan?”
“I do.”
“House plan?”
“I do.”
“You dig your own hole?”
“I do.”
“Thees look good.”
“Is Facebook working out?”
“Ees good platform. Lot of business.”
“Is that the only place you advertise?”
“Yeah, I no like Google. Shange my phone number.”
“I bet your customers loved that.”
“Do you have permit ya?”
“No la tengo, ya. That one was your own fault.”
“Hablas Espanol?”
“Si. Hablo como un güero que he tenido una novia latina. Tuvi que aprender por intenderla que no me catcha quando me tire una golpea.”
“Yeah, they’re violent. My wife ees American.”
“Mine too. Those are no less violent.”
“Less see the plan.”
“Man, you got a lotta shit back here.”
“Yoss put it on the board.”
“Alrightie. A working contractor.”
“Si, I work. I hab feefteen men, boat we all work.”
“Something worthwhile – life’s secret.”
“So you get permeet?”
“Do you have a license?”
“I hab, boat these plan, he cost five, six hundred, and my license cober only two-feefty.”
“Y si cambio el deck de concreto a madera?”
“Hector no tell me you spick Spanish.”
“That’s because it’s not Spanish. It’s self defense with a bad accent.”
“Ees good accent.”
“So, Hector – your project manager – he told me you built two of these.”
“Three.”
“And they always cost about six hundred?”
“Yeah, if the foundation note so hart.”
“We’re digging that now, so it’s not hard for you at all.”
“That’s goot. You save. We do coast plus feefteen, and you dig foundation and wooden deck. Seex hundred easy, so maybe seven-feefty.”
“But I get the permit.”
“You get the permeet.”
“That’s a tough one.”
“I no can go less than feefteen.”
“I’m not chiseling, Enrique. I’m trying to figure out how to hide Stefanie’s bullets.”
“Yeah, you geet permission.”
“You too.”
“Is there anything you want to see?”
“No, I build these last three houses in a row. I build these easy.”
“I know.”
“Bossman, that dam is pretty full. Do you want me to put it somewhere else?”
“Enrique, I’ll call you.”
“I send you an email of the quote.”
“Perfect. Thanks, man.”
“No hay pedo.”
“So, Robby is coming next week to look deeply at the house septic. We need to plow down the saplings up there and get it ready.”
“We’re into the shale tops now. Lots of crumble rock.”
“We could use that for the road base there where we come through the forest.”
“It’s all crumble now.”
“Okay. Here’s the plan. Stack all that crumble in the old forest road between the dig and where the septic field goes.”
“Stack it?”
“Not stacked, stacks that make a row of stacks the length of the forest road – like two dumps in a stack and back up and two more – and if you fill the whole three hundred feet drive over the top and start stacking on top.”
“The second bench got blue rock in it.”
“Keep digging around it. I marked the third bench, so move on to that next. Put the topsoil in the topsoil pile – don’t put it in the shale.”
“We need fuel too.”
“Tanner.”
“Yeah.”
“Come over here a second.”
“One sec.”
“You got enough for an hour?”
“Skid’s beeping.”
“Don’t run it out. Turn it off and pull all the air filters to knock them off a bit. Grease the machine and inspect everything.”
“What’s up?”
“Hook up the fuel trailer and get us a refill before you go for those erosion fences.”
“It’s about twenty-five-hundred feet.”
“And the pond eel? That’s about three-hundred.”
“Fine. Get the fuel and then take Devin with you to get the fence rolls. You two’ll be putting those in for days.”
“So, um, fuel and come back and then go get erosion fencing?”
“Yes. Cody. Tell me about this dog situation.”
“I told you already. And we gotta go to lunch.”
“It’s eleven-o-clock.”
“Gotta split out early.”
“You split early yesterday.”
“We fix Meghan’s car yesterday. Today we meet my landlord and get Rusty set up. We gotta move him.”
“So two half days this week?”
“Got all day tomorrow though.”
“So you found Rusty a place?”
“He’s takin’ my trailer, and I’m move the one up the hill.”
“Rusty and you are both my neighbors now. Neat. Twenty-five days and settled. What did you do with your two-thousand?”
“That’s not your business.”
“Easy, buddy. Small talk.”
“Ain’t small talk. My money, n I do what I want.”
“Ya know, Cody, it was small talk. Innocent. Your reaction begs the question though, did you get your license when it was my money?”
“Money ain’t your’n once it’s mine.”
“Sharp observation. You know what you’re missing though? You’re missing that I gave you the ability to be a grown man and a full member of your team.”
“Team’s not yours. None of your business.”
“So, you don’t feel the need to tell me what you did with the license money from sixty-eight days ago, and whether you got a license?”
“That’s right, and now I’m leaving.”
“It’s not lunch time yet.”
“You ain’t the boss of me, I am.”
“Rusty’s still working.”
“I’ll wait for him at the house.”
“So, um, why’s Cody walking down the road?”
“He stormed off.”
“Is there a story?”
“He’s mad I asked about his money.”
“You asked?”
“I didn’t demand or anything if that’s what you mean.”
“And he just stormed off?”
“Told me he was working a half day today because they gotta get Rusty moved into his trailer.”
“That part’s true, but I didn’t know about the half day.”
“He had a half day yesterday too.”
“Nobody said anything that time either.”
“They didn’t tell you either.”
“I just looked up around time to get the girls, and they had never come back from lunch.”
“Rusty’s still up there though.”
“I bet he won’t be for long.”
“Give him enough space to slink by without saying anything – like, come on to the shed.”
“That’s childish.”
“I mean.”
“Fine.”
“Where’s Devin?”
“I dropped him off at Cody’s house to get his car.”
“Why’s – ”
“His sister used it because something’s wrong with hers.”
“Hang on, that’s Stefanie --- Hey.”
“Michael. Look at you text.”
“I don’t have a --- There it is. That’s him. That’s the neighbor.”
“Michael. He’s a registered sex offender with a story should have been on the news.”
“Wait. Reading the link now.”
“That’s not the only one.”
“Dude, you’re blowing up my phone.”
“This guy’s the real thing.”
“Just tell me.”
“He drove to meet a kid, and it was a sting. But…”
“You ran him?”
“I can’t.”
“This is no time for the rules.”
“Read the other link headline.”
“--- his mother?”
“That guy is going to be our neighbor.”
“Wait. The Rottweiler was old – like…”
“You mean that’s the dog?”
“I mean, it can’t be. Don’t they euthanize dogs that…”
“Michael, if that’s one of the dogs that mauled his mother.”
“He kept the dog that murdered his mother.”
“I’m already on my way there.”
“Here? What about the warrant?”
“We served that.”
“Done already?”
“We just walk in, get everyone out, change the locks, sticker the doors, and we come back with the whole team.”
“You leave the evidence behind?”
“Not exactly. We take the computers and the registers and we get the logins to the security system. We unplug the internet, take the router, and we leave.”
“Why are you coming here?”
“We’re going to the address on his registration.”
“Whoa. No we’re not.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Wait, where’d you get the address?”
“It’s a red dot on a screen.”
“Hang on --- He lives off Boyd’s Creek.”
“Wait, that’s Phil ---”
“Tanner, you knew about this guy?”
“Sort of.”
“You said, the creeper, back when we were doing the boulders.”
“Um, so, Cody talks about him a lot.”
“What? What’s a lot.”
“Like, he’s mentioned him a couple times.”
“How?”
“For one thing, he wants him to build his house here, like fantasizes about how mad you’ll be.”
“Wait, so you don’t know the story. You just know the Cody version?”
“I’m back.”
“Hey.”
“Change of plans. I have to go back to the restaurant. This lady went back after, cut the tape, and now she’s inside.”
“Where is this place?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“But now you’re headed back there alone?”
“Sheriff’s already there, got her in custody. I gotta go. We’ll go to that house tonight.”
“Nope. This is me work.”
“No way, Michael. Don’t you dare go there without me.”
“Oh, I’m going. I already had a plan to dip out before you got here, and now I have time to plot and scheme. I’m getting a r…”
“Michael. Don’t you dare.”
“I’m already headed for the truck; gotta get a rental.”
“What the hell?”
“I just had him pinned in at the end of the driveway with the Hummer. He’ll know that thing on first sight driving past his house.”
“That’s why…”
“What? You didn’t think it through, did you? Did you imagine me in the front seat of your police car, running the MDT.”
“I didn’t think that far.”
“This lady happened for a reason. You have no business over there.”
“Neither do you.”
“I’m in the car, Stefanie. I must have some business.”
“You’re going now?”
“Right this minute before you get a chance to talk me out of it or trick me into waiting.”