by Jeff Johnson
I was between him and the clearing by then, which was good. Behind him, fifty yards back, a bloody-faced Santos staggered into view. He had the shovel in his hands.
“I disappear and Suzanne will have federal on her forever.” I paused to give Santos time. “I bet she could kick your ass anyway.”
“Open the trunk,” he ordered. “Then you hop in. We’re going for a drive. Someone very important wants to say hello to you. Hello and so much more.”
“I knew it,” I said scornfully. “You’re a butler of some kind.”
He laughed. It was a dark, wrong sound. “I am indeed. A butler! I like that. It has a nice ring to it.”
I stopped next to the Lexus and lowered my hands a little. He raised the gun and pointed it at my chest.
“Easy now. I want you to strip because I have no idea what kinds of weapons are in your clothes. You do it nice, like you don’t want to scare me. Then climb in and slam the lid, hard. I want to hear it latch. And after that you be real, real quiet, understand? That lid closes, not one peep until it opens again. If we stop and you start yelling, believe me when I tell you that you will find Jesus long before your last breath. Got it?”
“You, you want me to take my clothes off?” I made a disgusted face. “Christ. What if I leave my underwear on? What kind of knife or gun am I going to have in my underwear, man?”
“I start counting, I won’t stop. It will just be so you know when to take a breath to scream.”
Santos was halfway there and moving quietly. I pointed down at my feet.
“Boots,” I explained. “I have to unlace them, but don’t fuckin’ shoot me while I do.”
“No sudden moves,” he cautioned.
I knelt and slowly rolled up one pant leg, then untied the top of my boot and struggled with it, taking my time. When I finally got it off he made the winding motion with the gun again.
“C’mon, Holland. Get a move on.”
I moved a little faster with boot number two. When I was done, I rose barefoot and glared at him. Santos was maybe twenty feet behind him. He still looked dazed, and I had an awful flash that the poor crazy kid didn’t know where he was after the blow to the head and he was bringing us the shovel because he thought it was ours.
“What do I call you?” I asked.
“Me?” This surprised him, or at least he made it seem that way. “Oleander. That’s the only question I’m going to answer, too. Now, jacket next, then pants and socks and your underwear. Hurry the fuck up. You aren’t naked and in that trunk in one minute, I shoot off a chunk of meat.”
I nodded and began stripping fast. Santos heard that last part and it galvanized him. He couldn’t sneak along any faster, but he had some kind of idea what was going down. I was being abducted, and that meant riding around naked in the trunk of a new Lexus. The kid didn’t have any reason to like me after getting his ass kicked, but he clearly didn’t care for kidnapping, either.
“Okay, Oleander,” I said when I was naked. I lifted the lid of the trunk and looked in. Empty. “Try not to hit every pothole between here and hell, okay? Can I pee real fast first?”
“Get in.” No more smiling.
I raised my hand and flipped him off. His eyes flared and he snarled and pointed the gun at my stomach just as Santos swung the shovel with all his might and delivered a hard blow to the side of Oleander’s head. Time slowed as Oleander fell, shooting as he went down. The bullets went wide, three of them, and Santos raised the shovel high in both hands like a spear, the head pointed down. Oleander twisted and landed on his back, tried in vain to bring his gun to bear on Santos, who stood snarling above him, poised to strike again.
“No!” I yelled.
Santos brought the shovel down into Oleander’s neck as hard as he could. I was frozen then, stunned, and so was Santos. Oleander’s gun went off and the bullet ripped past Santos. Oleander made a gurgling sound and tried to raise his free hand to his throat while he jerked the gun around. Santos brought the shovel down again one more time, right into the neck again. The gun dropped and Santos stepped back, panting.
The man who called himself Oleander was dead, his eyes wide in disbelief. His final breath came in the form of bubbles through his gory neck, and then he was still.
“I needed that fucker alive!” I yelled into Santos’s face. My voice was loud and cracked in the post-gunfire silence. I yanked the shovel away from him and we both stared back down at the body.
“Too late now,” Santos replied. He looked at me. “Clothes, homie. You should get your clothes on. This would be a lot less fuckin’ strange if you were wearing clothes. I mean, Madre de Dios. I feel like I should make the sign of the cross but I have blood on my hands. I . . .” He trailed off.
“I, ah, shit.” I looked at him. “You in shock, dude? I just beat the shit out of you and you killed a guy. With a shovel. I might be in shock too. So I’m just asking.”
“I don’t feel good,” Santos confessed.
“Beer in the van.”
I dropped the shovel next to Oleander’s body and walked back to the Lexus, where my clothes lay in a pile. While I put them on I watched Santos get a beer out of the van and try to open it. His hands were shaking badly. Mine were only a little more steady. When I was dressed, I walked over and stood next to him. Neither of us said anything while I fished a beer out and wrenched the cap off. We drank and listened to the wind, high up in the trees.
“I did kill Bella,” he said eventually, long minutes later. We were both looking at the sky. “Heroin. She went out on a cloud, ese. But it isn’t what you think.”
I waited.
“I never even wanted a dog,” Santos continued. “I enjoy the company of cats. But dogs, I think they smell. Uncle Rodrigo thought it would ground me, whatever that means. But I loved that stupid dog after five minutes. One morning I was taking her for a walk, she ate a used condom.” He glanced at me. “How the fuck you supposed to love a thing does shit like that? But I did. Bella was a good dog. She had a soul. A big one.”
“And you killed her.”
“Hardest fuckin’ thing, too. It started out small, her sickness. She couldn’t keep her food down at first. I thought maybe she ate a spider, or a condom like that one time, maybe it got stuck in her somewhere. I wasn’t lying about the cancer. We got her drugs from the vet, but it was only a matter of time. She slept right next to my bed, and right there at the end I would wake up and she’d be staring at me, wondering what the fuck happened to her. I could see it in her face. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Neither could she. That fucking dog wanted out, dude. You don’t believe me, we can fight again. You got in a sucker punch the first time. Won’t be so lucky again.”
“And this shit with the bees? That box?”
“I wanted to bury her out here. She liked this place. Couple weeks ago, when I was out here for the party? Cherry an’ all that? I thought back an’ I remembered when me an’ Miguel discovered those fucking bees. We snuck away to do some blow an’ he got stung right on the ass. But then, couple nights ago, it fuckin’ hit me, just like that. The money was under that fuckin’ hornet nest, ’cause nobody was gonna fuck around under that thing. Nobody but me and my brother. Bella’s time came and here we are.”
“Huh.” I looked at my beer. “Well. Sorry, I guess. For jumping to conclusions an’ all that.”
“It happens, man. And I am so fucking sick of that happening, too.” A deep, real anger crept into his voice. “Always, always, this judgment shit. I was a starving fucking kid. I did bad shit to stay alive. Maybe I lost my way, but I’m not gonna find my way back if every motherfucker keeps pushing me into the dark at every fuckin’ turn.” He threw his beer down and glared at me. “I don’t accept your half-assed apology, piece of shit white boy.”
Santos walked over to his box of money and picked it up, then walked over to Oleander’s body. I watched as he fished the keys out and put them in his pocket. When he took the wallet out of Oleander’s pocket, I walked over and joi
ned him.
“You want any of this shit?” he asked. “The money and the credit cards are mine. So’s the Rolex.”
“Keep it.” I looked over his shoulder. “What are the names on the cards?”
“Chester G. Goodwin, Robert Gold.” He kept them and handed me the wallet. “Fake.”
He pocketed the bills, a few hundred, and the cards. The driver’s license was out of New Jersey. Robert Gold again. AAA card. No slips of paper with phone numbers, no hotel cards, nothing. The wallet felt new, too. I saved it. All of it was about to come in handy.
“Cell,” Santos said, holding it up. “You want it? They can track these things.”
I took it. An iPhone, locked. I put it in my pocket, too. Santos rose.
“Let’s check out my new ride,” he suggested. We walked over to the Lexus, leaving the body for the moment. He noticed my apprehension and gave me a tight, bloody smile. “Nobody comes out this way except on party days.”
“Still. Dead body in the road.”
There was a briefcase in the back seat of the Lexus. Santos used a key on the key ring to unlock it and we both stepped back. Inside was an even five grand, neatly bundled, and a stack of photographs. Santos took them out and looked through them, glancing my way now and then as he handed them over. The photographs were all of me. Drinking in the alcove in front of Ming’s. Hanging out at the Lucky. Drinking at the Rooster Rocket. Walking with Suzanne, holding hands. Drinking with Delia. I looked at the last photograph for a long time.
We were in a bar on Stark, the Twilight, eating their onion ring bacon cheeseburgers and drinking bourbon. That night had been almost two months ago, right before she stopped drinking, the night she announced her move to Austin. The night she told me she was engaged to Hank.
“Shit,” I said. Santos glanced back at the body.
“Creepy, man. Dude has been, like, stalking you.”
“Yep.” I tossed the picture back in the briefcase. “And he worked for someone. Someone within driving distance, too. Someone who had something important to tell me before they killed me.”
“You got more than woman problems, man.”
“Sure do. So.” I looked back at Oleander. “I guess I gotta bury that dude. Wanna help?”
“I still have to bury Bella. We can help each other.”
An hour and a half later, Santos and I stood by the Lexus and the van. We’d buried Bella far out in the woods, Oleander in a thicket in the opposite direction. I’d taken the photos out of the briefcase and stashed them in the van, and Santos had buried the briefcase, too. We drank beer and ate the lunch Delia had packed us, pastrami on rye, spicy pickles, and potato salad. Santos had washed his face in a tiny stream, and even though his white shirt was utterly destroyed, he looked much better as he consulted Oleander’s Rolex, now on his wrist.
“Dude. It’s two in the afternoon. Fuckin’ A we get shit done, no?”
I clinked beers with him, then tossed my head at the Lexus.
“Where you headed?”
He shrugged. “I got money, wheels. Maybe Idaho. Sell weed, that kind of shit.”
“I been to Idaho. Nice. Boise. Twin Falls.”
“Many Mexicans in Twin Falls,” Santos said thoughtfully. He popped the last of his pickle in his mouth. “Maybe I find the right place, fit in. Work in a restaurant so I can meet people.”
“What should I tell your uncle?”
“I been thinking about that.” He looked down. “I feel bad, man. He tried. They all did. But it wasn’t enough. It was no one’s fault though, you know?” He looked over at me. “How the fuck are they supposed to know all the shit that goes on in my head? But you’re right about not getting caught, Darby.” He looked out at the trees. “The world is too beautiful to give up on. I only just got started.”
I looked out at the same trees. “Stay true, dude.”
“You too, man.”
At the end of the road I paused. Santos took a right in front of me and he was gone. I was turning left. The highway was quiet, so I lit another cigarette and took out my phone to face the music.
Seven missed calls from Suzanne and two from Delia. I checked my text messages. There were nine in all. The first two were from Suzanne, and I immediately confirmed that I had indeed called her last night. First she was concerned but amused. Then she was irritated. The third text was from Delia, reminding me to bring the clothes I was wearing.
The fourth was from an unknown number. I opened it. The bartender had taken a picture of the first person to leave after Dessel. It was Oleander, the dead man buried at the edge of the clearing behind me. The rest were from my irate girlfriend. I didn’t read them, and instead stared at the picture of Oleander. He’d been wearing a different suit, darker, older, with no tie. There hadn’t been any clothing in the Lexus. So he had a hotel room somewhere in town. I was still staring at the picture when my phone rang, almost giving me a heart attack. Delia.
“You okay? How’s the kid?” Before I could say a single word, she continued. “My mother called this morning. She and my father are going to be on vacation for the last two weeks of October and try as they might, they can’t change their plans. But they did offer to send me a ticket if I want to go with them. One. Ticket.”
“Fuck those people,” I said. “So, the day took an interesting turn.”
“Easy for you to say,” she went on. “Hank. God, Darby. His family is so fucked. And now this. It’s like our wedding is cursed. Is it? I mean cursed? Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re done? When are you getting back?”
“Ah, hard to say.” I looked out at the empty highway. “Tonight.”
“Good. I have a special treat for us tomorrow. Something I need your help with. Fair trade since I rescued you with all my clever planning, right?”
“This treat has something to do with chickens, doesn’t it?”
“Please, Darby,” she whined. “I’ve been good. Really, really good. I even picked out your clothes this morning. And I packed you lunch. Was it good?”
“It was good.”
“Then it’s a date!” Delia hung up before I could protest.
The intermittent drizzle had given way to an overall gray downpour, and abruptly I wished that I could spend the rest of the day anywhere else than Portland. I didn’t want to turn around and spend the afternoon at the Gomez family party graveyard. I didn’t want to hunt for the dead man’s hotel, which might lead me to his boss. I vaguely wanted to go bitch out Dessel for being so crappy at his job, but not enough to actually go do it. I headed for I-5 and figured I’d make up my mind when I got there.
As I drove, I realized it was the same impulse I’d been having for months. I wanted to be free again. It was hard to say when and where I lost the sense of freedom, but there was no denying it was gone. If I was to be honest with myself, some of my problem with Delia leaving had a little to do with envy. To move, go to a new place, do something different. My life had grown chains.
A half hour later I hit I-5 and headed north. I did it without thinking. The clock on the dash read 3:39. I could make it to Seattle by the time Suzanne left work. She left at the same time every night, and if I drove fast and straight through, I could be waiting outside her office when she walked out the door. Maybe I could stop one time, really fast, and buy flowers.
I’d made it almost forty minutes into the drive before Oleander’s phone rang. The ringtone made me panic and I felt a flash of insanity, a terrible certainty that I’d lost my shit. The iPhone’s ringtone was the bleating of goats.
“Mother fucker,” I answered.
“Darby?” The voice was digitally altered, but even so it sounded sarcastic. “Darby Holland?”
“That’s right.” It came out low.
“So good to talk to you again. So good. You still don’t know who I am, do you?”
“I know all kinds of shit about you, dumbass.” I paused and listened.
“There is
only one reason we are talking, Darby. I love the way the game is shaping up.”
“This is a game?” Behind the scramble of the voice I could hear what sounded like traffic. A car horn. My heart skipped a beat as I realized what was happening.
“My move.”
I hit the turn signal and skidded to a halt on the right shoulder. A semi blew past, howling, and the van sucked back and forth on its shocks. I dropped the iPhone and took out mine, frantically scrolled through it to Chase’s number. He answered on the first ring.
“Boss!” He sounded like he’d been laughing. “I fuckin’ lost your feds, man! Straight-up Dukes of Hazzard, dude! Walmart parking lot just now and I—”
“Chase!” I yelled. “Someone else is right behind you! Someone was following the feds! Ditch the car and run like the fucking—”
The line went dead.
I took the first exit and came to a stop in a gas station parking lot. Chase didn’t pick up. I tried again. Same result. I got out, holding the phone. The forest had given way to agriculture, and I could see for miles in both directions. The gas station was at the peak of a low, gradual hill. The cold wind cut through my jacket and made my eyes water. After a minute my phone rang. Chase.
“Dude! Your car! Sorry, man—”
“What happened?”
“You were yelling!” Chase was out of breath. “All I heard was get out and run, so I did! I did, man, and your car blew the fuck up, dude! I can see it right now! It’s like, like, like—”
“Chase! Are there any police?”
“Cops just pulled in, one car. If I run I can—”
“Go and stand next to the cops. Now.”
“What? ”
“Chase. I’m not asking you to get arrested. Go and stand as close to them as you can get. Listen to me, man, someone is watching you right now. You leave the scene and you are dead, dead, dead. Got it?”
“What a fuckin’ bummer.” It came out breathless.
“I know, homie. Car on fire, the fire trucks, ambulance, all that shit will be everywhere. Exactly where are you?”
