He drove forty-five miles out into the desert along State Highway 186, until he reached the foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains.
The dirt road was dusty and dark, and he started climbing up into the mountains. At every turn, he thought about stopping to unload the body, but he was too nervous, and he was afraid that someone would see him. He climbed higher into the mountains until pine trees rose on either side of the road.
He peered over the steering wheel and saw the headlights shining up into the woods in front of him. At one sharp turn, he heard the body rolling around in the trunk, and he saw patches of snow on the ground.
He continued slowly up into the woods, climbing higher and higher. The patches of snow grew more and more frequent, until the road was covered with snow, and the Cuda’s tires floated over packed powder.
He continued up the mountain until he reached a Forest Service sign that read Onion Saddle Elevation 7,700. The snow was a foot deep on either side of the road.
He rolled down his window. The air was cold; his breath steamed. He was surrounded by dense pine forest, and everything was deeply silent, except for the sound of the Cuda’s engine. The road continued forward down the east side of the mountains, he knew, but there was a turn to the right up toward Buena Vista Peak. He could tell by the untouched powder that no one had tried to make it up that way in several weeks, and so he turned the Cuda’s wheels slowly and started to creep forward up the snow-covered trail.
Everything was dark, except for the shine of the headlights on the snow through the woods, and Robert crept along at five miles per hour. The powder grew deeper, and he began to panic that he might get stuck. He drove on another mile until the trail was only fifteen feet wide and was covered in deep fresh powder.
Finally, he stopped the car. He opened the door and stepped out. He inspected the wheels on the Cuda and saw that they were almost completely buried. In the sky overhead, he saw thick snow clouds. The air was thin, and there was no sound except for the rumbling engine.
He glanced around the back of the car and saw the red glow of taillights. The exhaust breathed out a steady little cloud, and Robert shivered. It was twenty degrees, cold.
He looked up into the woods on the driver’s side of the Cuda and formed a plan. He would leave the body here, drag it up the hillside, up into the woods. And no one would happen along this path for at least another month, maybe two or three months.
Robert started back toward the car and back toward the trunk. He could smell the exhaust fumes, and he stared down at the blue bungee cord latched from bumper to trunk. He did a long slow pivot, searching the forest around him for any sign of movement, but he saw none.
This is it, he thought. This is where you leave him.
He nodded his head and started to reach forward to unlatch the bungee cord. It was stuck a moment, and he had to kneel down and inspect it closely. He pried the knot with his fingertips, loosened it, and the bungee cord unclasped from the bumper. He pulled it back and started to open the trunk. It creaked with rust, and all was darkness inside.
Robert squinted and looked from side to side, but he couldn’t see the body. He leaned forward over the trunk and reached his right hand down inside the trunk.
Oh, my God, he thought. He’s vanished.
Robert leaned in closer. He felt the bottom of the trunk with his hand. There was nothing there.
“What in the world,” he said aloud.
And he leaned forward with both hands and started inspecting the trunk.
Suddenly, a hand shot forward out of the recesses deep inside the trunk and grabbed his shirt.
Robert cried out.
A second hand shot up out of the darkness and gripped his throat. Robert slapped at the hands, and then he saw the kid’s face, his icy blue eyes and the evil grimace of his teeth.
Robert beat at the hands, broke free, and then staggered backward. He fell down onto the snow, and he saw the kid climbing up out of the trunk.
“You sorry son of a bitch,” Dale muttered.
Robert felt the snow on his hands, and he saw the kid who had been dead two hours earlier stepping down out of the Cuda’s trunk.
“I’m gonna bash your skull in,” Dale said.
He stood there in the snow. Robert was on the ground. He scrambled backwards over the snow, but Dale came swiftly to him and brought down a powerful right foot onto the middle of Robert’s back.
Robert tried to roll over, and Dale stomped at him with his other foot. But he missed and Robert was able to get to his feet. He started towards the back of the Cuda. He slipped and hit the trunk, struggled around the side, and clawed at the driver-side door handle. Something struck him in the back. The door creaked open, but Robert fell to the left of the Cuda, and Dale was on him again.
Dale straddled him and swung furiously at Robert’s face. Everything faded to white, blurry pain. He was out for a moment.
He felt Dale climbing up off of him. He shook his head and saw the kid staggering through the snow toward the driver-side door.
He could taste blood in his mouth, and his nose was broken. His head throbbed, and he tried to lean forward up from the snow. Dale reached inside the car. Robert could see that he was looking for something. He shook his head, dazed, and then the kid swung around from the driver-side door. He had a crazy look in his eyes, and he held the butcher’s knife victoriously in his hand.
Robert rolled over on his hands and knees and started crawling up into the woods. He could hear the kid behind him, coming towards him through the snow. He struggled to his feet and staggered forward in the knee-high powder.
“I’m gonna get you!” Dale shouted.
Robert could hear the knife slicing through the air. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that they’d climbed a couple hundred feet up the hillside. The Cuda was still down there on the snow-covered road, its driver-side door and trunk open, its headlights on. Dale was only ten feet behind him, but the snow was so thick it was hard to move.
Robert hit a tree. He was out of breath. He spat and started out around the ridge and back down the hill through the snow and through the trees. Dale cut him off and lunged at his leg with the knife.
Both went down.
Robert felt something bright hot on his back left thigh, and he fell forward over the snow. Blood poured from his jeans onto the snow, and he saw Dale climbing to his feet. Dale realized he’d gotten the knife into him, and he grinned wildly.
“Strike!” he roared.
And he was up, slashing the knife back and forth again. Robert clambered to his feet and stumbled down the hill. He came down onto the trail and saw the Cuda one hundred feet up to his left. Dale leapt down onto the road, and Robert felt something hot sink into his left arm. He screamed out, and Dale tumbled forward onto the road.
Robert saw the knife sticking out of his left arm just below his shoulder.
He wrenched at it and pulled it from his arm. He cried out in pain and, without thinking, tossed the knife down the hill away from the road.
Dale shouted, “Strike two!” as he climbed to his feet.
Robert ran toward the Cuda. He slipped and slid and nearly slammed his head into the door, but he got inside behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. He glanced in the rearview mirror, but the trunk was up, and he couldn’t see out. He glanced in the side-view mirror and saw Dale approaching the back of the car.
Robert threw the Cuda into reverse and put the accelerator on the floor. He heard a loud noise and then something thudded underneath the car like he was dragging it over the snow. Robert tried to see through the side-view mirror, but he couldn’t see Dale. He hit the brakes, and the trunk slammed shut.
Robert’s hands were on the wheel, and he looked around the car panicked. He could only see well in front of him where the headlights shined, but he could see a few feet behind him in the taillights’ red glow. And he could see about twenty feet at either side of the car into the woods on both sides.
But he didn
’t see the kid.
He put the Cuda in reverse and started back down the trail toward Onion Saddle. There was no way for him to turn around, so he just drove in reverse. It sounded like something was dragging underneath the car. It was right underneath the center console.
It made a sound like whump, whump, whump! Then, there was a pause, and then it started up again: whump, whump, whump!
It kept on like that all the way back down the trail to Onion Saddle, where he finally turned the car around. He looked out the window to the left, up the trail from which he’d just come. He didn’t see the kid.
He looked at the Forest Service sign with Onion Saddle and Elevation 7,700 on it. And he opened the door. He stepped out from the driver’s seat onto the snow. The snow was crunchy with ice and frozen slush, and Robert reached down behind the seat, searching for the handgun. He didn’t see it on the floor, and so he bent over and felt underneath the seat. His fingertips found it, and he dragged it out, gripped it in his hand, and started to stand up straight at the side of the car.
The snow began falling in earnest.
Robert leaned down and saw Dale mangled underneath the bottom of the car. He stared at him. Dale didn’t move, couldn’t possibly move. He was dead.
The Cuda giveth, Robert thought. And the Cuda taketh away.
Dale was heavy, but Robert managed to drag his dead body well up into the trees, where he left him.
By the time he climbed inside the car, there was a light dusting of snow on the windshield. He surveyed the pass and saw that the snow was covering his tracks. In ten minutes, there was no sign of blood on the ground, and ten minutes after that, the Cuda’s tracks were filled. Robert put the car in gear, peered once through the rearview mirror, and started down the mountain.
The AM radio crackled to life. Robert eyed the lighted dashboard console and heard the song come over the speakers: “Oh the weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so delightful. And since we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”
It took him two hours to retrieve the shovel and to drive out to Cactus Memorial Cemetery. He parked the Cuda on a side street adjacent to the graveyard. He knew the gravesite like his own hand and could find it in the dark. He checked his watch and saw that he had three hours to dig before sunrise.
There was a gate around the cemetery, and Robert threw his shovel over the fence and climbed. He landed with surprising agility and began walking up the hill towards her grave. He missed her; he missed her deeply. He missed Angie with all his heart. And he smiled at the thought of their happy reunion.
The Con Artists
My wife and I were dressing for the cruise ship’s formal night when we heard the gunshots outside our room. Two shots, fired at close range.
“What was that?” I said and stepped to our door’s vidhole.
I saw two men flash by, passing left to right up the hallway.
The second man shouted: “Stop him!”
Both were in an all-out sprint.
I glanced back at Paula. She had the room phone in hand.
“We just heard two gunshots,” she said into the phone, “right outside our cabin . . . yes, I’m sure . . . gunshots!”
I opened the door and looked outside. A large man in a Mickey Mouse costume lay face down ten feet left of our door. He’d been shot in the back of the head. A handgun lay on the floor four feet in front of him. He was dead.
• •
“What do you and your wife do?” the security officer asked.
Paula disliked being referred to as “my wife” when someone was talking directly to her. It was just another thing to add to the list of ten thousand things we’d have to reconcile.
“I’m a student,” I said feeling a tinge of guilt.
The officer looked at me without emotion, then at Paula.
“I work for a pharmaceutical company,” Paula said. “I’m a researcher.”
“Which company?” the security officer said.
Behind him, I saw the gurney pass by the door. Two ship doctors were onboard the Disney Galactic Princess, and someone had removed the helmet-like Mickey Mouse mask from the man. Doors were open on either side of the hallway, and the security officers took statements from anyone who had heard anything.
I glanced at Paula to see if she recognized the man on the gurney, but she was focused on the officer’s question.
“Iovon Pharmaceuticals,” she said.
The officer looked at his handheld. “Is this your honeymoon?”
Paula said: “No.”
He managed a friendly smile. “December’s a good time to cruise.” He was trying to be pleasant. “Ever been to the Moon before?”
I shook my head.
Paula said, “Twice before, with conventions.”
“Did you stay at Disney’s LunaWorld?”
“No, a resort at Schröter’s Valley.”
The officer made a note.
“How long will you be staying?”
“Eight days,” Paula said. “We’re scheduled to depart on the 27th. We’ll be back on Earth before New Years.”
• •
Our tablemates were discussing the importance of love versus money when we joined them at the table. Vic and Angie were an older couple from Oregon. Both had been previously married. Vic was of the opinion that money, “Enough of it,” he said as I pulled up a chair, “is more attractive than love.”
He continued, “It’s not a very romantic notion, I admit, but you’d be surprised how many divorces result from one of the partners not meeting the other’s basic standard of living.”
Oh, joy. I glanced at Paula.
She said, “They shot him right outside our cabin door.”
Everyone looked at her stunned.
“Someone was shot?” Vic said.
“Tha-tha-that’s terrible,” Angie said.
“We heard two gunshots,” she said. “We were getting dressed. Roger saw two men run by the doorway.”
“Through a vidhole,” I said. “I didn’t see them very well.”
“Jesus, Roger,” Bernie said.
The headwaiter tapped me on the shoulder and discretely handed me a sealed envelope on ship stationary.
“The gentleman--” he nodded across the dining room “--asked me to deliver this to you, Mr. Winston.”
I eyed the envelope.
“Which gentleman?” I said. There were five hundred people in the dining room.
“In the red fedora,” the headwaiter said.
Far across the room, standing near one of the aft exits, I saw a man in a red fedora. He nodded at me and then turned and exited the dining room. I glanced at the headwaiter. A last minute replacement, he had Turkish features and caramel-colored eyes.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded.
“What is it?” Paula whispered.
“Some sort of letter.”
“What does it say?”
“So, Paula, what do you think?” Angie said. “Does money ruin marriages?”
There was an awkward pause. People from other tables glanced at us. Paula managed to say: “I don’t know if money alone can ruin a marriage. There are usually other factors, I would think.”
I managed a smile around the table. I opened the envelope. There was a note inside. It read:
Meet me in the casino at nine-thirty.
I know about your plans for Dr. Winston.
“Is everything okay?” Paula whispered.
“Yes,” I said. “I, uh . . . everything’s okay.”
Everyone looked at me. I placed the envelope and note back in my jacket pocket. My hands were shaking. There was an awkward silence at the table for a few seconds.
Then Angie said, “I was in a convenience store one time that got robbed. I had to answer questions for two or three weeks.”
• •
Between the dining room and the cabin area, there was a three-story atrium-style mall. Paula and I strolled around the th
ird floor balcony eying jewelry. Our first real job together had been a Denver heist six months after I asked her to marry me with a glass ring. We were so penniless at the time that we couldn’t afford to replace the glass, but the heist had worked out and she now wore a diamond on her ring finger.
“Oh, this is pretty,” she said.
She knelt down over a jewelry table and looked at a bracelet.
I managed to smile and even said, “I like it.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky in the casino tonight.”
I glanced around us. We were clear. I said, “We’ve got our fish, Paula.”
Paula’s eyes lit up, but she immediately felt self-conscious. I could see it. I breathed deeply and eyed a rack of T-shirts outside the duty-free store.
Twelve more hours of this, I thought.
“Can I see the note?” she said.
“I threw it away.”
“You threw it away?”
“When we left the dining room,” I said, “I threw it in the trash. I didn’t think it was that important.”
“Not important,” she said. “Roger, the job is on. What do you mean? You said we’ve got our fish.”
“I can handle it, Paula.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting so defensive about,” she said. “Everything’s okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “It’s not every day you see someone shot dead.”
Several heads rose up from just inside the duty-free store, but I gave them an intense look and they went back to mulling over stacks of sweatshirts.
• •
The Space Tower Casino offered the best views onboard the ship. I entered the round room and glanced at all the shiny lights of gambling machines. It was crowded. The room was glass-encased on all sides, and the tower rose from the side of the ship.
I had cash in my tuxedo jacket. I glanced around looking for the man with the red hat. I did not see him and so took a seat in front of a video poker machine. The casino was noisy and smoky. I inserted a twenty, pressed “max bet,” and instantly drew a heart flush.
The Kiribati Test Page 7
