Peaceable Kingdom

by Jack Ketchum

  “Shit, Bernice. We’d probably make it so the car won’t start. How are you gonna kill him that way?”

  “Yeah. You’re right. Too risky.”

  “I still like the pancakes, though. You still like the pancakes?”

  “The pancakes is good,” said Bernice.

  She nodded sagely, tapping her fingernails against the bar. The fingernails were maroon because her dress was burgundy and her pumps were cherry. She looked perfectly at home in the gastric decor of the bar.

  “You still got the LSD?” she asked.

  “All ground up and waiting to go in the batter. Problem is he keeps saying he gets breakfast at the plant so all he wants is coffee. Maybe Saturday, though.”

  “’Mona, I have to go to my sister-in-law’s for dinner on Saturday! I told you that. Look, let’s run over everything again and just pick something. I want to get this over with. Right now.”

  Ramona nodded. Waiting for Saturday was an inconvenience for her as well. Take that barman there. She would have liked to bring him home and give it to him the proper way. With Howard in the picture she’d probably have to settle for a quick one up against the urinals in the men’s room. Time was a-wasting.

  She caught his eye. She ran her tongue slowly, wetly, over her lips. The barman smiled and winked.

  The topless dancer glanced down at her breasts and compared them to Ramona’s. Unhappily they came up short. She decided to wear them more defiantly.

  “Okay,” said Ramona. “There’s downers in the Budweiser and the lye in the bean soup. I still think we could put the .45 slugs in the carburator. They’d explode and blow his brains out. We could say it was kids.”

  “We’d still have to find the carburator.”

  “Yeah. Now, our best bet would be to figure out some way to get the hypodermic needle fixed and shoot an air bubble into him. But you had to go and drop the goddamn thing.”

  “I’m sorry, ’Mona. It was just such a good idea it made me nervous.”

  “That’s all right, Bernice. You have to allow for these things. But we have to count that out for now. And I still think it would be hard to make a stabbing death look like he had an accident.”

  “I think bullets in the carburator is chancy.”

  “Maybe. But to be honest, handling lye fucking worries me.”

  “Me too.”

  “So given the time factor, I’d say death by beer.”

  The barman leaned over the bar. “Why don’t you just bludgeon the sonovabitch to death?” he asked.

  “Oh christ,” said Ramona. “Shows how much you know. You realize the guy we’re talking about is as big as you are? You figure I could bludgeon you to death?”

  The barman shrugged. “There’s two of you. He sleeps, don’t he?”

  “Yeah, smarty, he sleeps.”

  “So, you get him some night when he’s had a few, you kill him and then toss him over the rocks somewhere and it looks like he got drunk and took a walk where he shouldn’t of been walking. What’s the big deal?”

  Bernice had had about enough of this. It wasn’t her tits he had his eye on after all.

  “Hey,” she said. “Who asked you? You want to hire on to do the work or what?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Then suppose you just pour me and my friend another and if we want your advice, we’ll ask for it. Okay?”

  “Easy, Bernice,” said Ramona. “The nice man was just about to buy us a round. Weren’t you?”

  She smiled. He decided he didn’t mind the peach lipstick smear along the bottom of her front teeth.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “Now that you mention it.”

  “You’re a doll.”

  She glanced at Bernice. It was obvious her doubles were finally catching up to her. She slumped on the barstool. The mole on her neck had not made an appearance in over twenty minutes now. Her upper lip tended to tuck itself into her lower lip, and then vice versa, like a pair of worms wrestling across her pale rouged face.

  “You better lay off the sauce a little,” said Ramona.

  She hated to see her friend like this. It certainly wasn’t doing her figure any good. Now, Ramona could drink all night without even gaining a pound. She was proud of that. Proud of her figure, of her good legs and her dark thick hair. Mother had called these “attributes”—meaning they would help her get a man. Well she had got one all right. And now this pudgy dimpled barfly would help her get rid of him. If she could dry her out sufficiently.

  “I’ll lay off,” said Bernice. She was beginning to slur her words. “You lay off too. So. We gonna beer him to death or what?”

  “Huh? Oh. Sure,” said Ramona. She’d been eyeing the barman. She was getting a little drinky-drunk herself she suspected.

  Above them the dancer frowned and checked her Timex.

  “Quarter to three,” she said. “Time for me to break.”

  She started to climb off the bar. The silver high-heel pumps made her awkward. She looked for some help from the barman. But the barman was over with the girls, grinning wolfishly at Ramona. “Fuck it,” she muttered. She eased herself down gingerly. As though slipping into Arctic seas.

  On her way to the john she skidded to a stop behind them. The fat one seemed to be dozing. The other was staring at the barman through smoky, half closed lids, mumbling rut and endearment.

  The dancer leaned in close to her tiny festooned ear.

  “Honey, why don’t you just climb on over that bar and have some,” she said. “Then maybe you won’t have to kill the other guy, y’know? Just leave a little left for me.”

  “Hell of an idea,” said Ramona.

  Bernice jerked violently upright.

  “Gotta piss,” she said. “Where’s the toilet?”

  But Ramona was already gone, and if the barman heard her he didn’t bother to respond. Instead he responded to Ramona, who had his pants and jockey shorts down around his ankles and a slurping mouthful of barkeep.

  “Whereza fucking toilet?” said Bernice.

  She clambered off the barstool, tripped and fell, and suddenly was sitting again. Only lower. In the peasoup haze of her disorientation she did the only thing left open to her.

  She used the floor.

  The Budweiser murder did not come off.

  Bernice and Ramona dropped ten downers each into his beercan. Ramona delivered it. And Howard drank it while watching Hollywood’s Greatest Boners that night. But the drug dropped out of solution and sat uselessly at the bottom of the can, thick white sludge.

  On Saturday Ramona tried to feed him her LSD pancakes. But Howard wasn’t hungry and said that her pancakes were always leadburgers anyway.

  On Sunday they dropped two dozen bullets into the carburator of the Mercury. When Howard tried to start it up for his beer-run over the the 7-Eleven the car just burped and died.

  By Monday they were frantic.

  “It’s impossible to kill the sonovabitch,” said Ramona. “I’ve decided that a woman simply can not kill a man. Anything we’ve heard to the contrary is filthy lies.”

  “Let’s think,” said Bernice.

  They did.

  “There’s the lye,” said Ramona.

  “What good is the lye if the guy won’t eat your cooking?”

  Ramona sighed. “I guess he’s never really liked it much.”

  “Know what I’m beginning to think, ’Mona? I’m beginning to think that that bartender...”

  “Stanley.”

  “. . . that Stanley had the right idea. Let’s just get something heavy and bash the sonovabitch.”

  Ramona sighed again. It was more like a wheeze. Cigarettes, drinks, and countless sleepless nights all chuckling inside her lungs.

  “So we just find something to whack him with, right?”

  “It’d have to be disposable. You couldn’t just leave it afterwards.”

  “That leaves out the tire iron. And the golf clubs. I’m damned if I’m buying new golf clubs.”

  “Has h
e got a baseball bat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You like baseball?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Make it the baseball bat then. Then we just got to find a convenient cliff to dump him over.”

  Ramona thought a moment. “Okay. But who does the bashing?”

  “We both do. We’ll flip a coin to see who goes first.”

  Ramona thought that was fair.

  “Want to do it tonight?”

  Bernice hesitated.

  “Come on, Bernice. I got a date with Stanley tomorrow. I thought this would all be long over by now. Let’s do it. What do you say?”

  Bernice considered, then giggled.

  “Gee. When do you think they’ll pay on the policy, ’Mona?”

  “Let’s flip,” said Ramona.

  They found a quarter. Bernice won.

  Heads.

  In the upstairs bedroom the warm wet San Diego darkness clung to the room like used sweatsocks to a filthy pair of feet. On the bed, beneath the totally unnecessary—and now, ironical—comforter, Howard lay asleep, his high bulbous forehead awash with dreams.

  In his dream, fueled by Kentucky bourbon, it was already morning. Howard was in the bathroom, breaking into a brand new bottle of Listerine.

  The cap wouldn’t give. Howard turned the bottle upside down and tapped it twice on the green porcelain sink. That did the trick. He threw back his head and tasted some.

  It tasted like Old Grandad.

  He gargled, swallowed, and slugged again. Delighted, he finished the bottle. Looked in the cabinet and underneath the sink for another. There was still the problem of his breath.

  He unscrewed the cap from a shampoo bottle and tasted it.

  Eighty proof.

  Amazed and laughing he drained it. Then a bottle of hair tonic. A bottle of aftershave. Ramona’s roll-on deodorant.

  What a morning.

  Ramona and Bernice tiptoed shoeless up the stairs and opened the bedroom door. A shaft of light and a tired current of thick warm air preceeded them into the room. Bernice carried Howard’s Louisville Slugger in her right hand, laving its neck with an unaccustomed slick of feminine perspiration.

  They waited till their eyes adjusted to the dark and could see something of the green and silver wallpaper.

  “I don’t know about this,” whispered Bernice.

  “You better know.” Said Ramona.

  “I don’t feel so good about this, ’Mona. Look how peaceful he looks lying there. Oh! He looks just like a baby.”

  Howard did look childlike. The illusion was enhanced by the pillow clutched in his hands, one corner of which tilted toward his open mouth—in the murk of his dream, the hydrogen peroxide that was actually whiskey, guzzled in early morning greed.

  “Yeah, he’s cute all right,” said Ramona. “Whack the fucker right now or I swear you’ll hear about it later.”

  She did not exactly know what she meant by that. But Bernice seemed to know. And suddenly they were in accord, and Howard’s doom was writ.

  “Sorry, How’,” said Bernice.

  She stepped toward the bed and raised the Slugger.

  “I am too,” whispered Ramona. Though a good half of that was drama.

  The bat arced down. Bernice’s aim was true.

  Wood on wood. The second piece, slightly wet.

  As for Howard, all he heard was a single slap. All he saw was the red-out of his dream. All he felt was the onset of a killer hangover.

  It figured.

  The girls came down all bloody and excited.

  “We did it,” said Bernice.

  “We sure did,” Ramona said. “Look at my pants. They’re sopping.”

  It was not just blood she was talking about, though there was plenty of that.

  It was difficult for her to remember exactly when it had happened.

  They had hit him twenty-four times in succession, one after the other. Toward the end they’d become more sporting, bashing him two or three times before surrendering up the bat. Trying swings.

  His skull was fractured in sixteen places, his collarbone was shattered and his windpipe. They’d broken his shoulder, vertebra and hip. The blow to the hip had been Bernice’s. She’d been trying out her golf grip, skylarking a bit.

  Blood and brains splashed across the walls and windows with each successive blow to the head—and it was immediately after delivering one of these that Ramona had her little accident. She’s said nothing to Bernice. Just leaned against the door and waited until the flashing stopped.

  She wondered if she’d ever need sex again.

  The place was a mess. Howard was dead and enough was enough. Ramona called a halt.

  She took some cotton from her first-aid kit in the bathroom and stuffed it into his ears, nose and mouth to stop the bleeding. She wrapped his head turban-style in a pink bath towel and then waited to see if his brains would seep through. They did.

  She took another towel from the linen closet and wrapped it around the first one.

  Meanwhile Bernice dressed him in his favorite black-and-red checked hunting jacket, a pair of old blue jeans, red shirt, and green socks. The cowboy boots were a problem. Ramona had to help her.

  They taped his wrists together over his hard beer-glutted stomach so they wouldn’t just dangle. Taped his ankles together so they’d be easier to grip when they started lugging. Ramona wound gauze and more tape over the towels. Round and round. Howard looked like a mummy dressed for Opening Day of rabbit season.

  They finished their coffee downstairs, took a breather, and then went back for the body. They pushed and pulled. Finally Howard lay face-up on the porch in back of the house, with a trail of blood and brain-matter leading back upstairs to the bedroom as though he’d forgotten something.

  “Bring the car around,” said Ramona, “while I clean up a little.”

  “Got enough paper towels?”

  “I think. I may have to borrow from you, though.”

  “That’s okay.”

  By the time Bernice returned the flies were buzzing. Ramona was on the staircase with a roll of paper towels and a box of SOS. Bernice shooed flies as best she could.

  It was a mistake. In the warm, gulf-stream turbulence of her flailing arms two of them were propelled upstairs toward Ramona crouched intent upon flecks and smears on her off-white staircase, and then beyond—some primitive homing instinct impelling them toward a candy-store bedroom full of fresh gore, buzzing their rapture into the San Diego night.

  In less than an hour the room was filled with flying mosquitoes, houseflies, mites and midges, partying on the remains of Howard.

  While Bernice drove twenty-five miles out of town, removed Howard’s tape and turbans, dumped him off a cliff significant enough to cause major increased damage to his body and then drove back to town, Ramona struggled with the blood and insects.

  While Bernice cleaned the car and porch, Ramona continued same.

  Finally Bernice came up with the bug spray and another roll of paper towels. It helped.

  By sunup, six hours later, the blood on the windowsills and the shiny silver wallpaper had turned a light, coral pink and they decided to quit. They took out the garbage. Ramona poured them drinks.

  They drank ’til about 8:30.

  “Think it’s safe to call now?” asked Bernice.

  “I guess. It’s just a missing persons thing. They’re not gonna come looking for him just yet. Later on we can buy some paint. Fix things up a little.”

  “Won’t that look suspicious, ’Mona?”

  “Nah. We’ll get waterbase. It dries faster. Dial ’em. And then I think I’d better call and cancel that date with Stanley. I’m bushed.”

  Ramona sipped her scotch. Bernice dialed, handed her the receiver and sat down to her gin. Tasted it. Stared at it.

  Looking sort of puzzled.

  The number rang.

  “ ’Mona?” said Bernice.

  “Shhh. Wait. I’ve got them.”

&n
bsp; She finished her drink while Ramona spoke to the sergeant. Got up and filled her own glass and ’Mona’s again. She listened. Except for what was bothering her, things seemed to be going smoothly.

  Her husband had been out all night, Ramona said. This was very unusual for him. She was worried, she said, afraid something had happened. No, she hadn’t checked with the hospitals yet. She assumed the first thing you did was call the police.