by Sweet, Dell
"When you got done-I was surprised how fast you did it-I just stayed in the wood for a few minutes... Like I didn't know what to do... I guess I didn't," she shook her head. "Then I walked down the road through the woods across from the other car. I was going to tell you... Call out... But you seemed so focused... I guess that's the word. Intent might be better. And anyway, next thing you know you were done with that too. Then the cops... I came out of the woods when the cops got here. You didn't see me 'cause you were talking to one of them..." She looked back at him and held his eyes with her own. That was pretty easy to do: Billy seemed unable to look away. "You mad?" she asked after a few moments.
"How old are you?" Billy asked.
"Huh?" she asked.
"You know... How old are you. I look at you and I keep thinking you are younger. Then you talk and I start thinking you are older," Billy said.
"Fifteen," she said. "Still wanna do me?" she asked and smiled.
"God," Billy said, nearly choking.
"I'm kidding," she laughed. "I'm eighteen." She pulled out her driver's license and showed it to him.
Billy looked from her to the license. "Doesn't really look like you."
She sighed, took the license and stuck it back into her pocket. "Now who else would it be?" she asked.
"That was mean," Billy said. “I'm sorry. No one ever looks like themselves in a license photo.”
"Yeah... But the upside is I'm legal and I bet that matters, doesn't it?" April asked.
He opened his mouth to respond and then snapped it shut just as quickly. She giggled.
"So... You didn't peek at all? Look in the bags?"
Billy cleared his throat and hoped his face wasn't too red. "No... But you could tell what some of it was. At least I'm pretty sure. There are two huge bags of pot. I mean huge," Billy told her.
"I know. I saw you had a hard time lifting them. You could only carry one at a time," April agreed.
"You really were watching the whole thing?" Billy said.
"I told you," April agreed.
"Yeah... Well anyway, I could only carry one bag at a time. I mean, how heavy is that? How much pot is that? A lot. A freakin' lot. And then there are four bricks of cocaine. Probably cocaine, but what else do you package like that and shoot other people over? They're actually brick size. Like a real brick. That has to be worth a lot too." He paused and looked at her.
"The rest?" she asked.
"The rest we'll have to see. I didn't have time to look at it," Billy told her.
"When?" she asked. "When will we see?"
"Well... We should come to some sort of deal first, right?" Billy asked.
"Deal... What do you mean deal?" April asked.
Billy looked away and then turned back and met her eyes. "Deal as in I did all the work," he said.
She nodded. "And I kept my mouth shut or you wouldn't have it. And you would probably be sitting in county jail right now too," she told him.
Billy finished his sandwich and then licked his fingers. April finished hers and they both sat in the silence for a while. The refrigerator clicked on and the compressor began to hum loudly from the kitchen. Billy drank down the entire can of beer waiting for her to speak, letting the minutes play out. When she didn't speak he got up for another can, offered her one, but she shook her head and so he sat back down with the fresh can.
"So," Billy said reluctantly. "What do you want? You want to split it fifty, fifty?"
"That would be the fairest... If you consider it all, we're both in on it from go. I intended to look in those cars too, you just got there first. I kept my mouth shut. I would have yelled to you if I had seen someone coming... It was an equal thing... Equal risk, so it should be equal profit," April finished.
"Really; you're not just saying that?" Billy asked.
"What? Calling out to you if someone came? Going for the cars myself? Of course I mean it. I would have. I ain't rich. I don't have anyone that helps me. I don't have shit. I could use some money too. I got a crappy little job. Life doesn't seem to be going anywhere... It's tough," she said.
Billy finished his beer and sat it down on the coffee table. "Three things," he said. "First, we'll do fifty, fifty. I know someone who can take that pot from us... It'll be good money... Probably take the coke too..." He paused and brushed at the side of his face.
"Second... We risk everything just like we share everything: Fifty, fifty; we put the same work into it, whatever there is to do... Cool?" he asked.
"Cool," she said. "What is three?"
"Were you kidding about me and you? ... Just teasing?"
"Nope," she said. "I think you do want me... I think you're cute too."
~
"You don't think I'm easy, do you?" April asked.
They were in the bedroom. She had simply got up and followed him down the hall to the bedroom. She looked at the bed which appeared to be made. That was surprising: A guy making his own bed.
Billy looked at her confused, and then looked down at the bed. "Oh," he said and turned red. "I put the stuff here. I put it here because I really couldn't think of a better place to put it, and I heard the sirens coming... So I stuffed it under the bed." He explained.
"Oh," she said. "I thought... Never mind."
Billy turned a deeper red. He moved to the side of the bed and picked up the blanket that trailed onto the floor. The underside of the bed was crammed with duffel bags and suitcases.
"I'll pick up the box springs and you pull the stuff out. It's the only way I could get it under there quick." He squatted, picked up one corner of the box springs and mattress and lifted it from the frame. April began pulling everything out onto the floor.
Outside a car door slammed.
"Fuck," Billy squeaked.
April picked up bags and began shoving them back under the bed: Pushing them deep under the bed with her feet. Billy wrenched the mattress and box springs back up and she dumped the rest back in, struggling with the suitcases.
Billy lowered the box spring, starting to breathe hard with panic. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He smoothed the blanket over the corner of the bed once more, and then turned and headed out of the bed room: As he walked into the living room someone began to knock on the front door that opened into the kitchen. Billy looked out the peephole only to find a young guy with thick, curly black hair staring back at him. A camera hung around his neck, a clip board in his hand.
Billy took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and then opened the door.
"Mister Jingo?" the young guy asked. He looked even younger than Billy was.
"Yeah," Billy said. It was never any good when someone called you by your government name.
"I have to take some pictures. You know, out back. That okay?" He held up the camera.
"Yeah... Go ahead," Billy said, relieved. He started to shut the door.
"Uh... Hold on... You got to sign." He smiled and offered Billy the clipboard, tapping with one finger where the signature should go.
Billy had let go of the door when he took the clipboard. The door swung open to reveal April who stood behind him. The young guy looked up at her from his place on the rickety wooden steps.
"Oh... Hey," the guy said.
"Hey," April returned. She turned on her best three hundred watt smile and the guy returned it.
Billy scratched out a reasonable version of his name and then handed the clip board back to the kid.
"Cool," he said. He glanced at April once more. "I won't be long." He turned away and walked toward the end of the trailer and the back yard. Billy shut the door and they both sighed.
"Says he won't be long... Hopefully he won't... Want another beer?" Billy asked.
"Sure," April agreed. She wandered over to the couch and sat down. Billy took a beer to her and then sat down at the other end of the couch. The T.V. was still playing low and it amazed Billy that it could still be playing after all that had happened. An infomercial for a new mini washing
machine that washed just a few items at a time came on and caught his attention for a few moments. April pulled his attention away from the T.V.
"What was in the paper bag?" she asked.
"Don't know. It was in the glove box of the Ford.... The car out back," he finished.
"I can tell a Ford from a Toyota," April said. "So, three duffel bags and two suitcases?"
He nodded.
"That one suitcase is heavy... The melted one?"
He nodded. "That's the one I pulled out of the Toyota while it was burning... That blue duffel bag I pulled out of the Ford is heavy too."
"That was crazy," April said. "It could have blown up or something."
"Yeah... I thought about that afterward," Billy admitted. He got up and crossed to the T.V., pushing aside the curtain that covered the window that looked out over the back yard.
The guy was taking measurements, and both close up and distant shots of the tree with a digital camera. He looked up and saw Billy at the window and waved. Billy waved back and then came back over to the couch and sat down.
"Do you realize it's almost two hours after the fact?" Billy asked her.
April looked at him.
"Just makes me wonder if we'll ever look inside those bags today or not. And eventually I have to get hold of someone for that pot... Probably the coke too," he added.
"Is that smart?" April asked.
"What do you mean?" Billy returned.
"Just that, that's a lot of stuff, somebody’s gonna miss it... If we show up with it, it could be bad, right?" she asked.
"I thought about that," Billy said. "We could just get rid of some of it... A little today... A little next week... Like that, until it's all gone. I only know one person who could take it all... I was going to do that, and then I thought about it like you said, and realized it could be stupid... Same reasons... I only know that the guy deals big time... Not with who," Billy said.
"Could be money in one of those suitcases... Or duffel bags," April said.
"I hope so... It makes sense, right? If they were doing a big drug deal that went bad and the drugs are there wouldn't the money be there too," Billy said.
"Or," April said. "If it went bad maybe they were trying to rip the guy off... Maybe they had no money."
"Maybe," Billy agreed reluctantly. He sipped at the beer, got up and went back to the window. The guy was gone. He walked to the front door just in time to hear the door slam and the motor start on the car the guy was driving. He watched through the peephole until the car turned out of the driveway and headed down the road. He turned to April and shrugged.
"Try again?" he asked. She followed him back to the bedroom once more.
~
They decided on the blue duffel bag that Billy had pulled from the floorboard of the Ford. The bag was a mess, something he hadn't noticed at the time, and April made him take it to the shower and clean off the outside of the dark blue nylon first.
Ten bricks of the duct tape wrapped stuff that Billy assumed was cocaine, two more of the flat-black hand guns. Several spare clips and boxes of 9 mm ammunition, and two thick wads of bills, rubber banded. They appeared to be all one hundred dollar bills. Billy handed them over to April to count, while he pulled out his pocket knife and dug into the side of one of the bricks: Brown instead of white.
"Heroin," he said as he showed April.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Worth more than coke anyway," Billy said. He dug into the remaining bricks. Two more were heroin and the remaining bricks were cocaine He closed the holes with pieces of the duct tape they were wrapped with.
"Jesus," April said. "There's almost eighty thousand dollars here."
Billy looked at her and licked his lips. He added the other four bricks he had grabbed from the trunk of the car: Two were cocaine, the other two heroin, "Six and Eight," Billy told her. "There has to be close to a quarter mil. here... At least... I don't really even know what something this big sells for."
April picked up the paper bag from the glove box. It felt like something was rolled up inside the bag. Solid... A brick shape, but smaller than the other bricks... More cash maybe, she thought. She unrolled the bag and shook it out: Two smaller bundles of cash, again all hundreds, and a wallet. She handed the wallet to Billy as she counted the cash.
"Ben Neo," Billy said aloud. He pulled a thick wad of cash from the wallet and handed it to April.
"Ben Neo?" she asked.
"The dude," Billy explained. "License, credit cards... That cash. A key," he said, holding up a brass key.
"Probably his house," April said. "Where's he live?"
"Rochester... Lake Avenue," Billy said, reading from his license.
April shrugged.
"Me either," Billy said. "Bet the key fits his door though. And it's not like he'll need it if he was the guy in the Ford."
"Yeah," April agreed, "Twenty thousand more. Ben Neo... That has to be a fake name," she looked down at the money again. "Billy, we got over a hundred thousand dollars here... We're rich."
Billy turned away and looked at the duffel bags and suitcases. "Eenie meenie miney moe," Billy said and picked up one of the black duffel bags from the Toyota.
Clean change of clothes, sneakers and a silenced chrome 45 caliber pistol: Another wallet, a razor and a deadly looking eight inch switchblade with a long, sharp two sided blade. Billy picked up the wallet: Driver's license, debit card, all in the name of Dan Gaynor; thirty five hundred in cash, all hundreds.
"I think these guys must have made a deal. Something went wrong after the deal. They all have some of these hundreds. Well so far." He handed April the cash and snagged the other duffel bag. It was bulky, but not overly so, a little heavier than the other one had been.
Billy pulled the zipper and recoiled from the smell that came from the bag. April leaned close to see what was in the bag and then recoiled herself.
"What the hell?" she asked.
Billy opened the bag wider, but saw nothing except crumpled up newspapers. Tentatively he pushed aside the newspapers and a pair of dead, dusty eyes stared up at him through the newspapers. He flung the bag away from him, reacting simply on impulse. The bag hit the wall and the head, along with a pair of hands, rolled out onto the floor.
"Oh, God," April said. "Put it back in the bag, Billy, put it back in the bag and get it out of here!" She jumped off the other side of the bed and pressed into the wall as far away from the bag and she could get. Billy looked at her and then grabbed one of the shirts that had been in the other duffel bag; he lunged forward quickly, picked up the head so he wouldn't have to think about it too long and tried to jam it back into the bag. It wouldn't go. The shirt, or the head, or both kept catching the side of the bag and collapsing it. He finally laid the bag on its side and managed to hold it open as he scooped the head back inside of it: Once it was in he quickly zipped up the bag. He stood quickly and started to walk from the room.
"Billy, where are you going?" April asked.
He stopped. He had been heading for the door, but he had no idea where he would go from there.
"Billy... The hands... Billy," she pointed.
Billy looked back by the wall where the two hands lay. The fingers curled slightly. It looked like they used to be pretty good hands, Billy thought. One had a small narrow gold ring on the pinky finger. Billy grabbed another one of the shirts, carefully picked up the hands, bought them to the duffel bag and dropped them in. He calmed down a little, taking the time to pick up the crumpled pieces of newspaper that lay on the floor and stuff them back into the bag too. He had a hard time picking the bag up, but finally managed.
"I can... I can dig a hole in the backyard and bury it," he told April.
"Not now, in the middle of the morning... Besides, we can take them and drop them in the river. They should sink to the bottom. Problem over... Was there anything else in the bag?" she asked.
"I... I didn't see anything else," Billy said.
"We'll
have to check. Make sure you didn't accidentally include something of your own from the floor. There's one sock there," she pointed to where the head and hands had fallen. “Were there two?" she asked.
Billy looked sick as he nodded.
"Well then you got to open it back up... Make sure. Make sure there's nothing else in the bag, Billy," April said.
“All I wanna do is throw this into the river like you said," Billy said.
"I know. I know. But what if it did float up? What if they did find something to track it back to us...? What then, huh? And what if there's something else in the bag? You see?" she asked.
"I see fifty-fifty. It's your turn, April. Not trying to be an asshole, but really it's your turn," Billy said.
She stared at him. "I got a weak stomach. I'll puke," she said.
"So what!" Billy protested. "So will I!"
"Please, Billy... Don't make me do it," April shot back.
"Fair's fair," Billy said.
She glared at him. "Oh for Christ's sake!" she scrambled off the bed, dragged the duffel bag over to a clean area of the rug, laid out another t-shirt from the other duffel bag, and then unzipped the bag. She took one more t-shirt and used it to fish out the hands and then the head. One by one she pulled the wadded up newspapers out of the bag and laid them on the floor. She peeked into the bag once more. "There's something... I... Oh, Jesus, Billy," she covered her mouth and scrambled back away from the bag.
"What... What?" Billy asked. She said nothing, but pointed at the bag.
Billy got off the bed and walked over to the bag. He turned his head one way then the other as he stared into the bag. "Is that what I think it is?” he asked.
April came back over and looked once more. "You should know," she said. He looked at her.
"Not looking like that I shouldn't. I hope the hell I never do anyway..." He looked up. "Fuck... Did you find the sock?"
She shook her head.
He stared back down to the bag. "Oh, man... It's... It's in there next to it... My fuckin' sock," Billy said.
"Well you'll have to get it," April said. "You'll have to."
"Fifty, fifty!" Billy said. His eyes were insistent.
