I got to thinking we could buy a nice place over in the Bright Grove division, which was just as far from a trailer house or dingy apartment as you could imagine. It was miles and thoughts away from the kind of place where my father grew up.
I imagined we could have a pool. Thought about how Nancy would look in some skimpy bikini, her skin dark and the sun bright, both of us sitting in those big stretch lawn chairs with tall, cool drinks in our hands, those little umbrella rigs stuck down in them next to an olive or a round pickled onion. I had never had a drink like that, but I had seen them in movies, and I thought that was what I wanted to have, at least once.
And a house with two or three stories, a bedroom on top where I could look out the window and see the pool, a tall fence surrounding the backyard. And from there I could also see beyond the pool and the fence, see way on out.
We’d have a lawn and someone to tend to it, keep the flowers growing in big long flower beds. We could design the flowers to look special, not just in rows. Maybe we could get enough land to have a big garage where we could park the Cadillac, maybe a newer model, and some other car. A sports car.
Course, I’d have to make money from those car lots I planned to own as well, but if I played my cards right, I could do that. I could…
That’s when I saw Julie’s boyfriend’s car pull out of the drive-in. I sat the cup on the steps and slipped into Nancy’s car, and when I saw which way they turned, I drove around the house and on out to the highway.
At first, I thought I’d lost them, as the kid was driving kind of fast, but then as I went along, I saw taillights that looked like the taillights to his car. I didn’t get right on their ass but close enough to be certain it was them.
They didn’t go on into town, where Julie lived. I’d looked that up in the phone book, got the address, and drove over there to check things out. She lived in the kind of place I’d been thinking about before, and I realized that’s why I was thinking about it.
The Rose residence had a big brick wall around it, and there were lights on the wall. Tall oaks and hickory trees were rising up above the fence, and there were some other kinds of trees you could see through the barred gate lining the drive. It was a house made of white stone with a dark roof, three stories, like I had been imagining.
But that’s not where they went.
They turned on the road Nancy and I had taken when we brought Frank’s body to the bridge. They even turned where the bridge was. I pulled over and switched off my headlights and watched their taillights go along.
It was a bright night, and I could see well enough to drive without lights if I went slow, and I did. I crossed that rickety bridge. The railing was still broken where we had pushed Frank and his car over.
The idea of that bridge, and him down there, and what we had done to him came back to me in a bloodred rush. I felt as if I were crossing the bridge under which the troll in the Three Billy Goats Gruff story lived.
No troll came out to bother me as I rattled over the bridge, but I’ll tell you, a stained conscience did. That got me thinking about this plan of ours, and I got sort of sick to my stomach. But then I thought about the fact that we weren’t going to hurt anyone. We were going to hold her for ransom. I might have to hit the kid with a sap or something, but beyond that, it was just kidnap Julie and take the money and give her back.
I’d have to wear a mask, of course. I’d have to do that so I wouldn’t be recognized. Maybe I could disguise my voice. It was stuff to think about. But tonight, this was just reconnaissance.
I finally saw taillights turning at the end of a long narrow trail that led into the woods. I stopped the car and leaned over so I could see out the passenger window. The car’s taillights went out at the far end. I knew what that meant.
Julie and her boyfriend were about to engage in a timeless human tradition. The thought of her lying under that big idiot made my skin crawl. I couldn’t wait to hit him with the blackjack.
(45)
Next morning, me and Nancy drove out to where the couple had parked. The little road ended there, and there was a big place where you could turn around, a spot near where the creek ran wide and deep, almost like a river.
We walked around, checking the location out. A lot of people had come there over the years to fish or park and have sex. There were a number of tied-off rubbers lying on the ground.
Nancy kicked one of the rubbers, said, “There’s someone’s family that isn’t happening. Julie’s, maybe.”
I knew she was trying to get under my skin, because she didn’t like that I had noticed Julie, and she knew too that it was more than just looking at an attractive girl. It was looking into my past and wishing I had met someone like her when I was a kid. Back then, the idea of being with some white girl bothered me, because I knew I had the blood in me, and if a girl found out, if anyone found out, I’d be like a man floating in space. Lost and lonely in the cold emptiness. And maybe swinging from a tree somewhere.
We got back in the car and sat there a moment.
“You think they always come here?” Nancy said.
“Probably. I need to follow them a bit more, see what they do. If they make this a habit, one night, I’ll knock him on the noggin. I’ll need you to grab her while I’m dealing with him. We’ll need masks, disguises of some sort.”
“That sounds right.”
“And we’ll need someplace to keep her where she can’t get away.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I got some ideas.”
“Want to share?”
“Not yet. I’m still considering.”
We drove home and took off our clothes without even thinking about it. We could feel what the other needed. While we were making love, I closed my eyes, and with each thrust of my hips, I’m ashamed to say, I was thinking of Julie.
(46)
After we made love, still lying in bed, Nancy said, “I got it figured now. We got to do it in a way she won’t know where she is, of course, and we got to do it in a way we don’t always have to watch after her, but we’ll know she’s taken care of, can’t escape, won’t get hurt.”
“Obviously.”
“We rent a backhoe, dig a big hole out in the cemetery like we’re going to plant another horse or such, and then we build a nice box in there with an air pipe. We fix it so the box is barely covered with dirt, and we put an air pipe up out of it, and we can take her out and put her in the garage part of the time, but at night she goes in there. That way we don’t have to watch her every minute.”
“I don’t know. Sounds kind of precarious.”
“She’d just be there at night, and there would be the air pipe, and we could put her inside late and take her out early. She wouldn’t be there all the time.”
“We’d need really good disguises, taking her in and out like that.”
“We could leave her in there most of the time, then, just take her out for bathroom trips, feed her something.”
“No. I like that idea a lot less. The first way is best.”
“Halloween mask might do it.”
“It’s not Halloween, so I don’t think that’s something you’re going to buy anywhere.”
“I got some masks at the drive-in. One of the features we had during Halloween came with a bunch of free masks we were supposed to hand out. We handed out a few, but in the end, we just left them in the box. It was more trouble than it was worth. Handing them out didn’t make the picture any better. It wasn’t that good a gimmick. We gave out Halloween candy instead.”
“I got a change to your idea. How about this? We rent a little skip loader, and we dig that hole in the floor of the smaller building out back. It’s dirt, so that wouldn’t be any trouble. We put the box in there and keep a blindfold over her eyes. When we finish, we give her back, we can fill up the hole, maybe put some concrete in pretty fast. I know how to do that, how to build the forms to pour the concrete.”
“That’s too much, Ed. We take her out of that ho
le, she’ll never know where she was. We just fill it back in, and we don’t rent the backhoe or skip loader. That’s just another connection. We shovel it out, and when it’s over, we fill it back in.”
“That’s a lot harder than you might think.”
“I know how hard it is. Why do you think we threw those dead dogs in the woods? But this, we’re talking about a lot of money, Ed. A lot of money. I can sweat a little, I need to. Can you?”
I said that I could, and from that point on, we had a plan.
(47)
Those masks were ugly things. There were three kinds. A devil mask, which was red with horns sticking up. A mask that looked like you had a bat on your face. And the third kind, a regular Lone Ranger mask. They were cheap plastic, but that devil mask and that bat mask, those were pretty damn unnerving when you put them on. The Lone Ranger mask, well, I had an idea for that.
I studied myself in the mirror wearing the devil mask. My hair could be seen, so I decided I’d wear a hat or some such. I’d have to dress in clothes I didn’t normally wear.
Some of Frank’s clothing was still in the closet, and though all of it was too big for me, the pants too long, I decided I could make something out of that. Seemed appropriate, to wear a dead man’s clothes.
I followed Julie and her boyfriend a few more weekend nights, and they always went to that place. I thought the way to do it would be for us to park down there early. Park the car away from the spot where they went, but nearby, and I could hide down there in the woods and wait. When the car started rocking, I’d come out and duck along, drag that cretin boyfriend out, and hit him with the blackjack enough to adjust his way of thinking. Certainly enough to wipe that smirk off his face.
Nancy could grab the girl, put a pillowcase over her head, tie her hands behind her back, and we’d tote her off to the car, take her to the prepared hiding place.
Things like that sound easy when you talk about it.
I dug a hole in the storage building, where we kept the little dog coffins and the crosses and such for the animals.
I got the hole done, I used one of the big crates they had in there in case another horse or a donkey died, and fitted it into the ground. I cut a hole in the lid and bought some drainpipe and rigged it so it went down into the box, just into the hole. I sealed up around the hole with plumbing putty.
The box was so big, the top of it was almost out of the hole. That way it was easy to get into. I put a sheet of plywood over that, and then I sprinkled dirt on the top of it, the pipe just sticking out.
To make sure it was all right, I got down in the box and had Nancy put the lid on. It was creepy down there, dark as the spaces between the stars. I could breathe all right, though, and dark as it was, it being day, some light came down the pipe and made a golden circle on my chest. I thought about a Poe story I read, about a man who had been buried alive.
It was creepy business.
I called up for Nancy to take the lid off. It wasn’t on there so good right then that I couldn’t have gotten out, but I wanted to have some idea how that lid worked. I was going to put clamps all along the side of the box so I could lock the lid down, but I hadn’t done that yet.
“Nancy, lift the lid.”
I lay there awhile with that golden beam on my chest, and then there was a shadow over the beam; Nancy leaning over to look down the pipe, I figured.
“Come on, let me out of here.”
A moment later the pipe was pulled out and the lid was lifted. I crawled out, sat on the edge of the hole.
“You took your time.”
“I didn’t want to damage the pipe.”
“I’m going to fasten it in there better, so you lift up on the pipe, it lifts the lid. After the clamps have been loosened, of course. I have to add those.”
“What was it like down there?”
“Dark. I don’t know, Nancy. That seems awfully cruel. Down there just that short time, I was pretty claustrophobic.”
“It’s a lot of money, Ed.”
“So it is. I’m going to go to the hardware store, get some clamps.”
(48)
Before long, we had things set.
It was Wednesday when we had it all done. We were just waiting on Friday. I helped clean up at the drive-in. At the back of it, a tree had dropped a limb on the tin-sheet fence, tore it up bad. I had to get Walter to go out back and help me tear down the ruined sheet and put up another one. It wasn’t hard work, but moving that tin could be dangerous if you did it alone because it was wobbly and the edges were sharp.
Walter helped me move the limb. I put it aside to be thrown away later. We started undoing the bolts in the tin so we could replace it with another sheet. I had the new sheet delivered right next to the fence, so it wasn’t much of a job.
We moved the old sheet out and put up the other one, and Walter held it in place while I drilled new connections into it and fastened it to the metal frame that ran along the fence.
Being with Walter made me nervous. There was just something about the guy. I figured once me and Nancy were married, I got my hands on the land, and we had that money, I was going to send Walter packing with a bag of popcorn and five dollars in severance. I can’t explain it, but I loathed that guy.
“You and Nancy spend a lot of time together,” he said.
“Yeah. We work together, Walter. Just like you and her.”
“You seem to spend a lot of time together that isn’t work time.”
“Are you snooping on us?”
“Watching out for her.”
“I think she’s old enough to watch out for herself. She can drive a car and everything. Look, Walter. Let it go. Me and her, we get along.”
“Her husband hasn’t been dead that long.”
“Guess he’s been dead long enough. How long does he have to be dead? Is there, like, some kind of set time limit? Does he get less dead or more dead as time goes on?”
“You have a smart mouth, Edwards. I don’t much like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. It’s not meant to be liked.”
“I think you might be taking advantage of Nancy. You know what I’m thinking?”
He said this as I was screwing one of the bolts down. “No. What are you thinking, and how much does it hurt you to do it?”
“There’s that smart mouth again. What I’m thinking is you’re a fellow moving in on a dead man’s wife. While she’s soft about things, hurt from the loss.”
“Is she that bad hurt?”
“It was her husband.”
“Husbands come in all stripes. Frank, she says he was a bastard. That he hurt her.”
“I think you might lead her down the wrong path.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m saying I think you’re a heel.”
“Yeah. Hold that fucking tin straight.”
He adjusted, did a good job from there on out.
When I was putting up the tools, I said, “Listen, Walter. You’re here because Nancy likes you. You’re a cousin. But me and her, we got our own thing going, and I want you to keep your nose out of it.”
“You came around before Frank was dead, bub.”
“So?”
“So, then he gets dead, and then you move into the drive-in, and you’re up to the house a lot, and I don’t think it’s just for a cup of coffee, a slice of cake.”
“Oh, I get a nice slice of cake now and again.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what you think it means. I’m not trying to make out like we’re not together. We met over a used car. That’s it. We kind of hit it off. Frank had that wreck, died, and then we got cozy. Just worked out that way.”
“Did it? It was just like that, huh?”
“You know what I’m thinking, Walter? I’m thinking you’re thinking you might like to be Nancy’s kissing cousin.”
“Shut your mouth.”
I had hold of a hammer from the toolbox. I pulle
d it out and held it when I spoke to him.
“You can settle down and accept things like they are or you can hit the road. It’s not like you’re all that good at much. Mostly you just show up and take tickets, pick up a check, hang your tongue out when you see Nancy, probably jack off in the bathroom thinking about her, then glare at me and go home. I could take tickets.”
“Nancy is okay with me working here.”
I let the hammer hang loose at my side.
“That’s all that keeps you here, her being okay with you. And that could change. You know, I might have more clout with Nancy than you think. I might get up one morning, roll out from between her legs, my dick still wet, and say something to her that makes you hit the road with a rip in your pants.”
Walter looked at me hard enough to tickle my backbone, and then he started walking across the lot. I watched as he got to the concession stand. His car was parked in front of it. He got in and drove off.
I hoped I had pissed him off enough to make him decide to move on, maybe get a job pumping gas and changing oil.
Still, there was something about that whole encounter that didn’t sit right with me. It was like he was acting out a scene.
I decided I was growing paranoid. All kinds of things didn’t seem right anymore. The one that seemed the least right was the fact that I was becoming accustomed to being a murderer.
Walter didn’t get that job pumping gas and changing oil. Next night, he was back at the ticket booth, sullen as ever. I tried to steer clear of him as much as possible. I didn’t like what he might bring out in me, what monster might surface.
(49)
Thursday night I spoke to Nancy with Walter in hearing distance, with the pimple-faced concession-stand girl in hearing distance as well, and said how I had to leave town because my grandmother was sick.
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