Scavenger hunt

by Robert Ferrigno

  Heather walked into view with Sugar Brimley beside her. Sugar looked not that much different than he did today, dressed in a gray suit. "There -there he is," she said, lower lip quivering as she pointed at Walsh on the bed. "He's the one r-r-raped me."

  Brimley laid a big hand on Heather's shoulder. She shook him off, but he put his hand back on her again.

  Jimmy clenched his teeth.

  "I cut my foot on a piece of broken glass under the sand. He said he would take care of it," said Heather. "He seemed so nice at first."

  "Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault," said Sugar.

  "My mom is going to be so mad," said Heather. "I'm not supposed to take the car."

  "She's just going to be happy that you're safe." Sugar's hand had drifted to the back of her neck, between her pigtails. He let the loose blond strands float through his fingers.

  Jimmy's chest hurt.

  Sugar kicked the edge of the bed. "Wake up." He kicked it again, harder, and sent Walsh bouncing. "Hey you, you're under arrest."

  Walsh slept on.

  "How am I doing?" Heather was bent over the coffee table, her pinkie nail filled with cocaine, poised halfway to her nose. She looked back at him. "Was that r-r-rape thing a little over the top?"

  "What?"

  Heather snorted the cocaine and licked her fingernail. "Should I be crying more, or go with the brave-little-girl reading?" She dipped into the mound of coke on the table again and stood up, her eyes bright as supernovas. "I want to get it right for the cameras. You think the TV people will want to interview me here or at the hospital?"

  Sugar crossed over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "What's going on?"

  Heather squirmed and waited until he let her go, one bare breast peeking out through the torn T-shirt. "Knock it off, pops. April told me about you."

  "April?"

  "Like you don't know." Heather glanced at the bed again. "I'm a good actress, really, really good, but cops make me nervous. I was freaking this morning, almost backed out, but April said not to worry, she had taken care of everything. Our little secret, that's what she called it. Like we were spies or something." She eyed the cocaine but decided against it. "Should I get dressed?"

  Sugar took a long time answering. "No, not yet."

  Jimmy's hands ached from gripping the arms of the chair. He could have switched off the recording, could have slipped the DVD into his pocket with utter certainty of what was about to happen, but he let it play.

  Sugar walked to the mantel and took down one of the Oscars. "Is this what I think it is?"

  "Isn't it cool?" Heather turned toward Walsh snoring on the bed. "He is just so famous. You wouldn't think to look at him now, but he's got like this… scent, and when he kisses-"

  Sugar swung the Oscar down onto her head-not full force but hard enough that she crumpled to the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry." He stared at the little gold man in his hand as though it had a mind of its own.

  Walsh stirred on the crumpled sheets.

  Sugar checked his suit for blood, checked his trousers and his shoes too, then went to the bed, lifted Walsh up under the arms, and carried him over to Heather.

  Heather groaned and got to her feet, groggy. She rubbed the back of her head, blood dripping down her ponytail, then looked at Sugar. "What happened?"

  Walsh mumbled something as Sugar put the Oscar into his hand, wrapped his own mitt around it, and then swung the statue against Heather's head again, swung it as hard as he could, and caught her just above the eyebrow. Blood sprayed across Walsh's face, his robe, his bare feet. The director jerked in the warm rain. Heather slid to the floor, but Sugar helped Walsh give her a few more whacks anyway. He needed to be sure.

  "Hey… hey, let go of me." Walsh's eyes fluttered, awake now. He dropped the Oscar, the statue dripping red.

  Sugar shook him so hard that Walsh's head flopped from side to side. "Gee whiz, buddy, what have you done?"

  Jimmy put the disk on hold, Sugar and Walsh frozen onscreen. He couldn't bear it anymore. In the sudden silence he heard the sound of heavy breathing. He turned around and saw Sugar at the back of the room, tears running down his cheeks.

  Chapter 49

  Sugar stared at his own frozen image on the screen, Heather Grimm's lying in a corona of blood behind him.

  "You surprised me, Sugar." Jimmy slipped his hand into his jacket and felt for his phone. "I didn't hear you come in."

  Sugar pointed a gun at him, a snub-nosed.38. "I wouldn't do that." He moved closer, still watching the screen, unable to tear himself away. "God, what a night that was. Darn near broke my heart." He glared at Jimmy. "What happened to Heather wasn't my fault. You want to cast stones, you throw them at April. She's the one told Heather about me." He checked the screen. "Expecting a girl like that to keep a secret."

  Jimmy eased his hand toward the phone again.

  Sugar cuffed him with the.38, and the front sight gashed Jimmy's forehead. "I asked you to keep your hands where I can see them." His bulbous nose was peeling, and his cropped reddish blond hair spiked across his sunburned scalp-he was an overbaked doughboy turned hard and angry. "That's your trouble, Jimmy. You don't know when to quit."

  Blood dripped into Jimmy's eyes. He sat down before he fell down.

  "Empty out your pockets. Let me see what you're so intent on." Sugar caught Jimmy's phone, caught his car keys and pick gun too, whistled at the pick gun, then tucked them all away into his brown corduroy sports coat. He hitched up his baggy chinos. "What am I going to do with you? I keep trying to close the book, but it's like you're bound and determined to make me do something I don't want to do."

  Jimmy wiped at the blood, a war-paint smear across his face as he watched Sugar.

  Sugar glanced at the screen, and his ruddy complexion grew darker. "It was going to be a simple bust, statutory rape-that's all Danziger wanted. All he was paying for too. Twenty thousand dollars, enough to buy some new fishing gear, maybe a trip to the Gulf of Mexico. It should have been an easy paycheck. Heather would get a part in some movie, Danziger would get rid of Walsh, and me, I'd get a Shimano rod and reel and maybe an engine rebuild. We were all going to be happy."

  "Except Walsh."

  "You fool around with another man's wife, you got to expect consequences." Sugar sat behind Jimmy and nodded at the screen. "Now I understand how Danziger knew when to make the 911 call. She was only supposed to be inside for an hour, two at the most. I kept calling him, asking what was taking so long. He just said to sit tight. 'Hold your horses, Sugar, hold your horses.' I thought he had staked out the house, but he was watching her the whole time, watching everything."

  Jimmy realized that Sugar had never seen the replay before, that he had had no idea the murder had been recorded. "Danziger must have gotten some real laughs these last eight years knowing he had your dick in his pocket. I bet you feel pretty stupid."

  Sugar showed his large crooked teeth. "A little." He leaned toward Jimmy. "I only got here five minutes ago. Start it up again from the beginning, from where Heather first walks inside."

  Jimmy restarted the DVD and saw Walsh walk off camera into the kitchen.

  "You don't have to rewind it?"

  "It's a DVD. Digital. You can go anywhere you want."

  "Just like that." Sugar chuckled. "Anywhere you want, just like that."

  Sugar kept the gun resting against the back of Jimmy's head. The moment Heather appeared, Sugar sat back in his seat and sighed, and Jimmy relaxed a little. Just a little. They sat watching Heather flounce around the bungalow, picking things up and putting them back down. Jimmy heard Sugar humming softly behind him, but he didn't turn around.

  "You can stop now." Sugar laid a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. Heather was caught in midlaugh, blond and bright and beautiful. Walsh hadn't touched her yet. "That's enough. Give me that DVD, and let's take a stroll in the moonlight." Jimmy handed the disk over, then Sugar tucked it carefully into the inside pocket of his jacket, next to his hea
rt. "Thank you for this. You don't know what it means to me."

  "You want to show your appreciation, put away that punk-ass gun. You've got sixty or seventy pounds on me. What do you need that for?"

  "You've seen too many movies." Sugar jerked a thumb toward the door, and they walked up the stairs, through the kitchen, and out onto the deck. Sugar was right behind him the whole way, close enough to stop Jimmy from bolting but too far out of reach for Jimmy to try any fancy moves that wouldn't have worked anyway. "Over there." Sugar directed him to the railing.

  "You going to see if I can fly?" Jimmy peeked over the edge. It was a straight drop, a couple hundred yards down onto rocks. "I'm not going over as easy as April did."

  "What makes you think April went easy?" Sugar growled, the.38 tiny in his big freckled hands. "Nothing is easy."

  Jimmy leaned his back against the railing and looked up at the stars, waiting for Sugar to make his move. He thought of Jane. This close to dying, he was supposed to regret not marrying her, supposed to think about the children they had never had, the life they had never gotten to share. But the only thing Jimmy regretted was that he didn't have something he could use as a weapon-an elephant gun would be nice, but he would settle for a crowbar.

  Tough luck; there was nothing on the deck but him and Sugar. A cloud edged across the moon, and he imagined Jane at home, sitting out on the balcony sipping her second drink, watching the same stars he was. Make a wish, Jane. The two of them bound with a single wish. Almost as good as a kiss. No matter what Sugar did to him, no matter if his body was never found, Jane was going to find out the truth. Even if Walsh and Brooke Danziger didn't come forward, nothing was going to stop her.

  "What's so funny?" said Sugar.

  "You'll find out."

  "I'll find out? Aren't you the cocky one."

  Jimmy dabbed at the blood drying on his forehead. "Secret of my success."

  "All you've done is get more people killed." Sugar shifted his bulk and hitched at his pants again, and there was an ugliness to his mouth now. Jimmy wondered if he had missed it before, or if it was new. "I didn't mind taking care of Felix the Cat-worst part of it was having him blubbering on my boat while I steered toward deep water, a greasy little man huddling in the stern with a concrete block wired to each ankle." His eyes twinkled. "He tried to swim. Got to give him credit, he tried." He tapped the.38 against his leg, watching Jimmy, his eyes bloodshot. "Stephanie was different. That bothered me."

  Jimmy's legs went soft.

  "She was a good woman, Jimmy. What you made me do to her-I think you owe me an apology. I'm going to have nightmares about that for years."

  Jimmy took a step toward him and stopped, the.38 centered on his chest now. If he looked at the gun much longer, he was going to fall into the barrel. Jimmy smiled instead. The smile confused Sugar for a moment, and in that moment Jimmy rushed him.

  Sugar had time to fire, but he tucked the gun into his pocket instead, casual, as though he had made a decision. Jimmy punched him twice, three times, hit him hard, full force. Sugar took the hits, grunting with the impact, but too heavily padded to be knocked off his feet. They grappled on the deck, and Sugar seemed to welcome the contact, butting heads, driving their knees and elbows into each other, around and around on the deck, the two of them gasping for breath.

  Winded now, Sugar wrapped his arms around Jimmy, shared his sweat and his cologne with him. "It stings, doesn't it," he panted, holding on as Jimmy kicked and struggled. "You killed Stephanie as much as I did, and she didn't deserve it. We both got to deal with that." He flung Jimmy back against the metal railing, and Jimmy almost went over, his back arched in space. "That was good," said Sugar, one eye starting to swell. "I needed that."

  Jimmy stood up. His forehead had opened up again. He thought of Stephanie in her house in the desert, the house with the handmade curtains and the doorbell that played the theme from Zorba the Greek, and wished she had never answered his ringing, wished she had been long gone with no forwarding address.

  "What am I going to do with you?" Sugar said, pacing, the deck creaking with the weight of him. "Yesterday I met up with Detective Katz. She had all kinds of questions, thanks to you."

  "What did you do to her?"

  "I took her out to a movie. Bought her some buttered popcorn and a large Coke. Oh, I came close-I came this close-but that's all I did. She's a brother officer. Gives me a stomachache to think what might have happened. You see what you started?"

  Jimmy didn't respond. He was waiting now.

  "Just when you think everything is settled and forgotten, somebody like you start it all up again." Sugar kept pacing. "Answer me one question. Why did you do it? I mean, what was in it for you? Nobody cared. It was over and done with."

  "Maybe I just don't like seeing the bad guys walk off into the sunset, whistling a happy tune. It just plain pisses me off."

  "I used to feel that way too, but I got over it." There was a beeping from Sugar's pocket. "You mind if I get that?"

  "Fuck you."

  Sugar pulled his phone out. "Yeah?" He winked at Jimmy. "He's right here… I don't think he's too happy about it either. I'm not too happy myself… We got some things to talk about, you and me." He grimaced. "Where you calling from?… How many times I told you to use a phone booth when you call my cell? When are you going to learn?" He rolled his eyes at Jimmy. "I've heard that one before. Take your time getting back here after the premiere. I'm going to have to ditch our boy's car… I won't… I said I won't leave a mess at your house." He hung up, shrugged. "This is the part I hate."

  "Be kind to yourself then. Get in the elevator and leave."

  "Can't do it, Jimmy. Turn around."

  "No, thanks."

  "Don't be like that. We've already settled who's going to win the argument. Go on, just do what I ask." Sugar took off his belt, looped it through the buckle, and made a noose. "Turn around and check out the view-that's what the rich folks pay for. It's a clear night. Maybe you'll see a whale or something." He moved closer, the belt loop held loosely in one hand. "You got a girlfriend. I'll make it easy on her- I'll stash your body where no one will ever find it. She'll think you just took off for greener pastures. She'll get past that quicker than a homicide. I'll do that for you, Jimmy. Just turn around."

  Jimmy held up the DVD that he had slipped out of Sugar's pocket when they grappled. "What should I do with this?" He made as though to fling it off the deck. "It would make a great Frisbee."

  Sugar patted his jacket for confirmation, then held out his hand. "I'd like that back." He stepped closer. "I've been good to you, Jimmy. I gave you time out here under the stars, time to prepare yourself. I could have treated you lots worse."

  "I guess I'm an ingrate."

  "There's no way I can let you go, you got to know that. I been inquiring into that fishing trip to Brazil we talked about. Bluest water in the world, just like you said, and fish that fight you all the way to the boat. Sounds good, but I'd be looking over my shoulder the whole time if I let you live. Give me my property. I promise you won't feel a thing."

  "I like feeling things. Pain, pleasure, love… regret. All of them. Otherwise, what's the point of being alive?"

  "Brave talk." Sugar sidled closer. Jimmy was within arm's reach now, holding the disk over the edge, ready to fling it into the darkness. "Hand it back, Jimmy, or you won't want to feel what I got in store for you. That's a promise."

  Jimmy gripped the disk tighter as he watched Sugar's eyes. As Sugar lunged for him, Jimmy snapped the disk in half on the railing and slashed Sugar's throat with the jagged edge, ripped him wide open.

  Sugar staggered back, eyes wide, not sure what had happened. He clamped a hand over his neck, blood leaking through the fingers. There was a rhythm to the leak, an ebb and flow, and Jimmy knew he had nicked Sugar's carotid artery, knew there was nothing more to be done.

  Jimmy and Sugar looked at each other. Sugar's free hand drifted toward the.38 in his pocket, but he stopped himse
lf and let his hand fall. Jimmy didn't know if it was another decision or if Sugar couldn't concentrate on two things at once right now.

  Sugar pressed harder against his neck, the blood running across his knuckles. "Do you… do you believe in love at first sight?"

  "Uh… yeah. Sure."

  Sugar's hand shook, blood seeping down the collar of his brown corduroy jacket. "Was that the way it was with you and that girlfriend of yours? What was her name… Jane, right?"

  "It took a while for Jane and I to get together. I don't think we liked each other very much at the beginning."

  "Well, maybe that's best." Still standing, Sugar gazed at something past Jimmy. "I didn't get a good look at Heather until that day on the beach. She had a towel spread on the sand, reading a magazine. I was just checking… making sure she was alone. I watched her from the street through a pair of binoculars. Made me feel like I was right there beside her, close enough to smell her suntan oil." He exhaled slowly, as though he were deflating. One hand still on his neck, he sat down heavily on the deck. "I'm tired."

  Jimmy sat down facing Sugar. It was long past time for feeling sorry for Sugar, but that didn't mean Jimmy wasn't about to keep him company.

  "Heather was wearing these… silly red sunglasses shaped like hearts. Kind of thing a kid would wear thinking it made them look grown-up. Strange the things that touch us…" His head drooped, but he fought it. "You asked me before… you said I could have called things off with Heather. Heck, Jimmy, I almost did. Back on the beach, I wanted to run out there and tell her not to go ahead with it. I wanted to tell her that she didn't need to dirty herself. Tell her to go home and grow up." His grip had loosened, blood streaming through his fingers now.