Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  It didn’t work.

  “Eric!” he shouted. “Eric, come in here!”

  I stopped, sighed, turned back. Stepped through his office door, still wearing my cap and holding my king-sized paper coffee cup.

  Bart stood behind his desk, running a hand through his wavy gray hair, a smile fixed on his broad face. In the guest chairs sat two guys in dark suits. One was white-haired and withered, the other young and square-jawed, with brush-cut hair and a Chamber of Commerce smile.

  “You remember Mr. Davies,” Bart said. “Don’t know if you’ve met his son, Ted.”

  I shook hands with both men. Lester Davies’ hand was twisted with arthritis, and I was gentle with it, the way you’d handle a billion dollars, which was approximately what he was worth. His son crushed my hand and said it was nice to meet me, but there was a frat-boy glassiness to his eyes, like he’d already decided I wasn’t worth his attention.

  “We’ve been talking about developing a parcel Lester owns near Whiskeytown Lake,” my father-in-law said. “Four hundred acres up against National Forest land. He’d harvest the timber, then we’d move in and build houses.”

  I tried smiling, but it probably looked pained. It felt painful.

  “Sounds great.”

  Four hundred acres would be huge for us. Even allowing for streets, setbacks and green space, we could put a thousand houses on that much acreage.

  To Lester Davies, such a project would be a sideline, a hobby, a model train set in the basement. Lester owned hundreds of thousands of acres all over the country, and his gnarly fingers dipped into every Mother Earth-raping industry imaginable: mining, oil, lumber, cattle, agribusiness, fishing. He was only a little older than my father-in-law, maybe seventy, but his hair was pure white and his face was lined by years of sun and greed. He smiled up at me with perfect dentures, but his face made me think of a wolf. I figured his strapping son was the same way, if still young enough to bother with the sheep’s clothing.

  Bart looked at his chunky wristwatch.

  “Cody Barker’s having a problem out at Liberty Ridge,” he said. “City inspector’s giving them some shit. Go calm him down.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Sorry I was late. And sorry I missed that dinner party last night. You probably heard about the accident—”

  “Just get your ass in gear,” he snapped.

  “Yes, sir.”

  My face hot with embarrassment, I turned away from Bart’s scowl and the Davies’ smirks and went out the way I’d come in, holding in the curse words until I was safely outdoors.

  Chapter 10

  I hadn’t made many friends in the seven years I’d lived in Redding. There weren’t many people of my age and background. While it was a boomtown for retirees, Redding suffered the same problem as a lot of agricultural areas and small cities – its young people went off to college and never came back. The ones who stayed tended to be either blue-collar workers or the precious heirs of the country-club set, and I fit in neither group.

  I had a few social disadvantages:

  I wasn’t from here and that bred distrust among the natives. I grew up in a middle-class home in Cleveland – only son of a philandering firefighter who divided his time between the firehouse and the whorehouse and a stoic schoolteacher who was more interested in other people’s children than her own. I’d bucked the trend by coming to Northern California for college.

  I have a low tolerance for bullshit, but a high regard for my own hilarity. I saw myself as funny and honest, but it came across as ridicule to the sharks and strivers trying to build Redding into something more. I wasn’t exactly a hit at Chamber of Commerce banquets.

  Worst of all, I was married to Darlene Honeydew, a first-class snob who thought ninety percent of the people in Redding were beneath her. The fact that the ninety percent included me didn’t make us any more popular.

  My one true friend here was Cody Barker. I met him when I first started running framing crews. He worked his way up to foreman, and I moved to the main office, but we remained pals. It’s important that friends share mutual interests, and Cody and I had two hobbies in common. We both loved to fish the many fine streams in Shasta County, and we both liked to smoke the local marijuana.

  Cody lived alone in a thirty-year-old mobile home at the end of a rutted dirt road in the foothills east of town. The rusty trailer was a dump by anybody’s standards, but it sat a short hike from a terrific little trout stream where I’d spent many an hour drowning flies and getting stoned.

  Darlene disapproved of marijuana, of course. What would they think down at the country club? She regularly went through my pockets and searched my truck for telltale roaches, so my pot smoking mostly was limited to Cody’s place. The rest of the time, I relied on alcohol to get through the day. That didn’t please her, either, but at least booze was legal.

  The only bright spot so far in this miserable morning was when my father-in-law mentioned it was Cody’s crew that needed my help. Maybe, after we got rid of the city inspector, Cody could slip me a joint, a little something to heal my aching head and strained nerves.

  Liberty Ridge Estates sprawled at the south end of town on flat grassland that once held a dairy farm. When the bulldozers first went to work, the drivers had to wear respirator masks because the site stank of manure. Still a tang in the air, but Bart figured it wouldn’t matter to the homeowners and hustlers who gobbled up houses as fast as we could throw them together.

  Redding was in the middle of a housing boom, and our company was one of a dozen getting fat off the profits. It took years for California’s real estate mania to reach us way up here, but one day it was like somebody pulled a trigger. People paying three grand a month for a crackerbox in L.A. or San Francisco saw they could cash out their expensive house, retire to a relatively palatial Honeydew home in the north country (with its rivers and lakes and mountains), and still end up with a fortune in the bank. They galloped up to Redding, waving fistfuls of money. Right behind them came speculators, who bought houses, sat on them a few months, then “flipped” them for a profit.

  Prices went through the roof, but the buyers kept coming. We had three different developments going up, scores of houses in each one, and could barely find enough qualified workers to fill the crews.

  Utility players like Cody, who knew everything about building a house, from wiring to roofing to union rules, ran our crews and tried to meet Bart’s ever-tightening deadlines. It was a high-pressure job, getting worse all the time. No wonder Cody smoked a lot of weed.

  At twenty-seven, he was our youngest crew chief, but the older men didn’t give him any static. A big, raw-boned guy, Cody was soft-spoken and slow to anger. His brown hair was already thinning on top, and he wore a baseball cap indoors and out.

  When I pulled up to the home site, Cody was deep in conversation with a bald, lanky guy who was dressed in the summer uniform of officious pricks everywhere: dark slacks, short-sleeved white shirt and a fat necktie cinched tight. He carried a clipboard.

  I climbed out into the heat, ready to walk up one side of the inspector and down the other, but Cody hustled over to cut me off.

  “It’s okay,” he muttered. “I’ve cooled him off. Turns out he’s married to my third cousin.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  He shrugged. “That’s Redding.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “He wants flood aprons to make sure no mud runs off into the creek.”

  “That dry creek?”

  Cody grinned. “That’s the one.”

  “There’s no water in that ditch unless it rains.”

  “Right.”

  “And it’s three months until the rainy season arrives.”

  “Right again.”

  “So the odds of any runoff are about the same as the possibility of me sprouting wings and flying around here like a dodo bird.”

  “Don’t think dodos could fly,” Cody said.

  “You
know what I mean.”

  He took a step closer and whispered, “Guy’s got to justify his job. It was the only problem he could find on the site.”

  I sighed and nodded. Cody stepped aside and I went over to the inspector and shook his hand and grinned from ear-to-ear and offered Honeydew Construction’s deepest apologies for any misunderstandings or violations.

  “We take these runoff problems very seriously,” he said. “Remedial steps must be taken—”

  I focused on his giant Adam’s apple, which bobbed up and down as he spoke. Looked like his chin was dribbling a basketball.

  When he paused for a breath, I jumped in with more assurances, which seemed to calm him. I told him we’d take care of the problem immediately.

  Satisfied, he shook my hand some more, tucked his clipboard under his arm and marched off to his city vehicle. No doubt he’d go back to the office and tell his superiors how he’d faced down Honeydew Construction and told them a thing or two, by God, and now all was right with the world of home-building.

  Cody came up beside me and we watched the inspector drive away.

  “Fucking pinhead,” I said.

  Cody snickered.

  The car stopped at the intersection, its blinker going, and we plastered big smiles on our faces and waved in case the inspector checked his rear-view.

  “Overbearing cocksucker,” I said through my smile.

  Cody cracked up.

  We turned the other way and checked the house going up on the lot. The framers had paused, watching our little drama with the inspector, but they were hard at it again now, nail guns popping like small-arms fire.

  “Looking good,” I said. “You guys on schedule?”

  “Yup,” Cody said. “I’ll send a couple of men over to put up those flood aprons, in case the cocksucker comes back to check, but that shouldn’t slow us down much.”

  We walked around the dusty construction site, stepping over pipes and loose lumber. Down the block, a crew was putting in plumbing at another site and a third crew roofed a house nearing completion. All the workers were slick with sweat. The sun beat down on us like boiling oil.

  I took off my cap, wiped my brow with my sleeve and stuck the cap back down on my unruly hair. Stripped off my necktie and wadded it into my pants pocket.

  “You okay, Eric? You don’t look so good.”

  “Hangover.”

  “Big party last night?”

  “No, I stopped by the Nut. You hear about the wreck there?”

  “That car that went flying through the air? Everybody’s talking about it.”

  “I saw it happen.”

  “No shit?”

  “Flew right over my head.”

  “Jesus, man.” Cody’s eyes were wide. His squint lines were lighter than the rest of his tanned face.

  “I’m lucky to be alive, or so everybody tells me.”

  He glanced at the framing crew, always monitoring, like a lifeguard watching over a beach.

  “Thought Darlene didn’t want you going to the Nut,” he said.

  “That’s right. But she’s not in charge of my life.”

  Cody shot me a grin, but I let it go.

  “Let’s get some lunch,” I said.

  “Little early for lunch.”

  “Early for beer, too, but I could use some hair of the dog. What do you say?”

  He shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  “That’s the spirit.” I leaned closer. “Got a joint on you?”

  Cody smiled. “Let’s take my truck.”

  We stopped at a convenience store and bought plastic-wrapped sandwiches, a bag of Doritos and a six-pack of Coors – Cody’s favorite. Then we drove back to Liberty Ridge and parked on a dirt road at the south end of the development, far from the work crews. The dashboard of his old Chevy truck was littered with invoices, tape measures, pens and other crap, and the floorboard was filthy. A shotgun sat in a rack behind our heads. The cab smelled like sweat and gun oil and dust.

  “Smoke first or eat first?”

  “Not like these sandwiches are gonna get cold,” I said.

  He reached a fat joint from the glove compartment and flared it to life. Took a big drag, then passed it to me. It had been a couple of weeks since my last dope, and the first toke went right to my head.

  “Damn,” I said, coughing. “That’s some harsh shit.”

  “Finest kind,” Cody said, hitting it again.

  “So,” he said, his voice squeaky from holding in smoke, “you nearly died last night.”

  He passed me the joint, and I nodded before taking another toke.

  Cody blew out smoke and said, “Gave you a case of the nerves? Now you need to smoke your lunch?”

  “Something like that,” I said, and I was the squeaky one now.

  My head floated, and a warm glow filled my limbs. A big, stupid grin stretched my face.

  “Damn,” Cody said. “Now I’m hungry.”

  We tore into the food, noshing, crunching and knocking back beer. Talked about fishing and food and construction and Bart Honeydew and my ongoing cold war with Darlene. Cody’s a good listener and pot makes me talkative, so we’re quite a team.

  My buzz had leveled off by the time I confided my encounter with Wayne and Hubert and Rydell. The marijuana had given me a bad case of loose lips, and I blurted the whole thing. Everything, except any mention of that Dodge Charger. Even stoned, I knew to keep that part to myself.

  By the time I was done, Cody had sobered up. He shook his head and muttered, “Rydell Vance.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not personally, but I sure as hell know of him. Around these parts, he’s the closest thing we’ve got to a crime lord.”

  “You read too many comic books.”

  “I’m serious, Eric. That man’s got a hand in every criminal enterprise in this county. Gambling, whores, moonshine, drugs. Especially drugs. He’s a major mover of meth and OxyContin, that stuff they call ‘hillbilly heroin.’ Deals grass, too, but mostly wholesale.”

  “Not to you, huh?”

  “I don’t do business with rattlesnakes.”

  “He does have that quality about him.”

  “Those two boys of his, Wayne Cherry and Hubert Askew? They’re the poison.”

  “Hubert’s got this thing on his face—”

  “I’ve seen it. And Wayne’s wears a brace on his leg. The Nipple and the Cripple, that’s what folks call ‘em. But not to their faces. Guys who make that mistake tend to disappear.”

  “Come on, Cody—”

  “Both those boys got something to prove. They’re meaner than hell. That’s why Rydell Vance keeps ‘em around.”

  I thought that over while Cody stuffed the food wrappers and beer cans into a plastic shopping bag. He reached out his window and tossed the bag backward into the bed of his truck.

  “Guess I’m lucky they didn’t hurt me worse than they did,” I said.

  “They probably gave you a pass because you’re related to Bart Honeydew.”

  “Bart wouldn’t care.”

  “Be glad they didn’t know that. The woods are full of the bodies of people who crossed Rydell Vance.”

  “You’re killing my buzz.”

  “Just as well,” he said. “It’s time to go back to work.”

  Chapter 11

  I couldn’t face the office yet. I drove north on the old highway, past industrial zones and rundown motels, toward downtown. Mount Shasta’s icy shoulders loomed over the mountains to the north and I thought it was a shame such a fine view was wasted on body shops and homeless shelters.

  The highway became Pine Street as it climbed uphill into the old commercial core. Downtown had rejuvenated in the years since I’d moved to Redding. Charming old buildings tarted up with paint and plaster. New government buildings ringed by palm trees. (To a guy from Cleveland, swaying palms always spell “vacation.”) At Placer Street, I spied the Cascade Theatre, a renovated Art Deco marvel with a giant marquee, a
nd got a whiff of the grill at Damburger. Nearby was a shady park where hundreds of hippies and beer-drinkers gathered for live music every Thursday evening (an event Darlene would never deign to attend). Several decent restaurants had opened in the area recently. Every few blocks a new Starbucks.

  Redding was growing, but in many ways it was still a small town, with all the inbred familiarity that implies. The kind of place that could lull you to sleep, where life could pass you by. Was this where I wanted to spend my thirtieth birthday? Stuck in this slow-motion burg with Darlene?

  I curved downhill on Market Street – driving carefully, I was still pretty stoned – and crossed a high bridge over the swift Sacramento River. I got a glimpse of the swooping white arrow of the Sundial Bridge rising over the trees downriver. The glass-and-steel pedestrian bridge, designed by a famous Spanish architect, connects a museum to an arboretum, and it’s Redding’s big tourist attraction. Travelers get off Interstate 5, find their way over to the bridge for a quick walk-around, snap a few pictures, then haul ass back to the freeway.

  I turned left into Caldwell Park, a green oasis of shady elms and broad lawns, and parked in a spot where I could see the glinting river through the trees.

  I rolled down the windows. A cool breeze off the water kissed my face, and I could hear the river’s rush. Nothing’s more peaceful than the sound of moving water. The trout streams in the surrounding mountains and the dark river’s dogleg through town won me over the first time I visited Redding, and I always returned to the water when I felt troubled. Or badly stoned.

  Much around here to make an outdoorsman happy. Rivers and lakes, wooded canyons and clean air, the glaciers of Mount Shasta, the golden grass of the oak savannah. Beautiful country, if you can stand the summer heat. Bountiful with timber and game and water and gold.

  The rolling woodlands must’ve seemed familiar to the white migrants who moved here from Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Georgia. Those good ole boys built houses at the ends of dirt roads and stuck deer stands in the trees and registered Republican and put their cars up on blocks. Home at last.

  Generations later, the political and social structures remained a strange mix of George Wallace, Tom Joad and Jed Clampett. Which is why recent arrivals like me, goddamned-wet-behind-the-ears-liberal-commies-from-Cleveland, call California’s rural interior “Calabama.”