Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  “Damn, Eric.” He waved at the hanging smoke. “Getting started early, aren’t you?”

  “Tequila,” I gasped. “Killing me.”

  “I’ll make coffee.”

  It took two cups of coffee and two more roaches before the pain eased inside my head. Cody, meanwhile, banged around in the kitchen, cleaning up.

  “I need to go to the store today,” he said. “And do some laundry. What are you up to?”

  The answer was so clearly “nothing” that it made me uncomfortable. Cody was hospitable to let me sleep at his place, but now I was more or less underfoot. Like every other workingman, Cody needed his Saturday free for chores.

  “I’ve got some running around to do myself,” I said. “How about if I meet you back here this afternoon?”

  “That would work. Get here before dark and we’ll go down to the creek.”

  “I don’t have my fishing gear. I didn’t pack anything but clothes—”

  “I got enough for both of us. We won’t catch anything that late in the day anyway.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  I washed up and brushed my teeth and felt a little better. Told Cody I’d see him later.

  “Mi sofa es su sofa.”

  “Very good,” I said. “You’re a cunning linguist.”

  “That’s what I keep telling Petula.”

  I stepped outside and put on sunglasses to shield my eyes from the fierce sunlight filtering through the trees.

  “Be careful in town,” Cody said behind me.

  “Right.”

  I let my truck idle while I got the air-conditioner going. Then I sailed up the narrow driveway, scattering rabbits into the manzanitas.

  I was halfway back to the city limits before I admitted to myself that I had nowhere to go. I was in limbo. Rydell had said he’d call me about the kidnapping plot, but I couldn’t do anything until then. My future was in someone else’s hands and my past was closed to me. The present kind of sucked, too.

  Joe Ely yodeled on the radio: “I wish hard livin’ didn’t come so easy to me.” I hear you, Joe, I hear you.

  I drove around aimlessly, crossing the river and looping through downtown on one-way streets. Back in the 1970s, when old-line downtown merchants were worried about the new shopping mall planned for east of the river, they convinced the city to enclose a few blocks of Market Street. They built a roof over the street and walled it off and prettied it up, and it was an immediate dud. The roof leaked and the shops failed. Government offices took pity and filled the spaces. The downtown mall got quieter and quieter. Pretty soon, the only people hanging around were bums bathing in the low fountains.

  In the last few years, the city fathers decided the downtown mall might’ve been a bad idea. They started removing the roof, a block at a time. Downtown is sprouting theaters and restaurants these days, and space has become prime once again. What was once failure is now opportunity.

  The mall remained an unquestionable success in one way: It successfully screwed up the traffic pattern. Tourists try to visit our downtown, and they get lost among swerving one-ways with cross-streets that go nowhere. Sometimes I still get turned around downtown, and I’ve lived here for seven years.

  Lot of traffic for a Saturday, but the sidewalks were empty. Too damned hot already. Everyone stayed in their air-conditioned cars until the last second, then scurried like lizards into air-conditioned restaurants or stores. Those unprotected moments in between were sharp reminders to stay inside where it’s cool.

  South of downtown, the one-ways join up again near the new library. There’s a park and some ballfields and a modern City Hall with spurting fountains. A sculpture garden. The ceaseless river running past it all.

  Along the riverbank is a neighborhood of expensive homes shaded by giant cottonwoods and firs. Down there, it’s ten degrees cooler than elsewhere in the city, the river a natural air-conditioner. I often cruised through the area, salivating over the idea of living along the water. But Darlene never would consider leaving the house that Daddy built.

  Guess I was free to find a place like that now, a little bachelor pad near a river. Not in Redding, of course. But some other place where I could live within earshot of the water.

  I poked along residential streets near the river, looking for a particular house. Bart had pointed it out one time when we were running documents to City Hall. It was a huge two-story home, modern and angular, that stood on the riverfront behind a row of dense evergreens.

  “See that house?” Bart had said. “That’s where Lester Davies lives. Man could afford to build a palace made of gold, but he’s happy in that fucking saltbox. What does that tell you?”

  Unsure what he was getting at, I said something inane about the attraction of the river. Looking back, he’d probably been trying to make some point, to teach me something. Another blotch on my son-in-law record.

  I spotted the house, did a U-turn and parked along the curb. I couldn’t see into the windows. The evergreens screened the whole first floor.

  The cover of the trees would be helpful when Hubert and Wayne kidnapped Lester Davies. They could nab him when he answered the door, and nobody would see. Maybe they could even use a boat to ferry him away—

  I caught myself and laughed. Suddenly I’m a criminal mastermind. What a jerk.

  I turned the radio off in the middle of an ad for Bigfoot Recycling, and listened to the river’s shushing lullaby.

  Five minutes later, the maroon Jaguar nudged out of the shady driveway. Vanessa Davies was behind the wheel. I followed, hanging back a few blocks, not wanting to spook her. I ended up trailing her halfway across town. Guess I wanted another look at her, as if a glimpse would tell me anything about her trustworthiness, ambition or nerve.

  The Jaguar bumped into the parking lot of the country club. I stopped my truck in the shade of a cottonwood near the tall chicken-wire fence of the driving range, where sweaty duffers whacked their balls onto the tired grass.

  Vanessa took her time gathering her tennis racket and purse. Then she climbed out of the Jag and sashayed to the lobby entrance. She wore sunglasses and a tight white top and a flippy skirt the color of peach ice cream. Her legs were approximately six miles long.

  She paused as she stepped into the shade of the portico. Took off her sunglasses and looked back over her shoulder, right at me. She might’ve smiled. Then she went into the building.

  Damn. How could such a beautiful babe stand to be married to an old gargoyle like Lester Davies? Well, she couldn’t, as we now knew. She planned to rob him of a million bucks, then take her share and hit the road, Jack.

  But what possessed her in the first place? What made her think she could tolerate life with Lester? Maybe she thought he was close to kicking the bucket. Maybe the doctors came back with a report that surprised her. Bad news, Mrs. Davies, your husband is perfectly healthy.

  So she schemed with her boyfriend to fake a kidnapping, so she could milk Lester one last time before she gets her divorce, pre-nup be damned.

  Then what? Would she go on the hunt for another sugar daddy? Trade up to a newer model? Would that be Rydell? I couldn’t picture the two of them living happily ever after. From the looks of her, Vanessa was a high-maintenance woman, not one to spend her days in a screened-in lodge with dead animals staring down at her, a glass of Mister Baby in her hand and pro wrestling on the TV. She couldn’t go flouncing into the country club if she was known as Rydell Vance’s woman.

  Why would she even sleep with Rydell? Was she into rough trade? Some women desire dangerous men. Was that her secret? Did she love him? Was that it? Is that why she would risk getting involved in kidnapping?

  A bigger question: Why would I?

  Chapter 29

  I went to a different diner. I had too much on my mind to swap smiles with old Nine-Fingers today. I bought the last local newspaper in the rack, sat in a corner booth, and used the sports page to screen myself from the other customers.

  Mos
t of the sports headlines were about baseball, which isn’t my favorite. I’m a football man myself, maybe some basketball when the playoffs come around. Baseball’s too slow for my tastes. Hard for me to respect a sport you can play while chewing tobacco.

  The front-page headlines were the usual stuff. The housing boom. City Hall brokering deals with developers to remodel the riverfront. Marijuana farm found on remote National Forest land, booby-trapped with claymore mines. Some preacher caught boffing a fifteen-year-old soprano in the choir loft.

  The lead local story was about a corpse discovered in a burned-out trailer in the hills near Igo. We’d seen a lot of that lately. Drug dealers or hillbillies or drug-dealing hillbillies get into a dispute that results in murder, but it doesn’t stop there. The murderer then burns his victim’s home to the ground, to cover up any forensic evidence. Everybody watching too many cop shows on TV.

  Down-page was a story about Butch Gentry’s funeral, scheduled for two o’clock this very afternoon at Crestview Cemetery. The article said Gentry had been only thirty-seven years old, divorced with no kids. He’d worked at a Chevy dealership, and had been active among the folks who breed and show horses. The article had quotes from his grieving parents, a recap of the flying Corvette incident, and a comment from Chief Drake, who said police still were investigating the crash. No mention of the guy in the pickup truck who’d watched the Corvette rocket over his head. No mention of a black Dodge. Nothing to tie it all to Rydell Vance.

  I checked my wristwatch. I could make it to the funeral, but there wasn’t time to go all the way out to Cody’s for nicer clothes. Maybe I could pay my respects from a distance.

  I settled my tab and went out to my truck, counting the money left in my wallet. Less than forty bucks. That wouldn’t last long. I needed to get my hands on that fifty grand. I sure would hate to ask Rydell for an advance.

  On the way to the cemetery, I stopped by a liquor store run by two surly, swarthy brothers. I told the jowly man behind the counter to give me a pint.

  “A pint of what?”

  “Anything but tequila.”

  He stared at me with bloodhound eyes.

  “Whiskey.”

  He turned to the bottles on the shelves behind him, held his fat hand over a pint of Jim Beam and raised his thick eyebrows. I shook my head. He moved his hand along the shelf, ready to make the grab, until I nodded at a bottle of cheap rotgut. Looking disappointed, he plucked it off the shelf and traded it to me for five bucks.

  Crestview Cemetery covered a grassy hillside near downtown. A grove of conifers screened it from Highway 44, but did little to filter the noise of passing semis and muffler-free king-cabs.

  Pretty good turnout for Butch’s going-away, gathered around a green canvas canopy at the bottom of the hill. The hearse and other shiny vehicles were parked on a service road near the trees.

  Another road went upslope. I followed it and parked in the shade of a lonely oak. Gravestones dotted the lawns all around me, a city in miniature, the houses of the dead.

  I opened the pint and gargled some bourbon. It made my eyes water.

  With the window rolled down, I could hear the minister’s voice echoing across the cemetery. Couldn’t make out all the words, but I got the drift. Everything I needed to know about the preacher was evident in the way he used a white handkerchief to swab his fervent forehead.

  The Gentry family was a huddle of black grief under the shady canopy. Men in suits and sunglasses stood around the open grave. Mourning women flocked together like sad crows.

  I felt a little sad myself, though I’d never met Butch Gentry. We’d shared an important moment, and that made me feel we had a sort of connection. I toasted his departure with more bourbon.

  At first, I’d welcomed the notion that the near-miss with the Corvette would change my life somehow. But the changes had been harsh. Within days, I’d become disinherited, unemployed, estranged and homeless. Not to mention kidnapped, cold-cocked and hungover. And now I was mixed up with the head of the Hillbilly Mafia, planning a major felony.

  Butch Gentry might’ve gotten the better end of our brief encounter. At least his suffering was over in a hurry. Mine could drag on forever.

  The service ended, and the mourners began to drift toward the waiting cars. I polished off the bourbon and tucked the bottle under the seat.

  As I straightened up, I found Rydell Vance standing very close to my truck, his face at my window.

  I think I pissed myself a little.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he said.

  Chapter 30

  After I sputtered something about the funeral notice in the newspaper, Rydell walked around the front of my truck and invited himself up into the cab. Together, we watched the departing mourners.

  “Not such a good idea, you being here,” he said. “Might make people wonder why you’re so interested.”

  “I’m just an unemployed bum, drinking in a graveyard. What’s your excuse?”

  “Paying my respects,” he said. “Butch was a good ole boy, even if he was the type of guy who likes to play golf.”

  “I play golf.”

  “Butch was the kind who’d wear plaid pants. But he was all right. Too bad he drove recklessly.”

  Rydell stared straight out the star-studded windshield. From this profile, I couldn’t see the white side of his mustache. He looked younger, more dangerous.

  He leaned toward me and I flinched, but he was only digging a silver flask out of his hip pocket. He opened it and took a nip. Handed it to me. I took one whiff and yanked my head back.

  “Is that from Señor Infante?”

  “Excellante,” Rydell said.

  “No thanks.” I passed it back. “That stuff causes brain damage.”

  “Pussy.”

  He took another snort, then screwed the cap on the flask.

  The mourners wasted no time getting out of the cemetery. A contingent of funeral directors milled around, wrapping things up, but the family was whisked away and everybody else fled. Too bad about Butch Gentry, but it was Saturday afternoon. People had things to do. Shopping. Cookouts. Tee times.

  “The problem with Butch,” Rydell said, “is that he panicked. People who panic often get themselves killed. If they’d just stop and think, they’d make the right decision and everything would be fine. But, oh, Jesus, they panic and run right out into traffic.”

  “Or fly through the air.”

  “Butch brought it on himself,” he said. “The man tried to take something from me, so I sent Hubert and Wayne to have a little talk with him. If he hadn’t panicked, we wouldn’t be sitting in a boneyard right now.”

  “Maybe he thought he could outrun a beating.”

  He shot me a chilling glance. “Running never works. A man stands up and faces what he’s got coming.”

  We sat quietly for a minute, staring out at the cemetery.

  “My daddy’s buried here,” Rydell said. “Over there by the highway. Man worked all his life in sawmills, turning trees into stick lumber for houses. Died of emphysema from breathing sawdust. Fifty-seven years old.”

  “Damn.”

  “Spent his whole life worried and poor and miserable. I grew up watching him die. I knew there had to be a better way of life.”

  “Even if it’s a life of crime?”

  I got a flash of white mustache as he glanced over at me.

  “Least I’m not breathing sawdust.”

  A moment of silence for Rydell’s old man.

  “That’s why I try not to pass up an opportunity,” he said. “I see a chance to make a million dollars, I’m willing to take on extra risk. Even if it means relying on amateurs such as yourself.”

  I felt like objecting, but he didn’t pause.

  “That’s why I’m sitting here. I’m waiting for you to tell me whether you’re in or out. Last chance to back out of this deal with Lester.”

  “I’m in,” I said, nearly choking on the words. “I need that fift
y grand.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Rydell grinned. “Greed’s the one emotion I trust.”

  A yellow backhoe wobbled into view from behind the evergreens and rumbled up the service road to Butch Gentry’s final resting place. It looked like a drunken grasshopper.

  “Why don’t you come over to the house tonight?” Rydell said. “I’ll fire up the barbecue grill.”

  “I’m supposed to eat supper with the guy I’m staying with. We’re going to fish his creek and—”

  “I’m talking about a business dinner. We’ve got things to discuss.”

  His piercing eyes studied me, waiting for the right answer.

  I said, “What time?”

  “See you at six.”

  Rydell climbed out and walked off, his cowboy boots clumping on the blacktop. His dusty van was parked fifty feet away. How had he crept up on me like that?

  I felt suddenly sober, as if dealing with Rydell had burned the bourbon out of my system. After he drove away, I watched the funeral directors lower the casket into the grave. The backhoe squatted nearby, belching black smoke.

  “So long, Butch,” I said aloud. “I’ll always remember you. And I’ll try not to panic.”

  Chapter 31

  In the hills of Northern California, the local meat specialty is called “tri-tip.” It’s a triangular cut from a part of the cow you’d rather not think about, with garlic beaten into it until it’s within an inch of tenderness. At every Rotary Club luncheon or Chamber of Commerce dinner, the menu centers on a tray of too-tough tri-trip, swimming in grease. Your entrée into society.

  I usually settle for soup. I’m too lazy for all that endless chewing. Another trait that labeled me as an outsider.

  Grilled properly, tri-tip can be pretty damned tasty, and it smells great. I was salivating as I climbed out of my truck at Rydell’s place. He stood in his patchy yard next to a shiny charcoal grill that spiraled black smoke. He had a long fork in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He was dressed in his usual denim, plus a black cowboy hat with a wide flat brim. With the hat and the mustache and the cigarette and the drifting smoke, he looked like a gunfighter. From Hell.