Fiddleback 2

by Jeff Vrolyks

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Michael tossed his cellphone to the passenger seat. Wow did he lose his temper. Never had he gone that ape-shit before in his life. The worst part of it was nothing had been resolved. He still didn’t know if Eddie was bullshitting him or not. He sounded sincere but that could be an act.

  “Fuck it,” he said and rolled down the window, feeling the wind of passage drum his face and hair. He had been driving to the Stoddard farm, his intention to give this car back to that asshole and be done with him for good. Actually, he’d have Eddie give him a ride home first, then he’d be done with him for good. But after that phone call he wasn’t so sure he’d be getting that ride. He could just go home and deal with the car tomorrow. But even then he’d be stuck at the farm. Eddie would be bitter about him reneging on the deal, would probably say something like, “Tough shit, loser. You should have thought about that before you pussed out and quit.”

  Either way, be it he return the car tonight or in the morning, it would come to the same thing: he’d have to call for a cab. Luckily Eddie gave him cash earlier or he wouldn’t be able to afford it. He continued in the direction of the Stoddard farm.

  He was shaking from the emotion of it all. All he could do was thank God that he didn’t shoot Mae. He nearly did. That trigger was just a half-ounce away from discharging the Beretta and sending Mae to her parents.

  Michael wondered once again why it was that Eddie wanted Trent dead so damned badly. Why did it matter to him? With Michael it was obvious why he wanted Trent dead: he killed Mae’s parents. He killed the parents of the woman who owned his heart. By why the hell did Eddie want him dead? He’d learn the truth, tonight. He’d do so with his father’s Beretta aimed at Eddie’s heart. Tell me or die, he’d threaten. Maybe he’d even go through with it.

  He turned onto Road 171, just a quarter mile away from the Stoddard farm.

  “Oh shit…” Michael muttered as he decelerated past a silver Audi convertible on the shoulder of the road, just before the property. There was no driver silhouette in it. He parked in front of the gate. He didn’t know the password, wouldn’t enter it if he did. Something was going down here, and there would be blood spilled.

  He killed the headlights and shut off the car, quietly closed the door behind him. The knife was left behind. It wasn’t a night for knives but one for guns. He wedged it in his waistband before climbing the nearest section of fence. In the distance he could see the barn door wide open. He made his way with silent footfalls.

  What would he do when any number of scenarios presented themselves in the barn? He supposed the safest thing to do was draw his gun and put Eddie and Trent in a state of submission instantly, and take it from there. His recourse would come to him then.

  He came in at an angle, gun drawn and at his side, stopped just outside the door and listened. Crickets chirped. There was silence otherwise. That could mean they were inside the house. It could mean one of them was dead in the barn. Or both. It was pitch dark inside. Without a light it wouldn’t do much good to go in to investigate. He could use his phone as a weak flashlight. Just as he remembered leaving his phone on the passenger seat of the Buick, he heard a cellphone chime inside the barn. Someone got a text message. Then another. He stuck his head inside and saw a glow in one of the stalls. The loft was above it. Likely it fell down below, probably a result of brawling.

  Someone groaned. Then there was a miserable hiss. He didn’t think it was issued from the same person. He estimated that it came from farther down in the barn. He pieced it together: they beat the shit out of each other, both were still alive and in a world of hurt. He couldn’t have wished for a better scenario. He stepped inside the doorway and clicked back the hammer of the Beretta.

  He couldn’t see shit. Not even shadowy masses that might pass for a person. The cellphone was still alight from the seconds-old text message. He could use that as a flashlight to find a light switch. He hurried across the barn before the light shut off. His foot clipped something and someone cried out in severe pain.

  Inside the stall he lumbered up a mound of hay and snatched up the phone through a thin overlay of straw. Not two seconds later the screen went black. Great timing. Michael pressed buttons on its sides until the screen lit up. It read Text Message (2) Mae.

  “Well-well, what do we have here?” Michael said with intrigue.

  “Michael?” Eddie said in a hoarse gasp. “Is that you?”

  “It’s me, all right. Happy to see me? I take it Trent is somewhere around here as well?”

  “Fuck you,” Trent grunted.

  “Where are the lights around here.”

  “At the door,” Eddie said.

  Michael used the glow of the phone to find the switch, turned it on. A couple overhead fixtures buzzed to life. It was so bright that the three of them squinted. There was a fourth person here; he had no capacity nor need to squint.

  “Oh shit,” Michael said in awe. “Damn, you guys really went to town on each other, huh?” He snickered, stuffed the phone down his pants pocket. “Who’s that guy?” He pointed at the kid lying face down by the door, his hair pasted to the back of his head with blood.

  “Timothy,” Eddie said. He tried to sit up, it was a painful event. He winced and hissed as he did so, finally got upright. The front of his face was covered in blood from the nose down—the nose crooked.

  Trent reached down to his backward-facing left foot and compressed it with a rueful expression. His nose resembled Eddie’s, only it was flatter. In fact, the two looked a lot alike right now, if you discount their hair color—Eddie’s dark, Trent’s light. Trent’s jaw was askew. Fuck that must hurt.

  Michael stooped down to the tire-iron on the floor, flung it deep inside a stall. He went to the barn door and closed it shut, locked the brand new lock. Ironically, the lock was bought to keep the SacTown Slayer out, and instead it was being used to keep the SacTown Slayer’s victims in. Michael chuckled silently.

  “It’s shaping up to be a good evening after all,” Michael said with a lingering smile. “Looks like I have the winning hand here. It’s a good feeling, wish you guys could experience it. Hey Eddie, you got a smoke I can bum?”

  Eddie nodded. He fished a pack of Marlboro’s out of his pocket laboriously and flung them at Michael, then his silver Zippo. Michael lit himself up a smoke. Feeling magnanimous he lit up another smoke and tossed it at Eddie, who put it in his mouth and took a deep drag.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Eddie said and exhaled smoke through his nostrils in two jets.

  “Buddy, am I?” Michael said amusedly. “I can see why you’d want to say that right now. How about you, Trent? Have any sweet things to call me?”

  “Fuck you. Who the hell are you?”

  “Michael. And is that the way to win me over?” Michael giggled. He was loving this, feeling immensely powerful. “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the guy who was at Woodland Crest Avenue, apartment 215 earlier. Sound familiar?”

  “The fuck?” Trent wiped his bloody face with the back of his hand, looked up at Michael with an incensed glare. “What the fuck were you doing at my apartment?”

  “I was there to put six inches of steel in your heart. I should probably mention who else I am. I’m the SacTown Slayer.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Eddie, am I the SacTown Slayer?” Michael asked.

  Eddie took a drag of his smoke with a little grin. “Yes. That you are.”

  “What’s going on here?” Trent asked.

  “That’s to be determined,” Michael said and took a drag off the smoke. He coughed a little. Smoking wasn’t his thing, but he liked it just now. “Trent, I’ll be honest with you, I can’t picture a scenario where you come out of this alive. How do you feel about that?”

  “You’d better kill me, because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

  “Ballsy answer,” Michael said impressively. “Don’t you think, Eddie?”

  Eddie nodded. “Just kill him already. Use
the tire-iron. The Stoddard’s would hear a gunshot and come investigating. Knock Trent’s block off, we’ll bury him in the olive grove together. I’ll help you, busted up as I am. That’s what friends do.”

  “And you’re my friend,” Michael half asked, half stated.

  “Of course, buddy. Forever, like we said.”

  “Yes, forever like we said. I’m not so sure, Eddie. Let’s get Trent’s opinion, should we?”

  “No,” Eddie said, as Trent said, “Yes.”

  “Trent,” Michael said and began pacing with the gun at the small of his back. “Eddie here gave me your address, wanted me to execute you. I gladly accepted the offer because I’ve long wanted to kill the man who murdered Mae’s parents and pinned the blame on me.”

  “Are you really the SacTown Slayer? No shit?”

  “No shit. That was fucked up, to kill them and make it look like I did it. What was more fucked up is you killing two wonderful people who didn’t deserve that shit.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I was Mae’s next door neighbor. I’ve loved Mae since the day I saw her. You broke her heart by killing them, and that’s not okay with me.”

  “You’re in love with my girlfriend?”

  Michael nodded, continued pacing up and down the barn. “So Eddie informed me who it was who killed David and Rebecca Clark: You.”

  “How did you know?” Trent asked Eddie.

  “I’m doing all the questioning here,” Michael said. “Ignore him, Eddie. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I learned who killed them, and Eddie set me up with your address and living arrangements. Very thoughtful of him, eh?”

  “Fucking prick,” Trent muttered.

  “So I showed up, found the key in the pot just like Eddie said it would be, and inside I went. I had my gun aimed at whom I thought was you, but it ended up being Mae.”

  “Mae is at my apartment?” Trent said disbelievingly. On the heels of that thought was how could Eddie know there was a spare key in the pot? He’d bet it had something to do with that damned green idol.

  “I told you she wasn’t supposed to be there,” Eddie said.

  “She is, and I nearly blew her head off. That’s just the thing, you see, Trent? Was Eddie sending me there to kill you? Or was he sending me there to kill Mae? I really want to believe he wouldn’t send me out to kill the girl I love with all my heart.”

  “I’d never do that!” Eddie blustered. “I wanted you to kill Trent!”

  “Fuck you,” Trent said to Eddie.

  “Yes, I’m starting to believe that,” Michael said. “I believe you wanted me to kill Trent, not Mae.”

  “Good. I’m glad you understand that,” Eddie said. “Because it’s the truth.”

  “But why? That’s the million dollar question.”

  “Yeah, why?” Trent asked him. “You have a hard-on for my girl, too?”

  Michael heard Trent’s words just then, but they didn’t sink in. They were just words a pissed off guy about to be executed might say. But they’d sink in soon enough.

  He swaggered over to the guy by the door and knelt down, checked his throat for a pulse. He looked back at Eddie and said excitedly, “Guy’s alive, how about that? You wouldn’t guess it by looking at him.”

  He went to the stall with the tire-iron and picked it up, shoved the gun down his pants, took a two-handed grip of the ponderous tool. He positioned himself between the two beaten-bloody guys and wound back the weapon a little. Trent and Eddie stared dubiously up at him, their expressions identical.

  “One of you is dying tonight. Heck, maybe both of you. The question is, which one?”

  “Him,” Eddie said.

  “Fuck you. Kill that asshole,” Trent said.

  “Yeah, I’m afraid we won’t be getting anywhere this way.”

  “Do what Mae would want,” Trent advised. “You love her, so do what she’d want. You have my phone in your pocket; go ahead and call her, let her make the decision.”

  “Oh…” Michael said, remembering the phone in his pocket. “Let’s see what Mae texted you. Did I mention that I told her who killed her parents?” Michael chuckled.

  “She won’t believe it,” Trent said. “Even if she does I can convince her otherwise.”

  Michael shrugged. “Not my problem.” With the tire-iron in one hand, he took the cell from his pocket in the other, tapped the screen a few times and there it was, Mae’s recent texts.

  He was still wearing a slight smile when he began reading them. His smile slackened, the tire-iron slipped out of his hand, clanging on the floor. His mouth hung ajar, eyes distant and glazing over at once with emotion.

  “No…” he breathed. “No!”

  Trent was eying the tire-iron on the floor. He was going to die tonight unless he capitalized on some opportune moment such as this one. With a disregard of his broken ankle and the pain it caused him to scramble forward to the weapon, he lurched forward and was on his hands and knees when Michael mindlessly withdrew the Beretta from his waistband and aimed it at Trent, eyes still focused on the cellphone. Trent eased back to his previous posture.

  “Fuck!” Michael cried. “This can’t be happening!”

  “What did she say?” Trent asked.

  Michael looked up from the screen, fixed on Trent. He repeated from memory: “I forgive you for killing my parents. I’ll be where you gave me the bracelet.”

  “That’s it?”

  Michael shook his head, tears now running down his cheeks. “She then texted…” He sobbed. “She said to have them play Little Wing at her funeral. ”

  “Fuck…” Trent said, and it pleased Michael to see his pained expression. “Come on, let me call her!” He gestured Michael to give him the phone.

  Michael tossed him the phone. Trent called her. He anxiously pounded the floor with his other hand. “Pick up the damn phone, Mae,” he muttered. When voicemail answered he dropped the phone to the floor and pressed a thumb and forefinger into his eyes and rubbed.

  “Where did you give her the bracelet?” Michael asked him.

  “There’s a place a couple miles or so from where I live. A meadow by a creek. She loves that place. We drive there sometimes, hang out.”

  “Do you have any weapons that she could use to kill herself?”

  “I have a gun, but she doesn’t know where I keep it. She doesn’t even know I have it.”

  “How do you think she’d kill herself?”

  “I know exactly how,” Trent said solemnly, and gazed down blankly at his lap. “Overdose. I have a bottle of GHB; she knows where it is. If she takes it all, she’ll overdose.”

  “Hopefully she won’t take it till she gets to that spot a couple miles away. Does she have a car or access to a car?”

  “No.”

  “Great. How far is it from your apartment by foot?’

  “A twenty minute walk, at least. No, it would be more like thirty. Two or three miles, walking at about four miles an hour. What is that? Thirty minutes, at least.”

  “It’s a thirty minute drive,” Michael said. “Could you call nine-one-one and accurately describe where the place is?”

  “It’s in the middle of nowhere: they’d never find it till it was too late. You have to let me go, it’s the only way.”

  “He’s full of shit,” Eddie said. “He just wants a way out of this.”

  “Yeah, so!” Trent returned. “Doesn’t change that I want to save my fucking girlfriend, does it!”

  “Just call nine-one-one,” Eddie advised. “She’s probably in his apartment. You can’t fuck around, Michael, you have to call them or she’ll die.”

  Michael glared at Eddie as he considered something that had escaped him earlier. Subconsciously he began drifting the gun in his direction, not yet aiming it at him.

  What was it Trent said earlier about Eddie’s motive for wanting Trent dead? Michael recalled, ‘You have a hard-on for my girl, too?’ Was that it?—Eddie’s motive for wanting Trent dead?

&nb
sp; He reflected back to the night he met Eddie, when he was picked up just after killing the Parcher’s. He had said:

  And you’re going to take a request for me. You’re going to kill someone. Someone of my choosing, and you’ll do it because I said so. And I swear to God if you kill his girlfriend too, I’ll hammer nails into your brain through your eyeballs. She’s off fucking limits.

  Wasn’t that exactly the thing he’d say if he loved Mae? And then earlier today he something else:

  Something came up and Trent needs to die ASAP. If not, it might be me who ends up dead. He’s after me.

  You? Michael had said. What did you do to him?

  I don’t know. Well, I do know but it’s personal. Sorry, bud, I can’t tell you everything. In time I will, I swear. But for now you have to trust me, Trent wants me dead. Can you take care of him tonight?

  Trent wanted him dead because he learned Eddie was in love with Mae. That had to be it. And what rewards would Eddie reap from having Michael kill Trent? For one, Trent would be out of the picture, freeing up Mae, making her newly single and available once again. All Eddie would have to do then was rat out Michael for killing Trent (or drop the dime on who’s the SacTown Slayer), and then he’d be in jail. Eddie would be all who remains in the fucked up love triangle. Love square.

  “You little mother fucker,” Michael whispered, glowering at Eddie. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Michael wound back the tire-iron and closed the gap between he and Eddie, swung it ferociously at his head. Eddie was dead before he hit the floor.

  “Fuck yeah,” Trent said. “You did the right thing.”

  “Fuck you, Trent,” Michael said huffing. “You should be dead, too.”

  “You need me, man. And I have to get going right fucking now if Mae’s going to survive this.”

  Michael grudgingly nodded. “Can I trust you to go get her, take care of her?”

  “Dude… I love her, of course I will.”

  He nodded again. “I believe you. I don’t know if you’re a man of your word, but I’m a man of mine. Let’s strike a truce. You go your own way, I go mine. We both know each other’s secret: you killed Mae’s parents, and I’m the SacTown Slayer. I’m only doing this because Mae comes first, and I believe you have the same mentality.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “All I ask of you is that you call me later tonight to let me know that she’s all right. Or, God forbid, if she isn’t. Will you do that?”

  “Swear on my soul.”

  “Shake on it. Not just the phone call, but everything I just said. We’re enemies no more. Truce.”

  They shook hands.

  Michael recited his cellphone number for Trent to enter under new contacts. He offered his hand to help Trent up.

  “Do me a favor?” Trent said.

  “What.”

  “Check Eddie’s pockets for his cellphone, and hand it to me. Please.”

  Michael did, found it in his left pants pocket and set it in Trent’s hand, who immediately went to recent calls and scrolled down. Sure as shit, there was Mae’s phone number. Several calls, several texts.

  “That mother fucker. I knew it was him.” He put the phone in his pocket and put an arm around Michael’s shoulder to keep his weight off his broken ankle, and the two slowly made their way out of the barn and toward the Audi.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to get over this,” Michael said at the fence.

  “Won’t be a problem. Just get on the other side and help me down.”

  Michael did, and helped Trent ease himself over the low fence. Together they hobbled along to the Audi. Michael helped him in, closed the door. The window rolled down. Trent extended his hand, said, “I appreciate this, Michael. I admit I would have killed you five minutes ago, but you’re reborn in my eyes. Doing this erased every bit of animosity I have for you. Had for you.”

  Michael shook it. “I can’t say the same about you. You killed her parents for your own selfish reasons. But that’s in the past. They’re dead and that can’t change, but you can help Mae and be good for her.” He pleaded with Trent with his eyes. “Please be good for her.”

  “I will.”

  “Haul ass, Trent. I Mean it, drive a hundred and ten. If a cop should pull you over, he’ll take one look at your face and know you’re on your way to the hospital. Hurry.”

  “Will do. Call you tonight.”

  “Wait. Shit… how are you going to get to Mae with a broken ankle? It’s out in the wilderness or something, didn’t you say?”

  “A meadow, yeah. I’ll drive across it, fuck it. It’s not too steep a grade, should be all right; and Audi’s have Quattro: all wheel drive. It’ll be okay, trust me. As long as I get there in time, she’ll be fine.”

  Trent threw the car in drive and punched it. It screamed at high RPM’s as the car distanced itself from Michael.