Nobody Move

by Philip Elliott

  “Christ.”

  “Had to break most of her bones first, though.”

  “Oh fuck, I’m not doing that.”

  “But wasn’t the biggest suitcase. Redneck over there probably got a bigger one.”

  “Even if he does, no way he’s fitting in it.”

  “No, but she will.”

  “Okay, let’s say we find a suitcase for her,” Eddie said. “What do we do with him?”

  He gnawed on a nail, wondering how the hell to move the fat bastard. It reminded him of the time his uncle Harvey had a stroke and fell down the stairs. Poor guy couldn’t walk for two weeks—

  “Call Sawyer,” Eddie said. “I have an idea.”

  They found a large suitcase and just about managed to fit the woman inside in the fetal position. Looking at her cramped in there, still as a doll, Eddie knew he’d crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. Shit, he’d be lucky to ever sleep again.

  They wiped the place down with bleach while they waited for Sawyer, then sat on the sofa and watched cartoons, the same sofa they’d scrubbed clean of blood and shards of brain.

  Ten minutes later someone knocked on the door. Eddie nearly jumped.

  “Who there?” Floyd said.

  “Jack Nicholson. Who you fucking think?”

  Floyd opened the door and Sawyer strolled inside pushing a wheelchair.

  “Got your wheels,” he said to Eddie in his Southern drawl.

  “Where’d you get it from?”

  “Stole it from some guy on the street.”

  “You a bad motherfucker, stealing from a cripple,” Floyd said.

  “Least I didn’t shoot him.”

  They lifted Bill into the wheelchair. Eddie found a cowboy hat in the bedroom and put it on Bill’s head, the front tipped down over the hole through his skull.

  “Ready to do this?” Floyd said.

  No one answered him.

  “Sawyer, you go down first, by yourself,” Floyd said. “Look suspicious we all walk out together.”

  “He brought the wheelchair up,” Eddie said. “It would be suspicious if he leaves without it, then we come down with Bill.”

  “All right, we all go, fuck it,” Floyd said.

  “Who’s pushing the wheelchair?” Eddie said.

  “Don’t look at me, I ain’t the one shot him,” Sawyer said.

  Floyd didn’t say anything, didn’t have to.

  They made it to the elevator unseen, Eddie pushing Bill in the wheelchair, his head lolling side to side, and Floyd dragging the world’s heaviest suitcase. Sawyer kept in front of Eddie in an attempt at hiding how dead Bill looked.

  The elevator opened to the gleaming marble of the ground floor. An old couple chatted in a corner, away from the front doors. Otherwise, the place was empty, except for the concierge who hadn’t noticed them yet.

  “Someone needs to distract the guy behind the counter. I’ll do it if you push him,” Eddie said to Sawyer, eager to be rid of the corpses.

  “Do it then.”

  Eddie strolled toward the concierge. “Hey, how you doin’? I’m hoping you could help me find someone.” At the edge of his vision Floyd and Sawyer began moving.

  “Find someone?” the concierge, a clean-cut guy in his thirties, said.

  “Yeah, see, I, to be totally honest with you, I met this girl at a bar last night. Smoking hot. I mean sizzling. She gave me her number, told me to call her today, but, wouldn’t you know it, I lost my cell. All I know is her name’s Abigail, she’s mid-twenties with dark hair and a figure that’d make the pope sin.”

  The guy looked amused. “I see. That’s … unfortunate, but, unfortunately, I can’t give out information about the people who live here.”

  Floyd and Sawyer passed behind Eddie, halfway to the front doors. The concierge spotted them, his gaze following them now, a frown forming on his face.

  “I know, man, I know,” Eddie said, shuffling to the side to block his view. “I’m not gonna ask you to give out any information, I was just hoping I could leave a note with you and when you see her, you give it to her, that’s all. You’d make my whole week.”

  “I would do that,” the concierge said, looking at Eddie now, “except no one by the name of Abigail lives here.”

  “You know everybody’s name who lives here?”

  “I do,” the concierge said with a whiff of pride.

  “I’m impressed.” Eddie glanced at the front doors. No sign of them. “I must have the wrong address then. Maybe she was bullshitting me the whole time. Either way, I drink too much. Thanks anyways.” He tapped on the counter and made for the doors.

  “Wait,” the concierge said.

  Eddie froze, heart in his ears. He turned around.

  “It might be the building across the street,” the concierge said. “People always confuse it with ours.”

  “I’ll check it out. Thanks,” Eddie said, and strode out the building, relief surging through his bones.

  Twenty miles outside the heart of the city, Angeles National Forest was a different universe. Sawyer drove the S.U.V. through narrow windy roads flanked by rocky hills, the headlights the only source of light aside from a crooked moon hanging above them like the eye of a sleeping god.

  Eddie had his window down, the warm air that smelled of citrusy pine slapping life into him.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” he said.

  “Yeah, feels like you might run into someone burying a couple bodies,” Sawyer said.

  Floyd snorted a laugh.

  “Where we digging?” Sawyer said, running a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair.

  “I know a spot near the observatory,” Eddie said. “A ditch behind some bushes. Used to hang out around here a lot when I was a kid. Never imagined I’d be doing this.”

  “No shit,” Floyd said. “Otherwise you’d be one fuckedup kid.”

  They circled Mount Wilson as they climbed it, the observatory appearing out of the night like a phantom. Sawyer parked the S.U.V. off the road among a cluster of trees and killed the engine. A chirping of crickets swelled to fill the silence.

  “The ditch is just ahead, through those bushes,” Eddie said.

  “We’ll dig first and come back for the bodies,” Floyd said. He exited the S.U.V. and popped the trunk, took out three shovels.

  Eddie got out and grabbed one of them. He led Floyd and Sawyer to the ditch, pushing bushes out of the way and stepping over boulders.

  “Down there,” he said at last, standing over the ditch.

  “It’s deep,” Floyd said. “We gonna have to throw them bodies down.”

  Eddie grimaced, picturing the poor girl rolling down the slope. Sooner they got this over with the better.

  The soil was soft and wet from all the rain that had been drenching L.A. for two weeks. They got off to a good start. At one point, a sound like a strange laugh pierced the air.

  “Fuck is that?” Sawyer said, twisting his neck to look around.

  “Just a toad,” Eddie said.

  “Thought it was a fucking goblin,” Sawyer said, causing Eddie and Floyd to double over with laughter.

  After two hours they’d managed to dig four feet. Sawyer threw his shovel down and wiped his brow, panting. “I don’t know about y’all but I ain’t digging one more inch.”

  “It’s deep enough,” Eddie said, sweat rolling down every part of him. “Why didn’t we bring any water, fuck.”

  “Let’s get these fools in the ground and go get a drink,” Floyd said. “Shit, I’ll even buy ’em.”

  They dropped the shovels and clambered up the slope like the undead.

  Floyd poked his head through the bushes. “I don’t see nobody,” he said, and kept going.

  Eddie followed, feeling exposed. It was unlikely they’d run into someone, but it could happen.

  He helped Floyd lift the suitcase out of the trunk, ignoring Bill as best he could.

  Sawyer said, “Man, something ’bout that suitcase look m
ore conspicuous than a body.”

  Floyd stared at him. “Sometimes you say some really dumb shit, you know that?”

  Eddie dragged the suitcase across the dirt, Floyd helping him lift it over foliage. His shoulder felt like it was popping out of the socket by the time they reached the ditch.

  Floyd bent down and pulled at the zipper.

  “Wait,” Eddie said. Hearing the urgency in his voice, he added, “I mean, maybe we should bury the suitcase too. Easier than burning it.”

  “That works,” Floyd said, and pushed it over the edge of the slope. The suitcase rushed toward the grave like a sled. Eddie pictured the woman’s body smacking against the sides, head cramped between her knees. Sourness oozed up his throat.

  The three of them stood looking at the suitcase, a solemn silence taking hold, until Floyd said, “Shit, I think I know that bitch.”

  Eddie and Sawyer looked at him.

  “This whole time I was thinking, how do I know her? ’Cause she looked familiar. I think she from the club.”

  “What club?” Eddie said.

  “What club, you hear this nigga?” Floyd said to Sawyer. “Only club you ever go to. That strip joint.”

  Eddie felt the blood drain from his face. “No, I would have recognized her …” But he wasn’t sure. She had looked familiar …

  “I’m tellin’ you man, she was a dancer in the club. Look.” Floyd skidded down the slope to the grave and rolled the suitcase onto its back with a heave. He tugged at the zipper and opened the suitcase and grabbed the woman’s hair to pull her head back.

  “She stiff,” he said, and gritted his teeth. He raised the woman’s head until Eddie was staring into her open eyes, her mouth frozen in a scream and skin pale even beneath her make-up.

  Sourness shot up Eddie’s throat again. He bent over, clutching his knees, and puked a burning spray of the Chinese takeout he’d crammed down his neck before this whole debacle had begun.

  “She worked at the club, right?” Floyd said.

  “Yeah,” Eddie said, spitting a string of yellow saliva. “Yeah, she did.”

  “Goddamn, that’s some crazy shit,” Sawyer said.

  “Let’s get the other one and get the hell outta here,” Eddie said, and turned away, wiping vomit from his lips.

  The area around the observatory was still empty when they returned to the S.U.V. An impatience was building in Eddie. They’d been in the forest for a while; their luck wouldn’t last forever.

  They carried Bill toward the ditch, Eddie taking his torso, Floyd and Sawyer a leg each.

  At the top of the slope, Floyd said, “On three. One, two, three—”

  They swung Bill over the edge and released. He bounced off the dirt and rolled into the grave, landing beside the suitcase perfectly.

  The toad started up again, cackling at them over the crickets.

  “This place getting under my skin,” Floyd said.

  They picked up the shovels and began filling the grave. Within thirty minutes the dead had vanished beneath the earth, the layer of fresh topsoil the only clue they were there.

  “Nightmare’s finally over,” Floyd said. Eddie was pretty sure the nightmare had only begun.

  “I need a beer,” Sawyer said. “Blowjob wouldn’t hurt either.” He glanced at Floyd and Floyd looked away.

  “Beer? Shit, I need a double whiskey,” Floyd said. “Nah, a triple. Fuck it, I need the whole bottle.”

  Eddie picked up the shovel and made for the S.U.V. All he wanted was his bed and a locked door to hide behind.

  He’d made it ten steps out of the bushes when he heard a laugh from somewhere ahead. He froze. Behind him Floyd and Sawyer rustled through the bushes, Floyd blabbering about some movie as a group of kids rounded the corner on the road ahead, bottles in their hands.

  The kids had almost drawn level with Eddie now as they passed, too drunk and busy joking around to notice him.

  Eddie heard Floyd approaching. “… and that scene in the diner is the first time Bobby De Niro and Pacino shared a scene, ’cause in The Godfather they didn’t have none together.”

  The kids stopped in their tracks as Sawyer burst out after Floyd, the kids noticing Eddie now too. Judging by the sudden silence, Floyd and Sawyer had noticed them back.

  The kids stared at them until one of them resumed walking in the direction they’d been heading and the rest of them followed, all of them chatting again as if they hadn’t just witnessed three grown men coming out of the bushes in the middle of the night with shovels.

  Eddie faced the other two. “We’re fucked.”

  “They didn’t see nothin’,” Floyd said. “Bunch of drunk kids won’t remember shit.”

  “Course they’ll remember,” Eddie said. “Imagine you were a kid and you saw the three of us coming out the bushes like that. Fuck.”

  “Even if they do remember, they won’t know how to find that exact spot. And who they gonna tell? ‘Hey Mommy, I was shitfaced in the forest last night and I saw some men hanging round the bushes.’ Ain’t gonna happen.”

  “It’s dark, they didn’t see our faces,” Sawyer said.

  But Eddie had looked one of them in the eye, the gangly one with long hair, and by the way the kid had looked back at him Eddie knew the kid had seen his face, and he knew he’d remember it, too.

  3 | A Guy & a Girl

  Her coffee was cold by the time Alison had made it out of the morning city traffic and up into the hills. She swallowed a bitter gulp, grimaced, and got out of her car. She struggled with an umbrella and shuffled toward the reporters clustered behind the yellow tape that declared “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.” The wind blew the rain toward her at an angle, rendering the umbrella quite useless, but she kept it above her head anyway.

  “Detective,” said the cop watching the reporters as Alison climbed under the tape. Alison nodded at her, unsure if they’d ever met or the cop knew her by reputation.

  Mike approached. “Ally, nice of you to make it. The hell took you?”

  “Traffic’s a nightmare with all this rain. You don’t even want to know when I left the house.”

  Mike nodded. “Never seen anything like it. Maybe God’s washing all the scumbags away.”

  “He has a long way to go. What we got here?”

  Mike led her through the bushes toward a slope that ended in a ditch. A hole had been dug in the ditch and a large man in a dressing gown lay sprawled on his back inside it. The man appeared to have been shot in the head. Beside the hole, a suitcase lay opened on the dirt, a woman’s corpse crammed inside it. A couple forensics in white jumpsuits stood looking at the bodies.

  “I told them to wait for you to arrive before they start collecting,” Mike said.

  “Who found the bodies?”

  “Cadaver dogs. Some kid called it in this morning. Said he was hanging out here last night with some friends when three guys walked out of those bushes back there carrying shovels and looking suspicious. You know, your average night in L.A.”

  “Seriously? Criminals are getting even dumber these days.”

  “Dumber or bolder.”

  “Both,” Alison said. “Like our dipshit president and his bullshit wall.”

  “True enough.”

  “The kid see what they looked like?”

  “I don’t know. I got officers en route to the kid’s house as we speak.”

  Alison nodded. “Hold that, will you?” She handed the umbrella to Mike and crouched at the edge of the slope, then lifted a leg over and jumped, her shoes driving into the wet earth. Mike came down after her and wiped his free hand on his trousers, cursing.

  Alison stood over the suitcase, the woman curled into the fetal position below her. She could see now that the woman was young, as young as Jennifer had been when—

  “Why the suitcase for her and not him, you think?” Mike said.

  “He wouldn’t fit into it for one thing.”

  “Yeah, but why’s she in a suitcase at all?”

 
; “Must have had something to do with when they moved her. Maybe there were people around.”

  “Fucking animals.”

  “Could be a case of wrong place wrong time for her. That might explain the suitcase—they didn’t plan on moving a second body.”

  Alison crouched beside the suitcase and studied it. “Pretty fancy.” She rubbed her finger along it. “It’s leather. ‘Lone Ranch Design.’ You ever hear of that brand?”

  Mike shook his head.

  Alison stood up and took her umbrella back. “You can tell forensics they can do their thing. I want to know the time of death and who they are. A copy of forensic’s photos would be great as well.”

  “Where you going?”

  “I’ve got Charlie today and he’s late for school. If I don’t get him there soon he’ll think he’s got the day off.”

  “Give the kid a day off. Take him to the zoo.”

  “And be just like his father? Someone has to be a parent, unfortunately.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Alison climbed up the slope, slipping a couple times and getting covered in mud. She reached the top and trekked through the bushes toward her car. The reporters swarmed her as she dipped under the tape.

  “Can you verify that one of the bodies was buried in a luggage bag?” said one of them.

  “The victims were shot, is that correct?” said another.

  Alison ignored the reporters, waving them out of her path. The cop watching the reporters stepped in to help. Alison hurried past them.

  “Detective Lockley,” said a woman standing beside Alison’s car, “one of the victims is of a similar age and appearance as the O’Malley girl, isn’t that right? Do you think there’s a connection?”

  Alison stared at the woman. She seemed familiar. Damn reporters; they had a way of finding out all the tiny details.

  The woman said, “If so, do you think these new victims might lead to finally apprehending Jennifer’s killer?”

  “I remember you. Frederica Lounds. You wrote that piece for the Daily News about how the L.A.P.D. failed Jennifer and her family. Mentioned my name a few times.”

  “You were the lead detective.”

  “And now you’re, what, writing a follow-up? We both know there’s nothing to suggest these cases are in any way linked.”