by Dan Flanigan
As he passed the Prosperity Farms sign, he hardly noticed a dark car speed by with two men inside it.
“WHO DO YOU think that was?” asked the man sitting on the passenger side of the car.
The man driving was getting fed up with his short, fat companion who had body odor and was always asking stupid questions.
“How the fuck do I know?” he responded. “It’s probably some kid and his chick heading out to hump all night in that van.”
“It wasn’t a local license plate. I’ll bet whoever it is, is going to that farm. Should we go back?”
“Don’t have time. We’ve got to pay the wife a visit and get the fuck outta here.”
“Think she’ll be home?”
Dumb questions. Nothing but dumb questions from Fat Boy. Yet the driver couldn’t help himself but wonder whether maybe they ought to go on back to the farm and check out the guy in the van.
CHAPTER 10
HIS LEFT ARM hurt where Tag had stabbed him with the scissors. The instrument was too blunt to have done much damage, but it had gouged a nasty little hole in his upper arm and carved a painful gash across his lower arm. He had not bled much, but his sweater was ruined, and he worried about tetanus.
He tried the front door, which was locked, so he went around back again.
“Anybody home?” he yelled as he passed from the garage into the basement hallway.
“Jane? Roy?”
Roy had not obeyed Jane’s instruction to clean up the pelting room. Little gobs of mink fur were embedded in the drying clots of blood on the floor and worktable. The pelts were gone, but the pile of skinned mink bodies still festered on the floor. He left the basement and garage and climbed the back stairway. The door to the kitchen was unlocked. There was a brown-spattered cup on the kitchen table and an ashtray with three cigarette butts in it. Jane’s lipstick had impressed a thin red circle around the snow-white filter tips. He pushed open the swinging door that led from the kitchen into the front part of the house. He called to her, but it was obvious no one was in there. The vehicles were still out front, so she and Roy must be doing something down at the mink cages.
Someone had closed the double doors that opened onto the conference room. “Anybody there?” he said loudly as he knocked. He waited, listening; then he turned the doorknobs and pushed open the doors. The books and records were not on the table where he had left them. Everything else was in order. Except a smell that he remembered from somewhere. Vietnam. The men in the back of the helicopter. Blood. Then he saw Jane’s foot dangling lazily off the lower end of the couch. The conference room table blocked his view of the upper end of the couch where her head would be.
“Jane?” he said as he walked slowly toward the couch. His conscious mind had not fully accepted it yet, but somewhere he knew she would not answer, could not answer. She lay there as if she had gone to sleep, but her jeans and underpants were pulled down to her shins. The turtleneck shell she wore was pushed up to her neck. Her heavy breasts sagged sideways in a kind of defeat. They were smeared with the blood that had gushed from her throat. The cut was so deep it had nearly severed her head.
The ultimate pornography, he would think later as he reflected in horror on this moment, worse than anything he had seen in the war. He tried not to look into the eyes that still bulged in terror, and he remembered the last thing he had thought about her before he had left for Tag’s house. That she had been made for joy. And here she was, not just dead but hideously befouled. How horrible must have been those last moments of her life. The thought came to him that had come to him so many times. It really isn’t over ’til it’s over. You’re never safe until the very end.
The dirty sonuvabitch, he thought. And he realized he had made a decision. He would gladly kill him if he had to. Roy. The beast with the pelting knife. Jane had been just another mink to him. He wheeled around. Where was the bastard hiding, gripping his bloody knife? O’Keefe ran for the front door of the house.
Roy was not outside. Both vehicles were still there. O’Keefe threw open the side door of the van, jumped in, and hit the button that gave entrance to the concealed panel where his weapons were hidden. He chose the M-16 because he wanted to shoot Roy while the hulking brute was still a long way from him. He rammed an ammunition cartridge into the bottom of the black plastic rifle, which looked and felt like a toy in his hands. The automatic weapon was illegal, but he wanted every edge he could get. It would pump a blizzard of steel at its target. He had not had to use this weapon since Vietnam, but he welcomed the opportunity to use it right now.
There was the barn on his left and the stand of trees in front of him. Roy would be with his other victims, the minks. O’Keefe loped toward the stand of trees and the cages beyond. As he got closer, he could hear the minks squealing and scratching at the sides of their cages. It sounded like terror. He did not take the path but headed into the undergrowth. The dry fallen leaves and desiccated twigs snapped beneath his feet. If anyone was waiting for him on the other side of the grove, they would hear him coming. A few yards from the tree line, he was able to see the field and the cages, but there was no visual evidence of disturbance. The only place anyone could hide was a small shed on the far side of the rows of cages where the mink food was kept.
He crashed out of the tree line, running as low to the ground as he could, and hit the deck at the first row of cages. When he hit the hard ground stomach first, it knocked some of the wind out of him. He could see underneath all of the cages. The only place Roy could be hiding was the shed.
He got up and walked down a row of cages toward the shed. He held the rifle in the ready position at chest level. One gentle squeeze of the trigger would propel five missiles of death toward the target. He was surprised that he had no fear. Come on, Roy, you bastard, you sonuvabitch, he kept saying to himself.
As he walked down the row of cages toward the shed, he could see in the periphery of his vision the minks scampering from side to side in their cages. The shed was only a few yards away now. It was padlocked. Roy could not have locked himself inside the shed. Fatal mistake? Roy must be behind him. He whirled and fired a burst that whistled down the row of cages and crashed harmlessly into the trees. Roy was not behind him. But O’Keefe had seen him when he had whirled around. And there Roy was, right next to him, in the cage, staring at him upside down, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Someone had shot him and stuffed him inside one of the empty cages.
Confusion.
Roy had not raped and killed Jane. Someone had killed them both. He remembered the missing books and records. The mink in the cage next to Roy stood against the back wall, head down, back up, furious, snarling, trying to scare O’Keefe off. But it was merely a gesture. The mink knew it was trapped and at O’Keefe’s mercy.
Tag Parker. Someone had killed Jane and Roy and taken the books and records. That someone might be after Tag Parker too.
He ran to the farmhouse. On the front desk there was a Rolodex. His hands shook as he flipped through the Ps, looking for “Parker.” No card for the Parkers. He flipped to the Ls. The Parkers’ number was typed on the card that said, “Lenny.” He picked up the phone to dial the number. The farmhouse line was dead.
He ripped the index card out of the Rolodex and bolted for the van. He called her on the portable phone in the van. On the fifth ring his heart sank. Was she unwilling to answer the phone or unable to? He thought of Jane lying back there on the sofa. Was Tag lying that way too? He nearly sobbed in desperation, thinking of a sharp knife against that soft neck. Something awful had been let loose in the peaceful countryside. He let the phone ring on and on. He wouldn’t hang up until he got there. It was a long way. He could call the cops, but he did not want to struggle with the police bureaucracy. He would get there before the cops could. He missed a curve. The wheels on the right side thudded onto the soft narrow shoulder, and the rear of the van swerved right toward a deep ditch at the side of the road. I always turn the wrong way when this happens.
Turn into the skid, however wrong that seems. He got lucky this time and somehow wrestled the car back onto the road.
She picked up on the eleventh ring.
Before she said a word, he barked, “This is O’Keefe.”
“You’re interrupting my last sunset.”
“I hope it’s not your last. Jane and Roy are dead. Murdered.”
“What?”
“Just now. Whoever did it might be calling on you next. Call the cops as soon as I hang up. Don’t try to leave. They could be watching the house, waiting for you to come out. Find a place in there to hide. A better place than the closet. Do you have a gun in the house?”
“This is a crock, O’Keefe. I don’t believe you.”
“You’d better believe me.”
She hung up on him. The sun had dipped below the hills on the far side of the lake. The lake was black and churlish, the darkening hills purple, the sky a pinkish blue. She did not believe him, but he was obviously headed her way, and she did not want to be around when he showed up. If he wasn’t lying, there would be police, and she did not want to be around when they showed up either. She should have left earlier. It seemed like she always lingered too long.
SHE HAD JUST wrestled one of the big suitcases into the trunk of the Jag when she saw it through the trees. A dark car driving slowly by. It moved up the road out of sight. The road ended not far beyond the house. The car would turn around and come back. She waited for it to return. It didn’t. She could jump in the Jag right now and get the hell out of there, but the other luggage was still upstairs. She could do without the hang-up bag and the bigger suitcase but not the backpack.
From the dining room she saw the men standing at the edge of the woods behind the tennis courts. She was exposed to their view, but she did not run for the stairs. She froze. Could they see her through the tinted windows? O’Keefe had not been lying. These men had come to harm her.
The men were looking right at her, but they could see only the dark tint on the windows.
“You think she’s in there?” asked the little fat one, whose name was Otto.
“How the fuck do I know? You go around back. Find the phone line and cut it. Get in the back way. Kill her if she’s there. I’ll be around front if she comes out that way.”
Karl, the driver and the taller of the men, moved off toward the front of the house and the little fat one toward the back. They were not looking at her anymore, so she ran up the stairs. She had just finished dialing 9-1- when the phone died. She looked around. There was the bed, and there was the closet. Then she heard the little fat man down below, breaking into the house.
CHAPTER 11
FUCKIN’ SWEAT, OTTO thought, as he stood at the top of the stairway trying to catch his breath. Fuckin’ sweat’s pourin’ outta me. He pointed his pistol down the hallway at the partly shut bedroom door. That’s where she is. She would be cowering in there, terrified. He would eliminate her as nonchalantly as he had dispatched the other one. This one was supposed to be a real sexy babe, and the idea of putting the meat to her excited him. It could be before he snuffed her, or after, it didn’t really make any difference. He kicked the bedroom door open. Luggage on the bed. He looked under the bed. He looked in the closet. Nothing.
The glass shower doors in the bathroom were those frosted jobs that you couldn’t see through. That’s where the little pussy is. Dumb bitch. She must not have seen Psycho. Well, I’ll scare her so much she’ll piss herself. He leveled the pistol at the door and pressed the trigger. The bullet whooshed through the silencer attached to the front of the gun, the gun jerked upward in his hand, and the shower door exploded.
But she wasn’t in there. He exploded the door to the other shower too, but she wasn’t in there either.
The glass sliding door that led onto the deck was open. He looked. Nobody there. Some fancy-looking chairs. A thing that looked like a bazooka; no, it was a telescope. Across the deck one of those hot tubs things covered with a lid. Nice setup. He walked over to the hot tub. The top of it reached just above the level of his chest. You had to climb up little wooden steps to get into the thing. There were holes in the top of the lid to help you lift it up and off. His arms were so short he could barely reach the holes. He leaned forward against the tub and tried to plant his feet into the deck for leverage. The water sloshed back and forth against the sides of the tub when he leaned against it. He put the fingers of both hands into the holes and lifted. The lid came up a little but fell back again. He was out of breath. And sweating again like a whore in church. A sinew in his heart had seemed to pop when he had tried to lift the lid. What the fuck am I doing? No broad could lift this lid, and the fuckin’ thing’s full of water anyway.
KARL LOOKED PISSED when Otto opened the front door for him, but nothing new about that. He was always pissed. And he never sweated.
“I checked the whole house,” Otto said. “Nobody home. Hardly a stick left. But there’s luggage packed and ready to go upstairs.”
“And a Jag in the garage,” Karl said as he brushed by Otto and charged into the living room where he stopped and stood looking at the Eames chair and the oriental panel.
“So if she’s going somewhere,” he said more to himself than to Otto, “she’ll be coming back for her stuff.”
“Where could she go without a car?”
“How the fuck do I know? Maybe she’s got another car. Maybe she’s gone for a walk. Maybe she’s hiding and you didn’t find her.”
“Ah, get off my ass for just a fuckin’ minute, will ya?”
A rhetorical question thought Karl. “Make that Jag not work anymore. I’ll be upstairs.”
HOW STUPID TO hide in this damn thing, Tag was thinking. But there had been nowhere else. Certainly the closet hadn’t worked so well with O’Keefe. She had been able to slide the heavy lid off the floor and up the side and partly over the top of the tub. Then she had lugged the backpack behind her up the narrow and steep wooden steps. There were steps inside the tub too. The tub was about half-full of water. She had managed to place the pack on the top step, then maneuver the lid across the top of the tub until it had dropped into place, leaving just enough room just enough room for her head once she bent it to the side a bit. Her sundress billowed outward and upward and floated just beneath the water’s surface.
When the stubby chunk-ends of Otto’s fingers had wriggled down at her through the holes in the top of the lid, she might have screamed, but her breath had abandoned her lungs, and she had only hoped he could not hear her gasping and gagging, choking on the fear. The plump fingers had hooked onto the underside of the lid above her. The water had sloshed from side to side when Otto had leaned against the tub. She had heard him grunt when he pulled up on the lid. Then the miracle. The fingers had gone away. Now she wanted out of that thing. It was like being buried alive in a well. Slowly, inch by inch, she pushed up the lid until she could see the glass sliding door. A movement. In the bedroom. She let the lid drop. It made a thudding sound. She waited for someone to come and open the lid.
KARL THOUGHT HE heard a noise on the deck. He walked to the sliding door and looked out. Nothing there. Squirrels, maybe. He turned back to the luggage. He opened the hang-up bag and big suitcase and rifled through them, strewing their contents about the room. None of the contents interested him, although he had the cynical thought that maybe he should save a pair of her panties for the little pervert downstairs. He checked for false bottoms and hidden compartments. Nothing.
He walked out onto the deck. Night would fall soon. The lake looked dark and choppy. He liked lakes. He wished he owned a boat, one of those hundred-thousand-dollar Scarabs that looked like fiberglass sharks. But that was out of the question. You couldn’t show off your earnings from his line of work. He turned to watch Otto come out onto the deck, walk over to the hot tub, and sit on one of the lower steps. Fat fuck. Fat, little, perverted fuck. Karl had come back into the farmhouse after he had dealt with the big guy down at the mink cages and had found
this fat little fuck standing over her, hurriedly pulling up his pants as she finished drowning in her own blood. What a scumbag. The Boss was really slipping, bringing in a guy like this for the job.
Now Fatso rubber-necked around, appraising the scene. “This must be nice,” he said, gesturing around the deck and ending at the hot tub behind him. “You think that babe gets naked in this thing?”
“Did you look in there?”
“Sure did,” Otto said, hoping his face was not revealing the lie. He hurried on: “No pussy in there, just water. What’s next?”
“How the fuck do I know? Let’s get outta here.”
Karl was worrying about the guy in the van. If the guy in the van had really been going to the farm, and if he had found the bodies, the cops might be after them already. But to have found the bodies, the guy in the van would have had to break into the house to find the woman and gone nosing around the mink cages to find the big guy he had stuffed in the cage. Not likely. Parker’s wife should be back any time. It would be best to move out of the house and over into the woods and watch the house from there so they would be close to the car if anything funny happened.
“Why don’t we wait right here for her?” Otto inquired. “I could use a little dip in the tub here.”
“You’re a real jackoff, aren’t ya?”
Fatso just smiled.
“Let’s go,” Karl said, and the little man scooted off after the big one.
As they crossed the big lawn in the back of the house, “Say, Chauncey, how ’bout a spot of tennis?” Otto joked.
Then they heard a car coming and hightailed it for the trees. Karl crouched down just inside the tree line and watched the front of the house. Otto stood behind him, looking over the taller man’s shoulder.