by Jan Burke
Soon the driver was back on the tractor, the gears shifting as he pulled the Buick across the field toward the place where the tractor had emerged. Corrigan stepped out from behind the tree, tried to make out the odd shapes of earth and man and machinery across the field. The headlights of the tractor and the moonlight combined to provide just enough light to see an earthen ramp leading down into a shallow pit. Tall piles of loose soil stood at its edges.
The man on the tractor climbed down again, removed the chain, and then maneuvered the tractor so that it pushed the car with a gentle shove, sending the Buick down the ramp and into the pit. Corrigan heard the last loud groan of metal as the car came to a rough halt somewhere against the earth below.
A sharp barking came from the dairy farm across the road, dogs reacting to the unfamiliar noise. The tractor driver turned and saw Corrigan.
Corrigan hobbled back into the trees. He kept moving, tried to stretch his agonizing, clumsy stride as he heard the tractor motor start up again.
It was coming closer now, had crossed the field too fast, much too fast. His ankle was on fire, he couldn’t breathe for the ache in his ribs, but he pushed on, held down the bile of fear that rose in his throat. He stayed in the grove, watched the shadows of the tree trunks sharpen as the headlights of the tractor drew closer.
The little sodbuster couldn’t come in here with his big damned lummox of a tractor, Corrigan thought, just before he stumbled and took a hard fall into blackness.
2
GUS RONDEN RAN THE WASHCLOTH OVER HIS ARMS AND CHEST, THEN rinsed it out before going to work on his hands. He used a small brush to scrub his nails until the skin at the tips of his fingers bled. He smiled as he washed it down the drain, thinking of his blood mixing with all the other blood.
He had kept the gloves on for most of it, and the boss might have been unhappy to know he had taken them off, even for a moment. But he had never been able to resist the warm, slippery feel of blood, and so he had permitted himself a little barehanded touching. He had been careful, though. The gloves went right back on again.
He would have liked to take a shower, but he didn’t want to risk not hearing the door. This had been a busy evening, and he knew the boss was pleased with him. Hinted at a bonus. Well, he wouldn’t hear any bitching from Gus if he didn’t come through. The truth was, it had all been exciting as hell. He closed his eyes, reliving some of the best parts, then shook himself. He washed down the sink with bleach.
There was still much more to do. He had plenty of time, he was sure, before anyone who was expected would arrive, but he wanted to be ready for the unexpected. That way of doing business had kept him alive.
He had no sooner thought this than he heard a familiar pattern of knocks on the door. Fucking Bo Jergenson! What was the idiot doing back so soon? He quickly gathered the clothing he had stripped out of and stuffed it into the hamper, then grabbed a robe and his .38 automatic. He opened the small metal cover of the speakeasy grill in the door, and seeing that it was indeed Jergenson, called him a dumb fuck to his face before unlocking and opening the door itself.
“Get the hell in here,” he said, motioning the trio that stood on his front porch inside, not wanting the neighbors to notice them. “Sit in the living room until I get changed.”
He dressed rapidly, mentally cussing out Bo Jergenson all the while.
Bo Jergenson couldn’t figure out why Gus Ronden was pissed off all the time. He decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. The news he had should cheer up Ronden and the boss. Ronden had just stomped into the room he used as an office and called to Bo to get his ass in there. Bo decided not to take offense. After tonight, he’d have nothing to do with Gus.
“Everything just the way you asked,” Bo said, tossing a small, round metal object down on the big desk and taking a seat.
“What the hell is that?” Ronden asked, looking across the desk at him.
“One of them Catholic medals.”
“What the hell do I want with some mick’s voodoo crap? Those mackerel-eaters are worse than the damned shines with their superstitions. Didn’t help him any, did it?”
“Just took it as a little trophy, that’s all. Don’t mean nothing to me.”
“You got back here pretty fast,” Gus said, scratching at his black curly hair. Bo, absorbed in watching white flakes of dandruff cascade onto Gus’s shoulders, was startled when Gus suddenly asked, “Where did you leave him? It can’t be anywhere near here.”
“I know. You said so before. So I took him out to the farm.”
Gus’s face went white, then red. “The farm? You idiot! You damned idiot! Do you know what the boss is going to do to you? Get back out there now!”
Bo was startled at this reaction. “Why should the boss be mad? It will take that gimpy guy forever to walk back here with that bum leg of his.”
“Because, you moron, that gimpy guy is a newspaper reporter.”
“Reporter!” Bo said, coming to his feet. “Damn it, you didn’t tell me anything about that!”
“Well, he is. This could ruin everything. My God.” He thought for a moment, then said, “You gotta go back there and take him somewhere else. Then kill him.”
Bo shifted his weight. “Kill him? No, no. I didn’t sign on for anything like that. You know that’s not in my line. Besides, he’s out cold.”
“You don’t know Jack Corrigan. Get him.”
“I thought the boss wanted him alive.”
“He won’t want him alive now — not after this.”
“I’m not going to murder nobody, especially not a reporter. They’re like the cops — you knock one off, the others come swarming after you. And they don’t give up so easy. Just ’cause he’s out at the farm don’t mean nothing. He don’t know what’s going on there. He’s a city boy.”
There was a long silence.
“I’m not going to murder nobody,” Bo said again. “Betty or Lew or anybody else squeals on me, I could get the chair. Forget it. And all them people at that party — they seen me have a fight with him.” Bo suddenly thought of the butler who had challenged them at the door. He felt relief that he had given the man a phony name.
“All right,” Gus said, after a moment. “Since you don’t have the guts for it, I’ll handle this myself. You’ll have to show me exactly where you left him. With luck, he’s still there. You come with me — just you and me. The other two will go on to the cabin. We’ll collect our pay and we’ll be all square.”
Bo didn’t like it. Even after Gus walked out of the office, Bo stood thinking, trying to figure out how things could go wrong. If Gus did the killing, he should be all right. Bo’s vague sense of foreboding didn’t lead him to any specific misgivings.
He could hear Gus in the other room, giving directions to Betty and Lew. Lew went right along with Gus’s plans, as always, and said, “Tell Bo we’ll see him later, then.” Betty — what a dame she was! — who had played her part so well at the party, didn’t say anything. If she had any questions, she kept them to herself. Bo decided he wouldn’t ask any questions, either. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what he would ask, anyway.
He started to leave the office, then saw the medal. He picked it up and pocketed it.
Maybe he wasn’t as smart as Gus, but he wasn’t dumb enough to leave a trophy from a dead man sitting on a desk.
Ezra Mayhope pulled his pickup truck to the side of the dirt road. He opened the thermos and poured a cup of coffee into the cap, then took a long sip.
He didn’t need the coffee to stay awake. Dawn was still more than an hour away, but Ezra’s day had started two hours ago, when he began loading the pickup truck with the eggs he’d be taking to downtown Las Piernas, to the big hotels there.
The coffee took the chill off the cold, foggy night.
Until a few miles back, his thoughts had been occupied with the subject other local farmers and dairymen were talking about lately — the sprawl of the suburbs over farmland. There were already little e
nclaves here and there. This housing tract or that one. On the edges of the cities now, but everyone knew what would happen. These new residents would cause taxes to go up, insist on paved roads, drive up the price of water, and bitch about flies and the smell of coops and dairy yards and beets and what have you.
Was a time, Ezra thought now, when no one honked a horn at a tractor. Tractor was the only thing on the road. And nobody was in a big damned rush. Ezra had been forced to go slowly as the road left dairy farms and fields behind and began to skirt the edge of the marshes, where the fog usually hung so thick, you couldn’t see much of anything for more than a few yards in any direction. A drive he could have done on any other night, fog or no fog, with hardly a care in the world — but a few miles back, some idiot had driven past him in a hell of hurry, and taking up just about the whole of the road with a fancy city car — a big old Cadillac or Lincoln, maybe. Flew by. Bastard was like to have forced Ezra and his eggs into the soft, salty mire, but somehow they managed to pass each other without a scrape — or anyone landing in the marsh.
In ten years of driving this route, coming from his chicken farm to this intersection, he rarely encountered another vehicle going in the other direction at this time of night. Always scared the bejesus out of him whenever he did, because it was almost always someone from town, not knowing how to drive these narrow roads. He drank his coffee and told himself that was all that unsettled him.
He glanced around and shivered. The marsh was always a creepy place. His kids had begged him to take them to see that monster movie a few years back, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Saw it in 3-D, which gave him a headache, but it was pretty real, all right. It was a bad movie for a man to see if he was someone who had to drive past a marsh in the dark.
The coffee made him feel a little steadier. He’d finish his coffee, then pull out from the intersection onto a slightly wider dirt road, one that would eventually connect him to a paved street that led to Pacific Coast Highway. He’d take Coast Highway to downtown and head over to the Angelus and the other hotels that would be waiting for their deliveries.
He heard a splashing sound and looked to his right. He thought it must have been one of the big seabirds moving through the water, a heron, perhaps. But the sound came again. Then, unmistakably, coughing. Next a sound like retching, then moaning.
“Sweet Lord,” Ezra said, watching as a shadowy creature crawled from the marsh. He put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the road, spilling coffee all over the floorboards as he tossed the lid of the thermos down in his haste.
He reached the paved road before his conscience overrode his panic. He was a God-fearing man who read his Bible and he knew the story of the Good Samaritan as well as anybody. The Las Piernas marshes were not the Black Lagoon. That had been a man. A man most likely in trouble. He turned the truck around.
He carefully maneuvered the truck so that the headlights were shining toward the place where he had heard the sound. He immediately saw the form he had seen before. Lying facedown, now, not even all the way out of the water. Soaked in mire.
Ezra got out of the cab of the truck, carrying a flashlight clenched in his fist. He was generally a peaceable man, but stories of the Good Samaritan or no, a fellow had to be careful. What business did anyone have out here this time of night, anyway? What if this fellow was drunk and surly? Never could tell with drunks.
As he approached, though, he saw that the man was shivering hard. Ezra’s wariness left him. The man wasn’t just shivering, it was a dreadful kind of shaking.
“Hey!” Ezra called. “Hey, you all right?”
The man half-lifted his head and looked at Ezra, although Ezra wasn’t sure the man really saw him. The man’s face was a horrible sight, bloody and distorted, one eye completely swollen closed. The other eye was open, and Ezra saw that it was a blue eye. The man moaned and dropped his head again. The shaking continued.
Ezra came closer. He had never seen a man who had been so terribly beaten.
Ezra pulled him from the water, then tried to coax him to his feet, but realized the man had passed out. He tried to rouse the man and couldn’t. The man’s skin was so icy, he was worried that he had not just passed out but died. Ezra lifted him, and the man made a whimpering sound that cut right through Ezra. He had a strange feeling that this was not a man given to making that kind of sound.
He was bigger than Ezra, who struggled to keep his balance as he half-carried, half-dragged the man to the truck. Before long, Ezra was nearly as damp from marsh water as the man. He put him in the passenger side of the cab and closed the door. The man was completely silent now.
He’d take him to St. Mary’s, Ezra decided. It would make him late with his deliveries, but he didn’t trouble himself too much with that. With any luck, the hotels wouldn’t stop buying eggs from him if he told them he had to stop to save a man’s life.
That is, he added, looking at the figure slumped against the door, if he had been in time to do any such thing.
3
AS THEY RODE IN THE TURQUOISE AND WHITE CHEVY BEL AIR, BETTY Bradford decided that she liked Lew Hacker, liked him plenty. He wasn’t much to look at, but still, she liked him. She liked that he was quiet and calm and didn’t ask a girl a lot of stupid questions about whether she was a real blonde, or how had she ended up in the life, or could he have a free one?
Lew never talked about any of that with her, although she knew he was as flesh and blood as any other man. Hell, he had a stiffy right now. Hadn’t, before she took off her shoes. She turned sideways on the front seat, pulling up her knees so that her feet were on the seat between them, her skirt a tent over her legs. And look who had a tent pole…
She pulled a pack of Black Jack gum out of her purse and asked him if he’d like a piece. He laughed a little, getting the joke, which made her like him more. He said he’d always liked Black Jack, even before he was twenty-one, a joke she got right away, which made her feel good, proud of herself.
“We’re not going to the cabin, are we, Lew?”
“No.”
“So you’re passing up all that dough we’re supposed to be getting?”
“Supposed to,” he repeated. After a moment, he said, “I didn’t like Gus’s mood.”
“I’m with you,” Betty said. “What good is the money if you ain’t breathing?”
“That’s it.”
“They didn’t tell us everything that was going on tonight, did they?”
“No.”
“I mean, okay, someone is owed a beating, that’s one thing. Do you know what Gus was up to while we were busy with that guy at the party?”
“No, but I can guess.”
She thought this over for a moment, then said, “I’m sticking with you, if that’s all right.”
“That’s more than all right. You’re a smart girl.”
No one had ever said that to her. Not ever. But it was true. Maybe she wasn’t Albert Einstein — okay, she’d be the first to admit that she never did so good in school. Even so, she was able to think for herself, and she had known Gus long enough to have an idea of when he was turning dangerous. That was the first thing a person ought to figure out about anybody, especially in her line of work.
It wasn’t always easy. The boss had more than one or two creeps on his payroll, some worse than Gus. She thought about one who no longer worked for him — Bennie Lee Harmon — because he had been sent to San Quentin, sentenced to death for torturing and killing a couple of working girls. The poor kids were just a year or two younger than she was. She shuddered. She never would have guessed it about Bennie. He was good-looking, even seemed kind of meek.
One of the boys said that Gus himself had gone crazy not long ago and cut up a young girl down in Nigger Slough, west of town. One of the others said it happened a long time ago, somewhere else. Until tonight, she hadn’t been so sure that it had ever happened at all. Nothing in the paper about it, but they never did write much about things that happened to the color
eds, especially not that ragged bunch down in the slough. Killing a white girl, though! Until tonight, she didn’t think Gus would do anything like that.
She had seen that Gus was in a dangerous mood tonight, and he was in one even before Bo went in to talk to him.
Bo. Now, there was a big, sweet dummy. While he went in to talk to Gus, she went into the bathroom and happened to see something she wished to God she had never seen: a laundry hamper with some bloody clothes in it. She figured Gus would never, ever, not in a thousand years, leave something so obvious out where someone could see it. It never would have been there if they hadn’t surprised him by coming back so soon. And she figured that if Gus had been happy about them being back so soon, he would have said, “Great, let’s go, everybody,” and they would have all gone together. But he told Bo to follow him into his office.
She didn’t say a word about what she had seen, but Lew went into the bathroom a little later, and she knew he saw it, too. He hadn’t said a word all night, but after that, he even looked quieter.
She read Gus the minute he walked out and told them to go to the cabin. Saw him look hard at Lew. She didn’t think Lew gave anything away, though. He was calm as could be. She wondered if Gus thought Lew was stupid just because he never said anything. Gus was the idiot. Putting Bo in charge of anything wasn’t really such a bright idea.
She thought about her car and frowned. Would she ever see it again? Probably not. Not a good idea to go back to Las Piernas, and that’s where it was, locked in the garage at Gus’s place. The car was a present from a married, rich man who had spoiled her for a time, until he had learned she was two-timing him with Gus. But he let her keep the car, which had special pink carpet installed over the floorboards.