by Kitchin, Rob
‘Well, sorrrrrry,’ he whines.
I ignore him, turning back to Paavo. ‘I mean someone other than Barry White and Junior’s sister.’
He shrugs and stays silent.
‘What if some kid was mangled in that pile up?’
‘Did you want them to follow us?’
‘No!’
‘Then it worked.’
‘You can’t just treat other people as collateral damage. We could be in big fucking trouble.’
‘We’re already in big trouble,’ he says calmly.
This whole mess of a morning has played havoc with my mind and body, but it seems to be water off a duck’s back to Paavo. It’s making me wonder what the hell he did in the army, so I ask him.
‘This and that.’
‘This and that? Did this and that involve killing people?’
‘It was the army.’
Fuck.
A phone starts to ring. It’s not my ringtone. Jason has Junior’s iPhone in his hand. He shrugs his shoulders. ‘I thought I might have another go at accessing it. It says it’s Denise.’
Damn.
‘Answer it,’ I tell him.
Jason slides the bar across the screen and says: ‘Yes?’
He listens then passes it to me. I put it to my ear cautiously. ‘Hello?’
‘You’re a dead man walking,’ Barry White says calmly, his voice sounding like a late night DJ who has smoked sixty cigarettes a day for the past thirty years. ‘I’m going to fuck you up so bad even your parents won’t recognize you.’
My balls have shrunk to the size of M&Ms.
‘My parents are dead,’ I manage to squeak.
Paavo turns off the highway onto a narrow paved road. It’s bounded by a mixed deciduous and coniferous forest.
‘And so will you be, motherfucker. You owe me a new car. And a million dollars.’
‘Have you told Denise that you killed Junior?’ I say timidly.
All I can hear is Barry White’s sonorous breathing.
I listen for a few moments then terminate the call. I’ve no great desire to keep talking to the psychopath. The screen goes blank. I press the on button, but all that happens is it asks for the four digit code and tells me that we’ve missed ten calls.
‘How come it’s not rung until now?’ I ask Jason.
He shrugs and lets another fart rip. ‘It’s been on silent. I didn’t have time to crack the code earlier. I tried the obvious ones – 0000, 1234, 9876 – then gave up.’
‘Shit.’ I give the phone back to Jason, who puts it in a pocket. ‘He says we’re dead men walking. That he’s going to fuck us up.’
‘Throw the phone away,’ Paavo orders.
‘Why?’
‘GPS. He can track us.’
‘Flip.’ I hadn’t thought of that. Still, having Junior’s phone might be useful.
Paavo pulls to a halt. He exits and walks purposefully round the front of the van and opens the passenger door.
‘Give me the phone.’
Jason hands it over just as it starts to ring again. Paavo turns, pulls his arm back and hurls the phone into the shallow margins of a small lake. The whole area is dotted with them. It lands with a plop and disappears. So much for it being potentially useful.
‘Fuck him up,’ Paavo says.
Great, now he thinks he is John McClane.
The old mill is only another mile and a half or so further along the road, off a side turning. Paavo gets back in and we set off again. If we ever get out of this mess alive I’m going to get myself one of those iPhones. It looked pretty cool.
At that thought, another pops into my head. ‘Jason, you’d better tell us what you found out about Junior.’
* * *
It seems that Junior has a checkered history that wasn’t difficult to put together given his various appearances in newspaper archives and court records. He grew up in Dorchester, Boston. Fell out of school when he was seventeen and fell in with the wrong crowd. Got busted for dealing, then a short time later for mugging an elderly man, and did two years in a juvenile correctional facility.
Two years after being released he was sent down again for what Jason says was fourth degree murder. I’ve never heard of it before, but he swears blind it exists. Basically, Junior was an accomplice in a burglary that went wrong. His partner attacked the unarmed owner of the house with a chisel and they both fled. The man bled out. If either of them had stayed and helped him, he would have probably survived. Junior served five years in MCI-Norfolk, having pled guilty to the crime and twenty other offences.
When he left prison he got involved in youth projects and seemingly turned his back on a life of crime. At some point, he married Barry White’s sister, Denise.
He was by no means a saint, but it doesn’t sound like he deserved to be shot by his brother-in-law for telling him where to put his insults.
Jesus, Barry White. The thought of him driving around looking for us makes my stomach turn. I decide it’s time to check in with Annabelle.
The phone keeps ringing. The longer it goes on, the sicker I feel. I knew leaving her on her own was a mistake.
‘Hello?’
About time! What’s she trying to do, give me a stroke?
‘Anna?’
‘Tadhg! Where the hell are you?’ She snaps.
‘We’re just arriving at Malachy’s Mill.’
‘I’ve been worried sick about you. You said you were going to let me know how you were getting on.’
‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I? Jason and Paavo insisted on stopping for breakfast. How’s Redneck?’
I don’t see the point in sharing the journey’s escapades with her. She’s probably already scared half-witless babysitting our Memphis captive. I know I would be. Two people have died in that house in the past few hours.
‘He’s still out for the count.’
I don’t like the sound of that. Admittedly, Anna had tried to hit his head into next week, but I would have thought he’d have come round by now. How long do head trauma victims normally remain unconscious? In the movies you just chuck a bucket of water over them and they revive almost straightaway. I suspect the movies might be a crock of crap. As long as we don’t end up with a third body. This one we would have killed. Whether the body was found in my house or Malachy’s Mill, we’d still be guilty.
‘If anyone comes to the house just leave, okay,’ I tell her. ‘I mean, straight away. Don’t try and confront them. Don’t try and take Redneck with you. Just get the hell out of there and go to Jason’s basement. You need to play it safe, not sorry.’
‘For God’s sake, Tadhg, I’m a big girl and you’re not my older brother. Just relax will you. I’m more than capable of looking after myself. Just get back here as soon as you can. I need to get to work.’
It’s nice to hear that someone has their priorities straight. Work? We need to negotiate with Redneck about Kate’s release, track down the missing million dollars, and buy a new bed to replace the one we’re about to burn. Then we can go to work.
‘We’ll be back as soon as we can. Remember, don’t be a hero, okay.’
‘Try looking in the mirror, Superman.’
I end the call. It’s good to know she’s holding up well. Which is more than I can say about myself. I’m coming down off another adrenaline rush and the lack of sleep is catching up with me. I feel lethargic and nauseous.
‘She’s fine,’ I announce. ‘She wants us back there in double quick time.’
Paavo backs the van up to an entrance into the fallen down mill. It probably hasn’t operated since the nineteenth century. The roof and floors have long since tumbled in and parts of the upper walls have followed. In places, small bushes cling precariously onto the brickwork.
We clamber out, head to the rear of the van and open the doors. Jason’s six boxes of crap have spilled everywhere.
‘Fuck!’ He bounces up inside, chucking the bags of bloodied sheets and clothes out, and starts to gather
up his precious junk and re-box it. ‘These are collector’s items,’ he moans. ‘You ever send my mother to my room again and I’ll KILL you!’
Paavo and myself drag the mattress out and in through the mill entrance, placing it on a bed of bricks, leaving Jason to repack his boxes. On top of the mattress we place the bags and the remains of the bed.
I head to the cab to retrieve the petrol can. When I return, Paavo and Jason have placed the Marino mummy on top of the pile. Instinctively I know it doesn’t feel right. The plan was to get rid of the bodies, not to get rid of the bodies. Dump the stiffs and incinerate the stuff. We’re in big trouble, but we have to retain some level of humaneness.
‘No, no. We’re not burning the bodies. We’re just leaving them here.’
‘We need to burn them,’ Paavo says, heading back to the van. I’m assuming that’s the army training talking, not the real Paavo. But I could be wrong.
I trail after him. ‘We’re just dumping them, okay; burning everything else.’
‘They’re evidence.’
‘They’re people.’
‘Bad people.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We’re not burning them.’
Paavo pulls Junior forward across the bed of the van, then flips him up onto his shoulder and starts to head back to the mattress.
‘They’re wrapped in your sheets,’ he says.
‘I know, I know, but we can’t. She’ll need to be able to bury him.’ I can’t get the image of Denise in the diner out of my head. It’s a body in a sheet to us, but it’s a loved one to her. ‘We’re just dumping the bodies. Nobody will be able to connect them to my house.’
‘DNA.’
‘Possibly, but why should they think that the bodies were in my house in the first place?’
Paavo shakes his head and moves to one side, placing Junior against a wall. He clearly thinks that I’ve lost the plot. On a balance between avoiding twenty years of prison and humaneness, avoidance wins hands down. Nevertheless, I still can’t bring myself to burn the bodies.
‘It’ll be you going to prison,’ he warns. He heads to Marino and points at the mummy’s legs.
Reluctantly Jason picks them up. ‘You’re frigging nuts, Tadhg,’ he says, wheezing with the strain. ‘Goddamn certifiable.’
I don’t disagree with him. It’s the logical thing to do, but somehow they’re still people, not simply bodies. They deserve some level of dignity in death.
They drop Marino down next to Junior.
I uncap the petrol canister, attach the nozzle and soak the bed, mattress and clothes. Once I’m finished I throw the empty canister on top.
‘Have you got the matches, Jason?’
Jason looks at Paavo and then back at me.
‘No.’
‘I told you to get them at John Philips’.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘I did. I said I’d get the canister and the gas and you were to get the matches. It would have looked suspicious if I’d bought them.’
‘Don’t try and blame me. I …’
‘You stupid fat fuck!’ I explode, unable to help myself. ‘I gave you one lousy job, but you were too busy rushing to stuff your fat face. For fuck’s sake!’
‘Here.’ Paavo throws Jason Marino’s trousers. ‘Use the cigarette lighter.’
‘What?’ Jason says, angry at the exchange.
‘In the van,’ Paavo explains.
‘Right.’ Jason disappears out of the mill to the van.
Paavo wanders off to one side, staring at the old ruins, lost in his own thoughts, probably wondering why he got out of bed to turn up at my house at five o’clock in the morning to supposedly move a mattress.
A minute later and Jason is half waddling, half running across the jumbled bricks, his right hand flailing Marino’s burning trousers. The flame is bright and intense and is in danger of engulfing him.
‘Drop them!’ I yell at him.
He doesn’t seem to hear.
‘Jason. Drop the fucking trousers!’
Something seems to register and he flings the trousers to the ground. Paavo picks them up using the end of a stick and throws them onto the mattress. There’s a whoosh, a brief fireball jumping up, and the pile bursts into dancing flames several feet high.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask Jason.
‘Fine.’ He holds up his unscathed hands.
‘And you think I’m certifiable,’ I say to him.
His hand might be okay, but I don’t have the heart to tell him his eyebrows are singed to practically nothing.
We stand and watch the flames, making sure that the whole lot catches fire. The sight is mesmerizing, a constantly shifting pattern of oranges. Thick black smoke rises into the air and the metal springs of the mattress slowly become visible.
I feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. At least we’ve managed to complete one task without too much mishap. The next step is to negotiate with Redneck. We slowly shuffle back towards the van.
4
Any time things appear to be going better, something has been overlooked
As we near the vehicle a black SUV pulls to a stop a few yards away. A man crowned in a large, black cowboy hat exits. He’s wearing a fancy blue shirt with silver collar tips and a leather string tie. What catches our eye though is the sub-machine gun clutched in his right hand.
Fuck.
‘Hello, boys,’ he says with a Southern, mid-East accent. ‘Going somewhere?’
‘Home,’ I manage to say. This morning just keeps getting better and better. As soon as we stumble through one situation, a worse one replaces it. It’s the day that refuses to stop giving.
‘I don’t think so. Now I want you boys to take your weapons and place them on the ground real slow. This thing has a hair trigger and spits out six hundred bullets a minute. It’ll fill you so full of holes the worms will use you as a log flume ride.’
Paavo and I stay stationary. Jason pats his pockets and then shrugs. The Raptor is back in his garage. Not that it would have been of any use if he’d been carrying it.
‘I’m warning you. Drop your weapons.’
‘We don’t have any weapons,’ I say, feeling like an idiot. We thought we were getting ourselves back on track. It hadn’t occurred to us that Redneck’s associates might be out looking for us. At least, I’m assuming he’s one of Redneck’s associates.
Cowboy laughs and shakes his head. ‘Fucking amateurs. And nobody’s too fat to kidnap, Fat Boy,’ he says, pointing at Jason’s t-shirt. ‘Now, back up the way you came. And don’t even think of trying to flee. Not unless you think you can dodge ten bullets a second.’
We shuffle backwards into the mill, stumbling over the rough ground. Cowboy circles around us and stares at the blazing fire.
‘What’s cooking?’
‘A mattress, a bed frame and some old clothes.’
‘Why?’
‘To get rid of them. They were old.’
‘And what are they?’ He asks, pointing to the two mummies lying to one side.
‘More sheets.’
He circles back round, keeping the gun trained on us, and approaches Marino and Junior.
‘It looks like two bodies to me, boys.’
‘I can see how they might look like that.’
‘You saying they ain’t?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. It looks to me like you were dumping two bodies and burning other evidence. For a bunch of amateurs that’s mighty intriguing. Who are they?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ He laughs. ‘You’re in the habit of dumping the bodies of people you don’t know?’
‘We found them in my house. We thought the police might … well, you know, think we killed them.’
‘Let me guess, Kathy’s house?’
I stay silent.
‘Sounds like she’s been a busy girl. First she steals a million dollars, now she’s killing folk. I guess we’d
all better go and have a little chat with Miss Kathy back at the ranch.’
Cowboy clearly is one of Redneck’s associates.
‘What I want you to do boys, is put the bodies back in the van.’
None of us move.
‘That wasn’t a request. Unless you want to join them.’
We shuffle forward.
Paavo pulls up Junior to his feet, tips him over his shoulder and heads to the van. I grab the shoulders of Marino and Jason lifts up his legs. We half carry him, half drag him to the van. We lift him up and push him in.
‘What’s in the boxes?’ Cowboy asks.
I want to say junk, but settle on: ‘Stuff.’
‘Get it out.’
‘No, no,’ Jason says, arms flapping. ‘They’re collectibles.’
Cowboy chuckles. ‘It’s junk. Get it out and put it on the fire.’
‘I’ll get it out, but I’m not putting it on the fire,’ Jason negotiates.
‘Fine. Just get rid of it.’
‘But they’re collectibles!’
‘Get them out of the van, Fat Boy,’ Cowboy says tetchily, his temper fraying, ‘unless you want to be wrapped in a sheet to join your two friends there. Fuck knows what’s in them. I’m not having him,’ he points the gun at Paavo, ‘thinking this is an episode of the A-team, making a weapon out of whatever shit you’ve got there.’
Reluctantly Jason pulls the boxes from the van and places them carefully to one side.
Cowboy motions at Paavo. ‘Now, you, get in.’
‘I’m the driver,’ Paavo says.
‘Not now, you’re not. Get in.’
Reluctantly Paavo steps up into the van. Cowboy shuts the door, locking him in.
‘Fat Boy, you’re driving. Red, you’re going to follow in the jeep.’
‘I don’t drive,’ I say. ‘I’ll go in the back, Paavo can drive.’
I really don’t want to get behind the wheel of that SUV. I can already feel my blood pressure rising and the edgy tingle of an emerging panic attack.
‘Paavo? What kind of a stupid name is that? No, no, you drive. He looks like a sneaky bastard to me.’
‘I don’t drive,’ I repeat.
‘Son, everybody drives. Just get in the fucking jeep and follow us.’
‘I can’t.’