Stiffed

by Kitchin, Rob

  The car bounces back across the tarmac into the rocky hill face opposite, then canons back, spinning three hundred and sixty degrees, before finally grinding to a halt.

  ‘Fuck,’ Gerlach mutters, stealing my thought.

  The passenger door to the Taurus flies open and Kate sets off for the hillside and the cover of the pine trees.

  We pull up behind the battered car and I’m dashing for the stricken vehicle before we’re fully stopped.

  I yank open the driver’s door. ‘Jason?’

  ‘Next time you find a dead body, call somebody else,’ he says, the airbag squashed against his massive frame.

  ‘You’re okay?’ I ask, my body relaxing with relief.

  ‘I’ll live, no thanks to you.’

  He’s fine, thank heavens. Shook up, but essentially okay.

  Gerlach pushes me out of the way, ducking his head into the car.

  I look over to where Kate is struggling over a fence. She’s going to get away. With the cap worth a supposed million dollars. She’s lied, cheated, killed and kidnapped. I’m going to spend God knows how many years of my life behind bars, whilst she escapes to live a life of luxury. I think not. I set off after her.

  I’m across the road before Gerlach realizes what’s going on.

  ‘Tad! Tad, you can run, but you can’t hide,’ he shouts after me.

  I’m not trying to run, I’m trying for justice and an eye for an eye. If I’m going to prison, then so is Kate Jansen, I mean Kathy Janowski.

  I clear the fence without too much difficulty and set off up the slope after Kate. All that cycling has paid off. I’m much fitter and I’m making up the ground pretty quickly.

  The cap spills from her head, tumbling down the slope towards me. She turns and watches its progress. I grab it, jam it on and continue after her. When I get within a few meters of her, she turns and raises her small pistol.

  I come to a halt, gasping for air. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  Big surprise. Welcome to my life.

  Kate walks back towards me, struggling to catch her breath.

  ‘You don’t know when to give up, do you, Tadhg?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Kneel down.’

  Damn. This feels like goodbye life.

  I do as I’m told. If there was any more proof needed of my stupidity, then this is it.

  Kate places the muzzle of the gun against my forehead. ‘This might be a small pistol,’ she says, ‘but it it’ll kill you. It fires a .22 bullet. It has enough velocity to punch its way through your skull, but not enough to exit. Instead, it bounces around in there turning your brain to mush. You’ll be dead before you know it.’

  If she’s trying to make my imminent death seem any less foreboding, she’s not succeeding.

  ‘Kate, look, I …’ I trail off, lost for words.

  I was never really certain what the top of the sphincter scale would feel like. Now I know – like someone has wiped your mind clean, locked all your muscles except your sphincter and turned your bowels into a chocolate smoothie.

  ‘Tadhg, please. Don’t beg. It’s not dignified.’

  Dignified? There’s little chance of that given the mess I’m about to make of my underwear. All I hope is that I get a more venerable burial than being wrapped in a dirty sheet held in place by a spiral of duct tape.

  ‘This is going to hurt me a lot more than it does you,’ Kate says.

  My last thought before the loud bang is ‘bullshit.’

  I always thought it would be ‘fuck’.

  There’s a solid thump against my forehead.

  Then nothing.

  I should be dead. My lying, cheating, kidnapping, murdering ex-girlfriend has just shot me in the head.

  Kate starts to laugh.

  I raise my hands, take off the cap and feel my forehead. Nothing. Not even a lump. There should be a neat round hole. A bullet should have bounced around inside my skull turning my brains into a strawberry milkshake.

  Kate backs away, the gun still pointing at me. Then she turns on her heels and starts to scramble up the slope.

  After a few meters she turns to face me again. ‘You can keep the Goddamn cap, Tadhg. It’s cursed. Besides, I’ll never be able to collect the money now.’

  She sets off again and I watch her scramble up to the top. There she turns and stares down at me. ‘I’ve always been a Red Sox fan anyway.’ Then she disappears.

  Damn! She wasn’t even a true fan.

  I hold up the cap and inspect the front. The heavy white stitching of the sword in the Crusaders’ logo is frayed. I gently tug back the threads to reveal a chink of silver underneath. I pull a few more strands free to reveal the serrated edge of a small key, the metal engraved with a couple of digits.

  I snort a laugh to myself. A key. A key that has just saved my life. A key to a locker or a safe deposit box. A key to a million dollars. The cap really did contain a million dollars carefully hidden behind the pronounced embossing of the Crusaders’ logo.

  I glance back up the hill and wonder how far Kate will get; whether she’ll find some other patsy to take her in and hide her. She’s the kind that always survives – scheming and living by their wits. If she manages to stay free until tomorrow morning, she’ll probably make it across the Canadian border by mid-afternoon, travelling to a new life, her trail fading to cold faster than footsteps in a snow storm.

  I cover up the key with the loose threads and put the cap back on. A million dollars should buy us a decent lawyer. And if that fails, it can probably buy a lot of things in prison. Like protection.

  One thing it can’t buy though is true friends and I already have the best one can hope for – the kind that will help you move bodies in the middle of the night; the kind that will stick by you and keep going regardless of the task or odds or how stupid you’ve been; the kind that you’d put your own life on the line to defend. And you can’t ask for any more.

  I set off down the hill to Jason and Sergeant Gerlach, slipping and sliding on the loose ground and pine needles. I suspect it’s going to be another long, exhausting night, this time answering a barrage of questions, followed by the full glare of the media’s spotlight and months of legal wrangling as the wheels of justice turn. I doubt my mug shot is going to be very flattering given my battered state, but at least it’ll prove that I survived the longest and most eventful day in Carrick history near enough intact.

  Just.

  I spot Gerlach climbing up towards me, his gun drawn.

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘There was a gunshot,’ he replies, slightly breathless, coming to a halt, waiting for me to descend.

  ‘She missed.’

  ‘Mores the pity. It would have saved us the hassle of a trial.’

  I ignore his barbed comment. I currently have more pressing concerns. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be a fresh pair of underpants at the station I could borrow?’

  Gerlach smiles slyly. ‘No, but I have a used garbage bag that you can use as a diaper.’

  I no longer suspect that it’ll be a long night. Only tonight I don’t have to worry about getting rid of two stiffs, just being stiffed by the cops.

  All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  STIFFED

  Copyright © 2013

  Rob Kitchin

  Published by Snubnose Press

  Cover design by Eric Beetner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to thank my beta-readers for taking the time to read the first draft and for giving useful, constructive advice: Brendan Gleeson, Mervyn Kitchin, Sean O’Riain, and Bernadette
Bean. Kajsa Andersson did a great job of copyediting the draft manuscript and catching typos. Brian Lindenmuth and Ron Thomas at Snubnose Press did a fantastic job of shepherding the project through the publication process. The internet is a wonderful media for authors and I'd like to thank all the writers and bloggers who have given me encouragement and support over the past few years. As ever, Cora put up with me tapping away at a keyboard for far too many hours.