The Big Bad

by Phil Beloin Jr.

We kissed and then she placed the tray on thin sheet covering me. While she sat, I noticed the bruising around her knee had gone down overnight. Van Gogh got up, did a long Halloween stretch, and hopped over to the tray, sniffing the contents.

  "Get outta there, kitty," I said. "No pussy hair on the food."

  "That’s gross," Pam said.

  I nudged the little fella off the bed, and he scooted out the door.

  "How do you feel?" she said.

  "Like a lump of shit."

  "You look it."

  "How ‘bout you?"

  "A death defying hangover, but it’ll pass."

  "And the knee?"

  "Sore is all. Hey, I should be asking you these questions. Let me see your shoulder."

  She bent in, her hair damp and smelling like fresh summer flowers.

  "You took a shower?" I said.

  "It was very nice, thank you. Let’s see this thing. It may hurt."

  She peeled the tape away from the bandage, and I gritted my teeth, hoping I wouldn’t pass out.

  "No ‘may’ about the hurting, baby," I said.

  "I thought you were tough."

  "I was acting."

  She grinned big. "I should have changed this dressing last night before bed."

  "We were both out of it."

  "Just a little bit."

  I got a good look at her needlework, thread sewn in a hodgepodge, but still holding together, though white puss and red goo had formed around the wound.

  "You’d make a lousy seamstress," I said.

  "Shut up. Now your backside."

  I turned my shoulder, the fire turning into a four-alarm blaze. Bring the fucking ladder truck, boys.

  "This doesn’t look so bad," she said. "I just hope the front isn’t infected."

  "Ain’t like we can go to the emergency room."

  "I know."

  I lay back flat, pointing at the tray. "What’s this shit here?"

  "It’s called coffee. Most people drink it in the morning."

  "Not me."

  "I got milk here and sugar in this one." She pointed to each offending pot. "I don’t know how you like it so I brought both."

  "I like it cold and foamy."

  "Nick?"

  "Don’t tell me we’re out of beer."

  "You’ve been shot, lost a ton of blood, and taken a powerful sedative."

  "And your point is what?"

  "Have some coffee for a change. How do you like it?"

  "I’m not sure."

  "Not a big coffee drinker? What about black?"

  "Yeah, I got black hair."

  "You’re weird," she said.

  "Hand me that mug, please."

  "Hey, you said please."

  "Yeah, what’s wrong with me?"

  "I’ll make a changed man out of you yet."

  The coffee pitched into my belly, and strangely, settled it. Pam spooned some sugar into hers and stirred it up. While we drank in silence, a breeze pushed through the window, cooling the room off.

  "I’ve been thinking," she said, the mug perched on her lips.

  "Uh-oh."

  She slapped my knee. "Knock it off."

  "All right. Let me hear it."

  "My career as a porn starlet is over."

  "Hey, baby, there are other photographers out there."

  "I know. But I trusted Eddie."

  "He murdered them girls."

  "The fact that he did that—it sickens me to my core."

  "In a way," I said, not meeting her eyes, "he had what was coming to him."

  "I guess."

  "No guesses."

  "It’s just, I never saw that dark side of his personality," she said. "He was always so ...ebullient when we were together."

  "Don’t talk fancy, girl."

  "He had a zest for living, Nick. He had these grand ideas; that life was for enjoying and learning new things, that everyone had a God given talent and should use it to create a place of true happiness."

  "Sounds like a lot of bull to me."

  "He killed Mona and Lisa because of money, Nick. I didn’t understand him like I thought. It seems that everything he said was a lie."

  "Tell you what," I said. "After this here fine coffee, we’ll dig him a nice unmarked grave."

  "That’s real good of you, Nick."

  "And we’ll throw Tom Boy and his Mama right on top."

  "Spare me the image," Pam said.

  "And put the Rottweiler, whatever’s we can find of him, in there, too," I said. "We’ll need to wipe up this mess before we scram."

  "Speaking of leaving."

  "Yeah?"

  "Looks like my wedding is off, so when are we going to hit Irv’s safe, and get that tape?"

  "If I’m feeling up to it, we’ll leave here tonight," I said. "We’ve got to clean out my apartment."

  "Why’s that?"

  "Mona and Lisa are still...ah…there."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, oh."

  "Bad things happen around you, Nickie."

  "Yeah, it’s been a bad few days. What can I say?"

  "Go on with your plan."

  "We get those girls wrapped up in the dumpster and then drive over and hit Irv’s safe. After we destroy the tape, we’ll go on a road trip in the Delta. We’ll live off the dough I got for turning Irv over the IRS and we’ll grow old together."

  "Sounds perfect."

  "Yeah, it does."

  "So we got to get busy," she said.

  "That we do," I said.

  "But right now I’m feeling kinda’ horny."

  "Then got out of that robe, baby."

  She put the breakfast tray on the floor and then the robe slipped off her shoulders. She glided in for a kiss, and that woke my lap up.

  "I just had a thought," I said, as she nibbled at my cheek.

  "What’s that," she breathed.

  I placed my hands on the swell of her hips. "Come tomorrow..."

  "I want to come every day with you."

  She had her tongue shoved in my ear. "This is serious, Pam."

  "I’m listening."

  "I’m gonna find you a new photographer."

  She stopped licking and looked me in the eye. "You’d do that for me?"

  "I’ll search the globe for you, baby."

  Caressing the stubble on my chin, she said, "I love you so much, Nickie."

  "And I’m just crazy about you, baby."

  We kissed hard, but she pulled back.

  "I’ll do anything for you," she said.

  "Anything at all?"

  "Except anal."

  "You’re no fun."

  "Perv."

  "Look who’s talking."

  "Did you have something else in mind or what?" she said.

  "There is one other thing."

  "Yes?"

  "Can you play dead?"

  She nearly ripped my clothes off.

  "You are ready," she said, glancing down. "That thing is big and scary looking."

  "It hurts, it’s so hard, baby."

  "How do you want to do this?"

  "You have to be lying on the bed."

  "On my stomach or back?"

  "Back, of course."

  "I could have died on my stomach. You’d just have to lift my ass a bit."

  "Pam, honey, get on your back."

  "But missionary position might hurt your shoulder."

  "You can prop me up with your arms."

  "Who would croak with their arms out like that?"

  "Good point."

  She positioned herself in the middle of the bed. "Just be careful with your shoulder. Okay?"

  "I will. Don’t worry." I rolled onto my knees, touching myself, feeling the heat.

  She brushed the hair from her face. "How did I die?"

  "Huh?"

  "I need to prepare myself."

  "It doesn’t matter how."

  "Sure it does."

  "I don’t know...A heart attack."

  "At my age
?"

  "Pam, baby."

  "I’m just trying to get it right."

  "Overdose then."

  "Good. Okay. How far should my legs be apart?"

  "Umm…I’m trying to remember."

  "Like this?" She spread them as if she was doing a split.

  "Too much."

  "Here?" Closing them up some.

  "Lisa’s legs were closer together."

  "This good?"

  "No, wait. I was with Mona."

  "You’re ruining the moment, Nick."

  "You’re talking as much as I am."

  "What about foreplay?"

  "With a corpse?"

  "Sorry."

  "You’re dead, so shhhhh."

  "All my lips are sealed."

  "Now close your eyes."

  "But I want to look in yours when you come."

  "I’m gonna lose my hard-on you keep this up."

  "Oh, all right."

  She closed her eyes tight, opened her mouth, and tilted her head off at an angle. Her chest moved with each breath, but what could I do about that? I opened her up and gently put myself in.

  "Ewwwwww," she moaned.

  "No noise whatsoever, baby."

  She relaxed her body and I put my hands on the bed, my shoulder killing me, but the pain didn’t distract from our lovemaking. I went as deep as I could, held it there, and pulsed five times, each one as pleasurable as the first.

  We had smokes after, then hopped in the shower together. I was too satisfied to be able to make love standing up. Pam said she understood.

  She cleaned my entire body, never letting the stream hit my shoulder, while dabbing a cloth around both the entrance and exit holes. She toweled me off, saying I needed a shave.

  "I can’t do it," I said, "between my wrist and shoulder."

  "Don’t worry. I won’t nick, Nick," she said, giggling.

  "Now who’s nuts?" I said.

  "We’re peas in a pod, you and me," she said.

  Standing behind and against me, she lathered my face. She guided her pink razor over the bruise on my cheek and the cuts from the rock chips. I didn’t even feel a twinge. Then she moved my head around to scrape the rest of my beard off.

  I studied the singed flesh around the bullet hole. More fluid dribbled from her patchwork. I knew a doctor—he was in the same building as Irv—who wouldn’t report a gunshot wound to the police, though it would cost plenty for silence. I was thinking I would need to see him when we got back to the capital.

  We went into the kitchen to redress the bandages.

  When she was finished with that, she said, "Breakfast time."

  "Good, I’m starved."

  "Let me see what we have."

  "Beer for me."

  "Can you wait till lunch?"

  I was hurting for one, but I said, "What else do we got?"

  She found some cereal and a little bit of milk left in the gallon jug.

  "Not much left," she said.

  "We’ll split it," I said.

  "You need your strength," she said. "You’ve been shot bad."

  "And you’ve been fucked good."

  "Right," she said. "How could I forget that?"

  I sat at the table as Pam got everything together. Something out back, moving in the shade of the cabin, caught the corner of my eye. I was naked and without my .45. I turned my head—my heart ticking like a time bomb ready to go off. A huge black bear was feasting on the remains of the Rottweiler. Pam was right, there were bears in these woods. I got up and drew the curtains across the sliding door.

  We shared about a quarter bowl of corn flakes each. Unlike that bear out there, I hadn’t eaten breakfast in a decade or so. My stomach didn’t know what to do.

  "We’ll have to take all the food and trash with us," I said.

  "Why?" she said.

  "Expiration dates on the packaging."

  "Oh, okay."

  "If the bodies are found and a time of death established," I said, "we got to make it look like we weren’t here during that time period."

  36

  Stepping into the office, Irv rubbed the gook from his eyes—not that it helped get Pamela out of his mind. Saw her when he closed his lids and she was there when he opened them.

  He knew what it was. It had occurred to him in the middle of the night.

  He still loved her; adored everything about her. He even forgave her for the pictures. If only she had told him, he would have helped her stop. Irv knew all about self-destructive paths, and taking dirty pictures was one of them. Right?

  He wished she wasn’t gone, wished he could take it back. He had acted out of anger.

  Well, it’s a tad too late, now, Irv.

  But he could see her again, before Nick buried her. He could hold her limp hand in his and kiss the cold lips.

  It would be Pamela’s wake. He would have a proper goodbye and the visions would go away. Maybe the sleeplessness would take a hike, too.

  And then Nick could bury her. And when he was done shoveling the dirt over her body, Irv would make Nick dig another hole.

  Nick’s grave. Fuck giving the police the tape of his bedroom. Nick would only get out of the joint in a few years, like I had, Irv thought, and come for me. Yeah, Nick would die today.

  He’d die for killing Pamela.

  3 7

  It was brutal work, especially in my condition. I got rubber gloves out of the Delta, gave a pair to Pam. I found a spade in the basement and started working a hole in a patch of ground that I hoped was soft and rock free. But we were on hill and there was no such area. I got hot and sweaty quick, my shoulder whining with each thrust into the stony soil.

  Pam took over, and I went inside to get a beer, figuring I deserved it after all that digging. I popped the top, slugged down half the can. Over the sink was a plastic prescription container, and I pulled it down to read the label. It said tranquillizer in some convoluted language. I bit one in half, hoping it would take a bite out of my pain. I washed the chalky taste past my throat with the rest of the beer. I grabbed another cold one and a soda for Pam.

  She was doing good on the grave, plenty wide but only a foot down.

  "Deeper, baby."

  "You can say that again."

  "I’m taking about the hole here."

  "So am I."

  "Animals will dig it up."

  I handed her the two cans, and I went at it again. I had done this kind of thing too many times. I hadn’t missed it, though. The med took the edge off everything—pain, common sense, motor skills— and I shoveled with disregard, Pam telling me to take it slower, I’d rip the stitches—or worse something inside. I didn’t listen; I was higher than last night and my ears rang with a low-pitched buzz. The heat burned my back deep brown and every few minutes I’d ask her for a sip of beer.

  Eddie was closest to the grave. We picked up the shell casings first then turned back to the body. Eddie looked like he was sleeping, except for the tiny mark I had put in his chest. Dragging him by the arms, Pam began sobbing, her chest heaving like she was having a coughing fit. We dropped our load at the edge of the hole, and I kicked Eddie’s side, watching him roll to the bottom.

  "You okay, baby?" I said.

  She wiped tears away from her cheek with her forearm, leaving behind a streak of dirt. "No, not at all."

  "We’ll stop then."

  "Let’s keep going, Nick, until we got them all in."

  Big Mama’s head was disintegrated, bits and pieces blown into the grass stained with her blood. Her spinal cord poked out of her neck. Most of her clothes were chewed away, the animals having done that to get at her fat sagging everywhere. I shooed the flies off her corpse and on this trip I thought Pam might throw up. Somehow she held her corn flakes in, and Big Mama went right on top of Eddie. While I took a hose and washed the area where she had fallen, Pam gathered up more shell casings.

  The grass had reformed around Tom Boy and we had to search for his remains. The birds and night c
reatures had pecked him down to the bone in spots, but at least he was the lightest of the three. After we got him in the ground, we spent an hour walking the field where Tom Boy had been operating, picking up his guns remains, including several empty clips. We also gathered up cigarette butts and empties.

  We got a wheelbarrow from the barn and I loaded up what the black bear had left of the Rottweiler and dumped him into his final resting place. As I covered up the grave, my shoulder started acting up again, blood flowing a little more freely from the gaps in the thread. Pam came back and helped by pushing dirt into the hole with her feet.

  We took a break inside, with more beverages, and two fresh bandages for me. Pam didn’t say much and neither did I. I took the other half of the tranquilizer when Pam was loading the food and trash into the Beast’s trunk.

  Later, I swung my car over to the barn and we loaded in the spare tire. I drove down the road until Pam told me stop. We took the tire out and walked into the woods to replace the flat.

  Coming back up the hill, Pam following in her car, I stopped by Tom Boy’s motorcycle. The key was in the ignition. On a job like his you always left your transport in a way that you could scram quick, and with Pam holding onto my back, I drove deep into the woods. I took it real slow, occasionally getting off the bike and walking it through the tough terrain. Who knows how far in we abandoned the bike, but it did take a good half-hour to hike back to our cars.

  The keys to Eddie’s station wagon were under the driver’s side floor mat. Pam unscrewed the license plates on the wagon while I took another screwdriver and popped out the VIN tag on top of the dashboard near the emission sticker. I scraped clean another VIN stamped on a sticker in the driver’s side door.

  Finding the last VIN on the engine block proved much more difficult. I checked under the hood, removing all sorts of parts, and didn’t spot it. I crawled underneath and there it was to the side of the oil pan. I filed that number clean off then went back under the hood to rebuild the V-8 enough so it would start.

  Pam burned the wagon’s registration in an ashtray. She searched the inside for anything with Eddie’s name on it, but found nothing. She grabbed all the film, exposed and unexposed, and put them in a camera bag, which went in her car’s front seat. I backed the wagon into the barn where Pam and I wiped the fingerprints off the car and camera equipment.

  There were only two things left to do; pack up Eddie’s personal stuff and wait out the afternoon. I wanted to leave at night—less chance of being seen pulling out of the driveway and onto the road. Pam took care of Eddie’s belongings while I lit a smoke outside by the grill. I stepped on the bullet holes Tom Boy had shot into the underside of the deck, trying for Teddy. I wondered if Pam was right, Big Mama had hit Teddy and he had bled to death in the woods.