by Tom Lytes
The scale of the culvert became clear as he approached, and when Bobby navigated his way off the road and down an incline, he stood close to the enormous opening. He didn’t think anyone would drive by, and even then, he’d be difficult to see. His suit jacket came off first as he emptied the pockets and tossed the contents into the culvert as far as he could. He threw his leather shoes in there too. Then he flung his white button-down shirt, leaving himself in a white tank top and boxer shorts. After the tiny splash echoes from his clothing found their way up and down the large pipe, silence engulfed him, and Bobby opened his bag.
Inside the largest pocket, he located a small walky-talky looking device and he pressed a few buttons in a sequence. The device sprang to life, and a few of the red lights on the front of it began to blink. He put it back in the bag. Then he took out a battery-operated trimmer and cut most of his hair off, doing what he could without a mirror. Bobby parted what was left on the side, tamping the irregularities down the best he could. In his bag, he located two temporary tattoos, one of a flaming cross, and one with the name “Maura” inside an anatomically correct looking heart that showed the chambers and valves. Bobby went with the Maura one, and used a special solution in a vial to stick it onto his bicep.
A set of house keys jangled in the bottom of the bag. He put them in his pocket, along with a well-used wallet that contained a near foolproof fake driver’s license from New Hampshire. It featured his picture (with a similar short haircut) and the name Marvin Stickler. Bobby tore at the lining of the bag with his fingertips. When it started to rip, he dug his index finger into the hole, expanding it until he could tear the lining completely out. With some effort, the hard bottom of the case was exposed, and Bobby collected the ten stacks of hundred-dollar bills he placed in there for just this type of occasion.
Bobby heard tires approaching along the road, and he popped his head over the embankment far enough to identify the red truck he expected. It drove slowly as it neared him, and Bobby knew Joelle would be honing-in on his location with the tracking device, blinking red light into his bag. He figured they were in a remote enough area to take the mystery out of his location, so he clamored up the embankment and stood along the side of the road. Seeing Bobby, Joelle picked up speed and stopped next to him, the motor spewing strong exhaust he couldn’t avoid.
She said, “Hello, Marvin. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you.”
“It has, Joelle,” Bobby said. “You haven’t aged a bit.”
“Liar,” she said, as she leaned over and pushed the passenger side door of the Dodge Ram open, effectively releasing a dense cloud of cigarette smoke that billowed like pent up poor health from the cab.
Joelle had stringy, long gray hair and sunbaked yellowish skin. One of her eyes was blue and the other was gray, and she wore snug, form hugging clothing, a carryover habit from her days as a pharmaceutical drug saleswoman. That was another life entirely, one that Bobby helped her leave in exchange for her life on the farm with her beloved animals. Joelle gave up on people during her stint in rehab, that followed a period of her taking too many of the free samples from the pharmaceutical job.
Bobby had owned the farm through a shell company for ten years and maintained a lease as Marvin Stickler for a guest house off to the side of the farmhouse. Visiting remained on a “need to hide only” basis, which was almost never.
“The hell is your problem, Marvin?” Joelle asked him before he even shut the door. “You remind me of my dirtbag husband.”
“I didn’t know you had a husband,” Bobby said, shrugging in his seat. He dug through a sedimentary-like layer of old cigarette packages to reach for a seatbelt that didn’t exist. After a valiant search, he gave up.
“Where have you been?” Joelle asked.
Joelle paused to hear an answer. When it wasn’t coming, she filled in the space.
She said, “You waste money away, renting that place and never using it. Not that you asked, but because you seemed interested, he left, my husband did, for a sesame bagel with avocado cream cheese spread in 1998 and never found his way home. I, we, lived in Toronto.”
“I couldn’t imagine why he would do that.”
Bobby didn’t know Joelle lived in Toronto and wondered how many different chapters of life the woman next to him lived before he met her. Probably quite a few, making her barely able to endure whatever time she spent with other people.
“Get smart with me and I’ll set you right out by the side of the road,” Joelle said.
Bobby nodded and watched the hills roll out postcard-like vistas. They took a left on Beechwood Road and Joelle’s farm was around the first bend, full of flowers and vegetables and animals walking around grazing on fresh timothy grass. The last time Bobby’d been at the farm, winter dominated the scene and the farm hadn’t been lush or pretty. For five days, the wind blew snow over the mountain, drifting it high over the top of the windows of his little house, and he dug himself out without a shovel.
When they stirred up dust pulling into the farm yard, an assortment of animals came running up to greet them. Chickens, ducks, a sheep, and some miniature pigs were circling Joelle, and all of them made noise. She took time with each of them, gave them something to eat from a small fanny pack attached to her waste, or some love and encouragement. The long process took just over three cigarette’s burn time to complete. Bobby gave up when Joelle reached for a fourth cigarette and started cooing at the ducks. He took his stuff and walked past her towards his rental. He stopped short when he saw, a few hundred feet away, a tractor working hard to dig a good-sized hole with a backhoe attachment. The unfamiliar man operating it seemed adept with the machine.
Bobby put his bag down and walked back to Joelle, “What’s the digging all about?”
Joelle looked over to the guy with the backhoe like she’d never seen him before, “I’m putting in a new watering system over there.”
“That’s a big, deep hole for a waterer, isn’t it?” Bobby asked.
“It has to be below the frost line.”
“Oh,” Bobby said. “Where is it?”
“What do you mean?” Joelle asked, clearly put out by the questioning.
“The waterer,” Bobby said. “Where is the equipment that’s getting installed underground? Usually when you dig a big hole for something like that, it’s sitting next to where you’re digging. There isn’t anything there, just a hole.”
“It’s getting delivered tomorrow.” Joelle looked angry as she stopped petting the ducks and put her hands on her hips. Over the din of quacking, Joelle asked, “What do you care about what I’m digging?”
She navigated her way through the animals clamoring in her path and marched into her house. Billowing cigarette smoke trailed behind her. Bobby watched her go. He retrieved his bags before walking to his little house, passing an old John Deere tractor carcass parked in front. Its three wheels were sunk into the ground at least six inches.
Bobby looked appraisingly at the guy operating the digger and noted the abundances of fresh dirt surrounding the newer four-wheel drive tractor. Judging by the movement of the tractor and the size of the digging apparatus, the operator probably started digging… around the time Bobby activated the tracking device.
Once inside his little house, Bobby put his things down and tried to open a window above the farm sink to air the place out. It was painted shut. He rummaged around in the drawers off to the side and grabbed what he was looking for. Sitting down in a small wooden chair, waiting, he picked at the kitchen table’s peeling Formica top with his fingernail. Just over five minutes later, he’d exposed a small section of plywood underneath the plastic kitchen coating when the front door drew his attention. He sat quietly, watching the doorknob slowly inch around three-quarters of a turn. After another long and deliberate pause, during which Bobby remained completely still, the door slowly and cautiously swung into the room. Joelle�
��s head eventually poked around the door, and Bobby sprang from his chair as soon as they made eye contact.
He grabbed at Joelle, just missing her hair as she spun to flee. He caught the back of her flannel shirt and yanked her back into the farm kitchen of the small house. A handgun fell from Joelle’s hand, clattering as it skidded across the floor and spun into a corner of the room, its very existence proving to Bobby that his fears about Joelle were true.
She had been coming for him.
39
Bobby felt the weight of the rolling pin he’d collected from the drawer, and with an uncontrollable rage he attacked Joelle savagely. After a few blows, the rolling pin came apart at the handles and was entirely less effective, but the damage to Joelle’s cranium occurred before the equipment failure. The new smell of fresh bodily fluid added another dimension to the rotten wet smell of the dank kitchen, and Bobby needed some air. There was a window by the front door and Bobby struggled to lift the sash.
When Bobby finally managed to open it, the fresh air came at his face in a rush. Bobby breathed deeply and cursed Clean, hearing the mechanical hum of the tractor working outside. Sitting back down at the table, he put his feet up and sat for an hour more, listening to the continuous digging noises outside, and thinking about his life in New York and the surrounding states. He thought about his daily routines and how he spent his time each day. He thought about Joelle and the farm.
He wondered if he was happy. Before, as a younger man, his days were more fun - but he possessed less power and less money. Maybe he had enough money now, though, and missed the fun.
Bobby tried to come to grips with the concept of loyalty. He described himself as fiercely loyal, and yet too often found himself killing his friends for business reasons. There was the situation in Lowell with Jimmy, and now Joelle covered a lot of surface area in the kitchen. Who was left? His driver - could anyone transition out of the life he chose? Everyone around him, including himself, seemed destined to work as hard as possible to stay on top, right up until death was delivered by a rival. For the very first time, Bobby wondered if it was time to move on from his life in New York. These were sobering thoughts.
The tractor stopped working outside and fell silent.
Bobby stood up and strolled out into the farmyard, to the newly dug hole. A thin, wiry man with too few teeth to comfortably eat an apple poked a shovel at the dirt clumped up on the digging scoop of the tractor. Large globs of earth fell off, adding to the enormous pile surrounding the large hole.
“Big hole there,” Bobby said loudly.
Either the man didn’t have any idea that Bobby was intended to be dead in the bottom of said hole, or the guy was prepared to see how everything developed before saying something stupid. Bobby didn’t much care at this point about too many of the details of what Joelle planned. He knew enough, and Joelle’s lack of loyalty to him strung at his core.
“Yeah, it’s a big’un,” the man said, conversationally.
“So how did you end up being the guy digging the hole?” Bobby asked.
“Reckon I don’t know what you mean, on account it was Joelle’s idea and all,” he said.
He put the shovel in the ground and leaned on the handle. His dirt-caked hands clasped it up higher than his head and he settled into the tool for support.
Bobby kicked at a clump of soil, “I killed Joelle with a rolling pin when she came into my kitchen with a gun.”
“Figured, what with not seeing her come out of there, and when I saw you,” the man said.
He looked away from Bobby and spit.
“This land is mine. I put Joelle on the farm, and rent me back that small place over there,” Bobby said, pointing to the little house. “All I asked of her was loyalty, and a safe place to come occasionally.”
“I don’t know much ‘bout that part, and all, Mr. Stickler,” the man said. “Joelle has been changing as time passes. I been seeing her take a few steps towards crazy over some time now. Maybe some kind of deemehhhnsheeea, was what the doctor over the hill there in the new house said. There wasn’t no talking nothing to her no more.”
Bobby nodded. Did dementia make Joelle turn on him, make her susceptible to the manipulations of Clean?
“It’s a disappointment, her coming to kill me,” Bobby said. “She was as close to family as I got.”
“Well, in that case, Mr. Stickler, I truly am sorry.”
The two men looked in the hole for a while. Neither spoke.
Finally, Bobby asked, “Where do you live?”
“Trailer, over there,” the man said, waving to a spot beyond the vast empty fields in front of them.
“Do you want to work for me?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, Mr. Stickler,” the man said. “On account of everything that happened here and all, it don’t seem like Joelle will be paying me to do odd jobs no more.”
Bobby nodded and, with the back of his hand, wiped away some of Joelle’s blood spatter that threatened to drip off his forehead into his eye.
The man watched Bobby wipe his face, and said, “Yes, sir. That would, I reckon, be the best outcome I could expect here. An honor, it would be.”
“What’s your name,” Bobby asked.
“Otis Thumpleton Harrison IV,” the man said, standing a little taller with each syllable.
Bobby asked, appraisingly, “What do they call you?”
“They been callin’ me Thumper since I was knee high,” he said.
“So, Thumper,” Bobby said. “Here’s how it works, for now. Bury Joelle in the hole with no clothes and nothing else. Burn all her stuff in one of the further fields over there. I’ll work it so the bills get paid for the house and farm. All you need to do is work the land and run the farm. Sell vegetables and meat for spending money. If I ever come here, you carry on like you always do, and leave me alone.”
Thumper said, “Yes sir, I figure that would be a big improvement for me on account of not having no consistent work.”
“Wait a week, and move into the house, if you want.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Remember what I said about loyalty,” Bobby said, crowding the smaller man.
Thumper nodded and almost fell over his shovel, trying to back up a step.
“Mr. Stickler, what would be a good thing to say about Joelle, and her not being on the farm. Neighbors are sure to ask me,” Thumper said.
“Say her uncle died and left her land in California,” Bobby said. “She left straight away when she found out, to tend to the funeral and move onto her new property. Keep it simple, no details other than that. One of my associates will call you on the house phone this evening regarding the farm bills, the general expenses.”
Thumper nodded again, and Bobby left the man to continue his work with the tractor, preparing the ground for Joelle’s burial in the same way he had been preparing it for Bobby’s. When Bobby entered the rental, he stepped over Joelle’s blood-soaked, lifeless body. After collecting his bag and running his fingers over the stacks of money inside, he leaned over Joelle, plucking the truck keys from her pocket.
A few minutes later Bobby drove Joelle’s red Dodge Ram off the farm, too fast with the radio blaring. With the windows down, wind blew through his short hair, and he wondered how long he could drive before tiring. South Carolina was a good fourteen-hour drive from his farm in New York.
He again considered quitting his life. Would he do it alone? Could he persuade Peggy to run with him? That would take work, but it could happen, Bobby thought. Couldn’t it? He took the truck beyond a dangerously high speed and tried to remember when he last drove himself anywhere.
40
Roger and Hansel were getting a sunburn.
The intolerable heat exacerbated Hansel’s concerns. They landed at the Charleston International Airport after changing planes in Atlanta. The two men
collected a car in the long-term airport parking lot that Bobby arranged for them and the supplies Bobby promised were secured safely in the trunk, just like they were supposed to be. Everything was going smoothly, right up until when they arrived at their destination, Sullivan’s Island.
But now, they were without further instructions.
They couldn’t reach Bobby Touro no matter what they did, and his driver was being elusive about when Bobby might be available. When Hansel pressed him, he said he would call back with contact information, but he didn’t.
As he parked their car near the commercial area of Sullivan’s Island, Hansel griped to Roger, “Just leaves us hanging here in this heat.”
“You know how you told me to watch old television shows?” Roger asked.
“Yeah,” Hansel said.
“You were right about learning from those old guys. They’re cool, like the guy on Rockford Files. Do you remember that old show?”
“No,” Hansel said.
“You’d like it.”
“Okay,” Hansel said. “I’m kind of worried about what’s happening right here, and right now.”
“Yeah,” Roger said, ignoring Hansel’s comment. “In one episode, the Rockford file guy is smoking a cigarette.”
“That isn’t cool. He probably gave himself lung cancer and died. You know I hate smoking.”
“Yeah, and you eat healthy food.”
“We should focus on what we need to do.”
Roger nodded. “So, the Rockford guy is smoking, and he flicks the cigarette into the air. The other guy watches him do it. I mean, the other guy is watching the cigarette go up in the air. Then guess what?”