Hardcase jk-1
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Levine had tied the end of the chain around a sapling. This allowed his left hand to hold the Taser and tap it on the steel chain from time to time. Kurtz would gasp and fall on his side while his muscles spasmed. Then, without a word, he would get to his knees and continue digging. He was shaking so badly from the cold now that he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to hold the shovel much longer. At least the physical labor offered a simulacrum of warmth.
Thirty minutes later, Kurtz had excavated a trench about three feet long and two and a half feet deep. He'd encountered roots and stones, but nothing else.
"Enough of this shit," said Manny Levine. "I'm freezing my balls off out here. Drop the shovel." He raised the Magnum.
"B-b-burial," Kurtz managed through chattering teeth.
"Fuck it," said Levine. "Sammy'll understand. Drop the fucking shovel out of reach." He cocked the huge double-action revolver.
Kurtz dropped the little shovel at the side of the trench. "Wait," he said. "S-s-something."
Levine stepped closer so the headlight beam illuminated the trench, but he took no chances—standing at least six feet from where Kurtz crouched. The shovel was out of Kurtz's reach. The snow was falling heavily enough to stick on the leaves and black soil in the circle of light.
A bump of black plastic protruded from the black soil.
"Wait, wait," gasped Kurtz, crawling down into the trench and scraping away soil and roots with his shaking hands.
Even in the cold night, after almost twelve years, a faint, loamy whiff of decomposition rose from the trench. Manny Levine took a half step back. His face was contorted with anger. The hammer was still back on the Ruger, the muzzle aimed at Kurtz's head.
Kurtz uncovered the head, shoulders, and chest of a vaguely human shape wrapped in black construction plastic.
"Okay," said Levine, speaking through clenched teem. "Your job's done, asshole."
Kurtz looked up. He was caked with mud and his own blood and was shaking so hard from the cold that he had to force himself to speak clearly. "It m-m-may not b-be Sammy."
"What the fuck are you talking about? How many stiffs did you bury out here?"
"M-m-maybe it is," Kurtz said through chattering teeth. Without asking permission, he crouched lower and began peeling away the plastic over the shape's face.
The twelve years had been hard on Sammy—his eyes were gone, skin and muscle turned into a blackened leather, lips pulled back far over the teeth, and frozen maggots filled the mouth where his tongue had been—but Kurtz recognized him, so he assumed Manny could. Kurtz's left hand continued peeling away black plastic around the skull while his right hand went lower, tearing rotted plastic around the chest.
"Fucking enough," said Manny Levine. He took one step closer and aimed the Ruger. "What the fuck is that?"
"Money," said Kurtz.
Levine's finger stayed taut on the trigger, but he lowered the Ruger ever so slightly and peered down into the grave.
Kurtz's right hand had already found and opened the blue steel hardcase where he had left it on Sammy's chest, and now he pulled the bundle out still wrapped in oily rags, clicked off the butterfly safety with his thumb, and squeezed the trigger of his old Beretta five times.
The weapon fired five times.
Manny Levine spun, the Magnum and Taser flew off into the darkness, and the dwarf went down. The headlight illuminated frozen leaves on the forest floor. Goose feathers floated in the cold air.
Still holding the rag-wrapped Beretta, Kurtz grabbed the shovel and crawled over to Levine.
He'd missed once, but two of the nine millimeter slugs had punched into the dwarf's chest, one had caught him in the throat, and one had gone in just under Levine's left cheekbone and taken his ear off on the way out.
The little man's eyes were wide and staring in shock, and he was trying to talk, spitting blood.
"Yeah, I'm surprised, too," said Kurtz. Strengthened by the adrenaline rush he had counted on, Kurtz used the entrenching tool to finish him off and then went through the dwarf's shirt pockets. Good. The cell phone was in his shirt pocket and hadn't been hit.
Shaking wildly now, he concentrated on punching out the phone number he'd memorized in Attica.
"Hello? Hello?" Rachel's voice was soft, clear, untroubled, and beautiful.
Kurtz disconnected and dialed Arlene's number.
"Joe," she said, "where are you? The most amazing thing happened at the office today…"
"You all r-r-right?" managed Kurtz.
"Yes, but—"
"Then shut up and listen. M-m-meet me in Warsaw, the Texaco at the intersection, as soon as you can."
"Warsaw? The little town on Alternate Route Twenty? Why—"
"Bring a blanket, a first-aid kit, and a sewing kit. And hurry." Kurtz disconnected.
It took a minute of pawing around the corpse to find the handcuff and manacle keys and the car keys. Even the goddamned, perforated, bloody goosedown vest was too small for Kurtz—he could barely pull it on and there was no chance of buttoning it—but he wore it as he dumped Levine, the Magnum, the phone, the backpack, the Taser, and his own Beretta—back in its blue-steel hardcase—back into Sammy's shallow grave and began the cold job of filling in the frozen dirt.
He kept the miner's lamp to see by.
CHAPTER 45
Arlene pulled into the closed and empty Texaco station forty minutes after she'd gotten the phone call. Warsaw was literally a crossroads community, and it was dark this night. Arlene had expected to see Joe's Volvo, but there was only a large, dark Lincoln Town Car parked in the side lot of the Texaco.
Joe Kurtz got out of the Lincoln carrying a dashboard cigarette lighter, fooled around by the big car's gas tank for a few seconds, and began walking toward her in the beams of her Buick's headlights. He was naked, bloody, limping, and smeared with mud. The right side of his scalp hung down in a bloody flap, and one eye was swollen and crusted shut.
Arlene started to get out of the Buick, but at that second the Lincoln Town Car exploded behind Kurtz and began burning wildly. Kurtz did not look back.
He opened the passenger-side door and said, "Blanket."
"What?" said Arlene, staring. He looked even worse with the overhead light of the Buick on him.
Kurtz gestured at the passenger seat. "Spread the blanket. Don't want to get blood on everything."
She unfolded the red plaid blanket she'd grabbed from her window seat, and Kurtz collapsed onto the seat. "Drive," he said. He turned the car's heater on high.
They were a mile or so outside of Warsaw, the burning car still an orange glow in the mirror, when Arlene said, "We've got to get you to a hospital."
Kurtz shook his head. The bloody flap of skin and hair on the side of his head bobbled. "It looks worse than it is. We'll sew it up when we get back to your place."
"We'll sew it up?"
"All right," said Kurtz and actually grinned at her through the streaks of blood and mud. "You'll sew it up, and I'll drink some of Alan's whiskey."
Arlene drove for a moment in silence. "So we're going to my place?" she said, knowing that Joe would never tell her what had happened this night.
"No," he said. "First we go up to Lockport. My car's there and—I hope—my clothes and a certain leather bag."
"Lockport," Arlene repeated, glancing at him. He was a mess, but seemed calm.
Kurtz nodded, pulled the red plaid blanket around his shoulders, and held the flap of scalp in place with one hand while he turned the car radio on with his other hand. He tuned it to an all-night blues station. "So all right," he said when he had Muddy Waters playing, "tell me about this amazing thing that happened at the office today."
Arlene glanced at him again. "It doesn't seem that important right now, Joe."
"Tell me anyway," said Kurtz. "We've got a long drive ahead of us."
Arlene shook her head, but then began telling him about her afternoon as they drove west toward Buffalo, the blues playing hard and sad on
the radio and the snow falling softly in their headlight beams.
About the Author
Since his first published short story won the Rod Serling Memorial Award in the 1982 Twilight Zone Magazine Short Fiction contest, DAN SIMMONS has won some of the top awards for the science fiction, horror, fantasy, and thriller genres, as well as honors for his mainstream fiction. He lives along the Front Range of Colorado, where he is currently at work on a new Joe Kurtz novel.
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