by John Lutz
His body gave a slight jerk. He said, “What the shit? . . .” and began convulsing against Carver. The rifle barrel slid off to the side like an errant compass needle.
Carver was aware there’d been a shot. He turned and looked into Junior’s glazing eyes, feeling something warm and wet against his back. He knew it was blood; he could smell the coppery stench of it.
B.J. said, “What the hell’s goin’ on?” He moved out from the tangle of cypress roots. Carver saw that the big alligator had been frozen by the sound of the shot.
B.J. caught sight of Junior, who’d slumped to an awkward lean. He stared at him in disbelief, then at Carver. “You motherfucker!” he screamed, and bared his teeth like the alligator. Apparently he thought Carver had somehow wrested the rifle from Junior and shot him. He leveled the Uzi at Carver.
Carver yelled, “ ’Gator! ’Gator!”
B.J. only half believed him, but had to chance a backward look.
Another shot sounded from the blackness of the swamp.
B.J. spun around, then staggered out into the clearing.
There was a third shot, like a dull handclap muffled by the thick night, Carver saw B.J.’s head jerk to the side and back, as if he were trying to flip his hair out of his eyes. The Uzi discharged half a dozen chattering rounds into the ground.
Carver had grabbed the rifle and eased himself out from in front of Junior’s inert bulk. Junior, propped upright in the tangle of thick roots, seemed to be watching him, drooling in the shadowed, yellow light.
Carver trained the rifle on B.J., but the lanky swamp man had survived his brother by only a few seconds. He lay on his back with his arms flung wide and his legs splayed out, as if he’d dropped lifeless from high up.
The staccato bark of the Uzi must have scared the alligators back into the swamp. The clearing was empty except for Beth, who was staring numbly at Carver, not comprehending. The whites of her eyes showed all the way around her dark pupils. There was a horror in those eyes that tore at his heart.
He rushed to her and dug his fingernails into the damp rope that was looped and knotted tightly around her wrists. He managed to loosen a knot. Another.
“Listen!” he was saying to her. “Listen. We gotta get outa here! Can you understand me?”
He thought she nodded, but he couldn’t be sure. He kept working on the knots with painful, stiffening fingers.
Didn’t hear anyone approach.
“I’ll take over, Carver,” someone said.
He knew the voice.
Roberto Gomez.
Carver gripped his cane and turned, staring up at Gomez and Hirsh. Gomez was wearing khaki pants, a black or green pullover shirt, and rubber boots that laced tight around his tucked-in pants legs. Hirsh had on his dark, vested suit, and what looked like a pair of hip boots. The golden arc of his watch chain gleamed across his stomach paunch. Gomez was holding an Uzi like the one on the ground beside B.J.’s body. Hirsh was gripping a long dark revolver.
Hirsh said, “Toss the rifle out into the clearing and move away, Carver.”
Carver hadn’t realized the rifle he’d taken from Junior’s dead hands was lying next to his extended bad leg. He picked it up by the stock and slung it over near B.J.’s corpse. Then he stood up slowly and limped across the soggy ground toward Gomez and Hirsh.
Hirsh said, “Far enough.”
Carver stopped and stood still, centering his weight on the cane.
Gomez walked over and stood near Beth, who’d loosened the rope enough to slip her hands free. She sat rubbing her wrists, not looking up at Gomez.
He bent down and grabbed a handful of her hair, then yanked her head back so she had to look at him. After muttering something to her in Spanish, he spat in her face.
She bowed her head again and sat quietly, trembling.
Gomez bent down and picked up the loose end of the rope, He looked over at Hirsh and said, “This alligator idea couldn’t be improved upon, eh?”
Hirsh said, “Doubt it. But what about the construction site?”
Gomez said to Carver, “He means a place where the highway department’s gonna pour concrete tomorrow for a new section of road. Gonna be your grave, Carver, yours and Beth’s. You two are gonna have a long, flat tombstone with a yellow line on it.”
Hirsh said, “I don’t think he cares for that idea, Mr. Gomez.”
“Does it fucking matter?”
Hirsh looked over at Carver with his sad eyes. “Nope, don’t matter a gnat’s ass.”
“We can do them here,” Gomez said, “then stuff ’em in the trunk and drive ’em to the construction site. We got plastic in the trunk, don’t we?”
“Always,” Hirsh said.
“Then the ’gator gets a snack and we’ll bury the leftovers.” Gomez smiled at Carver. “What about it, my man? You think of a better way for a bitch like this to leave life?”
“If you can’t think of one,” Carver said, “why’d you stop it from happening? Why didn’t you sit back and watch?”
Gomez narrowed his eyes at Carver and looked confused. He glanced at B.J., then turned to face Carver. “Hold on. You didn’t shoot these swamp turkeys?”
Hirsh said, “Jesus!”
The big ’gator was back, at the edge of the clearing, standing amazingly tall on its long legs so it could see above the saw grass, baring its sharp teeth. It hissed. It didn’t like to have its meal interrupted.
Hirsh couldn’t help staring at the alligator. His mouth was hanging open as if he were imitating it.
Carver brought his cane down hard across Hirsch’s wrist. The revolver dropped to the ground. Hirsh instinctively grabbed at the probably broken wrist and Carver crossed the cane over his neck. Heard and felt cartilage give.
Hirsh was down on his back, clutching his crushed larynx and thrashing his legs, gasping and choking and dying.
Beth screamed, “Carver!”
Carver saw Gomez swinging the barrel of the Uzi in his direction. He dived for Hirsh’s revolver but couldn’t find it. Hirsh must have fallen on it. Gomez was advancing on him now, the Uzi leveled, his eyes darting back and forth between the gagging and thrashing Hirsh, and Carver.
The huge ’gator hissed again. Gomez whipped his head around in the direction of the sound.
Carver had his chance. He flung his cane at Gomez and prepared to rush at him. The cane whispered as it cut the air.
Gomez must have sensed something. Or maybe heard the cane pinwheeling toward him.
He ducked.
The cane merely brushed his shoulder and dropped behind him.
He smiled at Carver. “Time for you to join the fucking swamp turkeys, my man.”
Both of them heard the shot and paused. Glanced around.
Then Gomez realized he’d been hit. He grabbed at his chest. Tried to raise the Uzi but dropped it. He said, “Goddammit!” and sat down hard, then fell back and lay still.
Beth was standing up, holding on to the tree with both hands for balance. Staring beyond Carver.
Carver turned to see what she was looking at.
There was a rhythmic splashing sound.
Someone walking.
McGregor emerged from the swamp, cradling a hunting rifle and grinning.
The big alligator saw him and slithered on its lizard legs back into the blackness of nightmares. Surrendering the moonlit clearing to a more ferocious predator.
32
MCGREGOR COVERED GROUND in long, loose strides to within ten feet of Roberto Gomez. He carefully aimed the rifle. This time the shot was deafening. Gomez’s body jerked as the bullet slammed into it. Things stirred in the dark swamp, alarmed by the shot, then were quiet. Gomez’s outflung right arm twitched, but it had to be nerve reaction in an organism shutting itself down. He’d probably been dead when McGregor shot him the second time.
Carver looked at Beth, who was staring at McGregor almost the way she’d looked at the big alligator. McGregor glanced over at her. He was still grinning.
She nodded stupidly, almost as if it were a social introduction to someone who awed and frightened her. McGregor affected some people that way. So did spiders.
His grin became a leer as his eyes traveled up and down Beth’s nude form. He said, “So that’s what it was all about, huh? Root of all evil, after money.”
Carver lurched to where his cane lay, picked it up, and hobbled over to where Beth was leaning against the tree. He put his arm around her. Hugged her to him. Her body was rigid, unyielding. Then her breath trailed out of her and she sagged against him.
But only for a few seconds. Then her body shifted and she was standing tall on her own. She was unashamed of her nakedness, seemingly unaware of it, a dark Eve in a darker Eden. She glared at McGregor as if he were the serpent.
He said, “You oughta thank me for saving your life, dumb cunt.”
Carver said, “He shot the Brainard brothers. Roberto and Hirsh assumed I had. I assumed they’d done it.”
“Me all along,” McGregor said proudly. He pointed with the rifle at Hirsh’s now motionless form. “That asshole dead?”
“He’s dead,” Carver said. He remembered the sound of crushed cartilage and Hirsh’s gasping for air that couldn’t reach his lungs. He didn’t want to look at Hirsh’s face.
McGregor glanced again at Hirsh, then at Carver. “You know some tricks, for a gimpy ex-cop with a lotta delusions.”
Carver’s mind kept chewing on something. “How’d you come to be here?” he asked. “How’d you find us?”
McGregor said, “How’d I find you? Shit! I knew where you were the day you left. Followed you to the Beame house and had the phone tapped. First time Elizabeth here called Melanie about her son, I was listening. Traced the call to this godforsaken place. I been staying at your motel, fuckhead. Watching the two of you.”
Carver realized what McGregor had done. What it meant. Anger and bile rose bitterly in his throat. “Jesus! You’ve been waiting here in Dark Glades for Gomez to show.”
“That’s right,” McGregor said, obviously pleased with himself. “You sure as fuck do have detecting skills. But then you know what they say about how even a blind pig’ll find an acorn now and then. When you two ran and left the kid behind, you gave me a way to get Gomez to come to me, assface. All I had to do was drop a word and then stay close to you and the bitch here.”
“Bait,” Carver said. “You found out where we were, then you made sure Gomez found out, too. Then you came here and waited for him to show up and try to kill us.”
“Bait?” McGregor said. “Yeah, I guess that’s right. But don’t forget, those two swamp creeps woulda done the both of you in if I hadn’t come along. Not to mention your Gomez-and-Hirsh dilemma. Hell, I saved your asses twice over, and you’re griping at me ’cause I used you for minnows that’d attract the big fish. Some gratitude.” He leered again at Beth. The pink tip of his tongue peeked lewdly out from the wide gap between his front teeth.
“That’s not exactly proper police procedure, is it?” Carver said. “Police aren’t supposed to use citizens as bait, then mow down the bad guys from ambush without giving them a chance to surrender. You could lose your badge for that.”
“Nobody’ll know about two of the bad guys,” McGregor said, still sneaking peeks at Beth. “That’ll make my version and the odds seem plausible enough.”
Carver peeled off his shirt and gave it to Beth. She slipped it on. It covered her nudity well enough, came halfway to her knees. She gripped the bottom of the shirt and stretched it to conceal even more of her. McGregor looked disappointed.
He said, “I was gonna bury these two bad-ass brothers in the swamp, but maybe that’s not such a good idea. If anybody does look for them, the search’ll be concentrated in this area. I think we’ll take a cue from Gomez and drive them to the highway construction site. I know just where it is. Passed it on the way here.”
“What about Gomez and Hirsh?” Carver asked, wondering how McGregor was going to twist what had happened to his advantage. Twist it so it might propel him all the way to the office of mayor of Del Moray, and maybe beyond. Public service, ethics, or compassion would play no part in it. Politics and McGregor were compatible because he thought big and acted small.
“We leave Gomez and Hirsh where they are,” McGregor said. “The three of us drive the dead brothers to the construction site and bury them. Throw some dirt over them where concrete’ll be poured tomorrow. We can use that camouflaged truck of theirs to transport them. Then we drive back here and pick up my car. Park the truck by the cabin. Whole thing shouldn’t take more’n a couple hours. When we’re done, I drive you back to the motel and phone the local law and the DEA. Report that I followed Gomez and Hirsh all the way here from Del Moray and into the swamp because I had a tip about a drug pickup. They realized I was there and we fought. Gomez tried to blast me, but I shot more accurately.”
“Not to mention first,” Carver said, “and from cover of darkness.”
McGregor shrugged. “It’ll be assumed the swamp brothers were involved in the drug deal and disappeared. What I heard about them, nobody’ll much give a fuck what happened to them.”
“What if the alligators come back and drag away Gomez and Hirsh? Make a meal of them?”
“There’s always leftovers,” McGregor said. “Have faith in Forensics.”
“And you’ll be a hero,” Carver said. He had to admire McGregor’s audacity, but there was an obstacle. Two obstacles, “What makes you think your secret’ll be safe with us?”
McGregor’s lascivious grin crawled back onto his face. “Remember, Carver, you haven’t behaved very ethically in this. You got your livelihood to protect. As for the cunt, here, I’ll see to it she can testify in a secret, closed hearing. The law’s gonna make her spill her guts anyway, but this way there’ll be no publicity, and Gomez’s drug buddies won’t know about it and track her down and kill her.”
“You really think you can swing that kinda deal for her?”
“Know I can. She’s got knowledge to trade, and I’ll be the fucking man of the hour.” The moon glowed in his pale, sly eyes. “Only smart thing for her to do.”
“Maybe,” Carver said. A mosquito lit on the back of his hand. He flicked it away, but not before it drew blood.
“Then there’s the matter of the cocaine,” McGregor said.
“Cocaine?”
“The cocaine I brought along so if you two don’t cooperate I can say I got it outa your motel room. Gomez’s wife corrupted you, is the way the story’ll go. Promised you some of the big drug money if you’d help her. The two of you, here near the scene of a major drug deal, a possession charge won’t be easy for you to fight.”
Carver looked at Beth, who was staring at McGregor with loathing and disbelief.
“He’s right,” Carver told her. “And he’d do what he’s threatening. I know him. He would.”
Beth said, “He’s worse than the people Roberto knows. Knew.”
McGregor’s grin widened as if he’d been complimented. He said, “Okay, let’s get busy. We’ll get the plastic sheets Gomez mentioned outa the trunk of the limo. It’s parked up near the Brainards’ shack. We’ll roll the brothers in plastic, then we’ll toss some dirt over them at the construction site. By tomorrow afternoon, they’ll be safe under two feet of concrete highway, where they always wanted to be—in the fast lane.”
McGregor reached into Hirsh’s hip pocket and pulled out the key to the limo. Beth retrieved her shoes, and she and Carver followed McGregor to the shack.
The limo hadn’t been able to make it all the way over the rutted road. It was parked about a hundred yards from the shack. They got the folded plastic sheets from its cavernous trunk, even a couple of shiny new shovels; Gomez and Hirsh had come prepared for everything but their own deaths.
Already perspiring heavily in the hot night, they walked back to the clearing and stood over B.J. Brainard’s body. Carver said
, “He’ll be no trouble, but Junior won’t be easy to drag back to the Blazer.”
“The three of us can manage,” McGregor said. “It’ll get done. Before morning these two’ll be underground, I’ll be back here with a shitpot full of DEA and local law, and you two’ll be back in your room at the motel. I can goddam well make this work. You don’t believe me, assface, just watch and see.”
Carver said, “Somehow I believe you.”
“Then unfold those plastic drop cloths or whatever the fuck they are. Pick up the guns and wrap them in with the bodies.” He turned to Beth. “You carry my rifle. Leave Gomez’s and Hirsh’s weapons where they are. Got it?”
Beth said she did. She stared down at her dead husband. Her features were impassive. It was impossible to guess what she was thinking. What she was reliving.
McGregor said, “Remember he was gonna feed you to the alligators.”
Beth surprised Carver. She nudged Gomez’s corpse with the toe of her shoe and said, “I remember. And further back than tonight. Good riddance, Roberto.”
McGregor looked at her with a flicker of approval.
Carver and McGregor got the bodies wrapped. Carver retrieved his Colt from where it was stuck in Junior’s belt and shoved it down his waistband at the small of his back. Then he picked up the Uzi the Brainards had confiscated from Beth, and a rifle, and wound them in plastic along with B.J.’s body.
B.J. wasn’t much of a problem. McGregor slung his plastic-clad corpse across his shoulders and carried him fireman-fashion to the truck while Carver and Beth trudged along behind.
McGregor found an old wheelbarrow in a toolshed near the shack, and they used it to transport Junior. Even then, they spent most of their time carrying him over soft mud, and Beth had to help several times when the wheelbarrow’s narrow wheel sank into the ooze.
They loaded the bodies in the cargo area of the Blazer. Carver sat in back with them and watched while McGregor opened the trunk of the blue Plymouth that had been parked at the motel. Beth dropped the rifle into the dark trunk, and McGregor hurriedly slammed down the lid and made sure the trunk was locked.