Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  The illusion was ruined as Hubert Askew lumbered into view around the corner of the house. Hubert wore baggy jeans that were muddy at the knees and a T-shirt that didn’t quite cover his boulder of a belly. He was red in the face, which made the cheek nipple even more noticeable. I nimbly looked away.

  “Dogs are put up, boss,” he puffed.

  “Thanks, Hubert. How did you make ‘em stop that barking?”

  “I told them to stop. Then I stared ‘em down ‘til they did.”

  Rydell cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “Hubert’s a man of many talents,” I said.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Hubert said.

  Ignoring that, Rydell said, “Where’s Wayne?”

  “He went in through the kitchen. He’s still trying to calm Melanie down.”

  “Aw, hell, he can give up on that,” Rydell said. “Go tell him I said to keep his distance before she hurts him.”

  “Okay.”

  As he slumped up the steps into the house, Hubert paused to shoot me a final glare. I smiled sweetly.

  Once the behemoth was indoors, Rydell said, “I know it’s tempting to tweak somebody like Hubert, but I wouldn’t do it, if I were you. You’re working for me – temporarily – but that don’t make you immune. He’s quick for a big man. Piss him off, and he’ll hurt you before I can stop him.”

  I thought about that for a second, then said, “Can I tweak Wayne instead?”

  “That goes double for Wayne. He’s got a hair trigger. I once saw him shoot a man for spitting.”

  “Spitting?”

  “Hit Wayne’s special shoe. He thought the man was making fun of him.”

  “So he shot him. Did the guy live?”

  “Hell, no. Wayne don’t miss.”

  “What happened then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did Wayne get arrested or what?”

  Rydell grinned. He opened the grill, letting a cloud of aromatic smoke escape, and stabbed at the slab of beef with his big fork, testing it.

  “That’s gonna be ready before long.”

  I should’ve let it go, but I was still stuck on the man Wayne killed. As Rydell closed the lid against the smoke, I said, “So Wayne and Hubert go around, making messes, killing people, and you hush things up behind them.”

  “Hard to get good help anymore,” he said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. A shadow moved inside the screened porch.

  “What if they heard you say that?”

  “What if they did? I’ll say any goddamned thing I want. It’s my property.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No buts about it. I’m the big dog around here. Hubert and Wayne understand that. Either of ‘em ever lifts a hand against me or mine, I’ll disappear ‘em so fast and so thoroughly, people will forget they ever existed.”

  The screen door opened and Melanie emerged, bringing a tray of drinks down the front steps. She had a big purple shiner, her left eye swollen nearly shut, and her mouth was a sullen slit. She set the tray on a wooden picnic table, then went back inside without a word.

  I raised my eyebrows at Rydell.

  “Melanie’s got a tendency to be mouthy,” he said. “I’ve noticed the same tendency in you.”

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  Rydell laughed and said, “Relax, Eric. Everything will be fine, as long as you remember who the big dog is. Why don’t you pour us a drink?”

  I went over to the table. The tray held glasses and one familiar unmarked bottle.

  “Not Mister Baby,” I groaned.

  “If you’re gonna sit down to dinner with me and Melanie and the boys, you’ll want to get a buzz on first.”

  That made sense. I poured two shots and carried them over to Rydell.

  “Careful, hoss. You don’t want to slosh tequila on that fire. We might all go up in flames.”

  We clinked glasses.

  “To new friendships,” he said with a smirk.

  Mister Baby burned all the way down.

  Chapter 32

  The next morning, I woke to a buzzing in my pants. My phone. I wrestled around until I could get my hand in my pocket, pulled out the phone, opened it up and said, “Hello?” Naturally it was too late.

  I looked blearily at the readout. “Cody.” But if Cody was calling, whose lumpy couch was this? I tried to sit up, which was a mistake of immense and immediate proportions. Pain pierced my head. I grabbed my temples and fell back onto the sofa.

  I lay like that for a while, hands squeezing my head, holding in what little brain matter I had left. Mister Baby seeped out of my pores.

  Finally, I opened my eyes and looked up into the red snarl of a bristly wild boar with curved tusks. The trophy hung on the paneled wall above my head. It looked familiar, somehow, even from this angle.

  Then I remembered where I was. I’d passed out the night before at the home of Rydell Vance.

  The dinner came flooding back. Swatting mosquitoes around the picnic table with Rydell, Melanie, Hubert and Wayne. The boys had already made it clear how they felt about my presence, but Melanie seemed pissed at me, too, for reasons I never could fathom. Guilt by association, perhaps.

  Rydell had been the only one in a good mood. He told hunting stories and joked with surly Melanie and kidded his silent men. Mostly, he addressed his remarks to me, which didn’t endear me to anyone else around the table.

  The only point of agreement: We all enjoyed the tri-tip.

  I’d poured down Señor Infante’s special elixir to settle my nerves. Last thing I remembered, I was lying on this sofa under the wild boar, watching Rydell smoke cigarettes while the room slowly spun.

  Now, sunlight sliced across the ceiling. Hurt my eyes to look at it.

  “He’s moving.”

  I swiveled my head and found Hubert and Wayne sitting in armchairs across the room. They watched me so intently, I might’ve been a television.

  “You awake?” Wayne shouted. “It’s about damned time.”

  I closed my eyes. “Please. I’ve got a bad hangover.”

  “Hear that, Hubert?” Louder. “He’s got a bad hangover.”

  “We tried to warn him,” Hubert thundered. “But he had to drink that Mister Baby.”

  “We tried to tell him!”

  “Please,” I moaned. “Don’t torture me with noise. Just shoot me and get it over with.”

  “All right,” Wayne said. “Happy to oblige.”

  He sounded so matter-of-fact, I opened one eye to make sure he wasn’t limping over to put a bullet in my head.

  “Leave him alone, boys,” Rydell said as he carried a cup of coffee into the room. “He’s feeling poorly.”

  “Hear that, Hubert? He’s feeling poorly!”

  “Knock if off, Wayne.”

  I pointed at the coffee cup. “Is that for me?”

  “Hell, no,” Rydell said. “This is mine. You can go get your own.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But I can’t seem to actually move at the moment.”

  “Aw, you’ll be all right. Give it a few minutes. Mister Baby will turn you loose.”

  Rydell sat with the other two, and they talked business, speaking in a telegraphic code about debts and delays and deliveries, mentioning few names in case I was listening. None of it made sense to me. I was too busy wrestling Mister Baby to the ground.

  I’d drifted into a restless sleep when Rydell shouted, “Melanie!”

  Her angry footfalls were sharp against the hardwood floor.

  “Bring Eric some coffee,” Rydell said. “He’s having a little trouble getting started.”

  “Why can’t he get his own damned coffee?” Her voice was a high-pitched saw against my forehead. “I’m not a waitress.”

  “You’re whatever the hell I say you are. Right now, you’re the one who fetches coffee.”

  She stomped away. Nobody said anything while she was gone. I managed to sit up and take hold of the coffee cup before she could pitch it a
t me. I burned my lips on a sip of it.

  “Thank you, darling.” Rydell had an edge in his voice. “Now you’d better hurry along. You’ll be late for church.”

  Her fingers went automatically to the shiner. She’d tried to cover it with makeup, but the damage was unmistakable. The bruise clashed with her frilly pink dress.

  Rydell turned to me. “Melanie sings in the choir. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Sure,” I croaked. “Is that the choir where the preacher screwed the fifteen-year-old?”

  Melanie shot me a look. “Nobody’s proved anything, mister. I’d keep my trap shut, if I were you.”

  Rydell cocked his head to the side. “You’ve really got a way with people, Eric.”

  “He’s a smartass,” she said. “What do you know about my church?”

  “Lucky guess,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Melanie stomped out of the room.

  I said to Rydell, “I’m not keeping you from church, am I?”

  “Drink your coffee, smartass.”

  After we heard Melanie drive away, I scooted to the edge of the sofa, as if to stand. The odds were long.

  “I should go, too. My friend Cody’s been calling my cell. I was supposed to spend the night at his place.”

  “Stick around. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  I sipped more coffee while Rydell mumbled into his cell phone. A minute later, a car roared up the driveway.

  Rydell and the boys stood to greet the newcomer. I struggled to my feet and smoothed my rumpled clothes.

  High heels cracked like gunshots across the wooden porch. The door opened and Vanessa Davies stepped inside. She wore Cleopatra eye shadow and a sleek green sleeveless dress and a bright scarf around her burnished hair. She looked like the Goddess of Summer.

  We stood still as statues, gawking at her. Wayne and Hubert had their mouths hanging open. Rydell looked like a hungry wolf.

  “Whew,” she said. “What a rough-looking bunch.”

  “Welcome to the village of the damned,” Rydell said.

  She brushed her lips across his cheek, then said, “Beats going to church.”

  Chapter 33

  Vanessa moved gracefully to the circle of armchairs, sat and crossed her long legs. Completely demure, but still quite a show. We idiots stood around slack-jawed until Rydell cleared his throat and sat in the chair next to her.

  Wayne and I jockeyed for the chair directly across from her, but I had thirty pounds on him and hip-checked him out of the way. He grumbled as he settled into the next one. Hubert took the chair nearest the fireplace, and it groaned under his bulk.

  “You look pretty as a wildflower today,” Rydell said. “Don’t she look nice, boys?”

  Hubert and Wayne gulped and nodded and blushed, and I did it right along with them.

  “My Sunday clothes,” Vanessa said. “Still sneaking off from church to see you, after all these years.”

  Rydell smoothed his mustache with the side of his thumb.

  “When she was a high school girl, Vanessa was always climbing out windows to come see me.”

  He was addressing me, and I tore my eyes away from Vanessa’s legs long enough to say, “High school, huh?”

  “That’s where we met,” she said. “At a Shasta High football game. I was a cheerleader.”

  “I bet you were,” I said.

  “And I was fifteen years older,” Rydell said. “The bad boy with the hot car. The one who hung out in the parking lot after games, waiting for Vanessa to sneak away. We’d drive up to the bluffs and get drunk and howl at the moon.”

  I pictured a car parked high above the river. I could see the two of them in the back seat, a decade younger, naked and sweaty and twisted together, the windows steamed up—

  “Eric?”

  I snapped out of it. Rydell was staring at me.

  “You all right?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “You kinda spaced out there. You might want to lay off the sauce, at least until this job is over. It’s giving you blackouts.”

  I muttered something accusatory about Mister Baby and hid behind my coffee cup.

  “As I was saying,” Rydell said. “We used to go on hayrides together. Or, get together with our buddies and build a bonfire in the woods and drink beer all night.”

  He looked wistful for a second, then shook it off and said, “Good times. But Vanessa finished growing up, into the fine slice of womanhood you see before you today, and pretty soon she caught the attention of Lester Davies.”

  “I was working at that steakhouse on Hilltop Drive,” she said. “As a hostess. Lester started dropping by every night, just to flirt with me. I knew he was a billion dollars on the hoof. When he asked me out, I said yes. Our first date, he flew us down to San Francisco for dinner on the waterfront. Our second date, we went to Honolulu for three days.”

  “You’ll like this,” Rydell said to me. “She didn’t know where they were going. Lester told her, ‘I’ll pick you up at seven. Pack your bikini.’”

  “Smooth.”

  “You got all the money in the world,” he said, “you can afford to make large gestures.”

  “Next thing I knew,” Vanessa said, “I’m living in his mansion on the river, fetching Lester’s arthritis medication, bored out of my skull.”

  Rydell smiled. “So she started sneaking off again.”

  She reached over and gave him a lazy slap on the shoulder. Both of them grinning, their magnetism charging the air.

  “Anyway,” he said, “she’s about to be a free woman again, soon as we pull this job.”

  “I’ll stash my share and wait it out for a while,” she said, “so it won’t look suspicious, but then I’m divorcing the old goat. How soon can we get started?”

  “I was thinking tomorrow evening, when it’s quiet,” Rydell said. “Lester got plans for Monday night?”

  Vanessa cut her big eyes to the side, thinking. “Not that I know of. Probably a quiet night at home. Most of them are.”

  “Perfect. I want you out of the house when the boys stop by and pick up Lester. They can throw a bag over him when he answers the doorbell.”

  “You won’t hurt him?” She glanced at Hubert’s lumpy mass.

  “No need for that,” Rydell said. “It’ll happen so quick, Lester won’t have a chance to put up a fuss.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Where am I while this is going on?”

  “I thought you could have dinner at the country club with Eric.”

  She looked over at me and smiled. My heart skipped a beat.

  “You two can make a point of being seen together,” Rydell said. “Then Eric goes with you to the house, where you’ll discover that Lester’s missing and you’ll find the ransom note. Eric will be your witness when you tell the family about it all. And he’ll have an alibi, too.”

  “Why does Eric need an alibi?” First time I heard her say my name.

  “If the cops do get involved, we don’t want them looking too hard at him,” Rydell said. “We’re going to keep Lester at Eric’s house.”

  “In the garage,” I said.

  “Right. Lester’ll be fine there for a couple of days, while you get the money together. Shouldn’t take long. I figure Lester’s got a million in cash stashed around town. More than that, and it gets complicated.”

  “And the family’s more likely to balk. Especially Ted.” She looked at me. “Lester’s son is a straight arrow and cheap as all hell. He’ll want to go to the police.”

  Before I could reply, Rydell said, “Just keep telling him you insist on doing whatever’s necessary to get Lester back safe. He can’t argue with that. Get the money together on Tuesday. We’ll make the swap on Wednesday. By Wednesday night, Lester will be back home and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

  I looked around the room. Rydell, Vanessa, Hubert and Wayne all stared at me, like they expected something.

  I said, “Sounds like a plan.”

  Lame.
>
  Chapter 34

  When Vanessa stood to leave, I decided to go, too. I felt less shaky, if no less achy and rumpled, and I needed to get over to Cody’s for some recuperative reefer.

  From his chair, Rydell said, “I’ll call you later.”

  “I’ll be standing by.”

  After the screen door whapped shut behind me, I looked back to make sure Rydell hadn’t come outside. Then I followed Vanessa to the wine-colored Jaguar.

  As she got behind the wheel, I said, “Hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I saw you yesterday. At the country club?”

  “Was that you? Following me in a truck plastered with signs for Honeydew Construction?”

  “Sorry about that. I was just curious.”

  “Curious about what?”

  “You.” I gestured back over my shoulder with my thumb. “This. You’re not worried something will go wrong?”

  “Of course I am, Eric. I’m trusting that you’ll look after things. Rydell says you’re smart.”

  “Everybody overestimates me. Anyway, I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. About me following you and all.”

  She smiled as she slipped sleek black sunglasses onto her face.

  “Sugar, men follow me around all the time. I’m used to it. Most of them can’t help themselves.”

  “You don’t mind that? Men looking at you?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She twisted the key and the Jaguar purred to life. She backed up, swinging the car around, then barreled out the dusty driveway.

  I limped to my pickup, digging out my keys. If I could just get to Cody’s and catch a buzz before my head exploded—

  Wayne Cherry stepped out from behind my truck. He stood with his hands on his hips, the black revolver jutting from the waistband of his jeans. Pompadour on his head, brace on his leg and the usual chip on his shoulder.

  “I thought you were leaving,” he said.

  “I am.”

  “Not fast enough to suit me.”

  “Then get out of my way and I’ll go faster.”