by Ben Rehder
Scattered blood made the footing tricky. I found a dry spot on Hubert’s shirt and hauled backward with all my might. Hardly budged the giant, but Rydell was able to squirm out. As soon as he was clear, I let go of the dead man.
Rydell’s denim shirt was soaked with blood, but none of it seemed to be his own. He had a large red lump above one eye and still struggled to catch his breath, but he seemed otherwise unharmed, lying there propped up on his elbows.
“Fuck me,” he said. “That was like having a truck fall on me.”
He sat up next to Hubert’s deflated body, and used his free hand to wipe sweat and blood off his face.
I was on the other side of Hubert, looking down at them, so I didn’t know Wayne had clambered to his feet behind me until, without warning, Rydell raised his pistol and fired.
The bullet knocked Wayne’s good leg out from under him. He fell to the floor, howling.
“Son of a bitch,” Rydell said as he got to his feet. “Trying to steal from me.”
Wayne clutched at his bloody knee. His greasy black hair was askew and his clothes were covered with dust and blood. We watched him writhe in agony.
My ears rang and I felt woozy from all the blood and splattered brain matter. The scents of gunsmoke and urine. The rush of adrenaline and the surge of fear.
Wayne’s eyes were squinched up tight, but he must’ve peeked because they went wide when Rydell aimed the pistol at his head.
“Where’s my money?”
“Under the bed.” Wayne’s voice was a sob. “We didn’t have time to hide it—”
“Get it, Eric,” Rydell said.
I crouched next to the nearest bed. The black suitcase lay flat underneath. I grabbed the handle and dragged it out.
“Make sure the money’s in there.”
“It’s all there,” Wayne said. “I swear.”
I unzipped the suitcase and peeled back the flap. Ben Franklin coyly smiled up at me from bundles of greenbacks.
“Holy shit.”
I glanced at Rydell. He still had his pistol pointed at Wayne, but he was grinning at me.
I zipped up the case.
Rydell said, “I’ll hold onto that.”
He took the suitcase in one hand, still aiming his pistol at Wayne with the other. Wayne quieted to hiccups. His bloodshot eyes followed Rydell’s every move.
“What about Wayne?” I asked.
“What about him?”
“We’re just going to leave him here like that?”
“Hell, no. You’re gonna kill him.”
I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak for a second.
“I’m not going to—”
Rydell pointed his silver gun at my face.
“Shoot him,” he said. “Right now. Or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
“But—”
He cocked back the hammer. The sound was like a thunderclap.
“Last chance, Eric. Do as you’re told, or I’ll leave your body here with the others. Don’t matter to me.”
I still had the snubnose revolver in my hand, and I pointed it at Wayne. I didn’t make a conscious decision to shoot him. My hand seemed to operate on its own. My thumb cocked back the hammer without any orders from me.
I hesitated. Was there another way? Could I wheel and fire on Rydell? Was there any chance I could shoot him before he gunned me down?
Wayne raised his head off the floor and looked up at me. His face was covered with tears and dust.
My hand shook. Wayne saw it and a pained smirk crept onto his face. He said, “You don’t have the fuckin’ guts—”
The gun jumped in my hand. The bullet made a neat hole in Wayne’s forehead, just above his left eyebrow. His head thumped against the wooden floor.
“My God.” I was shaking all over. “My God.”
Rydell set the suitcase down and took a step toward me, his gun still aimed at my head.
“Good job, hoss. Now give me that gun.”
I looked at the pistol in my hand and, for a second, I couldn’t remember where it had come from or why I held it. Shock, I guess. I feebly handed it over.
Rydell took hold of my gun by the barrel. Keeping his six-shooter pointed my way, he went into the kitchen and pilfered through cabinets until he found a plastic bag. He slipped my gun into it, then crossed back to me and tucked the baggie inside the suitcase.
“I’m saving your fingerprints, Eric. You try to pull anything on me, and I’ll hand the cops the murder weapon. Be easy to prove that’s the gun that killed Wayne.”
Rydell hefted the suitcase and backed out the cabin’s front door.
“I’ll take the van,” he said. “You can follow in your truck. Meet me at your house.”
After he left, I stood in the center of the room, watching the blood pool around Wayne’s head. I didn’t have to obey Rydell. I could run. Or I could call the cops, and wait here until they arrived. Tell them about the kidnapping and the shootout at the cabin. But wouldn’t they arrest me, too? I was guilty. A murderer. And Rydell had the proof.
Now he was going to my home. What would he do when he got there? Somehow, I didn’t think he’d turn Lester loose.
I hurried out into the bright sunshine, and chased after Rydell Vance.
Chapter 53
I kept feeling the need to puke. Hubert’s scattered brains or that neat hole in Wayne’s forehead would flood my thoughts, and my stomach would contract, and I felt sure vomit would splatter my cracked windshield. Each time, I forced it down. Nausea was a luxury I couldn’t afford now.
Rydell stuck to the speed limit on the way back into Redding, and I was soon right behind him on I-5.
I followed him off the freeway at Lake Boulevard, and blew through a changing traffic signal so I could keep up. We reached Quartz Hill Road, and I stayed right on his ass as we climbed the ridge to where my house hid in the trees.
We drove up the driveway at the stately pace of a parade. I’m sure he was checking for traps, but there was no sign of life as we stopped in front of the house. I got out of my truck and hurried to cut off Rydell, who’d paused long enough to lock up the van with the money inside.
“Let’s go in this way,” I said, jangling my keys. “See what’s what.”
Rydell had stripped off his bloody shirt, exposing pale skin, a patch of black chest hair and two puckered scars on his flat stomach. The silver pistol was stuck in the waistband of his jeans. I wondered if he’d reloaded. He’d fired five shots at the cabin. Maybe he only had one left—
But it would only take one, wouldn’t it?
Wayne and Hubert had left on the air conditioning, and the house was positively arctic inside. The sweat on my body chilled instantly, made me feel coated in ice.
As we passed through the littered kitchen, Rydell muttered something about “fucking pigs.”
I opened the door to the garage, and we found Lester Davies, still in his boxers and T-shirt, tied to his kitchen chair. He still had the black pillowcase over his drooping head. Rydell snagged a corner of the pillowcase and pulled it off, exposing the old man’s mussed white hair and wax-figurine face. His neck bent at an odd angle.
“Aw, hell,” Rydell said.
“Jesus,” I said. “They killed him?”
“I imagine that’s Hubert’s handiwork. Old guy like that, it’s just like wringing a chicken’s neck.”
I felt shaky and sick all over again. Everything was spinning out of control. Lester wasn’t supposed to be dead. This wasn’t part of the plan. There was no reason—
“Where the hell did you go, Eric?”
“Huh?”
“You’re standing there like a goddamned idiot, staring off into space.”
“I feel strange—”
“Pull yourself together, boy. We’ve got work to do. We can’t leave him here.”
I looked at Lester’s trussed corpse. I didn’t want to get near it.
Rydell walked behind the body and leaned forward to study the ropes that bo
und the wrists. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the straight razor he’d used to threaten Cecil Lynch. The blade sliced through the ropes and he grabbed Lester’s shoulder to keep the body from toppling over.
“You got a tarp?”
“A tarp?” I echoed.
“To wrap him up in. A tarp or a blanket or something.”
“I’ll go find something.”
“Bring me a shirt while you’re at it.”
I staggered into the house while Rydell finished freeing Lester. I paused by the phone in the kitchen, thinking about 911 and cops and cries for help. But I pulled myself together and went to the linen closet in the hallway.
On the top shelf was a quilted blue bedspread that Darlene’s parents had given us as a housewarming gift. Long since retired from use, but no way would Darlene ever get rid of it. Too redolent of family.
I got an old, long-sleeved dress shirt from my closet, then carried it and the bedspread to the garage.
Rydell had tipped Lester out of the chair and laid him out on the concrete floor.
“How’s this?” I asked, thrusting the bedspread toward him.
“That’ll do. Spread it out beside him, and we’ll roll him up in it.”
While Rydell slipped into the striped shirt, I unfolded the bedspread, poofed it into the air, then let it float to the concrete beside Lester’s corpse. Rydell squatted next to the old man and rolled him onto the edge of the bedspread. Then we each took an end and rolled Lester over and over, until we had a long blue burrito.
Rydell used lengths of the yellow rope to tie off the ends of the bundle, then said, “Open the garage door. I’ll back the van up and we’ll put him inside.”
A look of horror must’ve crept across my features because Rydell said, “All you’ve got to do is help me lift him into the van. Pretend it’s not Lester. Pretend it’s a sack of meat.”
Somehow, that imagery didn’t help. But I managed to hold up my end. Within minutes, we had Lester loaded in the van. Rydell slammed the doors.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Follow me out to my house. I’ve got a place near there where we can get rid of this.”
I nodded, then just stood there, stunned and stupid.
“Eric? You okay to drive? You need to ride with me?”
The thought of sharing the van with Lester’s corpse made me shudder. I said, “No, no, I’m fine. I’m right behind you.”
Rydell climbed behind the wheel of the van and cranked the engine. I walked over to my pickup and got in and hit the remote button clipped to the sun visor. The garage door rattled to the ground.
Rydell paused at the paved road, watching me in his mirrors, waiting. I put my truck in gear and followed.
We were almost to the turnoff for his place when my phone buzzed. I flipped it open and said, “Hello?”
“How you doing back there?” Rydell’s voice. “Still with me?”
“I’m all right. But, listen, I don’t know about this—”
“Take it easy. Be over before you know it. Then we’ll have a big shot of Mister Baby and count out your money. How does that sound?”
“But what are we going to do about—”
“We’re coming to a little dirt road on the right in another mile or so. Follow me in there.”
“But—”
“It’ll be all right. I’ve done this before.”
We topped a rise, and Rydell’s taillight winked at me. I followed him onto a rutted track between blond pastures. Nothing around but barbed-wire fences and widely scattered oaks. The van bumped and rocked, moving slowly. I tried not to think about Lester’s body rolling around inside.
Up from the pastures rose a wall-like ridge that extended for miles. It was deeply notched by a narrow canyon filled with trees. The dirt road climbed into the canyon, winding past black boulders that jutted from the ground. Oak forest enveloped us. No way anybody could see us from the highway. Hell, they would’ve had trouble seeing us from the air.
Just when it seemed that we’d run out of road, I spotted ruins among the trees: A tumbledown shack, weathered gray timbers jutting up from the weeds, rusty sheets of corrugated tin hiding in the underbrush.
The van’s brake lights flared, and I pulled up beside it, bouncing into the tall, dry grass. I climbed out into the heat, and cautiously went around to Rydell’s side.
“You know what this is?” he asked, pointing his thumb at the ruins. “The Broke-Dick Mine. They used to pull gold out of there, decades ago.”
No surprise there. The hills around Redding were honeycombed with old mines. Every year, we lost a hiker or two to the hidden hazards.
I followed Rydell past the shack to a sheet of tin roofing half-buried by a thicket of thorny blackberries and snaky-looking weeds. We peeled back the rusty tin to reveal a six-foot-square hole cut into the hillside. Inside, I could see a dusty patch of steeply slanted floor and a couple of supporting timbers. Beyond that, nothing but darkness.
“This shaft angles down for half a mile or more,” Rydell said. “But it’s full of water. That’s why they shut down the mine. People have tried to reopen it a few times, but it always floods.”
He picked up a pebble and side-armed it into the darkness. After a second, we heard it skip and clatter, then a splash.
Rydell raised his eyebrows at me. “Be a good final resting place for Lester.”
I was in a daze as I followed him back to the van. Using the rope as a handle, I lifted my end of the blue bundle and we lugged it to the mine.
Lester might’ve been old and dried-up, but he was not a small man, and we were sweating by the time we dumped him beside the mine entrance. Rydell wiped his forehead with his sleeve and told me to wait there. I bent over with my hands on my knees, gasping, feeling sick.
I thought how easy it would be for Rydell to get rid of me. I’d helped him do the hard part, hauling Lester’s body. A single bullet, and I could be the next one in this watery grave.
I wondered how many bodies he’d dumped down the mineshaft in the past. Cody had said the woods were full of graves, but what if all of Rydell’s victims were in this mine? Was there a crowd of skeletons down there, dancing together in murky water?
Rydell prowled around the ruined shack, muttering and kicking stuff out of his way. Soon, he found what he was looking for and returned, lugging a chipped concrete block and a length of rusty wire.
He crouched and used the wire to attach the concrete block to the rope around Lester’s feet.
“There you go,” he said. “Give me a hand.”
We turned the blue bundle around so the feet and concrete block pointed into the hole, then lifted and shoved until Lester’s body slid downslope out of sight.
Rydell and I straightened up, looking at each other, listening. The distant splash made him smile.
Chapter 54
I still felt queasy as I parked in front of Rydell’s house. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Wayne’s grimace went soft after the bullet – my bullet – punctured his forehead.
I swung down from my truck, bent over and vomited, splattering the dusty ground and my own shoes. I was still stooped over, spitting, when Rydell’s cowboy boots poked into my field of vision.
“You all right there, Eric?”
I couldn’t answer. Bile rose in my throat and tears squeezed from my eyes. I took deep, shuddering breaths, trying to get myself under control, but the air tasted like puke, and my stomach clenched.
Rydell clapped me on the shoulder.
“Lots of men get sick the first time. There’s no shame in it. Come on in the house and wash up.”
I wiped my face as I stumbled along behind him. He lugged the black suitcase into the house, never looking back, assuming I’d do as I was told. I certainly hadn’t given him any reason to think otherwise. I was spineless, worthless, pathetic.
The living room was empty. We passed through to the kitchen, but there was no one there, either.
“Whe
re’s Melanie?”
“I sent her to stay with her mama until this deal’s over,” Rydell said. “I didn’t need the distraction.”
He lifted the suitcase onto the redwood table, unzipped it and admired the money inside. I edged past him to the sink, washed my face and hands and rinsed out my mouth. As I dried off with paper towels, he said, “Look here. This’ll make you feel better.”
I turned to find him sitting at the table. The suitcase was closed again, but he’d stacked money on the tabletop. Two six-inch-tall stacks, with five banded decks in each.
“Fifty thousand. Your share.”
My legs felt weak. I pulled out a chair and sat across from Rydell, the money between us. While my back was turned, he’d also set out two shotglasses and an unlabeled bottle. He filled the glasses to the brim.
“Have a drink,” he said. “Let Mister Baby settle your nerves.”
I couldn’t imagine putting anything in my quaking stomach at the moment, much less the powerful tequila. But Rydell lifted his glass for a toast, and waited until I picked up mine, too.
“To a job well done,” he said.
How could I drink to that? How could I toast kidnapping and murder? But Rydell took a sip, and I followed suit. The booze hit my empty stomach with a clang, and for a second, I thought I’d vomit again, all over the table and the cash. Then warmth climbed up my nervous system and into my brain. I welcomed the feeling. Maybe the tequila would slow the thoughts flaring in my head, maybe Mister Baby would show me a way to live with myself.
I took another sip, then another. When I looked at Rydell, he was grinning, his two-toned mustache spread wide.
“Atta boy. You’ll be back to normal before you know it.”
“I don’t know.” My voice was raspy. “Don’t think I’ll ever feel normal again.”
“Aw, don’t take it so hard. You did what you had to do. It’s over now.”
“I killed a man,” I said, nearly choking on the words.
“So? He was ready to kill you. Wayne argued from the get-go that we should get rid of you.”