by DaveKearns
I struggled with the bulk for a while before I managed to get half of it onto the lip of the trunk. Then I pulled hard at the other end, getting the tail end to go up and over the trunk lip before the whole thing fell to the driveway with a thud. I stood in the gray light from the street lamp and looked in both directions along the dirt road that fed the driveway. Bullard's desire for isolation from neighbors had given me the privacy I needed.
I got two fistfuls of the plastic and dragged the bag up the driveway towards the garage. By the time I reached the garage door I was breathing hard and I felt sweat running down my back under the coveralls.
I pulled the bag as close to the garage door as I could manage. Then I took the utility knife and cut the bag open from one end to the other before ripping the bag away, leaving the contents on the driveway. The odor of decay and rot made me cough and choke as I dragged the empty plastic bag back to the trunk of my car. I got a clean trash bag from the back seat and stuffed the foul-smelling plastic into it. After turning my head to one side to get a breath of fresh air, I tied the bag off and tossed it into the trunk.
I closed the lid, took several more deep breaths, held the last one, and I went back towards the garage.
Ray's corpse lay against the base of the garage door. I grabbed him under the armpits and pulled. The skin seemed loose under his shirt, as if it were no longer attached to the muscle. I rolled him upright and then I grabbed Ray's booted feet. I pulled them around to shift his body so that he had his back to the door. Then I stepped back and gasped for air.
Ray looked like he was taking a siesta against Bullard's garage door. Flies had already gathered and they circled and hummed insistently over the corpse. I took one last look at what I’d done, and then went over to the car to change into clean clothes.
Chapter Forty-Seven
When I returned to Brick's house, Sandy's little four-door Pontiac sat at the curb. I parked in the driveway, locked the car doors, and went over to her car. I climbed into the passenger seat and let out a heavy breath.
"Drive out to the parking lot at White Sands," I said.
"My God," she said. "You smell like a corpse. Where have you been?"
"Lighting the fuse," I answered.
She started the car, rolled her window halfway down and turned the vent on. The gloves, the coveralls, and the plastic bags had helped, but the smell of Ray's body clung to me anyway.
"You're going to get us both thrown in prison," she asked. "You know that?"
I didn't answer. The holster under my sweatshirt was jabbing me in the kidneys. I shifted my position in the seat to try to get comfortable.
Traffic was thin on I-70 as we passed the entrance to Holloman AFB. From that point on it was just us and the semi trailers headed for Los Cruces. I had plenty on my mind, and didn't feel like I needed conversation. Sandy didn't seem to mind the silence.
A few minutes later, she pulled the car into the parking lot of White Sands National Monument. It was eleven thirty when she jerked the car to a halt. Sandy didn't say anything, but I could sense the anger and tension in her. I got out and went over to the phone booth.
The fluorescent light over the phone had attracted dozens of small gray moths. I batted them away, pulled the slip of paper with Bullard's home phone number on it from my pants, and shoved a quarter into the slot. I dialed the number and Bullard answered on the third ring.
"Yeah?" Bullard said. His voice had panic in it. I waited a second.
"This is Marty," I said, choking my words out through clenched teeth. "You takin' good care of Ray?"
The line was silent.
"Your ass belongs to me, Bullard. You left me for dead, you son of a bitch." Bullard started to say something, but I interrupted before he could get it out.
"I hope you don't mind. I made a withdrawal at the bank of Bullard." Then I hung up on him.
I got back into the car, and told Sandy to drive on down the highway towards Las Cruces. When she had the car back on the road, she spoke.
"If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm out of this. I mean it. I'll let you out here and you can self-destruct on your own."
"All right," I said. "I parked Ray's body in front of Bullard's garage. I just called him a minute ago and told him I was Marty, and that I was going to even the score for him killing Ray and trying to kill me."
"What…What’s this?" she asked. "Marty's alive?"
"No," I said. "They're both dead. I found Ray and Marty's bodies yesterday near White Sands. Bullard killed both of 'em. Marty lived long enough to crawl a couple hundred yards from where Bullard shot him. My guess is that Bullard will be out here inside of an hour to see if Marty's really dead. If Bullard comes, that proves beyond a doubt that he killed them both. How else would he know where to look?"
"What if he doesn't come out here?" she asked. "What if he gets on the phone, calls the chief of police, and says 'Hey! Get over here! Some lunatic left a body in my driveway? '"
"In that case, I was wrong about him and he needs to have his driveway steam-cleaned. But I'm not wrong, he'll be here."
She was quiet again, and I watched the road. I didn't say anything until we reached the speed limit sign. The sign was just before we needed to turn off the highway to go to the copper ore dunes.
"Slow down and turn off to the right up here," I said. "There are tracks leading into the desert. Just follow them."
She eased off the gas and hit the high beams. "This thing isn't four-wheel drive. We'll get stuck or lose a tire."
"Just stay in the grooves from the trucks," I said. "You'll be okay."
She spotted the marks on the highway shoulder and eased the car off the highway embankment into the grooves in the crusty desert surface. She kept the speed at about twenty-five. We reached the copper dunes about three miles later.
"Drive around past this first bunch of dunes and park behind some big ones," I said. "I don't want Bullard to know we're here."
She grudgingly pulled the car from the ruts left by the trucks and eased the car around the piles. The tires made a crunching sound as they cut fresh tracks through the crusty surface. We made a slow arc of several hundred yards around the piles before pulling behind several large ones in a cluster.
She shut off the engine and headlights. It seemed very quiet in the car, and neither of us said anything.
"Now what?" she said.
"I'm going back to where we pulled off the trail," I said. When Bullard shows up, I'm going to make a citizen's arrest."
"You're not thinking straight," she said. "If he does show up, he'll blow your head off when you confront him. If he's already killed several people, what's one more?"
"Stay out of sight and watch me," I said. "You're my backup. If Bullard kills me, you can get him for that."
She shook her head. "I think you’ve lost it. You’re crazy," she told me.
I got out, closed the door, and leaned in the opened window.
"One way or the other, this thing is going to end tonight," I said. I started back towards the highway, walking along the grooves her car had cut into the hard desert surface. The noise of my shoes crunching against the baked earth was the only sound I could hear.
I hadn't gone far when I heard her door close.
Chapter Forty-Eight
She didn't say anything when she caught up to me, and we walked side by side on opposite sides of the grooves cut by her car. The sky was clear, the moon was full, and we had no trouble finding our way. We walked until we reached the place where our car had pulled from the tracks left by the trucks. We kicked loose sand over that area to make it less obvious that our car had been there.
I led Sandy past a pair of big copper dunes to the place where I had found Ray's body. The empty liquor bottles and ragged magazines were still there. "This is where I found Ray," I said. Then I pointed in the direction where bloodstains created a trail towards Marty’s body. "Marty's over that way a couple hundred yards."
Sandy didn't say anyth
ing. She seemed to be taking everything in, trying to work something out in her head. I reached behind my back for the pistol. I checked to make sure that there was a round in the chamber and that the safety was on before I put it away.
"You know how to use that thing?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I guess I’ll find out," I said.
"Maybe you have the guts to use it, but don’t have a duel with Bullard. He’s been there before and you haven’t. If you pull the gun on him, then you better aim and fire as fast as you can. Shoot for his body mass, not his head or knee. Got that?"
We stood close to each other, watching the pinpoint headlights of traffic on the highway three miles away. Traffic was sparse, and the only cars on the road seemed to be moving from left to right, from Alamogordo to Los Cruces. I wondered how long it would take to empty out Alamogordo if people left at the rate of one or two per minute.
We watched a dozen cars pass by on the highway before I saw what I was looking for. A beam from the highway seemed to flash in our direction for a second, then the light steadied and aimed directly at us.
"Oh shit," she said under her breath. "He’s coming after all. How do you want to play it?"
"Hang back a little," I said. "Bullard's got a big ego, and I think that if it's just the two of us here he might open up and tell me why he killed Brick. If you hear him confess, we’ll have him. But that won’t happen if he knows you're around." She looked at me uncertainly. "Let me deal with him and stay out of it," I said. "If he kills me, just do what you can."
"Meaning empty my gun into him," she said.
"You're the one with the grudge," I said. "Here's your big chance."
The headlights were now distinguishable as two distinct points of light, and I knew we were almost out of time.
"Looks like you got your wish too," she said.
''Time to move, Sandy."
I went around behind a pile close to where I had found Ray. Sandy melted into the shadow of another pile. Moments later, I heard wheels crunch to a stop, then a door closing. My heart was pounding in my chest. The gun felt cold and hard in my hand. I wondered if that’s what death felt like.
A brilliant white beam cut past the pile I was hiding behind, and I was sure that Bullard was looking around for Marty's body. I heard him swear, then the sound of his feet crunching the ground at a run. He'd found the trail of blood that Marty left behind when he crawled off to die.
I waited until Bullard was past, and then I went over to check out the van. It was big and new, with running boards, custom aluminum wheels, and a roof rack. He’d left the headlights on and the engine running. I reached in, shut the engine off, and pulled the car keys out. The van reeked of the rot of human flesh, and I realized that Bullard had loaded Ray's carcass into the van before coming. I put the keys in my jeans pocket and went around to the other side of the van so he wouldn't see me when he came back.
I felt juiced from adrenaline, and my heart was rocking along in my ribcage. I knew that I had Bullard trapped, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do with him. I flashed on a memory of a summer day in high school when I caught a water moccasin by pinning its arrow-shaped head to the ground with a forked Oak branch. The poisonous snake's skin had a beautiful diamond pattern on it, and I couldn't resist the urge to pick the thing up and control it with my hands. It wrapped its slick body around my forearm and squeezed powerfully, trying to break my hold on its head. I recalled that the hardest part was figuring out how to get it off of me without being bitten. Standing by the van, I couldn't remember how I had done it.
Then I saw the beam of Bullard's flashlight cut across the ground at my feet. He was coming back.
I clicked the safety off on my pistol and took deep breaths to steady myself. The van rocked slightly as he climbed in and shut the door. I came around behind the van fast, headed for the driver's door. I guessed he'd noticed that the keys were gone because he started yelling obscenities.
I was about to scream at Bullard to come out with his hands up when he stunned me by piling out of the door and knocking me down. There was a flash of recognition on his face when he saw me. He kept his momentum, plowing into me a second time as I tried to regain my balance.
I brought the gun up to fire, but he was moving too fast when we collided. My pistol went off, and Bullard landed on top of me with his head under my chin. A blinding white light sparked in my head when I hit the ground and my jaw slammed closed.
Chapter Forty-Nine
When I became conscious again, my arms were stretched over my head and my back pressed against the side of Bullard's van. My toes barely touched the ground. My hands burned like fire, and when I jerked my arms I felt handcuffs dig into my wrists and heard the handcuff chain clatter against the bar on the roof rack. My left shoulder ached as if it was dislocated, and my tongue felt like someone had driven staples through it. I tasted blood.
Bullard stood a few feet in front of me, tucking my pistol into the front of his pants. He looked up, locked eyes with me and said "Man, you're unbelievable. You had me going with that phone call from Marty."
I didn't say anything.
"You here alone tonight?" he asked. "I can't imagine anybody else being crazy enough to be in on this bullshit with you."
"It’s just me," I said. My words sounded thick, as if someone else were speaking them. For a second I doubted that Sandy had ridden out there with me, and I knew that if I was alone with Bullard I was dead.
"Where did you put my car keys?" Bullard asked. "Cause I damn sure don’t want to walk home."
"I don't know," I said. I looked past him at the headlights on the interstate, imagining being in one of those cars headed for another town. Bullard stepped in fast and hit me low in the ribs. It felt as if he had driven a railroad spike into my side. I tried to pull my arms down to protect myself but the handcuffs just dug deeper into my wrists, doubling the pain. He hit me twice more in the ribs, and when he backed off his expression convinced me that he was enjoying himself. I was sucking air and contorting myself trying to compensate for having one side of my chest caved in. Then the expression on his face became serious.
"You took the keys! Where are they?" he screamed.
"In my pocket," I choked.
Bullard stuck my pistol in my face while he checked my pants pockets for his keys. His face was only a few inches from mine. His sweat had the tang of fear, his breath was foul with cigar smell, and he reeked from handling Ray's body. I turned my face away and tried not to breathe. He fumbled with getting the keys out of my pocket for a while, and my skin was crawling by the time he took his hands off me.
"You chickenshit," he said. "Where’s your car? You couldn’t have walked here."
"It's back behind that group of big piles," I said.
"Aren't you clever?"
I couldn't think of an answer for that. I didn't feel clever just then.
"Tell me where my money is," he said. "Is that in your car, too?"
"Tell me why you killed Brick."
"I'm asking the questions," Bullard said. "And I don't have all night. Answer me."
"Tell me about Brick," I said again.
Bullard whipped me across the face with the pistol before jamming the gun into my throat. A bright blue light came on behind my left eye, and my ears started ringing. My knees buckled. I didn't know how much more I could take. I knew that once I told him what he wanted to know, he would finish me off. I had to hang on long enough to find out about Brick.
Bullard's face was inches from mine. "Where's my money?" he screamed. His eyes seemed as empty and ruthless as a shark's. I knew he wanted to get out of there but he couldn't leave until he had his cash and he knew how I had found his killing ground, the spot where the drug carriers climbed onto quarry trucks for a free ride through immigration and border patrols with his protection.
"Tell me about Brick and I'll tell you everything," I said. "How I found Ray and Marty. Where the cash is. Everything." Bullard backed off a few feet,
considering my demand.
"All right," he said. "I don't mind trading a little information. But here's the deal: you don't open up after I tell you about your brother, I will beat you into jelly. That’s a promise."
He stuck my pistol in his belt and dug a smoke from a crushed pack of cigarettes. He lit up, clicked the lid on the lighter shut, and stuffed the lighter back into his pants pocket. Then he exhaled a big cloud of smoke and pointed the lit cigarette at me like an accusing finger.