The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

CAMERA 4—POLSTERPolster is pacing back and forth. Weston is trying to calm him down. “It’s not esoteric like bridges or sewer systems. They’re going to know right away.”

  “You really think he’s got state inspectors coming in on Friday?”

  “Damn right I do.”

  “I think he’s bluffing.”

  Polster paced the room, biting on his thumb. “It’s pretty goddamned easy for you to think that. It’s not your ass in the wringer.”

  “Will you relax?”

  Polster raised his voice. “No, goddammit, I won’t. You damn well better get behind me on this one, you hear me. I’m not going to be anybody’s whipping boy here, Nancy. You and Mark and the rest of them better get that straight right now.”

  “Rest of them?” Carl said.

  I shrugged.

  Back to our regular programming. Doug’s Auto Repair and the Steelhead Tavern.

  “You haven’t seen this next one,” Robby said. “This is the one where the clerk melts down.”

  THURSDAY 4: P.M.

  Split screen. Tressman left. Weston right. “Is that what you told Emmett Polster?” she asked. Tressman massaged his forehead.

  “Will you just—”

  “If you think I’m going to wait around until Nathan Hand puts a bullet in my brain, you better think again.”

  “Nancy, come on, now…”

  “I’ve got all the checks.” She pulled open the drawer in front of her and pulled out a handful of checks. She fanned them out on the desk. “Springer, Manson, Enos, Howard, McNulty. Every one of them. Every one of the people we claimed didn’t pay their taxes. I’ve got them all. If the authorities want proof, I’m the one who’s got it. And don’t you think I won’t, either.”

  “Nancy…,” Tressman started again. “We’re almost there. All we have to do is stay calm.”

  “Calm?” she screamed into the mouthpiece. “Calm like Emmett?”

  “We—”

  She hung up on him. Stuffed the checks into the pocket of her dress and disappeared from view. Tressman laced his fingers together over the top of his head and sat all the way back in his chair.

  A loud knock on the RV door. Everybody flinched. Boris stepped behind the door. Floyd opened it a crack. Monty.

  “Ya said I should tell ya if the sheriff drove by.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Just went roarin’ off for all the car was worth. Fire truck hot on his heels.”

  We were twenty minutes into the tape. I was guessing that by now phones were ringing all over the county. The later it got, the more they were going to ring.

  “I’d love to see their faces,” said Kurtis, “when they see that steamroller parked in front of the door.” He hoisted his mug at me. “A stroke of genius, Leo.”

  “What if they have extra keys?” Narva asked.

  “They do,” I said. “They’re on a board inside the station.”

  “They’ll have to go in through a wall,” Floyd said.

  “Steel-reinforced concrete,” Kurtis said. “Crew of four…six hours.”

  “Ta-da,” sang Robby. “The main attraction.”

  The screen is black for a moment and then slowly lightens into the interior of room number nine at the Black Bear Motel. Narva and Mark Tressman. In living color. Narva’s face is electronically blocked out. Mark Tressman’s is not. They’re standing at the foot of the bed. He’s all over her like a cheap suit. Slobbering into her neck while he gropes behind her, trying to figure out how her dress is fastened.

  “You’re wonderful,” he gargles. She squeals and begins to unbutton his shirt, which she then yanks from his trousers and pulls from his torso, until it hangs from his wrists. He’s haired all over like a gibbon. While Tressman is busy trying to unbutton his cuffs without putting the shirt back on, she undoes his belt and drops his trousers to the floor. Briefs, not boxers. Black. She squeezes him. He closes his eyes and groans piteously. She takes him by the shoulders, twirls him around and sits him down on the bed. One foot at a time, she maneuvers the pants over the wingtips, so, in less than a minute, he’s sitting there wearing brogans, briefs and black socks. More or less every man’s nightmare. She pulls him to his feet. She takes him in her hand. Nods toward the bathroom. Her voice is breathy. “You go put a helmet on that soldier. I’ll be waiting for you.” With those words she loosens the top of her dress and folds it down. Tressman makes a dive for her cleavage but is rejected. He kicks his pants off, finds his wallet and scoots for the toilet. Quickly, Narva gathers both of their clothes. Pulls open the dresser drawer, produces a folded piece of paper, which she leaves on the bed. Hustles over to the door to the adjoining room, opens it and steps out of sight. Two minutes of an empty room nine.

  “We left it in,” said Robby. “Figured it would give people time to call their friends.”

  Tressman comes out of the bathroom wearing a glazed expression and a black condom. At first he thinks it’s maybe some little hide-and-seek game, so he takes a lap of the bed. Halfway around he realizes his clothes are gone, tries the closet. Empty. The adjoining door. Locked. Sees the paper on the bed. Picks it up. He’s at half mast. I can read it over his shoulder. Big letters. Red lipstick SMILE, YOU’RE ON CANDID CAMERA. The condom heads for the floor like a dowsing rod over a water main. Fade to black. Wild applause.

  “He drove home wearing the bedspread,” said Floyd.

  “It wasn’t his color,” Narva added.

  Carl turned off the monitor. “It’s been swell,” he announced. “Unplug me on your way by, will you, Robby?”

  Robby said he would and stepped out.

  “Let’s roll,” I said. “The shit has officially hit the fan.”

  I walked Kurtis, Boris and Narva around the front of the motel to their cars. I shook hands with the fellas and watched as they bounced out of the lot. As Kurtis faded from view, first the cherry picker, then the RV came rolling out from behind the building; rocking in divots, they eased out onto the highway. Carl tooted. Robby waved.

  Narva stood by the side of the Miata. “You were back early, last night.”

  “You know us old guys.”

  She gave me the eyeball. “Yeah…sure,” she said.

  “What…are you fishing for a story again?” I said. She laughed. Handed me a card with a phone number. “If you’d like to talk sometime,” she said. I took the card and gave her a hug. The little Miata U-turned in its tracks. She tooted the horn and purred off down the highway.

  Monty appeared at the motel door. “Ya gotta see what’s on the boob tube,” he said.

  39

  THE RIVERS RAN CHOCOLATE BROWN. THE VOLUME OF water ironed out the riffles and eddies, turning the flow fast and featureless. Between the river and the rain, I practically had to shout to be heard. “I’m going to close up and get my gear,” I said.

  Floyd patted the rifle hanging from his shoulder. “Except for this, my stuff is already in the car,” he said. His curly hair seemed to keep the rain at bay, like wool on a sheep, while mine seemed to serve no purpose other than to funnel the water more efficiently down my neck.

  “I’ll grab mine and be right with you.” I started for the cabin.

  “We leaving the birds?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The motion sensors.”

  After two weeks of throwing Claudia Springer’s money around, I had a sudden spasm of frugality. “Why don’t you get them while I close up?”

  I jogged inside, dripping all over the floor, stuffed all my gear into the black Nike bag. Sat at the kitchen table and tried to call home. Forwarded, forwarded and then finally offered voice mail. The joys of technology. I turned off all the lights, locked the front door. Changed my mind. Unlocked. Turned on the porch light and then locked up again. I ducked my head into the roar of the rain and ran for the car. Got halfway there before I looked up and saw Nathan Hand’s black and white sitting in the driveway. I kept walking and tried to look as honest and nonchalant as a guy wearing a shoulder
holster could look. Bobby Russell stepped out of the car and aimed the riot gun at me over the top of the car. Hand got out of the car like he was going to the beach. I watched as the rain began to cover and darken his hat.

  “You got a warrant?” I asked.

  Hand emitted a bitter chuckle. “We’re not playing that charade anymore, Waterman. This isn’t about the law anymore. Isn’t about you or any of your smartass dirty tricks or any of that shit. This is about survival.”

  “Where’s that son of a bitch spit on me?” Russell demanded.

  “Gone,” I said, as loud as I dared. Hoping like hell that, somehow, above the rush of water, Floyd heard what was going on. I had an overpowering desire to look up at the tree line but bit my lip and squelched it. I kept my eyes on the deputy as he walked over to me. He stopped in front of me. Gave me a smile he didn’t mean and then dug the butt of the shotgun hard into my ribs. I gasped for breath.

  “Bobby,” Hand growled.

  The deputy reversed the weapon and gave me a matched set. I bent forward at the waist, hugging myself, massaging my ribs.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Gimme the shotgun. Get Waterman’s gun.”

  Bobby did as he was told, laying the automatic on the hood of the cruiser next to Nathan Hand. “Check the house and the cabins,” Hand said.

  He kept the shotgun trained on my middle as Russell went through the house and then worked his way through the cabins. “There’s no point in this, Hand,” I said.

  “Shut up,” he said. He put the riot gun on the hood and picked up my automatic. Checked the safety and the load. Satisfied about the Glock, he put it on the hood of the car by his elbow. His hat was three shades darker now. A steady stream of water ran from the front of the brim.

  “What’s the point?” I asked. “It’s over.”

  I kept my hands in sight and moved a couple of steps forward. Floyd was my only chance. I had to make sure that whatever happened next wasn’t shielded by the house. Huge drops of silver rain drummed on the hood of the car. “You just don’t know when to quit, now, do you, Waterman? Just couldn’t let things be, could you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “You probably think that stuff you put on the TV is funny, now, don’t you?” he said.

  “What stuff on the TV?”

  I saw pure hatred in his eyes. “I learn from my mistakes,”

  he said. As he picked up the shotgun, his eyes darted about like spotlights at a prison break. Out of the blue, he said, “They’ve got nothing. They’ve got nobody to put me at any crime. Nobody who can say they ever heard me admit a damn thing.”

  Bobby Russell stepped down off the porch of Cabin Number Eight. “No people. No gear,” he announced and started our way.

  Hand looked over at the deputy. “Nobody but Bobby Russell there. And he’s hardly in a position to tell anybody anything. Is he, Bobby?”

  Russell swabbed his face with a handkerchief. “What’s that, Sheriff?”

  “I was saying how you were hardly in a position to be saying anything about some of the unfortunate instances we’ve had around here lately. Especially considering you’re the one who screwed up and shot your friend Springer in the face. Huh? Lethal injection don’t sound any better to Bobby here than it does to me, does it, Bobby?”

  “Dumb shit shouldn’t of grabbed my gun.”

  Hand shook his head sadly. Water ran off the back. “An other goddamn month and Springer would have gone on his own. And none of this would have been necessary.”

  Russell turned my way, as if he felt some inner need to explain. “We was just bustin’ his chops. The sheriff was tellin’him how much better his life would be if he’d just sell out. How much safer it would be for his wife and kids…and the dumb shit reached out and grabbed the barrel.” He shrugged.

  “Next thing I knew, he was all over the place.”

  A bitter laugh escaped Nathan Hand. “Turns out it was an accident after all.”

  “Kind of like Bendixon’s dog,” I suggested.

  “Nah,” the kid said. “Sheriff shot that old cur on purpose.”

  “Bobby,” Hand said. “Get me the flashlight.”

  “The flashlight?”

  “You heard me.”

  I admit it. Hand had me fooled. It wasn’t until Bobby Russell leaned into the passenger side and bent down for the flashlight. Then Hand picked my automatic from the hood of the car. Then I got it. So did Deputy Russell. When Russell straightened up holding a black rubber flashlight in his right hand, the sheriff shot him in the chest. He pointed the gun my way. “You just stay nice and easy, now,” he said. “Nice and easy.”

  He kept the automatic trained on me as he backed slowly around the front of the car, talking to himself as he moved.

  “Just going to clean up after myself a little here,” he muttered.

  “Give those state boys something they can get their teeth in.”

  He bumped his butt off the hood and began to step around the open door. I moved forward. “Easy. Easy,” he chanted. I moved again. Three steps this time. If I figured the scene correctly, there was no way he was going to shoot me with my own gun. He fired again. Down at the ground and then momentarily squatted out of view. I hurried up to the corner of the house, stepped around. Bobby Russell lay on his side. The second shot had entered his head just beneath the hairline. Nathan Hand held Deputy Russell’s revolver in one hand and my automatic in the other. He set the Glock on the roof of the car, moved the revolver to his right hand and thumbed back the hammer. I began to cringe in toward myself like a dying star. His hand was steady as he brought the gun to bear. I couldn’t tear my eyes form the single bead of water that dripped from the yawning end of the barrel. The exit wound exploded his upper lip before I heard the crack of the rifle. His nervous system instinctively moved his left hand to the back of his head, as if he’d been stung by a bee, dislodging his hat, which landed upside down at his feet. The hand came away red, but even as he held it in front of his face, I don’t think he saw it. He was dead before he hit the ground, first with his knees, where the revolver slid from his fingers, and finally, awkwardly, over onto his back, where his body came to rest half on, half off Deputy Bobby Russell. I began to breathe again.

  Floyd ran down from the tree line. Pine needles and oak leaves were plastered all over his soaking jacket. “What the hell was that about?”

  “Our friend the sheriff here was going to stage a fatal shootout between me and the deputy. Russell was the only one who could put him on death row. I guess he figured with the two of us gone, he might be able to take his chances in court.”

  Floyd paced in a circle. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. “This is deep shit, man.”

  “Let’s fix it,” I said.

  “We got two dead cops here, man. Tape isn’t going to patch this shit.”

  I told him what I had in mind. By the time I was finished, he was standing still.

  “Still leaves us a big problem,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Each other.”

  “Oh…you mean the fact that one of us would be a lot safer if the other guy was in the trunk with Hand and Russell.”

  He smiled. “Crossed your mind, too, huh?”

  I said it had. “Until you found yourself fresh out of weapons,” he said quietly. The tone suggested that whatever I said next better be good.

  “No…until I thought it through.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s no way they’d let anybody plea-bargain for two dead cops.”

  “No matter how dirty,” Floyd said. “Sure as hell we both get the needle, and they clean up after their own.”

  “That’s the way I read it,” I said.

  “Kind of makes us blood brothers,” he said with a touch of irony.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  It took an hour. Longest, wettest hour of my life. Working like hell and waiting for a squadron of state cops
to come and put an end to life as I knew it. If they showed up before we finished, we were both doing twenty to life. End of story. If we got it done right, we might walk. As far as motivation goes, it was real simple.

  We dug a couple pairs of rubber gloves out of the cruiser’s medical kit and drained everything we could find. Oil, coolant, transmission fluid. Didn’t need any oil slicks floating around the river. Took every loose object out of the cruiser, put it in a plastic bag and threw it in the trunk with Russell and Hand. Dug up three square yards of blood-covered driveway. Shoveled the soil into the trunk with the rest of it. Replaced the dirt with some of Chappy’s. Spread gravel over the top. Closed the lid. Locked it shut and then wired it for good measure. Rolled down the windows.

  “You sure?” Floyd yelled above the rain. “The other day when the water was clear, I could sorta see the bottom. That car goes down there and ends up being visible, our ass is grass.”

  “When you’re standing in a boat, you can feel the hole under your feet.”

  “What if it’s not deep enough?”

  “J.D. said it was at least twenty feet deep.”

  “What if he’s wrong?”

  “You got a better idea?”

  I slid into the driver’s seat, pulled the gearshift out of park. Floyd put his back to it. The car began to roll on its own. I eased the Crown Victoria down the boat ramp until it was about six feet from the water. I didn’t want the car to hit the water with any speed. I wanted to ease it in and let the current do its thing. I set the emergency brake and got out. Looked back up the incline at Floyd. He gave me the thumbs up. I reached into the car, popped the brake, slammed the door as it rolled by…watched.

  The big car drove slowly into the river, lurching slightly as the front tires slipped on the slick stones of the river bottom. And then for a moment it seemed to stop moving altogether. Then to float. My heart stopped beating for a second as the car began to turn to the right, following the current toward the ocean.

  Suddenly, as if gripped by some massive hand, the cruiser straightened and stood on its nose, the whip antenna now parallel to the water, as the car began to bounce forward on its front bumper…grinding over the rocky bottom…turning a hundred eighty degrees until the roof and the red and blue lights were pointed my way. Then, with the grace of a dancer, it began to sink nose down into the rushing water, turning on some invisible axis, shuddering occasionally as if it were being sucked down some vast cosmic drain. And then…it was gone. Quiet again, except for the silver hiss of the rain. I waited. The Stephen King in me expected the car to bob to the surface, lights ablaze, siren wailing, corpses pointing fingers, but it didn’t happen. Just more silence. I turned and trotted to the top of the ramp. Threw him the keys to the Malibu.