Dark Duet

by Eric Beetner

  “You talk a lot of shit, you know that?”

  Garret didn’t lower the gun. He held it firm between them, his finger resting gently on the side of the trigger. “I really need you to come.”

  Nicole stared at him like she was looking for something unsaid behind his eyes.

  Rafael let Kyle come up for a breath. He gasped in one sloppy lungful and was plunged down again. When Rafael looked up, he saw Nicole leading a young man, her hands up slightly and him with a gun at her back. Seeing her topless, he pushed down harder on the boy in the pool.

  “Let him go,” Garret said.

  “Or what?”

  Garret saw the gun on Rafael’s other hand. He held it firmly, but down by his bent knee. There if he needed it. Garret said, “Or I shoot her.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Kyle’s thrashing slowed. Garret raised the gun higher at Nicole. She didn’t seem panicked. Rafael even grinned. “Told you so,” he said.

  “Let him go,” Garret said again, his voice his only weapon. His hand was frozen around the gun, refusing to let him shoot an innocent bystander in this mess. He turned the gun on Rafael and the smile slid off the man’s face.

  “You don’t want to do that, kid.” Rafael raised his own gun.

  “Please, let…let him go.” Kyle had stopped splashing. The water around him began to settle.

  “You don’t come to my house with a gun. Not you. Not him. Nobody.”

  Garret stared into Rafael’s eyes and knew that was the look he needed, the look of intimidation. Of confidence. Garret knew his eyes looked scared. The gun aiming at him paralyzed his muscles. He was too far away to be sure of his shot and he knew the consequences if he missed. He needed something to wound Rafael that wasn’t a bullet.

  “I killed your brother.”

  Rafael’s face turned to fire. He ground down on top of Kyle’s head. “You better be fucking lying, you little prick.”

  He hadn’t let go like Garret wanted. He felt like he leapt in front of a bullet, but the gun misfired. He’d tried to pull Rafael’s anger away from Kyle and onto him. An act of sacrifice, too little, too late.

  “Down at the store. I killed him like you killed Trip.”

  “You made a big mistake, little man.” Rafael let Kyle go. Instead of leaping to the surface, Kyle floated quietly, face down, into the deep end. “You should have gotten me first.”

  Garret’s eyes were on Kyle. He didn’t see Rafael putting both hands around the gun until too late. Nicole was already diving for the ground. Rafael fired once and Garret felt the bullet pierce his side. He bent awkwardly, dropping his gun. He could feel the bullet pass through him, felt the heat of the entry and exit wounds, and the strange coldness between. Inside, where air wasn’t supposed to go.

  Eyes closed on the stonework of the pool deck, Garret heard Rafael go to Nicole.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Skinned my knee.”

  “He do anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you topless?”

  Nicole was annoyed. “I was getting changed. God.”

  “Well, go put some damn clothes on.”

  “What are you gonna do with him?”

  “I’ll take care of him.”

  “Rafael, he’s just a kid.”

  “Did you hear him? He said he killed Troy.”

  “Aw, you know it was bullshit. The kid couldn’t kill anyone.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll check it out.”

  Garret heard her feet pad past him back toward the house.

  “You said Willy was an accident,” Nicole said.

  “It was.”

  “That kid was no accident.”

  Even with his eyes closed, Garret knew she meant Kyle in the pool.

  “They came to my fucking house with guns, Nicole. Just let me fucking deal with this kind of shit, okay?”

  Her footsteps faded away. Next Garret heard splashing and cracked his eyes open to slits enough to see Rafael fishing Kyle out of the pool. Kyle’s lifeless body slapped onto the stones like a fish at the market. Garret shut his eyes again, as if keeping them closed could somehow keep his guts in too.

  “You alive?” He felt Rafael kick the toe of his shoe into his ribs. Garret groaned. “A little. Not for long.” Rafael kicked Garret’s gun away into the bushes. Garret opened one eye to see Kyle’s waterlogged body being dragged past him, the streak of water leaving a darkened line across the stones. When he was alone, Garret tried moving, but a bolt of pain blasted through him and he curled tighter into a ball.

  A few minutes went by and then he was moving. Rafael had his feet and was dragging him over the same water-streaked path he’d taken Kyle. They reached a driveway and Garret moaned in pain as Rafael bent him in half and flipped him over the bumper into the trunk of a car where he settled in the darkness next to his dead friend, Kyle.

  CHAPTER 20

  His story was set. Sutherland would dump the bodies then get to a hospital. The pain in his leg wanted him to get there first, but the idea of two festering bodies in his trunk let him put aside the burning in his thigh for the moment.

  He’d have to report the gunshot and he knew exactly what he’d say. He was driving back from his meet up with Cliff. Witnesses. Check. He saw a suspicious vehicle so he followed it. Probable cause due to the recent homicide. Check. The perpetrator got out of the car near Mike’s house. When Sutherland investigated, he heard shots then was fired on himself and was hit. To his knowledge the shooter got away. So if the bodies ever were turned up, there’s a record. Check. When Mike never returns, there’s a reason. Check.

  They’d ask why he didn’t call for backup but he’d say he knew Cliff was on an important case and besides, it’s just a gunshot, he could get himself to the hospital. It would make him look badass.

  One solid alibi. Now for the dirty work. Burying his wife and her lover on the fringes of a garbage dump.

  Sutherland parked and got out. He pulled on gloves as he checked the area for prying eyes, but no one would be out this time of night. Bishop was an early to bed, early to rise kind of town.

  He hesitated at the trunk. It wasn’t like he hated Tracy. He didn’t even hate the man she’d cheated with. The killings were quite by accident. As much of an accident you can have when you go to another man’s house with a gun in your hand.

  The alibi had occupied his mind. The call from Cliff, the worry over escaping any unwanted attention. But now he was alone with his crime and a three-acre stretch of trash that stank like his bad deeds. His nose filled with it. Sutherland wondered if he’d ever be able to get the stink off of him.

  He opened the trunk. Her eyes were open, a look of shock still on them, but the shine was gone. They were lifeless eyes, cold and fake looking. A yellow light like a burning ball of honey hung from an old telephone pole high overhead. It cast shadows and oozed a sticky color over the rats darting between piles of garbage.

  Sutherland reached in and grabbed her since she was on top. Her thin robe had slid open and her bare chest taunted him. The two bullet holes over her heart were swollen and purple around the entry points. Streaks of dried blood ran out from the wounds.

  Sutherland sucked in a breath, held it, and lifted her out. He put her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He turned to the trash pile and wandered in. The rats screeched as they ran. He wasn’t sure if they were afraid of him or thanking him for their next meal.

  CHAPTER 21

  Rafael drove slowly past the Smart Mart. A rubbernecker like anyone else, but he knew the details of the crime scene. He didn’t need to see Troy’s body to know. The coroner’s van had arrived. Cliff’s lights still strobed the parking lot. He slid past on Central until he couldn’t see his own store anymore and then gunned the engine.

  Tears brimmed his eyes as he drove. Rafael swung the car hard right then back left again, jostling the trunk. If the kid was still ali
ve, he’d get a hell of a jolt. If he was still alive, he didn’t have long.

  Garret whacked his head on the wheel well, then pounded into Kyle’s dead body. When he pressed against him, the waterlogged corpse made a squish that made Garret gag. He had no idea how long they’d been driving. Each moment in the trunk felt like an hour. The air was stifling, the heat increasing, and the clammy flesh of his friend felt less like skin and more like death itself was reaching out to grab hold of Garret.

  His gut burned. He felt like he could sense the path of the bullet through him like a drill bit turning without end. The wound, open on both ends, was probably sucking up every infection and parasite it could from sharing a bunk with a corpse. But Garret knew he didn’t have the luxury of time to die by infection.

  His two best friends were already gone. Choked of life, each of them. Cut off from the air until their lungs failed and either collapsed or burst, whichever they do first. Garret didn’t know. He wondered if he’d go the same way or if he’d get a bullet in the head, maybe.

  He heard a banging like Rafael was punching his own car. A fist slamming into the door or the dash. And a scream. An angry scream that would only be quieted by blood.

  The car slowed and went off the smooth road. Garret and Kyle bumped against each other as the car went over an uneven dirt road, deeply rutted and pitted. The car stopped. Garret started to hyperventilate. The humid air, moist with his dead friend’s death, offered little comfort when he sucked in deep gasps.

  The trunk lid lifted and Garret inhaled the cold night air. In with it came a stench of rotten garbage, worse than the smell of the corpse next to him.

  Rafael put two rough hands on Garret’s shirt and lifted him out, bent him over the edge of the trunk, and let him fall to the dirt. His gunshot wound ground against the car as he fell and he grunted with pain when he hit. He opened one eye and found himself staring under the car. He could see the tire, the dirt path, and beyond it a mountain of garbage.

  Sutherland pulled at a broken bed frame and with it came the teetering pile of trash it had held up. The avalanche of garbage covered Mike where Sutherland had thrown him. He picked a spot near a sharp incline, hoping the next delivery of the week’s trash would force a landslide down the hill and further bury the bodies.

  He didn’t put them together. Something in him wouldn’t allow it. Even in undignified death, he didn’t want them together. He and Tracy already had plots picked out in the cemetery. Next to each other, near a shade tree. Bought and paid for.

  Sutherland stood, stretched his back. He couldn’t believe he had gotten used to the smell so quickly. He didn’t know if a nose could go numb. More likely it was olfactory overload.

  When he stood up straight, he saw the lights of a car go dim. He couldn’t remember if they were there before, and if the light change hadn’t caught his eye, he may not have noticed them at all. He dropped to his knees. The car was a few hundred yards away. Probably kids come out to smoke pot or have sex. But that’s what the tunnel was for. Who would willingly put themselves through this stench, even to get high?

  And what had they seen? He cursed under his breath, but he had to go find out.

  Kyle’s body hit the ground next to Garret like a pile of mismatched parts held together with string. Everything was loose weight seeking the lowest ground. An arm curved behind his head which bent to the side beyond what was natural. His legs crossed at the knee and then went two different directions.

  Rafael slammed the trunk hard.

  “I seen what you did,” he said.

  Garret couldn’t speak. For the best, really.

  “He was my brother, man.” Rafael pounded the trunk with a fist. “My flesh and blood.”

  Surging above the fear was a deep guilt. Garret could have said no to Trip the night of the break-in. He could have gone to his dad for help, dealt with the consequences. He could have left Kyle out of it when he clearly didn’t have it in him.

  And now death awaited at the bottom of a garbage heap. Would this be where he struggled for breath, each lungful bringing with it stinging rot and decay?

  Rafael bent down to look at Garret. “Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

  Garret spat blood. “Nobody.”

  “That’s right.” Rafael stood. “I want to see you go. I want to know you died ugly, you little fuck.” He went to the car and got in. The car pulled forward a few feet. Garret squirmed in the dirt, curious and terrified. The red taillights burned in Garret’s eyes as the car braked, then shifted into reverse. The back tires came at him. Garret found it was hard to bend in the middle with his gunshot wound. The tires kicked dirt into his eyes and he had to close them, waiting for the crushing weight of the car. But Rafael stopped. Garret heard the door, footsteps, then felt hands on him.

  Rafael dragged Garret a foot to the left, lining up his head with the back tire. He held it like a rock and pulled him by the neck until Garret’s head sat like a wheel chock. Rafael pushed down and Garret felt the heat of the rubber on his scalp. He was wedged in good. So this is how he would die.

  Garret heard Rafael walk back to the car, get in and slam the door. He revved the engine a few times, putting on a show for Garret. A countdown to death like the executioner before the axe falls on the block.

  A sharp crack sounded and the engine revs died. Garret tried to move his head but he couldn’t. A second shot cut the night and he heard it bang into the car’s metal. Then Rafael was returning fire.

  Garret ground his teeth together as he bent in half, his head coming unstuck from under the tire. He rolled away in a ball hoping not to have his escape cut short by a stray bullet from the mysterious gunfight erupting around him.

  The second body wasn’t dead. It started rolling across the dirt like one of those roly-poly bugs his son used to pick up all the time. When the body came to a stop, Sutherland could see it was his son. He blinked, certain that the flash memory had put the image of Garret in his head, but the body he saw struggling to stand up was his son, and he was injured.

  When Sutherland dropped to one knee to shoot at the car about to crush Garret’s skull, Sutherland figured he’d gone as far as he could on his shot-up leg. Seeing his boy crawling through the dirt was like a shot of Novocain to his thigh. He stood, grinding through the pain and pounding forward in a limping run. His gun reached out in front of him, anxious to kill again. As reluctantly as he shot his wife and her lover, now he eagerly sought the man behind the wheel.

  After the first two return fire shots, the man in the car went quiet. Sutherland reached the bottom of the garbage mountain he’d been perched on and now stood in the dirt twenty feet from the back end of the car. A slow leak of exhaust rose up from the tailpipe and the engine rumbled in idle, but the brake lights didn’t burn. No foot on the pedal. Whoever it was had ditched the car and was now on foot like Sutherland. Two good feet.

  He watched his son moving like a worm through the dirt. He clawed with one hand ahead of him to pull himself along.

  A shot kicked up dirt a few feet in front of Garret. Sutherland had been watching his son and didn’t see where the shot came from. He scanned the garbage pile for any sign of motion. Another shot would mean a muzzle flash, easy to track. But another shot meant a second chance to kill his son.

  “Garret,” he yelled. “You’re too exposed. Get some cover.”

  Garret looked up at his father, confusion cutting through the pain.

  “Move, son.”

  Garret turned and started crawling back to the car.

  Son? Did he say son?

  Rafael crouched in a nest of trash. The smell made his eyes water. He knew he had to move. How the fuck did the kid’s dad get here? Rafael knew he’d let the emotion of losing his brother cloud his judgement. He should have drowned the second kid and been done with it. He could have made Drucker get rid of them both as a way to pay off his debt. If he hadn’t broken his knees, that is, and left him back at the house. Shit.
He’d have to deal with that tonight after he got home. Fuck, these kids sure did know how to show up at the wrong damn time.

  Now that the shooter, the dad, was down off the garbage mountain he was harder to see. The car blocked the view between them. Rafael was pretty sure the dad didn’t know where he was hiding, but he wanted a clean shot before he acted.

  He tried to slide to the right and get a better view, but his foot slipped on the bed of slime that oozed from every corner of the trash heap. Rafael put out his left hand to stop himself from going head first into other people’s unfinished dinners and used tampons. His right hand never let go of his gun. The palm of his left sparked with pain. His arm bent and he fell shoulder first into a wall of garbage. When he pulled his hand back, he saw a rusty spring from a mattress sticking out of his palm. He’d fallen with his whole body weight and only had the one hand to brake the fall, so the spring coiled into the skin and tried to bounce him back. He looked and saw a three-inch curl of tarnished metal under the skin. He felt the infection starting already, the billions of microscopic germs invading the fragile world under his skin.

  He had to sit down, set his gun on the ground and pull. He twisted the spring, turning it counterclockwise to unspool it from his flesh. The sharp tip bounced out and a thin line of blood rolled down his palm and across his wrist.

  Rafael stood and turned to see what he’d missed.

  Garret made it back to the car, but the sanctuary he sought was far away. Going back to where he’d almost died didn’t seem like the best place to hide from another attempt on his life. But dad had told him to. His dad. Out here. What the fuck?

  He saw his father move in a slow hitching walk around the edge of the dirt track, sticking close to the wall of debris at his back. He was looking for Rafael. How much did he know?