Stiffed (6 page)

‘Did you tell him about the bodies?’ I persist
, as Jason grabs Redneck under the armpits and drags him up onto the chair.

‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
he asks, wheezing from the strain.

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

I drop to one knee and wrap a length of washing line round Redneck’s left foot, binding it to the chair leg.  ‘What did you say to him?’

‘That you needed help to move a mattress and some other junk.
  Don’t worry, Paavo can keep a secret.’

‘But you can’t,’ I say, unable to help myself
.  ‘We told you not to tell anyone.’

‘I didn’t tell
anyone
,’ Jason says, his temper fraying.  ‘I told Paavo.  And I was doing you a favor.  It wasn’t me that called you in the middle of the night to ask you to help move a dead body.  It wasn’t me that turned up with a second body an hour later.  It’ll be me going to prison though if this all goes to shit.’

Fair points.

‘Just relax will you, man,’ Jason says. ‘You’re freaking me out.’

I’m freaking him out? 
I take a deep breath and count to ten.  Relax?  Not a chance in hell. I’m wound tighter than a spring in a grandfather clock.

‘Who’s this dude anyway?’ Jason asks.

‘Earl Jenkins of Memphis, Tennessee,’ I say eventually.  That’s according to his driver’s license.  Except for his wallet, rental car keys and the gun, he wasn’t carrying anything else.  His business card says he’s the CEO of Earl Jenkins Entertainment Corp.

‘Memphi
s?  What did he want before you attacked him?’

‘
I
didn’t attack him, she did,’ I say, pointing to the sofa where Annabelle is staring at the gun in her hand.  ‘She hit him over the head with a spade.’

‘Fuck.’

‘That about sums it up.’

I wind the line across to Redneck’s left foot and repeat the process.

‘Tell him about the million dollars,’ Anna says.

‘He thinks we have a million dollars
that we stole from him.’

‘That Psycho-B
itch stole from him,’ Anna corrects.

‘You hav
e a million dollars?’ Jason asks.

‘Of course I don’t have a million dollars,’ I snap.
So much for relaxing. ‘But Redneck here thinks I do.  He says he has Kate hostage and if I don’t give it back to him, then he’s going to kill me and then kill her.’

‘It sounds like you’re both dead then.’

I pass the line up to Jason and he places Redneck’s left hand on the arm of the chair and starts to bind it in place.

‘
I’d say we’re
all
in the frame now, wouldn’t you?’ I say, pointing at Redneck. 

Why should
I be the only one to suffer?  I wasn’t the one that tried to hit his head for a home run.

‘This is your mess, Carrothead,’ Anna says.  ‘
We’re just trying to help you out.  It was your girlfriend that stole the million dollars.  She’s the reason why you’ve got two dead bodies and a whole heap of trouble.’

Great.
  We’re turning against each other.  And I’m not helping the situation.  The only way we’re going to find a way out of this madness is to work together. 

‘Look, this blame game isn’t helping,’ I say, trying to defuse
matters.  ‘Perhaps we can trade with them?  We have him and his associates have her.  We can swap.’

‘
You want to trade for Psycho-Bitch?’ Anna says angrily.  ‘For God’s sake, Tadhg, she’s the one that got us into this mess.  No way are we trading for her.’

Not quite the reaction I was hoping for, but perhaps one I should have expected.

‘Even if you swap him for her, you still owe him a million dollars,’ Jason says, finishing off the binding on Redneck’s left hand.  ‘Plus interest.’

Damn
.  What the hell would Kate have done with a million dollars?  Split between Jason, Annabelle, Paavo and myself, we could do a lot of things with a cool quarter of million dollars each.  Like, I don’t know, go on holiday or buy a barrow load of gadgets or retire or buy a car with a trunk that you could fit a body inside or something.

My thoughts are interrupted by the front door bell.

The three of us exchange eye contact.  Opening that door hasn’t proven to be a wise move so far today.  Christ only knows who is standing on the porch.  It could be Barry White or Joe Gerlach returning, or Aldo Pirelli or his associates, or some other lunatic brandishing a gun and a bad attitude.

‘It’ll be Paavo,’ Anna says.

Or it could be Paavo.

‘Do you know how to use that thing,’ I say to Anna, pointing at the gun.

‘Aim and pull the trigger,’ she says condescendingly.

Jason pulls the Raptor from a pocket in his shorts.

‘Put that away,’ I say, heading to the door.  ‘Fuck knows what you’ll hit.’

Paavo looks like someone who has just been told he has lost his entire family to a tragic accident.  He steps across the threshold and stares
into the front room at Anna pointing a gun in his direction and Redneck tied to the chair.

‘Is he dead?’

‘No, unconscious.’

‘You have a mattress?’

This is who I should have called instead of Jason.  Nothing fazes Paavo.  You have an unconscious man tied to a chair, that’s your business.  His is moving stuff.

* * *

Paavo didn’t blink at the blood on the mattress, just grabbed the end nearest the top of the stairs and slid it down.  I guess he saw worse when he was in the army.  He signed up straight from school, did nine years and then bailed out.  He’s never told any of us what he did or where he served.  If you ask, he just says, ‘stuff’ and ‘wherever they sent you.’  When he left the army he returned to Carrick Springs and worked in a car component factory until they shut it down, then he started driving a van for a local delivery company.  He doesn’t seem to care about the crappy money or hours.  It’s a living not a vocation. 

T
he van is now loaded with the mattress, the bed, and the garbage bags containing my own and Marino’s clothes.  We’ve left Annabelle, at her own insistence, to guard Redneck.  When he comes round we’re hoping he’ll tell us what the hell is going on and we’re going to try and persuade him that we haven’t a clue about his money, that that’s between him and Kate, and we’ll silently go our way, if he goes his.  He’s a businessman, he’ll hopefully see sense.

Paavo has driven
a few houses down the road and reversed the van into the drive of the Choi’s house.  It won’t fit down the alley between the houses, but it blocks out the view from the road of any potential prying eyes.  There are now a few people up and about, heading off for their day of purgatory.  Much like us.  The sky is blue with barely a wisp of cloud.  It’s going to be a hot one.

‘You stay here,’ I say to Paavo, ‘we’ll load the rest of the stuff.’

‘She’ll be heavy,’ Paavo replies.

‘Who’ll be heavy?’ I try to fake confusion.

‘The body.’

‘What body?’

‘Psycho-Bitch.’

‘Psycho-B
itch?’ 

He thinks I’ve killed
Kate. 

‘No, no.  It’s not
Kate.’

‘So there is a
body.’  Paavo eases himself out of the driver’s door just as Mrs Choi exits the house.

‘No, no, no, no, no, no.  Not here.  You wrong place.’  Mrs Choi is small, round and energetic.

I step round the van.  ‘Hello, Mrs Choi, we’re just helping Jason move some stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Some junk from his room.  We’re going to the dump.’

‘Good!’
She claps her hands.  ‘Room full of junk.  I go help.’  She turns on her heels and heads back into the house.

Jason’s going to shit a brick.  His basement is bursting at the seams, much like himself.  To most people it looks like junk, but to him it’s all vital stuff
; mostly what he euphemistically calls ‘collectibles’.  And he’s very precious about it all.  He’ll be given no choice now but to load some of it into the van to keep up the pretence.

We head
down the alley to the garage.

‘What’s he doing
back here?’ Jason asks, blocking the doorway. 

‘Your mother’s in your room.
  She thinks we’re helping you clear it out.’

‘My
mother … oh fuck!  You’re going to pay big time for this, Tadhg,’ Jason says, waddling at top speed to the entrance to his basement lair.

Bring the man two bodies and he’s basically okay about it.  Tell him his mother is in his room and his world falls apart.  Go figure.  I guess Mrs Choi is a damn sight scarier than two mummies.  I’ve certainly never had the balls to cross her.  And nor has Mr Choi, the most henpecked man on the planet.

‘Are you taking that gun in with you?’

‘Fuck.’  Jason turns on his heels and hurtles back to the garage, passing us without saying a thing.  He hides the gun
inside a large plant pot and sets off again.

Whilst Jason is keeping Mrs Choi
occupied, Paavo and myself move the bodies to the van. 

The only thing Paavo says is: ‘We need to wrap these in plastic.’

When I ask why, he replies: ‘The smell.’

Damn
.

We head to Jason’s lair and help him carry six boxes to the van.  They’re full of magazines, books, war games toys, cables and assorted forms of other crap.

‘You’re a dead man, Tadhg,’ Jason hisses.  He’s changed clothes into red shorts, white sneakers with no socks, and a tent-sized black t-shirt with ‘Fat people are harder to kidnap,’ printed on the front.  I’m not sure whether he’s wearing it as a challenge, a threat or to drop a subliminal message.   

‘Relax,
we’ll bring it back later.’

‘You sent my mother to my room!’

‘Did you want me to send her to the garage?’

‘Never send her to my room again.’

The man needs to get a bit of perspective.

3

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error —
 
Cicero

The five of us are in Paavo’s van – Paavo behind the wheel, me in the middle, Jason on passenger side, Marino and Junior in the back.

‘Head up Telegraph Road and stop at John Philips
’,’ I instruct Paavo.  ‘We need to buy gas to burn the clothes and mattress.’

John Philips
’ gas station is a local institution.  Gas station, grocery, diner and hardware store combined into one plot, braced by a large RiteAid store on one side and the Kill Fat Fitness Centre on the other.  It was built in a different era, when it was probably a good mile outside of town on the road north and surrounded by fields.  A low density mix of housing and strip malls crept out to meet it, skipped over its dated charm, and continued on its way, covering good quality soil with acres of tarmac and architecture that the next generation is unlikely to thanks us for.  Stretching off on either side of the road is leafy, low density suburban sprawl, one subdivision after another.

‘We can get breakfast as well
,’ Jason says, rubbing his ample stomach.  The man is ruled by his appetite, which is prodigious.

‘Takeout,’ I say.  Once Jason sits down we’ll be there an hour.

‘The works.  I’m starving.’

‘Once you’ve lost
three hundred pounds you’ll be starving.  At the minute, you’re just peckish.  You’ve just had a donut.’

‘An appetizer.’

‘We eat,’ Paavo states firmly.

‘We can eat after we’ve got rid of … you know,’ I gesture my thumb over my shoulder.

‘We eat now,’ Paavo re-states. 

‘I really …’

‘Empty stomach, empty mind.’

‘Is that an army slogan?’ I ask, starting to lose my cool.  ‘Fuck the army, we need to get rid of those two back there.’

‘Army knows best.’

The army knows best?  Only someone in the army should live his life by army slogan
s.  Everyone else should have a free pass.

‘We get the gas,
’ I persist, ‘drive up to Old Malachy’s Mill, dump the bodies, torch everything else and then eat.  What if we’re caught with Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee?’

‘We go to
jail,’ Paavo says calmly.

‘Exactly!’

‘With a full stomach.’

I’ve somehow managed to end up friends with a pair of idiots more focused on their next meal than the next twenty years. 
We pass one of Annabelle’s stores on our right. 
Annabelle’s Delights
.  Purple script on a pale pink surround, the window full of chocolate temptations.  It’s still closed thankfully, otherwise Jason would no doubt want to stop for a little pick-me-up.  Or a bucketful.  And I’d find it difficult to pass up one of her brownies and Paavo would almost certainly have a mocha and a rum and raisin slab.  Then we’d all be wired on a sugar rush breakfast.  Not a good idea.

‘Well, I’ll
go while you eat,’ I offer.

‘You don’t drive, remember,’ Jason says.  ‘
And you’re out-voted two to one.’

For
flip’s sake!  Jason’s ruled by his stomach, Paavo by army slogans.  Friends: can’t live without them, can’t swap them for cash.

Paavo pulls in to John Philips’ lot and parks off to one side.

‘I’ll buy a container and the gas, you get matches or a lighter then get started on lining your stomachs,’ I say as we head towards the store.  ‘I just want toast and a coffee.’

‘I knew you’d see sense,’ Jason says.

As if I had a choice.

W
e split up on entering the store. I head to the back and into an old-style hardware store and the motor sector.  It is floor to ceiling shelves, all packed with boxes and gadgets.  I pick out a red, gallon-sized plastic container and pay for it.  I then head back out to the pumps and fill it up.  I can’t take it back into the store like that so I head to the van.  It’s locked and I don’t have the keys so I slide it under the chassis, out of sight.  Hopefully nobody will steal it, or worse, pour it over the van and set it alight.

I head back in
, pay for the gas and wander into the diner.  It hasn’t been updated in fifty odd years.  A set of low, red vinyl booths, large mirrors and automobile memorabilia on the walls, and an open kitchen at the back.  Most of the booths are occupied with a cross-section of Carrick society, from long-haired truckers through to smartly dressed businesswomen.  Paavo and Jason are sitting next to a window with a clear view of the van.

I
slide in next to Paavo, Jason sitting opposite, his stomach squashed against the table edge.

‘Well?’ I ask.

‘It’s on its way.’

‘Good.’
  There’s already a black coffee in front of me.  I take a sip.  Just the right side of too bitter.  Hopefully this won’t take long and we can get on our way.  I’m going to feel a damn sight less jittery once we’ve got rid of Marino and Junior, even though we’ll still have Redneck to deal with on our return.

A black woman in her
mid-thirties slides into the seat next to Jason.  She’s wearing a grey sweater with ‘Red Sox’ printed across it and her straightened hair is sticking out at odd angles as if she’d rolled out of bed and come direct to the diner.

‘Can I help you, Miss?’
I ask.

‘Yeah, you can tell me where to find that double-crossing bitch and my lying
, cheating husband.’

‘Double-crossing bitch?’

‘Yeah, Kathy.  And Ronnie.’

‘Kathy?’

‘Yeah, that double-crossing bitch you live with.  You’re Tadger, right?’

‘Tadhg.’

This conversation is starting to get a little surreal.  Who the hell are Kathy and Ronnie?

‘Whatever, honey.  I want Ronnie, and my brother over there,’ she points a long
, false nail painted red and dotted with silver stars over my shoulder, ‘wants Kathy and the money she stole from him.’

I glance over my shoul
der.  Barry White is standing at the entrance to the diner.  He looks seriously pissed. 

I turn back to the table and mutter: ‘Oh fuck.’

‘Oh fuck is right.  My brother is one badass motherfucker. He wanted to come over here to
persuade
you to tell him where Kathy is.  I told him it would be better if I spoke to you first.  See if I could get some answers in a civilized fashion.  Now, I’ve been driving half the night, I ain’t in a good mood, you understand?  So, where are Kathy and Ronnie?’

A
dim light bulb sparks into life in my addled brain.  Kate and Junior.  And the disheveled woman sitting opposite must be Denise.  This is not good.  This is not good at all.  My stomach flips a double somersault.

The truthful answer is, of course, that
her badass brother shot her big mouth husband and he’s lying like a mummy on a blood-stained mattress in the back of the white van outside and Kathy is being held by Redneck.

Instead I answer: ‘We don’t know.  She left me.’

Denise puts her head in her hands and shakes her head.  Then she clucks her tongue and places her hands together as if she is praying, her fingernails brushing her chin.  ‘When?’

‘Last night.’

An elderly waitress wanders over with three plates balanced on her arms.  ‘Three John Philips specials,’ she says, placing the plates in front of Paavo, Jason and I.  ‘You want anything, dear?’ she asks Denise.

‘No thank you, Ma
’am.’

‘
Enjoy, fellas.’  The waitress shuffles off and I glance down at the plate.  A heart attack waiting to happen – eggs, bacon, sausage, fried bread, waffles all piled high. 

Jason has already started t
ucking in as if someone is about to whip the plate away.  Paavo is too absorbed in the conversation to eat.

‘She went off with
my Ronnie?’

‘I … I don’t know.  She knocked me out befor
e she left.  Hit me with a lamp,’ I say truthfully. 

It’s good to have some truth floating around.

‘Goddamn.  He always did have a thing for that bitch.  The thought of all that money probably got him hornier than a tomcat with four balls.’

We lapse into silence. 
Denise staring at the ceiling, Paavo staring at his food and Jason truffling like a pig at a trough.  I’m staring at Denise.  Junior is less than thirty yards away, but there’s no way I’m going to enlighten her on that score despite my desire to tell her that he did stay faithful; that there’s no need to doubt or hate him. 

A hand
slams into the back of my head and forces it down.  My face smashes into the John Philips special.

FUCK!

If it wasn’t piled so high, and I hadn’t managed to turn my head slightly, I’d have probably broken my nose.  My head is yanked back up again by my hair.

I’ve just let a fart go, except it wasn’t just a fart.

DOUBLE FUCK!  

‘Where the fuck is she?’ Barry White asks in his slow
, deep, gravelly voice.

Paavo has already risen to his feet, turning to confront Mr White.

‘SIT the fuck down,’ Barry commands.

Paavo throws a punch.  Barry grabs the fist with one hand, yanks Paavo out of the booth
with the other, his legs clunking into me, spins him round and launches him into the booth opposite, sending crockery, cutlery and two college kids flying.

Denise is on her feet, pulling at Barry’s belt with one hand, hitting
his chest with the other.  He swats her away, grabs hold of my hair again and twists my head so I am looking up at him.

He is one mean-
looking son of a bitch and he has bottomless eyes.

He rumbles: ‘You better find that bitch and get me my money back or you’ll regret the day you were born.’  With that he lets go and strides out of the diner, oblivious to the chaos left in his wake.  Denise trots out after him.

Paavo is being helped back to his feet when Kevin Philips, the latest of the clan to run the emporium, arrives at the table.  ‘Are you okay, Tad?  You want me to call the police?’

‘No.  No, it’s okay
,’ I say, still dazed, rising unsteadily to my feet, brushing food from my face.  ‘It was just a misunderstanding.’

I shift my gait.  I wonder if this place sells underwear.  It probably has everything but.

‘Are you sure?  He assaulted you and your friend.  Caused one hell of a scene.’

‘No,
it’s fine, Kevin, honestly.’ 

The last thing we need is the police turning up.  Joe Gerlach already thinks we’re up to something dodgy.  If he opens the back of the van we’ll be skydiving without a parachute. 
I fish my wallet out of my back pocket and drop a hundred bucks on the table.  Sixty three dollars of it is from Junior. 

‘For the mess.
  I’ll get tidied up and we’ll be gone.  I’m sorry about everything.’

Jason tries to hide a burp and fails
, then motions his fork at Paavo’s plate.  ‘Do you think he’s going to eat that?’

* * *

We’re back in the van, the gas can at my feet.  I tidied up as best I could in a thirty second dash.  More just lubricated the cheeks than anything else.  A little damp, but basically okay.  Which is more than can be said for my body.  Every bit of me aches.  I’m not designed for this kind of carry-on.  I’m more a ‘watch an action movie’ kind of guy than a ‘star in one’ kind.  I don’t have any requisite skills to take on bad guys. 

I’m more like the guy that cops it in the first thirty minutes for being a dumb ass.

Jason’s the fat computer geek who gets it in the first five minutes.

Paavo … Paavo’s just got his ass kicked.  He either comes back John McClane-style, like in the Die Hard movies, or he slinks off with his tail between his legs, becomes an alcoholic and dies a sad lonely death in a shack out in the middle of nowhere.  He hasn’t said a word since the diner.

None of us feel like talking.  We’re lost in our own thoughts. 
Jason and Paavo are probably trying to work out why they’re friends with a dumb ass who’s managed to drag them into the warped and wicked world of Aldo Pirelli, Redneck and Barry White. 

I’m trying to work out why the
hell I didn’t just go to the cops in the first place.  And why I didn’t let Kevin Philips call them five minutes ago. 

Instead of stopping this madness
, I’ve let it roll-on, compounding my initial mistake.  Not that we have a choice any more.  We’re up to our necks in a sea of shitty trouble.  Plus Kate is a hostage.  Plus there’s a million bucks on the line.  Even if we try and call a halt to it all and the bad guys go to prison, they won’t forget their million bucks.  And they won’t forget us. 

Jason lets
rip an enormous fart.

‘For fuck’s sake, Jase,’ I say, wafting at the air in front of my face.  ‘Wind down that window.’