Stiffed (7 page)

‘You can almost taste that one,’ he says proudly of the foul stench.

And he wonders why
he’s single and only has a handful of loser friends.

Paavo turns hard
right without warning, the tires screeching.   

‘What the …’ I mutter, grabbing hold of Jason to stay in the seat.

The van speeds up, racing through a plush suburban estate.  Without slowing, Paavo turns a hard left, cutting across the path of a SUV driven by a horrified mother, two kids in the back.  Something behind us thuds against the inside of the van. 

‘Paavo!
  Slow down.’

‘We’re being followed,’ he says calmly.

I look in the wing mirror.  Behind us is a black Lexus. 

Barry White and Denise.
 

Damn
.

They obviously didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know where Kate was.

Paavo turns hard left again, heading back to Telegraph Road.  He sweeps right into the traffic, ignoring the red light and the blasts of horns.

Jason lets another loud fart rip.

‘For God’s sake, Paavo, you’re going to get us killed.  And what if the cops stop us?’

He doesn’t answer
, concentrating on weaving in and out of the traffic, one eye on the wing mirror.  He swerves into the inside lane and mutters: ‘Hold on.’

Hold onto what?  I’m in the middle seat.  The only thing to hold onto is Paavo or Jason.  This is why they invented seat belts.  This is why I should be wearing one.

I’d assumed that Paavo was going to cut across the traffic and hang a u-turn to head back into town.  Instead he slams on the brakes performing an emergency stop, the tires squealing as they fight for purchase on the tarmac. 

Unable to counteract the g-force,
and despite my braced legs, I catapult into the dashboard.

Fuck
!

I bounce back in time to catch out the corner of my eye the Lexus fly by on our right, Barry White fighting to steer the car into the parking lot of a Wendy’s and avoid the low wall fronting the premises.  He manages it, but only just and ploughs into the side of a
minivan, before pin-balling down a row of parked cars.

Behind us a chorus of horns is blaring.

Paavo has already started to pull away.  In the side mirror I can see cars slewed at odd angles across the road.  Paavo has not only managed to lose Barry White, but to also cause a major pile-up. 

On the bright side, that should keep the co
ps busy while we get rid of our load.  On the downside, some poor bastards might well be heading to hospital and dozens more will have the pleasurable experience of negotiating with insurers and body shops. 

Another set of offences to a
ppend to the charge sheet; another load of guilt to add to the conscience.

Damn.

* * *

We’re five minutes up the road, cruising at the speed limit, movi
ng out beyond the town into countryside, the highway lined by trees and the occasional open patch of grass surrounding large ranch style houses.  Paavo hasn’t said a word.  Jason hasn’t stopped babbling.

‘Did you see him, man?  He zoomed up and,’ Jason slaps his hands together loudly, shouting ‘Bam!’ at t
he same time.  ‘Fucking awesome!’

‘Jesus, Paavo, you co
uld have killed someone,’ I say, turning to face the taciturn Finn.

‘I was trying to.’

‘He bounced off those parked cars like a fucking pinball,’ Jason continues, slapping his hands on the dashboard, making crashing noises with his mouth.

‘
For fuck’s sake, Jason,’ I snap.  ‘Shut the fuck up!’

‘Well, sor
rrrrry,’ he whines.

I ignore him, turning back to Paavo.  ‘
I mean someone other than Barry White and Junior’s sister.’

He shrugs and stays silent.

‘What if some kid was mangled in that pile up?’

‘Did you want them to follow us?’

‘No!’

‘Then it worked.’

‘You can’t just treat other people as collateral damage.  We could be in big fucking trouble.’

‘We’re already in big trouble,’ he says calmly. 

This whole mess of a morning has played havoc with my mind and body, but it seems to be water off a duck’s back to Paavo.  It’s making me wonder what the hell he did in the army, so I ask him.

‘This and that.’

‘This and that?  Did this and that involve killing people?’

‘It was the army.’

Fuck.

A phone starts to ring.  It’s not my ringtone.  Jason
has Junior’s iPhone in his hand.  He shrugs his shoulders.  ‘I thought I might have another go at accessing it.  It says it’s Denise.’

Damn.

‘Answer it,’ I tell him.

Jason slides the bar across the screen and says: ‘Yes?’

He listens then passes it to me.  I put it to my ear cautiously.  ‘Hello?’

‘You’re a dead man walking,’ Barry White says calmly, his voice sounding like a late night DJ
who has smoked sixty cigarettes a day for the past thirty years.  ‘I’m going to fuck you up so bad even your parents won’t recognize you.’

My balls have shrunk to the size of M&Ms. 

‘My parents are dead,’ I manage to squeak.

Paavo turns off the
highway onto a narrow paved road.  It’s bounded by a mixed deciduous and coniferous forest.

‘And so will you
be, motherfucker.  You owe me a new car.  And a million dollars.’

‘Have you told Denise that you killed Junior?’ I say timidly.

All I can hear is Barry White’s sonorous breathing.

I
listen for a few moments then terminate the call.  I’ve no great desire to keep talking to the psychopath.  The screen goes blank.  I press the on button, but all that happens is it asks for the four digit code and tells me that we’ve missed ten calls.

‘How come it’s not rung until now?’ I ask Jason.

He shrugs and lets another fart rip.  ‘It’s been on silent.  I didn’t have time to crack the code earlier.  I tried the obvious ones – 0000, 1234, 9876 – then gave up.’

‘Shit.’  I give the phone
back to Jason, who puts it in a pocket.  ‘He says we’re dead men walking.  That he’s going to fuck us up.’

‘Throw the phone away,’ Paavo orders.

‘Why?’

‘GPS.
  He can track us.’

‘Flip
.’  I hadn’t thought of that.  Still, having Junior’s phone might be useful.

Paavo pulls to a halt.
  He exits and walks purposefully round the front of the van and opens the passenger door.

‘Give me the phone.’

Jason hands it over just as it starts to ring again.  Paavo turns, pulls his arm back and hurls the phone into the shallow margins of a small lake.  The whole area is dotted with them. It lands with a plop and disappears.  So much for it being potentially useful.

‘Fuck him up,’ Paavo says.

Great, now he thinks he
is
John McClane.

The old mill is only another
mile and a half or so further along the road, off a side turning.  Paavo gets back in and we set off again. If we ever get out of this mess alive I’m going to get myself one of those iPhones.  It looked pretty cool.

At that thought, another pops into my head.  ‘Jason, you’d better tell us what you found out about Junior.
’

* * *

It seems that Junior has a checkered history that wasn’t difficult to put together given his various appearances in newspaper archives and court records.  He grew up in Dorchester, Boston.  Fell out of school when he was seventeen and fell in with the wrong crowd.  Got busted for dealing, then a short time later for mugging an elderly man, and did two years in a juvenile correctional facility. 

Two years after being released
he was sent down again for what Jason says was fourth degree murder. I’ve never heard of it before, but he swears blind it exists. Basically, Junior was an accomplice in a burglary that went wrong.  His partner attacked the unarmed owner of the house with a chisel and they both fled.  The man bled out.  If either of them had stayed and helped him, he would have probably survived.  Junior served five years in MCI-Norfolk, having pled guilty to the crime and twenty other offences. 

When he
left prison he got involved in youth projects and seemingly turned his back on a life of crime.  At some point, he married Barry White’s sister, Denise.

He was
by no means a saint, but it doesn’t sound like he deserved to be shot by his brother-in-law for telling him where to put his insults.

Jesus,
Barry White.  The thought of him driving around looking for us makes my stomach turn.  I decide it’s time to check in with Annabelle.

The phone
keeps ringing.  The longer it goes on, the sicker I feel.  I knew leaving her on her own was a mistake.

‘Hello?’

About time!  What’s she trying to do, give me a stroke? 

‘Anna?’

‘Tadhg!  Where the
hell
are you?’ She snaps.

‘
We’re just arriving at Malachy’s Mill.’

‘I’ve been
worried sick about you. You said you were going to let me know how you were getting on.’

‘
I’m talking to you, aren’t I?  Jason and Paavo insisted on stopping for breakfast.  How’s Redneck?’

I don’t see the point in sharing the journey’s escapades with her.  She
’s probably already scared half-witless babysitting our Memphis captive.  I know I would be.  Two people have died in that house in the past few hours.

‘He’s still out for the count.’

I don’t like the sound of that.  Admittedly, Anna had tried to hit his head into next week, but I would have thought he’d have come round by now.  How long do head trauma victims normally remain unconscious?  In the movies you just chuck a bucket of water over them and they revive almost straightaway.  I suspect the movies might be a crock of crap.  As long as we don’t end up with a third body. This one we would have killed.  Whether the body was found in my house or Malachy’s Mill, we’d still be guilty.

‘If anyone come
s to the house just leave, okay,’ I tell her.  ‘I mean, straight away.  Don’t try and confront them.  Don’t try and take Redneck with you.  Just get the hell out of there and go to Jason’s basement.  You need to play it safe, not sorry.’

‘
For God’s sake, Tadhg, I’m a big girl and you’re not my older brother.  Just relax will you.  I’m more than capable of looking after myself.  Just get back here as soon as you can.  I need to get to work.’

It’s nice to hear that someone has their priorities
straight.  Work?  We need to negotiate with Redneck about Kate’s release, track down the missing million dollars, and buy a new bed to replace the one we’re about to burn.  Then we can go to work.

‘We’ll be back as soon as we can.  Remember, don’t be a hero, okay.’

‘Try looking in the mirror, Superman.’

I end the call.  It’s good to know she’s holding up
well.  Which is more than I can say about myself.  I’m coming down off another adrenaline rush and the lack of sleep is catching up with me.  I feel lethargic and nauseous.

‘She’s fine,’ I announce.  ‘She wants us back there in double quick time.’

Paavo backs the van up to an entrance into the fallen down mill.  It probably hasn’t operated since the nineteenth century.  The roof and floors have long since tumbled in and parts of the upper walls have followed.  In places, small bushes cling precariously onto the brickwork.

We clamber out,
head to the rear of the van and open the doors.  Jason’s six boxes of crap have spilled everywhere.

‘Fuck!’  He bounces up inside, chucking the bags of bloodied shee
ts and clothes out, and starts to gather up his precious junk and re-box it.  ‘These are collector’s items,’ he moans. ‘You ever send my mother to my room again and I’ll KILL you!’

Paavo and myself
drag the mattress out and in through the mill entrance, placing it on a bed of bricks, leaving Jason to repack his boxes.  On top of the mattress we place the bags and the remains of the bed. 

I head to the cab to
retrieve the petrol can. When I return, Paavo and Jason have placed the Marino mummy on top of the pile.  Instinctively I know it doesn’t feel right.  The plan was to get rid of the bodies, not to get
rid
of the bodies.  Dump the stiffs and incinerate the stuff.  We’re in big trouble, but we have to retain some level of humaneness.

‘No
, no.  We’re not burning the bodies.  We’re just leaving them here.’

‘We need to burn them,’ Paavo says, heading back to the van.
  I’m assuming that’s the army training talking, not the real Paavo.  But I could be wrong.