The Devil's Redhead (16 page)

He thought of a boy. Not a monster, a boy not yet three years old, a precious boy, murdered by a drug-crazed half-wit.

Frank withdrew his finger. He'd already been planning to cut the twins' share down, whittle it to zip, and though he expected them to whine, he doubted they'd have made enough noise to squirrel the plan. He could have strung them along, told them another deal was on the way, bigger, fatter, they were his favorite boys. Then poof, gone, with Shel beside him, the twins wondering where their money went. It could've worked. There was no need to do this. But it just took on a life of its own, not some wild improvisation but more the work of some invisible hand: the gun in the trunk, the eight ball, the constant niggling horseshit about Shel.

I'm only human, he thought.

He wiped his face with his sleeve and turned away, thinking: Fitting and fair. Everything, absolutely everything, is fitting and fair. Even this.

He went out to the garage, got behind the wheel of the four-by-four then found himself unable to move. He had no idea what to do. The plan he'd devised, it didn't include a pair of dead twins. Think, he told himself. Think.

As his terror mounted, it occurred to him that maybe he should just pretend that nothing had happened. Stick to the plan, a voice said. Instantly he felt better. That's it, he thought, backing the truck out of the garage. When in doubt, stick to the plan.

He returned to Oakley, heading for a remote entrance to the Akers property, about a mile from the house. This entrance led to an abandoned tract of pasture, separated from the rest of the Akers property by a walnut grove and a series of low hills. No one ever came back here anymore, not since half the Akers herd died in the drought.

He pulled in beyond the gate then sat for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness so he could drive without headlights. Beyond the first hill, out of sight of the road, he parked the four-by-four near a deserted milking shed. He'd readied the place for use the previous week and checked on it every day since then, to be sure no one came nosing around. Outside the truck, he peered in every direction, through the walnut trees, across the hills. He cocked an ear, listening. Confident no one was coming, he went to the back of the truck, opened the tailgate and unloaded the money.

Inside the milking shed, he kicked aside the hay he'd spread across the floor as camouflage. Two days earlier, he'd torn a hole in the concrete floor with a pickax. He emptied the money into a Halburton case he'd stowed there, then buried it beneath a small sheet of plywood. Using equipment he'd lifted from a construction site in East Antioch, he mixed a fresh batch of Quickrete in a slurry boat. After wetting down the wood and the jagged edges of the hole, he worked in the Quickrete, sealing the plywood and smoothing the top with a planing trowel. He shoveled dirt across the entire floor, kicking it helter-skelter to suggest a natural state. He ripped more hay from a wormy bale still sitting in the corner from years ago and scattered it around. He tossed his tools and leftover materials out the door then locked it shut from inside.

From equipment he'd stashed the same night he'd dug the hole, he fashioned a trap from filament wire, a blasting cap and a jar of ether, triggering it to the door. If anybody thought to come out here, peer in the windows, he'd see nothing worth his trouble. If that didn't satisfy him, if he got curious enough to barge on in, he'd get ripped to shreds or burn to death. Frank had seen Lyle rig a meth lab this way, when they had to leave it unattended for a few days. That's the beauty of it, Frank thought. Booby trap's got Lyle's signature on it, not mine.

Stick to the plan.

He went to the downhill wall and crawled out through a hole near the floor. The hole had been put there when the shed was built, a way to pass waste water whenever the inside of the shed got hosed down. Once outside, he lodged a cinder block into the hole, sealed it in place with the last of the Quickrete and piled rocks around it.

He gathered up his tools and the slurry boat and threw them in the back of the truck. Turning the truck around, he headed back out to the road and drove toward a strip mall in Antioch where he tossed his tools and all the rest in a Dumpster. Next he drove to a multiplex, wiped down the inside of the four-by-four, and left it in the lot, walking the half mile to where he'd left his own truck the night before.

During the walk, he kept telling himself, over and over,
It never happened. You were never there.
He repeated these words like a mantra, till flickerings of conviction calmed his mood. Drive it from the mind, he told himself. Where the mind leads, the body follows, and the body tells all.

As he sat inside his own truck again, he took in its smell and feel as though it were God's own hideaway. You're almost home, he thought, inserting the key into the ignition.

Looking up, he saw the twins' car parked in the next aisle over. Grabbing the wheel with both hands he settled forward a little, then hurriedly opened the door to vomit onto the pavement.

Stick to the plan, he thought.
Are you nuts
?

He'd devised the plan when all he thought he'd have to worry about was Felix discovering his stuff was gone. Everybody'd swagger around, trying to ID who did it, but Frank figured nobody'd think he had the spine. That was the plan's perfection. Not even Shel thought he could pull it off. If he ran too quick it'd only blow his cover. That's why he'd buried the money. He'd need time to play it cool. Wait it out. He'd sat through four days of questioning from homicide dicks, he was a veteran of the hostile face-off, he could do it. Sooner or later the thing would blow over, at which point he and Shel could just say, “Hey, later.” Vanish.

That was before he'd lost his head and greased the twins. Now playing it cool seemed crazy. No, he thought, this is all wrong, it won't work, what the fuck were you thinking?

He put a cigarette to his lips and let it hang there unlit. He was shaking. The body tells all. He had to drive back now, before anybody knew the stuff was gone, grab Shel. They'd head right back out to the shed, dig up the money and be gone by daylight.

There, he thought. See? You can do this.

He started the truck, put it in gear and roared from the parking lot toward home. Don't think, he told himself, just go. Get Shel. Tell her you'll explain everything later.

Shortly a flickering darkness swirled in the corner of his eye. He batted at it, jerking the wheel. The truck fishtailed, skidding onto the shoulder as he slammed on the brake and counter-steered. The truck righted finally, lurching to a stop in the middle of the road.

The engine stalled. He sat there a moment in the ensuing quiet, breathing hard.

It wasn't real, he realized. Nothing was there.

Frank turned off the county road down the access lane toward home. Maybe Shel's awake already, he thought. His clothes were sticky with sweat. If I'm lucky, she'll hear me out, stay calm. The more he pictured it, the more the scenario acquired the tang of possibility. Two steps away from home free, he reminded himself. Everything I do, baby, I do for you.

He parked the truck beyond the gateyard and hurried up the back steps through the door and into the kitchen. Hitting the light, he instantly felt the cold hard steel of a double-barreled shotgun, pressed against his face.

“Hey, buddy,” Lyle Akers said, pushing him against the wall with the gun. Roy, Snuff and Hack all sat in the kitchen nook, waiting, armed. “What took ya?”

Shortly Frank was on his knees, bound hand and foot, a lanyard made of white plastic clothesline circling his neck. Then the brothers brought in Shel, tied her to a chair so she faced him, and circled her head with duct tape, gagging her.

Frank sobbed, “I'm sorry please Christ believe me I'm so fucking sorry please …” He said it, or things much like it, over and over, his voice acquiring a manic pitch, a sound not wholly his own. Shel found herself wanting to get away from it. All she could do, however, was close her eyes.

It made her think of Jesse, of course, the way Jesse died. She couldn't look at Frank, not here, not like this, and not bring all that to mind. Like everything was happening all over again, just a slightly different way, to slightly different people. But the same twisted story, the same awful end. She almost felt grateful when, after less than a half hour, Felix's enforcers, Lonnie Dayball and Rick Tully, arrived.

Tully came in first, ducking to get through the door. He was a lumbering, bearded man with wild black hair. His face made little impression, except for the small dark eyes. Basically, the thing you noticed about Tully was how big he was.

Dayball made his entrance next, sauntering in like a midnight movie host. He was wearing a silk sport jacket and black pegged pants with two-tone loafers. He'd combed his blond hair back and trimmed his beard close, his face aglow with a gum-chewing smile. He formed his hand into a gun and fired at Frank, winking as the thumb came down.

“Mercy, mercy,” Dayball said. “A friendless man.”

He positioned himself behind Shel's chair.

Frank stammered, “Let her go, Lonnie, she didn't do nothing, she don't know nothing, it's me, it was always just me …”

Dayball put a finger in the air as though to call for quiet, then removed a notepad from his pocket and flipped through the pages. “This the fifteenth or sixteenth?” he asked no one in particular. Frank knelt there, wondering if the question was meant for him. Wondering if there was a wrong answer.

Tully said to Frank, “Answer him, Short.”

Frank looked back to Dayball, who stood waiting.

“Fifteenth?” Frank murmured.

Lonnie Dayball nodded and wrote this down. “Where do the days go,” he remarked. He checked his watch and wrote down the time as well, then closed the notepad and returned it to his pocket. He looked at Frank and smiled.

“A tight ship is a happy ship.”

“Lonnie, you're gonna let her go, right?”

Dayball stepped closer behind Shel. Resting the heels of his hands on her shoulders, he began gently to coil her hair about his fingers.

“I don't know if I can do that,” he said. “I'm being straight with you. I just don't know.”

He turned toward Tully. Lifting his hands, the fingers still entwined in Shel's hair, he said, “Red red red, Tully. Who's that remind you of?”

Tully stood at the edge of Shel's field of vision. Lyle and Hack and Snuff sat beyond him, in the breakfast nook.

“Got my eyes on Short here,” Tully said, nodding toward Frank. “Don't look good, neither. White as a goddamn sheep.”

Dayball chuckled, still fingering Shel's hair. “Sheet, Tully. The phrase is, ‘White as a sheet.'”

Tully shrugged. “I said what I said.”

“So you did.”

“He don't come clean, gonna look a lot worse. Find his tongue in his pocket and his eyes in his socks.”

Dayball grinned. “It's the little things that keep people together.”

“I'll give you the money,” Frank said.

Dayball began to knead Shel's shoulders. “Money?”

“All of it.”

Dayball set his chin on top of Shel's head. He worked his chin in a tiny circle on her scalp.

“And how much would that be, Frank?”

“Don't hurt her.”

“How much money?”

Frank's breathing came so fast it looked like he might faint. “Fifteen thousand,” he said.

Dayball lifted his head and put his thumbs to Shel's temples, massaging them. The pressure was just short of painful. He said, “Again?”

“Thirty,” Frank cried. “Thirty thousand. Don't.”

Dayball lowered his hands to her throat. With his thumb and forefinger, he found the edges of her trachea. He ran his fingers gently up and down, as though performing a measurement. Shel readied herself.

“I'll show you,” Frank shouted, straining at the lanyard, “I'll dig it up, take it all, don't hurt her …”

He dropped his chin to his chest and sobbed. Tully walked behind him, delivered one hard kick to his kidneys and said, “Stop it.”

Dayball let go of Shel's throat but remained behind her. He settled his weight on the back of her chair. “How much the twins gonna kick in, Frank?”

Frank lifted his head and blinked hard to get the tears out of his eyes. “Lonnie?”

“Tell him, Tull.”

Tully cleared his sinuses again and spat. He said, “Twins got beat.”

Dayball leaned down so his lips were next to Shel's ear. “Bet you didn't peg your little Frankie here for a stone-cold killer.” To Frank, he added, “You were a busy boy tonight, Frankie. Kept poor Tull here shakin 'n' bakin' just to keep up.”

No, Shel thought. It's not true. They're lying, the motherfuckers. Tully killed the twins. Then her eyes met Frank's. She felt a surge of nausea and feared she was going to retch into her gag. She closed her eyes and fought the impulse, knowing she could suffocate that way.