Tropical Freeze (34 page)

But not today. Not with Benny Cousins leading the way.

Thorn edged the ice cream truck onto the narrow shoulder of the road, honking, flashing his lights. He rammed the shifter into second, then third. Passing on the right the stalled line of cars. They all ran after the farmer’s wife.

In the parking lot of Tavernier Towne, the American Legion honor guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary were practicing their march steps, M-14s on their shoulders. The Shriners had begun to arrive on their mopeds, wearing eye patches and red vests and fezzes. A couple of the floats were there already. And half a dozen go-carts revving up. Peewee swashbucklers doing drag race starts in the McDonald’s lot.

He made it to Benny’s by nine-thirty. W. B. was tamping the earth in around the base of the latest royal palm when he pulled the ice cream truck into the drive.

He wedged the silenced .38 into his waistband and got out and walked over. W. B. was thumping the earth hard around the new tree, using a blunt steel rod. Raising it over his head, then driving it down against the fresh dirt.

Thorn called out his name as he approached, and W. B. turned and smiled. Wiped his forehead on his shirt sleeve, leaned the tamper against the tree.

“God Almighty, Thorn,” said W. B., reaching out toward his torn shoulder. “You stick your hand in the wrong lobster hole?”

“You seen Benny this morning?” Thorn said.

“Him and his Elks and Rotisserie buddies up at the house getting soused for the shenanigans. Now that’s a passel of fools.”

Thorn nodded over at the John Deere. He said, “Mind if I use your equipment a minute or two?”

“You all right, Thorn?” W. B. said, eyeing the pistol. “You ain’t got the distemper, do you, boy?”

“Something like that,” he said, and went over to the machine.

He climbed up the fender, hauling himself up with his good arm. He got settled in the seat and shifted the pistol so it didn’t poke.

He ran his eyes over the levers, reminding himself. Then he started it up, put it in gear, and lowered the front-end bucket as he turned the wheel. He drove toward the newest tree.

“Thorn! What the hell you doing!” W. B. stood in the path of the machine, waving his hands.

Thorn plowed ahead, aiming the edge of the bucket at a place a third of the way up the trunk. W. B. whooped and jumped aside.

Thorn kept it in low gear as he rammed the tree, revving the engine. He pushed the palm backwards, the deep-grooved tractor wheels biting, turning in the grass. He knew the root balls on those trees were just three feet deep, set under a foot of dirt. It’d be months before the roots sprouted, took hold in that coral. Months before those trees could stand up to a good gale.

He backed off. The tree was leaning at a hard angle.

W. B. had drawn close and seemed to be about to make a lunge for the keys.

Thorn drew out the .38 and let him admire its sleek lines. W. B. smiled, showing Thorn his palms, moving away backwards.

“Hey, it’s your world, Thorn. I’m just walking through.”

Thorn put the pistol back in his belt and took aim again with the bucket and got some speed behind this run. He hit the tree lower down and sent it lurching backwards. It fell, and its fronds settled into the grass.

He lowered the scoop to the hole, tipped the bucket down, and drove forward. Levered the bucket up and got the root ball into the scoop. He kept lifting it, powering the machine forward till he had the root a few feet away from the hole. He dumped it.

“Nice work,” W. B. called. He was sitting on a mound of dirt a few feet away. “You ain’t applying for my job, are you?”

Thorn brought the scooper back over the hole. Out of the edge of his vision he saw something moving at the house. But he kept his attention on the bucket, digging it a couple of feet down into the loose earth.

“They coming for you,” W. B. called. “I spect they want a rematch. Two out of three falls.”

He emptied the dirt near the hole, brought the bucket back for another scoop. This was the delicate moment. But there wasn’t time to get down in the hole and do this reverently by hand. Dead was dead. If he mangled her body with the scoop in the interests of speed and justice, Darcy would’ve understood. Done the same.

A brown Mercedes pulled up to the edge of the John Deere, and Joey got out of the driver’s door. He was wearing black tights, a red T-shirt, black bandanna around his neck. He huffed. Closed his eyes and shook his head. Drew out his long-barrel .38.

Thorn lowered the scooper into the hole again, as Joey called out to him to shut the goddamn thing off. He assumed Joey had his pistol aimed and cocked by now. But that didn’t matter. Thorn’d been shot before. It wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out.

He ran the bucket down one edge of the hole, turned it with the lever, and dug in. He pulled back carefully and raised it. Dirt spilled from the sides of the scoop. And a rubber thong.

Thorn swung the John Deere around so it was headed toward Benny’s house. He brought it forward a couple of feet and stopped. Settled the bucket over some thick Bermuda grass, rocked it over. And onto the grass spilled a naked body. A rubber thong landing on his gut. Roger.

Not Darcy. Roger.

Thorn looked over at Joey. Yeah, his gun was out. Probably a much better shot than Ozzie. He had that look about him, as if he hadn’t missed many things he really wanted to hit. His pistol lowering as Joey walked over, staring at the body on the grass.

He came up to the body, turned it over with the toe of his tennis shoe. A single shot through the forehead. The tough guy Joey brought a hand to his belly then. Couldn’t handle a simple corpse before breakfast.

W. B. had walked over to Thorn. He said, “I been gravedigging. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Thorn nodded and said, “When Benny called last night, was it only for this one tree?”

“He said to put this one in,” W. B. said, “and dig the hole for another.”

Thorn took a long breath.

“Get down from there now,” Joey said. “Hands high, fucker.”

Thorn got down, keeping his good hand in the air. Joey pressed the barrel to the back of his neck.

He reached around and stripped the pistol out of Thorn’s belt, slung it onto the ground. He patted the left pocket of Thorn’s jacket. Then the right. Felt the bulge in there.

“You asshole,” Joey said. “You’re finished playing games in this time zone, man.”

He dug his hand into Thorn’s right pocket and got a palm full of torpedo plugs. Barbed steel hooks designed to slide in easy, and stay. When he got his breath back, he screamed.

And Thorn mashed Joey’s hand inside the pocket, swiveling then and driving his elbow into Joey’s gut. Joey sat back hard on the ground. Several of the plugs snagged to his hand. A couple had ripped free and were still hanging from Thorn’s jacket pocket.

Thorn picked up the silenced .38. And Joey’s donation to his collection. He carried them over to the ice cream truck and climbed back in. Set them on the floor with the others in front of Gaeton. When this was over, he’d have to rent that auger, run it as deep as it went, fill the hole with pistols. And tamp them in. His own time capsule, his meager message down the ages. These were our weapons. They made killing easier than it should be. So some of us began to bury them.

Now he should sit out here and wait for Sugar to arrive. The sensible thing. The lawful thing.

He glanced back. Joey was sitting on the mound of dirt, staring at the plugs dangling from his palm. His hand slick with his blood. And W. B. was standing beside the empty hole, examining a T-shirt, the rubber thongs.

Thorn yelled at him to come over. W. B. hesitated. Thorn yelled that he needed him. He needed him bad. And W. B. dropped the T-shirt and thongs and came over.

It took a minute more of convincing to get him to stand on the steps next to Gaeton’s body. But W. B. did it, closing his eyes, took a breath, turned his head away, and held on.

Thorn cranked up the ice cream truck, switched on the tape. It was “Old MacDonald” now. With a quack-quack here and a quack-quack there. He headed on up to the house.

With a here quack, there quack, everywhere a quack-quack.

Thorn parked the ice cream truck beneath a poinciana tree. There were fifteen, twenty men dressed in pirate regalia horsing around the pool and the yard. Drinking from plastic cups, talking, a couple of mock sword fights going on. Gusts of laughter.

W. B. stayed by the truck while Thorn walked out to the pool area, nodding at a few people he recognized. Saying hi there. Beautiful day for it, isn’t it? Getting a couple of odd looks at his bloodstained shirt, the pistol in his belt. But he made no serious waves as he moved to the pool deck and found the chair he remembered sitting in that first day with Benny. A white thing with cast-iron vines and leaves curling around iron grillwork.

He lugged it back to the ice cream truck and positioned it so it would be visible from any of the front windows when the truck was moved. In the shade of a coconut palm.

A few yards away the galleon float was parked under a large sea grape tree. It was Captain Kidd’s four-masted schooner with papier-mâché cannons. Its hull was chicken wire and crepe paper.

With a moo-moo here and a quack-quack there. Here quack. There quack.

Charlie Boilini, sipping from a plastic cup, came walking over, nodding hello to Thorn. Owner of Boilini Liquors, past president of the Chamber of Commerce, the Elks, Rotary. He came up to the ice cream truck as Thorn was about to step back aboard. He smiled prosperously. In red tunic, white flounced shirt, long black boots, a red hat cocked sideways.

“I didn’t know you were selling ice cream these days.”

“I’m not,” Thorn said.

Boilini stared at Thorn’s shoulder wound. He reached out, but Thorn edged away.

“That’s an interesting costume,” Boilini said. “Not historical, but it’s got a good realistic feel to it.”

“It does have that,” Thorn said.

Some of Boilini’s Rotary buddies were dueling in the shade near the float, half pints showing from a few pockets.

Thorn glanced up at the house, asked Boilini where Benny was.

“Upstairs, putting the finishing touches on, I guess,” he said. “Later than shit, too.” He was staring at Gaeton now. Blinking. Quietly, he said, “I didn’t know you knew Mr. Cousins.”

Thorn said yes, they went way back. Way back.

Three or four of Benny’s men were standing by the hot tub, watching the Rotary guys duel, the contest growing to five combatants, all of them huffing hard as they clacked swords. Some rum guzzling behind the float. Belly laughs. Out beyond them, the shallows were a blue sheen. The sky cloudless.

Thorn motioned for W. B., and the two of them walked around to the passenger door. Charlie followed. With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there. Here moo. There moo.

“Let’s carry him over to the chair,” Thorn said to W. B.

“Touch him?”

“It’s the only way,” Thorn said.

W. B. shook his head. No, sir.

Boilini squinted at the corpse, then at Thorn. He stepped up one step, touched Gaeton’s right hand.

“Holy shit.” He stepped back down. He looked ready to swoon. “Holy shit, holy shit. Is that for real? Gaeton Richards dead.”

Thorn said it was, it was for real.

“Come on, Thorn. This is a goddamn practical joke.”

“No, Charlie,” he said.

“Oh, Jesus, this is gonna fuck up things, Thorn. The parade, everything.”

“Yeah,” Thorn said. “It’s a shame.”

Boilini stumbled backwards, moving his eyes between Thorn and Gaeton.

Well, hell. He would just have to do it alone then. Thorn stepped up into the truck and put his shoulder into Gaeton’s gut, lifted, almost lost it going backwards down the steps. Recovered and turned, staggering. W. B. pitched in then, took charge of Gaeton’s legs, and together they made it the five yards across the grass. They swiveled the body and settled Gaeton into the chair. Thorn looked back to see if all of this was screened from the house by the ice cream truck. Yes. Yes.

“When you see me or anybody else come to a window up there, W. B.,” Thorn said, nodding at the house, “you move the truck. Drive it back out front and park it.”

W. B. was swallowing, breathing funny.

“Can you do that for me, W. B.?”

W. B. nodded that he would.

“Keep your eyes on the window.”

He nodded again, sweating. A fuzzy half-smile.

Thorn got Ozzie’s pirate paraphernalia from the ice cream truck. He went back over and started to get Gaeton ready for the festival.

He stretched the bandanna tight across Gaeton’s forehead, hiding most of the wound. And he wedged Gaeton’s hard, rubbery fingers through the plastic guard of the fake sword. The flesh was thawing fast. But the sword stayed there, catching a slip of breeze and wavering.

Thorn stood back to see how he’d done. Boilini was leading some of his buddies over toward him. Here oink, there oink. It wasn’t a bad job. From twenty, thirty yards away you could barely tell.

Boilini and his friends drew around him.

“Charlie,” Thorn said, turning to the group, “when you’re finished gawking here, there’s more bodies out front, by the road. I’m not shitting you either, go take a look.”

Charlie groaned. And as the first few of them came close to the chair, reaching out for a touch, Thorn edged away to the house. When Norman Thompson stumbled back from the body and hollered for the others to get their asses over there and see this, Thorn mounted the front steps. As the rest of the civic leaders and Benny’s boys were crowding around the chair, Thorn opened the front door, went inside.

The house was quiet.

He took the stairs three at a time. Halted at the landing. Listened. There was nothing but the voices outside. He dug his hand into his pocket. Next to the knife was the gold conch shell. He made a fist around it, squeezed.

He tried each door. Two empty guest rooms. The third one with an outside bolt. It was unbolted. Thorn paused. The quack-quacking and oink-oinking were still going on.

He turned the knob slowly and stepped a foot into the room.