Peaceable Kingdom (mobi) (26 page)

“Make it the baseball bat then. Then we just got to find a convenient cliff to dump him over.”

Ramona thought a moment. “Okay. But who does the bashing?”

“We both do. We’ll flip a coin to see who goes first.”

Ramona thought that was fair.

“Want to do it tonight?”

Bernice hesitated.

“Come on, Bernice. I got a date with Stanley tomorrow. I thought this would all be long over by now. Let’s do it. What do you say?”

Bernice considered, then giggled.

“Gee. When do you think they’ll pay on the policy, ’Mona?”

“Let’s flip,” said Ramona.

They found a quarter. Bernice won.

Heads
.

In the upstairs bedroom the warm wet San Diego darkness clung to the room like used sweatsocks to a filthy pair of feet. On the bed, beneath the totally unnecessary—and now, ironical—comforter, Howard lay asleep, his high bulbous forehead awash with dreams.

In his dream, fueled by Kentucky bourbon, it was already
morning. Howard was in the bathroom, breaking into a brand new bottle of Listerine.

The cap wouldn’t give. Howard turned the bottle upside down and tapped it twice on the green porcelain sink. That did the trick. He threw back his head and tasted some.

It tasted like Old Grandad.

He gargled, swallowed, and slugged again. Delighted, he finished the bottle. Looked in the cabinet and underneath the sink for another. There was still the problem of his breath.

He unscrewed the cap from a shampoo bottle and tasted it.

Eighty proof.

Amazed and laughing he drained it. Then a bottle of hair tonic. A bottle of aftershave. Ramona’s roll-on deodorant.

What a morning.

Ramona and Bernice tiptoed shoeless up the stairs and opened the bedroom door. A shaft of light and a tired current of thick warm air preceeded them into the room. Bernice carried Howard’s Louisville Slugger in her right hand, laving its neck with an unaccustomed slick of feminine perspiration.

They waited till their eyes adjusted to the dark and could see something of the green and silver wallpaper.

“I don’t know about this,” whispered Bernice.

“You better know.” Said Ramona.

“I don’t feel so good about this, ’Mona. Look how peaceful he looks lying there. Oh! He looks just like a baby.”

Howard did look childlike. The illusion was enhanced by the pillow clutched in his hands, one corner of which tilted toward his open mouth—in the murk of his dream, the hydrogen peroxide that was actually whiskey, guzzled in early morning greed.

“Yeah, he’s cute all right,” said Ramona. “Whack the fucker right now or I swear you’ll hear about it later.”

She did not exactly know what she meant by that. But
Bernice seemed to know. And suddenly they were in accord, and Howard’s doom was writ.

“Sorry, How’,” said Bernice.

She stepped toward the bed and raised the Slugger.

“I am too,” whispered Ramona. Though a good half of that was drama.

The bat arced down. Bernice’s aim was true.

Wood on wood
. The second piece, slightly wet.

As for Howard, all he heard was a single slap. All he saw was the red-out of his dream. All he felt was the onset of a killer hangover.

It figured.

The girls came down all bloody and excited.

“We did it,” said Bernice.

“We sure did,” Ramona said. “Look at my pants. They’re sopping.”

It was not just blood she was talking about, though there was plenty of that.

It was difficult for her to remember exactly when it had happened.

They had hit him twenty-four times in succession, one after the other. Toward the end they’d become more sporting, bashing him two or three times before surrendering up the bat. Trying swings.

His skull was fractured in sixteen places, his collarbone was shattered and his windpipe. They’d broken his shoulder, vertebra and hip. The blow to the hip had been Bernice’s. She’d been trying out her golf grip, skylarking a bit.

Blood and brains splashed across the walls and windows with each successive blow to the head—and it was immediately after delivering one of these that Ramona had her little accident. She’s said nothing to Bernice. Just leaned against the door and waited until the flashing stopped.

She wondered if she’d ever need sex again.

The place was a mess. Howard was dead and enough was enough. Ramona called a halt.

She took some cotton from her first-aid kit in the bathroom and stuffed it into his ears, nose and mouth to stop the bleeding. She wrapped his head turban-style in a pink bath towel and then waited to see if his brains would seep through. They did.

She took another towel from the linen closet and wrapped it around the first one.

Meanwhile Bernice dressed him in his favorite black-and-red checked hunting jacket, a pair of old blue jeans, red shirt, and green socks. The cowboy boots were a problem. Ramona had to help her.

They taped his wrists together over his hard beer-glutted stomach so they wouldn’t just dangle. Taped his ankles together so they’d be easier to grip when they started lugging. Ramona wound gauze and more tape over the towels. Round and round. Howard looked like a mummy dressed for Opening Day of rabbit season.

They finished their coffee downstairs, took a breather, and then went back for the body. They pushed and pulled. Finally Howard lay face-up on the porch in back of the house, with a trail of blood and brain-matter leading back upstairs to the bedroom as though he’d forgotten something.

“Bring the car around,” said Ramona, “while I clean up a little.”

“Got enough paper towels?”

“I think. I may have to borrow from you, though.”

“That’s okay.”

By the time Bernice returned the flies were buzzing. Ramona was on the staircase with a roll of paper towels and a box of SOS. Bernice shooed flies as best she could.

It was a mistake. In the warm, gulf-stream turbulence of her flailing arms two of them were propelled upstairs toward Ramona crouched intent upon flecks and smears on her off-white staircase, and then beyond—some primitive
homing instinct impelling them toward a candy-store bedroom full of fresh gore, buzzing their rapture into the San Diego night.

In less than an hour the room was filled with flying mosquitoes, houseflies, mites and midges, partying on the remains of Howard.

While Bernice drove twenty-five miles out of town, removed Howard’s tape and turbans, dumped him off a cliff significant enough to cause major increased damage to his body and then drove back to town, Ramona struggled with the blood and insects.

While Bernice cleaned the car and porch, Ramona continued same.

Finally Bernice came up with the bug spray and another roll of paper towels. It helped.

By sunup, six hours later, the blood on the windowsills and the shiny silver wallpaper had turned a light, coral pink and they decided to quit. They took out the garbage. Ramona poured them drinks.

They drank ’til about 8:30.

“Think it’s safe to call now?” asked Bernice.

“I guess. It’s just a missing persons thing. They’re not gonna come looking for him just yet. Later on we can buy some paint. Fix things up a little.”

“Won’t that look suspicious, ’Mona?”

“Nah. We’ll get waterbase. It dries faster. Dial ’em. And then I think I’d better call and cancel that date with Stanley. I’m bushed.”

Ramona sipped her scotch. Bernice dialed, handed her the receiver and sat down to her gin. Tasted it. Stared at it.

Looking sort of puzzled.

The number rang.

“ ’Mona?” said Bernice.

“Shhh. Wait. I’ve got them.”

She finished her drink while Ramona spoke to the sergeant. Got up and filled her own glass and ’Mona’s again.
She listened. Except for what was bothering her, things seemed to be going smoothly.

Her husband had been out all night, Ramona said. This was very unusual for him. She was worried, she said, afraid something had happened. No, she hadn’t checked with the hospitals yet. She assumed the first thing you did was call the police.

Sure, she’d hold a minute.

“This is easy,” she said to Bernice. “Cop’s real nice. Real polite.”

“ ’Mona?” said Bernice. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Wait.” The cop was back again.

Ramona gave him her own name and Howard’s and then their address and phone number. She could hear him typing in the background. He was slow. Two fingers, probably.

The cop wanted to know what he was wearing.

She made it sound uncertain. Red shirt, jeans, hunting jacket, boots or maybe sneakers. He asked for a general description. She gave it to him.

He put her on hold again.

“Mona, I got to
ask
you something,” said Bernice.

“What.” Ramona was annoyed with her. It was probably lack of sleep. Made her fucking cranky.

Bernice looked agitated.

“ ’Mona, I seem to remember you put cotton or something in his mouth, in his ears and stuff. Did you?”

“Of course I did. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. Didn’t you . . .?”

“I didn’t see it! I mean, I didn’t want to
look
at him, you know? At his face? I mean, I saw it there when you did it but then I just forgot, I just pulled off the tape and towels and stuff and . . .”

“Jesus Christ, Bernice! It’s supposed to be a fucking
accident!
”

“Oh God! Oh God!”

Ramona was thinking. Fast.

“It’s all right. It’s all right. We’ll find him. We’ll get to
him before the cops do and we’ll get the stuff out of him and . . . hello?”

“You talking to me?” asked the cop.

“I . . . uh, no. I’ve got a friend here. I’m a little shook, you know?”

“Sure.” The voice was reassuring. “It’s good you got a buddy there. I just thought maybe you was talking to me. It wouldn’t matter, of course. Soon as I get off the phone with you, see, I play back the tape, check to see if I missed somethin’.”

“Tape?”

“Yeah, we pick up all 911s these days. Routine. Tape hold and all. It’s a good thing, really. What if somethin’ was to happen to you while I’ve got you stuck on hold? No good. This way we know.”

She shouldn’t worry about Howard, he said. Usually they just took a ride, had a few and then came back again. Ramona thanked him. He was really very nice.

She replaced the princess phone. She looked at Bernice, weepy-eyed and sniffing. The red of Bernice’s eyes seemed to inflame the soft pale flesh around them, seemed to seep into nose and cheeks. Her friend looked like one of those sad disgusting disposable old men who play Santa Claus in department stores at Christmas time.

Her own face composed itself.

Too bad, she thought, that she still had to depend on her.

Maybe they could find a way around that.

“Just remember,” she said. “The fucker beat me.”

Only one of them looked or acted crazy.

Only one of them even looked dangerous.

Two out of six, he thought.

It could be worse.

The door slid shut behind him, clanging into place.

“Cell,” muttered the crazy guy, head swaying side to side, his long matted hair swaying too. That was how he knew the guy was crazy—saying “cell” like that and swaying back and forth. “You’re in it now.”

Well, he knew that too.

The walls of the holding cell were cinderblock, painted white. Before that they had been red. The underpaint showed through like veins in a bloodshot eye.

“You’re in it now.”

He walked past them and sat on a wooden bench in back, one of only four benches for the seven of them, aware of their eyes on him, on his new silk shirt and two-tone Paul Stuart shoes.
How come they didn’t take the laces?
he thought,
along with his belt and tie and blazer
.

You could hang yourself with a pair of laces, right?

Not that he was about to hang himself over a DUI. Even if it was his first. Still, he considered it a strange omission.

Somebody else could hang you
.

The others were all wearing jeans and running shoes in various states of repair. Teeshirts. A black kid in a tie-dye muscle-shirt. Even the little thin guy in back with glasses—jeans, a teeshirt and running shoes. Variations on a theme. What had he expected? Imagination? Everybody but the tall, sandy-haired guy sitting in front, across from the enormous sleeping fat kid. The sandy-haired guy was wearing prison orange and a red ID bracelet on his wrist. He looked like a hospital attendant, only nastier.

He did have the Reeboks, though.

He was aware of class distinctions.

The cell smelled of pine disinfectant, human shit and more faintly, urine. A metal-frame toilet sat in the middle of the room—aside from the benches its only item of furniture. Apparently it had been recently used. He hoped he wouldn’t need to.