Bright Lights & Glass Houses Page 3

The smell of Buddy Kowalski's cheap cologne hung in the air. It drifted around the diner, an acrid miasma of solvent and citrus that had followed Buddy in and never really left. That smell, and beneath it, copper and bleach and the electric burn from the storm outside.

  Tom Desmond stood, leaning against the Formica counter, his elbow just brushing the half-eaten pie sitting there. He didn't seem to notice. He was staring off into the middle distance, trying not to focus his gaze on any one point. He was trying not to look at her - Courtney - sitting pale-faced and frozen in the corner. Every so often she let out a tiny sob, and in those times Tom stole a glance at her. Just as beautiful, as vulnerable and fragile as when she'd first started work at the diner six months ago.

  Courtney let out a cough and Tom started, knocking the pie plate. He steadied it quickly, unwilling to soil the freshly-washed floor so soon. The mop was still in his other hand. He blinked, only now conscious of how tightly he'd been gripping it.

  "Still raining," he said finally. It wasn't exactly riveting stuff but the silence, punctured only by the rain against the window and Courtney's sniffles, was getting to him. Courtney looked up and smiled, her mascara tracing forks down her cheeks.

  "Yeah I guess it is," she said. Lightning. A clap of thunder sounded outside. Moments later the lightning hit again, freezing the interior of the diner like a still frame.

  "You okay?" Tom asked. "You ready to do this now?"

  Courtney nodded, solemnly, like a child. She stood up. "Put our game faces on," she stated, quoting the line Tom spoke at the beginning of every shift. Staying on the customer side of the counter, she retrieved the cleaning supplies and began to wipe down the surfaces. She'd done it a thousand times before, many times already that night, but now Tom detected an extra thoroughness. Good, he thought. No harm in that.

  His own work waited behind the counter. "Keep an eye out," he told Courtney, pointing to his eyes then the door. The girl nodded.

  "Will do, boss," she said. Tom detected that faint, flirty lilt to her voice. It reassured him. "Oh, and thanks."

  Tom grunted something in response.

  "I mean it. I didn't get to say it yet. Not a lot of men would've done what you did."

  Tom could think of no real response. He just nodded again and stepped behind the counter. He carefully walked to the kitchen, stowing the mop in the supplies cupboard. The cleaning bucket was already back there, so he slowly emptied the water into the sink, following it down with a burst from the tap.

  There was nothing else left to do but the night's main task; the elephant in the room, propped up in the kitchen doorway. Buddy Kowalski, paper napkins pressed into the gaping wound in his head, motionless, dead Buddy. Tom sighed, bent down, and grabbed the corpse under the arms.

  Courtney was trying to keep calm. She really was. Every inch of her body, every synapse in her brain, was forcing the panic down. The sound of her boss dragging her boyfriend's body across the kitchen tiles was filtering through to the shop floor. She cast an eye at the diner door, just as another bolt of lightning struck. Courtney blinked, spots dancing before her eyes. If there was anyone out there, they wouldn't be seen until they got close enough to touch the door handle. The rain was kicking up a fine mist. Surely only a madman would be out in this weather?

  "You alright out there?"

  Tom, in the process of moving Buddy. Courtney nodded, remembered he couldn't see, called back 'yes'. They'd known each other no more than six months, but she had long sensed the fatherly care the older man had for her. Not that he was old enough to be her father; not that her own father was someone she wanted Tom to aspire to be. He was good-looking, she thought. Rugged, as they'd say in the magazines. Like someone who'd spent his life outdoors, had lived hard and well, not as a short-order cook in a diner he'd owned for many years. She'd wondered about his life story, his past, fantasized about it even. To learn, one quiet night, that he'd worked in the diner all his life was a bit of a comedown.

  Courtney preferred the night shift, and so did Tom. Working days, with the assistant manager Hank Barton, or the weekend shift with Hank's wife Claire, Courtney had always felt self-conscious. A little bit clumsy, a bit useless, even though they assured her she wasn't. Tom liked that. He laughed when she spilled something. He made a joke with the customers if she ever got an order wrong, and very few got annoyed. Not that Courtney thought she was doing too badly, lately. Not at all. No sir. She seemed to improve under Tom's guidance, and he was noticing it.

  In the kitchen, Tom muttered something. Courtney wondered if he'd sworn. She'd never heard him swear, not ever. Even that time, a few months ago, when the meth-head poured her scalding coffee on him, accidentally, while clamoring for a look at the tattoo in the crook of Tom's arm. After the cold water came a smile, then later a trip to the emergency room, but not before the shift ended. Courtney had driven him there. They'd both thought it for the best.

  No, Tom never swore, never got angry. He let things be. And Courtney had been shocked, afraid, and a little in awe when her boss had, in that split second marked by a clap of thunder from outside, murdered her boyfriend.

  The body was out back, wrapped in plastic, just waiting for the right moment. It did not move, nor breathe or speak, for it could not. Empty eyes stared into the vacuous blackness of a trash bag, empty chest rose and fell no more. It was no longer driven, powered by the mind and soul that was Buddy Kowalski. Just a tool, an item, a piece of garbage to be disposed of by the two that plotted in the other room. There was no life after death, at least within the confines of the flesh. It knew this now, it understood everything as all thoughts had faded, all life had slipped away.

  Nearby, a creature darted up against the kitchen door, firmly shut. Its tiny feet scratched at the gap around the frame but could find nothing. The animal left; the body waited.

  "What are you going to do with him now?"

  Tom jerked his head around. "Didn't catch that, sorry."

  The girl repeated her question. Tom thought for a second, noting the calm in Courtney's voice. She'd pulled herself together quicker than he could've hoped.

  "Wait till the end of the shift, take him out in the desert maybe," Tom said. No point hiding it. Courtney was staring at him. Had he sounded too callous? Too calculated? Maybe the girl was expecting him to break down, to lose it.

  No.

  "After the shift?" she asked. "You're just going to leave him out there for another five hours?"

  "Ain't nobody going back there, is there?" Tom replied.

  "Guess not."

  "I reckon we're gonna need to talk about this some time," Tom said. He saw the waitress's face fall. It's alright, he thought, I don't really wanna talk about it neither.

  "Guess so."

  "He was gonna hit you. He beat you before. You told me so." Statements, not questions. Courtney nodded. "And what happened, weren't nobody's fault, were it?"

  They'd been over this part already. The first thing Courtney had said: "Wasn't your fault." Tom wanted to be sure. Wanted to know where the girl was coming from.

  "So nobody saw him come in, we reckon. Nobody knew he was coming here. Storm outside, ain't likely anyone was on the road, and even if they were, picking Buddy out from any number of guys in the rain would've been a real bind."

  "Yeah, Tom, yeah," Courtney replied, nodding emphatically. "Don't reckon anyone knows."

  "We didn't see him, then? Haven't seen anyone, have we?"

  "Not a soul." Courtney looked resolute. Tom had been poised, waiting for awkward questions, clarification, what-ifs. They never came. He was relieved.

  "You're not angry at me, ma'am?" Tom studied her face for any signs of fear, hatred. None.

  "No, Tom, you were looking out for me. You saw him, he was crazed. If you hadn't have been here... god..." Courtney wiped at the corner of her eye.

  Tom folded his arms and turned away. He stared out the window, into the storm. "Thank you." Something in the girl's voice, more than her words perhaps, had told
him what he needed to know.

  "It's just..." Courtney went on. Tom turned. What's this?

  "Hmm?"

  "It's just... having him in here with us... I don't know if I can stand it. Knowing he's back there, just sitting there. Waiting. Can't we do something?"

  Tom laughed inwardly. So that was it. The problem.

  "What do you propose we do?" he asked.

  "Reckon we do what you were saying," Courtney said, "but can't you do it now? I can hold down the fort here for an hour or so. I know it's a lot to ask, Tom, but I'm terrified. You understand that, right?"

  Tom paused, nodded. What else could he do? This was quite the dilemma.

  "I do, ma'am, but here's the thing," he said. "I've never left in the middle of a shift. Not once. Never done it."

  "But I'm good now, Tom, you know I am," Courtney said. Her voice had adopted a whining quality. "I don't ever break plates any more, you said so yourself. And look, the rain's pouring down. Nobody's gonna come in."

  "But what if they do? They'll think it's odd. And if, by some poor luck, they ever find Buddy's wretched body, then someone might remember 'hey, that night, old Tom left his shift for a while. Isn't that odd?'"

  "Nobody would have to know," she insisted. "I'll just tell 'em you're out back."

  Tom could see she was beginning to win the argument. Another bolt of lightning hit, illuminating the inside of the diner like a flash bulb. The solution was obvious.

  "I can't bury him now because of the rain," Tom explained "I'll never be able to dig a grave for the fella. Rain will make it too shallow."

  Courtney opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, looked at the floor. "Yeah, that makes sense," she said. "Just..."

  "Tell you what," Tom reassured, "I'll stick him in the trunk ready."

  This was not going to plan. Not at all. Buddy, dead. Tom, out back, struggling to get him into the trunk. Courtney studied her nails. The polish on her left index finger had begun to chip. Must reapply that later.

  There wasn't time for such things now. She had to think fast, and on her feet. Once Buddy was six feet under... no. There were things to worry about before then.

  Outside, at the door, a shape loomed in the storm. The tinkling of the bell. A hefty cough and those familiar tones.

  Oh shit. Oh fuck. Blair. The beat cop. Shit, of course, it's Friday. 'Come rain or shine...'

  "Evening, Courtney," Blair said. Courtney looked at him, momentarily struck dumb. Blair was in his early 60s with a soft, kind face which now dripped rainwater. His gray hair was slicked against his scalp at the base of his hat.

  Courtney found her voice. "Oh, evening Officer Blair," she said, trying to mask the beating of her heart. Tom was still out back. The noise from the rain outside masked any sounds he might be making. Courtney thanked her lucky stars for this.

  "Where's the old feller?" Blair asked, referring to Tom. "He cooking something up for me? I don't smell anything."

  Every Friday night, Blair came in at the same time. It had become such a routine for so many years, Courtney had learned, that Tom had taken to preparing dinner for the aging cop in advance. Always the same. Breakfast at midnight he called it, even though it was past that time. Hash browns, sausages, beans, egg over easy, steaming black coffee. And that time, every Friday, they'd all sit down and eat. Tom settling for an apple, Courtney having one of Tom's unbelievably delicious turkey sandwiches. A ritual. Normality. Something that never changed.

  And now it had.

  Blair approached the counter, dripping water all over the freshly-washed floor. He didn't seem to notice. His eyes sparkled, his never-endingly cheerful demeanor grating on Courtney as it always did. He was peering about the place, looking for Tom. Courtney tried to ignore his question. Where was Tom?

  Think, Courtney, think!

  Thought of a risk. Went to take it.

  Courtney tried to force emotion into her voice. "Tom... he's..."

  "Tom's what?"

  Courtney whirled around. Tom was standing in the kitchen door. The storm had masked his entrance.

  "Tom's here," she said quickly, turning back to Blair and smiling.

  The slamming of the trunk seemed like a distant memory, or it would have if the body had been capable of storing data. It could feel its brain inside its head, a dead weight, no longer firing or functional. It was stifling inside the wrapping. The body's lungs hung limp in its ribcage, its respiratory system failed. It figured it didn't need to use it any more, anyway. Tom's trunk was dark, and probably smelled of damp, the body figured. When the owner of the diner had brought it to the car, the body had imagined it heard the rain battering plastic, leaking in through the gaps, soaking its shirt which was already drenched in coffee.

  If the body could have felt uncomfortable, it realized, it would be feeling uncomfortable right now. Uncomfortable and claustrophobic. When the body had been a human, a real person instead of an inanimate pile of flesh and bones, it had hated small spaces. It was almost a relief, now, not to care. Almost.

  Blair was looking at him expectantly. "Where's my dinner then?" he said, a laugh bubbling in his throat.

  "I was just out back," Tom told him. "Disposing of a body."

  He caught the look of alarm on Blair's face, whose eyes flicked to Courtney. The girl herself looked mortified. Tom laughed guiltily.

  "Rat ran in from outside," he said. "Must've been antagonized by the rain. Reckon I spent a good forty five minutes chasing the critter around, isn't that right Courtney?"

  "Yeah, yeah that rat was a bastard," Courtney said. "Pardon my language."

  "Sorry about dinner," Tom told Blair.

  The cop had pulled himself onto a stool and was eyeing the coffee machine.

  "You ain't even got a pot of coffee on the go?" he said, chuckling.

  Tom shrugged. "Can do, if you want." The coffee pot was currently in pieces, in the bottom of the plastic wrap holding Buddy. Luckily, with Courtney's previous clumsiness in mind, Tom had taken the initiative to buy a couple of spare coffee pots for the machine, one of which he now removed from under the counter and handed to Courtney.

  "Make a couple for us too," he said. "Hey, Blair, what do you wanna do about dinner? I chased that rat all over the kitchen. Might wanna pass tonight till I can disinfect the place."

  He noticed the disappointment in the cop's face before Blair even had a chance to reply.

  "Nope, you know what," Tom said, "I'm gonna rustle up something quick. I'll give it a bit of a clean first, if that's alright with you sir."

  Blair nodded emphatically. "Perfect, feller," he said. "Could murder some of your eggs right now."

  "I'll see what I can do then," Tom replied. He heard the clinking of glass as Courtney removed the coffee pot. "Hold mine," he said. "I'll be back in a while."

  Courtney sipped her drink and stared at Blair. The steam was rising from his mug, giving his skin a waxy shine. Normally Courtney would engage in conversation with the officer, no matter how much his disposition irritated her, but tonight she couldn't muster it. It was okay, she figured, because if he asked she could just say the rat had spooked her. He seemed dense enough to buy that.

  "I saw Buddy earlier," Blair said.

  Courtney felt her skin break out in goose pimples at the mention of her former boyfriend's name. Silly, really. Of course Blair had seen Buddy.

  Buddy was a cop too, after all.

  It was the one aspect Tom had refrained from mentioning when they were discussing everything. Killing anyone was bad. Killing a cop brought a whole world of pain down on you. Courtney presumed her boss had a plan. She didn't know -nor particularly care- what it was. It wasn't her problem, but his. He could deal with it, or not.

  "Oh yeah? He's probably home by now, in bed if he's got any sense," Courtney replied, gesturing to the storm which still raged outside. The smell of Tom's hash browns was making her stomach hurt.

  "Aye, I expect so. He's a good kid, is Buddy." He said this with an air of melanch
oly, and Courtney felt a momentary sense of paranoia which made her head pound.

  "I'll miss him, and all the other guys, when I'm gone," Blair went on. Oh. He was harping on about his retirement again. Of course. It's all he ever talked about. Courtney tried not to roll her eyes.

  She wanted to tell Blair just how much of a good kid Buddy wasn't, and the kind of things he said about the older cop whenever Courtney mentioned him. Buddy had little respect for anybody, much less a police officer who was 'past his sell-by date'. If only you knew, she thought. Might open your naive little eyes a bit.

  All she saw when she looked at Blair was an overweight old man dressed up as a cop. She doubted he'd ever even fired his gun. Buddy had fired his gun plenty. He often bragged about it. Courtney had gone with him to the shooting range once, and her boyfriend's accuracy with his weapon had, she'd hated to admit, impressed her.

  "This is why people don't fuck with me," Buddy had said. But someone had fucked with him now, fucked with him so hard he was lying dead in the trunk of an Oldsmobile. Courtney giggled into her coffee.

  "Penny for your thoughts," Blair said.

  Courtney shrugged. "Nothin', really. Just thinking about that rat."

  "Anyway," Blair went on, as if she had said nothing, "I was chatting to Buddy about Lawson's new ride. You seen it?"

  Niles Lawson was the bank manager. He was 'that guy', the one people talked about. Flashed his money around, thought he owned the town, young for a bank manager, a shyster Blair called him.

  Really, Niles Lawson was responsible for everything which had happened that night. If you really thought about it like that, anyway. Niles Lawson and his untrustworthy ways. He'd led Courtney to find out just what she needed to know to plant the seeds of an idea in her mind.

  Blair smacked his lips together and dropped his cutlery onto the plate with a clack. "Delicious as always, my good man," he said. "Shame you two didn't join me, makes a change!"

  Tom looped his thumbs into his belt, his chest swelling with pride. Even after all these years, a compliment aimed at his cooking still felt good. Cooking was his biggest strength, he thought. Sure, there were other things he was good at, but nothing brought quite so much joy as preparing a perfectly cooked breakfast, a superb cherry pie, a pile of amazing pancakes. It wasn't something he talked about, of course, it would have been impolite to brag, but he did think he was a damn fine chef. You could keep your fancy, inner-city haute cuisine, Tom's style of home cooking was what people wanted. When the weather was better, even at night, people came to the diner. They liked it. They liked him. His regular clientele, people like Blair, relied on him. It was a lucrative relationship.

  "Will you look at that," Blair said. "Rain's stopped. Just like the radio said it would."

  "Gonna be dry for the rest of the evening?" Courtney asked. Tom thought she sounded eager.

  "Nope," Blair said. "Got maybe an hour or so before the heaviest rain of the year hits, apparently. The calm-"

  "Before the storm, yeah," Tom finished. "Damn. Well at least it's dry for now."

  "Aye," Blair replied. "Hey, guys, I better get gone. Walk off this dinner, get dry before the typhoon."

  Tom nodded as Courtney collected up the dishes. "You take care, Officer."

  Courtney waited for a little time to pass. It felt like forever. The clock said five minutes. She spoke.

  Tom found the girl's idea difficult to refute. He didn't need to any more, not now Blair had been and gone. But he figured he better put on a show anyway.

  "Guess I'll head off, then," he said. "You're right. If the storm hits harder, we'll never get this body buried. Better take what we can get."

  Courtney voiced her agreement. It had been her idea, after all.

  "You sure you're going to be alright here alone?" Tom asked. "I'm trusting you, of course. Any signs of trouble, whatever, and you just lock them doors. No sense in you taking any risks."

  He didn't foresee any trouble, or any customers at this time of night, and it wasn't like he was going to be gone long.

  Once he'd allowed Courtney to spend enough time convincing him she'd be fine, he gathered up his coat and keys and went out to the car, where Buddy waited.

  Courtney watched him from the doorway, a look of concern on her face. He glanced over his shoulder at her once, twice, then got into the car and started the engine. As he began to drive off, he saw her retreat back inside the restaurant and close the door. The little radio on his passenger seat crackled once, and Tom thought he heard a cough, before it fell silent. A few drops of rain hit the windshield as Tom guided the car around the corner.

  Courtney stood at the back door listening to the sound of Tom's car disappearing into the night, then waited five more minutes to be sure. She headed into the diner, locked the door, checked it, gave one final glance around and flicked off the lights.

  The stairs leading to Tom's living quarters were dark. Courtney made her way up there, wincing at every creak, knowing nobody was around to hear it. Tom's door was unlocked, as he'd once boasted it always was.

  Tom Desmond and Niles Lawson did not see eye to eye. Tom didn't trust the bank manager, and he didn't trust banks. He'd happily told Courtney this.

  "So you keep your money under a mattress?" she'd asked him, laughing.

  Tom had taken her seriously. "Nope, in a safe upstairs. Safest place for it." And that had been the end of it.

  Guessing the safe's combination had been easy. What Tom forgot, in his earnest, was what he'd told Courtney when she first started working at the diner. The place was open 24/7, but in case of emergencies, there was a burglar alarm. "Passcode is thirteen eighteen sixty five," Tom had said, then laughed. "My date of birth. No good with codes, not at all."

  Of course, Courtney couldn't take the risk that he'd used the same combination for his safe. Getting access to the safe in advance was required. That had been easy too. Three months ago, Tom had been going out frequently when he wasn't at work. At the end of a shift with Hank, she told him she had a gift for Tom and could she wait upstairs. Tom was only going to be five more minutes, after all. And what harm could it do? It's not like she could steal anything. If anything was missing after her announced visit, the finger would be pointed at her. Telling Hank she was going upstairs instead of slipping away and potentially being caught had been a clever move. And a lucrative one. Upstairs, Courtney had made two fortuitous discoveries.

  The safe was digital, unattached to the wall, and did indeed open with Tom's birth date. And inside that safe... Christ, Courtney hadn't been prepared. Stacks and stacks of bills, far more than she could've hoped for. Thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands even.

  Gently, Courtney had closed the safe, adrenaline pulsing through her body. Then she'd entered Tom's bedroom, removed her clothes and climbed into his bed.

  Of course, Tom had been a perfect gentleman about it. Told her she'd misunderstood, that she was a beautiful girl but it wouldn't be right. And so, tearfully, wrapped in one of Tom's jackets, she'd told him about how Buddy treated her, how he hit her.

  The nudity, the bruising around her stomach, had been a nice touch. Courtney had always known her clumsiness would pay off one day.

  Then it had just been a case of waiting. Giving it some time. Making sure Tom trusted her, cared about her. The plan hadn't been for him to kill Buddy, of course. How could Courtney have predicted that? The plan was, that Tom and Buddy would get into an altercation and Buddy, being a hot-headed cop, would arrest Tom. Take him back to the station. Cool off. Apologize. Courtney would back him up. He didn't mean it. He just had a temper on him. She'd be shaken up, of course, because while they were gone the store was robbed. Three men in balaclavas, knocked her out, taken the till, some of Tom's possessions and the entire safe. Some pals of Buddy's from outside town. Crooked guys who Buddy said they could rely on. Courtney had never met them. Right now, they were probably sitting in a van somewhere, waiting for Buddy's call. By the time they got suspicious, it wouldn't ma
tter. Courtney would be long gone. Tom could deal with it. They'd never find her, any of them.

  Buddy's death hadn't been too unfortunate. Courtney was sick of him anyway. He was nothing but a small-town cop with no ambition. He'd been impressed by her plan, and he'd been up for it, but he was just a mindless loser who'd do anything to be edgy. No, having Buddy out the way was the best possible outcome. Courtney had even fantasized about it when she'd devised her plan. She never expected Tom to go that far, though. She almost felt a little respect for him now.

  The safe hadn't moved. Of course it hadn't. Tom didn't change things. Courtney had already fished out Tom's large gym bag. She hoped it was big enough. It hadn't taken her long to find it. She'd seen it enough times, when he came in while she was on a shift with Hank. She tipped the contents out on the floor and peered at the safe. Punched in the combination, one ear cocked, listening for any signs of Tom returning. There were none.

  Courtney was almost disappointed when the light on the safe turned green. She pulled open the door and stared at the money inside. If anything, there was even more now. She began to mentally spend it in her mind, dreaming of buying a car like Niles Lawson's. Her birthday was coming up. Maybe she'd treat herself to something special, for the first time in her life. And whatever she did, when she had all this money in her own safe, she wouldn't make the combination her date of birth like that fucking idiot Tom had done...

  Courtney's mind flashed back to the moment she punched in the combination. One Three One Eight Sixty Five. Eighteenth of the thirteenth? That wasn't a date of birth. It wasn't even anything. Just a code he wanted her to remember.

  Courtney began to turn, silently mouthing the word 'fuck' as the steel bar slammed down hard against her skull.

  The body was feeling exceptionally uncomfortable and more than a little inconvenienced. A dead weight had been dumped on top of it, crushing its shoulder against Tom's car jack. Something about the weight seemed familiar, like the body had felt the same weight on top of it before. And something about the smell, a sweet vanilla perfume. But its mind would not work; it was dead, after all, and could not be expected to think for itself.

  When the body had sensed Tom's car driving around the corner, it had realized this was the end. But then the engine had stopped, the weight of the vehicle shifting as its driver got out, leaving the body in the static darkness of the trunk to just wait, mindless and unafraid of the burial that awaited it. And yet it felt a faint glimmer of fear, and it knew this was wrong as it was just a body, and shouldn't be feeling anything. So it tried to tell itself not to worry, and to let things be, and to an extent it succeeded. But this new development, this weight, and the bumpy desert road the car now drove upon, had reignited that worry and the body wished it could go back to being dead again so it no longer had to care about that.

  Courtney opened her eyes, and instantly wished she hadn't. The pain was incredible. She'd never felt anything like it. White-hot spears pierced her temples. She could feel blood running down the side of her neck. She was lying on her back, a pair of boots in her peripheral vision. Fighting through the pain, she looked up at Tom. Rain was falling heavily again, bouncing off the bonnet which Tom sat against, smoking.

  "Bad habit," Courtney croaked. "Didn't know you smoked." She didn't know what else to say.

  "A lot of things you don't know," Tom muttered. "You're not a smart girl, whatever you might think."

  "How..."

  "How what? How did I find out? How did I get the jump on you? How can you make it up to me?"

  Courtney could taste blood in the back of her throat. She looked away from Tom and up at the stars. Rain fell in her eyes, so she closed them.

  "All of it..."

  "I knew because I'm not stupid. I reckon I know when someone's touched what's mine, whether you took anything or not," Tom told her. "Just had to wait and see how stupid you were. Chance you'd leave it, were just curious. But that, tonight, I could smell a setup from a mile away. Doing Buddy in brought me no end of satisfaction, let me tell you. Was fun to see how you reacted, too."

  Courtney's head hurt too much to be surprised. Of course it had been too easy. Nothing ever fucking worked for her, did it? She turned to the other side now, to be greeted by the sight of a freshly-dug grave. She wondered if Buddy waited inside. Courtney tried to move. An intense pain flared in her legs, and she instinctively knew they were broken.

  "Thought you said... it was no good digging a grave in this rain," she said, trying to grab onto something tangible. "Don't do this."

  "It ain't no good," Tom said, "if people come looking. But they don't come out here, they don't look here. This is my patch. They know better than to look."

  Tom stepped away from the car, walked over to Courtney and reached down. He grabbed her by the waist, sending bursts of pain through her limbs. She cried out. The pain exploded as Tom hurled her into the hole, as she crashed against the still form of Buddy, dirt crumbling from the sides of the grave and getting into her eyes. She wanted to cry. She felt something crawling on her hand. Tried to flick it away. Couldn't. Couldn't move at all.

  Tom's voice echoed down to her. It felt like he was standing a thousand miles away. "Thing about small towns," he said, "is that people need help. They rely on people like me. You pair of cunts come along, think they're all backwards hicks, treat everyone as such. I reckon, ma'am, that you don't quite understand just how a small town sustains itself.

  "All I want to do is cook good food, and make people happy," he continued. "But people came in, they'd talk to me, tell me their problems. And word got about that I was the guy who could help, from time to time. I don't enjoy this, but I don't mind it neither. And every small town has someone like me. And people like you, like Buddy, eventually people like Niles Lawson, you piss someone off enough and eventually you're just a problem.

  "It's normally easy. I won't bore you with the details. But tonight is different. You're hurting me, here. Killing a cop is different."

  He paused, to throw something into the hole. His gym bag. It landed beside Courtney's head, and she saw the wads of dollars pouring out.

  "Only money I reckon," Tom said. "Can get it back. You two pretty much got the jump on me. Robbed me blind, knocked me out, disappeared. Doubt they'll ever find you, or my money. And poor Officer Blair, too. So shook up. Can't believe what you've done."

  "Blair..." Courtney mumbled. She could barely even speak now. Mud was flowing into her mouth, making her want to retch. No energy to do so.

  "Like I said," Tom told her. "It's a small town. We help each other out. Always have, always will. I guess you'll just have to come back when you understand that."

  Courtney detected the faintest trace of anger in Tom's voice, but also disappointment. She wondered, if it were not for the pain, if she'd be feeling remorse now.

  Her right hand still had a bit of movement in it. She clenched her fingers, gripping something beneath her. Buddy's wrist. She held tight.

  The body knew this was the end. It had been thrown into its grave, then something else had joined it, then a smaller something. It was about to be buried, and it understood and accepted this, so why was its heart beating so fast? Why was its heart beating at all? It listened as Tom talked, and in its mind the man's words made sense. Even for a small town, crime was at a minimum. People came and went. Nobody asked any questions. Maybe if, in life, he'd been the kind of man who thought about things, he would've sensed something wrong. But he'd been a dead weight even then, just a lifeless sidekick with nothing to offer.

  Courtney's hand fumbled at his wrist. Buddy twitched. Blinding pain shot through his head. Saliva flooded into his mouth. His hands and feet began to tingle. He was waking up. He wasn't dead! He'd never been dead! This was amazing! He tried to sit up, but Courtney pinned him down. He gasped for breath. He heard her gasp too.

  "Tom," Courtney whispered. "Buddy... he's not..."

  Tom had picked up the shovel and was standing over the grave. He just star
ed at her.

  "Buddy's not..."

  "Buddy's not dead?" Tom asked. "You're right."

  He bent over and scooped up a pile of dirt with the shovel. Somewhere in the distance, lightning struck. The rain started to fall heavier, slowly filling up the grave. Tom tossed the dirt down. It landed with a thud on Courtney's stomach.

  "You're right, he's not dead," Tom said, retrieving another shovelful of earth. "Not yet."

  IV - Dustland