6
PETE BALFOUR
Nothing ever seemed to go right for him, nothing important anyways. He had no damn luck at all. Sometimes it seemed like the gods or whoever had had it in for him even before he come squalling out of the old lady. Ugly face, head like moss growing on a fuckin’ rock, no decent woman, no money except for what he could scrounge up by using his brains along with his muscles. And to top it off, Verriker’s Mayor of Asshole Valley tag. Wasn’t fair, dammit. Neither was what’d happened today. You couldn’t get anymore unfair than that.
First the woman showing up where she had no business being, fooling around his pickup, and then calling him Mr. Balfour. Maybe he shouldn’t of cut loose and choked her the way he had, but he couldn’t just let her walk away knowing who he was. Yeah, and how the hell had she known? He’d never seen her before in his life.
And then, just as bad, finding out Verriker was still alive.
Oh, that bitch Alice had got hers, all right, but she didn’t matter half as much. Verriker had plenty of luck, that was for sure. Always quit work right at five-thirty, always got home before Alice did, but no, not tonight. Tonight of all nights, he’d had to get stuck working late at Builders Supply on account of a shipment of PVC pipe coming in delayed and needing to be unloaded. How could you plan against something like that happening? Something like the woman happening? You couldn’t, nobody could. Just plain lousy luck.
Such a sweet plan, too. He couldn’t of had it worked out any better.
He knew the Verriker place well enough because he’d done some repair work out there a couple of years ago. No other homes close by, the woods running up along the hill on one side, the old logging road that nobody hardly ever used in the daytime. And no worries about the house being empty in the afternoon. Verriker and Alice both worked in town, her in the beauty shop, which was a laugh with a horse face like hers. No kids, no live-in relatives.
Easy as pie getting down there with his toolkit, then getting inside through the side door under the carport. Door opened straight into the kitchen, a wall switch just inside that turned on the kitchen light. He’d rigged the switch first, so it’d be sure to arc, then exposed the wires in the ceiling light fixture for good measure. Then he’d loosened the gas line connection behind the stove just enough to let the gas bleed out slow. That was all there was to it. In and out in less than fifteen minutes. Figuring Verriker might hit the switch right away even though it’d still be daylight when he got home, but if he didn’t, well, him or Alice would do it once it got on toward dark. Figuring either way, Verriker would be dead before nightfall.
Figuring wrong.
He’d found out Verriker was still alive and why when he walked into the Buckhorn. He wasn’t supposed to be in there tonight, or anywhere near Six Pines when the house blew up. Supposed to be in Placerville. What he’d planned to do was drive down there after he rigged the Verrikers’ kitchen and buy a few things at Home Depot so he’d have a good excuse for the trip in case he needed one. Eat an early supper and afterward hunt up a bar he’d never been in before, where nobody’d know him and he wouldn’t have to listen to any of that mayor crap. Then drive back to Green Valley late, long after the house and Verriker and Alice blew sky high.
But the woman wandering around the woods had screwed that up. Screwed it up royal.
By the time Balfour got done with her, he was too shaky to do anything except go home and guzzle three boilermakers, fast, to calm himself down. The drinks put him about half in the bag, and that was why he hadn’t gone to Placerville-he didn’t want to risk getting stopped by a county cop or the highway patrol, couldn’t afford to do anything that might call attention to himself. So he’d stayed put. Hell, why not? Didn’t really make any difference if he was home alone when Verriker got his. Slow gas leak, an arcing light switch, nobody would think it was anything but a freak accident. Accidents happen all the time, right?
The Verriker place was a couple of miles from his, so he hadn’t heard the explosion. Just as well. If he’d known right when the house blew, he’d of had an urge to drive over there, try to get a squint at the wreckage with Verriker burning up inside, and that wouldn’t of been smart with all the liquor in him. But he’d heard the siren on the fire truck from the up-valley VFD garage as it shot past, and it’d told him enough to put a smile on his face and give him half a boner. He’d waited an hour or so, and then drove slow and careful into town. Thinking on the way that he’d pretend not to know who or what had blown up because he’d been busy working at home; act real surprised and solemn when he heard the news.
They were talking about it in the Buckhorn, all right, Ramsey and Stivic and Alf the bartender, and Balfour cocked an ear and that was how he found out Verriker was still alive. Nobody said anything to him, not one word. They didn’t want nothing to do with him unless they could rag on him. It was like he was some goddamn stranger walked in off the street.
He didn’t have to act surprised. Hardest thing was trying not to show how frustrated and pissed off he was, not that it would of mattered if he’d clapped his hands and danced a jig. He had two more boilermakers because he needed them and because maybe it’d look funny if he rushed out without hoisting a couple. He was on his second when Ramsey said Verriker didn’t have insurance or much savings, why didn’t they take up a collection to help pay for poor Alice’s funeral. Alf got a jar and passed it around. Balfour had to kick in, too-two bucks, all he had in his wallet except for twenties. Lucchesi gave him a dirty look and somebody else muttered, “Cheap bastard.” Screw ’em all. He didn’t care what they thought as long as they didn’t start up with that mayor shit.
He was still pretty shook up when he got back to the house. More whiskey and beer didn’t help, all it did was make him fuzzy-headed. He turned on the TV, turned it off again, then just sat in his chair, drinking and trying to think what he was going to do about Verriker.
Couldn’t just back off, let him go on living and making Pete Balfour’s life miserable. Had to find some other way to fix him.
And the woman on the logging road… real problem there, too. She’d said something about a husband before he jumped her. Staying at the Murray place with her husband, that was it. Husband would report her missing if he hadn’t already. County cops’d be out looking for her sooner or later, combing the woods. Christ, what if they found her? No, they wouldn’t find her, not where he’d stashed her. But he couldn’t just leave her there. Had to find some permanent place to hide her body so they’d never be able to tie her to him. Body. Jesus. But what other choice did he have?
Maybe he should No, forget it. Deal with that tomorrow.
Verriker, too-tomorrow. Couldn’t think straight now, couldn’t plan.
He poured another drink, cracked another brew.
Why didn’t nothing ever work out easy for him?
7
The sheriff’s deputy in charge of the Six Pines substation was the fresh-faced young guy who’d come running up to me in the Verrikers’ driveway. His name was Broxmeyer. I waited half an hour for him; the only person in the station when I walked in just before dusk was a gray-haired woman who worked the desk and the radio dispatch unit, and she wasn’t in a position to help me. So I waited, alternately squirming on a wooden chair and pacing, sweating even though the air-conditioning was on, trying to adopt Jake Runyon’s method of blanking his mind during a downtime period. It didn’t work. All sorts of dark images kept spinning and sliding around inside my head, banging into one another. The knot that had formed in my stomach, cold and hard and acidic, kept funneling the sour taste of bile into the back of my throat.
Broxmeyer looked draggy and worn out when he finally showed. His uniform was rumpled and stained under the armpits; a smudge of something darkened one cheek. He smelled of smoke and sweat. So did I, probably; I hadn’t even thought about changing clothes.
The woman asked him if the fire at the Verriker place was completely out and contained yet. He said yes, but there was still some concern about a flare-up that would endanger the surrounding timber; one of the VFD trucks would remain on watch all night. I made some noise getting up off the chair to remind the woman that I was there. She said to me, “This is Deputy Broxmeyer,” and then to him, “Man’s been waiting to see you, Greg.”
Broxmeyer took a look at me. “You’re the man I talked to at the fire scene.”
