The Devil’s Redhead

“I am heartily sorry,” she said, “for all my sins.”

She closed her eyes. Now where the hell did that come from? A prayer, she realized, something Danny had recited for her once. Danny and a prayer and that godawful thing around his neck the Safford chaplain gave him. “Handed them out like suckers,” that’s what Danny’d said. It made her laugh.

Humberto let go of her chin and it dropped like a rock. “Fonny?” he said. “Ha ha. Fonny?” He grabbed the waist of her jeans and jerked her toward him.

No, she thought. Nothing is funny. God help me. I was just thinking about Danny. The Good Thief.

“Turn in here,” Frank said.

A muddy lane curved up through neglected pasture beyond a stand of walnut trees. Waxman put the Dart in park and stared past the gate as Abatangelo got out of the car. He unwound the chain from the gate posts, the metal so scaly with rust it seemed ready to crumble in his hands. There was a lock but it was just for show, having long ago rusted open. He tossed the lock and the chain into the grass beside the road and pushed back the cattle gate, waving Waxman through.

The tires slid in the muddy troughs the lane had become. Waxman downshifted to keep from skittering off into the grass. After a minute of this the car broke the crest of the hill and they peered through the tunnel the headlights created. What they saw was a deserted milking shed, perched atop a rocky knoll lower than the hill they’d just come over.

Frank said, “You’ll see now.”

Waxman descended into the vale and pulled as close to the shed as he could. The knoll was muddy and steep enough to discourage further progress in the car. Waxman lodged the gearshift in park and killed the motor, the headlights pointed uphill so that the shed lay squarely in the beams: a failing structure of crumbled rock and plaster with a sagging roof stripped of half its shingles. Waxman said, “Maybe we should wait here a minute.”

“No,” Frank said, and he opened his door. Abatangelo reached across the seat and caught him from behind, snagging him by the belt. “Whoa there, Frank. What’s this about?”

What Abatangelo got instead of an answer was an eruption of flailing arms and legs. Frank turned, punched, slapped and kicked, breaking Abatangelo’s grip on his belt and at the same time tumbling from the backseat. Abatangelo tried to reach through the onslaught for another firm hold but Frank toppled onto the ground outside the car and scrambled to his feet.

Abatangelo shot out after him, with Waxman shouting, “Stop it,” behind. He caught Frank twenty yards up the hill but Frank broke free again, tore off his jacket, flung it at Abatangelo, the whole time scurrying up the gravel toward the abandoned shed in the widening cone of light from the car.

Abatangelo gained ground, got a firm hold on Frank’s ankle and twisted him to the dirt. Then the blow hit. Frank had found a piece of shale the size of a hubcap, he brought it down so hard it broke in two as it hit the side of Abatangelo’s head. The blow forced a blackout of several seconds and even as he came to he could not see- his only sensations those of the cold mud beneath him, the pounding soreness near his eye, Waxman shouting from the base of the knoll, asking if he was all right.

He did not answer. Struggling to his knees, he dabbed once at his eye to stem the blood and looked up just as a massive flare of light seared the darkness. The sound came an instant later, or so it seemed. The impact sent him rolling back downhill amid a hail of soaring rock and wood and plaster. By the time he righted himself again a plume of smoke rose high above the shed. The roof crumbled and collapsed as flames darted upward against the night sky.

Glancing downhill, he saw Waxman struggling to his feet; he’d been knocked against the car by the blast. A smell of spent ether filled the air. Waxman started up the hill and Abatangelo, not waiting, headed toward the milk shed ahead of him. Aware there might be a second charge, he covered his face with his arm and crouched as he walked.

In time he reached the shattered burning doorway and found what remained of Frank’s body. The upper half of his torso had been shorn away by the blast and scattered in pieces that smoldered here and there. A tangled shred of a blackened arm. The lower portion of his body lay in a senseless tangle almost fifteen yards away, the fabric of his trousers aflame. One foot was shoeless, bent at an impossible angle from the leg. Abatangelo thought: As long as you tell the truth, you’re safe. We’ll protect you.

Waxman gained the top of the knoll. Appraising the scene, he muttered, “Good God,” then turned to Abatangelo. “How badly are you hurt?” Before he’d ended the sentence Abatangelo was skidding downhill in the mud and gravel and debris. He reached the car and opened the trunk, withdrew his camera, then headed back uphill, the camera in one hand, his flash in the other.

Waxman said, “You can’t be serious,” as Abatangelo reached the shed again. He shot the better part of two rolls, searching out body parts and looking for a window through which to shoot the burning interior of the milk shed. Coughing from the smoke, he got so close at one point his sleeve caught fire; he bent down, chafed his arm through the damp grass till the flame was out, and resumed shooting. Waxman scuttled behind.

“This is perverse.”

Abatangelo turned around and put his hand to Waxman’s chest, the better to get his full attention. “Just so I get this straight. What part of this story don’t you want to tell?”

Waxman swatted the hand away. “I’ve had enough of your patronizing macho bullshit. What happened between you and him? After you dragged him out of that restaurant, what happened?”

“You can’t blame me for this. Get serious.”

He rewound his film and headed downhill. His legs shook so badly he nearly fell with every step. Over his shoulder he called out, “That explosion was heard for miles. We’ll be tied up all night explaining things if we don’t leave now.”

Waxman stood rooted to his spot. He looked as if he was searching for something to say. The proper thing. The flames had reached a stack of hay bales inside the shed, the fire was burning hot and high. He turned and followed Abatangelo down the hill to the car.

“I intend to call this in as soon as possible,” he said, getting in on the passenger side. “We’ll tell them who it is up there.”

“Fine,” Abatangelo said. Sitting down behind the wheel, he became aware at last just how badly he was shaking. “I’ll stop. But I’m not stopping long. They can place where you’re calling from.”

“I’m having difficulty reconciling your concerns with mine.”

“My concerns will get us out of here.”

“Exactly my point.”

Abatangelo decided against heading back the same direction they’d come. It seemed likely sightseers would gather there soonest. He pointed the car in the opposite direction, heading for the center of the Akers’ property, not sure where the narrow mud lane came out, or even if it did. He’d drive across virgin pasture if he had to, just to put some distance between him and Frank’s body.

“One thing you need to understand,” he told Waxman. “I can’t stay back there. I stay, it’s prison. They don’t need any more reason than that I’m standing there when it happened.” He shook his head. “I won’t go. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t share your confidence in that regard,” Waxman muttered. “God forgive me.”

“No, Wax. No. Damn it, listen to me. It was his bomb. He knew it was there. He set the whole thing up. You see that, right? What did we have to offer him? Three thousand dollars. Witness protection, which is living death, and we couldn’t even guarantee that. This was his only real way out. He was busted, jilted, haunted by ghosts. He’d boxed himself in, he had people who wanted to hang him on every side. You get pressed up to a cliff, sometimes that’s the best way to turn. He looked down, he liked what he saw, he jumped. End of story.”

Waxman regarded Abatangelo with an expression that suggested alarmed fascination. “You beat him into a wreck,” he said finally.

“No, Wax. No. I hit him, yes. I didn’t beat him to where- ”

“I met him first, remember? He was in bad shape, I admit. But he wasn’t to the point that being blown to pieces was his only out.”

“Yeah, right, at that point he figured he could still con you out of the money.”

“I should be grateful.”

“Wax, what is this? Weren’t you paying attention? He’s the one who set it up. He’s the one led us out