“I was thinking about Mom and Dad finding out.”

“That’s something all right, but it was mostly yourself you were thinking about.”

He looked angry, but it didn’t hold. After a few moments, he said: “What do we do then?”

“In all that junk you got you could sell, do the motorcycles work?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you prefer to shoot animals with guns, but do you have anything that takes pictures of them at night?”

“What?”

“Something that can take a night picture, a good picture without light?”

Jimmy shook his head. “No. But I got a friend, a fellow at work, and he believes in Bigfoot.”

“Bigfoot?”

“Yeah. You know.”

“Yeah, I know. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“He has night cameras. He’s always trying to get a snap of Bigfoot taking a dump in the woods, or some such thing. He sets the cameras in places where he thinks it comes. He ends up with pictures of deer and mice and raccoons, but he’s sure Bigfoot is out there, even if he hasn’t shown up yet.”

“Can you borrow a camera?”

“I think so. And he’s got some recording equipment too. Stuff you can put in one spot and hear what’s going on some distance away, get it recorded. He’s got everything. But I’ll have to make up a story for him.”

“Well, make up one. Even if you have to tell him you’re hunting Bigfoot.”

“I say that, he’ll want to go.”

“Here. Here’s the story. Tell him you think your neighbor’s dog is digging under your fence, digging in your flower beds.”

“We don’t have flower beds.”

“He knows that, make it something else. Tell him the dog is shitting in your yard. But tell him you want to set the camera up to prove to your next-door neighbor that it’s his dog, not an armadillo, as he says.”

“I got you.”

“So you get the camera, and we set it up tonight, and then we get pictures of them. We have photos of them, and they know we can connect them back to the blackmail scheme and the murder, they may be hesitant. We reverse it on them.”

“Yeah, man. That’s a good idea.”

“We’d need the equipment soon, as in quick soon. And the motorcycles, gassed up and ready to go. Time- wise we’d have to be way ahead of the blackmailers.”

“How would we know if we’re ahead of them? They could be there right now, waiting until midnight.”

“If they are, they’re likely to be seen. They probably wouldn’t want to take that chance. They’ll wait at least until it’s dark.”

“What about us? Now we’ll be more likely to be seen.”

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

Jimmy had to tell some lies to Trixie to do what we wanted to do, but I figured the lies he told her now were no worse than the lies he told her before. The lie was we were going camping. A brother gig. Hanging. Chatting about old times. It was the middle of the week, but Jimmy arranged for the next day off, gave his class a free day. And me, I could go in late.

Jimmy borrowed the night camera, got a few other things we needed from his friend. While he did that I figured on a plan I thought might work, but I can’t say as I felt real confident. It wasn’t that good a plan, but it was some kind of plan, and that mattered.

Whatever might come, we were as ready as we were ever going to be.

In Motion

18

We got there late afternoon and went into the woods above the house at the summit of the hill. The woods were thick, but there wasn’t much of it. It was hot and we had to sit down to rest because the trees held the heat and it was hard to breathe. There were hordes of mosquitoes and flies.

We had come on a couple of Jimmy’s motorcycles. We had our camping equipment and the surveillance equipment strapped over the backs of the bikes. We broke out the pup tent and set it up and pulled the mosquito net down and secured the bar at the bottom of the tent against the ground. The way we placed the tent, we had a view through the net and through a little clearing in the pines, a straight-shot look down the hill. It was close in the tent with the two of us, and the trees were tight around us, and that made it warmer, but it really wasn’t too uncomfortable. We had a pair of binoculars, and from time to time Jimmy put them to his eyes and glanced down at the Siegel house.

“What are you, General Patton?” I said. “Give those things a rest.”

“I don’t think they’re there,” he said.

“You said that already. Maybe ten times.”

“Well, I just want to make sure.”

“You know what I think? I think these guys are amateurs, and I think they see a way to make some bucks, that’s what I think. And I don’t think they’re going to show early. They figure they got you by the balls, and they do. So they’re going to wait until time and then they’ll show, and you will show, and I will have the camera, and I will get them on film.”

“By the way,” Jimmy said, “did I mention we too are amateurs?”

“No. You didn’t. But you’re right. Still, I think we have the edge. They did something to Caroline, got away with it, it was most likely an accident. Now they’ve gotten greedy, and that could be their downfall.”

“That’s why you think they’re amateurs?”

“That’s why.”

Jimmy scratched his chin, gave me a hard look. “And what happens when I don’t have the money?”

“That part is tricky,” I said.

“Since it will be my ass on the line, perhaps you could lay out the plan a little more clearly.”

“I told you already.”

“I got it down, but I don’t like it. I keep hoping for more. Way it is now: They ask for the money. I say go fuck yourself, I haven’t got any money. My brother is on the hill with a camera that has a telescopic lens and he’s filming you. And if you don’t believe us, we can swap a DVD with you tomorrow for the one you got. How am I doing?”

“Swell.”

“Now, here comes my question. Why would they care? They got the good DVD, and all we’ll have is a film of me and them standing around down there by the Siegel house. For all anyone can tell, me and them are going to sit down and have a circle jerk, see who can shoot it the farthest.”

“That’s why you will have the wire and I will have the recorder, and that’s why you will say they do anything to you, it’s on film and recorded, and I’ve got both.”

“What if they don’t believe me?”

“Talk your talk, and then point up the hill. I’ll flash my flashlight at them in confirmation. You just have to talk some good doo-doo, brother.”

“I still think we ought to do what needs to be done.”

“Don’t go there again, Jimmy. I’m not up for it. Not even a little bit. I’m here to help you, I got to believe

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