Speak Ill of the Living (14 page)

No wonder people go mad living alone in big old houses.

The handle was damp with his sweat. He swung the pick again. Concrete splashed.

Wham. Wham. Wham.

Eddie couldn't help thinking that he was digging a tunnel for a prison break.

He wanted to write a news story that cleared his brother's name. As he worked the pick against the floor, he allowed his imagination to explore the future. A writer freeing his own brother would be a story itself.
The Daily Empire
would want to write about it. If the new management at the
Empire
was smart, they'd have one of Eddie's old colleagues call him for the interview.

To free a brother after thirty years would be a nationwide story.
Time
and
Newsweek
would scratch each other's eyes out over who got the first interview with Eddie Bourque. Eddie smiled over the daydream. It was an excellent fantasy, but not the one he wanted the most. He imagined Henry visiting Eddie's shack in Pawtucketville for the first time. He could see Henry reaching down, snapping his fingers to coax General VonKatz to come over. The brothers would split a six-pack of Rolling Rock, and then Eddie would set up the chessboard. Henry would play the white pieces—Eddie would know without asking what side Henry liked to play. It was the kind of detail brothers knew about each other.

Wham! The pick broke through the concrete and buried itself to the handle.

Eddie wiggled it out and inspected the blade. It was covered with dirt.

He looked around for the first time in a long while. Night had fallen outside. No light bled into the basement from the stairwell. The lantern glowed steadily in the center of a white circle that faded to blackness all around it, as if even light was afraid to venture into the basement's dark corners.

His arms were beat and the pick felt like lead, but Eddie assaulted the floor around the hole he had punched, widening the opening with a series of hard blows.

Soon the opening was large enough to reach his hand into. He felt hard soil underneath the floor. It was obvious the hole would have to be a lot larger for Eddie to investigate what was down there. He chopped to widen it. The concrete had weakened under the relentless pounding, and large chunks started breaking off. Eddie pulled out the chunks by hand and tossed them aside. Soon, he had removed nearly the entire concrete patch, uncovering black earth, the blackest dirt he had ever seen, like a deposit of designer potting soil. Sweat dripped from his nose into the hole.

Above him, the old house squealed, as if suddenly startled.

Eddie shook his fist at the house for trying to scare him, and then smiled to himself.

Nothing but soft earth to dig.

He swung the pick three times, loosened some soil, and then reached into the hole with cupped hands and scooped out the dirt. Then he swung the pick three more times. He soon lost himself in the rhythmic monotony of the task, until the hole was knee-deep and he was standing in it.

How deep should he go? Waist deep? Eye-level? For the first time since he had started to dig, Eddie felt a sliver of doubt. What if there was nothing under there?

I'll dig until the lantern burns out
, he promised himself. He moved the lamp to the edge of the hole. The very next stroke of the pick uncovered something metallic in the dirt.

Eddie tugged it gently.

A key.

Terribly rusted, the key was attached to a plastic yellow key chain in the shape of an “S.” He wiped a soiled thumb over the key chain and read a set of raised letters:

Solomon Secure Transport Co.

Eddie felt a cold chill, as if sleet was suddenly falling against his bare skin. The key had been here thirty years, since Henry Bourque and Jimmy Whistle had heisted the armored car.

He looked at the keychain and then into the hole.

The gold?

Eddie dropped the keychain and hefted the pick. He slammed the tool into the dirt, raked the soil.

Henry and Jimmy must have used this farm as a base when they hijacked the armored car. Jimmy's mother was already dead, the ownership of her farm was tied up in probate, and the place had been shuttered. This was where they had kept the three guards hostage, before one of them managed to escape.

If Eddie's suspicions were correct, then Roger Lime was held captive in the Whistle farm basement until recently—which meant that Jimmy probably was in on the crime. Eddie pictured Jimmy Whistle as he dug. Jimmy seemed too pathetic to handle Lime alone, even with a gun. He must have had a partner.

The pick slammed deep into the earth and then didn't want to budge. Eddie levered it back and forth and saw that the pick had pierced a round white rock a little smaller than volleyball. Eddie dug with his hands around the rock and then pried it up with the pick. It came up surprisingly easy for such a large stone, impaled on the end of the pick.

Eddie wiped the stone, found it oddly smooth.

Then turned it and saw teeth—human teeth.

“Oh! Jesus!” he screamed.

The pick had entered a human skull through an eye socket. Eddie panted hard, fighting the urge to throw the pick and run.

Long dead…can't hurt you…

Eddie bit his bottom lip and wiggled the skull off the pick. He held it to the light. There was no bottom jaw. Black dust packed the brain cavity. The dust trickled from the spinal opening.

Eddie set the skull down gently. He kicked through the dirt in the hole and found a rib, definitely a rib. Then another long white bone, maybe from the forearm? And the edge of a buried pelvis. There were many more bones he could not identify.

Roger Lime?

Seemed doubtful—these dry bones were long dead and Lime was alive in the kidnapper's photos just days before.

No, this skull had been dead for thirty years. Eddie looked at it. “Which one of the missing guards are you?” Eddie asked under his breath. “Mr. Dumas? Or Mr. Forte?”

Not that it mattered. There seemed to be enough bone in the hole to make two skeletons. There was probably another skull in there somewhere, too.

From the corner of his eye, Eddie spotted a ghost in the shadows. It was coming silently toward him.

Rational thought abandoned Eddie for a moment.

He saw that the ghost had a noose of brown rope in one hand. Eddie had time to blink once. Time to recognize the figure in a ski mask.

And then the man was on him.

Chapter 19

Eddie dived aside with a grunt as the attacker's weight glanced off his shoulder and the noose of rough rope brushed Eddie's face.

Eddie grabbed the pick, swung it awkwardly at the man, but the attacker was too quick. He ducked. A fist shot like a missile into Eddie's jaw. Eddie didn't feel a thing, but he heard the thud of the blow and the clack of his teeth slamming together. He tumbled backward out of the hole and onto the floor. He heard glass shatter and saw the world go black and knew he had landed on the lantern.

The pain all arrived at the same instant, a supernova in his head, stinging cuts on his back. His eyes watered and he wanted to scream, but managed no sound at all. He clutched his head and rolled over in silent agony.

The man in the ski mask was fumbling around, feeling for Eddie in the dark.

“Son'bitch!” the man growled. “Come over here!”

The taste of his own blood woke Eddie to reality. He felt a hand on his foot. The man said, “Ha!” Eddie kicked in the dark, felt air and kicked feebly again. The invisible attacker grabbed Eddie by the belt. An unseen hand found Eddie's throat, and squeezed.

Eddie drove his forearm into the man's bulk, but the attacker's chest was thick and powerful. A thumb pressed into Eddie's windpipe. Eddie twisted fiercely away. He gasped one noisy breath. A fist glanced off Eddie's ear. It stung, but did no real damage. He felt a fist swing past his cheek, then the hand found his throat again and the attacker settled his weight on Eddie's hips. Eddie felt the rope scrape over his temple.

The man was trying to get the noose around Eddie's neck. Eddie bucked and kicked, but could not break free.

This motherfucker's too strong!

Eddie's arms thrashed; his hand brushed on something hard on the floor.

The skull. Eddie jammed two fingers and a thumb in the eye sockets, as if gripping a bowling ball. He guessed where in the dark the man's head would be, and swung with all his strength.

Bone cracked against bone. The skull bounced from Eddie's hand. The man screamed in pain and shock, the grip loosened and Eddie wormed free.

Where to go?

Eddie crawled blindly away in the dark, wheezing quietly for breath. He heard the attacker muttering. Eddie headed away from the sound. His jaw ached; his mouth wouldn't open all the way. The punch had rattled him, filled his mouth with blood. His thinking had begun to clear and he realized he could not take another straight shot to the chin. With clear thinking came the understanding that the attacker was too powerful for Eddie to beat in a fair fight. For the first time in his life, Eddie wished his big brother were around—like the man in the ski mask, Henry was built like a cement truck.

The attacker was stumbling, searching for Eddie in the absolute blackness of the basement.

Eddie's crawled until his shoulder brushed a wall. He silently drooled spit and blood to the floor, and then crawled along the wall, until he reached a corner. There he huddled and considered his options.

If he continued to crawl along the walls, he would eventually bump into the staircase. The problem was that Eddie had become disoriented in the moments after he was hit on the chin, and he didn't know what direction he had crawled to get away. He pictured the L-shaped basement in his mind. The room had five corners—five places where walls came together. He could have been huddled at any one of them.

The attacker was coming Eddie's way.

Eddie heard the man's shoes scuffing the floor, and the man's hands on the wall. He was feeling his way slowly around the room, as Eddie had done.

Run? Or fight?

Eddie considered taking a free swing at his unsuspecting enemy. What were Eddie's chances of knocking the man down with one blind punch in the dark?

Not good, he decided. The man's head was an invisible, moving target. Eddie had no weapon. And Eddie's arms were exhausted from an afternoon of heavy digging; even supercharged with adrenaline, he lacked his full strength.

Eddie rolled quietly away from the wall and waited, breathing silently through his mouth. Sweat ran into his eyes and stung. His heart pounded inside his chest like a runaway piston and Eddie feared the crazy beat would give him away.

The shoes shuffled past his ear by inches.

The man felt his way into the corner and took a left turn, down the next wall. Eddie rolled silently to his feet, put a hand to the wall and listened. He heard the man stub his shoe on another wall, then stumble and catch himself.

He's at another corner.

The man took several more steps and then knocked into another obstacle, making a hollow thud.

The stairs!

Eddie instantly placed himself on a mental map of the basement, at the lower left-hand corner of the L.

He sneaked along the wall, trailing his attacker, keeping a hand out to feel for the next corner. When he reached it, he turned left and slowly made for the stairs. More blood pooled in his mouth. He drooled it into his palm and then wiped the hand on his pants.

Reaching a hand low in front of him he felt the bottom stair.

The old wooden staircase would be too noisy to slink up. Once he stepped on it, the man would be coming after him. Eddie took a deep breath, rocked back on his heels and then exploded up the stairs on all fours. At the top, he ducked his head and plowed his shoulder into the door. It popped open and Eddie rolled onto the floor.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs behind him.

Eddie bounced to his feet. The house was dark, but not black like the basement; dim moonlight filtered through the broken windows. Eddie tore through the kitchen, searching for the way out. He ran to the next room, then the next, saw the door and whipped through it.

Outside, a crescent moon was tangled in the treetops. Far from any city lights, the stars were brilliant on this cloudless night. As he sprinted alongside the house, Eddie listened for the man's footsteps behind him on the porch, but heard nothing.

Could I have lost him?

Ahead, a black shape crashed suddenly out a first floor window, rolled over in Eddie's path, bounded up and ducked into a linebacker's crouch.

There was no time to be nimble. Eddie lowered his shoulder and plowed into the attacker. Both men groaned and rolled to the ground. Eddie was first to his feet. He took one step, heard the man growl and felt a hand grab for his shoe. Eddie tumbled again, rolled over, staggered to his feet and dashed off, the attacker right on him.

Eddie felt the man at his left shoulder, then jigged right and headed across the hayfield for the woods. The Late Chuckie's rat bike was in the other direction, but Eddie had no choice—if he couldn't lose this guy, the bike would be renamed for The Late Eddie.

Running through the tall grass was like running through water. Eddie was a speedster on pavement, but the terrain favored the more powerful attacker. Eddie could hear him panting almost in his ear as their strides landed step-for-step. The man grunted, clubbed Eddie on the shoulder and put Eddie down.

Eddie rolled to his knees and tried to scramble away, but the rope flashed over his head. He grabbed for the rope with his right hand, felt it hit his palm, just under his chin, before the man yanked it back. The rope pinned Eddie's hand against his throat as the attacker wrenched the rope tighter and wrestled Eddie to the ground like a roped calf.

The man growled, “Die now, little bastard.”

He straddled Eddie, buried his elbows into Eddie's back for leverage and pulled on the rope.

Eddie's knees pushed into the cool, damp soil. His left hand grasped a fistful of grass. His right hand pulled against the rope around his neck, allowing him only the tiniest gasps of air. His vision blurred and he felt lightheaded.

Eddie saw mountains ahead, dark and hazy. That made no sense to him. There were no mountains here. He stared at the mountains' rounded backs and pulled against the rope.

“Just give up,” the man told him, a strain in his voice, “and it'll be over in two minutes.”

Two minutes. Five minutes? Eternity? What's the difference?

Eddie pulled forward, fell to his elbow and got half a breath of air before the rope clamped down again.

The man kneed Eddie's ribs.

Eddie felt nothing at all. He reached his left hand out and walked forward two steps on his knees. The man walked with him, pulling against the rope, riding Eddie the way he might break a stubborn burrow.

The man demanded, “Why can't you just
fucking
quit?
”

Even if Eddie could have spoken, he would not have known how to answer. He pulled forward again against the rope that was slowly killing him. His left hand tore out grass by the roots. The strange mountains looked close enough to touch. He imagined how Lew Cuhna spent his last few moments, no doubt choking beneath this same powerful assassin. Did Lew fight? Eddie hoped so. The grass tickled Eddie's cheek.

Eddie blinked hard. Fantasy lifted from reality.

Those are not mountains. Those are stones.

He recognized the stone ring around the open well.

A new determination ignited in Eddie for one last desperate pull. He thrashed against the rope with a violence that startled the attacker. Eddie caught another half breath and willed his burning legs three steps forward on his knees. His left hand grabbed for a stone at the edge of the well. The attacker walked with Eddie, keeping the tension on the rope. He seemed to realize what Eddie was trying to do, and dug his heels into the soft earth and leaned back against the noose. His left leg pressed against Eddie's cheek.

In a life or death struggle, there is no sportsmanship. Only survival. Eddie jerked his head around and sunk his teeth into the man's thigh just above the knee.

The attacker shrieked in pain and slapped an open hand over Eddie head. Eddie clamped his teeth deeper into the flesh and shook his head like a pit bull in a dogfight.

The man howled and the rope went slack. The assailant pounded his fist frantically into Eddie's head, as he tried to lift his leg and hop away.

On his knees and lower to the ground, Eddie had an advantage in leverage over his more powerful attacker. He shot a hand under the man's groin and clutched the back of his waistband. He pulled the man toward the open well as he released his bite.

As the attacker fell, he grabbed a fistful of Eddie's hair, and both men tumbled over the edge of the deep well in a tangle of arms, legs and rope.