Blood Of Angels (13 page)

'What?' Brad said. He turned his head towards the vehicle.

There was something sitting in the driver's seat.

It was something awful. Something had come out of the forest and the night and sat in their car. It was terrible and it was ugly but it was very still.

It was Sleepy Pete.

'Oh Jesus,' Brad whispered. He looked at Lee, but Lee was staring at Pete. Brad forced himself to look again. 'Oh, no.'

Below the shoulders everything was okay. It was still Pete. He was sitting upright and the bag of Doritos was still in his hands. But one of the bullets meant for Hernandez or Lee or Brad had passed them by like a migrating bird ignores a hundred miles of sea, and found the place it had left the barrel to land. It had taken away about a quarter of Pete's head. It had entered the right side of his face halfway up and ploughed through the cheekbone and into the brain, tumbling out the other side at the top via a ragged hole. Pete's remaining eye was still open. The dregs of his nose were pulled out of true.

As Brad stared, he thought at first that the left eye was just glistening, still wet, and then he realized it was trying to move.

Then Pete's jaw dropped open. And a dark stain bloomed on his crotch. And Pete really was gone.

'There's no choice,' Hernandez said. 'Listen to me.'

Brad was sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around his knees. He was on his third chain-smoked cigarette, which meant the conversation had been going at least ten minutes. Brad knew he had to listen but wanted no active part in it. When he tried to think it was like walking across hot coals, coals that stretched to infinity in every direction. Except the coals felt bitterly cold.

Lee shook his head. 'I went to school with this guy. There's got to be some other way.'

Hernandez's position was simple. The body had to disappear. They couldn't leave it here. It had to be got rid of. Soon as it was found, the cops would be all over it. Rich kid with his head blown off was not a situation that just went away. The event had to be erased. Lee had managed to muster a detachment that Brad found almost incredible. Okay, his voice didn't sound completely steady all the time, and he was rubbing his lip with one finger and not looking at the front seat of his car any more often than anyone else. But he'd come up with the idea of somehow posing Pete's body somewhere it could be interpreted as a drive-by, or a mugging gone horrendous, or
something.
He was sticking with the notion but Hernandez was having none of it.

'Listen to me, Lee,' Hernandez said again. He spoke quietly and Hudek realized this was the first time the man had referred to him by name, rather than as 'kid' or 'hey you'. 'We don't have any more time. We're out of town but someone would have heard the shooting anyway. We've got to make this go away now.'

Lee nodded. Thought about it. 'Okay,' he said. 'Let's do it.'

They opened the driver's-side door and got Pete's body out, supporting it at first so that it came out gently but then the remains of the head lolled and something viscous started to slip out onto Brad's hand and he let go in a spasm at about the same time Lee did and the whole thing wound up falling out onto the gravel. Lee took his T-shirt off and used it to wipe the worst of the mess off the car seat while Brad and Hernandez took a foot each and pulled the body around to the back of the car. Slowly, so the head didn't bounce up and down. They opened the trunk and Hernandez got the beach towel out and wrapped it around Pete's neck and head and then they lifted the body up and bent it around so it would fit, which was not easy. Then they shut the trunk.

When the body was no longer visible it was better. Brad stood watching while Hernandez went around the car scuffing up the gravel, gathering bits with blood on them and scooping them up into the Doritos bag. He was very thorough.

Then they all got in the car. They drove out the way they'd come and then took a left to head up further into the hills. The park was shut and would have been a bad place anyway but they found an access road and drove along it for quite a while. Then they parked and got Pete out of the trunk and carried him or it along a walking trail for about half a mile. Pete had been big in life and he was very heavy in death. Heavy and hard to manage and still warm, with hands that seemed too big and made of fingers. By the time they cut off the trail and headed out into nowhere Brad's back ached like someone had driven a nail into the base of his spine.

Eventually Lee said this had to be far enough and they stopped and left the body by a tree. There had been no shovel in the car, of course, so they used their hands and the car jack. It took a time and was very tough work, even though the ground was not too hard and they went at it together. They dragged Pete across to the hole but he did not fit, so they rolled him out the other side and made it larger. In the end they got him in. There was some discussion about whether they should leave the towel in place. Lee thought it was as safe there as anywhere else. Hernandez said Lee should take it somewhere and get it burnt. Brad wanted it to stay in place so he would not have to look at Pete a final time, though he felt bad about feeling that way and would not have wanted to explain it to Pete. In the end, Lee won. It was a cheap towel. You could get one like it anywhere. Brad was glad.

Nobody was sure whether you could leave fingerprints on a body. They thought not but Lee used his bloody T-shirt to wipe it just in case and then threw it in. Then as an afterthought he rolled Pete over and used the T to tie his hands, to confuse matters in case it was ever found. They pushed most of the dirt back over the body and then each went in a different direction and found the biggest logs they could carry. They positioned them over the grave in a way that looked kind of random and Lee walked ten yards off and looked back and though it was hard to tell because it was dark he thought it would do. He threw the remainder of the hole dirt around. He stood for a moment, looking at what they'd done, and then just shook his head.

They walked back to the car without saying anything.

Lee kept the lights off until they were near civilization. He drove back down to town at a steady rate and pulled over to drop Hernandez off where he indicated.

The man stepped out onto the kerb and then turned back.

'I'm going to call some people right away,' he said. 'The man you met. I'll let you know how we're going to handle this. Tonight.'

Lee just nodded, looking straight ahead. Hernandez shut the door and walked quickly off down the street.

Lee put his foot down and hammered down to 101 and through Ventura and Oxnard. Then abruptly slowed and took a right and headed out to the beach.

They parked up and got out, still without speaking. It was impossible to know what to say except blunt monosyllabic words that didn't help. Lee brought the Doritos bag with him and as they climbed up over the dunes he dispersed the contents slowly and thinly, letting the wind carry as much as possible away. By the time they got to the shore the bag was empty but he walked straight into the sea with it and washed out the interior before shredding it into as many pieces as the shiny material would allow. He let these fall into the sea, the wind catching them like pieces of moonlight.

He walked back up to where Brad was standing swaying in the sand and the two of them stared at each other for a while.

'Sleepy Pete,' Lee said.

Brad just shook his head. 'Fuck, Lee. Fuck.'

They walked back up over the dunes. Lee found an old sweatshirt in the trunk and put it on and drove into town. They pulled over at the first Starbucks they saw and bought vanilla lattes and drank them in the car as they drove on to the big Frisbees on Jolacha Ave. They bought three big bags of burgers there, confused and scared by the bright lights and the strange noises made by the till, and the way other people just stood around talking and laughing and asking for barbecue sauce as if absolutely nothing had happened. They walked stiff-legged back to the car.

Drove through town and up to the Faircroft gate. 'Be cool,' Lee said, quietly. Brad smiled vaguely into space.

A security guy came over to the car. It was the one Lee had talked to when he first arrived at the party. The exchange was short and friendly. Lee offered him a burger and the guy nearly said yes but then evidently remembered he was supposed to be on Atkins or not accept stuff or maybe just hadn't finished a pizza in the booth, and contented himself with waving them on.

Lee drove away and into the estate, past all the big gates.

'Pull over,' Brad said, after they'd gone a few hundred yards. Lee pulled over. Brad got out and vomited on the side of the road. The vomit smelt of beer and sour blood, of stagnant water and forest dust.

He got back in the car and Lee drove the rest of the way.

When they turned into the Luchs driveway there were still plenty of cars. Lee parked up and killed the engine. Took his hands off the wheel and clenched and unclenched them a few times.

'Okay,' he said. 'Now we have to go to this party. Have some fun.'

'You're kidding.'

'I'm not. We have to
be
here, understand what I'm saying?'

Brad understood. They got out with the burgers and went around the side. There were still about thirty people hanging out and the party was still going and the mixing guy had reappeared and was doing his thing but it was different now. The music sounded flat and out of time. A few people homed in when they saw the Frisbees bags.

'Anybody seen Pete?' Lee asked, casually. 'His name's on one of these. Two, probably.'

And people laughed and said no, they hadn't seen him in a while, and someone said they thought he'd gone off to some other party.

Brad thought,
Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Some whole other party altogether.
He was glad he'd already thrown up.

Suddenly there was a hand in his, and Karen was by his side.

'Thought we'd lost you,' she said.

He smiled and said 'Nah' and handed her some fries.

===OO=OOO=OO===

An hour and a half later Hudek pulled up in the street outside his parents' house. He checked the place for lights and thought about what he was going to do.

He had already gone to a 24-hour car wash. In fact, he had been to two. He'd done the first at a place where they knew him and then driven twenty blocks to another, where they didn't. Only an exterior job each time, of course, and he'd only used the first location because none of the guys he recognized were on duty and so he was just another young guy in a nice car.

The bodywork was in good shape. Less so other parts. The driver's seat and upper part of the driver's side door, for example, which were okay to the naked eye but Lee knew this wasn't clean enough. He could sell the car in a little while. But not immediately, and he was surprised by how much difference it made, knowing one of your best friends had died right where you were sitting.

He could get it fixed in the morning, but he found it was something he wanted finished now. He wanted to be able to get up tomorrow and know this event was yesterday's thing. Of course it would not be. Pete would be missed, and soon. But if the car was sorted out then he could get on with just not knowing anything about anything.

To achieve this he had to tick some tasks off:

Check there were no stones or dust left in the treads of the tyres which could be traced back to that fucking parking lot, or the access road they'd driven to get to where they buried him.

Give the trunk a thorough clean for specks of gravel and blood. The towel around the head had been a good touch but it was soaked almost through by the time they pulled him back out. Destroy and replace the lining if necessary.

And clean the front seat and the rest of the interior. Clean it well.

The lessons of half-watched episodes of
Forensic Detectives
had not been lost on Lee, though he'd never realized these were things he had needed to learn. The garage at his house would be perfect for all of this. The lighting was good, clinical. But first he had in mind to stop by his parents' house, assuming there was life there. There were two reasons for this. His dad had stuff in the garage which would help in what he had to do. Cleaning materials, solvents, tools, Hudek Sr's car always looked just so, and he had the stuff in bulk so he wouldn't miss anything Lee took. The second reason was that Lee felt that being seen around was a good idea.
Yeah, I saw him that night. No, he was fine, very relaxed, why do you ask? Oh no, that's impossible. Sorry, quite impossible.

He could see that though his parents' bedroom light was turned off, his dad's study looked inhabited. He parked and locked the door and let himself in quietly. Poked his head in the study but though the computer was on, his father was not
in situ.
Walked through into the kitchen and saw the big doors there were open.

There was a shape sitting in a chair out by the pool.

He stepped out. 'Dad?'

The figure's head turned, and Lee saw that it was him. He was smoking a cigar. Sitting quietly out there by the pool by himself.

'Hey, kid,' he said, he said softly. 'What are you doing here?'

'Driving by, thought I'd say hi if you were still awake.'

'That's nice. You want a drink?'

'Sure. A beer'd be cool. Though better make it Lite.'

'That's right. You were at a party this evening.'

'Uh-huh. The Luchses.'

'Nice house.'

Lee shrugged. 'Yeah. Kind of showy, maybe.'

Ryan Hudek smiled, and went in the kitchen to get his son a beer. He clapped Lee on the shoulder as he walked past.

That was the moment where Lee came closest to losing it, but it passed. After that, there was never any going back. He sat out with his father for a half hour, and then excused himself. His dad nodded, stayed where he was. On the way through the house Lee ducked into the garage and picked up what he needed, arranging the remainder so no one could tell anything had gone.

Then he drove home, put the car in the garage and made himself a strong pot of coffee. He had shoved Hernandez's gun under a pile of stuff in one of the drawers in the storage unit in the garage. He felt bone-tired now, and he needed to make sure he was sharp and observant and tonight of all nights drugs were not the answer. Caffeine was as much as he ever needed. While he waited for the pot to perk he tried to think about Pete, and found it better not to. Pete was dead. That's what it came down to in the end. Nobody had made him do anything he didn't want to do.