Rain had made the ground muddy as hell. The wheelbarrow kept getting mired in it. And every time I hit a bump, one of Andy's arms would flop over the side and drag in the bushes or bang against tree trunks until I stopped and folded it back in. Jesus it was tough. Andy's a heavy son of a bitch. I've known him since practically forever; we were best friends, I guess, before I killed him. He was always a heavy eater, though. I never figured it was any skin off my back until tonight.
I found the spot and put the wheelbarrow down next to a clear patch of mud. Helen wasn't there yet. I figured she wouldn't want to get her hands dirty. She never did.
Andy stared up at me with his big, white face. His left eye was just a dark hole. I'm not a crack shot or anything. I just pointed the gun, and that's where I happened to hit him. Lucky, I guess. His last words on earth were, "We shouldn't do this." He'd said them to Helen a just few hours ago, right before she pulled him down on top of her. I was watching from the window. I watched them fuck like prom dates in my own bed. I don't blame him, though. Helen and I had planned it together, after all. Helen... there's a word for women like her. Her body. God. I can't. It was like wine. Like closing your eyes and falling backwards, like falling forever. That's what it felt like, just to touch her. And if you did what she wanted, she'd let you do a lot more than touch. Andy knew. When I walked in and raised the gun, he looked over and saw me and I could tell, he knew exactly what I was doing. And now that he'd had a taste of what Helen had to offer, he knew that he'd do exactly the same to me, if our positions were reversed. I'm not looking for forgiveness or anything. But seeing that understanding in his eyes was a comfort.
Digging the hole took a long time. The mud didn't help. When I finally threw the shovel down, the bottom of the hole was still about half as narrow as the top, and it wasn't nearly six feet deep. But what the hell. I rolled Andy in, and he fit with room to spare.
"Any regrets?"
Helen had on her low-rider jeans and a thin, cotton blouse that stuck to her skin with the humidity. Just the two middle buttons were done, and they strained at the holes every time she took a breath. She was breathing hard. Jesus.
"A few," I said, truthfully. How could I have lied to her?
"He would have turned us in," she said. "Even you, even his best friend. It didn't matter. It was his money you were embezzling."
"Your idea," I muttered, but it didn't mean anything. Of course it had all been her idea. And of course I did every last bit of dirty work. Every clue left behind, every fingerprint and phone record, it all led straight back to me. You'd never know Helen had been involved... unless you knew certain things about her. Things I'd told Andy weeks earlier. Things Helen knew I'd told him.
In a way, that was when I'd really killed him. I knew this was coming for weeks. The bullet in his eye was just the last bit of paperwork.
"He would have put us both away," Helen went on. She moved closer to me. I couldn't take my eyes off those two buttons. Jesus. "He would have ruined everything we worked for—"
"I worked for."
"He was a liability."
I turned away, just to look at anything besides her tits. I looked down at Andy. Squashed into the bottom of that muddy hole. "Well," I said, kicking a clod down onto his broad back, "not anymore. Now it's just you and me."
"No," she said. "Just me."
I turned back to Helen, who was pointing a snub-nosed revolver right at my heart.
I'd figured this was coming. "You know," I said, "there's a word for women like you."
"You mean 'winners'?" she sneered, and then she punched me in the heart with a .32-caliber slug.
I closed my eyes and fell backwards. It felt like falling forever.
I was down in that hole for a hell of a long time.
It took Helen a while just to fill it. Even with one extra body in the hole, that was a big pile of mud to shovel in. Eventually she must have left the job half-finished. Good thing for me.
Did you know you can buy a miniature oxygen tank and regulator at any scuba diving store for less than two hundred bucks? They call it a "pony tank." The whole rig is just slightly bigger than a woman's purse. Easy to hide on someone Andy's size. A bulletproof vest is more expenseive, it'll run you five or six hundred. But still, they're easy to get. You can order one over the internet. It's amazing what you can find on the internet, these days.
It took me almost half an hour to push my way out of that hole. Then I just lay there for a while. Peeled off the vest, spit out the regulator and what must have been a gallon of mud. When I finally got my breath back, I crawled over to the hollow tree where I'd hidden my cigarettes. I put my back against the trunk as I lit one up.
By that time, I figured Helen would have made it to the road and found my car. The device I'd attached to it before wheeling Andy out here had been a lot trickier to get hold of than either the scuba tank or the vest. But you just have to know where to look. Her own car was a piece of junk. I was pretty sure she'd take mine. Not one hundred percent sure, but pretty sure. Like I'd been pretty sure she would shoot me in the chest, not in the head.
There was a distant WHUMP from the direction of the road, and a shiver in the ground.
Now I was one hundred percent sure.
Poor Helen. There's a word for women like her.
Predictable.
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