Loser's Town (29 page)

They traveled into the wind, pushing sound behind them, but Potts stopped the motor halfway out. The sudden quiet was like heaven, and Potts felt his brain cease to vibrate against his skull.

‘I fucking hate the water,’ said Squiers. ‘My uncle drowned.’

‘Will you shut up? Sound travels over water. How many times have I got to explain this?’ While this was true, Potts mainly just didn’t want the bastard to speak.

They got out the oars and began to row. Squiers made a great show out of banging the oars against the boat like playing a fucking kettle-drum until Potts had to take them away from him, switch positions and row himself.

Sitting in the dark water, light poured out of the sailboat as if the inside were on fire. Which it was, in a way. As Potts and Squiers rowed closer to the boat they could hear the sounds of Terry and Allison having vigorous sex.

‘Shit,’ said Squiers admiringly.

Terry was crying things out in short, breathless bursts, but was overwhelmed by Allison’s even louder moans and
exhortations. Yes, oh God, yes, do it, yes, please do it, yes yes.

Squiers was smiling widely and Potts could swear he saw his eyes glowing red in the dark. Potts himself was not unaffected. There was that voyeuristic frisson than ran up his spine, the brief clear image of what they were doing. Potts rowed harder. This was a good thing, they’d be distracted. It would make it easier. They coasted in next to the boat and the sounds were so intense it was as if they were in the cabin with them. Potts hung out a small rubber tire to keep the hulls from bumping and tied a line onto a cleat. The lovemaking continued. Potts and Squiers climbed carefully up onto the deck. The hatch was open and from the far end of the deck you could see the couple writhing naked on the bunk. Potts started forward, wanting this over quickly, but Squiers stopped him and signalled him to wait. Squiers listened to the sex and after a time his own breathing seemed to match theirs. Potts was impatient to get it done and wanted to move but Squiers glared at him and gripped his arm menacingly. They waited as the sounds got louder and quicker and Allison and Terry both cried out in a final wave when Squiers took out a 9mm pistol and launched himself down into the cabin.

‘Scream and I blow your fucking brains out,’ Squiers said to Allison. Terry rolled off her quickly, sat up in the bed and looked as if he might spring at Squiers. Allison grabbed a corner of the sheet and tried to cover herself.

‘You lost your boner!’ Squiers said to Terry. ‘Damn, I never knew anybody could lose a boner that fast.’

Squiers motioned for Terry to back up against the bulkhead. ‘You get heroic and I’m going to kill her first, you got that?’ Holding the gun on Terry he grabbed Allison by the hair and dragged her from the bed and across the cabin. He lowered her onto her knees, still clutching a fistful of her hair in his right hand, which he jerked occasionally to remind her.

Potts said to Terry, ‘Roll onto your stomach.’ Terry glared at him but didn’t move. Naked, tensed, he looked like a cornered animal and just as dangerous. Potts said, ‘We don’t want the girl, it’s just you we’re interested in. You do what we say and she doesn’t get hurt. You’re going to get fucked up no matter what. You can save the girl.’

Terry glanced over at Allison, naked and cowering on her knees beside Squiers. Squiers was smiling. Squiers gave her hair a snap and she cried out. Terry didn’t move, trying to think, and Squiers twisted her hair and Allison screamed. Terry started forward but Potts put his gun in front of his face and motioned him back onto the bed. Potts nodded to Squiers and Squiers tucked the 9mm into his waistband and slapped Allison, hard, with his left hand, never letting go of her hair in his right. She cried out and Squiers pulled the gun back out of his pants. Allison was sobbing and there was a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. Squiers seemed to be enjoying himself. Allison looked at Terry, pleading.

‘Okay,’ said Terry. ‘You don’t hurt her.’

‘Nobody’s going to hurt her,’ said Potts, ‘as long as you do what you’re supposed to.’

Potts motioned for Terry to roll onto his stomach. Potts tucked his gun into his back pocket. Under Squiers’ guard, Potts took out some long plastic ties from a messenger bag and bound Terry’s wrists, then his ankles. Potts rolled him over. ‘Open your mouth.’ Terry opened his mouth and Potts shoved a cloth into it, then sealed the mouth with duct tape. Potts got out a roll of thin wire and Terry began to panic when he saw it. Potts stepped back out of reach and nodded to Squiers, who gave another hard tug to Allison’s hair, enough to make her yell. Terry quieted down and Potts moved in again and tied Terry’s hands to the top of the bunk and his feet to the bottom. Terry was breathing hard through his nose, trying not to suffocate, trying to maintain some sort of control.

‘You know who sent me?’ said Potts.

Terry nodded.

‘We’re not going to kill you. We’re going to hurt you, but you’re gonna wish you were dead for a while. Two things I got to tell you. First, you shouldn’t fuck other people’s girlfriends. It’s not nice. Second, when you can talk again, you tell that fucking cowboy faggot friend of yours that he’s going to be next.’

Potts looked at Squiers, who pulled Allison to her feet. Squiers put one hand over her mouth and the other firmly around her waist. Potts reached into the messenger bag
again and took out a short length of iron bar wrapped in tape. Terry bucked and twisted when he saw it, his shouts lost behind the cloth and the tape. Allison too tried to shout and struggle but Squiers held her tightly and didn’t mind at all her writhing body. Potts pulled on a rubber glove then Potts stopped and held the iron bar in his hands and looked down at Terry and froze. There was a kind of high-pitched buzz in his head and for a moment he believed all this was just in his mind, that he wasn’t really there at all. But the buzzing went on and his pounding heart and shortness of breath brought him around and, yes, he was there okay, he had to do this, everything depended on him doing this, he’d do it for Brittany, for Ingrid and their future and who the fuck was this guy anyway, some complete stranger, some guy who was fucking somebody else’s girlfriend, some guy who meant shit to him, some guy who was just in the way between him and what he wanted and the people he cared about.

Potts raised the iron bar and brought it down hard, quick, onto Terry’s left shin. He felt the bone give and heard the dull snap and Terry’s muffled scream all at the same time. Somewhere behind him the girl was trying to scream as well. Potts rested. The iron bar had become unbelievably heavy. Potts could barely lift it. The buzzing was like a relentless siren and Potts felt his hand sweating in the rubber glove. Potts clenched his teeth and broke Terry’s other leg in the same place. Then Potts went to work with his gloved fist on Terry’s face. Richie had
insisted. Somewhere along the way the man on the bed passed out. Meanwhile Squiers was whispering into Allison’s ear. He let go of her mouth. She was past screaming and was sobbing and weak and Squiers groped her with his free hand.

Potts stood and tried to get his bearings. He could feel his body swaying. The drug was in full force now. The adrenaline gave it a turbocharge and his heart pushed the torrid mixture through his veins like a rocketing flare. He thought he might pass out but caught himself. He took off the bloody glove and dropped it back in the messenger bag then picked up the iron bar where he’d dropped it on the bed and put that too in the bag. He picked up the bag and thought things were going to be fine then had to lunge for the head, where he puked violently in the toilet. He splashed cold water on his face and when he came out Squiers had the girl pinned on a seat and was trying to open his pants. Potts stared at this and it took a moment to register.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Please?’ Allison begged Potts. Squiers ignored both of them.

‘Get the fuck away from her!’ Potts told him.

Squiers was between her legs and was trying to unbuckle his Levi’s. Potts yelled at him again and when he didn’t respond Potts got out the iron bar again and hit him on the back, hard enough to assure his attention. Squiers grunted and turned on him.

‘Are you fucking crazy?’ said Potts. ‘Richie said just the guy. He said to leave the girl alone!’

Potts’ head was an air-raid siren and Squiers himself was beyond reason. Squiers’ own bubbling chemical stew had glazed his eyes and dulled his flesh. A truck could have ploughed into him and it wouldn’t have registered. Squiers hit Potts and sent him flying across the cabin, dropping the bar. When he looked up Squiers had retrieved the bar and had it raised and was coming at him.

Potts never knew how the pistol got into his hand. He’d forgotten it in his back pocket, though surely he’d fallen on it, remembered it was there, reached for it without thinking. All he knew is that suddenly it was there, and it fired, and a small hole appeared in Squiers’ chest.

A 9mm pistol is not a large gun, but in a small enclosed space – like the tiny cabin of a thirty-foot sailboat – it makes a noise that is literally deafening. Potts’ ears exploded and all he could think of for a few moments was the pain. The drug-buzzing had been replaced by the pain and the ringing and Potts couldn’t hear a goddamned thing. Not a thing. He got to his feet and looked over at the girl, who was curled up and crying with her hands over her own ears. Potts could see she was crying but he couldn’t hear it. Potts said something to the girl but it was pointless. Squiers was slumped on the floor with a small, blossoming hole in the approximate area of his heart. If he wasn’t dead he was dying. Potts wasn’t going to get close enough to check.

Potts sat down at the small galley table. Deaf, disoriented, plagued by the hellish raging of the drug. The sides of his face throbbed, while the sheer weight of how ugly things were came to rest on him. It was as fucked as fucked could be. Everything. All of it. His entire life. Forever.

He struggled to think of some way to recover, but he knew it didn’t exist.

The plan had been this: they show up and break the guy’s legs, mess up his face. Nobody touches the girl, the bitch gets to watch, but nobody touches her. At the end of it she calls the ambulance or whatever, but nobody is going to be able to pin this on Richie and nobody is going to the cops anyway, it’s just more trouble. A valuable lesson in morality learned. Potts and Squiers are long gone, and Potts has enough money in his pocket to start his life, a real life, with Ingrid and his kid. End of story. Well, okay, it is a shitty little story. But life is full of shitty little stories and we do what we can, the best we can. Here we have Potts doing his best, making lemonade from lemons.

Or not.

Now we have a murder on our hands. Oh yes, it’s murder. A life lost in the commission of a violent felony. Screw self-defense, Potts is going to spend the rest of his life in jail.

Potts thought. Or tried to think.

Potts had killed Squiers. Now we have this large dead body. All this now goes to the cops. They are going to question the man and the girl, who will tell them everything, all
about Richie, all of it. They are going to identify Squiers and tie him to Potts. They are going to find Potts and lock him up for a very long time if Richie does not find him and kill him first.

None of this is pretty.

Potts knows what he has to do. He does not want to do it. How soon can they tie Potts to Squiers? How much time does Potts have? Can they prove Potts was in on this when they do? Oh yes. The man and the girl, they’ll talk about Potts. They’ll paint a lovely picture.

Witnesses, thought Potts, and the drug seemed to echo it.

Potts got up and went into the head. He tore off some toilet tissue and dampened it and stuffed it in his ears. He went back into the cabin and went over to the girl. ‘Everything is fucked,’ Potts said but he couldn’t hear it and neither could she, then he shot her. He went over to Squiers and shot him in the head for good measure, then removed anything in his pockets that could ID him. This would at least slow things down. Potts went over to the man on the bed, the bastard who’d caused all this trouble, the guy who’d ruined Potts’ life. As he stared down at Terry, Terry’s eyes flickered and opened and for a few moments the two men gazed at each other like lovers. Terry saw the gun in his hand and knew what was about to happen. Potts raised the gun and Terry closed his eyes and thought about Allison, wondered if she’d be fine, prayed to God she’d be fine, and never heard the gun go off.

Potts came out on deck and nearly slipped, looked down to see the blood he’d tracked everywhere. He sat down and took off his shoes and threw them as far out as he could into the water. He looked at the gun and threw that too, far out into the sea. Potts sat there trying to remember if he’d covered everything, left prints, made mistakes. Fuck yes, everywhere. And that smelly old bastard on the dock, he’ll make me. What do I do, fucking row back and whack him too? Short of building an atom bomb and nuking the whole of Ventura, Potts couldn’t think of a decent alternative. Just run. Just run and don’t look back, you miserable unlucky fuck. At best I’ve bought a little time.

Potts climbed into the skiff, and started the motor, which no longer bothered him since he could not hear it. And anyway, he had other problems.

Twenty-One