Stinking Rich Read online

  He clomped through the darkened front room devoid of furniture and made his way upstairs. In the first of two bedrooms, a futon lay on the floor with a sleeping bag and a pillow. Danny kept an ancient TV/VCR/DVD player beside the bed, but he preferred to use the television in the kitchen downstairs where the hacked satellite hookup meant he could watch pretty much anything pretty much any time.

  The second upstairs bedroom was home to Danny’s pet iguana. With a body as big as a tomcat and a tail just over three feet long, Iggy projected an aura of entitlement well-suited to a being whose ancestors predated Danny’s by like a hundred million years. He ate green bananas voraciously and shat non-stop. As a rule, Danny kept the second bedroom locked and would visit the iguana every so often to smoke a joint. When it came to combating the deep sense of boredom, isolation, and sheer paranoia at being on guard at a grow op, watching the lizard utterly ignore him was fascinating to the committed stoner.

  That Saturday afternoon, with Lester Freeden’s frozen face stuck in his mind, Danny sat on the overstuffed armchair in the iguana’s bedroom and rolled up a doublewide doobie.

  “Iggy, my friend,” he said, lighting the joint and taking a deep haul, “you are one lucky lizard. Nice and safe and all the bananas you can eat.”

  Perched on the windowsill, the iguana turned its head slowly, its gaze sliding past Danny then back again, as if to say, Feed me one more banana, pothead, and I’ll bite off your little finger while you sleep.

  “You can’t get near me while I sleep because I always close your door,” Danny said.

  I’m patient. I’ll wait you out. Or have you forgotten that I can sit here for three hours without moving, my eyes open, frozen in space, while you fry your brain one joint at a time?

  Cold dead eyes, thought Danny. Like Lester’s. Staring right past him. Or through him, like he didn’t matter at all.

  The chair was in the middle of the room, facing the window. Danny sat and smoked and stared over the lizard’s back at the world outside. The warped glass bent his view of the farmer across the road heaving basketball-sized rocks into the shovel of a front-end loader. It was as though the fieldstones grew and ripened under the winter snow so they could be harvested every spring, Danny thought. After a hundred twenty years of farming, you’d think the stones would stop surfacing. A loose rock wall at least five feet wide and three feet tall edged every farm field in the Kawarthas. Each stone had been sifted from the earth so it wouldn’t bend a farmer’s plough or damage his harvesting equipment.

  “That farmer is working just as hard as his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him,” Danny told the iguana. “The equipment gets better, but the farms keep getting bigger. The only way he’ll ever reap his reward is if he stops farming and sells the place to someone crazy enough to work as hard as he does.”

  And just what would you know about rewards? You’re living in a rundown farmhouse, waiting for the cops to come along and bust you for a crop of skunk weed that isn’t even your own. Or, better yet, maybe they’ll arrest you for murder, you moron.

  “I’m no murderer. It was an accident. Stupid bugger didn’t have to sic his dog on me like that. It wasn’t my fault the baseball bat flew out of my hands.” For a moment, Danny puzzled over how the iguana knew he’d killed Lester. Then he snorted a laugh, remembering the iguana couldn’t even really talk.

  That’s right, Danny. Don’t believe I can talk and, while you’re at it, why don’t you pretend the cops will never find the corpse.

  Iggy was right. Danny was scared out of his wits at what would happen when someone found Lester’s body. And find it they would. Lester had more enemies than friends and no one was all that likely to show up at his trailer looking for him. But a body was a body and before long, someone had to find it. When that happened, Danny would be on the short list of people who ever had anything to do with Lester.

  One of the first places they’ll canvas will be the casino. Dozens of people saw you two together the night before Lester ate dirt.

  “Oh, man, you are so right, Iggy. What am I gonna do?”

  Bury him. Bury him in the woods.

  “I can’t bury him. The ground is as full of stones as that field across the road. Can you imagine the mess of rocks I’d stir up trying to put him six feet under?”

  Six inches, six feet. What’s the difference? Just drag him far enough into the bush to hide the smell a while and let the critters get at him. Cover him with a bunch of leaves and a bit of dirt. The worms will take care of the rest. Snow will be here before you know it. In the spring, Lester will thaw out and be pecked clean.

  “I dunno, Iggy. Sounds too easy. Someone will find the bones, at least, and then they’ll know someone killed him for sure, and they’ll come looking for me.”

  So, sink him.

  “Huh?”

  You heard me. Sink him. In the water. Take him for a short ride that’ll last forever. Tie a bag of rocks to his feet and throw him overboard into the lake. Let him lie there with the legendary schooner. Maybe he’ll become The Ghost of Big Bald Narrows or something.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I can throw him in where it’s like forty feet deep and no one will ever find him. I can use chain and nylon rope, too. Wrap him real tight so that even if his bones come loose, they won’t, er, come loose. Do bones float, Iggy?”

  Naw. Bones sink. No need to worry, they’ll just lie there on the bottom.

  Danny thought this was starting to sound like a plan. He went downstairs to the kitchen to get himself a cold beer and another banana for the iguana. Two minutes later, he was back in Iggy’s room, sweating and shaking. He tossed the banana at the lizard and said, “Oh man, oh man, Iggy. Someone’s going to find Lester for sure. Someone’s gonna snag Lester’s eyeball on a fishing lure...in his skull, I mean, when all the flesh is off it and his brain’s been eaten by some huge carp...and one of them fishermen is gonna hook it and pull it up out of the lake and...

  You’re probably right. It’ll be like, “I got one, yeah, I got one, man, this is one heavy mother, naw it’s just weeds, man, it’s dragging like a boot.”

  Danny’s hands shook as he brought the beer can to his lips. In his mind’s eye he saw Lester’s skull, a shiny orange lure stuck in one empty eye socket.

  “So, it’s the bush, then,” he said after a while.

  Uh huh. And what about the dog?

  “Shooter? What about him?”

  His master is dead and the dog doesn’t particularly like you already.

  “So, what am I supposed to do?”

  Deal with him.

  “How?”

  Do I have to tell you everything?

  Danny felt blood rush to his head. He couldn’t believe he was being upbraided by a four-and-a-half-foot bug-eater. He imagined Iggy skewered and roasting over a fire surrounded by stoned teenagers on a beach somewhere in...

  Ingrate! Here I am, coaching you out of this mess, and all you can think of is turning me into midnight kebabs. Deal with your own problems, numbnuts. Iggy turned his head away and gnawed on the banana.

  Danny’s heart was pounding so hard he thought he could hear the ocean in his ears. Iggy had just called him numbnuts. Lester always called him numbnuts. Lester called everyone numbnuts. It was a Lester word. Could Iggy be in cahoots with Lester? Could Lester’s ghost have inhabited Iggy’s scaly carcass? Was there nobody he could trust? Trembling, he stood up and turned to leave the room.

  You need some help. Someone to deal with the dog, while you deal with Lester’s body.

  Without turning to face the iguana, Danny said, “Who the hell is gonna help me dump a body? Who do I know that’s stupid enough to get involved with something like this?”

  Besides Lester.

  “No one’s as stupid as Lester.”

  Right. But he’s dead.

  “Terry, then. Terry Miner.” Danny walked out of the room. On the way down the stairs, he struggled to figure out whose plan had just been hatched—h
is or the iguana’s. He stopped in front of a faded mirror in the front hall: still Danny, but with Lester’s glassy eyes now. He was sure he heard the iguana laughing at him from the bedroom.

  Perko counted six under his breath as Frederick skipped a stone, creating barely perceptible ripples on the wavelets lapping onto the shores of Big Bald Lake.

  “There. Me, I win,” Frederick grinned.

  “Bullshit. That was five skips. Same as me,” Perko answered, grunting at the gut pressure as he bent over to pick up another stone.

  “Five? No way, tabarouette. Dat was six. Not five.”

  “The last one was more like a tumble. We throw again. Still double or nothing.”

  Frederick scowled and kicked at the ground to dislodge another piece of shale. Perko’s stomach made it hard to reach the ground but Frederick had an even harder time. Thin as he was, his head-to-toe brown leather get-up was so tight, it looked sprayed on. The cow-hide squeaked when he moved. “So what we do Tuesday night,” he said, “we meet those New York guys with their crew some place first?”

  “Yeah. At that Mexican joint outside of town.” Perko found a stone he liked and flicked it across the water. “—three, four, five, six, and seven. Who the hell puts a Mexican restaurant and hotel on Highway fucking Seven in the middle of nowhere anyway?”

  “You meaning Helena’s Hellhole? Dat one?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Aw, merde. Bernard, he can’t stand the spicy food. He say it makes his hair go straight. He’s gonna be pissed off that guy.”

  “You just tell your fucking partner to keep his mouth shut. This ain’t no dinner party. It’s a meet. Business to discuss, details we gotta work out, and then we head over to the farm. He can go to Tim fucking Hortons with his five hundred when it’s over, far as I care.”

  Frederick threw a stone. “Five. Merde. That’s eighty bucks I owe you. We go again.”

  “Naw, forget it,” Perko said. “That’s enough for me. So I owe you five hundred minus eighty.” He took a wad of bills out of his pocket and peeled off four twenties before handing the rest to Frederick. “You get the other five when the delivery’s done.”

  “Right. Boss.” Frederick took the cash without counting it and squeezed it into the front pocket of his brown leather pants. “The New York guys—the Skeletons—who they using for local crew here?”

  “A couple of guys, brothers I think, from Nicaragua. They say they’re refugees or something.”

  “Them guys were supposed to get deported like three years ago?”

  “Yeah, those ones. Seems they keep appealing, finding excuses to stay in Canada. The Skeletons like ’em because they don’t mind running back and forth across the border. Nothing to lose, I guess. They get caught, ’least they won’t be sent home.”

  Frederick grunted. “And how much we moving?”

  “Three hundred kilos. Dried, baled, ready to go. Shouldn’t take more’n five minutes to get the shit loaded.”

  “Three hundred? Dat’s a lot of cash.”

  “Yeah, well, it was almost a load of guns,” Perko said. “The Skeletons wanted to offset half the load against hardware they moved last month.”

  “Dat’s a lot of guns.”

  “No kidding. Nearly lost the deal when they found out this wasn’t a full-on Libidos gig. That I’m running it solo. They said they’re doing mostly guns for green when they take shipment from Toronto, Cornwall, even Montreal now. The urban bangers can’t get enough metal.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I told ’em out here muscle means muscle. We need to off someone, a hunting rifle works plenty good. We don’t gotta hide our guns in our pants.”

  “They went for dat?”

  “No.”

  “So what?”

  “I cut the price.”

  “Oh.”

  “And promised to take them bear hunting.”

  Five

  Danny found Terry Miner lounging outside his borrowed trailer in the park on the shore of Rice Lake. Covered in rust, the sixteen-footer perched off-level between concrete blocks and tree stumps. It dipped a full foot lengthwise and at least six inches across its width, as if to ensure the water would drain out when it rained. A green aluminum awning hung off one side, providing shade to two folding lawn chairs.

  “What’s cookin’, Danny? Welcome to my waterfront paradise.” Terry gestured to the unoccupied chair. Danny sat down and the canvas sagged almost to the ground. He pulled an empty beer can from the cup holder on the chair’s arm. “Sorry, pal, this here’s the last brewski,” Terry said, looking pointedly at the can in his own hand. “Unless you brought some,” he added, eyebrows raised.

  Danny looked out over the waterfront facing Terry’s trailer, a carpet of bull rushes running more than three hundred feet offshore. “Nope, I didn’t bring beer,” he said, “but I’ve got a half pound bag of pot that’s all yours if you can help me out for a couple hours.”

  Terry whistled through his teeth. “A half pound of that Kawartha Kash Krop? The kush that could a been mine? Correction, should a been mine. Man, you must be looking for some kind of help to come askin’ me.”

  “You’re the one who blew it.”

  That past April, Danny had run into Terry at the unemployment office. It was one of those spring days when the sun announced summer coming, even as the brown mounds of sand-crusted ice clung like glaciers in north-facing ditches. Always the scrounger, Terry was there to pick up his check to avoid it being mailed to the apartment he was hanging at back then. “Check comes in?” he’d said. “My roommates are all up my ass to chip in on groceries, pay the rent and stuff. Money’s all gone before I can make it to the beer store.”

  They’d cashed Terry’s check at the Money Mart and spent the afternoon shooting tequila in the darkened City Lights Tavern on Water Street. Danny told Terry how he was going to get his forklift license and get a decent job, way more than minimum wage. Terry said after tequila they should hit a patio somewhere to check out springtime hotties. He watched the baseball game while Danny explained how his mom needed to live south, skip winters, because of how sick she was getting. Terry said, “Now, baseball players, they got real jobs. How hard can it be?”

  Danny said hanging around a bar getting pissed in the afternoon didn’t seem like a solid career strategy. Terry said, “Met a guy here last night told me he’d set me up. Real good gig.” When the guy showed, Danny cracked wise about his head-to-toe brown leather outfit. Tight pants and a tighter motorcycle jacket.

  “You want I cut your balls off with a rusty knife?” Leather Man had said.

  “No, I—”

  They’d switched to mezcal because, according to Leather Man, “The tequila is for, ’ow you say, wimps.” Halfway through the second tray of fifteen shooters, Terry crumpled to a heap under the table and threw up all over the newcomer’s shiny brown boots. And just like that, Danny got the job tending the grow op.

  Clearly, all these months later, Terry was still pissed. “Like you never puked on tequila,” he said. He stared straight at Danny, took a long gulp of beer, and smacked his lips.

  “Never barfed at a job interview,” Danny said. “You want the half pound or not?”

  “What do I gotta do?” Terry took off his sunglasses and wiped them with the front of his T-shirt.

  Danny told him the whole story, starting with Lester’s curiosity about his extra cash, right up to the part where Lester was lying out front of his trailer, guarded by Shooter the villain mutt.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” Terry asked.

  “Has to be. The baseball bat hit him straight on—shoved his nose right up between his eyeballs.”

  “I ain’t never seen a dead guy before, so you know, how can you be sure?”

  “Well, he wasn’t moving,” Danny said, “and his eyes were open and cold and dead-like. Can’t get that look outta my head.”

  “There’s this guy I used to work with looked just like that every Monday
morning. Looked twice as dead after a long weekend.”

  “This is no joke. Lester’s dead and I need your help burying him.”

  “I dunno.” Terry paused to suck the last of the beer out of the can before crushing it and dropping it to the ground. He turned to Danny and said, “I kinda like the idea of seeing a dead guy for once, but that dog sounds nasty, and I’m just kinda chilling here by the lake and all. I think I’ll pass.”

  A dented fourteen-foot aluminum boat rested upside down next to a rock-ringed fire pit; Danny couldn’t imagine how the boat could make its way through the forest of weeds to open water and it looked as though no one had tried for quite a few years.

  “How’d you find this joint anyway, Terry?”

  “Buddy o’ mine. I think it’s his sister’s place. She’s letting him use it ’cause she got tired of him surfing her couch. He’s got a new ol’ lady with an apartment in town and said I could stay here long as I cut the grass.”

  Danny kicked at the dirt in front of his lawn chair. “Pretty easy gig.”

  Terry snorted. “You’re not kidding. Besides, I owe my roommates in town about six hundred bucks. We had a couple parties, you know, the usual. I figure if I just hang out here on the beach for a few months, they’ll forget all about it.”

  “They know where you are?”

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  Danny turned to look straight at him and smiled. “So whatcha doin’ for the next couple of hours Mister I-don’t-wanna-be-found?”

  “Aw shit, gimme a break. Can’t you bury the fucking guy yourself?”