Barry had diagrammed the floor of the garage, and marked with exact confidence the position of the grave. He had drawn a map with a line starting at the parking lot of West Park and running between the tennis courts, across the soccer field, through a patch of trees, then across another field with a picnic pavilion, then along the bike route for a ways until a footpath led to the ditch. It would be easy, he had assured them all afternoon.
The bike trail was deserted, and with good reason. It was ten minutes after eleven, Saturday night. The air was muggy, and by the time they reached the footpath they were breathing heavily and sweating. The Bull, much younger and fitter, followed the other two and smiled to himself as they bitched quietly in the blackness about the humidity. They were in their late thirties, he guessed, chain-smokers of course, abusive drinkers, sloppy eaters. They were griping about sweating, and they hadn’t walked a mile yet.
Leo was in charge of this expedition, and he carried the flashlight. They were dressed in solid black. Ionucci followed like a bloodhound with heartworms, head down, breathing hard, lethargic, mad at the world for being here. “Careful,” Leo said as they eased down the ditch bank in heavy weeds. They were not exactly woodsy types. This place had been frightening enough at 6 P.M. when they first walked it off. Now it was terrifying. The Bull expected at any moment to step on a thick, squirming snake. Of course, if he was bitten, he could turn around with justification, and, he hoped, find the car. His two buddies would then be forced to go it alone. He tripped on a log, but kept his balance. He almost wished for a snake.
“Careful,” Leo said for the tenth time, as if saying it made things safer. They eased along the dark and weedy creek bed for two hundred yards, then climbed the other bank. The flashlight was turned off, and they crouched low through the brush until they were behind Clifford’s chain-link fence. They rested on their knees.
“This is stupid, you know,” Ionucci said between loud breaths. “Since when do we dig up bodies?”
Leo was surveying the darkness of Clifford’s backyard. Not a single light. They had driven by only minutes earlier, and noticed a small gas light burning in a globe near the front door, but the rear was complete darkness. “Shut up,” he said without moving his head.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ionucci mumbled. “It’s stupid.” His screaming lungs were almost audible. Sweat dripped from his chin. The Bull knelt behind them, shaking his head at their unfitness. They were used primarily as bodyguards and drivers, occupations that required little exertion. Legend held that Leo did his first killing when he was seventeen, but was forced to quit a few years later when he served time. The Bull had heard that Ionucci had been shot twice over the years, but this was unconfirmed. The people who generated these stories were not known for telling the truth.
“Let’s go,” Leo said like a field marshal. They scooted across the grass to the gate in Clifford’s fence, then through it. They darted between the trees until they landed against the rear wall of the garage. Ionucci was in pain. He fell to all fours and heaved mightily. Leo crawled to a corner and looked for movement next door. Nothing. Nothing but the sounds of Ionucci’s impending cardiac arrest. The Bull peeked around the other corner and watched the rear of Clifford’s house.
The neighborhood was asleep. Even the dogs had called it a night.
Leo stood and tried to open the rear door. It was locked. “Stay here,” he said, and slid low around the garage until he came to the front door. It was locked also. Back to the rear, he said, “We gotta break some glass. It’s locked too.”
Ionucci produced a hammer from a pouch on his waist, and Leo began tapping lightly on the dirty pane just above the doorknob. “Watch that corner,” he said to the Bull, who crawled behind him and looked in the direction of the Ballantine home next door.
Leo pecked and pecked until the pane was broken. He carefully removed broken pieces and tossed them aside. When the jagged edges were clear, he slid his left arm through and unlocked the door. He turned on the flashlight, and the three eased inside.
Barry said he remembered the place being a mess, and Clifford obviously had been too busy to tidy things up before he passed on. The first thing they noticed was that the floor was gravel, not concrete. Leo kicked at the white rocks beneath his feet. If Barry had told them about the gravel flooring, he didn’t remember it.
The boat was in the center of the garage. It was a sixteen-foot outboard ski rig with a heavy layer of dust over it. Three of the four trailer tires were flat. This boat had not touched water in years. Layers of junk were piled against it. Garden tools, sacks of aluminum cans, stacks of newspapers, rusted patio furniture. Romey didn’t need a garbage service. Hell, he had a garage. Thick spiderwebs were strung in every corner. Unused tools hung from the walls.
Clifford, for some reason, had been a prodigious collector of wire clothes hangers. Thousands of them hung on strands of wire above the boat. Rows and rows of clothes hangers. At some point, he’d grown weary of running the wire, so he’d simply driven long nails into the wall studs and packed hundreds of hangers on them. Romey, the environmentalist, had also collected cans and plastic containers, obviously with the lofty goal of recycling. But he’d been a busy man, and so a small mountain of green garbage bags stuffed with cans and bottles filled half of the garage. He’d been such a slob, he’d even thrown some of the bags into the boat.
Leo aimed the small light at a point directly under the main beam of the trailer. He motioned for the Bull, who eased onto all fours and began brushing away the white rock gravel. From the waist pouch, Ionucci produced a small trowel. The Bull took it and scraped away more gravel. His two partners stood over his shoulders.
Two inches down, the scraping sound changed when he struck concrete. The boat was in the way. The Bull stood, slowly lifted the hitch, and with a mighty strain rolled the front of the trailer five feet to the side. The side of the trailer brushed against the mountain of aluminum cans, and there was a prolonged racket. The men froze, and listened.
“You gotta be careful.” Leo whispered the obvious. “Stay here, and don’t move.” He left them standing in the dark beside the boat, and eased through the rear door. He stood beside a tree behind the garage and watched the Ballantine house next door. It was dark and quiet. A patio light cast a dim glow around the grill and flower beds, but nothing moved. Leo watched and waited. He doubted the neighbors could hear a jackhammer. He crept back inside the garage and aimed the flashlight at the spot of concrete under the gravel. “Let’s clear it off,” he said, and the Bull returned to his knees.
Barry had explained that he’d first dug a shallow grave, approximately six feet by two feet, and no more than eighteen inches deep. Then he’d stuffed the body into it. Then he’d packed the pre-mix concrete around the body, which was wrapped in black plastic garbage bags. Then he’d added water to his little recipe. He’d returned the next day to cover it all with gravel and put the boat in place.
He’d done a fine job. Given Clifford’s talent for organization, it would be another five years before the boat was moved. Barry had explained that this was just a temporary grave. He’d planned to move it, but the feds started trailing him. Leo and Ionucci had disposed of a few bodies, usually in weighted barrels over water, but they were impressed with Barry’s temporary hiding place.
The Bull scraped and brushed, and soon the entire concrete surface was clear. Ionucci knelt on the other side of it, and he and the Bull began chipping away with chisels and hammers. Leo placed the flashlight on the gravel beside them, and eased again through the rear door. He crouched low and moved to the front of the garage. All was quiet. The chiseling could be heard, all right. He walked quickly to the rear of Clifford’s house, maybe fifty feet away, and the sounds were barely audible. He smiled to himself. Had the Ballantines been awake, they could not have heard it.