Trace yanked me clear. I slid into the statue. I got up, operating only on reflex. Randy was on his feet, gulping hard, his eyes bugged out at me.
"Curse of Ham," he wheezed, coming at me like Lon Chaney in one of those old Wolfman movies. Trace moved at me from the side. Just then one of Randy's bug eyes came flying from his head. His body kept stumbling forward and landed hard on the statue, breaking it into sharp chunks.
Both of us stared at him and then at each other. I looked past Trace to see Wilma standing at the edge of the pool. She had a gun in her hand, and obviously knew how to use the thing. Trace rammed past me, jumping into the bushes and plants.
"Get him," Wilma yelled.
I was already moving. I ran past the shed, catching something out of the corner of my eye in the way I spotted a lineman angling at me. The shovel was missing. My face hurt like hell from Randy's chewing and my body was stinging from all the blows, but I kept going. If Trace got away, I knew it wouldn't be good. No good at all. I got to a clearing. All around were them Joshua trees Wilma had told me about. I stopped, waiting and listening. Why run? Trace would want to finish the fight.
"I thought you was gonna make me put my hand in your back pocket. You ain't punkin' out, are you, homeboy?"
I crept up near a part of the trees and heard him moving somewhere nearby, hidden from me. I went into the trees, ducking low and moving as quiet as I could. My hip started to act up but there was nothing I could do. I had to show Wilma I could take care of business. Off to my left, in front of where I was, I heard him moving again. He was trying to figure out where I was too.
I started to move in a circle, and a plant cracked behind me. I froze, crouching down. Trace stopped too, listening for me. I took off again, moving like a dog on my hands and feet. The hip was grinding in the socket and I wanted to rest. At any moment I knew I was going to run out of gas, my second wind all played out.
There, to the right, I told myself. I shot forward, bumping against a tree. Trace turned and swung the shovel down at me and I dove out of the way. The side of the shovel sunk into the tree, and he yanked on it to get it loose. I was already up, absolute fear blocking the pain. I latched on to Trace and headbutted him under his jaw. He stumbled back, letting go of the shovel.
He'd almost got the thing free. I grabbed the handle and pulled it out. I swung it, tripping him up as he tried to run off. My second swing caught him straight in his face, knocking the fool back to the ground. He was still awake so I hit him again, this time dead in the nose. He went over on his side, his face hidden behind a sheet of blood.
I leaned over, holding myself up with the shovel where I'd put it into the ground. My lips tasted salty and I stayed like that for a while, getting myself together. "Wilma," I shouted as I walked into the clearing. I was so goddamn tired. I shouted some more and she finally trotted over.
"Keep your voice down, there are other properties around here."
"Like they didn't hear that gunshot?"
"People are always target practicing out in the country."
"You got an answer for everything, don't you?" I said as I dragged Trace by his heels into the clearing. I sat down.
Wilma stood over Trace, a concerned look on her face. I knew it wasn't 'cause I'd broken his nose and he looked like shit. She was wondering like me what Weems' right-hand man was doing here, and what that meant in terms of the holier-than-thou commissioner's involvement.
"Well, he's breathing, that means he can answer questions."
"You should have been a cop with that kinda attitude."
Wilma bent down and slapped Trace on the side of his face with her pistol. It was a good-sized gun. Pistols weren't my thing, but it was clear homegirl knew something about them.
Trace's eyes fluttered like I'd seen players do after getting their head rung.
"Why did Weems send you?" She stood back, the gun on him.
"You have broken a commandment," he said.
"Let me worry about my soul." She waved the gun, a shiny automatic of some kind. "You need to focus on the issue at hand, Trace."
He grinned. "And who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?"
I shook the end of the shovel in front of him. "How 'bout I bust you upside the head again and see if that harms your Biblespoutin' ass?"
"The defiler can never know the ways of the righteous."
Wilma kicked him in the leg. "Cut the sanctimonious crap. How much does Weems know about Stadanko? Or were you and your dead pal up here on some kind of fishing expedition?"
Trace lifted his large shoulders and let them come back down. "I am but a vessel. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
I sank the handle of the shovel hard into his gut. He didn't flinch much, only sneered at me. ''He's just going to keep this bullshit up. We're wasting time."
Wilma put on her lawyer face. She walked in small circles as she talked. "It doesn't seem likely Weems would send these two to hide out and wait around for Stadanko and the rest to get here this weekend." She had one hand on her hip, the gun loose at her side in the other.
"Maybe they came here to look for the files like us."
"That's more delicate work than I'd send Trace to do."
"That why you didn't want me and Nap doing it?"
She came over to me, touching my wound. "Now, baby."
Trace made a move and I hit him with the business end of the shovel. The bastard hit the deck, his hands out before him. I kicked him in the side and this time he felt it. He held his ribs.
"Your day is fast approaching, defiler."
Wilma pointed the gun at him. Much as I didn't like the asshole, killing somebody like that made me jumpy. I guess it shouldn't have, but it did. "You're gonna dust him? That's two goddamn bodies we gotta deal with, Wilma."
"This is so he'll behave." She jerked the gun. "Give him the shovel."
"Are you"
"Please, baby," she said sweetly, "I know what I'm doing."
I didn't dig it that I wasn't in control, didn't know the rules for this kind of play Wilma did, or at least that gun and what she did with it made it seem so. I threw the shovel over to Trace. He was on his feet again, rubbing his ribs, sizing me up for another rumble.
"You're going to bury your friend." Wilma got an angle on him for a good, clean shot.
He touched his flaming cross. "I will not."
Wilma shot past his head, the bullet sinking into the wall of the shed in a puff of plaster.
Me and Trace stood there with our mouths open. She didn't say anything else and Trace picked up the shovel. We walked over to the area behind the shed where there were Joshua trees and cactus and other shit I couldn't name. We stopped at a patch of earth and Wilma pointed at the ground. Trace got a funny look on his face and I tensed. But he got busy digging.
He didn't talk, didn't take off his coat. He kept working, stopping now and then to get his breath. Eventually he'd dug a hole big enough for Randy. The space wasn't too long but was deep.
"Put down the shovel and let's get your boyfriend."
"You will be punished." He was breathing heavy, sweat pouring off him like buckets of water. His suit was dirty and wet.
"No, that's not going to happen," Wilma said.
Me and Trace carried Randy's corpse to its makeshift grave.
"Zelmont, search the body just in case they found anything."
I did. The only thing I found was a pocket edition of the New Testament and two pens. Then we dumped the body in the pit.
The dead man was tall so his body didn't really fit lengthwise. He laid there, his knees bent like he was resting, his eyes open and focused on nothing. It gave me the goddamn willies.
Again without a word, Trace got busy, filling the hole with the dirt he'd just dug out. When he was finished, he broke off two small branches from a Joshua tree. He fastened them together with his shoelaces to make a cross and stuck it over the place Randy's head was. He bowed his own head and mumbled a prayer. All the while I didn't take my eyes off him. I was waiting for him to try and get slick.