Hellbox

10

PETE BALFOUR

First thing, before he did much of anything else, he went out to check on the woman.

He felt snake mean this morning. She was one reason, and his pounding head and sour gut from all the booze he’d sucked down last night was another. But Verriker still alive was the main one. Nobody better give him any shit today, or they’d regret it.

The shed was up on a little rise next to the garage. Built it and fixed up the whole place himself, with the only help a couple of spic illegals he’d hired for the grunt work. Good with his hands, the best carpenter, best builder, best repairman in the valley. But did anybody appreciate what he could do? Hell, no, they didn’t. Carped at him about cutting corners, doing shoddy work, that was all they ever did. Miserable bastards.

Balfour unlocked the shed door, toed it open, and clicked on the overheads to see where she was before he went in. Still on the canvas where he’d put her, but rolled up in it now, lying on her side, staring at him with round, scared eyes. Part of one bare leg was out where he could see it. Pretty nice leg for an old broad. She must be more than fifty, but well preserved. Good body, slender, the way he liked them.

He had the notion again, looking at that bare leg, same one he’d had after he stopped himself from strangling her yesterday. That was part of the reason he’d stopped-a small part. Just a notion that slipped into his mind and slipped out again pretty quick. He liked his women young, the younger the better. Never had a whore over twenty-five. Never had any woman over twenty-five except for Charlotte, and she hadn’t been much more than that when he married her. Pigs, all of ’em. Never had a good-looking woman in his life, not old ugly Pete Balfour. This redhead, she must’ve been some sweet piece when she was young. Now she was just too damn old to bother with.

He moved over to her, reached down to unwrap the canvas from around her body. She cringed back away from him. Scared, all right, but not so scared she wasn’t looking him square in the eyes. Hell, most women would’ve peed all over themselves by this time.

“You… untie me now?” The words came out sounding funny, half whisper and half croak. The bruises on her throat… he’d come damn close to crushing her windpipe yesterday.

“No way, lady.”

“Please. I can’t… feel my… hands.”

“No.”

Balfour bent down again, pushed her over on her side. Whimper came out when he touched her, the sound like an ass-kicked dog made. But all he wanted to do was check the duct tape. It was okay around her feet, but there was a couple of tears and some up-and-down scratch marks where it was wrapped around her hands and wrists. Been scraping it on something, trying to get loose. Good luck with that. He thought about putting on a few more loops, but why bother? She wasn’t going nowhere even if she freed herself and managed to find a way through the locked door. Bruno would see to that. Chew her up into dog food if she tried to get past him.

“Why?” she said.

“Huh? Why what?”

“Why are you… doing this?”

“Shouldn’t of been in those woods, that’s why. Your fault, not mine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t need to. None of your business.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

Didn’t have an answer for her. He shook his head, looked at her a little longer-notion in, notion out-and then turned for the door. Went on outside and locked up again.

What the hell was he gonna do with her?

He didn’t know yet, couldn’t decide. Should’ve finished what he’d started on the logging road, but somehow, he just couldn’t do it. Smacking a woman around when she deserved it, that was one thing; choking the life out of her with your bare hands, that was a whole different bag of cats.

He might not of grabbed her at all if she’d hadn’t called him by his name. Might’ve kept his cool, let her go her way while he went his. So she’d seen his truck up there, seen him with his toolkit, so what? Real good chance she’d never have tied him to the Verriker place blowing up later on. But calling him Mr. Balfour, knowing who he was… this black rage had come over him and the next thing he knew, he was choking her.

Well, one thing for sure: he couldn’t just let her go. Maybe he ought to let Bruno have her. No, Jesus, he couldn’t do a thing like that, not to any woman. Crazy idea and he wasn’t crazy, except like a fox. Besides, then he’d have to clean up the bloody mess afterward.

Some other way. Had to be some other way…

The dog was yammering for food. Balfour stopped to move the chain on the cable strung along the yard so Bruno could roam closer to the shed. That’d make sure the woman stayed put until he figured things out.

In the house, he scooped up a bowlful of kibble and took it outside to the pit bull. Needed to put food into his empty gut, too, but he didn’t like to cook, never was no good at it, and he didn’t keep much in the house except snack stuff, potato chips and salted peanuts. Which reminded him-he was almost out of beer. Have to remember to stop on the way home tonight and pick up a couple more six-packs.

He didn’t feel like doing any work today, but there wasn’t no way around it. It was already the first of July, the big Independence Day celebration at the fairgrounds just three days off. Concession repairs were mostly done, but there was still a lot of work left to do on the men’s and women’s crappers. He’d have to push Eladio and the half-wit and himself to get the job finished on time.

Balfour drove into Six Pines, stopped at the cafe for a quick breakfast. Goddamn Jolene gave him a “Good morning, Mr. Mayor” look when he sat down-made him feel even meaner. Why couldn’t everybody just leave him the hell alone?

He cocked an ear to the conversations around him. Couple of guys talking about the explosion, but all they were saying was what a terrible accident it’d been, and what a shame Alice had to die like that. Yeah, shame. Nothing about where Verriker was. Nothing about the tourist woman, either. Husband must’ve reported her missing last night sometime. But the law wouldn’t be out looking yet. Took time to get a search organized, and anyhow, they wouldn’t have no reason to go looking around his place a long way from where he’d grabbed her.

When Jolene served him his eggs, Balfour got her talking about the explosion by pretending to be sorry himself about Alice. Then he asked, “What’s Ned gonna do now?” real solemn, like he gave a fat crap. “I mean, where’s he gonna be living? Anybody know?”

“Well, he spent last night with Frank Ramsey and his wife. But they don’t have enough room for him to stay on there.”

“Got relatives down in El Dorado Hills, don’t he?”

“A brother. But they don’t get along.”

“Somebody’ll find a place for him here, then.”

“Sure. He’s got a lot of friends in Six Pines. There’s talk Jim Jensen might let him stay at his house for a while.”

“That right?” Wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Jensen was the owner of Builders Supply, had the biggest house in town. Full of people as it was-Jensen had a wife and three kids. Verriker’d be hard to get at there.

Jolene flashed him the mayor look again. “If that don’t work out, why’n’t you offer to take him in? You got plenty of room at your place.”

“Comes to that, maybe I will.”

He finished his eggs, paid the bill without leaving a tip. On his way to the fairgrounds, he played around with the idea of doing what Jolene’d suggested, offering to let Verriker stay at his place. Get him there and then set up something to take care of him and the woman at the same time, some other kind of accident. Seemed like a pretty good notion at first, but then he knew it wouldn’t work. Verriker accept an invitation from him? No way. They’d never been friends, couldn’t stand each other; Verriker’d know something was fishy soon as the offer was made. The accident idea was no good, either. Two fatals coming one on top of the other, both involving Verriker… make people suspicious, maybe start the county law looking his way. Besides, what kind of accident could he rig with Verriker and a missing tourist woman? And keep himself out of it with an alibi at the same time? No kind he could think of.

Okay, another accident was out. What other way was there to finish Verriker? Never mind the woman, he’d worry about her later. Couldn’t just shoot the bastard… yeah, he could, blow his head off and then make the body disappear. No, that was too risky. He had to come up with something foolproof. And soon. He wouldn’t have no peace as long as Verriker was still alive.

Eladio’s rattletrap Dodge was parked between the fairgrounds’ restrooms and the portable storage unit where he kept his power tools and other job-site materials locked up. The unit’s door was open, Eladio and the half-wit already working. You couldn’t trust most Mexs, but Eladio had worked for him off and on for years-Balfour hadn’t had any qualms about letting him have a key.

He was still feeling mean, so he ragged on them some, told them to quit dogging it even though they weren’t. The kid showed his smarmy grin, but kept his mouth shut-good thing for him he did. Two of them were doing the last of the fixes on the two big booths that sold beer, inside out of the sun, so he got his hand tools and a couple of sheets of already-sized and cut plywood, and went to work on the partitions between the toilets in the women’s can. Already hot closed up in there; he was sweating like a pig before long.

Some days he could work off a hangover. Not today. His head ached like a bitch and his gut felt as if it was boiling, getting ready to toss up his breakfast any minute. Couldn’t keep this up all day, not without a break and a little hair of the dog-two or three beers and a double shot of Jack. Take an early lunch, go on over to the bar at Freedom Lanes. The bowling alley was closer than the Miners Club, and he’d had his fill of the Buckhorn.

He was thinking about that, outside using his table saw to cut another section of plywood, when Tarboe showed up.

The faggot went to check on the concession booths first, so he finished the cut and took the piece back into the women’s can. He was fitting it into place when Tarboe came prancing in. Not a drop of sweat on him, not a wrinkle in his clothes. Suit and tie in the middle of summer, for chrissake. Like he was somebody important… a lousy small-town fairgrounds manager.

“You and your men don’t seem to be making much progress, Balfour.”

“Then why don’t you pick up a hammer and some nails and give us a hand?”

Tarboe’s nose twitched like he was smelling something bad. “Why do you always have to be so disagreeable?”

“Why do you always have to come around biting my ass when I’m trying to work?”

“The mayor-”

“Don’t start with that mayor shit!”

“If you’d just listen before flying off the handle. I was about to say the mayor, Mayor Donaldson, called me this morning. He’s concerned that the work won’t be done by the Fourth.”

“How many times I got to tell you it will be?”

“Well, it doesn’t look that way to me,” Tarboe said. “If you’d started this project when you were supposed to, and worked a full, forty-hour week instead of whenever you felt like it, it would have been done long since.”

“So you said maybe fifty times already.”

“You know we’re expecting between fifteen hundred and two thousand people on Friday. The rows of portable toilets won’t be enough, we need all the facilities to be available.”

Balfour gritted his teeth, banged a nail into place.

“And all the refreshment booths open for business. Do you have any idea how much money we’ll lose if-”

Lost it then. “No, and I don’t give a flying fuck!” Spitting the words.

“You have a foul mouth, Balfour. If it had been up to me, you would never have been hired for this project.”

“Yeah, and if it was up to me, the county wouldn’t hire fags to tell people what to do.”

Tarboe’s mouth got thin and tight. “You’ll regret that,” he said. “I’ll see to it that you do.”

“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you go find somebody to bugger and let me get back to work?”

Big glare. Tarboe turned away, then turned back and said before stomping out, “You know, what everyone’s saying about you is right. You really are the biggest asshole in Green Valley.”

Balfour stood there with the sweat running on him and it felt like the top of his head was ready to come off. Nothing going right anymore, pressure from every direction. Verriker, the woman, the Buckhorn crowd, Charlotte, Tarboe, Donaldson, snotnose kids and half-wits and people he hardly knew… seemed like everybody in the valley was his enemy. Looking at him like he was a pile of dog turds, wrinkling their noses like they couldn’t stand his smell. Ragging on him, laughing at him to his face and behind his back, screwing him over, pulling the noose so tight he couldn’t breathe. Man could only take so much. Some of the pressure didn’t get released quick, he was liable to blow like a boiler with a busted safety valve.

He couldn’t work anymore today. Just didn’t give a shit anymore. He bulled out of the restroom, yanked off his toolbelt and threw it into the storage unit, then got into his truck and roared out of there. Didn’t bother to tell Eladio and the half-wit he was leaving and not coming back; screw them, too.

He drove over to Freedom Lanes, went into the bar, and threw down two double shots and a bottle of Bud before some of the pounding in his head and boiling in his gut eased off. But he could still feel the pressure like a hundred-pound sack of cement sitting on his shoulders, weighing him down.

Out on the alleys, balls thudded on hardwood and pins crashed, and the sounds all seemed to come together into one steady beating noise that got inside his head like a voice talking, shouting. Verriker’s voice, saying the same things over and over.

Biggest asshole I know, maybe the biggest one in these parts. I bet somebody’d nominate you for mayor, I bet you’d win hands down. Pete Balfour, the first mayor of Asshole Valley… mayor of Asshole Valley… mayor of Asshole Valley…