Chapter Fifty-Five: The Final Steps

 

“You should tell Art what’s been happening, Blue. He deserves to know.”

“He doesn’t deserve anything except what he’s getting. But I guess it wouldn’t hurt. That’s Gourd and Weasley keeping you company, Art. I killed both of them. I was going to kill you next, but all kinds of shit happened.”

“My Moosesie. He kind of messed things up.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Gourd’s skeleton had a key on it. Turned out to be the key to a safe deposit box. There was a million dollars in it. And a blackmail picture.”

“Moose found the picture,” Frisbee said.

“Not that one,” I said. “One of the other ones.”

“Whatever,“ Frisbee said. “He used your fax machine to try to blackmail the same guy twice. Moose’s my boy friend, by the way. Was my boy friend.”

“You following all this, Art?”

Art nodded vaguely. “What’s this have to do with Leonard?”

“I’m getting there,” I said. “Okay. So, anyway, then Paul and Brickhead followed your fax machine number to you and that’s when they kidnapped Leonard to force you to tell them where the money was. Which, of course, you couldn’t do because, as usual, you didn’t know shit about anything. I had the money.”

“We saved Leonard, Art. Me and Blue. Mostly me.”

“Tell that to my beat up face, Frisbee.”

“What about my face?”

“That was Moose, though. It wasn’t connected to saving Leonard.”

“Okay. So you get some credit. But we couldn’t have saved him without me.”

“You were great, Frisbee. Too bad you never got to know Frisbee, Art. She’s a hellava girl. You’d have had a million juicy fantasies in your screwed up brain over her.”

Frisbee kissed me on the cheek. We had another drink. So did Art. A very healthy slug type of drink.

“Where was I?” I said.

“Saving Leonard,” Frisbee said. “We brought him home, Art. But he didn’t want to stay there. He ran away. They didn’t hurt him or anything. He just didn’t want to live with you anymore.”

Art hung his head.

“I forgot to mention we had all that fun screwing around with you,” I said. “But you knew it was me. I had a long distance microphone on your house. I heard everything you and Margie talked about. Queasy, Art. You guys are sicker than I could possibly have imagined. You should thank me for killing you. I never told you before, but after Nevada City I really didn’t like being around you and Marge any more. You guys are really creepy.”

Art pursed his lips and wiggled his shoulders like he was putting up with a trivial idiot. God, he made me sick. He couldn’t even die right.

“Then Brickhead and Paul came back and found Moose,” Frisbee said. “So we had to save Moose, too.”

“Only we didn’t.”

“Poor Moosesie. We tried. He wouldn’t come, though.”

“He tried, Frisbee. He just tripped over his stupidity.”

“Can’t we call him something nicer? Stupid is so mean.”

“How about mentally challenged. Art would go for that. Right, Art?”

Frisbee was wiping a tear off her cheek. I put my arm around her shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and told her a lie.

“Moose died saving us, Frisbee. He was a hero.”

She gave a sad, little laugh. “Thanks, Blue. But he was just stupid, let’s face it.”

“Well, anyway, Art, Paul killed Brickhead after I shot his nose off. Brickhead’s nose, that is. Then Paul made me tell him where the money was and left us to drown.”

“But we got away,” Frisbee said. “Me and Blue, anyway. Moose didn’t. He drowned. Then Blue wanted to come kill you by himself, but I made him let me come, too. So here we are. Nothing personal, Art. Blue’s my partner, though. We’re Funeral Rose and The Derringer Kid. You’re our first assassination together.”

Art just looked at us. He didn’t seem to know what to say or what to think. It was great to see him speechless. Mr. Glib, all glibbed out. Sizzling in the grease on the griddle of life.

“I forgot to tell you the best part, Art,” I said. “The safe deposit box had nine other keys in it. There were nine other boxes. All told, it came to ten million dollars. Paul got a million of it and we spent some, but there’s still about eight million left.”

I let him digest this for a bit. I knew it would kill him to think I had ended up making more money in life than him. Just flat kill him. And then I was going to actually kill him, too. It was overkill, no doubt about it.

“I guess I’m a multi-millionaire, Art.”

“Me, too,” Frisbee said.

A tear rolled slowly down Art’s cheek. I had never seen him cry before. I didn’t think he even knew how if he wanted to. His shovel didn’t dig that deep.

He worked his jaw carefully and whispered through clenched teeth. “They’ll catch you. They’ll put Gourd, Weasely, and me together. You’re the only suspect they’d have. They’ll catch you.”

“Hate to disillusion you, Arthur face. The cops think Gourd’s alive. The guy who kidnapped Leonard was Gourd’s son. His son had police connections. He sold the cops on Gourd being alive and well in Portugal with a young honey. That only leaves Weasely as a connection point to you. He was only a receiver, though. We weren’t even one of his cases. We were always nobodies to him. I doubt if we’re even on his books. Even if we are, it wouldn’t draw attention. All he did was collect money and disburse it. Why would we have a grudge against him? I bet a lot of his cases have grudges left behind, though. Maybe all of them. That’s where they’ll look. Already have, actually. It happened last summer.”

“They’ll know you hated me,” he clenched out.

“The Nevada City police? That’s a laugh. Marge’s weird, paranoid story about me? They’ll think no wonder you split. She’s a fruitcake. Maybe you got the itch for a better bed and breakfast. Nobody’s ever going to find you, Artie boy. Ever. You’re evaporated. Even Marge will have her doubts. The world don’t care about you, Art. It’ll roll over you like a ripple in the ocean. You spent your life turning out to be nothing. A dork ass fucking zero. End of story. Wasted molecules.”

“It’s getting warm, Blue. How long do we have to watch Art die?” Frisbee asked.

“I’m ready to go now.”

“Great.”

We finished our drinks and got to our feet. Frisbee gathered up the blanket.

“Sorry about this, Art,” she said.

She went to Mr. Wheels and got in the passenger seat. I looked at Art for a few moments. He wouldn’t look at me. Brave to the end.

“Drink up, Art. End of the line time.”

He drained the rest of his drink and looked up at me, a pleading, desperate look in his eyes. He moved his mouth just enough to whisper. “Please, Blue. C’mon. We were friends.”

“Right. Friends. You and me. Babble Software. Friends to the end. I’ll tell you what Art, you convince me you are sorry for what you did and you tell me how you could possibly do that to me and I will let you go home.”

“I just did what I thought was best.”

“You fucking asshole. You killed Teresa. You killed my life. ”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Drop dead, Art.”

I re-taped his hands and stood over him. Famous last words time. I had decided on W. C. Fields.

But then I had a feet paralysis situation crop up. They wouldn’t move. Mr. and Mrs. Steps were not responding. They were forcing me to keep looking down at Arthur Asshole Tweed. I didn’t know Weasley and I didn’t know Gourd, but I knew this worm at my feet.

He was my friend. And if he could have, he would have always been my friend.

Oh, Lord, what a tragedy.

Fuck. Leonard was still out there, too.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

I untaped Art’s feet.

“Get up,” I said.

I marched him to Gordo and made him get in the back. Then I taped his eyes shut.

“I’m going to take you back to Tahoe and set you free. Don’t ever make me hear about you again. Mr. Art Fucking Friend. Or I most certainly will find you and this time I will not let you go. Leonard‘s out there, Art. Go find him.”

I joined Frisbee in Gordo’s headquarters and we drove away.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Letting him go. I can’t kill him.”

“Leonard, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Me, too. Right?”

I gave her the sideways glance that meant “you dinghead, wise and aware fruitcake.”

“And Art,” I said.

She leaned across the seat and kissed me on the cheek. “Teresa would be proud of you.”

“Sure.”

“It was fun killing him, though, I have to admit.”

“You’re a natural born killer, Frisbee.”

“I’m a natural at everything, Blue. Except finding Mr. Right.”

“Your Achilles Heel.”

“I don’t own any of her shoes.”

“Frisbee?”

“What?”

“You want to go to Nairobi?”

“What the fuck for? Where is it?”

“It’s in Africa.”

“You must be kidding.”

“No. We could build a lot of hospital type stuff there. Teresa told me about it. They need a lot of maternity wings there. You can buy them for really cheap. What do you think? It ain’t all that safe around here now, anyway.”

“Blue?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve definitely decided I probably like you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think so. Let’s go to Nairobi. I’m tired of killing people, anyway.”

“You haven’t killed anybody yet.”

“I did in my mind.”

“Haven’t we all.”

The End