Laying side by side on the moth eaten carpet were two items that I had seen before, although not recently. A cheap chrome .22 Saturday night special that I had seen "RB" murder a man in cold blood with - I would bet a dildo for a doughnut that it was also the pistol that had sent "RB" to the pearly gates - and an old wallet of mine, still containing all my long expired identification, that had been stolen from me years ago by a midget who had also taken the opportunity to shoot me. Just the fact that that these two items were together proved that I was in very deep shit. The rest of the apartment revealed nothing although it was cockroach infested, filthy beyond belief, stunk like a dump at low tide, and featured a clothesline that ran the length of the room which held about ten colostomy bags.
The whole apartment was really
one room with a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom
with a door just big enough to fit the wheelchair in.
Whatever money "RB" had must have had and it
couldn't have been much by the looks of the place,
had been invested in computer equipment. One wall
was lined with monitors and printers, but even
though I was far from being a computer geek, even
I noticed that the CPUs had all been removed. He
also had an unusual array of photos and documents
framed on his walls.
A dishonorable discharge from
the Navy (I didn't even know that you could
actually get a DD certificate - why the hell would
you want one?). A release form from Leavenworth
prison. And a collage of photos obviously taken in
the Philippine Islands - woman shooting ping balls
and smoke rings out of their vaginas - were
prominently displayed, and a photo of good old
"RB" feeding a baby chicken to an alligator at
Momma's, an infamous PI nightclub known for it's
bootleg narcotic sales and hookers with venereal
diseases. It looked like I was certainly being set up,
but whoever was doing it must have misjudged the
timing of the hurricane bearing down on the island
and the discovery of "RB's" body along with the set
up evidence.
They may have miscalculated by
several days by the pungent odor of both "RB's"
decaying and his apartment. Although I'm sure the
place was pretty rank even before he started to
decompose in the tropical heat. Getting rid of the
gun and the wallet would be no big deal but
disposing of "RB" would be a little trickier. And
there was no question that he needed to be disposed
of. Rattling around in his cranium was a bullet that
ballistics could most certainly match to a murder
that happened over in the Pacific almost thirty years
ago.
I decided to dump his body in the gulf and let
Mother Nature take her course. I rooted through a
closet and found a Navy watch cap that I jammed
over "RB's" forehead to hide the bullet hole and
then pulled out the kitchen drawers looking for
some rope, but luckily also found a roll of duct tape.
I taped the body down in his wheelchair and then
went down into the garage to find a suitable anchor.
The water and waves were crashing up and
over the pier as I pushed the wheelchair to the far
end of the fishing platform.
The force of the winds
and water had busted up most the timbers, supports,
and rails so getting "RB" into the drink would be no
problem. It was beginning to become almost
impossible to stand up in the wind. I stopped and
took a deep breath and took a look around. It was
just us two all alone. If anyone had seen me, no one
seemed to care. A cop car slowly cruised down the
seawall but didn't even tap his brakes. At this stage
of the game everyone had their own problems to
worry about. Winding my arm up I hurled the pistol
as far into the gulf as I could. I looked down at the
corpse. I swear that the son of a bitch's mouth had
curled up into a sneer. Fucker was mocking me
even in death. "Goddamn it, Ricky! You just couldn't leave
it alone, could you? You just couldn't fucking
couldn't leave things alone! You asshole, look at the
shit you've got me into again!"
I took a running start and pushed the
wheelchair off the end of the pier.