“Shit,” the cop said. “The other two are gonna be messy. Wish I brung some gloves or something.”

“Fuck me,” said the familiar-sounding man. “Someone sure plugged those assholes. Look at the shots. Neat and clean. Looks like they were executed.”

“Who died and made you a law enforcement official?” the cop asked. “You been watching too much TV.”

“You sure you didn’t hurt your leg?” the other one asked. “Looks like you’re having trouble walking.”

“I told you, I’m fine.” The voice terse, grim.

“I heard you suck in your breath a second ago, too, like you were in pain.”

“Forget it. Jesus.”

They laid out another sheet of plastic and then lifted Karen’s body. The cop complained about getting whore brain on his hands, and he wiped it off on his knee while they rolled up the body and hauled it out.

They were panting hard when they returned. “Fucking Bastard,” the cop said. He kicked the body, not too hard. Then he kicked him again. It sounded like someone kicking a sandbag. “I don’t know what the fuck he did, or who shot his sorry ass, but I figure he deserved it.”

“Yeah, well,” the other one responded. Then a pause. “You think whoever did this got the money?”

“You know, I never even thought of that, you dumb shit.” He let out a derisive snort. “You think I give a shit about them being dead? It’s the money. I’ve already looked through here and been over to his place. Tore it up, but I couldn’t find jack. Not even any sign of what he was up to.”

“You still think he had something going on the side?” he asked. He then turned away from me, and I couldn’t quite hear what he said next, but I was sure it contained the word Oldham .

“Had to have been something,” the cop said. “I know how much he made, and he had way too much cash, getting his wallet all fat. I just can’t figure he made that much money doing that bullshit. But I figure he meant to rip me off, disappear with the money. And since I looked everywhere else, I have to figure he was hiding it in the waste lagoon.”

“You can’t be serious,” the other man said. “You’ve got to be dry-humping me. How in hell are we going to find it there?”

“I don’t know. There must be a way to drain it or drag it or something. Jesus. I sure wish we didn’t have to haul this dead asshole. He don’t even deserve to be dumped by me.”

“Let’s just do it,” the other man said. “No room for blanking out here.”

And it must have been the term blanking out, because I suddenly recognized the second man. It was the Gambler. The Gambler, who ran the door-to-door Champion Encyclopedia operation for the state of Florida. The encyclopedia guru himself was in the trailer, removing the bodies of people Melford had killed. At least, Melford had killed most of them.

Melford shoved me. I must have been making noise, because he flashed a look, visible even in the near total darkness. I got hold of my breathing.

They grabbed Bastard and hauled him out, and when they returned they were gasping for air. There was the glug-glug of someone drinking from a bottle. Now they had a bucket and mops and paper towels and a bottle of Formula 409. They still didn’t turn on the lights, but they set up a couple of flashlights and got to work erasing all evidence of Melford’s crime. It took more than half an hour before they were done.

“Hard to tell with just the flashlight,” the cop said, “but I think that’ll do her. I’ll come back in the morning and do a quick run-through in the light.”

“If that fucker was screwing us over and the money’s gone, we’re going to be in some deep shit. B.B.’ll be in a fucking rage.”

“Fuck that asshole. And fuck Bastard. Fuck me!” This last he cried out as if in sudden pain.

“You know, if your leg is bothering you, it’s best to see a doctor. Why put it off?”

“Shut the fuck up about the doctor. I’m fine.”

“I just think it’s best to be safe. Hey! Take a look at this,” the Gambler said. “Karen’s checkbook.”

Melford gave me a gentle tap on the back. I must have been making noise again.

“You figure she had anything in her account?” the cop asked.

“Says here the balance is almost three thousand. How did an ugly-ass skinny-skank rotten-cunt-smelling whore like that get three thousand dollars? I guess it won’t hurt to write out a check, though. Make up for some losses. Maybe I can get that numbnuts Pakken to do it. He won’t know any better, which will help him get away with it, and it shouldn’t be a problem anyhow if he goes across the county line, I figure.”

And they left.

We remained in the closet for a good fifteen minutes. They’d done a decent enough job of cleaning up. At least, Melford’s penlight didn’t pick up any sign of the blood. I figured the FBI could probably scare some up. They had crime labs for stuff like that. But you had to be looking for blood, and if there were no bodies, why would you look?

“All right,” Melford said. “Let’s get the hell on out of here.”

It wasn’t until we were back in his Datsun that we dared to talk about it.

“I’m fucked,” I said. And I felt fucked. I felt like I was about to fall into the chasm. I felt like I was falling through the sky, just waiting for the impact of when I hit earth.

“I don’t think so.”

“Yeah? Why not?” I heard my voice getting shrill. “Why aren’t I fucked? Tell me why I’m not fucked?”

“Because the guys who have the evidence against you are high-powered felons, that’s why. High-powered felons don’t seek out the law, Lemuel. They avoid it. They’re not going to investigate. They won’t even look to see who the checks are made out to.”

Except that the Gambler would notice the check to Educational Advantage Media. He would see it in a heartbeat, and he would know who was there. But would the Gambler think it anything but a coincidence? He barely knew me by sight, but he wouldn’t imagine that I’d had anything to do with this. Still, it scared the hell out of me. And I dared not say anything about the Gambler to Melford. Melford might think I was too weak a link, affiliated as I was to one of these high-powered felons. He might, quite possibly might, kill me just to be safe.

And there was something else, something that made no sense. “They weren’t married,” I said aloud.

“What?”

“The people you killed. Bastard and Karen. They weren’t married. And they didn’t have kids.”

“Yeah, well, I could have told you that,” Melford said.

“So why did they lie to me?”

“I don’t know. Something crazy is going on. Something bigger than I realized.”

“Why would the cop be hiding the bodies you killed? And what were they talking about? Bastard’s business on the side? What is that? And the missing money?”

“Dunno,” Melford said.

“What about Oldham Health?” I asked. “They had some mugs and stuff. Bastard told me he didn’t know anything about it, but I kind of got the sense he was lying.”

Melford shook head. “I don’t know anything about it.”

I looked over at him. Melford was lying, too. I couldn’t say how exactly I knew, but I knew. We’d been talking about some heavy stuff all night, but there was something in Melford’s voice that I hadn’t heard, some kind of tension. Whatever Bastard had been involved with, Melford knew exactly what it was.

“The other guy who was with the cop,” Melford said. “I wonder who that was.”

I didn’t say anything. My heart pounded and my head throbbed. I felt the urge to confess, as if it were all somehow my fault, but I kept it quiet.

“Probably just some goon.” Melford saved me by answering his own question. “I’ll tell you what, though. We have to find out who that woman was, the third body.”

“Why do we care?” I asked.

“Because if things don’t go our way and they decide they want to risk bringing the law into all of this and the cop finds us and wants to arrest us, we’re going to want some leverage. If we can expose them, then maybe we can reach some sort of understanding.”