“About half.”
“Same here . . . On three: one, two, three!”
They guzzled the last of their beers together, followed by the sound of bottles breaking on trees. Laughter again as they threw arms over each other’s shoulders like war buddies, blustering forward dragging shovels.
They found themselves in a clearing. An erratic flashlight beam bounced around trees and dirt.
Günter turned in a circle. “Where’s the grave?”
“Remember, it was by a clump of trees?” said Nigel, curiously pointing the flashlight at his own face. “And a fallen log?”
“I’m starting to get worried again.” Günter leaned on his shovel. “What if the cops— . . . Can’t even think about it.”
“I feel the same. The beer isn’t cutting it.” Nigel reached in his back pocket for a sterling-silver flask.
“What’s that?”
“Emergency supply to fortify our nerves.” Nigel took a swig and cringed. “Wasn’t sure how hairy this would get. Try some . . .”
Günter sniffed the pungent open cap. “What is it?”
“Sour mash, from someplace they called Tennessee.”
“Never tried it,” said Günter. “I’m a gin man.”
“So am I, but they told me everyone in the state drinks this stuff.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“At the gun show.”
Günter glugged and coughed. “That’ll sure clear your sinuses. Which way?”
“Let’s try this direction,” said Nigel, setting off north.
The pair wove through the woods for a half hour, meaning they were ten minutes from the road.
“That way looks familiar . . .”
They staggered southwest, then east, northwest, south—“Why can’t we find it?”—north again, southeast. If you could chart the flight of a moth, that was the course of their search.
The two stopped again. “Where’s that flask?” asked Günter.
“Me first.” Nigel took a slug before passing it. “Stuff grows on you.”
Günter drew a big sip, looked around and scratched his head. “It’s the damnedest thing. We were just here the other day.”
“I could have sworn I’d never forget the spot,” said Günter. “All that digging.”
“No way the forest could have covered it up so soon. It should be easy to identify with all that freshly disturbed ground.” Nigel stomped his foot, tamping down loose soil, and pointed the flashlight at the ground. “Like this place right here. There’s a clump of trees and a log. It should look exactly like this.”
“Okay,” said Günter. “We need to find a spot that looks like the one we’re at.”
“Let’s go.” They set off on another serpentine quest with a zigzagging beam of light that grew dimmer with depleting batteries. After a few cloverleaf patterns in the forest, they returned to where they had just started.
“Check it out!” Nigel aimed the beam. “It’s a spot that’s just like the other one.”
“And look! Fresh footprints where someone was just tamping it down!” said Günter, spinning in place. “Who else can be out here? I’m a nervous wreck.”
“Here’s the whiskey.”
“Right.”
They began digging. The task was much easier this time around, since the soil had recently been unpacked. It was sloppy as digs go, but precision wasn’t required. They were down to their hips, then chests . . .
Günter thrust his spade. “Think I just hit something. Turn on the flashlight.”
“It is on.” Nigel shook it next to his ear. “I think the batteries are dead. Dig with your hands.”
The German dropped to his knees and scooped. “Yeah, it’s definitely him. Here’s his nose.”
“This calls for a drink . . .”
They cleared a trench around the body, then stood at opposite ends and lifted him by ankles and armpits. “All right, throw him up there onto the ground.”
The swung the body from side to side to build momentum—“On three. Three!”—and threw him into the side of the hole.
“What happened?” asked Günter.
“This isn’t working.” They finished off the flask, and Nigel flung his shovel over the edge. “Okay, I’ll climb out, and you prop him up against the side. Then you join me, and we’ll pull him out together.”
Heavy grunting, but they finally extracted the corpse, then fell to the ground with it to catch their breath.
“What now?” asked Günter.
“I think we’re supposed to take him somewhere else.”
“Okay, I got his ankles.”
“I got the other end. Let’s go that way.”
“Wish that flashlight was still working.”
“Me, too. Start walking . . . Ahhhh!”
Thud, thud.
“Ouch! Shit! . . .”
“Nigel, I think we’re back in the hole again.”
They pulled the body out a second time and picked him up. “Let’s go a different direction—”
It was quiet except for a mild rustling of leaves under their feet. They heard a louder rustling, approaching fast from behind.
Günter’s head whipped around. “What’s that?”
Blinding lights came on as a cameraman rushed toward them. An Australian voice: “Why did you kill him?”
“Ahhhhhh!”
They dropped the body and fled in different directions.
“Follow them!” directed Cricket Brisbane.
The cameraman named Dundee gave chase. “I think one of them went this way . . .”
Bang, bang, bang.
Brisbane hit the ground. “Who’s shooting?”
Dundee killed the lights, ran back and flattened himself next to his producer. “I think they are.”
Now another direction: bang, bang, bang.
“Nigel!” Günter called out from behind a tree. “They’re shooting at us!”
“I know!” yelled another tree. “Where are you?”
“Over here! Let’s make a break for the car!”
“Okay, but we’ll have to cover each other!”
“Now!”
The pair charged out into the dark forest like Butch Cassidy and Sundance. Bang, bang, bang . . .
“Dundee!” whispered the producer from Perth. “They’re coming back this way. Make sure you get this.”
“I’m ready.”
Bang, bang, bang . . .
Dundee turned on the camera lights, capturing the rival reality team in full stride and blinding them.
Bang, bang, bang . . .
And just like that, nothing.
“Where’d they go?” asked Brisbane.
“I don’t know.” Dundee cut the lights again.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang . . .
Muzzle flashes flickered up out of the hole in the ground.
“What the hell?”
Then a long silence as tendrils of gun smoke dissipated into the trees.
The Australians cautiously rose. Camera lights came on again as they walked over and stared down into the grave.
“Are they dead?”
“Get a close-up.”
Episode 4
Chapter 22
The Gold Coast
Another hot and bustling day along U.S. 1 in Miami. Sidewalks full of businesspeople on lunch and aimless people on parole. Broken headlight glass in the street, and the rest of the fender bender at the curb. An old man worked the intersections with a cardboard sign: Why Lie? I Want to Buy Beer. A tent sale with balloons, a bicycle with dangling iguanas, a hooker past her sell-by date.
At every corner, waiting customers spilled out of convenience stores. Above, perpetually updating billboards where the workers might as well just camp out.