Don Bruns - Too Much Stuff

“Come on, Skip. It’s a joke. Maybe these two investigators, Weezle and Markim, sent a letter to throw us off the scent.”

“The scent?”

“You know what I mean.”

“One of those guys is dead, James. And maybe that body was supposed to be you or me.”

“The name was Peter Stiffle. Remember? It wasn’t Weezle or Markim. We were wrong with our identification.”

“James, think about it. What happened to our plumbing company?”

He stepped back, eyeing me.

“I’m not exactly sure what you mean.”

“You came up with this idea for a fake company. To throw people off the scent. Right?”

“I did.”

“So these guys, Weezle and Markim, take it one step further. They have fake IDs made up. They don’t want people to know that they are private investigators, right? And one of the fake IDs is for a Peter Stiffle.”

“No.”

“Dude, we both recognized the body from the online Yellow Page ad. It was one of the private detectives. You know it, I know it.”

“We only saw an Internet picture, Skip. We could be wrong.” He stared out at the water. “Okay, the dead guy was probably Weezle. And somebody just made a mistake in the identification process.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. And the cops will run finger-prints and eventually figure out the same thing.”

“Skip, I really want to follow this through. I think it’s all a bluff. But what happens if someone really wants us dead?”

“It’s happened before, James. There are now three of us.”

“Count Mrs. T. in there, and there are four of us who don’t know anything about what’s going on.”

I couldn’t believe that I was the one who was stoking the fire.

“James, I read the letter. I’m a little concerned. But, dude, we’ve never had a better opportunity. There’s a lot of money at stake. If you’re on board, let’s find this gold. Okay?”

“We could up the ante.” He took a long swallow of beer and peered off into the dark night.

I had no idea where he was going with that.

“Our lives have been threatened,” he said.

“And?”

“We’re worth more now, right? When your life is on the line, you are worth more than when it’s not.”

“I suppose.” In a very strange way, it all made sense.

“So we want a share. Five percent of the gold.”

“That’s over two million dollars, James. You can’t ask for-”

“She’s getting over thirty, pard.”

She was. Getting thirty-three million dollars.

We went back to the bar and found Em and Amy in a deep conversation.

“I’ve got plans tonight, Skip. I sincerely hope those two aren’t going to suggest we hang out for the rest of the evening.”

“No way.”

Em smiled and beer in hand, she walked me to the exit.

“We’ve got a three a.m. meeting at some vacant property. We’d better catch some sleep before we start our adventure.”

She gave me a very seductive smile.

And I knew she had no intention of sleeping.

At two thirty I heard the knock at my door. To be honest, we’d drifted off an hour ago. You can only be intimate for so long-or maybe it was just the two of us.

“Skip, you guys ready?”

“Give us ten minutes.”

Watching her cute bare butt as she walked to the bathroom, I listened to her.

“You know Amy is married?”

“Amy?”

“James’s newfound flame.”

“She told you that?”

“Married. Then she met some other guy three years ago at a funeral. This guy is married too. Anyway, they hit it off, and they’ve been seeing each other four or five times a year at romantic locations like this.”

“This guy wasn’t her husband?”

She called from the bathroom, the water running.

“No. The guy she’s been seeing left for his home yesterday and she was taking an extra two days to unwind.”

“Unwind?”

“This boyfriend, her lover, wears her out. She said the sex was intense. Boring with the husband but intense with the lover.”

“So she has intense sex with this longtime lover, he wears her out, then she picks up James and tonight they are-”

“We don’t know yet, do we?”

“James seems to-”

“He’s that kind of guy, Skip. He can have about whatever he wants.”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask the next question. Em didn’t even like James. They had a history of animosity. And yet she was saying that-

“Everything?”

“It certainly seems that way.” She was quiet for a moment then she turned the water off.

“Everything except me.”

“Thank you.”

Em walked out of the bathroom, and nudity aside, I realized just how much I loved this beautiful creature. I didn’t want anybody else.

I marveled at her physical beauty as she dressed, and when she was done, she motioned to me to do the same.

Five minutes later I opened the door and James was standing there, holding the flashlight.

“Time to dig, guys.”

I nodded. The shovels were in the truck, and we had a six-pack in the cab. It was two thirty in the morning and what could go wrong?

What indeed.

It was hot and I could taste the thick humidity in the air. The temperature was still in the eighties at three in the morning and the lingering odor of salt layered with the sweet smell of frangipani drifted across the early morning. My hands were sweating, either from the heat or my nervousness.

“Okay, Skip. Em stays on the perimeter. We scale the fence and approximate where the foundation would be.”

I was scared to death, but I seriously had high hopes. I was thinking that this thing might be doable. And if we found the information, we were going back to Mrs. T. and asking her for two million dollars as our cut. Two million bucks. I couldn’t even fathom that much money.

“Em, you’re good with all of this?”

“I’m going to walk three sides. The street side of the fence, the Ocean Air side, and the other side that you’ve yet to explore.”

James nodded in the dim light. “It doesn’t appear that you can walk the waterside. The fence goes right to the water’s edge. So, you’ll monitor the three sides and simply yell if someone seems threatening.”

“I can handle that, James.” She had never cared for his condescending attitude.

“I hope so.”

My biggest concern was keeping the two of them from killing each other until we had our information.

I walked to the fence, looked up, and told James to put his foot in my clasped hands. Once he did, I thrust him up and he was able to grab the top, pull himself up, and straddle the fence. It wasn’t razor sharp, but if he slipped and his crotch landed on the fence top I shuddered to think of the consequences.

James dropped from sight.

“Em, clasp your hands.”

She did, and I put my foot in the cup she made. Grabbing the metal fence weaving, I asked her to give me a boost.

I was up and straddling, lifting my leg and dropping into the vacant lot. James stood there, smiling.

“Don’t aim for anyone, Emily.” James had that taunt in his voice. “Just toss the shovels, dear.”

“Here they come, Jim.”

He hated being called Jim.

The first shovel landed inches from my best friend, the second much farther away. He said nothing.

We picked up the two spades and headed out to the southeast corner of the grassy property.

“There are two kinds of people in this world. Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.” James kept walking in the dim light.

“I’ve got it, James. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly . Eastwood.”

“I’m proud of you, grasshopper.”