Robert Ferrigno - Scavenger hunt

Sugar walked to the mantel and took down one of the Oscars. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Isn't it cool?" Heather turned toward Walsh snoring on the bed. "He is just so famous. You wouldn't think to look at him now, but he's got like this… scent, and when he kisses-"

Sugar swung the Oscar down onto her head-not full force but hard enough that she crumpled to the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry." He stared at the little gold man in his hand as though it had a mind of its own.

Walsh stirred on the crumpled sheets.

Sugar checked his suit for blood, checked his trousers and his shoes too, then went to the bed, lifted Walsh up under the arms, and carried him over to Heather.

Heather groaned and got to her feet, groggy. She rubbed the back of her head, blood dripping down her ponytail, then looked at Sugar. "What happened?"

Walsh mumbled something as Sugar put the Oscar into his hand, wrapped his own mitt around it, and then swung the statue against Heather's head again, swung it as hard as he could, and caught her just above the eyebrow. Blood sprayed across Walsh's face, his robe, his bare feet. The director jerked in the warm rain. Heather slid to the floor, but Sugar helped Walsh give her a few more whacks anyway. He needed to be sure.

"Hey… hey, let go of me." Walsh's eyes fluttered, awake now. He dropped the Oscar, the statue dripping red.

Sugar shook him so hard that Walsh's head flopped from side to side. "Gee whiz, buddy, what have you done?"

Jimmy put the disk on hold, Sugar and Walsh frozen onscreen. He couldn't bear it anymore. In the sudden silence he heard the sound of heavy breathing. He turned around and saw Sugar at the back of the room, tears running down his cheeks.

Sugar stared at his own frozen image on the screen, Heather Grimm's lying in a corona of blood behind him.

"You surprised me, Sugar." Jimmy slipped his hand into his jacket and felt for his phone. "I didn't hear you come in."

Sugar pointed a gun at him, a snub-nosed.38. "I wouldn't do that." He moved closer, still watching the screen, unable to tear himself away. "God, what a night that was. Darn near broke my heart." He glared at Jimmy. "What happened to Heather wasn't my fault. You want to cast stones, you throw them at April. She's the one told Heather about me." He checked the screen. "Expecting a girl like that to keep a secret."

Jimmy eased his hand toward the phone again.

Sugar cuffed him with the.38, and the front sight gashed Jimmy's forehead. "I asked you to keep your hands where I can see them." His bulbous nose was peeling, and his cropped reddish blond hair spiked across his sunburned scalp-he was an overbaked doughboy turned hard and angry. "That's your trouble, Jimmy. You don't know when to quit."

Blood dripped into Jimmy's eyes. He sat down before he fell down.

"Empty out your pockets. Let me see what you're so intent on." Sugar caught Jimmy's phone, caught his car keys and pick gun too, whistled at the pick gun, then tucked them all away into his brown corduroy sports coat. He hitched up his baggy chinos. "What am I going to do with you? I keep trying to close the book, but it's like you're bound and determined to make me do something I don't want to do."

Jimmy wiped at the blood, a war-paint smear across his face as he watched Sugar.

Sugar glanced at the screen, and his ruddy complexion grew darker. "It was going to be a simple bust, statutory rape-that's all Danziger wanted. All he was paying for too. Twenty thousand dollars, enough to buy some new fishing gear, maybe a trip to the Gulf of Mexico. It should have been an easy paycheck. Heather would get a part in some movie, Danziger would get rid of Walsh, and me, I'd get a Shimano rod and reel and maybe an engine rebuild. We were all going to be happy."

"Except Walsh."

"You fool around with another man's wife, you got to expect consequences." Sugar sat behind Jimmy and nodded at the screen. "Now I understand how Danziger knew when to make the 911 call. She was only supposed to be inside for an hour, two at the most. I kept calling him, asking what was taking so long. He just said to sit tight. 'Hold your horses, Sugar, hold your horses.' I thought he had staked out the house, but he was watching her the whole time, watching everything."

Jimmy realized that Sugar had never seen the replay before, that he had had no idea the murder had been recorded. "Danziger must have gotten some real laughs these last eight years knowing he had your dick in his pocket. I bet you feel pretty stupid."

Sugar showed his large crooked teeth. "A little." He leaned toward Jimmy. "I only got here five minutes ago. Start it up again from the beginning, from where Heather first walks inside."

Jimmy restarted the DVD and saw Walsh walk off camera into the kitchen.

"You don't have to rewind it?"

"It's a DVD. Digital. You can go anywhere you want."

"Just like that." Sugar chuckled. "Anywhere you want, just like that."

Sugar kept the gun resting against the back of Jimmy's head. The moment Heather appeared, Sugar sat back in his seat and sighed, and Jimmy relaxed a little. Just a little. They sat watching Heather flounce around the bungalow, picking things up and putting them back down. Jimmy heard Sugar humming softly behind him, but he didn't turn around.

"You can stop now." Sugar laid a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. Heather was caught in midlaugh, blond and bright and beautiful. Walsh hadn't touched her yet. "That's enough. Give me that DVD, and let's take a stroll in the moonlight." Jimmy handed the disk over, then Sugar tucked it carefully into the inside pocket of his jacket, next to his heart. "Thank you for this. You don't know what it means to me."

"You want to show your appreciation, put away that punk-ass gun. You've got sixty or seventy pounds on me. What do you need that for?"

"You've seen too many movies." Sugar jerked a thumb toward the door, and they walked up the stairs, through the kitchen, and out onto the deck. Sugar was right behind him the whole way, close enough to stop Jimmy from bolting but too far out of reach for Jimmy to try any fancy moves that wouldn't have worked anyway. "Over there." Sugar directed him to the railing.

"You going to see if I can fly?" Jimmy peeked over the edge. It was a straight drop, a couple hundred yards down onto rocks. "I'm not going over as easy as April did."

"What makes you think April went easy?" Sugar growled, the.38 tiny in his big freckled hands. "Nothing is easy."

Jimmy leaned his back against the railing and looked up at the stars, waiting for Sugar to make his move. He thought of Jane. This close to dying, he was supposed to regret not marrying her, supposed to think about the children they had never had, the life they had never gotten to share. But the only thing Jimmy regretted was that he didn't have something he could use as a weapon-an elephant gun would be nice, but he would settle for a crowbar.

Tough luck; there was nothing on the deck but him and Sugar. A cloud edged across the moon, and he imagined Jane at home, sitting out on the balcony sipping her second drink, watching the same stars he was. Make a wish, Jane. The two of them bound with a single wish. Almost as good as a kiss. No matter what Sugar did to him, no matter if his body was never found, Jane was going to find out the truth. Even if Walsh and Brooke Danziger didn't come forward, nothing was going to stop her.

"What's so funny?" said Sugar.

"You'll find out."

"I'll find out? Aren't you the cocky one."

Jimmy dabbed at the blood drying on his forehead. "Secret of my success."

"All you've done is get more people killed." Sugar shifted his bulk and hitched at his pants again, and there was an ugliness to his mouth now. Jimmy wondered if he had missed it before, or if it was new. "I didn't mind taking care of Felix the Cat-worst part of it was having him blubbering on my boat while I steered toward deep water, a greasy little man huddling in the stern with a concrete block wired to each ankle." His eyes twinkled. "He tried to swim. Got to give him credit, he tried." He tapped the.38 against his leg, watching Jimmy, his eyes bloodshot. "Stephanie was different. That bothered me."