A Low Happening

James watched the pot with an arched eyebrow, daring it to boil. After a few moments, slowly but surely, the bubbles rose from the bottom of the pan, forming a light froth around the rim as they were released.

‘A watched pot always boils,’ James chuckled to himself. He stubbed out his cigarette and turned once again to the short man seated across from him at the kitchen table.

“Well?” He said, tilting his head slightly to one side. The short man looked nervous. He rubbed his hands with unnecessary vigour and stared deep into the dark wood of the table surface.

“It’d sure be a buzz alright,” he followed this up with an uneasy laugh.
James stood up almost immediately and moved closer, taking the chair by the short man’s side.

“Not a buzz, Louis. The buzz. It’ll be the ultimate. Think of the feeling you got when we robbed those places…..You got it?”

“I got it.”

“It felt good, right?”

“Sure, it felt pretty good.”

“Now multiply that by a thousand. A million. That’s what it’ll be like, Lou. It’s the ultimate,” James’ hands were gesticulating wildly, excitement seeping from his every pore. Louis shook his head slightly, a sign of uncertainty crept across his brow.

“I don’t see what for, is all. I mean, we got no grudge on anyone.”

James banged his fist sharply against the table.

“Of course we ain’t got no grudge, goddammit. That’s the whole point; we never get caught, Lou. We get off scott free. It’s perfect.”

Louis’ eyes ground even further into the table.

“I don’t know, James. I dunno.”

James moved even closer, his hand placed sloppily on top of Louis’.

“Everyday we walk past these people, Lou. Every goddamn day. You’ve seen the look they give people like us, ain’t ya? The superiority in their eyes. They look down on us, don’t ya see?”

Louis began grinding a piece of flint hard into the table top. A smile crossed his lips.

“Everybody looks down on me, J.”

“I don’t mean like that. It’s a metaphors. They think they’re better than us, Lou. This is our chance to show them. It’s our chance to have the upper hand on them. Think of the buzz.”

“Couldn’t we just go shoot some more deer?”

“Forget the deer, Louis. The deer ain’t nothin’. This is the ultimate, I’m tellin’ ya.”

James leaned back in his chair and eyed his friend with a deep contemptibility.

“I mean if ya ain’t got the balls just say so. I shoulda never even mentioned it,” he said slowly, averting his gaze to the other end of the room. Louis shifted uneasily in his seat.

“I got balls. Heck, you know I do.”

“Then what’s all the fuss about? Ya scared?”

“I ain’t scared.”

“You’re scared,” he laughed.

“Don’t start on me, Jamie. I got as much balls as the next guy and you know it.”

James stared back. He took another cigarette from the packet in his shirt pocket and lit in from the candle sitting near the centre of the table.

“Then why ain’t you with me, huh?”

Louis looked down once more. The piece of flint had been eroded into nothing.

“Sure I’m with ya. You know that. I’m always with ya.”

James leant across and touched Louis’ cheek, a smile bursting at the ends.

“Atta boy, Lou. Atta boy.”

The water made a hissing sound as it boiled over the top of the pan and hit the flame beneath.

“So what now?”

“Now?” Said James, with a smile. “Now it’s time for you to make the coffee. Four sugars; it’s a special day.”

II

"Oh God, Jamie! This is terrible. I didn't know it would be like this!"

Her blood was everywhere. On the seats, on the windscreen, the carpeted floors, the seatbelts. On their clothes.

Louis was crying, his head gently thumping against the steering wheel. His arms dropped down by his sides as his sobs reverberated throughout the car.

“What did ya think it’d be like, Lou? What’d ya expect?” Jamie said coldly, slowly wiping the chisel clean with his shirt and then dropping it on to the seat next to the body. “Get a grip of yourself, would ya? This is no time for fooling.”

Louis did not move. James rested his head between the two front seats. “I told ya, didn’t I?”

He gently laid his hand on Louis’ shoulder and shook it a little. “Don’t ya feel good? Don’t ya feel better?”

James looked up into the rear view mirror and wiped the blood from his face. “I sure do.” He leant back in his seat and blew his nose with a handkerchief. “Told you it was the ultimate, didn’t I? I was right, wasn’t I?”

He blew his nose once more and then threw the handkerchief out of the window onto the gravel floor outside. “The ultimate,” he repeated. He eyed Louis for a few moments before sitting forward again. “Get a grip, would ya? We’re not done yet.”

There was no response from Louis. He had cradled even further into the steering wheel and was now muting his sobs with the sleeves of his coat jacket.

James sighed and shook his head. “We don’t need this right now, Louis,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse and strained. “I don’t fucking need it!” He shouted. “Get the fuck out the car,” he began to push Louis into the driver’s door. “Get the fuck out, I said!”

“No.” It was barely audible but Louis had managed to get this out in-between the sobs.

A train passed over head, violently shaking the car and forcing James to grip on to the sides of the two front seats.

“What are you now? A fucking pussy? Don’t spoil this for me, Louis. I swear to God….,” his anger relented slightly as the shaking subsided. “Just don’t do this, ok? This ain’t the time for wimping out.”

Louis was still now. His body no longer shook, he was no longer gasping for air. His breathing had returned to normal. It was almost as if he were sleeping. James rested his hand on Louis’ shoulder once more.

“Come on now, pal. Let’s just get the rest over with, ok? It won’t take long. We’ll just stuff her in that pipe and then I’ll drive you home and make you a nice warm coffee.”

Again Louis did not move. James pushed him over with a sharp nudge from his fist and for the first time he saw the look in his friend’s small eyes: Lifeless. There was nothing there.

“Pal? Come on now. Don’t go all coy on me. You’re just in shock, that’s all. Nothing more. Get out the car, shake it off. Whatdaya say, huh?”

James took his arm away and Louis slumped back into the same position as before.

“Fine. Forget it. I don’t know why in the hell I asked you along anyhow.”

He opened the back door next to him and began to get out. “Shoulda known better.”

III

James dragged her body all the way to the other side of the bridge and left it by the edge of the stream. He took his jacket off and placed it beside her. Carefully, he stepped across the water and parted the reeds that covered an opening in the pipe.

Some luck, he thought, peering back at the body. Looks just the right size for this one.

He moved back across the stream and hooked his arms under hers, slowly dragging her towards the hole and dropping her just before it. He leant down and violently ripped the opening at the top of her dress. The buttons popped and fell into the flowing water.

After undressing her he wrapped her clothes into a ball and threw them across the stream. He felt around in his pockets and produced a small bottle of hydrochloric acid. He flipped the cap, and with a glimmer in his eye, began to pour it over her face; over the large surgical scar near her abdomen; over her vagina.

He lifted her up by the top of her torso and began stuffing her body into the pipe. It was a tight squeeze but he managed to get her all the way inside by kicking the protruding parts with his foot. He then re-covered the reeds.

Breathless, he stood back and admired what he had accomplished. A dark smile formed across his lips as he looked across her mangled body.

After cleaning off in the stream, James picked up the girl’s clothes and began moving back toward the car. Louis was sitting upright now. The engine was running.

‘That’s my boy,’ thought James, panting for breath. ‘You best not let me down again.’

IV

“Stop moping and put the coffee on, will ya? I’m freezing my balls off here.”

“What’s gonna happen now, Jamie?”

“You shouldn’t worry so much, Lou. What’d you want, a heart attack?”

“I just can’t….I didn’t know it’d be like this.”

“Stop with the girl talk already. I’ve had enough. Put the coffee on and shut the hell up.”

“Jamie, I just wanna know what’s gonna happen to us.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen to us, alright. I told ya scott free, didn’t I? Just shut up about it already. It’s finished. Done. Over. You get it?”

“What about the cops?”

“What about the friggin’ cops? They won’t catch a whiff o’ this. A thousand murders a day in this city, how they gonna catch a couple’a pros like us, uh? Besides, that hiding place is tight. Nobody goes down there no more. Lighten up, make the coffee.”

“But what’ll we say if they do? What if they do find us, James? Then what? I’m no good at bluffing, you know that.”

“Lou. I’ll say this one more time, ya hear? Shut the fuck up and make the fucking juice. You mention it again and I swear to God I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’m on it, Jamie. I’m on it, alright?”

“OK. Forget it. We’re done talking about it.”

He watched as Louis trustingly turned his back on him. ‘If it came to it,’ he thought, ‘it would be so easy.’

“Throw me your clothes, will ya?”

“My clothes? What the hell for?”

“So I can burn ‘em, for Christ’s sakes. Whadaya think for? I got the girl’s already. Take ‘em off.”

Without a word, Louis slowly began to unbutton his red stained shirt and pull it from his body. It was then that he saw the blood that had seeped through onto his skin.

“Jesus! Stop staring at it, alright. Gimme the rest.”

Louis obediently handed him the clothes and shuffled to the sink.

“I’m sorry, Jamie,” he whispered.

He heard James sman and then leave the room. Almost as soon as the door closed, the vomit left Louis’ mouth.

V

The body was found on the forth day. A man’s dog had wandered into the stream and sniffed around the reeds, pulling a couple away and exposing a section of discoloured skin.

Louis had come downstairs after another sleepless night to find James smoking a cigarette, the front page of the paper laid out on the table in front of him.

The two men had hardly spoken a word to each other since that night and even now James said nothing to the trembling figure by the door. He threw the paper across the table and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee.

Louis stared at the headline: Local Woman Murdered. At the subheading: Police Have No Leads. At the headline again. At the headline again. No Leads.

“Forget it.” James had said this without even turning his back.

Later that day, on his way to the store, Louis stood outside the police station for almost an hour. His eyes welled up with tears as he stared at the newly printed poster stuck to the wall.

Anne Ballard. Two children. A husband. A job she would never return to. Forget it.

VI

James was in the kitchen when he was told of Louis’ death. George Ellis had called after listening to the evening news on the radio.

“It was suicide, James,” George said after a long pause.

James’ initial feeling was one of sadness. Not because of the death of his friend but because he realised this was the end of it all. There was no way he could get out of it now. It was obvious; Louis had killed himself and left James to take the blame. ‘The coward,’ James thought.

“There was a note,” George explained after finally accepting that there was not going to be an answer from the other end of the line. “I think ya better sit down if you ain’t already.”

Another long pause. James wondered if George could hear his teeth grinding on the other end.

“You heard about that woman they found in the pipe, right?”

“You know I did, Ellis. Just cut the crap, will ya?” His voice was hoarse and dark. He spat into the sink and then returned his ear to the receiver.

“Look, pal, I know this is gonna be a blow but I…It….I can’t hardly even believe it myself but….Look, Louis did it, alright?”

James said nothing. Now he sat and began to bite down hard on the nail of his free thumb.

“There was a letter. He confessed to it all….Said he couldn’t cope with it anymore, something about feeling too much guilt for her family…James? Ya there?”

Another silence. James began to flick open and shut the lid of his silver Zippo lighter. Open, shut…Open, shut…Open, shut.

“James, buddy? Ya alright, pal….Jeez, it was a shock to all of us…ya want me ta come over there and sit with ya?”

Open, shut…Open, shut…Open, shut.

“There was no mention of me in this letter, Ellis?”

George paused for a moment, trying to remember.

“Y’know what, I don’t think there was. He only mentioned the girl and her family…Oh, and he asked for his mother to forgive him, I rememba that.”

Shut.

“I see,” James said coolly, spitting the top of the nail he had been chewing onto the kitchen floor. “And you’re sure of that, are ya?”

“Yeah, sure I’m sure, I listened to it on the news just right now like I told ya….I’m sure he meant to say sorry to ya too though James, I’m sure of it. He was awful fond of you, let me tell ya. He looked up to you. We all saw that.”

“He looked up to everybody, Ellis,” James chuckled, lighting a cigarette.

“Come on now. This ain’t no time for jokes, Jamie.”

“I suppose not.”

“I mean the poor man was obviously in a lot of pain physically and mentally. He killed his-self, for Christs sakes.”

“Yeah, well…..y’know.”

“I just can’t believe he did it. Louis didn’t seem the sort. He’s not the type you’d expect to do such a sick thing. Killing that poor lady. And just for kicks. It don’t make sense.”

“We all have hidden depths, George,” James said slowly. “It just goes to show, you can never really know what’s goin’ on in another person’s head, huh.”

“I guess so.”

“I mean for all I know Louis was thinking of killing me every time we were in a room together. For all I know you go to bed at night thinking of knifing me in the neck. For all I know.”

“Well let me tell you right now, I could never even consider it. It isn’t in me. Some people are just born with that evil already in them, I guess. It must burn up inside of them and they just have to let it out. And I guess Louis was one of ‘em.”

“You know what, Ellis? I think you may well be right about that.”

The next morning James sat at the kitchen table looking over the front page of the newspaper. The police had already phoned and spoken to him the night before, just after George Ellis had rung off. They wanted to know what his good friend Louis Mason was like, did James ever suspect anything? “No,” he said, he never had.

“Although Louis was a very private person,” he told them. “He hid a lot of things from other people. How could we have known anything about this? How could we possibly have been aware that such a sick deed was inside him, that he was capable of taking another life?”

It was all very convincing.

The police officer had told him that the case was pretty much an open and shut affair. They had got their confession and as far as the detective in-charge was concerned, that was enough. There wasn’t any need to look further, he told James.

The call had ended amicably enough and James had sat back in his chair and finished his coffee and cigarette before heading to bed. He had drifted off almost as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

Eight hours later he had collected the morning paper from the doormat and sat down at the kitchen table to his breakfast. As he ate the eggs he looked over the large picture of Louis’ face which took up the majority of the front page. They had run with the following headline: Ballard’s Coward Killer Confesses in Suicide Note.

As the egg yolk began to drip from James’ fork onto Louis’ face, he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Told ya scott free, didn’t I, Lou. Scott free.”