SIXTEEN

Diamond Ice saw the flashing light in her rearview mirror, distorted by the drizzling rain that coated the glass. She glanced in her left side mirror. Police.

At first she thought it was Trooper Sam Neely in the state cruiser, and she had half a mind not to stop. She wasn’t up to coping with his broken heart this morning, not after Richard Hudson had thrown both her and Crystal out of his house the other evening. No, she wasn’t ready for Neely’s earnest lapdog mooning.

When she heard the moan of the siren she knew it probably wasn’t Neely. She slowed and found a place to pull off the road.

Why was she being stopped? She wasn’t speeding…well, only five or ten miles per hour over, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Hadn’t run any red lights in the last ten minutes or blasted through any stop signs.

She stopped the car and rolled down the driver’s window.

Delmar Clay came marching up, accoutered for a downpour in raincoat and Smokey Bear hat with plastic cover. He hove to abeam the window and adjusted his gunbelt under the rain gear. He was one of those rare men who could strut standing still; he did a little of that now for her benefit.

“How are you doing this morning, Diamond?”

“What are you going to allege I did this time, Clay?”

“Diamond, baby, you know I don’t give beautiful women tickets unless they deserve them.”

She fished in her purse for her driver’s license and vehicle registration, then stuck them out at Clay. “Go write the ticket. Unless you want to stand there all day looking stupid.”

He took the documents and headed back to the cruiser.

Damn! She certainly didn’t need any more points on her license, and a fine would play havoc with her tiny checking account. She rolled up the window.

The windshield wipers slapped occasionally while Clay bent over his paperwork in the car behind her. She turned on the radio, listened for ten seconds, then snapped it off. She drummed her nails on the steering wheel, checked on Clay in the mirror.

Then she remembered Junior’s request. Well, this was a golden opportunity. And Delmar Clay richly deserved it.

Of course, it was over between her and Junior. Finished, dead, cold as ashes. Junior would never leave his mother, never marry her. The time had come when the truth could be ignored no longer, and a miserable, rotten truth it was: Junior Grimes was never going to grow up. He had had thirty-six years to perform that feat. It was dead certain now that he wasn’t going to get it done if he lived to be a hundred.

Richard—now there was a man. Sensitive, intelligent, articulate, a man who knew people.

She and Crystal had come on too strong. Well, Crystal had, pestering the man for weeks, making his life a misery. Poor girl, too stupid to see that he didn’t want her.

The trick was going to be to make Richard want the other Ice girl, Diamond. Crystal had certainly put the fear in the poor man, but Diamond liked a challenge. At least, she always told herself she did.

Here came Clay. She lowered the window again.

“I just wrote you a warning. Speeding. Sign it at the X.”

He passed a small clipboard through the window. Her license and registration were under the metal clip.

“Golly, you are about the prettiest thing in this county,” Delmar said as she signed her name.

Up until that moment she had been undecided. Delmar’s comment pushed her over the edge. Okay, Junior, this one’s for you.

As she passed the clipboard back to Delmar, Diamond Ice gave him her best grin. “Thank you.”

Delmar strutted, smiled, hunted through the attic for another compliment. Before he could find one that looked promising, she added, “You’re pretty good-looking yourself.”

Delmar almost dropped the clipboard.

Like shooting fish in a barrel, Diamond told herself. To Deputy Clay she said, “You’re not the kind of man who kisses and tells, are you?”

A huge grin split his face, exposing every tooth in his head. “Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, a girl likes to know these things. For future reference, you understand.”

“I do indeed. To answer your question, I am not. I never tattle. I believe a kiss is a very private thing, just between two people. That’s my philosophy.”

Diamond’s mind went blank for a second. To think that there were women alive today who fell for this bull! Groping, she replied, “I like men who have a philosophy. They’re just so hard to find these days.”

“That isn’t all I’ve got,” said the suave, debonair man of the world. “I’d sure like to show you my assets sometime.”

Diamond had to turn her head away and bite her lip. When she had her smile glued back on, she turned to him and said, as sweetly as she could, “I’d really like to, Delmar. You have a certain unique charm.”

“I do?”

“You’re direct. I like a man who knows what he wants. But if Junior ever found out…”

“That muscle-bound meathead? He’ll never know anything! And if he gives you a hard time, I’ll take care of Mister Junior Grimes!”

“Would it be okay if I called you sometime?”

“Not at home. But you could call me at the office.” Delmar leaned down and rested an elbow on the top of the driver’s door, which placed his head perilously close to hers.

“Oh, you’re so sweet! I’m going to do that, I really am.”

“I’ve liked you for a long, long time, Diamond.”

“I know, and I think you’re going to like me a lot more.” With that she winked, pulled the transmission into drive, and left the poor dumb snook standing there in the mist wearing a wide grin on his homely, lecherous face.

When she was around the first curve she shouted, “Yuck, I can’t believe I did that.” She felt dirty, as if she needed a bath. “You owe me, Junior be-a-friend-of-man Grimes. You owe me big-time, buster.”

 

Diamond Ice called the garage.

“This is Junior.”

“This is Di.”

“Hey.”

“Do you still want Delmar Clay’s head?”

“Yes. Want it bad.”

“All I have to do is call him and give him the time and place.”

“It’s got to be daytime, the closer to noon the better. The weather is supposed to be good tomorrow. About one o’clock tomorrow afternoon at the old Varner place?”

“I’ll pack a lunch. But this is the very last thing I’m ever going to do for you. It’s over between us.”

Junior didn’t say anything.

“Delmar expects women to fall at his feet,” Diamond continued. “He’s my candidate for the Stupidest Man Alive Award. Amazing as it sounds, he’s even stupider than you are. And he’s slimy, like pond scum. Letting him touch me will be the vilest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Close your eyes and pretend he’s Sam Neely,” Junior shot back, then hung up the telephone.

To pull this off, Junior realized, he was going to need expert help. Fortunately he had access to the perfect individual, a man with a quick mind and an enviable grasp of human psychology, a man who could be relied upon to keep his head in dire, desperate situations, a man who never allowed the subtler nuances of legal or social responsibility to get in the way of what needed to be done. So Junior called Arch Stehlik.

“We’re gonna have to get Arleigh Tate in on this,” Arch advised after listening to Junior’s summary of preparations to date.

Junior was appalled. “But he knows we did the tire fire,” he objected. Since the fire, Junior had been assiduously avoiding Sheriff Tate. He couldn’t avoid him at Lions Club, of course, so he had tried to do the next best thing: act innocent. Alas, he had this horrible feeling that Sheriff Tate knew the precise extent of his criminal responsibility and was planning an excruciatingly public humiliation. A guilty conscience was a burden almost too heavy for Junior to bear.

Arch didn’t suffer from Junior’s affliction. “I’ll call him,” Arch said mildly. “I’ll invite him to dinner tonight at the restaurant. We can talk afterwards in the garage.”

 

Full of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, three rolls, a piece of blueberry pie with ice cream and three cups of coffee, Arleigh Tate was in a benign mood when he followed Junior and Arch through the restaurant kitchen into the store. From her stool behind the counter, Lula Grimes was sparring with miser Hardy.

“I wouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch, young man,” Lula told Mr. Hardy, who had logged at least seventy-five years on this planet so far. Tate, Junior and Arch drifted toward the conversation.

“I don’t think it was very nice,” Mr. Hardy said, oblivious of his growing audience, “what you said about my mother.”

“All I said was that your father will probably leave his money to your mother, and you won’t get any until she passes away. I’m sure she’ll do the right thing by you when the time comes.”

“Yes,” Hardy said slowly. “I’m sure of that. She loves me, so she does.”

“How is her health these days?”

“Mighty fine. Right pert, she is.”

“But your daddy is feeling down?”

“That he is. Of course, he’s been that way for years and years. Got a lot of money, though. A lot of money.” Miser Hardy fell silent as he thought about the money.

“That’ll be sixteen cents, please,” Lula reminded him.

Mr. Hardy counted out sixteen pennies and arranged them in a row on the counter.

“When you come into that money, you come back and see me,” Lula Grimes told Mr. Hardy. He nodded and went on out the door.

“Flirtin’ with the customers again, Mom?” Junior asked after the spring pulled the door closed.

“Just working on finding you a new daddy, son. Mr. Hardy thought I ought to know that he’s coming into some money one of these days.”

“Got his eye on you, does he?” Sheriff Tate asked.

“All the men do. They think that if they could latch on to me they could eat free in the restaurant, and they know that my boy Junior will work cheap.”

“And how is Moses’ health?”

“He’s in bed with a cold.”

“If it turns into pneumonia, I might start courting you myself.”

“You’ll have to get in line. Some of these old men would gag a maggot, but some of them are pretty good prospects.”

“Oh, Mom!” Junior protested. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“I don’t want you to ever be an orphan, Junior. A mother has to think of these things.”

“What did Mr. Hardy buy?” Arch asked curiously.

“A cigar. Cheapest brand we have.”

“I didn’t know he smoked.”

“He doesn’t. He cuts the cigar up and chews the pieces. Says it’s cheaper than chewing tobacco or cigarettes.”

When the men got to the garage, Sheriff Tate lit his own cigar. His was not cheap; the sheriff enjoyed a few of life’s little pleasures.

“What are you two innocents up to these days?” he asked Arch and Junior after he got his stogie drawing properly.

“The time has come,” Arch said, “to help you solve your biggest problem. Fortunately we are in a position to be of some assistance.”

Tate seemed amused. His eyes twinkled as he asked, “And just what might my biggest problem be?”

“Delmar Clay.”

Tate took three or four short, quick puffs on the cigar, then removed it from his mouth. The twinkle had disappeared from his eyes, which were narrow now, and hard. “And how do you propose to do that?”

Arch started from the beginning, explained about Billy Joe Elkins and Melanie Naroditsky, about the photos, about how he and Junior had substituted the film, about Delmar stopping Melanie and threatening her. He covered these points while Junior scuffed at the concrete with the toe of his boot and looked everywhere but at Sheriff Tate.

Finally Arch explained about tomorrow, about how it would work. Then he covered the denouement, which Junior thought showed a keen appreciation for the political realities that kept Arleigh Tate in office.

During this recital Tate puffed on his cigar and said nothing.

When Arch was finished, the sheriff sat down on one of Junior’s boxes of motor oil. He eyed the two standing men speculatively. “Well, it might work.” He nodded grudgingly. “It just might, at that.” Tate sighed. “ ’Course, if it doesn’t, I’m going to have to arrest you both for attempting to compromise an officer of the law. Don’t know exactly what the charge would be, but I can probably find something in the code that covers the case.”

Junior looked as if he were going to be sick.

“This will work,” Arch said with conviction.

“It’d better,” the sheriff said bluntly. “It’d better work a lot slicker than the tire fire. Half the people in the county are wondering when I’m going to arrest you two jaybirds for that shenanigan.”

Junior charged for the bathroom and upchucked his dinner. He was cleaning himself up when he heard the sheriff tell Arch, “Had a visit from some EPA weenie the other day. He talked on and on about evildoers who pollute the air. I told him to come back when he had some evidence.”

Junior almost lost it again.

“This will work,” Arch insisted.

“It might if the Ice girl doesn’t lose her nerve.”

“She’s got a lot of gumption. She can handle it.”

“Okay,” said Arleigh Tate. “We’ll go up there in the morning. I’ll stop by here with the cameras at eleven.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. You won’t regret this.”

“If I regret it, you will, too, Stehlik. You and Junior. I promise.”

The sheriff was gone when Junior came out of the bathroom looking a little green.

“Something you ate?” Arch asked solicitously.

“I told you he knew.”

Arch Stehlik laughed, a loud, honking belly laugh.

Junior crawled under the tool bench. He pulled the blanket around him that he had arranged over Elijah Murphy and told Arch, “Go away. Leave me alone.”

“See you tomorrow, June.”

After a while Junior felt better. This thing tomorrow would work, then Billy Joe and Melanie would be off the hook.

Tomorrow night he would have a long chat with Diamond. Get her mind off Richard Hudson and Sam Neely. As this thought went through the gray matter, his conscience zinged him. Again. The truth was, he had been neglecting her lately. That poor girl, listening to every man who sweet-talked her…and they didn’t care about her, not like he did.

First things first. This thing tomorrow…

Maybe he should call Billy Joe. The boy could whisper something to Melanie, put her mind at ease.

Junior crawled from under the tool bench. He folded the blanket and stored it on the shelf, then looked up the Elkinses’ number in the telephone book.

 

The rain stopped that night. The next day the sun was out, and the morning warmed nicely. Junior, Arch and the sheriff walked in to the old Varner place from the hard road, about a quarter of a mile, and were in position by noon. Then they settled down to wait. By then the temperature was in the sixties.

Junior began fretting. The fact that the leaves were down meant that everyone was well away from the location where they hoped Delmar would park his car.

They had discussed it, picked positions that covered the most likely place.

Arleigh Tate had shown up in Sam Neely’s state police cruiser. Neely was driving and didn’t look at Junior when he got into the backseat with Arch. Neely did glance at him, though, when he let them out to walk in to the Varner place. Sort of a casual, hope-you-don’t-have-any-hard-feelings glance, Junior decided, thinking about it now.

Well, he did have hard feelings. Neely had no business sniffing around the Ice farm like an old hound dog, looking for something to get into. Wasn’t gentlemanly. Wasn’t right.

Junior swatted at a late-season bug.

There was nothing to do but lie there and think. And the thoughts were not pleasant. Understandably enough, Junior tried not to think.

The minutes crawled by.

Billy Joe Elkins pulled the Jeep off into the brush and killed the engine. He got out and stood listening to the silence.

He had left school when the lunch break started. He was going to miss most of the afternoon; when he returned to school, he would go straight to the principal’s office and report himself. The principal would give him a lecture and several hours in detention hall. Perhaps the principal would write a note to his parents. Billy Joe didn’t care.

Satisfied that no one was around, Billy Joe reached into the Jeep, unzipped the gun case lying on the floor behind the driver’s seat, and extracted his shotgun. He worked the action a few times.

The gun was an old Model 97 Winchester twelve-gauge pump, with a hammer. It had belonged to his grandfather Elkins and had been given to Billy Joe when the old man died.

The boy took four shells from his pocket and fed them into the gun one at a time. Then he pumped a round into the chamber and lowered the hammer to half cock.

He made sure the keys to the Jeep were in his pocket, then closed the driver’s door and ensured it was latched. After checking his watch, he started up the ridge he was facing. If he had his geography right, the old Varner place was at the head of the hollow on the other side of this ridge.

Even though the ridge was steep, Billy Joe went up it at a rapid pace; he was young and in excellent physical condition. The wet leaves made little noise under his feet.

Somewhere off to his right a squirrel chattered. Billy Joe didn’t look. A doe jumped out ahead of him and scampered away along a contour about fifty feet, then paused and turned to look the man over. He kept going up the ridge and the doe pranced away with her tail in the air.

Going up the ridge with the gun heavy in his hand, Billy Joe had a sense that he was taking an irrevocable step, doing something with unpredictable consequences that could never be undone.

He tried to remember if he had ever done something like that before. Not knowingly, he decided.

Well, perhaps it was time.

 

About 12:30 Diamond Ice arrived in her Ford Mustang. She parked in front of the ruin of the Varner farmhouse, got out and stretched. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, neither of which did anything to disguise her excellent figure.

She looked so good standing there with the breeze whipping her hair that Junior stood up and waved. She turned her back on him.

“Hey, Diamond!”

She had to have heard him, although she didn’t turn around.

She opened the trunk of her car and removed a picnic basket. Then she spread a blanket beside the car and proceeded to unpack the basket. Junior watched enviously from his hiding place fifty yards away.

He was tempted to go to her, to tell her he loved her, to thank her for her help, but he couldn’t. Delmar Clay would be along at any second; if he saw Junior the game was over. So Junior stayed hidden, fidgeting, fretting, wondering where Delmar was.

The minutes dragged. Junior had about decided that Delmar had chickened out when he heard the sound of a car engine coming up the dirt road. He looked at his watch. Delmar was ten minutes early.

The deputy parked the cruiser behind the Mustang and hopped out. He didn’t even look around, just strutted over to the blanket and sat down beside Diamond.

Clay said something to her, and she laughed. She handed him a plate heaped with food and a bottle of beer. Junior was close enough to see their lips moving, but he couldn’t hear a word. The temptation to worm closer gnawed at him. Diamond had never fixed a picnic for him! He thought about that omission as he lay on his stomach in the grass watching Delmar Clay eating a fine lunch, watching Diamond run her hand through her hair to show off her breasts and laugh at everything that fathead had to say, watching and watching…and couldn’t hear a thing except his own heart breaking.

She even had pie in the basket! She sliced it, cutting a piece for each of them, and put the wedges on plates. Fished in the basket for clean forks, handed one to Delmar.

They each took a bite, and giggled and giggled.

Finally Delmar’s hormones got the better of him and he reached for her. She slapped his hand away, put down her pie dish, then slowly and languidly pulled her sweater off over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Gawd!” Junior said under his breath.

A minute went by, then another as Diamond Ice finished her pie with a fork, chewing and savoring each bite, while the breeze made her long blond hair dance on her naked shoulders.

Finally she stood and took off her shoes one by one. The jeans came last. She peeled the blue denim down over her hips, then stepped out of each leg. She wasn’t wearing panties.

There she stood in front of Delmar, facing toward Junior, fluffing her hair, naked as the day she was born. She looked right at Junior and gave him a big grin.

Junior came out of his hiding place like a halfback charging at the snap of the ball. And promptly tripped. Fell flat on his face.

When he looked up, Delmar was standing and taking off his gunbelt.

Wait a minute, Junior! Let the guy get naked. That was the plan, wasn’t it?

Junior prayed that Arleigh Tate and Arch Stehlik were getting this on film. The sheriff had supplied two cameras with telephoto lenses. The two men were up in the edge of the woods to Junior’s right and left, each snapping away, or so Junior hoped. With two cameras at different angles, it figured that some of the pictures would be decent.

Delmar finished taking off his uniform and reached for Diamond again. She waggled a finger at him, then led him over to the police cruiser. She opened the rear door and climbed in. Delmar bent to get in with her.

Junior charged.

He had covered about five yards when he heard the shot, a clear, sharp crack that echoed through the little valley.

Delmar straightened abruptly.

Another shot.

Delmar screamed. He hopped around holding his ass screaming at the top of his lungs.

He was still in full cry when he saw Junior closing at a dead run. That silenced him.

He tried to set himself to receive Junior’s charge, but he was a split second too late. Junior Grimes flattened him with a haymaker to the chin as he went by.

Diamond smiled at Junior as he skidded to a stop. “You okay?” he demanded.

“Of course. Did you shoot him?”

“No.”

“That poor man! So near and yet so far.”

Junior bent over to examine Delmar, who was out cold. Junior rolled him over. His buttocks were peppered with red pinholes. Birdshot! From the small of the back down to his knees. Maybe a hundred pellets.

Billy Joe Elkins! Must have been. Calling him last night was a major uh-oh.

Junior straightened and looked around to see if he could spot Billy Joe. No.

Diamond was standing beside him now, still naked, not attempting to hide a thing, her skin golden in the sun. She inspected the victim. “He is sorta cute,” she said, then went over to the blanket and pulled on her jeans. Then her shoes.

With the sweater in her hands she said to Junior, “This is your last look, too, lover boy. Better enjoy it.”

Taking her time, she inserted one arm into the sweater, then the other, raised them over her head and languidly worked the sweater down over her body.

As Delmar Clay lay comatose, she carefully repacked the picnic basket and put it in the trunk of her car. She folded the blanket and stowed it, then snapped the trunk lid closed.

As she was getting in the car she said to Junior, “Don’t ever call me again. And have a nice life.”

Junior watched her drive away. When the car was out of sight, he checked on Delmar. Still out cold as a Christmas turkey. The pellet holes in his butt were leaking blood, but not a copious amount. His jaw didn’t seem to be broken.

He looked up to see Arleigh Tate walking through the grass toward him. Arch leaped the creek, camera held high.

After he inspected the victim, Arleigh leaned into the cruiser and flipped on the radio. He reached for the mike. “Sam, are you there?”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Come get us.”

He turned the radio off and replaced the mike in its bracket.

As Arch examined Delmar’s behind, he said to Junior, “I thought you were going to act outraged and run him off?”

“I forgot.”

“We shouldn’t leave him like this,” Arch remarked without a great deal of conviction.

“He might catch cold,” Junior added, not that he cared. Getting Delmar shot wasn’t part of the program, and he had been the one who telephoned Billy Joe Elkins. Sheriff Tate eyed him speculatively as he stripped the cellophane off a cigar and felt for his matches.

“Oh, I think Delmar will be all right,” Arleigh said offhandedly. “Hot as he was, it’ll take a while for him to cool down. And there isn’t anything around here hungry enough to eat him.”

He arranged his camera on the strap around his shoulder, lit the cigar and took a few puffs. After a last glance at his still-sleeping deputy, he set off down the dirt road. Junior and Arch fell in behind.

“Was it Billy Joe?” Junior whispered to Stehlik.

“Yeah. I saw him leave. So did Tate.”

“You two can stop that damn whispering,” the sheriff barked.

Junior and Arch quickened their pace and caught up with the sheriff. After they had walked a couple of hundred yards in silence, Tate rumbled, “I’ll say this, Junior. That is one hell of a fine hunk of woman. Let me know if you two ever call it quits.”

Then Arleigh Tate started to laugh. He was ha-ha-ha-ing at the top of his lungs when Arch and Junior could stand it no longer and joined in.