Never, Ever Bring This Up Again – 1

Curtis couldn’t believe how loud a shovel going into dirt was at one in the morning. At one in the afternoon, he thought, people would walk right past two young guys digging a hole and not even look once, let alone twice. But make it dark and quiet out and it looked and sounded like he and Terry were digging a grave.

No way around it, that’s what they were doing, but it was a grave that was already there; it’s not like they were digging a new one, which Curtis thought would be worse. He’d first had the idea about a month ago, letting it sit in his head while he looked at it from all angles to see if it actually was a good idea or one of those he got excited about and didn’t see the holes or flaws in until he told Terry about it and Terry would frown and ask questions until Curtis told him to forget it.

But no, this was a good one. When he was sure of it, he’d waited until Terry had his second beer in front of him and asked, “Hey, what’s the hardest part about kidnapping someone?”

“Kidnapping?” Terry looked up, then down at the table, all dented and scarred up from people getting bored and attacking the wood, and finally said, “I don’t know. What?”

“I want you to think about it. And don’t just guess.”

“The ransom note?”

“What did I just say?”

Terry slumped over his beer and got it halfway down before he perked and said, “No, it’s the exchange, when you trade the person for the money. That shit’s always going wrong.”

Curtis said, “Good try, but no. I got a way around that.”

“Wait, are we just talking here, or are we talking about something?”

Curtis tried not to smile. “Just wait. You want to know the hardest part?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s dealing with the person you kidnapped. You got this person scared out of their mind, thinking they’re going to die or never see their family again, and you got to feed them and let them go to the bathroom. And find a place where no one can hear ‘em or strap them down to a bed so they don’t go pounding on the walls.”

Terry thought about it, nodded. “I can see that.”

“It’s a pain in the ass, right? So how do you get around it?”

Terry was about to ask how, then slapped the table and said, “Aw, you kidnap somebody in a coma,” and Curtis thought, shit, that’s a good idea too, but said, “No, you kidnap somebody who’s dead.”

#

They got the sod off and were getting into the damp soil underneath, working from opposite corners with Curtis up by the headstone that was almost as tall as him, the name Alice VanderSalm in big letters with 1995-2006 underneath. The grave was at the highest point in the cemetery and Curtis wondered if it cost more than a low spot, like paying more and getting up here would get you into heaven faster. The top of the headstone was an angel looking down at the baby she was holding, the angel’s wings spread and her other hand pointed up at the sky. Curtis took care to not hit it with his shovel handle when he worked the blade into the dirt, which was harder and had a lot more rocks than he’d expected. It was easier than digging foxholes in the desert hardpack, but again, you didn’t have to worry about the noise out there unless you were setting up an ambush.

Terry said, “Smoke break,” and stuck his shovel in the dirt and left it there.

“Pick that back up,” Curtis said. “And no smoking. We can’t risk the light or the smell. Shit, or the time. It’s already been twenty minutes and we’re barely a foot down.”

Terry muttered something but got back to work with his shovel. He was about five feet away from Curtis, what they figured would be the length of a coffin for someone as small as Alice. Curtis levered his blade along the edge to get the loose soil in the middle and thought about the next steps, picturing headlines even though his first demand would be no press or police. The headline would say:

GOVERNOR’S DAUGHTER’S REMAINS RANSOMED

Lots of “S” sounds in that one though. Maybe, if the newspaper wanted to be clever:

GRAVEROBBERS GET GOVERNOR’S GIRL

He liked that one the best, next to a picture of the dug-up grave and open casket. Maybe a shot of the family looking distraught, all that blonde hair from the parents and kids looking white in the grayscale paper. It got to the point where, going through the articles and photos online, he set a goal of finding just one family member with dark hair and thought he found one after a half hour but no, it was just some security guy.

Shame about those headlines, Curtis thought, because the VanderSalms wouldn’t talk to anyone about the kidnapping, even if he didn’t tell them no press. They hadn’t said anything publicly when Alice got sick and died during Richard’s campaign for governor, just that they were going to keep working hard and putting their faith in God’s will.

Yeah, Curtis thought, that, and the best healthcare in the world with the millions of dollars the family had. Maybe a billion, who knew? But none of it had worked, the prayers or the doctors or all the banners with Alice’s face or the hospital wristbands that people wore to show support, holding them up for the news cameras on the way into the voting booths. The governor who’d lost to him, some lady, Curtis knew she wanted to say that Alice getting sick was the reason VanderSalm won, but of course she couldn’t.

Curtis stopped digging then, trying to remember what it was she’d died from. Something long with lots of hyphens, but he couldn’t get it. Shit, he should have done some research on that as well as the family, to see if it was contagious and would get them sick when they popped the casket open.

Terry said, “It’s break time and no one told me? I didn’t know this was a union job.”

“I was thinking.”

“Well, I’m thirsty.”

“Five minutes,” Curtis said, thinking if he kept him happy, maybe Terry wouldn’t complain when he had to open the casket.

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