Something in the Way She Moves

1

Somethin’ in the way she moves, eh? Remember that old song? It was by the Beatles, I think.

I mean, you know, if you’re of a certain age you might remember it. An’ if not, you might’a heard it anyways. You know, later.

Anyways, that song, that’s what I thought of when I looked up an’ seen that girl swayin’ in the trees like that. That’s Janet Posey up there. Yeah.

Now I ain’t sayin’ for sure how she got up there, ‘cause I don’t know, a’right?

You know, only I don’t think she’d’a climbed up all that way just to hang herself like that. In fact, I don’t know that she could’a. Little thing like her, she wasn’t all that strong.

What I can see—See, if you look right there—she’s stuck on a little stub of a branch that’s been knocked off or somethin’. Yeah, that’s why her back’s against the tree like that. You know, except when the wind rolls her a little.

An’ see there? You can just make out the knot on the right side’a her neck. Only it looks like one’a them tight ones. You know, like a square knot or a granny knot. One’a them.

It don’t look like any kind’a slip knot. You know, where you slip the whole thing over your head an’ then the knot gets tight all at once when you hit the end of the rope.

An’ plus, if she was gonna go to all that trouble, you’d think maybe she wouldn’a climbed so high. I mean, if you was to get right up there to that bottom branch, hey. That bottom branch is what? About twenty feet off the ground? I mean, that would’a done it, am I right?

Fact, I wouldn’a climbed at all. Not that I’d ever pick that as a way to go out. But I mean, if I did, I wouldn’ climb at all.

Look at all these other trees aroun’ here. Lots of ‘em got lower branches. You know, you get one like seven, eight feet off the groun’. That way you don’t gotta climb at all.

I mean, you climb up on somethin’ an’ get everything ready, see. But then you just kick loose of whatever you’re standin’ on, an’ that’s that.

Plus you would’a tied the other end of the rope over a regular branch, right? Like you seen on TV all those times in movies. You wouldn’ loop a little bit of it over a knobby little piece of a branch stickin’ out like that.

Nah, nobody’d climb that far just to hang himself. Okay, or herself, since the stiff is a broad.

Well, an’ then if you look, she’s all trussed up too. You look, you don’t see her arms danglin’ even with the way the wind’s blowin’ up there. But anyways, I cheated a little. Once when the wind spun her around a little while ago, I seen her hands are tied behind her back. Right around the wrists there.

She maybe could’a done that herself too, but I don’t think so.

At least not before she climbed up there, am I right?

Yeah, I know it ain’t all that funny. You know, I’m just tryin’a lighten the mood a little bit.

Nah, but you look up there yourself. I got a feelin’ somebody trussed her up like that an’ then hoofed it up the side of that hill. See over there? That hill slopes up just a little ways back there, an’ it comes out at a rock cliff.

See them big rocks overhangin’ the trees up there? That’s what, a couple hunnerd feet up?

Prob’ly the guy carried her up there, like over his shoulder or somethin’. I mean, you can see she ain’t all that big.

But yeah. Them big rocks up there. That’s where I think she got it.

Somebody trussed her up, prob’ly tossed her over his shoulder and humped her up the side’a that hill to that overlook. Then he chunked her off from there. Prob’ly just dumb luck that rope or whatever it is got caught on that stub of a branch.

Y’know, come to think of it, that don’t really look like a rope, does it? I mean, you see a hangin’, you automatically think of a rope. But that looks like a scarf. You know, somethin’ like that. All them pretty colors. Ropes ain’t got colors like that.

Hey, she might’a even already been dead before whoever it was chunked her off the top, y’know?

I mean, we can hope so. You know, for her sake.

That wouldn’ be good, still bein’ alive up there. You know, seein’ the edge’a the cliff gettin’ closer an’ then the guy heftin’ you over his head. An’ then she might’a even been facin’ the right way that she seen past the edge of the cliff, right?

But then she would’a screamed, right?

Only maybe she was gagged.

Only I don’t see no gag. But if there was a gag, it might’a come loose an’ blew away in the wind or somethin’.

But yeah, prob’ly not. Prob’ly she wasn’t gagged, so prob’ly she was a’ready dead or knocked out or somethin’ before he chunked her off’a that cliff.

But I still say if she wasn’t knocked out or dead she might’a seen the trees down here.

An’ really, even if she did scream, who’s out here to hear her, eh? Am I right, or what?

If she seen the trees, she might’a even thought they’d break her fall or somethin’. You know, in a good way. The tops’a them trees look soft from that high up. I mean, even these big ol’ pines or whatever they are.

Anyways, I just kind’a hope for her sake she didn’t see nothin’. I hope she was already gone, or maybe at least knocked out or somethin’. Even a few seconds is a long time to see what’s comin’ when what’s comin’ is endin’ up like she ended up.

Too bad. Pretty girl. That Joey, he really knows how to pick ‘em, don’t he?

Oh yeah, yeah. You didn’ know? Yeah, that’s Joey’s girl. Or was. You know, for a little while. Long enough, I guess. Am I right?

But bein’ pretty only gets you so far. I mean, you know, you play with the bad boys you can’t cross ‘em. You cross ‘em, next thing you know you’re gettin’ tossed off a cliff an’ then you’re hangin’ up in a tree inna woods like some kind’a Christmas ornament or somethin’.

But hey, at least it happened at the right time’a year, am I right?

I mean if y’gotta end up hangin’ from a big ol’ leggy spruce like that like some kind’a Christmas ornament, it might as well happen this close to Christmas.

They must’a chucked her off’a that cliff though. I mean, nobody’d truss her up like that an’ then get her up that high an’ hang her alive, right?

Not even Joey’d do that.

2

There! See? There y’go. See what I mean about the way she moves?

God she’s beautiul.

But see how she kind’a rolls from her back up onto her right shoulder like that? An’ then back to her back again.

An’ she don’t roll no farther back either, like up to her left shoulder or nothin’ cause’a the wind.

Even when it ain’t blowin’ hard enough to roll her up onto her side like that, it’s still hard enough to keep her from goin’ the wrong way.

‘Course it’s a good thing it ain’t blowin’ no harder or it’d roll her right over onto her face. That ol’ bark on that tree’d be rough on a pretty face like that, wouldn’ it? Pretty soon it’d look like she went face-first into a meat grinder, eh? Like she fell through the ugly tree or somethin’.

What’s that ol’ joke? You know, somethin’ about fallin’ through a’ ugly tree an’ hittin’ every branch on the way down? Somethin’ like that.

Not that girl. That girl never seen the ugly side’a nothin’.

At least not ‘til she crossed Joey, eh?

Yeah, no. I know it ain’t funny. Believe me, I know it ain’t funny.

But you know, Joey ain’t around right now. An’ I ain’t laughin’ at her anyways. I’m laughin’ at Joey. You know, what he cost hisself.

An’ yeah, you know, maybe what he cost me too. ‘Cause that’s the thing ain’t it? That’s the kind’a thing that always gets us goin’ in a different direction.

Ol’ Joey, he’s quite a guy, ain’t he?

3

So anyways, I hadda hike halfway up that stupid hill just to get a signal on the phone Joey gave me, right?

I don’t like hikin’ an’ if I gotta hike, I don’t like hills. You know, it’s wearin’ on a big guy like me. But you know, you do what you gotta do. Somethin’ comes along you gotta do, you put your head on the ground an’ you put your butt in the air an’ you just do it, right? You get through it ‘cause that’s what the boss expects.

Joey told me to come out here, you know. He got me in the office an’ he said there was a special surprise waitin’ for me, right? An’ he took a long drag on a fat cigar an’ he pointed it at me an’ he says, “Hey, you’re gonna like it, Sally.” An’ he reached in a drawer, you know, on his desk an’ he pulls out this phone an’ he tossed it to me. An’ he says, “Call me an’ tell me what you think.”

So I says to Joey, I says, “Sure. But what am I lookin’ for?”

An’ he laughed big, an’ he wagged a hand at me. “Hey, I don’t wanna spoil the surprise, do I?” An’ he pointed with that cigar an’ he says, “Trust me, Salvatore. When you see it, you’ll know.”

So me, I just says, “Sure, Joey, sure.” An’ I left and come out here.

An’ he was right. I knew.

So after a little time, I hiked up the hill, you know, until I got some bars or whatever on my phone. An’ then I put a big grin on my face—you know, to get the right tone—an’ then I called him. An’ I said, “Hey, Joey, you’re right. I knew it when I seen it. Hey, that was some surprise.”

An’ Joey laughed. “Yeah. A real eye-opener, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, Joey,” I says. “Hey, it opened my eyes, that’s for sure. So you gonna get somebody’a cut ‘er down now or what?”

An’ Joey, bein’ who he is, says, “Nah. I think I’ll leave ‘er up there. Hey, buzzards gotta eat too, am I right?” An’ he laughed again.

An’ you know, I laughed with him. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

So Joey, he says, “Maybe you can tell the guys tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, you know. The thing. Down at Lucky’s? You didn’ forget, did you? It’s like, uh, what—a half-hour from now. You’ll be there?”

“Hey, Joey, you know me. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Yeah, good.” He paused. “I figure you an’ me, we can use your surprise as a thing, right?”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, you know. Maybe it’ll get us back on track. Like I give you this surprise, so maybe tonight you tell the guys, right? An’ maybe you laugh about it. Let ‘em see what real loyalty is, eh?”

That kind’a made me sick in my stomach. But I got his point. So I grinned real big again an’ I said, “Hey, sure, Joey. I’m glad to show ever’body the feelin’s I got for you. A half-hour, eh? I mean, I’m all’a way out here so I might be a little late. But hey, me bein’ there, you know, that’ll kind’a be me surprisin’ you, right?”

“Sure, Sally. I’ll see you then.”

“See you.” An’ I hung up.

But you know, I was all’a way up there an’ I had a signal. So I made another call too. I don’t know the guy’s name ‘cause that ain’t how it works. But his code name is Brody. That way he can work with us an’ with the people he works for.

But it wasn’t a long call like the one with Joey.

The phone rang an’ the guy picked right up. He says, “Brody.”

An’ I says, “Hey. A half-hour, a’right? Lucky’s. Maybe better if you’re a little late.”

“Got it.” He hung up.

An’ me? I walked back down the hill ‘cause I got one more thing I gotta do.

I don’t like nobody no more. I don’t like the guys I work with and what they do, y’know?

An’ I don’t like bein’ a rat, even if it is a surprise for Joey.

Me, I got a date with Janet an’ the bottom of that tree.

I figure three, four shots’ll cut that scarf an’ she’ll drop.

An’ me? I’ll get her hands outta that mess an’ I’ll curl up close with her. I’ll hold her close, like spoons, y’know?

An’ then I’ll see what my gun tastes like.

I’ve wondered about that for a long time.

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