Paying Up

                                            Paying Up

  A pale yellow moon hangs low over the cemetery, lending a phosphorescent glow to the fog shrouded tombstones and crypts. A solitary elm, winter dead, waves spindly twigs in an intermittent breeze that ripples through the long grass and whistles in the cracked masonry.
  Nothing else moves in the graveyard save for the worms and the rats. Quiet but for the rustle of the wind. All is resting peacefully.
  The silence shatters when a wooden ladder thuds against the seven-foot high stone wall bordering the cemetery. A slim dark figure climbs up and sits astride the wall, calling down behind him.
 
  "Pass up the stuff Frank, willya"
  He talks quickly, his sharp nasal voice piercing the foggy air. He reaches down and takes the sack from Frank, throwing it over his shoulder. Then he takes up two shovels and tosses them amongst the clustered graves below. They clatter loudly, causing Frank to jump. He speaks in a whisper
  "Dammit Jewels, let's keep this thing a little quieter."
  "What? Out of respect for the dead? God knows no one else can hear us. We’re miles from anyone, man, we could dig with dynamite if it weren’t so messy. Now get up here and stop shaking at the pooka, willya?"
 
  Frank grinds his teeth and glares at the man perched on the wall; ugly, callous, ratty and malodorous, but sharp and cunning too. His habit of finishing almost every sentence with ‘willya’ was something that grates a little piece off your soul every time he says it, and Frank fairly loathed him.
  As he follows him up the ladder Frank reflects on the rotten luck that led him to this unwanted alliance.

  It was luck that screwed him over, sweet Lady Luck giving him just enough good to take the sting out of the really bad. Soon he had handed over his life savings, admittedly a paltry sum to the smiling dealer at Brogans’ poker club. Frank even thanked him for the privilege.
 
  A few loans later followed by a few more losses and Frank wakes up one morning with a storming hangover, ten thousand in debts and a very pressing message from Mr. Brogan.
  The message was blunt, not as blunt however, as what Mr. Brogans’ employees will use to render Franks legs null and void if the ten grand doesn’t appear, ‘this day, one month.’ That was today, one month ago.
 
  Yesterday, as Frank wallowed in self-pity a sharp knock on his front door announced the arrival of Julian ‘Jewels’ Johnson and an offer from Mr. Brogan; a not quite legal job in exchange for a months reprieve.
  "I’ll pick you up tomorrow midnight at the ‘Arm’. Gonna go to this little country graveyard and do a little digging. Nothing too strenuous, just hafta retrieve some valuables thoughtlessly buried with one of the Big Mans' debtors. And wear black willya."
  Grave robbing didn’t appeal very much to Frank but then neither did unnecessary kneecap surgery. He gratefully accepted.

  "As long as I live I’ll never put another penny to chance." he mutters as he climbs down the other side of the wall. Jewels hands him a shovel and a lantern and beckons him to follow. The cemetery swallows them in its fog, two glowing will o’ the wisps gliding through the grey haze.
"Here we are, fresh as the proverbial daisy." announces Jewels, toeing the soft earth with a hobnail boot.
  "Get those flowers off carefully and start digging willya? And don’t muck up the decorations, we hafta leave it all nice and neat so it looks like the dearly departed haven’t departed any more’n they’re s'posed to have.
  Chuckling at his own joke, Jewels ambles over to sit on a low monument and deftly rolls a cigarette.
  Frank curses once, remembers where he is, blesses himself and gets to work. The soil is soft and he digs quickly, making a hole half as long as the original but just as deep. An hour passes and suddenly his spade strikes wood.
  "Jewels!" he calls in stage whisper, "Jewels I’ve hit casket, get the hatchet."
 
  Jewels strolls over and looks down at him, Frank is not a big man, barely coming over ground level while standing on the box but that was damn good digging.
  "You sure you’ve never done this before?"
  "Pretty sure, although this is the kind of thing a sane mind would repress." Frank replies grinning, filled with adrenaline and feeling a little excitable. "How come I’m doing all the digging anyway"
  "I’m really only here to do the filling in." answers Jewels, as he hefts the hatchet.
  "Wha-?" begins Frank but the words are cut short by the two inches of axe blade that swiftly clefts his skull. His eyes fade and legs crumple and the life twitches out of him. He is left in a twisted squat atop the coffin of a stranger.
    Julian ‘Jewels’ Johnson whistles a jaunty air as he shovels cold earth over the body of unlucky Frank McMurphy.

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