The sun was well over the horizon already when Andy woke up Spanky who was sleeping, weirdly curled up on the extended driver’s seat, one foot on the wheel. Spanky looked pale and asked for a coke in a grating voice.

“I’m not a minibar, Spanky”, replied Andy. “We should go.”

Andy had risen early and paced around the cars for 30 minutes or so. It was more than time to bury Linda, unless they wanted to give her a good sweat: the black car and the cloudless sky were struggling to keep it cool. They would also have to change location: you don’t put someone in concrete in plain sight on a week day. Or any other day, really. Concrete burials are more of a night thing.

Spanky was still holding his head with both hands when a police car entered the parking lot, stopping beside them and cutting the engine. Andy mentally checked his holster and faced them while leaning on the passenger door to hide the bulge.

One policeman lowered the window and called to them: “What’s going on, guys? Everything okay?”

Spanky raised his head and took notice of him, his face making an easy to read aw shit expression. It was up to Andy to handle the situation.

“We’re OK, officer. My friend here partied a little too hard yesterday, and I am not having him dirty the leathers”, said Andy, attempting to look fresher than he himself felt.

“Hah!”, laughed the cop, “you might wanna keep it for the week-end, all right?” He looked at Spanky again, who nodded awkwardly. “He’s not the one driving, is he?”

“Not while I’m in the car”, said Andy.

“He better not”, replied the cop. He looked at the two again, and something bugged him: the time of the day, the empty parking lot, two guys in suits coming back from a party on a Tuesday… He got out of the car. “I’m gonna need gonna need your license, please.”

“Is there a problem?”, asked Andy.

“Just doing my job”, replied the cop. He got handed the papers: they were in order. No use in getting caught for something stupid when you’re carrying a body around. “Could you open the trunk, please?”, he said.

“I got to take it to the garage, today”, said Spanky, still grumbling, “lock is broken shut. Check for yourself”, he added, throwing keys at Andy, who handed them to the cop.

The policeman held them in front of him for a moment, shrugged and said: “Nah, I’m good. It’s too early to be doing overtime.”

He gave back the keys to Andy, went back to his car and started the engine. “You guys behave, all right?”, he said. “If I find you drunk-driving one of those days, it’s not gonna be pretty.”

While he was driving away, Andy sat back in the car and asked: “Spanky? What did I give him, exactly?”

“You do know that we have more than one of these babies, right?”, said Spanky, gently tapping the wheel. “Well, I just get to drive whichever’s available, but I got all the keys. I got them mixed up all the time, even.”

“Then how do you know this was not the right one?”, asked Andy.

“Because the right one is still jacked in”, said Spanky with a faint smile. It dawned on Andy just how close they had been to getting caught, and he felt cold sweat running down his back. Spanky stretched, yawned, rubbed his face and took the wheel. He still looked half-dead.

“Spanky?”, said Andy. “I’m driving. For real.”

---

Andy was having a hard time finding the way out of the city, what with all the roundabouts one-way streets. Spanky was steadily falling asleep again, and it rubbed Andy the wrong way.

“Spanky”, he called. “Wake the fuck up, Spanky. This is no time for sleeping.”

Spanky steadied himself and said: “Is there something wrong, Andy?”

Andy took a left turn, went on for a few hundred meters and stopped at a red light. He was taking his time answering. “We gotta get our shit together, Spanky. Last night was not on us, but this morning was the worst rookie mistake we’ve ever made. So we go find a place out of sight, we bury the girl the best we can and we pray that no one ever hears about this or our heads will fly. Possibly literally.”

“I got it, Andy. I’m awake now”, said Spanky, feeling guilty. He remembered what Andy had said about the possible setup and swallowed a golf ball at the thought.

“Then help me get out of here before we pass all the patrol cars this city has got”, said Andy, on edge.

Within half an hour they had gone out of the city limits and passed the spread-out suburbs. The car was running along a narrow road surrounded by oak trees on both sides. They spotted a dirt track that went right and up a hillside. Within half a mile, they found a clearing in a small thicket. No sound of activity could heard. Logs were stacked up on a side, covered with a plastic. Bits of junk and what looked like an old sun lounger covered with a blanket had been tossed near the treeline.

“Unless you have a better idea, Spanky, I think this is it”, said Andy.

“I’m good”, said Spanky, jumping out of the car. “Damn! Any other day, with this weather I’d just lay down on the grass and never get up”, he added. Looking at Andy, he corrected himself: “Not today! I know. I’m… focused. Let’s do this.”

Andy opened the trunk. The body had been neatly wrapped in a plastic sheet and laid on top of two shovels. They got everything out and started digging. It took the better part of the next two hours, as neither of them were in shape and they did not want the body to be dug out by some wildlife. By the end of the digging, they were out of breath and sweaty. They had progressively laid down their jackets on the hood of the car and rolled up their sleeves; their nice trousers were covered in dirt. The rolled the body in the hole, pushed the soil back on it and set the grass patches in place the best way they could.

Andy went and laid down on the grass, while Spanky took some distance to evaluate their handiwork. “Looking good, I’d say. I don’t even see a bump from here”, he said.

“It’d better be good enough”, said Andy, trying hard to raise and sit up, “because I’m not doing this again. I think my back is shot.”

They tidied up the place, putting back the shovels inside the trunk, and brushed their pants the best they could. That’s when they heard a high-pitched voice from somewhere near them, asking:

“Are you boys done?”