Run For the Money (17 page)

Emma packed only summer clothes. Fuck all her sweaters. Her suitcase gaped open on her bed and a pile of winter clothes sat mounded like bodies after a genocide next to her closet. God, it would feel good to douse that pile with gasoline and throw a match over her shoulder as she left.

She was trying to figure out a hiding place for the small .38 Slick gave her once as a present. She’d wanted jewelry, but for Slick, this was an accessory.

All airports had those damn scanners now that can see through anything. No more wrapping it in tinfoil and calling it done. She tossed the gun back in the kitchen drawer it came from when the door knocked.

Emma flipped the suitcase shut and threw her blanket over it as she crossed the room.

It was MacKaye staring back at her through the peephole. She let him in.

“Detective.”

“Emma.”

It was all very cordial, but already the replay of their fuck session played across the back of her eyelids. Dangerous men still did it for her. She could say she was reformed as much as she wanted, but every alcoholic in the world still wants a drink if it’s set down right in front of him. Most don’t take it. Some do. She still hadn’t decided which one she was.

“How can I help you this time?” she asked.

“I had a man posted outside.” MacKaye checked her face for a reaction but saw nothing. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen him.”

“I did see him earlier. He was pissing against a tree in case you’re interested. I think that’s a misdemeanor.”

“You making a citizen’s arrest?”

“No. Just letting you know what your guys are doing while they’re supposed to be watching me. Seems like both are one form or another of pissing in the wind.”

“I see.” MacKaye drummed his fingers on the table where he last saw her naked. “His car is still parked outside. Know anything about that?”

“Nope.”

“Have you been home the entire time?”

“Nope.” She took a subtle step closer to him.

“Where did you go?”

“Out.”

“Emma . . .”

“What? I went out. You want a detailed itinerary?”

“Have you heard from Slick?”

“No, sir. You really think he’s coming back here?”

“Last night a lot of weird shit happened.”

“Yeah, it was a fucking hurricane.”

“No, not just that.” MacKaye talked with his hands when he got serious. Emma liked that. “A cab driver was killed. A diner was robbed by a man with, and this is a quote, a scary-ass face. A young couple was killed in an attempted carjacking right at the site of the van crash. Coincidence?”

“So he’s trying to get out of town. Wouldn’t you?”

“Not before I came for you.” Emma moved closer. She could feel her nipples getting hard. “And the money.”

“But me first?”

“Maybe.”

MacKaye forgot all about officer Coleman. Emma leaned in, but before she could reach his lips MacKaye grabbed the back of her head and thrust his mouth down on hers.

What the fuck am I doing?
thought MacKaye as his tongue slid along her crooked row of teeth. Was it a fetish? The danger factor? Had it been too damn long since he got laid? Something about this girl had a hold on him. Could be she wasn’t crack whore skinny like so many girls out there now. Could be those amazing tits. Could be how she knew exactly what to do with her body. He knew he was breaking several codes of conduct, but he couldn’t care less. He also knew he’d throw her ass in jail the second he got the chance.

He thought maybe it was sentimental reasons she chose to do it right on the tiny kitchen table again. Emma really could have used something softer on her back, but what he didn’t know was the bed meant MacKaye seeing her suitcase and that wouldn’t do.

It was as intense and forceful as last time. Most of their clothes never made it off.

Bo got an eyeful. All that fucking and he found it hard to take his eyes off the shoulder holster the handsome man wore. Emma stroked it like it was the guy’s second dick. That girl had a thing for danger, that’s for sure.

Bo stood before they were finished and contemplated his next move.

A gun. He knew it was the right thing to do. The guy in there humping Emma had one. Bo couldn’t even talk to him without one of his own. If and when Slick showed up he was sure to have one. Bo got through an inordinate duration of his life coasting by on charm and good looks, but a gun, let alone two, was the antidote to charm.

He thought of Mandy, crazy girl who offed her own dad. Throwing himself back into that fire seemed ill advised. Plus, that gun had a history. He needed a clean one.

Bo knew a guy. From a former life. A guy who helped Bo ruin his life once before, why not twice?

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S
lick ferociously punched the dashboard of the truck, wishing it could bleed so he could feel some satisfaction knowing he caused it harm. The bastard even told him the truck needed gas, but did he listen? No. Other things on his mind.

Slick managed to coast the pickup into a strip mall parking lot when it started sputtering, guided it into a handicapped spot where it stalled and now he looked at the clock in the dash for the information to mark a time of death. He hammered down on the steering wheel and the horn chirped once.

He got out and slammed the door as hard as he could. He thought about pulling his gun and shooting out all the tires but thought better of it, instead opting for some deep breaths.

On the sidewalk a homeless lady ranted about being assaulted. Kept going around in circles driving a shopping cart with three wheels and saying, “She had it coming! She had it coming!”

“One-a them days, huh?”

Slick looked up. Standing at the edge of the strip mall parking lot where the bushes dead-ended was a security guard. He was in his sixties, black with a dusting of white across his head and gentle looking, like Morgan Freeman was on patrol. His blue jacket with the police badge inspired logo on it hung loose on a bony frame, the name Chester over his heart.

“Yep,” said Slick.

“You look wrung out.”

“Could say that.”

“Just did.”

“Yeah, well . . .” That about said it. Slick kicked the side of the truck.

Chester put a foot up on the curb and leaned over on an elbow across his knee. If not for all the concrete they could have been two men jawing on the banks of the Mississippi.

“Out of gas or out of battery?”

“Gas.”

“That’s tough. Battery I could get you a jump. Gas you gotta go find a station. None around here to speak of.”

“Great.” He kicked again.

“Now where you got to be that’s so damn important?”

“My girl.”

The old man stood. “Say no more. You best catch a cab. Tow truck man comes, I’ll be here. Don’t you wait on this truck.”

“Thanks.” Slick took a few extra deep breaths.

“Ain’t that girl waiting for you? Go on and get.”

“I’m getting.”

Chester resumed his elbow on knee posture. “You’re not sure she’s there.”

“What?” Goddamn voodoo man is what he is.

“You come a long way, I can see that. But you don’t want to finish the trip because you’re not so sure what’s at the finish line. Am I right?”

“Man, the finish line for me is a long way away.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t.” Slick ran his eyes over the other cars in the parking lot.

“Yes, I do. I can see it in you. Restless. Mind on other things, other places.”

“I’m looking to get the hell out of this town for good.”

“Best of luck to you. Though you might want to be getting yourself a better ride.”

Chester laughed a wheezy laugh and slapped his knee. No gun, no night stick. Just a sewn on badge to keep the bad guys away. Fat chance.

Slick turned away from him and suddenly felt the power of his sage advice. He stepped up and past the rent-a-cop and stood next to a nearly new black Dodge Challenger. Tinted windows and 18 inch rims. He reached behind him and drew the gun from his belt.

The old man stopped laughing.

Slick busted the window with the butt of the gun.

“Hey now. Hey.” Chester held out his hands, his only defense.

Slick slipped inside, dropped under the dash and began hot wiring the car.

“You can’t do that. Hey. Son?”

“I can’t do it well, maybe. But I can get the job done,” said Slick from underneath the dash.

“No, I mean you can’t do that, take another man’s car like that.”

“People do it every day.”

“Well, I know but—”

The Hemi V-8 growled to life. Chester made a move forward as Slick stood straight. Slick grabbed the lapels of his uniform and flipped him over onto his back across the hood, the gun in Chester’s face.

“You said get a better ride.”

“I didn’t mean you should steal this one.”

“You got a better idea?”

Chester did not. Slick threw him aside. The old man nearly lost his balance, but stayed in a crouch, his hands up in classic stick-em-up style.

“She better be there,” Slick said. “Or I’ll come back here and kill you for saying she isn’t.”

As soon as the Challenger left the parking lot so did Chester, dropping his jacket on the ground as he ran. The old man just retired.

Slick drove on, but the old man had gotten to him. The distance to Emma and the money seemed so close when that van ran off the road. A hell of a lot closer than behind twenty-foot stone walls at Wharton. Now though, it seemed farther than ever.

His plan for the bank job had gone off well until that idiot Bo had fucked it up, but it was a solid plan on paper. But what to do with the money, with Emma, he had no idea. All this flying by the seat of his pants crap since the crash was getting old.

Where was the finish line? Why did it keep moving?

His mind went to dark places. Visions of Emma’s apartment vacant and dark. He knew from the two punks he’d shot that she was still around, but for how long? He couldn’t convince himself she had taken the money to be ready for when he arrived. He wanted her to be sitting by the window like a war widow awaiting his return from battle. Chances were stronger she was half-way to the airport to hop a plane somewhere Slick could never find her. His going away present to her an even $642,000.

The familiar Victorian looked as imposing as ever, even more so under the darkening clouds hanging heavy as cinder blocks over the street. As Slick stepped out of the car the rain started to fall again.

He moved quickly over to the house, careful not to be seen. The street was empty. He slid up next to the boat parked in the neighbor’s driveway. He pressed his back to it, a thin fiberglass hull away from his money.

He stepped over the to narrow ground-level windows and peered in.

Emma was home. His heart sped up.

Emma was naked. Some guy was cinching a tie around his neck and looking at her like she was a fine meal he’d just enjoyed. Slick’s speeding heart pumped hot blood.

The man stepped to her and kissed her, hefting a breast in his hand and giving it a squeeze. The way she was so casually naked around him infuriated Slick.

The man inside headed for the door. Slick’s brain gummed up with options.

Kill the fucker
. That was obvious, right?
No. What if he knows where the money is? What if she trusted him with it?

Kill her. That much is obvious. But not until he has the cash in hand.

The front door opened and Slick ducked behind the boat again, his hair wet now with the drizzle. He watched the man bounce down the stairs in the unmistakable way a man does when he’s been laid.

Short of cloning himself and pulling an arsenal out of the flower beds Slick could not do what he truly wanted, which was kill everyone and everything. Emma had answers, like where the money was and who the hell that guy was who just left. But if she wouldn’t tell, if she trusted Mr. Handsome and let him call the shots, Slick may never find the cash.

Emma, he decided, was where he could find her again. This new guy was a mystery. Follow him, come back for her.

Jesus H. Christ where was the damn finish line?

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I
f visiting Bo’s old house was a trip down Memory Lane then this was the back alley right off Memory Lane where junkies sleep it off next to a dumpster and the whole place smells like a urinal and there’s barely enough time between gunshots for the echoes to fade.

His old haunt. Rico was Bo’s dealer, Bo even did deliveries for him now and again. That was before.

Bo knew Rico saw it as a personal affront when Bo stopped using. It was like breaking up with someone to see other people. You never call anymore, never send flowers . . .

Bad blood fades away though. Bo hoped so anyway.

He knocked. Locks turned. A lot of locks. They’d seen him, even before he knocked. No one makes it on to the porch of this run down craftsman without approval. More than one junkie without an invitation had to dance around some shells on the front lawn if they tried to get too close. Bo hadn’t called ahead, his face gained him entry.

“My man. Back on the horse.” Rico opened his arms to welcome back a good customer and someone he considered a friend. Bo stayed on the porch. Rico was still suave, a sharp dresser in a business of hooded sweatshirts and jeans, and clean as a whistle. He never touched the stuff he sold. He knew tequila like some people knew wine and had a guy for Cuban cigars, but that’s about where his vices ended. And he always smelled like his taps poured cologne. Powerful, musky cologne. Probably to cover the shit and sweat smell of the junkies who came to his door at all hours.

“Rico. Good to see you.”

“So step on up and give me a hug God dammit.” He smiled wide. Had all his teeth. A rarity in the Meth trade. Hockey players have better dental work than meth heads.

“I’m not here to buy.”

Rico dropped his arms, rescinding the offer for the hug. The smile went south too.

“What do you want then?”

“A favor.”

Rico laughed. “A favor? Why should I do you a favor?”

“Because all I did was stop using. Not like I fucked your sister or killed your dog. Or fucked your dog for that matter.” Bo made a statement rather than ask a question. “We’re still good.”