Run For the Money (20 page)

“Isn’t that the one? In bed with Slick?” Officer James T. Rowley stood over MacKaye’s desk with a single sheet printout in his hand.

“Yeah, that’s her. Emma. Why?”

“Just got a hit from TSA. Looks like someone bought a plane ticket.”

“Let me guess.”

“One way.”

Blood drained back into his body and he was safe to stand again. “God dammit.”

“Only bought one though. Unless she’s buying for Slick I guess he’s not with her.”

From over the cubicle wall came the voice of detective Chris Moore, MacKaye’s desk mate for six years and king of ball busting for the entire region. “Guess that means your theory was wrong MacKaye. Don’t you owe me a beer?” Moore’s head popped up from behind the wall.

“No, because you’re implying my theory had only one facet to it. Yes, I thought Slick would come for her, and I still stand by that. It’s just taking him longer. He is an escaped fugitive after all. Kinda hard to move around when the entire police force and the U.S. Marshalls are looking for you. But, barring that, part two of my theory was that she has the money and she was going to take a powder on him.”

“That’s not fair. You don’t get two guesses for the price of one.”

“They’re not guesses, Moore. It’s police work. This isn’t
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
. We get more than one choice at an answer.”

“Either way, we stop her at the airport and we get our money back. Who was it ever said criminals were dumber than shit? Oh, right. Me. And once again this little skank proves my point.”

“Hey,” said MacKaye, harsher than he meant to. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

Moore dipped back below the partition. “Oh relax, MacKaye. I’ll give you my multiple guesses whether she’s guilty or not. Yes, yes and yes.”

Rowley shook his head and exchanged a what-can-you-do look with MacKaye. “TSA will pick her up before her flight.”

“No. This one’s mine.” MacKaye stood and pulled on his jacket.

“Dude, don’t step on TSA’s toes.”

“Those rent-a-cops? Fuck ‘em. She’s my collar.” He grabbed his raincoat off the back of his chair and left.

Slick didn’t much care for a stakeout. Too much time to think. Time to watch rain run down the window in shifting rivers, trying to predict where it would veer off next and being wrong every time.

Since the day that judge banged his gavel and decided where Slick would spend the next twenty-five years of his life, things were supposed to slow down. The dragging slug crawl of prison life. Instead, things accelerated. Runaway train time.

Slick remembered one of those conversations, before the job. Before it all went to shit. Him, Emma and Bo sitting around in her basement apartment talking about what they were going to do with their share of the take. Back then he was hoping for a half million.

Emma always said islands. Not Slick’s first choice, but got to keep the women happy. He’d always been a mountain guy. Big house, lots of land. No neighbors. Nobody for miles. Some place where no one would look at his face except horses who had it rougher than him in the misshapen face department.

All three of them were looking for exactly the same thing. The big getaway.

Them and every other sad sack who plays his lottery ticket every Friday, even if that money could be better spent in a bank account. No one who falls into a pile of cash is looking to stay put, even if they’re not on the run from the law.

Slick was thinking all the same thoughts again.
Mountains it is, without that cheating bitch. Let her run to the sun and get all wrinkled and cancerous. If she can get away without him killing her, that is.

Deep down he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. He’d let her go. Fuck if she was getting a goddamn dime of the money, but he’d let her live.

Probably.

Working against Emma was the amount of time he was sitting in the Challenger. The more time Slick had to stew, the angrier he got. At her. At the cop. At Bo all over again. Christ, if that dipshit could have kept it together!
Why did he have to bring the police right to my doorstep?

MacKaye’s blue car bounced through the dip from the parking lot to the street. Slick sat up and dropped the Hemi into gear, grateful for tinted windows.

The cop drove a little faster this time, a little less Father Flanagan. The direction he drove was leading them back to Emma’s. The rain made it easier to tail the blue car since the cop would be watching the road more closely, but it also meant Slick couldn’t let him get too far ahead or he’d lose him in the spray from other car’s tires. He moved the wipers from intermittent to full.

In all the time he’d been waiting for the cop to come out, the drive back to the station from Emma’s, no plan had formulated in his mind. One started to emerge from between the rain drops.

If the cop was headed back to Emma then Emma was expecting him. If Slick showed up instead he’d catch her with her thong around her ankles and he could make her confess or give up the money or both. The element of surprise.

Emma had the money. At least she took it out of the locker, according to those guys. Slick knew her well enough to know even if she was fucking this cop, she wouldn’t give him the money. She had it. All doubt was erased. So the cop . . . he was in the way.

Storming the precinct was out of the question, but now with the cop out in the open and a convenient rain storm dropping by, well, anything could happen.

The plan was writing itself in his brain like a poet with a sudden breakthrough inspiration. Each line, each stanza flowed beautifully on the wings of a muse. Tiny, green fluttery muses with faces like dead presidents.

MacKaye tried like hell to think of a way to keep Emma out of the shit storm about to come down. He drew a blank. He was kicking himself for falling for the little plumper, but he couldn’t help it. What was at first nothing but a Fuck For Fun (FFF™) was now something he wanted to see through. Hell, he’d been dating the good girls for so long maybe a bad girl was what he needed. And if she ever got out of line, well . . . the threat of jail time is a quick and easy way to win any argument.

But she had to go and try to run to Miami. He didn’t blame her. She didn’t have the smarts or the resources to get fake I.D. papers and all the bullshit you need to go through to fool the airlines these days. Twenty years ago any plane in the sky had about six or seven John Doe’s on it. Guys hiding something from their wives or girls hiding something from everyone.

Nowadays you had to be really smart and really connected to get out of the country without anyone noticing.
And if your name happens to be on a red list of known associates of an escaped convict, well then, too bad for you. Next time take the bus.

Poor kid. He felt dirty for even thinking it, but he would have to get one more go ‘round before he slapped the cuffs on. Or maybe after . . .

Two miles ahead. A bridge. A river under it. The last line in the poem.

Slick maneuvered the Challenger through traffic to put himself behind the cop. People were driving cautiously, spacing themselves out from the cars ahead. The wind picked up again and blew the rain into a hazy sheen. The low clouds sucked the color from the world. The trees along the river were the color of steel. The water was grey as an elephant’s hide.

The V-8 engine was more than willing. First a tap. A gentle kiss on the back bumper like a peck on the cheek to the wife on the way out to work. Then more gas, and more.

Now Slick was driving for both cars, pushing the blue Ford along against its will. He could feel the cop hitting the brakes, but the Hemi laughed them off. The wheels of the Ford tried to grab, but only learned to waterski really quickly.

A subtle turn of the wheel and the two-car Siamese twins were veering away from the painted lines. Behind them a horn honked as if Slick may have been unaware of what was going on.

The cop got tired of being the Challenger’s bitch and cut his wheel. The Ford turned sideways but Slick gunned his car forward and stopped the turn, ramming the angry grill into MacKaye’s door. Through the pumping of the wipers Slick could see MacKaye’s face, see recognition register then see a sickening realization dawn on him.

Slick braked. Hard. The Ford slid forward, caught the guard rail built to keep people out of the river which vaulted the front end into the air. The car back-flipped into the water landing on its hood, breaking the impenetrable looking surface of the river.

Slick floored the Hemi and it growled as it carried him on. Cars slowed behind him, but unless they brought a winch, the deal was done.

––––––––

A
t least the rain washed away some of the blood. Emma carried the box of hollow books down the block from where she parked, propped them up on her leg as she struggled to open the door. When she heard the click of the lock she spun and bumped the door open with her hip.

Sylvia was there. Emma didn’t stop to chat.

“You’re getting my rug all wet!”

“I know Sylvia. Just needed a few boxes so I can pack and get out of here.”

“Not soon enough!” Sylvia called as Emma disappeared down the steps to her apartment.

Emma set down the box inside the door and exhaled the sigh of a condemned man set free as she leaned back against the door and wiped a hand down across her face, sweeping away some of the water. She allowed herself only a few seconds rest before turning and going back up the steps.

The rain was amplified against the tarp. With her head under it the sound was like being inside a Jiffy Pop.

As long as the boat had been parked there, the same tarp covered it. Formerly white, it was now a dull grey mottled with mold and formerly water tight it was now suitable to strain spaghetti. The height of the trailer made it so Emma couldn’t see down into the boat from where she stood so she tried jumping to get a fleeting glance. The tarp bobbed up in short bursts like a sheet covering a teenage boy masturbating.

It was no use, she couldn’t see a thing. She moved down a few feet and got a foot hold on the tire of the trailer and lifted herself up. She could see where the pillowcase had settled in the bottom of the boat and also the three inches of water pooled around it.

“God fuck it,” she said to herself.

“Ay!”

Emma froze. Didn’t sound like Slick, but with the rain noise it was hard to tell.

“Ay! What the fuck are you doing? That’s private property.”

Emma left the money and slid out from under the tarp. Standing in the rain drenched driveway was her neighbor, Neil, holding a baseball bat.

“Sorry. I thought I dropped something in there,” Emma said, looking apologetic.

“What?”

“I dropped something. I thought so anyway. It’s no big deal. Sorry.” Emma started a retreat to the house.

“That’s my boat.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry. I explained.”

“You can’t climb around on someone’s boat. You’re not one of those kids I chased out of here last month are you?”

“No. I live over here,” she pointed to the basement windows. “For the past three years.”

“Yeah, well . . . this is my boat.”

“I see that. Yeah.”

Neil realized he was holding the bat. He lowered it. “Sorry if I scared you.”

“No. No problem.”
What the fuck was this guy carrying on a conversation in the rain for?
Emma realized. She was starring in a private wet t-shirt contest. She became aware of her hard nipples and how soaked through her clothes were.

Oh, what the hell. When you got it, flaunt it. She stopped her retreat.

Neil was having a hard time focusing on her eyes. “You say you dropped something?”

“My laundry. I set it up under the tarp for a second to keep it out of the rain while I unlocked the door and I think it fell down.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she stepped back over to the boat. “Think you could give me a shove up there to check it out?”

“Sure, sure.” He dropped the bat as if he’d hit a line drive over second.

Emma giggled like she heard the college girls do all the time and turned to face the boat. She couldn’t believe how obvious the guy was about it, but he put his hand right on her left ass cheek and pushed, squeezing a little as he did. He kept pushing, using two hands now, long after she was securely on board.

“You see it?”

“Yeah.”

Emma cradled the sopping wet pillowcase and clutched it tight to her chest. She backed out legs first, hoping her ass in his face would distract him from the bag that was obviously not laundry.

Neil eased her down, supporting her buttocks the entire way. Once down she dropped the bag as low as she could and still have a solid grip on it before she turned around. Her tits barely cleared the top of the case, winking at him.

“Thanks so much. I feel like an idiot.”

“It’s okay. Sorry again that I scared you.”

“No problem. Take care.”

Emma scurried away, letting Neil ponder the look of the ass he could still feel in his hands.

Emma dumped the money in the bathtub. She tossed the soaking pillowcase aside like a used towel, checked the clock. Three and half hours until flight time. She stripped off her clothes, shaking her hair out.

“Hello Emma. Miss me?”

She turned. Slick. It had been so long she was horrified by his face all over again; the long melting features, the oversized everything, the yellow teeth. In her mind she superimposed MacKaye’s face for his. She knew right then she could do better than Slick. Only way out of this, though, was to go once more into the fire.

“Slick! Oh my God, you’re safe.”

Emma rushed to him and wrapped her naked body around him. As pissed as he was, the feeling of her naked flesh and the curves of her body pressing against his made it all better for the moment.

Emma’s mind flipped through blank pages trying to come up with a plan. Her arm brushed the grip of the gun tucked in Slick’s waistband. She knew she had to come up with something quick. She let him go, decided not to dress right away. Keep his mind occupied. God, she hoped he didn’t want to fuck for old time’s sake.