“How do we know? She can’t even speak.”
Ease up, Joette thinks. They’re only trying to help.
“Watching a loved one decline is always upsetting,” Annalisa says. “But we’re doing everything we can to keep her as comfortable as possible. That’s all we can do at this stage.”
Joette feels the tears coming, blinks them back. “And when she can’t swallow at all anymore?”
“Then we may have some difficult choices to make,” Annalisa says.
“You mean I will.”
“As her daughter and Power of Attorney, yes. I know she has an advance directive on file.”
“And a DNR,” Joette says. “And by choices, you mean a feeding tube.”
“Some families choose to do that.”
“At that point, her directive kicks in anyway, doesn’t it? ‘No heroic measures’?”
Lourdes takes a box of tissues from the credenza behind her, sets it on the table.
“Your mother entrusted you to make those decisions for her, as her POA,” Annalisa says. “And that’s what you’ve done. There’s no sense in second-guessing yourself.”
“I’ve second-guessed every decision I’ve made in the past two years.”
“It can feel that way sometimes,” Annalisa says. “I know. Either way, the consensus is we’ll be looking at a palliative care option soon.”
“You mean hospice?”
“Lourdes?” Annalisa says.
“Hospice care doesn’t always mean death is imminent,” Lourdes says. “It just allows us to have extra aides here to spend time with your mom. A lot of families find it lets them take a breather from visiting every day, relieves some of the burden.”
“And that means no more medical care?”
“For the most part, yes,” Annalisa says. “That’s a prerequisite for hospice. But as I say, it’s a decision only you can make. And you don’t have to make it today.”
“Before her stroke, my mother was very clear about what she would want—and not want—if something like this ever happened to her. I’ve tried to respect her wishes.”
“We understand.”
Nora speaks for the first time. “I hate to bring this up now, but there’s something else we need to address.”
Here it comes.
“I went over your Medicaid paperwork again this morning. It’s still pending, as you know.”
“Her house is on the market,” Joette says. “I cleaned it out, sold all the furniture that was worth selling. I’ve dropped the asking price twice. There’s nothing more I can do. When it sells, it sells.”
“Another option is to sign it over to us now,” Nora says. “Then you don’t need to worry about it anymore. We’ll take care of the rest.”
“I don’t know if I want to do that.”
“It’s something worth keeping in mind. It might take some of the stress off you.”
“Another thing to consider,” Annalisa says. “Despite everything she’s been through, your mom’s pretty resilient. Even in hospice, she could go on this way for months.”
“She wouldn’t want that,” Joette says. “And she wouldn’t want to be the way she is now.”
“That’s why the burden, unfair as it may seem, falls to you again,” Annalisa says. “With no other immediate family, no siblings you’ve told us about…”
“There are none. It’s just me.”
Lourdes reaches out and lays a hand over hers.
Nora says, “The problem, as we talked about at our last meeting, is if you run out of funds while your mother is still alive. Then we may be in a situation where we have to consider placing her in a different facility, one that’s a better fit for her financial resources.”
“She’s been here two years now,” Joette says. “She’s used to it.”
“We’re all hoping it doesn’t come to that,” Nora says. “But to be honest, if we did relocate her, she might not even be aware of it.”
“You don’t know that,” Joette says.
Nora sits back. No one speaks.
Joette looks at the tissues, wants to take one. Doesn’t.
“I’ll deal with it all,” she says. “Whatever it takes.”
* * *
The third-floor activity room is full of light. Her mother is sleeping in a hospital Geri chair near the big windows, bundled in a blanket despite the room’s close heat.
Alora, one of the Haitian aides, is opening containers of pudding at a table. Beside her, a woman in a wheelchair clutches a cloth doll, kneading it in bony hands. She has thinning gray hair and lost, watery eyes, as if she’s about to cry.
“Miss Joette.” Alora smiles. “How are you this morning?”
Four other residents, all women, are in wheelchairs in front of a big television showing The Wizard of Oz. Everyone else is still at breakfast, Joette guesses, or already in physical therapy.
“Miss Irene is sleepy today,” Alora says. “I tried to feed her, but she wouldn’t eat.”
Joette crouches beside her mother’s chair. Beneath the blanket, her right leg is bent under her left, the muscles constricted. What’s left of her silver hair is combed neatly, pink scalp showing through. She smells of soap.
“Hi, Mom.”
No response at first, then her eyes open. Joette puts a hand on the blanket, over the jutting shape of her mother’s knee. Even through the material, she feels the sharp edges of bone, the skin there paper-thin. Her mother turns to her without expression. The faintest of smiles, then her glance passes over her to the wall beyond.
Joette leans close, kisses her cheek. “It’s me, Mom.”
Alora comes up behind them. “Maybe she’d like some of this.” She’s holding a container of chocolate pudding wrapped in a napkin, a white plastic spoon stuck in it.
Joette wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Yes, thank you.”
She takes the cup, spoons up pudding, holds it in front of her mother’s face. Her mother looks at it, then opens her mouth slightly, almost a reflex, closes it over the spoon. When Joette draws it out, it’s clear of pudding. She remembers what Lourdes said, watches her mother’s throat work as she swallows.
Five spoonfuls and the pudding’s almost gone. Joette scrapes out the last of it, then uses the napkin to wipe her mother’s lips.
Alora puts a hand on Joette’s shoulder, squeezes gently, takes the container and spoon.
Joette’s mother gives her a last look, no recognition in her eyes, then turns toward the TV, the flickering images there.
“I’m gonna go now, Mom. But I’ll be back before you know it.” She kisses her mother’s forehead. “I love you.”
Her mother’s eyes slowly close. She’s asleep again.
At the door, Alora hugs her. The woman with the doll watches them.
She keeps it together on her way out of the building. Once in the car, the fear hits her, as it always does when she leaves. That maybe this is the last time. That she’ll never see her mother alive again.
There’s no holding back then. She begins to cry, alone in the cold morning sun.
* * *
On the way to the motel, she stops at a Wawa, buys their last Asbury Park Press, pages through it in the car.
The accident only gets three paragraphs on page four—Motorist dies in fiery crash. It’s a bare-bones press release. No photo.
The last paragraph reads: The driver, Thomas Nash, a Barnegat resident, was pronounced dead at the scene. State police are investigating.
The story gives the accident location but doesn’t name the motel. No mention of the driver’s injuries, no mention of her.
Nothing about the money.
SIX
He fucked us,” Cosmo says. “I didn’t think he had it in him, but he did. He fucked us.”
“We don’t know that,” Travis says. “We don’t know anything yet.”
They’re in Cosmo’s new Lexus SUV, parked in the NJ Transit commuter lot in Middletown, engine running for warmth. Sleet c
licks on the roof. Four in the afternoon, and it’s already dark. Cars idle near the elevated platform, lights on, exhaust showing in the cold air. Travis’s Chevy Silverado 1500 is parked a few spots away under a light pole.
“Not many ways it could have gone,” Cosmo says. “He took us off, and they did the same to him. They’ve got our money.”
“Maybe.” He’s been running it through his head all day, how it might have played out.
“Only way it reads,” Cosmo says. “He tried to do the deal without us. We shouldn’t have trusted him, let him hold that cash.”
“Wasn’t a problem before. No reason to think it would be this time.”
“You know what bothers me most? He thought he’d get away with it. That we’d just lay there and take a fucking like that.”
Travis rubs his two-day beard, looks out the window at the acres of parked cars.
“Sorry. He was your guy,” Cosmo says.
Travis turns to him. “Meaning what?”
“The two of you went back, right?”
Travis meets his eyes until Cosmo has to look away.
“He was your friend, I know,” Cosmo says. Choosing his words carefully now. “It hurts when you think you know someone, turns out you don’t.”
A train horn sounds. Barrier arms swing down across the roadway, red lights flashing. A southbound train slows as it draws into the station, brakes squealing, then jerks to a halt. The doors thunk open, and people spill out onto the platform, popping umbrellas. Horns beep from waiting cars.
Look at them all, Travis thinks. The same routine every day. And for what?
“He was a guy I knew from the yard,” he says. “That’s all. I kept him from getting his wig split once. We were both out a couple years before I saw him again. He came to me with the Dominican deal. It sounded good. Sounded good to you, too.”
“It did, until now. All this time, no beefs, everybody earning. Should have known it was too sweet to last. Either way, we lost our plug.”
“Maybe not,” Travis says. “I’ll go up there tonight, talk to them.”
“You serious? For Christ’s sake, they shot him. How do you think they’re gonna react to you?”
“I want to hear what they have to say.”
“You think they’re just gonna let you walk out of there?”
The doors close, and the train moves off. The barrier arms rise again. Cars begin to file out of the lot.
“I’ll take my chances with the Ds,” Travis says. “You start looking for another connect. We go dry too long, our people will start buying from someone else, and we won’t get them back. See if anyone’s holding product they want to move fast. What did the story in the paper say?”
“Not much. I got most of the details from my guy at the state police. I reached out to him after I heard it on the radio.”
“Since when are you tight with the state cops?”
“Just this one. He’s useful. I slip him a few bucks now and then, he lets me know what’s going down, who’s on the radar for a bust. He’s the one told me Tommy was shot. It wasn’t in the paper.”
“He ask why you were interested?”
“No. He knows better than that. Told me Tommy was definitely heading south when he crashed though. Probably trying to get to a hospital. If he hadn’t wrecked, he might have made it, still be alive. And we’d know where our money was.”
“If he had it.”
“I’m betting he did,” Cosmo says. “I called him twice yesterday, work out some details on the next meet. No answer. I went by his place. Nobody there, and his BMW’s gone. Couple hours later, I heard the news. Then I called you.”
“What are the chances your trooper friend or his buddies found the money after the crash, helped themselves?”
“Unlikely. My guy wasn’t there, but he talked to the troopers who were. They said there wasn’t much left of the car when they arrived. Probably had a full tank of gas, why it burned so fast. Also, there was a woman saw the accident, was there the whole time.”
“What woman?”
“At the motel near where it happened. She pulled Tommy out of the car before it blew.”
“He was alive?”
“Yeah, survived the crash. It was the bullet killed him. You sure you want to go up there, deal with those people?”
“Whether they took him off or not, they’ll assume we think they did. They’ll be waiting for us to come at them. Or they might decide to come at us first. Preemptive strike.”
“Outstanding.”
“I need to know where we are with them. Better to find out now.”
Cosmo shakes his head. “That fucking Tommy. A setup like this, serious money, minimal risk. And he had to get greedy.”
“It happens,” Travis says.
SEVEN
Travis stands beneath a sign that reads TIRES NEW AND USED, knocks on a side door. It’s an industrial block in Newark, close enough to the Turnpike that he can hear traffic noise.
No rain now, but the air is cold and damp. An airliner comes in low out of the overcast, landing lights flashing. It seems to hang suspended in the air as it nears the airport, less than a mile away. The howl of its engines echoes between the buildings.
Locks scrape, and the door is opened by a dark-skinned man he’s never seen before. He has wide shoulders and dreadlocks, wears a long duster, his right hand in the pocket. Another of Chano’s Dominicans. Extra muscle.
He gestures Travis inside, locks and bolts the door behind him.
Two lift bays, piles of used tires. New ones, still stickered, are in a rack against the wall. On the far side, the windows of an elevated office throw light on the shop floor. Chano and the Rejas brothers, Jorge and Aldo, stand behind the glass, looking down at him.
The dreadlocked man raises his chin in the direction of the office. Travis crosses the bays, goes up the short flight of wooden steps. The office door is ajar, an old-fashioned brown shade pulled down over the glass.
The brothers move to opposite sides of the room as he comes in. Jorge’s head is shaven, Aldo has a ponytail—the only way Travis can tell them apart. They both wear long sleeveless jerseys.
Chano sits down behind a metal desk, the brothers flanking him. There’s a 9mm automatic on the desktop. Next to it, a photo in a silver frame. Chano sitting at a picnic table, smiling, a dark-haired toddler on his lap.
Travis nods at the gun. “That necessary?”
The dreadlocked man comes up the stairs behind him.
“Have to be careful, papi,” Chano says. “These are uncertain times.”
“They are.”
Chano is older than the brothers, his hair and neat beard streaked with gray. There’s a faded blue tattoo on the side of his neck. “You alone?”
“Like I said I’d be.” Cosmo is in the Lexus, parked five blocks away, waiting for Travis’s call. If it doesn’t come in an hour, he’ll know things have gone bad. He’ll go home, pack, run.
Travis takes off his jacket, drapes it on a metal chair, raises his arms, ready to be searched.
“This time I think you need to show us some skin, homes,” Chano says.
“Show you more than that.” He lifts his T-shirt to expose the nylon money belt. He peels the Velcro loose, coils the belt and sets it on the desk. Then he pulls the T-shirt off over his head, turns slowly.
“Goddamn,” Aldo says. They’re looking at his scars.
He faces Chano again, drops the T-shirt on the chair, starts to tug at his belt buckle.
“Nah, that’s good. Sorry, papi. Got to do it. Been enough drama already.”
Chano speaks Spanish to the dreadlocked man. He leaves the office, shuts the door and goes down the steps to the shop floor.
Travis puts his T-shirt back on.
“Respect for coming here,” Chano says. “I was worried you might have got the wrong idea about some things.”
“That your grandson in the photo?” he says.
“My daughter’s boy. He just turned fo
ur. Looks like me, no?”
“I see it.”
“What’s in the belt?”
“Ten grand.”
“For what?”
“For you. A good-faith gesture. So there are no misunderstandings.”
Chano opens a drawer, puts the gun inside, but doesn’t close it. “Glad to hear you say that. You did the right thing, calling. Sorry about your boy Tommy. But you need to hear it from me, how it went down.”
“Why I came.”
“He called a couple days ago, said he was ready to do the pickup. Little earlier than we expected, but we put the package together, same as always. We been switching it up lately, so I told him to come to JC, a detail place my brother-in-law owns. You been there.”
“I remember it.”
“He wanted to do it in the afternoon, before they closed. Maybe he didn’t trust us, wanted other people around, I don’t know. I didn’t like it. Little bit of an insult, you know? And you not being there, that didn’t feel right.”
“What time?”
“Maybe four o’clock?” He looks at Aldo, who nods.
“He had the money with him?”
“In a bag, like you bring to the gym,” Chano says. “He was nervous as shit, too. He hands it over, and Aldo takes out the cash, starts counting. I say, ‘Where’s my man, Travis? Why isn’t he here?’ He says you sent him. I didn’t believe him. The money was right, though.…”
“How much?”
“Same as last time. Three hundred for four keys. Jorge brings it out, metal case, packed right, and your boy pulls a piece. Tells Aldo to put the money back in the bag, wants Jorge to hand over the case. Some cojones, right? I say ‘Fuck that, no way that shit leaves here.’ Whole time, though, he’s waving that gun around, acting janky, like he’s gonna start popping off any minute. I wasn’t even carrying. Aldo was, though.”
“How did it play?”
“I tell your boy shoot us or get the fuck out—that case ain’t going nowhere. I think for a minute there, he was gonna do it. His finger’s on the trigger. I can see it.”
“What type of weapon?”
“Aldo, what was it?”
“Glock nine.”
Travis remembers the gun. Tommy showed it to him.
Heaven's a Lie Page 3
