“This is bad, isn’t it?” Helen says.
“I got involved in something I shouldn’t have.” She’s fighting a rising panic, trying to focus, think it through. “But I might know a way out.”
“Talk to me.”
“The less I tell you right now, the better.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I may have to leave town for a while.”
“What’s ‘a while’?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What about your mother?”
“I just need you to look in on her every few days, see how she’s doing. I was just there. I dropped off a check that’ll cover us for three months.”
“How’d you come up with that kind of money?”
“I took a gamble on something. It paid off.”
“And that’s why you have to leave town?”
“It might not be for long. I need someone back here I can trust. And I wanted to tell you that I was going, so you wouldn’t worry.”
“Not worry? No chance of that.”
“Please, Helen. I need your help. Otherwise, I have nobody.”
A pause. “This is a lot to process,” Helen says. “When are you leaving?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“That’s not much warning. But I can’t say no.”
“You can. I’d understand.”
“No, I can’t. But, girl, what did you get yourself into?”
“It’ll be done soon,” Joette says. “One way or another.”
* * *
“I’m done,” Cosmo says. “I’m out.”
They’re in the apartment over the hardware store. Travis is at the window, looking down on the night-dark street. Cosmo’s at the kitchen table.
“Hate to hear you say that,” Travis says. “After all this time.”
“That was fucked up down there. Things just keep getting worse. Maybe it’s time to shut it all down.”
Travis goes to the refrigerator, takes out two Heinekens, opens them on the breakfast counter. “You’re disappointing me, brother, all we’ve been through. What did you do with the fifty?”
“It’s in the safe at my place, along with the last of the fent. Listen, T. Buying and selling is one thing. That’s business. But what’s going on now…”
Travis sets a beer in front of him. “We did what we had to do.”
“How many people do we have looking for us now? We’re worse off than when we started. Nothing to sell, and not enough money to make a buy. It’s time to quit. You can keep the fifty. I’m through.”
“Give it some time. You might see things differently. I talked to Darnell Jackson today. Anything we can get, he’ll take. We find another seller, buy as much as we can, offload it all to Darnell, double our money. You want to walk then, go ahead. But at least both of us will have a stake.”
“I just want to go back to the way things were.”
“I’ll have some more cash on hand soon too. Keep us going for a while.”
“From where?”
“Someone that owes me. It’ll get us back in the game.”
“I don’t know,” Cosmo says. He picks up the beer but doesn’t drink.
“Find a connect,” Travis says. “Wherever you have to go. We make one last buy, sell it off, go our separate ways with a nice little nest egg for each of us, if that’s what you want.”
“You think it’ll be that easy?”
“Why not?” Travis says.
TWENTY-THREE
He’s waiting for her in the bank lot, parked near the exit. She pulls in behind his truck. They’re at the PNC in Toms River, the first bank she left money in, a hundred years ago. Nine a.m. and the lot filling up.
He leaves the truck, walks back to the Honda. She unlocks the passenger door. He’s wearing the brown work jacket, gloves.
He gets in, nods at the shoulder bag on the floor. “That for me?”
“Sixty grand. It’s all there.”
“Where did you get the car?”
“It’s a rental.”
He opens the bag, sorts through the packs, thumbs bills. “Looks right. How much in the safe box here?”
“Another sixty.”
He puts the money back, zips up the bag.
“I’m going in,” she says. “I want to get this over with.”
“In a minute.”
He reaches under the jacket, and then there’s a gun in his hand. He pushes it hard into her armpit, twists it. The pain lifts her out of her seat.
“One shot at this range, almost no noise,” he says. “Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. I get out of the car, walk away, and Avis gets to clean up the mess.”
He moves the gun to his left hand, reaches over to pat her vest pockets, her waist, her stomach. His hand passes quickly over her breasts, then around to the small of her back. Finally to her thighs, down the inside of each leg to her ankles.
“I’m not wired,” she says. “You can put that away. I’ll get your money.”
He puts the gun in his jacket pocket. Her armpit is sore. She takes a breath, can’t seem to fill her lungs.
“Go on,” he says. “Leave the engine running.”
She reaches down for the bag. He catches her wrist.
“It’s all fifties in that box,” she says. “They’ll take up a lot of room. I’ll need something to put them in.”
He holds her arm for a moment, then lets go. She takes the bag, slings the strap over her shoulder, gets out. Crossing the lot, harsh sunlight flashes off the bank windows, blinds her.
A woman bank manager lets her into the vault. Together they key the lock. Joette slides the box out, takes it into the privacy booth, shuts the door behind her.
* * *
When she leaves the bank, the bag heavier, he’s behind the wheel of the Honda. She hesitates, then gets in on the passenger side.
“Show me,” he says.
She opens the bag, tilts it toward him so he can see the money. “You want to count it?”
“Not here.”
“I could have called the police,” she says. “Told them you were out here, that you had a gun.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I just want this over. And you out of my life.”
“Almost. Tell me where we’re going.”
“The Wells Fargo on Route Thirty-Five in Ocean Township. Head east toward the Parkway. I’ll show you.”
He pulls out of the lot. She rubs a palm on her jeans leg.
This was always the way it would go, she thinks. When he has all the money, he’ll take her somewhere, shoot her, dump the car.
You know what you have to do.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she says.
“Forget it.”
“I’m serious. I’ve been nauseous all morning. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“Hold it in.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. We’re not stopping.”
“You want me to do it in the bank, while I’m getting your money?”
He looks at her. She winces. “Cramps.”
“Don’t throw up in the car.”
“Then you better stop.”
She sees the empty lot coming up on the left, woods surrounding it. There was an Italian ice stand there years ago. The building’s long gone, nothing in its place.
“Pull in there,” she says. “Quick. Please.”
He slows, has to wait for oncoming traffic before he steers into the lot. It’s overgrown, the blacktop cracked. She knows there’s a shallow creek that runs behind the trees.
He pulls to the rear of the lot. From here, she can see the slope. It’s littered with trash and shiny wet leaves.
“Stay there,” he says. He gets out, goes around to her door, opens it. “Get out.”
When she doesn’t move, he grabs her upper arm, pulls her from the car. His other hand is in the pocket with the gun.
He shuts the door, pushes her
toward the trees. “Straight ahead, and be quick about it. I’m right behind you. Try to run, and I’ll put one in your back.”
He shoves her again. She stumbles, nearly falls. They’re almost in the shadows of the trees.
“I should pop you right now,” he says. “Make it simpler for both of us.”
Her right hand goes into her vest pocket, curls around the butt of the .25 she took from the safe box. Her finger slides across the trigger. The safety is already off.
“Hurry up,” he says. “What are you—”
She pulls at the gun. It catches on her pocket, then comes out all at once. She brings it up as she turns toward him. He’s already backstepping, surprise in his face.
Do it.
The gun jumps in her hand. The bullet goes past him, snaps bark off a tree. His own gun comes out, and she fires again in panic, sees the bullet hit his left shoulder, turn him. He throws himself to the side, tries to swing his gun back toward her, and then his foot slides out from under him on the wet earth. He loses his balance, falls backward down the slope, fires once into the air.
Move.
She runs to the car, gets behind the wheel, tosses the .25 on the passenger seat. She can hear him fighting his way back up through the underbrush.
She shifts into reverse, foot on the gas. He’s at the top of the bank now. She hears the crack of his gun, floors the gas and spins the wheel. Then she’s out on the highway, swerving to miss an oncoming car, oversteering. Horns blare around her.
Her last sight of him is in the rearview. He’s standing on the shoulder, the gun down at his side, watching as she drives away.
* * *
Forty minutes later, she pulls into a Target off the northbound Parkway, steers the Honda to the far side of the lot, away from the highway. She opens the door and vomits, thin and watery, onto the ground.
You tried to kill a man.
She wonders how badly he was hurt, if the bullet did much damage. It didn’t stop him, or even slow him down. Until she drew her gun, she didn’t know if she’d have the courage to aim at him, fire. She hesitated, finger on the trigger, and then it all happened so fast.
Keep going. Stick with the plan.
She opens the trunk, pulls off the blanket covering her suitcase. Inside is the cash she took from the other two banks the day before. She adds the money from the shoulder bag, zips the suitcase shut. All the cash in one place now. She closes the trunk.
She feels strangely calm, with tasks ahead of her, somewhere to go. She’ll leave the car at Penn Station in Newark. Ditch her phone and get a new one. Buy her Amtrak ticket with cash.
TWENTY-FOUR
You need a doctor,” Cosmo says.
“Just hold it still, goddammit.”
Travis is shirtless at his kitchen table. Cosmo is holding up his iPhone, the video camera reversed. On the screen, Travis can see the entry wound in his shoulder, two inches from his collarbone.
“It was a piece-of-shit twenty-five,” he says. “It’s in there against the muscle, didn’t go any deeper. I can feel it.”
In front of him on a white bath towel are a pair of tweezers, his knife, an open bottle of alcohol, a packet of gauze pads, surgical tape and a coffee mug. Another towel in his lap.
He splashes alcohol from the bottle onto the wound. The clotting washes away and blood begins to flow.
“I don’t know how you can do this,” Cosmo says.
Travis pours alcohol into the mug, dips in the tweezers. On the screen, the bullet is blue beneath his skin, a bulge against the surface. His jacket and shirt slowed the round, absorbed some of its energy, but strands of material are embedded in the wound. He draws them out with the tweezers, flicks them onto the towel. Cosmo’s hand starts to shake.
“Steady,” Travis says.
He finds two more strands, plucks them out, probes the wound with the tweezer tip. Pain lances through his shoulder. The hole’s too small, the bullet just out of reach. More blood oozes out.
“You might need stitches.”
Travis tosses the tweezers onto the towel, upends the mug over the wound. The alcohol stings, runs cold down his chest. He splashes more into the mug, opens the knife and dips in the blade. He uses the tip to trace the bulge in the skin, then presses down, draws the blade across, feeling the bullet. The skin parts, and he can see the edge of the slug.
You should have killed her when you had the chance, he thinks. Pulled over somewhere, shot her, left her there in the car. Taken the bag with the money, written off the rest.
“You think she went to the police?” Cosmo says. “Told them what happened?”
“No. Not this one.”
He sets down the knife, pinches the wound until the bullet starts to emerge. It’s like a living thing, slippery with blood.
“Jesus,” Cosmo says.
Travis gets a grip on it with his fingertips, pulls it out, drops it in the mug. The alcohol turns pink. He pours more from the bottle into the wound, shudders as the pain spikes, then fades. “Gauze.”
Cosmos puts down the phone, rips open the packet.
“Two of them,” Travis says. “And tear off some tape.”
Travis holds the pads against the wound, pressing until the bleeding stops. Four strips of tape are enough to hold them in place. The gauze begins to darken.
He makes a fist with his left hand. No muscle damage. If he’s gotten all the cloth out of the wound, it might heal cleanly.
He fishes the bullet out of the mug with his fingers. It’s a lump of gray lead smaller than his pinkie nail. He was lucky. At that range, a shot to the eye or temple might have killed or blinded him.
Next time, no hesitation, he thinks. Kill her. Money or not.
* * *
The noise of an engine wakes him. He’s been asleep on the couch, the apartment dim, Cosmo gone. His shoulder is sore and stiff.
The engine shuts off. He pulls on a T-shirt to cover the bandage, goes to the window. A pickup truck is parked next to his, the only vehicles in the side lot. The hardware store is closed.
He gets the Ruger from atop the refrigerator, racks the slide. From the window, he sees a man start up the outside stairs. Clean-cut, wearing a windbreaker and jeans. Cop.
He puts the gun in the refrigerator, covers it with a dish towel, closes the door.
The knock comes hard. He unlocks the door, opens it halfway. “Yeah?”
“Travis Clay?”
He can see the outline of the ballistic vest beneath the cop’s sweater. Travis looks past him, down to the street. No other cars around. No backup.
“Yeah?”
“Noah Cooper, Wall Township Police. Mind if I come in?”
“Wall Township? Little off your graze, aren’t you?”
“Let’s talk inside.”
Travis opens the door wider. The cop comes in, looks around. “Anybody else here?”
“Just me.” He shuts the door.
“You live alone?”
“I do.”
The cop nods at the breakfast counter. “Why don’t you take a seat?”
“I’ll stand.”
The cop opens his jacket. A Mini-Glock is holstered on his right hip, next to a pair of handcuffs.
“What is this?” Travis says.
“Hands on the counter.”
Travis turns slowly, puts his palms on the cool Formica. The cop moves behind him. “You got anything on you I need to be worried about? Anything that’s gonna stick me?”
“No.”
The cop pats his hips and waist. He tugs out his wallet, tosses it on the counter, then runs a hand over his empty jeans pockets. “You know a Joette Harper?”
“Who’s that?”
“Castaways Motel.”
“The manager? Joette, huh? I never knew her name.”
“Go ahead and turn around, but stay where you are.” The cop steps back. “She said you came by a couple times, asked about a room.”
“That a crime? I looked around a few places
. They all wanted too much.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“I haven’t. Are you looking for her?”
“You got some ID?”
“Wallet.”
“Get it out for me.”
Travis opens the wallet, works the license out of its plastic sleeve. The cop takes it, looks at the photo, then at him, hands it back.
“I look around this place, will I find anything that’ll get you in trouble?”
Travis puts the license away. “You ran my sheet.”
“I did.”
“Then you know I’m not on paper. I maxed out.”
“Where’s your cell phone?”
“You have a warrant?”
“I can get one.”
“If you were here on police business, you’d have brought backup, some locals. I didn’t see anybody else out there.”
“I can call the Keansburg police, if that’s what you want. Get them over here. See how they feel about it.”
“Go ahead.”
“Or you can let me take a look at your cell, then I’ll be on my way.”
He’s bluffing, Travis thinks. Fronting tough, not sure what he’s getting into.
“What’s this Joette Harper to you?” Travis says. “Family? Girlfriend?”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“At the motel, like I said.” He grins. “Listen, man. Nothing personal, but if you got no warrant, no authority here, I’d be within my rights to tell you to fuck off, wouldn’t I?”
The cop’s face reddens. He brushes back his jacket to expose the gun and cuffs. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“You really want to do this?”
There’s a tic under the cop’s left eye. It’s time to push, rattle him.
“Shoot an unarmed man in his own home, how you going to explain that?” Travis says. “No crime being committed here, no threat to you. You’re not even in uniform. How do I know you’re a real cop?”
The cop draws the gun, holds it down at his side.
“Hey, man, I’m just messing with you,” Travis says. “I think we both need to take a minute here. De-escalate.”
The cop is breathing fast, shallow, amped with adrenaline and fear.
“What we could do,” Travis says, “is sit down, have a beer, talk about all this.” He moves behind the counter.
Heaven's a Lie Page 11
