Trust Me

by Richard Z. Santos

  “Not running off. Rectifying a mistake. When did this start?” Cody went quiet. Janice murmured in the background. A pang went through Olivia’s chest. Not jealousy. More like pity.

  Cody came back on the line. “It’s been about six months, we think. You know, she’s the one who convinced me to answer your call.”

  Janice had first reached out to Olivia six months ago; building up her trust and reeling her in.

  “You two are going to drive each other crazy,” Olivia said. “You both know it’s not going to end well.”

  “Your concern brings a tear to my eye. She kind of likes you. Says you two have done some chatting.”

  Olivia lowered the phone and tried to stay calm. This is what he did. She had watched it happen for ten years. Cody drew people in and poked them until they swung at him—handing over all their high ground.

  “I’m going to trade you some information for some cash,” Olivia said.

  Cody laughed, loud and angry. “I’ll unlock your bank accounts when your boyfriend comes to meet me. I know all about O’Connell’s little scheme and his recordings. You two were clever, but . . . not really.”

  “What did you do to my bank accounts?”

  Olivia’s accounts were in her name only, but she supposed having built the bank president’s house and half his branches might have earned Cody some favors.

  “You’re so good at keeping a straight face,” Branch said. “I looked you right in the eye when you brought me his resume and didn’t see a thing. When’d you meet him?”

  “You haven’t looked me in the eye for a year.”

  Olivia turned on her call recorder. “I need something from you,” she repeated.

  “Get in line, sister. I’ve got nothing left to give. What the Apaches didn’t steal from me is tucked away tight. You’re not getting a dime. Everyone gets their tiny little checking accounts back when I get my hands on O’Connell.”

  “I don’t know where he is. Besides, maybe I don’t need that bank account. I found more in your safe.”

  “The safe? Your deviousness is evil incarnate. It’d turn me on if I weren’t going to kill you first.”

  “I’m taking my car. I’m taking the 160k I found in the safe. And then, I want another $150,000 a year, starting next year, for the next five years. I’m cheap. I just want out.”

  “That’s a lot more than the pre-nup you signed. Girl, you’re done. You get nothing.”

  “You know I won’t take that for an answer.”

  “He’s really not there with you, is he?”

  “He’s not.” Olivia stepped into the hallway and waved at the camera. “You know he’s not. I don’t know where he is. Don’t particularly care.”

  “What a lovely wave. I’d love to break your arm. Tell your boyfriend when he meets me at the office, he’ll get his life back. The wife too. I can’t decide if I’m going to have a go at him or let Mallon have all the fun.”

  Olivia closed her eyes. Charles had better be running.

  “I’m going to email you a document,” Olivia said. “You can sign it on your phone and send it back to me. Hell, Janice can sign as a witness.”

  “You did all the signing necessary when we got married. Whatever you and O’Connell have is worthless. Mallon’s grabbing him and . . .”

  “I’ll tell you what’s really going on,” she said. “You believed Mallon when he called you. Why not believe me?”

  Cody went quiet again. There was an echo on the line, and Olivia realized she was on speakerphone. Janice was probably recording too.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “The truth could save you a lot of money,” she said.

  “Are you trying to keep me from hurting your boyfriend?”

  “The fact that you think he and I are in this together proves you’re clueless. You know he couldn’t keep up with me.”

  The echo on the line disappeared, but the call was still connected. They must have put the phone on mute. They were discussing, debating. Olivia closed her eyes. It was up to Janice.

  Cody came back on the line. “Why are you trying to help me? You’d leave me on the side of the road like a dead dog if you could.”

  “If you’re a dead dog, then I lose my money.”

  Cody laughed. “You’ve learned a thing or two from me, Liv. You really really have.”

  “You’re lost, Cody. You didn’t even know about me and Charles until she told you.”

  Cody sighed. “One. Five. Oh. A year. That’s it?”

  “For five years.”

  “And you’ll stay away from O’Connell.”

  “You’d have to pay me a lot more to stay with him.”

  “You’re recording this call, aren’t you? Mallon told me your boyfriend was into that too. Good idea, I suppose. Tell me what you need to tell me, Liv.”

  “Mallon lied to you. Charles doesn’t have recorded conversations. Charles wasn’t trying to blackmail you.”

  “What the hell are you thinking? You’re trying to turn in Mallon? I’m not paying you for this.”

  “Mallon hated Charles since the moment they met. And also, I swear he thinks he’s protecting you. He knew about me and Charles days ago. Even sent Charles’ wife photos of me and him. That’s why she’s in town. Did he send them to you?”

  “That man is a soldier.”

  “Then tell me where he is right now.”

  Cody’s silence was so weighted it was almost painful.

  “He thinks he’s saving you from yourself,” she said. “You’re going to do something violent to Charles, and you’ll end up having to pay him off. After all that, you’ll still never hear any tapes because Charles didn’t make any.”

  “If either of them play a single second of a recorded conversation . . .” Branch trailed off.

  “He won’t. They don’t exist. Mallon and I came up with that to keep you in town.”

  “Am I the only one who’s actually open about what he wants?” Branch asked. “I’ll sign your damn papers. Send them over.”

  “Sending now.”

  Olivia’s hands were shaking as she emailed the document. “You have them,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

  “I’ve got something funny to tell you,” Branch said.

  The document appeared in her email. Olivia opened the file. He had signed.

  “You ready for the joke?” he asked. “Janice had convinced me to give you a payout of one million. Now, I got a C in Algebra back in high school, but I’m pretty sure that’s more than what you ended up asking for.”

  Olivia felt a little dizzy. She swallowed her regret and said, “I don’t need a million. The rich people I know hate money more than they hate themselves.”

  “Ah, the wisdom of the poor. I’ll unlock your money, but Charlie boy and wife are fucked till I get my hands on him.”

  They were both quiet. The echo on the line went away. Olivia could hear birds on the other end. He must have walked outside.

  “Has it been that bad?” Cody asked. “Have I gotten that bad?”

  “Yeah, you have.”

  She hung up. For a second, guilt for what would happen to Charles pushed its way into her brain. She shook it away, flipped off the security camera one last time and began throwing her clothes into a suitcase.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  CHARLES PICKED at the dried blood on the hem of his shirt. The stitches in his eyebrow ached, but not as bad as his nose. All he could smell was old blood. Addie drove them away from the hospital with steady hands, but her eyes revealed the shock.

  “I just don’t believe you,” she said. “They will not let that man go. There were witnesses.”

  Charles nodded, which caused a sharp pain in the back of his neck. He took another painkiller. “He wasn’t even cuffed when they drove away. He’s an ex-cop, and Branch will get him out in an hour, if he hasn’t already.”

  Addie hunched forward over the wheel, eyes on the road but with no real sense of where she was going. She
muttered, “Dozens of witnesses.”

  “I’m sure he’ll get a stiff fine,” he said.

  Well, Charles had wanted Addie to understand that the normal rules were inoperative out here.

  All it cost was a nose.

  “These were the people you wanted in with? These were the people you were trying to scam?” Addie’s shock was giving way to anger. “What happened to you out here?”

  Charles looked out the window at the trucks, the mountains, the grey hairs in their BMWs. Every car belonged to Cody Branch. Every black-haired woman was Olivia. He remained quiet until they got back to Addie’s hotel.

  They sat in the parking lot, scanning for Mallon and black town cars.

  “I can’t stay here,” Addie said. “Let’s get rooms in Albuquerque. Something by the airport. In the morning, we can try the police again.”

  “I can’t go to the police.”

  Addie rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “The FBI, state police. If something is going on, then someone’s got to listen.”

  “If I go to the cops, Branch and Salazar will flip this back on me. That’s why they chose me to begin with. My name’s on so many documents. I delivered so many messages. They’ll say I was the troublemaker.”

  “You were.”

  Charles looked around the parking lot. The sun was setting and Mallon crouched in each shadow.

  Addie pushed the tears off her cheeks with the side of her hand. “You invited them. Charlie, you’re doing this to yourself. Your mom has bailed you out so many times that you don’t even know how to . . .”

  “Don’t, don’t bring her into this. If she’d given me that loan, I wouldn’t have even needed to go to Thompson in the first place.”

  “You messed up. You did this. Now it’s time for you to go back home.”

  “Give up. That’s what you mean. Punch a clock, write press releases for the FDA.” Addie flipped down the sun visor with its mirror in front of Charles.

  “Look at yourself. You should be begging for a cubicle right now.”

  Charles’ face was swollen and multi-colored. Seeing it made all the pain come back.

  He tried to hold his face still, but the tears came anyway.

  They were almost at the edge of Santa Fe when they needed to stop for gas. Addie’s debit card was rejected at the pump. Her credit card too. Charles was broke, but he knew he had enough in the bank for one tank of gas.

  Declined.

  Sitting in the car at the gas station, Addie called her bank and credit card companies. Her accounts were frozen. The operators were unable to tell her why.

  The Albuquerque airport was ninety minutes away. Together, they had about thirty dollars in cash.

  Rented sedans full of tourists cruised through the gas station. Farm trucks rusting from the inside out barreled by. A hitchhiker with a big backpack hustled for quarters. They were all moving on, away. But Charles and Addie were stuck, thanks to Mallon and Branch.

  Addie refused to believe it. She kept calling different accounts, asking for higher and higher supervisors. Nothing worked.

  Charles’ phone buzzed. An unknown number was calling. He answered.

  “This is Charles.”

  “You’re at the Allsups near Highway 20. Stay there and Lou will bring you to me.” Branch’s words were stiff and blocky, as if he’d blow his mouth apart by giving expression to his rage.

  “I don’t think we’re going to do that.”

  “And how far are you going to get? Come speak with me and you get your accounts back.”

  “Your attack dog already broke my nose.”

  “I’m sorry he did that. I’m dealing with him separately. Let Lou bring you to the office. We hear your recordings, then delete them, and all is forgiven.”

  Charles watched Addie pace along the side of the gas station, phone pressed to her ear.

  “My wife . . .”

  “Oh now you’re concerned about her? She can drive away, once you’re in the car. Her accounts will be turned on before you go a mile. And she gets to keep her job.”

  Charles hesitated.

  “Want to test me?” Branch asked. “You don’t think I can call a senator, who calls a third-term congressman from Virginia and tells him to fire someone? I can do that without a call. A text could ruin her. Lou is five minutes away. Stay there.”

  The line went dead.

  Charles got out of the car and walked towards Addie. She looked to him with hope.

  “It was Branch,” he said. “If I go to him, we get our cards back—everything.”

  She shook her head. “No, no one can do something like this.”

  “It’ll take days to undo what he did. After that, he’ll go after our credit. He knows where you work.”

  “What does he want from you?”

  “He thinks I have recordings of some kind.”

  Addie cocked her head. “Do you?”

  “No, he’s nuts. Maybe I can talk to him, convince him I’m . . .”

  “These are not people you can talk to. We have to move.”

  Charles spread his arms and pointed around the gas station, the mountains turning purple on the horizon, the thousands of miles of forest and rocks.

  “Where?” Charles shook his head. “When Lou gets here, I have to go.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  GABE WALKED FROM THE BOTTOM of the stairs into the kitchen, around the living room and back again. He kept looking up at the ceiling. Micah had locked the door and not come down for hours.

  Gabe went upstairs, knocked and tried the doorknob. “Hey, Micah it’s me. Can you unlock this? I think we should go get some dinner.”

  Silence for long enough to make Gabe nervous.

  “Can you let me in? Or open the door at least?” Micah could be heard rolling off the air mattress, unlocking the door and then dropping back into bed. “It’s unlocked.”

  Gabe opened the door and looked in the room. Micah had pushed the air mattress into the corner and was sitting up against the wall. He seemed out of place and huge in this room meant for a younger kid.

  Gabe pointed to the posters on the wall. “I found some of this stuff in the closet. I know it’s not your style anymore but it’s still yours.”

  Micah nodded at one of the posters. “I’d forgotten I was into those wrestlers. That was some kid stuff right there.”

  Micah sat up and dug through one of his bags. The contents had spilled out in soft explosions. He pulled out a phone charger and plugged it in.

  “Hey, let’s go somewhere. You brought your video games, right? Let’s go over to Rose’s. She has a son about your age.”

  “I don’t know who Rose is.”

  “You’ll remember when you see her. I think we should get some air.”

  Gabe took a step into the room. The small stack of papers he had written and the articles about his mom were still on the table under the window.

  Micah lay back on the bed and got lost on his phone. “I called my mom,” he said. “Left a message. She wanted me to call her if things got weird, you know?”

  Gabe shook his head. “No, no, hey, you didn’t need to do that. He’s gone. That guy’s gone. He’s not coming back.”

  “It’s fine. I bet she’ll show up in a couple hours. Get me out of your way.”

  “Look, that was scary, but I’ve known that guy for years.”

  “I wasn’t scared.”

  Micah’s eyes were so big and watery.

  Gabe sat down at the card table. “Well, I was scared. But he’s gone and he’s not coming back. We had a misunderstanding.”

  “Dad, you sold drugs. Just weed or whatever, but I can’t be around that. I need a scholarship. If I get busted for something dumb, I’m screwed.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “You blamed it on me. You did something illegal and said it was to help me.”

  “I needed to see you. It was the only thing I could do.”

  Micah shook his head. �
��No, no it wasn’t.”

  Gabe looked out the window, then down at the table. Gabe was losing him. Micah was slipping through his fingers and would crash to the floor any second. But Gabe kept trying. He said, “Fine, let’s call your mom. She can pick you up at Rose’s, but let’s get in the car. I’m buying some hamburgers, and we’re going to talk.” Gabe gathered the papers off the desk.

  “Remember how my mom left when I was real young?”

  Micah was lost in his phone again.

  Gabe kept going. “Well, I asked my buddy Rey, he’s a lawyer, good guy, sharp. I asked him to try to find her.” Gabe waved the papers at Micah. “And he did.”

  Micah looked up at the papers in Gabe’s hand. “My grandma? Is she still alive?”

  “Grab your stuff and I’ll tell you on the way to Rose’s.”

  Micah rolled his eyes and groaned. “Whatever.” He started shoving clothes into his bag.

  If Rose was out, Gabe was screwed. He could not exactly take Micah to The Pig.

  Still, he pointed the truck towards her house and crossed his fingers. “You didn’t need to call your mom,” Gabe said. “That guy . . .”

  “Let’s just talk about my grandma.”

  Gabe put all the pages on the dashboard. “Right there. The first few pages are about her. She died a couple years ago but had an interesting life.”

  “You never saw her after she left?”

  “No, she kept to herself. The obituary’s in there. She did civil rights work. I’m not really sure about the details. Rey can probably explain better. Something about Natives and land.”

  Micah’s eyebrows furrowed, confused. He grabbed the stack and scanned the first page. “She sounds kind of famous. Wait, what did she do?”

  Gabe shrugged. “She helped people. Tried to, for a while at least.”

  “This is my grandmother?” Micah read the article. “I can tell people at the camp about her. Use her as an example of good service.”

  “I guess I wouldn’t be such a good example, huh?”

  Micah didn’t look up. “She sounds like you, you know? A little. Like a loner.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  Micah looked at Gabe like he’d asked the dumbest question in the world. Gabe pulled onto Rose’s street. Her car was in the driveway, and Gabe wanted to say a prayer.