Hard Luck

by Pascal Scott

  “Oh, crap.” Denise glanced in the rearview.

  “What?” Mickie craned her neck to look over her shoulder. From miles behind them on the interstate, flashing blue lights were heading their way.

  “What were you doin’?” Mickie asked.

  Denise slowed the car and didn’t answer. “What’s the speed limit here?” Denise asked instead.

  “Seventy. It just went up in January.”

  “I was doin’ eighty probably,” she said, turning off the music.

  “Ah, shit,” Mickie said.

  Denise slowed to sixty-five for good measure and eased right. In between the southbound and northbound traffic was a wide grassy median with two lanes on each side.

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, watching the black-and-white approach. He wasn’t doing the speed limit. He must have been going ninety, with no siren.

  “Please.”

  Denise held her breath as he pulled up on her left. Then she deliberately glanced his way and gave him her most innocent smile. He didn’t look at her, or if he did, he didn’t turn his head. He flew past and kept going. All she got was an impression: short hair, aviator shades, straight nose, tight jaw, hands gripping the wheel. A CHiP, California Highway Patrol officer. The golden star with the state seal on the door of his Crown Vic lingered in her mind like an afterimage.

  A few minutes later, they passed him stopped along the shoulder. He had pulled over a shiny green big rig with a flat trailer and was standing at the opened door of the cab, talking to the driver.

  “Jesus, that was close,” Denise said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In Coalinga, they stopped for gas at a mom and pop station. Mickie fueled up the Honda while Denise went inside to pay.

  “Get me a Coke,” Mickie called after her. “And a sandwich or something.”

  The clerk was a bulbous young woman with a bowl haircut and straight black bangs, dangling pink earrings, and squinting eyes that should have worn glasses. She was dressed in blue sweats and a large black T-shirt that proclaimed, “I Love Coalinga.”

  “You own this place?” Denise asked, setting two bottles of Coke on the counter along with a wrapped roast beef sandwich and a big bag of potato chips. The food was for Mickie. She wasn’t feeling hungry at all.

  “Nah,” the Coalinga lover answered.

  “Your folks?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Bet they don’t pay you much.”

  “Nope.”

  Denise glanced at the security camera perched above the young woman’s head. “I’ll bet sometimes those tapes get lost. How much would something like that cost?”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  Denise slanted her head upward, letting the woman follow her line of vision. “To lose that tape. For you to lose that tape, how much would that cost me?”

  The woman opened her eyes wide for the first time. They were a dull brown with no inner light. “Oh,” she said. She looked Denise up and down. “A hundred.”

  “Wait a sec.”

  Denise walked purposefully to the pump where Mickie was returning the nozzle to its sleeve. “Gimme a Benjamin,” she told her.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Mickie unbuttoned her shirt and pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of her money belt. Denise returned to the store, slapped the bill on the counter, and started to leave.

  “Hey,” the woman said. “You didn’t pay for your gas. Or your food.”

  Denise stopped at the door. “Really?”

  She retraced her steps and left three ten-dollar bills.

  “Keep the change,” she said.

  “Want me to drive for a while?” Mickie asked.

  “Nah, I like driving. What time is it?”

  “Almost one.”

  “We’re a little behind schedule.”

  At this pace, they would make San Diego by 5:00 p.m. Then Denise would have to find a storage locker and secure the money, drop Mickie off at the border, leave the Honda in the parking lot, take a taxi to the San Diego Municipal Airport, and be at home in her apartment before anyone noticed she was gone.

  “Can you find something else on the radio?” Denise asked. “There’s too much static.”

  Boom!

  It sounded like a single gunshot. The car swerved wildly as Denise tried to keep her hands steady, clutching the wheel to keep the vehicle from veering into the traffic on her right. She managed to steer the Honda into the slow lane without hitting anyone and then to pull over to the side of the road. The car rolled to a stop. Mickie jumped out and went to the back right tire, which was hissing loudly as it went flat.

  “Shit.” She looked around, spotted a large rock, and brought it back to use as a block against the front left tire.

  “Put the parking brake on,” she told Denise

  “I already did.”

  “Look in the glove box and see if there’s an owner’s manual.”

  Denise did, and there was.

  “Give it to me.”

  She gave it to her.

  “Thanks. Open the trunk.”

  Denise pulled the release lever, and the trunk door opened with a pop. Mickie lifted it up completely.

  “There fuckin’ better be a jack kit in here.”

  The jack was in the plastic panel on the right side. But the spare and the tools weren’t visible. If they were where they were supposed to be, they would be under the vinyl cover on the bottom of the trunk. On top of the removable cover lay the eight canvas bags of cash.

  “Fuck,” Mickie said.

  One by one, she moved the bags from the trunk to the backseat, shoving them next to her Army surplus duffel. The sun was high in the California-blue sky, and it was hot, probably in the mid-eighties. Denise had abandoned the driver’s seat and walked off the mottled blacktop. She was sitting on a patch of grass in the field of yellow wildflowers that flanked the highway, watching Mickie work.

  “These are fuckin’ heavy,” Mickie told her.

  Mickie was dripping with sweat by the time she finished. Lifting the vinyl cover inside the trunk, she took a look. Good. It was all there: the spare, the jack handle, the lug wrench. She set them by the tire that was now completely flat, loosened its lug nuts with the wrench, then checked the owner’s manual to locate the jack point on the Honda. It was about a foot in front the wheel. Finding that, she assembled the jack handle and lug wrench to make a crank for the jack itself. The car went up until it was a few inches off the ground. Then she loosened the lug nuts the rest of the way, removed them, and pulled off the tire. The shiny head of a good-sized nail had been ridden into the thread.

  Mickie put on the spare, replaced the lug nuts and tightened them, and put the flat, the jack, and the jack kit where they belonged. She left out the lug wrench; she would need to tighten the nuts again once they had been on the road for a while. Heaving the bags of cash out of the backseat, she returned them to the trunk, setting the lug wrench on top.

  “Damn,” she said when she was done with it all.

  She got back into the passenger seat; Denise took the wheel, and they started off again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They hit Southern California just in time for rush hour and crawled along at five mph for fifty minutes from downtown to east LA. It seemed to Denise that every other car on the six-lane freeway was a black or white sedan. That was good. In their nondescript white Honda Accord, they looked like everybody else. Up ahead, Denise had a view of the cityscape: glistening white stucco buildings with red tile roofs, towering palm trees that thrived despite the polluted air.

  “This used to be desert,” Mickie said. “Can you believe that?”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. LA is only around because a guy named Mulholland stole water from Owens Valley back in the day. It was a dirty deal, you know, corrupt politics. People got killed over it. So, of course, the city named a street after him. Mulholland Drive.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

>   “Yeah.”

  Just past the city limit, traffic broke free.

  “Finally,” Mickie said.

  Twenty miles later, they pulled off I-5 in Anaheim to make a pit stop at a gas station. Denise used the toilet while Mickie tightened the lug nuts. After a few minutes, they were back on the road.

  Fail Safe Storage was on San Ysidro Boulevard five miles north of the Mexican border. The single-story facility had no security camera, no on-site night management, and only a thin, aluminum barrier arm that opened by a magnetic strip card to prevent trespass. Denise paid the property manager twenty-five dollars for a month’s rental of a five-by-five unit while Mickie waited in the car.

  “You just made it,” the manager said.

  “What?”

  “We close at seven. You’re just in time.”

  “Yeah? Lucky for us.”

  “’Ya gotta lock?” the manager asked. Behind her a sign claimed, Hablamos español.

  “No.”

  She didn’t look like she spoke Spanish. She had one of those nondescript Southern California faces that was as blank as water. Her mouth didn’t smile, and her eyes revealed nothing. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail in an unsuccessful attempt to hide middle-aged wrinkles.

  “You’ll need one.” She motioned toward a display of padlocks. “The disc lock is your best bet.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s hardened steel.”

  “All right.” Denise dug into her pocket.

  “Keyed or combo?” the manager asked.

  “Uh, combo. Combination.”

  “It’s four numbers. Just don’t use your birthday. Everybody uses their birthday.”

  “Thanks, I’ll remember that.”

  Denise drove around until she found their unit, number 185. Like all the others, it was protected by a blue roll-up metal door that was slightly rusted. The door was heavy and stuck; she told Mickie to lift it. Inside, the unit was walled with corrugated metal that smelled like mold and bleach.

  “I’ll get the bags,” Mickie said.

  When she was done, Mickie pulled down the blue door and stepped aside. Denise attached the lock and rolled the dial. Fuck it. Zero, two, fourteen, seventy-five.

  “What’s the number?” Mickie asked. “In case I ever need to know.”

  Denise gave her a funny look that said, Why would you need to know that?

  “It’s my birthday,” Denise answered.

  “What?”

  “My birthday,” she repeated.

  Mickie’s gaze darted away for a quick moment.

  “You remember my birthday,” Denise said.

  “Uh.”

  “Mickie! It’s Valentine’s Day. Jesus. Sometimes, you’re a real dick, you know that?”

  “Hey,” Mickie said sharply. “I just stole seven-point-five million dollars for you, so don’t call me a dick.”

  Denise reconsidered. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, baby. I guess I’m a little stressed. It’s been a long day, but we’re almost there.”

  “Yeah,” Mickie said, getting back into the Honda in the passenger seat.

  Denise joined her inside. Glancing at Mickie, Denise thought she looked as if she wanted to say something.

  “What?” Denise asked.

  “Uh, what year were you born?”

  “Jesus. I turned twenty-one in February. Remember? We celebrated that I can legally drink now. Do the math, Mickie.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  The sun was setting on the Border Station parking lot as Denise kissed Mickie goodbye. This time, she made it a kiss worth remembering.

  “Sunday,” Denise reminded her. “Call me Sunday at 1:00 San Francisco time and let me know where you are.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise you,” Mickie said.

  Mickie was stalling, like she was having second thoughts. “I love you,” she said after a moment.

  “I know,” Denise responded.

  “You’ll come down in a couple of weeks?” Mickie asked.

  Denise thought she looked pitiful, like a lost dog. “Yeah. As soon as I can. Now go.”

  She watched Mickie walk away toward the pedestrian bridge, her shoulders slumped, a shadow among the shadows moving into Mexico.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That was the plan. Join Mickie in Mexico as soon as the coast was clear. Except whose plan was it, really? It was Elizabeth’s plan; it had always been Elizabeth’s plan, and Elizabeth was out of the picture now. Elizabeth was a fugitive wanted for murder. Mickie was an outlaw, too, as of this morning. The only person not wanted for a crime was Denise. So, really, whose plan was it?

  It wasn’t Denise’s plan. Because her plan, if she were going to make a new plan right now, right here this minute at the border, would be simple. Forget Elizabeth and forget Mickie, too. There was seven and a half million dollars sitting in a storage locker waiting to be liberated and put to good use. Split with her lovers, that payout would have been whittled down to just over two million dollars each. Even halved with Mickie, three million and change just didn’t seem like quite enough all of a sudden. Because all at once, that old scheme of Elizabeth’s didn’t make any sense at all to Denise.

  No, that was the thing about best-laid plans. Sometimes, they went awry.

  Chapter Twenty

  On the island of Caye Caulker, Elizabeth’s days bled together in a predictable pattern. Each morning, the sun came up at 6:00. In her hard bed, Elizabeth slept until nearly noon. Then, after two or three cups of strong coffee at a local palapa, she sat on the beach, batting off sand fleas while considering how to spend her afternoon. Usually, that meant swimming in her new two-piece Belizean bathing suit or hiking around the island in her old sneakers. Although she was trying hard to conserve her American dollars, she was already down to her last Benjamin. May 31 couldn’t happen fast enough.

  And then it was here. Twelve days after she had talked to Denise by phone, one morning, Elizabeth woke up and realized it was the last day of the month, the day of the Brink’s job in San Francisco. Elizabeth arrived at the cemetery phone at 12:50 Belize time. That meant it was 11:50 a.m. in California. The heist should have happened this morning. Denise would be calling soon.

  Out on the horizon above the surrealistically blue sea, Elizabeth watched as puffy gray clouds began filling the sky. Did it rain in Caye Caulker? Somehow, she had not anticipated seasons on this Caribbean island. There was so much she had miscalculated: the cost of living here, for one thing; the conditions, for another. Everything rusted out in the salty air—pipes, bicycles, Coca-Cola machines—and wasn’t replaced until it fell apart. The island was home not only to sand fleas, but also to biting flies, ants, boa constrictors, crocodiles, and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Hurricanes hardly happened, but when they did, they split the island in two.

  Unlike Belize City, where cartels feuded for control of the drug trade, crime was not a problem in Caye Caulker, except for the casual pickpocketing of unsuspecting tourists with fat wallets. That was good because local authorities seemed unmotivated to deal with any kind of serious threat. The post office, too, was run lackadaisically, keeping unpredictable hours. There was no delivery of international newspapers and just one local publication, which reported only regional goings-on. The library was a joke. There was virtually no intellectual life here. Americans came to drink and swim and chill out. That was fine on vacation, but as a lifestyle? Why did Elizabeth ever imagine she would be happy living in Belize?

  She set her backpack on the sand and sat by the phone, waiting. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour, then another hour. Moment by moment, Elizabeth watched as clouds moved inland until they had gathered over her do-ragged head. Something was wrong. Denise hadn’t called. The sky was darkening.

  And then three things happened at once. Rain started falling in big, tropical drops. A boat pulled up to the dock, and four
large men dressed in black began unloading a coffin. Not more than a minute after Elizabeth had stood to watch the men on the pier, she felt the barrel of a gun poked into her right kidney.

  “Don’t move.” The command was enunciated clearly in a high-pitched voice with a Spanish accent. “Do not bring eyes on you.”

  Elizabeth was still watching the men, attending to their task of hauling a heavy casket to a gravesite. They were paying no attention to her.

  “You are Kelly, are you not?”

  “Who are you?” Elizabeth shot back.

  “En mexico me llaman la pequeña.” In Mexico, they call me the little one.

  “The little one, huh?”

  “¿Habla español?”

  “Un poco.” Elizabeth thought fast. “Estudie español en la Universidad de California. Mi amiga allí estaba Teresa Barrera.” I studied Spanish at the University of California. My friend there was Teresa Barrera.

  “¿Barrera? ¿Teresa Barrera es su amiga?”

  “Sí, sí. Teresa es una buena amiga mía. ¿Conoce a Teresa?” Teresa’s a good friend of mine. Do you know her?

  “No. I know of her father.”

  The gun went away.

  “Your English is very good,” Elizabeth said. “May I turn around?”

  “Yes.”

  She wasn’t expecting what she saw. The high voice belonged to a very young-looking twenty-something, dressed in white short shorts and a blue tank top. Strands of dark hair fell out of a black baseball cap. She had painted her fingernails blue to match her shirt and used heavy liner to accentuate her eyes. They were big and liquid, the color of black coffee.

  La Pequeña tucked a shiny black handgun into the back of her shorts. “Walk with me.”

  “You are in a bad way, my friend. I am supposed to kill you. You are the woman waiting for a phone call in the cemetery on the island Caye Caulker. Your name is Kelly.”

  Elizabeth was shaking her head, trying to believe and yet not believing what she had just been told. The little one was on her second Belikin. Elizabeth was sipping a sweet rum and pineapple concoction that the congenial, gap-toothed bartender had called a Panti Rippa. La Pequeña was buying.