Hard Luck

by Pascal Scott

  “Right,” David said.

  “Good. I’ll handle the press later. And straighten out this IRS mess. And everything else.”

  “Okay, good,” David said.

  “What about the killer?” Ryan asked. “The man you saw getting away.”

  “I know who he is,” Thomas answered. “His release date is coming up in June. I’ll cook the paperwork until then, and in June, I’ll close his file.”

  “All right,” Ryan said.

  Thomas looked into each man’s eyes, David and Ryan and Francisco, one by one. “This stays in this room forever,” he said.

  “Forever,” David repeated.

  “Let’s do it,” Thomas said.

  The Friday morning inspection report for May 17, 1996, showed that two Omegans were missing: Raul Luiz and Elizabeth Taylor Bundy. In the world of rehab, missing residents weren’t an unusual occurrence. Voluntary-admission clients were known to walk away from treatment on a whim, but inmates were another matter and had to be accounted for. Elizabeth’s file showed that her release date was May 31. Raul’s was June 1.

  On a separate report, Thomas marked them both as “I” for isolation. On paper, they would be shown as being in isolation until their release date. Thomas noticed another name in isolation, as well: Tyrell Williams. His release date had already passed. It was supposed to have been May 15. Instead, Billy had put Tyrell in isolation for a violation of Omega standards. Tyrell didn’t belong in isolation. In fact, it appeared that he had a job waiting for him with something called Mary’s Theatrical Touring Company. Thomas would release Tyrell immediately back into society.

  And then this morning at the business meeting, Thomas would announce that Billy had retired and Thomas was stepping up into the director’s chair at the request of the board. Thomas had waited fourteen long years for this moment, swallowing more bile than anybody should ever have to keep down.

  At 6:00 a.m., Thomas took his place behind the lectern on the auditorium stage. Pounding the gavel, he brought the meeting to order. The room of fifty-seven Omegans quieted to a hush. Thomas adjusted the microphone and cleared his throat.

  “It’s a new day for Omega,” he began.

  In May 1996, a total of 80,772 people disappeared in the U.S. without a trace. William Dewey Brandt was one of them.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Ernesto was the first to notice the young woman with the gun standing outside the Casino Histórica. She was an amateur, obviously, a pocho, an outsider. He had been watching her since 8:00 p.m. as he stood by his Fleetwood, smoking a Pall Mall XL. Had she been a professional, she would not have allowed herself to be spotted so easily. Now at a little past 1:00 a.m., he saw Teresa and the other señoritas exit the front door of the palatial building, moving down the walkway toward the curb where the Cadillac was parked.

  He heard them laughing, saw Teresa trip in her heels, bounce off Elizabeth, and catch herself in Araceli’s arms. At the same time, he became aware that the young woman had stepped out of the shadows. A streetlamp exposed her face. Pretty. Young. Blue-black hair cut short in the fashion of the children, Ernesto thought. Children who should not be carrying guns.

  She pulled the pistol out of her waistband as Ernesto did the same. Two shots were fired.

  Racing forward at twenty-five hundred feet per second, the first bullet was aimed a little too high. It went over the head of its mark and into the night air, traveling more than a mile at an upward angle before it started its downward trajectory. It was finally stopped by the red tile of a rooftop.

  The second bullet was more precise. It went into the head of its target, smashing through bone into brain, barreling through the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum and out through the back of the skull. The target went down but did not die instantaneously. The target had enough last moments of consciousness to do a quick life review of her twenty-something years, the famous life-flashing-before-my-eyes event described by survivors of near-death experiences. Unfortunately for the target, this was not a near-death experience. This was death. The target died from ballistic trauma.

  Ernesto hurried the ladies into the waiting limousine. Teresa was crying; Araceli was screaming, “¿Que pasó? ¿Que pasó?” What happened? What just happened? Elizabeth was silent because she knew. “Each of us dies the death he has made for himself,” the poet had told her in a dream.

  Ernesto started the engine, and the Fleetwood sped away.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  The cab fare from la casita to MEX was ten dollars. The one-way ticket on the 3:20 p.m. Aeromexico fight to the Tijuana Airport was seventy-three dollars. The Avis rental car at TIJ was twelve dollars per day. That left Elizabeth with eight hundred ninety-three dollars. She had almost signed her own name on the paperwork for the Toyota Camry but had caught herself in time. Lisa Smith. She would have to remember yet another name. She was Lisa Elizabeth Smith now.

  “Tiene mapas?”

  The woman behind the counter gave her a map of San Diego County and one of the state of California.

  “Gracias,” Elizabeth said.

  Elizabeth flashed her blue eyes and an Anglo smile at the agent at the border checkpoint and was waved through into San Ysidro. She drove north on I-805 until she saw an orange sign visible from the interstate. Taking the next exit, she pulled into a Home Depot parking lot. Inside, she bought a flashlight, a pick kit, a roll of stretch wrap, packing tape, a bottle of water, and four different-sized shipping boxes.

  “Do you happen to know the location of a FedEx that’s open all night?” she asked the cashier, who did.

  After checking the San Diego map, Elizabeth continued on I-805 north until she found the turn-off for I-8 East. Thirty minutes later, she saw a small green sign at the side of the road. Bern. Population 15,300. Elevation 1,843. This was Denise’s hometown, and she was right. There was nothing here. From the road, she could see downtown: a church, a real estate office, a hardware store, a restaurant. A little farther, there was a Motel 6 and past that, a rustic bar just outside the city limits, with Harleys in front.

  She drove past Bern and the biker bar without stopping. Twenty minutes later, she took the turn-off for Rattlesnake Road. There was nothing but brush and gravel for the first mile and then the second, but on about the third mile, she saw a ramshackle windowless A-frame cabin up ahead on the right. Pulling alongside, she shut off the engine and got out.

  She checked her watch: 7:15 p.m. Behind the mountains to the west, the sun had set, and the remaining light was slipping into shadow. A waning crescent moon was following the sun into shadow. It was three steps up to the front door, which Elizabeth saw was secured by a simple padlock on a rusted hasp. Working the tension wrench from the pick kit, she was able to open the lock.

  Inside, it was too dark to see. She turned on the flashlight and surveyed the small space, which she guessed was no more than forty square feet. There was a single mattress on a log frame, a wood-burning stove, a simple wooden chair, and a rough, graying table on which sat a kerosene lamp and an oval, galvanized bucket holding a distressed metal pitcher. On the wall in gun racks hung four hunting rifles.

  It wasn’t here. But it had to be here. Where else would Denise have hidden eight bags of banknotes? She couldn’t keep them in her tiny apartment in The City. They weren’t in the storage locker in San Diego. Where could they be? They had to be here.

  Elizabeth walked the interior of the small cabin, knocking on walls. But they were whisper thin. She looked up; there was no attic, just a beam across the A-frame. A stack of worn issues of Field & Stream lay next to the kerosene lamp. Beside the lamp sat a box of matches. She lit the lamp and stepped back. As she did, a floorboard creaked. She froze in place.

  Bending down, she saw that one board was slightly higher at the end than the others. Maybe it had rotted that way, curling upward. Or maybe… She pulled at the board, which gave way with no resistance. She removed it and then the board next to it. It was too dark to see what was beneath. Aiming the
flashlight, she shone the beam downward, revealing dirt and more dirt and then—there it was. A canvas bag.

  Daddy’s huntin’ cabin in the mountains east of San Diego. Of course. Because where would you hide more than seven million dollars in cash if the feds were watching you in San Francisco? Elizabeth had put herself in Denise’s place, to think like Denise, which was surprisingly easy for her. If she had been Denise, what would she have done? She would have moved the cash after leaving Mickie at the border. Denise still had that stolen Honda. She could have retrieved the cash from the locker and driven the hour and fifteen minutes that it took to get up to the cabin. After hiding the bags under the floor, Denise would have driven the car back to the border parking lot, hailed a cab to the airport, and been back in San Francisco by Saturday.

  That was a lot to do in one day, but Denise could do it. Especially if she were buzzing on dex or meth or whatever else she had in that nightstand next to her bed. Elizabeth remembered Denise offering her “ludes in the top drawer” on the night Elizabeth had gone to the Nash. The night she had killed Billy and turned to Denise because she had nowhere else to go.

  Elizabeth tried to lift the money bag by its handles. It was heavy. She eased it back down and angled her body so she wouldn’t strain her back. She sucked in her solar plexus, flexed her biceps, and tried again. This time, the bag came up. She hoisted it onto the floor. Loosening the drawstring cords, she opened the canvas. The bills were bundled by denomination, designated by colored straps. She pulled out a pack of hundreds in a mustard band, then another of fifties in brown, and one of twenties in violet. She continued working by lamp light until all the bundles were arranged on the wood planks. Setting aside the hundreds, she stuffed about eight hundred dollars of fifty-dollar bills into the pockets of her jeans and returned the rest to the bag. Easing it back into the hole, she pulled out another bag.

  When she was done, she had two hundred bundles of mustard money. An even two million dollars. No need to be greedy. Two million would do. Unfurling the plastic wrap, she wound it around each bundle like a Benjamin sandwich. Next, she used the post of one of her stud earrings to puncture the plastic with tiny holes. Pressing the bundles flat with her palms, she compressed them until they were about half an inch high. A stack of ten bundles was only about five inches tall and contained a hundred thousand dollars. She lined up ten stacks of ten. That was one million dollars. She repeated the process for the second million.

  It looked so small. Each million fit easily into the smaller two of the four shipping boxes she had brought along. She arranged the bundles neatly, five across in two rows. Then, for good measure, she placed a few issues of Field & Stream on top and added more plastic wrap to fill up the remaining space. After taping the box shut, she looked around.

  The two canvas bags had been dropped back onto the dirt and the floorboards fitted and straightened so that they looked just as they had when she arrived. She returned the other box, the wrap, and the tape to the rental car. Then she lifted the cardboard boxes of money using her leg muscles and placed them in the trunk of the Toyota. She went back into the cabin and closed the door behind her for one last look around. It was important that nothing be out of place. She couldn’t risk anyone knowing she’d been there.

  It looked good. She went to the lamp, lowered the wick, and blew out the flame. The cabin went dark. In the same moment, she heard the unmistakable potatopotatopotato of a Harley engine. She froze in place and listened. The Harley came closer and then stopped. She turned quickly to face the door. The door opened inward; if she moved to its right, she would be hidden when the biker entered. If the biker entered. But why else would someone be stopping at the Hollands’ hunting cabin?

  She slipped behind the space to the right of the door. She heard the sound of boots landing heavily on the front stairs, then silence. Then the door creaked open, letting in a thin white line of moonlight that widened slowly on the floor. The barrel of a gun entered first, followed by a body stepping onto that line of light in the darkness. Silently, Elizabeth moved behind the small frame. Denise. Even from the back, even in the dark, she recognized her compact body. She could smell Denise’s unique scent of marijuana and leather.

  Crooking her elbow under Denise’s chin, Elizabeth forced Denise’s head up and back until Elizabeth’s arm was pressed against her windpipe. Breath play. For a moment, Elizabeth went back in time. She was Gina Hunter’s sex slave, kneeling naked before her corseted Mistress. Gina’s husband, Buddy, had gotten on his knees behind Elizabeth and put his hairy arm around her neck. “Erotic asphyxiation,” Gina had explained as he compressed her carotid arteries, depriving Elizabeth’s brain of oxygen. “Hypoxia. It takes only five seconds to pass out,” Gina had explained, as she eased a vibrator between Elizabeth’s legs, stroking her clit. Elizabeth came in the same moment that she lost consciousness, a mind-blowing orgasm that broke the universe into a million bits.

  Now in the dark of the cabin, Elizabeth restrained Denise in a chokehold. Five, four, three—suddenly, Denise bent forward, twisting out of Elizabeth’s grasp. Elizabeth felt herself lifted up over Denise’s shoulders, flipping over and flying through the air head first, landing with a hard thud on her back. She heard the gun hit the floor and reached for it as Denise did the same. They both grabbed at it, but the pistol slid away. Denise was on her knees, crawling toward it. Elizabeth pounced on top of her, this time forcing both hands around Denise’s throat and squeezing until she stopped struggling and lay still.

  Elizabeth left her lying there and stood. She picked up the pistol.

  Ten minutes later, Denise looked like Christmas in June. She was wrapped as tight as a present in the wooden chair, her arms behind the back of the frame, her ankles bound to the legs with tape. For good measure, Elizabeth had found a length of rope in the trunk of the rental and used it to secure Denise in place. Elizabeth had relit the lamp, giving the room a soft yellow glow. Her bottled water sat on the table next to the lamp. The pistol was tucked safely into the waistband of Elizabeth’s jeans.

  Elizabeth grabbed a handful of hair at the top of Denise’s head and lifted her face. She hauled back and gave that pretty face a hard slap.

  “Fuck,” Denise said, opening her eyes. She shook her head and focused. “Lizbeth.”

  “Denise.” Elizabeth pulled the pistol from her jeans and pointed the barrel at her. “I thought you didn’t have a gun in San Francisco.”

  “Well, I’m not in San Francisco now, am I?”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “No, you’re not.” Elizabeth lifted the gun’s muzzle. “What is this? A Saturday night special?”

  “Uh-uh. It’s a Glock 19.”

  “A Glock, huh. Wow. Isn’t that what cops carry?”

  “Yup. Cops and Angels.”

  “You know your guns. I didn’t know that about you. I guess there’s a lot about you I didn’t know.”

  “I guess.”

  “I suppose I don’t need to ask why you did it. It’s pretty obvious. Root of all evil and all that.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But, me, Denise? And Mickie?”

  “I liked you both, Lizbeth. I really did. We were kind of like soul mates, the three of us. It’s just…” She shrugged.

  “You’ve got to have a soul to have a soul mate.” Elizabeth studied Denise for a moment: the pierced eyebrow, the wild hair, the get-you-in-trouble gaze. “I used to be a lot like you when I was younger.”

  “I think you still are,” Denise said.

  “God, I hope not.”

  Elizabeth moved to the table, retrieved the water bottle, and took off the cap. “They say the human body can survive for weeks without food. But it can last only a few days without water.” Elizabeth set the opened bottle between Denise’s thighs. “Squeeze now, baby,” she said. “You wouldn’t want that to fall down and spill. That’s your lifeline until the feds get here. And we have no idea how long that’s going to be.”

  Denise pushed the inside of her thighs toget
her to hold the plastic bottle upright. It did, in fact, look as if it might slip and empty. For the first time, Denise looked worried.

  “I’m sure you can manage this,” Elizabeth said. “You’re a survivor.”

  “Lizbeth,” Denise protested.

  “Don’t,” Elizabeth said. “Just don’t.”

  Denise didn’t.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  The all-night Federal Express was located just off I-8 and only ten minutes from the San Diego airport. Elizabeth’s cardboard boxes fit perfectly into slightly larger FedEx boxes. She shipped them “International Economy, Hold for Pickup” to the airport FedEx station in Barcelona, Spain. They would arrive in five days, and she would retrieve them in person.

  At the airport, Elizabeth returned the rental car to Avis, purchased a one-way ticket to Barcelona at the American Airlines counter and then a second ticket to Barcelona. She had no luggage to check; all she had was a backpack that she had carried since purchasing it in Mexico City on her way to Belize. American Airlines Flight 6204 to Barcelona with a connecting flight in Miami was scheduled to depart on time at 10:58 p.m.

  At a gift shop, Elizabeth bought a postage stamp, a thank you card that was blank inside, and a ballpoint pen. She wrote a personal note, enclosed the ticket, and addressed the envelope.

  She sealed the envelope and dropped it in a mailbox. Then she found a public phone and a directory. After finding the listing, she dropped in a quarter and dialed 1-800-225-5324. The tone sounded, and the quarter rolled out of the slot at the bottom.

  “Thank you for calling the Federal Bureau of Investigation tip line,” said a crisp female voice. “May I have your first and last name, please?”