After I dropped them off, I drove around the block once, as we’d practiced the day before, and pulled into one of the secluded spots in the back, almost in an alley. We’d identified this place as ideal.
I let the back door hang open an inch, so that it would be easy for Thor and Odin to get in, and positioned myself between the seats in the front so that I could slam into the passenger side quickly and let Zeus take the wheel, but still with access to the driver’s side if I needed to maneuver the car for any reason.
And there I waited, heart pounding, engine running.
A few bank customers went in the back way—most FCNs have front and back entrances.
I was to call if I saw cops.
They’d estimated the robbery would take seven minutes.
At minute eight, I started freaking out. No cops entered, and I heard no gunshots, but a lot can go wrong in a robbery. Never had I realized quite how much could go wrong, in fact, until I was sitting there in minute nine, thinking of all the ways.
And then the door opened and my three guys came walking out—fast—carrying bags, wearing their masks.
I opened the driver’s side door and slid into the passenger side. Zeus buckled up and they all tore off their masks and we were off, gunning through the alley and out onto the street.
“A second robbery. That should result in some fucked up publicity for your old boss,” Odin said. “And you’re going to be happy with our take.”
Thor said, “Very happy, Ice.”
“Sounds to me like some naughty tellers weren’t keeping their second drawers light,” I said.
Zeus rolled down the window. Cars jammed the streets, honking, but mostly the routes going toward the bank were affected. They’d chosen the Thunderbird for its pick up. If we had to run, it would be in the Thunderbird.
We rolled out of the business district, not talking. I had this feeling it was all too easy, but I didn’t want to jinx things by saying that aloud.
We parked around the corner from the van—illegally, but hey, that’s the luxury of a stolen car—and got out with the money in bags and briefcases.
We headed into a department store, splitting up inside—Thor and I as a couple looking at shoes, Odin and Zeus wandering on their own. This, too, we’d practiced the day before. The entire escape plan was completely different from the one they’d used with my bank. My guys seemed far more worried about anybody making a connection from one bank job to another than about outwitting the cops on any single job.
It made me so sad to think that after this I’d be dumped in a truck stop in Nevada. Blindfolded. Furthermore, Thor had told me we’d have to fuck up my haircut, otherwise people would know it was professionally done. “If your story is that we kept you blindfolded and drugged most of the time, your hair has to look like we cut it ourselves,” he said.
At least I got to keep the color—the stylist had left a bit of roots. The hair color version of pre-ripped jeans.
Out the corner of my eye I saw Zeus heading for the door that led to the street the van was on. Then Odin.
“They’re out,” I said.
Thor took my hand and we wandered toward the exit, out onto the sidewalk, and into the back of the van. Zeus and Odin were in the front, as usual.
We headed out to the highway, took a curlicue, and hit I-59 going northwest.
The mood loosened once we were zooming along. Odin even crowed a bit about what awesome robbers they were, and Thor counted up the money. Let’s just say many Paris Hilton comforters would soon be ordered.
That’s when the trouble began.
At first it was just Zeus not liking a car behind us. Evidently, it’s hard to tell if a car is following you on the highway; the only way is to slow down or take an exit. Zeus slowed, and the car in question slowed.
That got everyone’s attention.
My stomach twisted in knots. “You think it’s the cops?”
“No,” Zeus said ominously.
Oh. The other guys. The ones they were actually scared of. Odin and Thor argued about taking the upcoming exit. They pulled out their smart phones, scanning geography, maps.
Odin suggested the exit after. It was a better place for bailing, he thought. There was a flea market. An antique car show event next to it. Some kind of fairgrounds that would be good and busy.
“Fuck if we’re bailing,” Zeus said. But he took the exit.
So did our tail.
Thor sucked in a deep breath, sat straight, belted in. “Put your wig back on, Ice,” he said.
As if on cue, Zeus took a violent U-turn and then gunned the engine.
“Crap!” I grabbed the door handhold.
Thor continued, unperturbed by the car chase. “Zeus can probably outrun this guy, but you may need to bail with us. You can’t let them catch you. And you have a good chance to get away, because it won’t be you they’re focusing on. It’s us they want.”
I gripped the handhold more tightly as the van careened around a corner. “Can I help? If it’s not me they want?”
“No. And don’t try. It’s better for all of us.” We swung around another corner, tires screeching. “Don’t look out there,” Thor said. “Look at me, and try to relax.”
“Are you saying that because I’ll have less chance of being injured in a car crash if I’m not tensed?”
“Yes,” Thor said. “That’s kind of why.”
“Crap!” I felt frightened. “What about you? How bad is this?”
“Do we have skills?” he asked.
“They must’ve staked out the van,” Odin said from the front as Zeus sped up ominously. “This isn’t even the robbery, it’s the goddamn van.”
“What I wouldn’t give for those fuckin’ eight cylinders in that T-bird goddammit,” Zeus growled, turning again, practically tipping us over.
“Fucking-g American pussy van,” Odin muttered.
“I don’t want us to die in a car,” I said.
“You won’t.” Thor grabbed my hand. “If we bail, you just concentrate on getting out of sight and finding a hidey hole. Then you ditch that jacket and that wig and forget about us. Remember our story? You’ve been drugged and blindfolded for two or three days.”
“Right.” I nodded.
“You don’t know how long it’s been,” Thor continued, “and you don’t want to talk. Remember how we talked about how you don’t have to say shit?”
I nodded. I didn’t have to say shit.
I couldn’t believe this might be the end of the line for us. I wanted to say something to Thor, to all of them. I wanted to say what they meant to me, though I didn’t know if I could quite articulate it. It was huge, what they meant to me. Maybe too huge. They’d shaken my life out of its stupor. I would miss them deeply.
The ride turned bumpy, like we were going over railroad ties or something. Or maybe it was the van.
Odin said, “There’s a DD south of the city. That’s our meet-up spot. On the sevens at the seven.”
“What’s a DD?” I asked frantically.
“I can’t tell you that,” Thor said. “That is a code about where we’re meeting later if we bail and disperse.”
“I thought you guys never split up,” I said.
“Special occasion,” Thor said.
“Damn,” I said.
“Breathe,” Thor commanded. “Odin likes this fairgrounds. A trade show, a car show, it’s a fucking rabbit warren. We can do this. You can do this. And we’ll buy up your silly Paris Hilton comforters.”
“I don’t care about the comforters,” I said.
“Fairgrounds!” Odin called out.
“I go first.” Thor squeezed my hand. I wondered vaguely if they’d done this before. They all seemed to know their parts. “Okay? You stay until Zeus tells you.”
“Good luck…” I said, baffled. “Thank you…”
Thor jammed some money and a bunch of other stuff into his pockets and strapped a fanny pack around his waist. Then he stretched a fist ou
t toward Zeus and Odin. “God pack,” he said, and Odin and Zeus slapped his fist. I found the movement to be deeply poignant, my three robbers in danger, slapping hands goodbye. “Come on, Ice,” he said.
I slapped his fist, trying not to cry.
The van screeched and slowed and he jumped out into a crowd, and then we surged forward again, almost running over some people.
I stared in horror out the back window. Somebody got out of the car behind us and dashed into the crowd.
“They’re following him!” I said.
“They won’t catch him,” Odin said as we screeched around a tent, now totally offroading. People screamed.
Zeus zoomed into a parking ramp and started racing around, climbing upwards.
“This is fucked up!” Odin said. He and Zeus argued about how to shake the tail. Odin had firecrackers he thought to use.
It was all happening so fast—all this danger on the heels of all the suspense, the sex, the debauchery. I kind of got it, at that moment, about what Thor said about why everything had to be so extreme—the luxury, the food, the sex. Everything too much and all at once, but it all balanced out in a weird way.
We headed back down—I was completely dizzy by the time we blasted out of the ramp onto a relatively empty straightaway behind a building. Cars and semi-trailer trucks lined the sides.
“Bye, Isis,” Odin said as Zeus slowed. He jumped out, right out from the moving van, rolling on the ground and then dashing between trucks and disappearing.
Zeus and I kept on. Or more, bumped along. Something was wrong with the van.
“We’re riding the rims,” Zeus said. “Just like we’re on an episode of COPS, huh?”
“That’s not so comforting,” I said.
We headed behind a main fairgrounds building, but the van was breaking down. Slowing, bumping harder.
“See those workers going in and out of the back of that long building?” Zeus asked. “We’re going near there. When I say, you pop out and run like hell for that door. You get in there and make your way through to the front of the building where the crowds are. It’s probably a storage area or a kitchen back here, but it will lead to the front. Just use your will. Once you’re through, into the public part, you go left and get lost, got it? Once you’re in there, you do not know me.”
“Got it.” It was all happening too fast.
Zeus seemed to have more to say. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t apologize.”
“Ready? You’ll have to go while this thing is moving. I’m behind you, but don’t worry about me. Just make it in there. See it? Can you do it?”
“I can do it.”
We slowed, maybe ten yards from the back service entrance of a giant event building.
“Now!” he said.
I jumped out and fell, then I got up and ran for the door. A man in an apron tried to stop me. He held me by the arms. “Where’s your badge?”
A crash of metal and glass sounded behind me.
Suddenly Zeus was there. He yanked the guy sideways onto the ground and we ran in to some sort of food storage area. Together we went through, into a kitchen where two workers in whites stared at us. We continued through and out into a cavernous event space filled with people and booths and cars and music. It was chaos. Part of the car show, I thought.
We got some dirty looks for coming in the wrong entrance.
“Go!” Zeus pointed.
I went left and stole around a booth, feeling totally freaked. Everyone was looking at me. I wove in and out of booths until I was thoroughly lost, and then I slowed. Once I was certain I wasn’t being followed, I ducked into the women’s bathroom and slipped into a stall, where I pulled off my coat and wig, stuffing them into the sanitary napkin disposal bin.
Okay, I thought. Free.
Or was I? I eyed the window high on the wall. What if I climbed out of it? But then I might look more guilty.
I heard women come in and out. I used the toilet and flushed it, then went out and washed my hands. Nothing weird, though I imagined the entrance might be staked out. Or would it? Thor had said they wouldn’t care about me. After five more minutes of dawdling, I steeled myself and walked casually out onto the event center floor.
Nothing happened.
I wandered around, looking at the old cars, feeling naked without a purse, and just really alone—more alone than I’d ever felt—I suppose because nobody in the world knew where I was. I could so easily disappear. I wondered how my guys were faring, and I closed my eyes, sent them each a good thought.
It was near the 1950s trucks area that I saw the knot of people. Something happening. I wandered over and pushed in a ways—just enough to see Zeus, lying motionless on the concrete floor.
I tried to keep myself composed like I was just another person. “What happened? Was he shot?” I asked the woman next to me.
“Shot? No.” She looked at me funny, like, why would I think that? “He collapsed, looks like.”
Three men in street clothes were hoisting him up onto a stretcher, and I was pretty sure they weren’t doctors. Two EMTs stood on the sidelines, looking bewildered and angry. “Why aren’t the EMTs helping him?”
She shrugged.
I felt frantic. Had the bad guys had forced the EMTs to relinquish their stretcher? I turned to the woman. “The EMTs brought that stretcher?”
She nodded, brows knit.
I had to act fast; they were preparing to carry Zeus off to God knows where.
I pushed in without thinking. “I’m a nurse. Let me help.”
“It’s under control.” A man with pale pinkish skin and a crew cut lifted the front end. A pudgy one had the back and another—gray hair, dark skin—stood by.
“Did you get his vitals?” I asked.
“It’s under control.” They began to carry him toward the back.
I followed. “Where are you transporting him to? What medical center?” My lines were coming completely from TV at this point.
They ignored me as they passed into the kitchen and I just followed them, right out through and to the back, the way we’d come in. What could they do to me around all these people? Though there weren’t so many once we were outside.
Our trashed van was still out there, nose smashed into a parked truck. The men set down the stretcher next to a large black Lincoln Navigator and hoisted Zeus up by the arms.
“You can’t do that!” I said. “He might have a spinal injury! I demand to see your credentials.”
They ignored me, stuffing him into the back seat.
“You can’t just transport a man like this!” I protested.
Right then I felt a hand grab my hair, and something hard poked into my back. A gun. “Get in.”
“Leave her,” the pudgy man said.
“What do the two numbers on a blood pressure reading signify?” the man with the gun asked me.
I didn’t know the answer. But did they? “Baseline and highpoint,” I bluffed.
“Wrong. In.” Rough hands shoved me into the back seat next to Zeus. The pudgy guy squeezed in next to me and we were off.
“What is this?” I demanded.
“You fucking up, that’s what it is,” the pale man said from the front. “You showing us you’re with him.”
“You can’t do this!”
And then the pudgy one punched me in the face. My head snapped back with the blow, my ears rang. I tasted blood in my mouth. “One more word and you die in here,” he said.
The punch stunned me so much, I felt a little off balance in my thinking. I looked over at Zeus—I could see from the rise and fall of his chest that he was still breathing. Had he been hurt? Drugged?
The pudgy guy made me empty my pockets and clean out Zeus’s. I pretended not to find his cell phone.
“Your friend’s trail of ripped flowers wasn’t so hard to follow,” he said triumphantly.
I pretended not to hear or care, but I hated that they might’ve used what I’d come to r
egard as Zeus’s expression of grief to find him and Thor and Odin.
We rode in silence, except for my heart pounding in my ears. My mind raced in circles—what to do, how to get out. Maybe twenty minutes later we stopped in some kind of shipping yard. The pale guy with the crew cut pulled Zeus out and found the cell phone.
For that, the pudgy guy hit me again. It was more stunning the second time, and I began to cry.
I backed up and the older guy grabbed me by the hair and started forcing me toward a gray metal boxcar, the sort you’d see on a freight train, except it was on the ground. More box than boxcar, then.
The blond man unlocked a padlock and swung open the door. The guys shoved the two of us in. Then they shut it back up and locked it.
And it was completely and totally dark inside.
I crawled across the metal floor, feeling for Zeus, finding his leg, feeling up to his face. I cupped his cheek. “Zeus,” I whispered. “Zeus!”
He didn’t answer. I shook him gently. From what I could feel, he was in a twisted position. Was something broken? I laid him out straight, on his back, wishing I could see him, see if he had injuries.
I crawled to the door and put my ear to it. I could hear nothing. I felt around until I found a handle, and I yanked and pushed and rattled, but there was no budging it.
It was like an inky-black sensory deprivation chamber in there, and terribly hot, too. It came to me that it might be airtight. Though it had looked rusty on the outside. Where there was rust, there were holes, right? Just no light, I told myself.
Just don’t breathe a lot, I told myself.
I went back to Zeus and stretched out beside him. The sound of his breathing comforted me. “Zeus,” I whispered now and then, but he never stirred. I sometimes put my fingers to his neck to feel his pulse. I also took off his shoes and socks, and I put his socks under his head as a kind of pathetic little cushion. I wanted to take off more just so he’d stay cool, but I didn’t want to bang his body around in case he was injured.
Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire Page 217
