by Ranae Rose
‘James!’ she cried, wishing with every fiber of her being that Rolando and the police officer would just disappear and leave her alone with him. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to shout at him. And she wanted to finish what they’d started in the back seat of the car.
James shot her a meaningful glance. Let me handle this, it seemed to say. She frowned. So far, James had handled everything. But then, she did like seeing him move and speak with such confidence. He didn’t tremble like she had, and with his strong arms, he probably could have held that gun steady until nightfall.
‘You want a cut of the cash?’ James asked. ‘Then you got it. But we’ll have to be sure you’ll keep quiet. How do you think we should do that?’
The police officer gaped. Apparently, he hadn’t expected the question. ‘You pay me enough and I’ll keep quiet.’
‘Your word isn’t good enough,’ James replied.
The police officer continued to stare at him incredulously.
‘There’s a hospital nearby,’ James said. Tiffany followed his gaze to where it rested on a blue and white ‘H’ sign that stood by the side of the highway, signifying that a hospital was indeed close.
The officer stared at him. ‘Yeah, so?’
‘You’re going to call your supervisor, or whoever you need to call,’ James explained, ‘and make a good excuse to leave your shift to go to the hospital. Something about a family emergency or whatever – just make it good.’
‘What then?’ the cop asked suspiciously.
‘Then you’ll drive to the hospital with one of us riding with you in your car to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. You’ll leave your cruiser there and come with us in our vehicle.
‘No way!’ the officer protested.
‘We’ll give you a cut of the cash and let you go unharmed a few hours from here. We just need to make sure we’ll have time to get away after you start running your mouth.’
‘I told you –’ the police officer began
‘And I told you your word isn’t good enough,’ James said dangerously, eyeing the officer down the length of the gun he wielded. ‘You don’t have a choice. If you won’t co-operate, I’ll shoot you, toss your body in the woods and take my chances.’
‘Alright,’ the police officer said after several long moments. ‘Fine.’
‘Make the call,’ James directed, taking a couple steps toward the officer as he continued to hold him at gunpoint. ‘And don’t mess it up.’
The officer fumbled at his utility belt, finding his phone. Tiffany held her breath as he dialed. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the officer said with admirable steadiness, ‘but I’m going to have to go off the clock. Yeah, it’s an emergency. My mom, she’s in the ER. She’s going into surgery now. You know, with my dad gone she doesn’t have anyone else. Alright. Will do. Thank you, sir.’
And it was done. Tiffany breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Your belt,’ James said, ‘hand it over.’
The police officer obliged reluctantly, relinquishing the small arsenal that held pepper spray, a radio and a nightstick, among other items.
‘In the cruiser,’ James said as the officer dropped his belt into the gravel, indicating the police car with a toss of his head that sent his forelock of golden-brown hair cascading into his eyes. ‘Rolando! Get in the car with him. Take his gun.’
Rolando scrambled from the Saturn’s backseat, still looking faintly sick. He obeyed, grabbing the cop’s gun and belt from the gravel before sliding into the cruiser after him. ‘We’ll follow you to the hospital,’ James said.
Tiffany swallowed a lump in her throat as she settled into the Saturn’s passenger seat, finally alone with James again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about … this,’ she asked, making a gesture to indicate Rolando’s presence and the complications it’d caused.
James shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I just wasn’t thinking. I’ve gotten really used to keeping quiet about everything, you know?’
Tiffany frowned at him.
‘I didn’t think it would turn into such a catastrophe,’ he said. ‘Rolando was supposed to meet me at the turn-around a couple hours after dawn with the rest of the money, ready to go.’
‘Who is Rolando?’ Tiffany asked. ‘And what do you mean ‘the rest of the money’? Have you robbed other banks?’ She braced herself for a confession of relentless criminal activity.
‘Just one,’ he replied. ‘Rolando and I robbed a bank in Connecticut a couple months ago. We hid the money here and laid low for a while. Then I took care of the bank in New York. I did it alone, took you hostage and stole a car. Basically, I did everything differently so they wouldn’t make any connections between the two robberies.’
Tiffany was silent as she let his words sink in.
‘Rolando and I used to work together on the same construction crew,’ he added. ‘We planned this together.’
‘So he’s coming to Mexico with us?’
James nodded. ‘While I robbed the bank in New York, he took care of things at the border. He used some of the cash from the first robbery to bribe a shift of customs agents. They know to let him and whoever’s in the car with him pass without question, regardless of any alerts from the police. Of course, we’ll give them the rest of the cash he promised them as we pass through. All we have to do is make sure we get there in time, before the bribed agents’ shift ends.’
‘Wow,’ Tiffany said quietly. Talk about planning – their plot was about as complex as any of the stories in the crime dramas she liked to watch on TV.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Rolando.’
Tiffany tried to glare at James but couldn’t. How did he manage to look so sweet and awkwardly repentant when she’d seen him perfectly poised as he commanded a police officer at gun point only minutes ago? She repressed the sudden urge to kiss him and settled for another question instead. ‘Are there any other secrets I should know about? Any other stops?’
James shook his head. ‘No, it’s straight to Texas and then into Mexico as soon as we get rid of this pain in the ass cop.’
The hospital loomed ahead, and James slowed the car, following the police cruiser into the parking lot. He brought the Saturn to a halt a few spaces away from the cruiser as Rolando and the cop emerged.
‘Everything OK?’ James asked when Rolando and the cop approached the car. The outline of the policeman’s handgun bulged beneath Rolando’s T-shirt, tucked into the waistband of his jeans. ‘Yeah,’ Rolando replied.
‘Alright. Both of you get into the back seat then. Rolando, make sure that he doesn’t try anything funny.’
They obeyed. ‘Hey,’ James said, casting a glance into the rearview mirror at the police officer. ‘Take off your uniform shirt.’ The cop obeyed, stripping to the white T-shirt he wore beneath and stuffing his brown uniform top beneath his feet. James backed the car out of its parking space and pulled out of the hospital parking lot, back onto the highway.
‘What are you looking for?’ Tiffany asked when James pulled open the glove box and began rummaging through it with one hand while he kept the other on the wheel. ‘I’ll get it for you.’
‘An MP3 player,’ he replied. ‘It’s in there somewhere.’
Tiffany found it. ‘Give it to the cop,’ James said when she offered it to him.
She passed it into the back seat. ‘Put the headphones on and turn it up all the way,’ James instructed. ‘If you take them out or turn the music off, you’re dead.’
The police officer obeyed with a frown, and soon the muffled sound of rock music filled the air. It would be much too loud for him to hear any conversation in the car. ‘Make sure he doesn’t watch our mouths,’ James added.
Rolando nodded.
‘It’s about three and a half hours to the Texas border,’ James said. ‘We’ll get rid of the cop there so he can get back to work before things start to look suspicious. Then we’ll high-tail it for the Mexican border.’
‘Are you sure we should let him
go that soon?’ Rolando asked. ‘We’ll still have about nine hours of driving just to get to Mexico after that.’
‘He’ll have a hard time keeping the money we give him – and probably his job, too – if he talks,’ James said, shooting a glare at the officer via the rearview mirror.
Rolando appeared thoughtful, but eventually shrugged. ‘Make that nine and half. We need to make a detour near San Antonio.’
James frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I need to stop at my cousin’s place. That’s where I hid the money.’
James’ blue eyes widened. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he demanded, his voice suddenly sharp. ‘The money was in the woods where we left it. I checked the bag when I brought it out.’
‘Did you look past the top layer of bills?’ Rolando asked.
James gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles went white, and Tiffany feared the steering wheel would snap in half. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.’
‘I had to make sure that you didn’t go back to Mississippi, get the money for yourself and skip the country without me,’ Rolando explained. ‘So I took most of the cash and left it with my cousin in Texas.’
Tiffany dared to glance at James out of the corner of her eye and saw that his face had gone red. ‘You idiot,’ he said, ‘you left all that money with some cousin?’
‘Relax,’ Rolando replied, ‘it’s in a locked trunk, and she doesn’t know what’s inside. I paid her a few thousand bucks to keep it hidden and told her I’d pay her more when I came back for it.’
‘You knew I was in New York orchestrating the next bank robbery!’ James said angrily. He looked like he wanted to yell, but the cop might have heard if he’d done so. ‘There was no reason for you to stray from the plan!’
Rolando shrugged. ‘I wasn’t taking any chances. It’s not that big of a deal though, man. We’ll just swing by, throw my cousin a few more bucks and be out of there in a minute.’
‘So why the hell did you make me go into the woods after the bag?’ James asked. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me then?’
‘Well, it still had a little of the money in it,’ Rolando said. ‘Mostly though, I just wanted a turn with the hostage.’
The steering wheel actually creaked as James gripped it, and Tiffany had a sudden vision of it breaking in two and the car careening off of the highway and into a ditch. ‘What do you mean ‘a turn’?’ James asked, his voice steely. ‘I told you not to hurt her.’
‘I wasn’t going to hurt her,’ Rolando said. ‘I was just going to have some fun.’
James turned suddenly to face Tiffany, and his blue eyes searched her body, eyeing her insufficient clothing and exposed flesh without lust for once. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ he asked. ‘What did he do to you?’
Tiffany resisted the urge to shrink away from James’ burning blue gaze. ‘He tried to force me to have sex with him,’ she said in a small voice. ‘He stopped when the police officer showed up.’
James broke into a string of vicious expletives.
‘Hey, you had your turn!’ Rolando said from the back seat. ‘I saw you with your pants down around your knees, so don’t act so high and mighty!’
James gripped the steering wheel harder than ever as a thick vein bulged at his temple. ‘Shut up before I blow your fucking head off, Rolando.’
****
James brought the car to a sudden stop at the edge of a small town near the Texas border. Still fuming, he spoke in clipped tones. ‘Take the headphones off.’
The police officer didn’t hear, of course. Rolando seized the thin cords and yanked the headphones from his ears. The cop frowned at them as they fell into his lap and rubbed a hand against his forehead, as if the music had given him a headache. ‘It’s about time,’ he said.
‘Rolando, give him some cash and get him out of the car.’
Rolando and the police officer argued over the amount until James threatened to shoot them both. Eventually, the police officer was turned out into the parking lot with the duffel bag, packed with twenty-five thousand dollars. ‘How am I supposed to get back from here?’ he asked, glaring at James through the driver’s side window.
James shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Take a bus, take a damn plane for all I care. You have enough cash to figure it out on your own.’
The police officer opened his mouth to speak again, but James cut him off. ‘You tell anyone about us and you’ll have a hard time holding onto that money. You might even go to jail yourself.’ He quickly rolled up the window and pulled out of the parking space, leaving the officer behind.
****
‘This cousin of yours,’ James said late that afternoon as the city of San Antonio faded into the background behind them, ‘does she live alone, or are we going to have to deal with a whole house full of people?’ He sounded irritated by the idea.
‘Alone,’ Rolando answered. ‘Both of her parents died within the past year, and now she lives in their house by herself out in the middle of nowhere.’
The house really was in the middle of nowhere. It was a little yellow-sided one story structure that hardly stood out against the scrubby Texas landscape. ‘Are you sure this is it?’ James asked as they neared it.
‘Yeah,’ Rolando nodded.
The car slowed as James guided it into the driveway, parking it next to a small Honda that had seen better days. ‘Go in and get the money,’ he said, glaring at Rolando.
‘Don’t you want to come in?’ Rolando asked. ‘Get a drink and maybe a sandwich or something? Take a piss?’
‘We’re just stopping to get the money, not taking a tour!’ James barked.
‘Are you sure?’
‘You’re right,’ James said suddenly, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door. ‘There is something I want to get out for.’ He stepped out of the car, stretching, and faced Rolando. Then he drew back his fist and let it fly into his jaw.
Rolando crumpled to the ground, moaning and clutching his face. When he looked up, blood was streaming from between his fingers. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ he demanded.
James cast a deliberate glance at Tiffany. ‘Touch her again and I’ll kill you.’
Rolando sputtered, spitting blood onto the ground. ‘I didn’t try to do anything with the hostage that you didn’t! I was just–’
‘She’s not a hostage,’ James said. ‘She’s here because she wants to be.’
Rolando’s jaw went slack as he stared. ‘What?’
‘She’s coming to Mexico with us,’ James said. ‘She’s mine.’
She’s mine. Tiffany’s knees quivered, despite the fact that she was still sitting down in the car.
Rolando stumbled to his feet, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘How the hell was I supposed to know? You said you were taking a hostage.’
James cleared his eyes of hair with an irritated flip of his head. ‘Now you know.’
Rolando looked as if he wanted to argue further, but the little yellow house’s screen door interrupted, opening with a creak. A head poked out, wide-eyed. ‘Rolando?’
The girl who had emerged from the house was young, maybe even a couple years younger than Tiffany. Her dark, straight hair reached just past her shoulders, and her even darker eyes were wide with surprise. She wore a white and red printed sundress appropriate for the warm southern Texas weather.
‘Marianna,’ Rolando said. ‘I’m here for the trunk.’
She nodded, eyeing his bleeding lip reproachfully. ‘Come in.’
James leaned to look at Tiffany through the window. ‘You come inside too,’ he told her. ‘She looks about your size. She should have something you can wear.’ He eyed her breasts through the inadequate cover of her thin, damaged shirt.
Tiffany stepped out of the car. She desperately needed to use the bathroom anyway.
Despite the heat outside, the interior of the little house was air-conditioned to perfection. Tiffany’s nipples
hardened in the cool air, more visible than ever beneath the semi-transparent fabric of her shirt. Marianna eyed her cousin and his two companions curiously, and her eyes slowed and widened slightly when they traveled over Tiffany’s bust.
‘You have the trunk?’ Rolando asked.
Marianna nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Hey,’ James said. Marianna’s eyes snapped from her cousin back to him almost immediately. ‘Do you have a shirt or something she could wear?’ he asked, indicating Tiffany.
‘I think I’ve got something,’ Marianna replied. ‘Be right back with it.’ She turned on her heel and sashayed down a short hallway, disappearing behind a door. When she emerged, she carried a small fabric bundle. ‘Here you go,’ she said, handing it to James while ignoring Tiffany completely.
‘Thanks,’ he murmured. ‘Tiffany, do you want to go put this on?’ He turned back to Marianna. ‘You have a bathroom she can use?’
Marianna tipped her head in the direction she had come from. ‘First door on the right.’
Tiffany took the bundle from James and headed back to the bathroom. There, she unfurled the lilac-colored T-shirt. She shed her ruined top gratefully and slipped into Marianna’s, which smelled freshly laundered. It fit her well, she saw as she surveyed her reflection in the mirror above the sink, but it didn’t hide the fact that she was braless. Oh well, at least it wasn’t gaping open in the front. She looked away from her obvious nipples to scrutinize the rest of her reflection.
She looked like hell. Her waves had turned wild, and the remnants of the make-up she’d put on before work days ago had stained her face unflatteringly. She turned on the water and bent over the sink, splashing handfuls of it over her face and scrubbing at the old make-up with her fingertips. When she finished, she almost felt fresh. She tackled her hair too, taming it as best she could with damp pats and handfuls of water.
A bottle of mouthwash on the counter caught her eye. Oh, what the hell. She was on the run with bank robbers, what was sneaking a mouthful of mouthwash compared to that? Marianna probably wouldn’t care anyway. She untwisted the cap, filled it and poured the gloriously minty liquid into her mouth, gurgling. When she spit it out, she felt like a new woman. She paused to use the toilet and wash her hands before returning to the kitchen where she’d left James and Rolando.
