EQMM, March-April 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I kept loading the register into the bag. “You don't think I'm worth watching?"

  Again, with the ski mask, I can't be sure, but he seemed to blush.

  "No. I mean, yes,” he said. “You're very pretty,” he said.

  I nodded. “There's not much money here we have access to, you know? A lot of it goes straight to the safe. That's procedure."

  "I'm a fairly frugal man,” he said. “Sometimes I just need a little extra for . . . tuition."

  "Tuition?"

  "And other academic expenses."

  "Academic expenses,” I repeated, not a question this time. I thought that he had a nice voice, and then I told him so. “You have a nice voice,” I said. “And pretty eyes.” I gave him my phone number, not writing it down because the security camera would have picked that up, but just told him to call, repeating the number twice so he would remember it. “And my name is Louise."

  "Thanks,” he said, “Louise."

  "Good luck with your education,” I called after him, but the door had already swung closed. I watched him run out toward the pumps and beyond, admired the way his body moved, the curve of his jeans, for as long as I could make him out against the darkness. I gave him a head start before I dialed 911.

  I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I was some bored, bubble-gum-popping, Cosmo-reading girl, just out of her teens, disillusioned with the real world and tired already of being a grownup and then along comes this bad boy and, more than that, literally a criminal and . . . well, sure, there's some truth there. But here again, you'd be missing the point.

  It wasn't exciting that he robbed convenience stores.

  It was exciting that he was brave enough to call me afterwards, especially in this age of Caller ID when I had his phone number and name immediately—Grayson, Delwood—and could have sent the police after him in a minute.

  That Cosmo article? The one I was reading when he showed up in the ski mask? “Romantic Gestures Gone Good: Strange but True Stories of How He Wooed and Won Me."

  Not a one of those stories held a candle to hearing Del's voice on the other end of the phone: “Hello, Louise? I, um . . robbed your 7-Eleven the other night, and I've been percolating on our conversation ever since. Are you free to talk?"

  That takes a real man, I thought. And—don't forget those academic expenses—a man who might just be going somewhere.

  * * * *

  But it had been a long time since I believed we were going anywhere fast. Or anywhere at all.

  We took the High Road down from Taos. That figured too: two lanes, 45 miles per hour.

  "Afraid they'll get you for speeding?” I asked.

  "Who knows,” he said. “One thing might lead to another."

  As we drove, he kept looking up into the rearview mirror, nervously, as if any second a patrol car really was gonna come tearing around the bend, sirens wailing, guns blasting. He had put his own pistol in the glove compartment. I saw it when I went for a Kleenex.

  "If we get pulled over, are you gonna use it?"

  He didn't answer, just glanced up again at the mirror, which rattled against the windshield with every bump and curve.

  * * * *

  I was doing a little rearview looking as well, I guess.

  Here's the thing. Even if I had become a little disillusioned with Del, I don't believe I had become disappointed in him—not yet.

  I mean, like I said, he was a planner. I'd seen my mama date men who couldn't think beyond which channel they were gonna turn to next, unless there was a big game coming up, and then their idea of planning was to ask her to pick up an extra bag of chips and dip for their friends. I'd dated men who would pick me up and give me a kiss and then ask, “So, what do you want to do tonight?” having had no idea what we might do except that we might end up in the backseat or even back at their apartment. I'm sorry to admit it with some of those men, but most times we did.

  On the other hand, take Del. When he picked me up for our first date, I asked him straight out, “So where does the desperate criminal take the sole witness to his crime on their first date?” I was admiring how he looked out from under that ski mask—his beard not straggly like I'd been afraid, but groomed nice and tight, and chiseled features, I guess you'd call them, underneath that. Those green eyes looked even better set in such a handsome face. He'd dressed up a little, too: a button-down shirt, a nice pair of khakis. He was older than I'd expected, older than me. Thirties, maybe. Maybe even late thirties. A little grey in his beard. But I kind of liked all that, too.

  "A surprise,” said Del, and didn't elaborate, just drove out of Eagle Nest and out along 64, and all of a sudden I thought, Oh, wait, desperate criminal, sole witness. My heart started racing and not in a good way. But then he pulled into Angel Fire and we went to Our Place for dinner. (Our Place! That's really the name.) And then my heart started racing in a better way.

  And then there's the fact that he did indeed finish his degree at the community college, which shows discipline and dedication. And then coming up with that story about his sister and why we were moving, laying out a cover story in advance, always thinking ahead. And then planning for the heist itself—the “big one,” he said, “the last one,” though I knew better. Over the last year, whenever tuition came due, he'd hit another 7-Eleven or a gas station or a DVD store—"shaking up the modus operandi,” he said, which seemed smart to me, but maybe he just got that from the movies he watched on our DVD player. He'd stolen that too.

  * * * *

  That was how we spent most of our nights together, watching movies. I'd quit the 7-Eleven job at that point—it was too dangerous, Del said—ironically, he said—and got a job at one of the gift stores in town, so I was home nights more. Home meaning Del's trailer, that is, because it wasn't long before I'd moved in with him.

  We'd make dinner—something out of a box because I'm not much of a cook, I'll admit—and I'd watch Court TV, which I love, while he did some of his homework for the business classes he was taking over at the college, balancing work and school and me. And then we'd watch a movie, usually something with a crime element like Ocean's Eleven or Mission: Impossible or some old movie like The Sting or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or all those Godfather movies like every man I've ever been with. I suggested Bonnie & Clyde a couple of times, for obvious reasons, but he said it would be disadvantageous for us to see it and so we always watched something else.

  "Is that all you do, sit around and watch movies?” Mama asked on the phone, more than once.

  "We go out some, too,” I told her.

  "Out out?” she asked, and I didn't know quite what she meant and I told her that.

  "He surprises me sometimes,” I said. “Taking me out for dinner."

  (Which was true. “Let's go out for a surprise dinner,” he'd say sometimes, even though the surprise was always the same, that we were just going to Our Place. But that was still good because it really was our place—both literally and figuratively—and there's romance in that.)

  "He loves me,” I'd tell Mama. “He holds me close at night and tells me how much he loves me, how much he can't live without me."

  Mama grunted. She was in South Carolina. Two hours time difference and almost a full country away, but still you could feel her disappointment like she was standing right there in the same room.

  "That's how it starts,” Mama would tell me, “ ‘I can't live without you,’ “ mimicking the voice. “Then pretty soon, ‘I can't live without you’ starts to turn stifling and sour and..."

  Her voice trailed off. And violent, I knew she'd wanted to say.

  And I knew where she was coming from, knew how her last boyfriend had treated her. I'd seen it myself, one of the reasons I finally just moved away, anywhere but there.

  "I thought you were going to start a new life,” she said, a different kind of disappointment in her voice then. “You could watch the tube and drink beer anywhere. You could date a loser here if that's all you're doi
ng."

  I twirled the phone cord in my hand, wanting just to be done with the conversation, but not daring to hang up yet. Not yet.

  "Frugal,” Mama said, making me regret again some of the things I'd told her about him. “Frugal's just a big word for cheap."

  "Are things gonna be different someday?” I'd asked Del one night, the two of us laying in bed, him with his back to me. I ran my fingers across his shoulder when I asked it.

  "Different?” he asked.

  "Different from this,” I said.

  He didn't answer at first, and so I just kept rubbing his shoulder and then let my hand sneak over and rub the top of his chest, caressing it real light, because I knew he liked that. The window was slid open and a breeze rustled the edge of those thin little curtains. Just outside stood a short streetlight, one that the trailer park had put up, and sometimes it kept me awake, shining all night, like it was aiming right for my face.

  After a while, I realized Del wasn't gonna answer at all, and I stopped rubbing his chest and turned over.

  That night when I couldn't sleep, I knew it wasn't the streetlight at all.

  * * * *

  For this big one, this last last one, Del roamed those art galleries in downtown Taos after work at the garage. He watched the ads for gallery openings, finding a place that stressed cash only, real snooty because you know a lot of people would have to buy that artwork on time and not pay straight out for it all at once, but those weren't the type of people they were after. He'd looked up the address of the gallery owner, the home address, and we'd driven past that too.

  I liked watching his mind work: the way he'd suddenly nod just slightly when we were walking across the plaza or down the walkway between the John Dunn Shops, like he'd seen something important. Or the way his eyes narrowed and darted as we rode throughout the neighborhood where the gallery owner lived, keeping a steady speed, not turning his head, not looking as if he was looking.

  We had a nice time at the gallery opening itself, too. At least at the beginning. Delwood looked smart in his blue blazer, even though it was old enough that it had gotten a little shine. And you could see how happy he was each time he saw a red dot on one of the labels—just more money added to the take—even if he first had to ask what each of those red dots meant. I hated the gallery owner's tone when he answered that one, as if he didn't want Del or me there drinking those plastic cups of wine or eating the cheese. But then I thought, He'll get his, if you know what I mean. And, of course, he did.

  "I like this one,” I said in front of one of the pictures. It was a simple picture—this painting stuck in the back corner. A big stretch of blue sky and then the different colored blue of the ocean, and a mistiness to it, like the waves were kicking up spray. Two people sat on the beach, a man and a woman. They sort-of leaned into one another, watching the water, and I thought about me and Del and began to feel nostalgic for something that we'd never had. The painting didn't have a red dot on it.

  "With the money,” I whispered to Delwood. “We could come back here and buy one of them, huh? Wouldn't that be ballsy? Wouldn't that be ironic?"

  "Louise,” he said, that tone again, telling me everything.

  "I'm just saying,” I said. “Can't you picture the two of us at the ocean like that? Maybe with the money, we could take a big trip, huh?"

  "Can't you just enjoy your wine?” he whispered, and moved on to the next picture, not looking at it really, just at the label.

  "Fine,” I said after him, deciding I'd just stay there and let him finish casing out the joint, but then a couple came up behind me.

  "Let's try s on this one,” the woman whispered.

  "S,” said the man. “Okay. S.” They looked at the couple on the beach, and I looked with them, wondering what they meant by “trying s." The man wrinkled his brow, squinted his eye, scratched his chin—like Del when he's thinking, but this man seemed to be only playing at thinking. “Sappy,” he said finally.

  "Sentimental,” said the woman, quick as she could.

  "Um . . . sugary."

  "Saccharine."

  "Okay. No fair,” said the man. “You're just playing off my words."

  The woman smirked at him. She had a pretty face, I thought. Bright blue eyes and high cheekbones and little freckles across them. She had on a gauzy top, some sort of linen, and even though it was just a little swath of fabric, you could tell from the texture of it and the way she wore it and from her herself that it was something fine. I knew, just knew suddenly, that it had probably cost more than the money Del had stolen from the 7-Eleven the night I first met him. And I knew too that I wanted a top just like it.

  "Fine,” she said, pretending to pout. “Here's another one. Schmaltzy."

  "Better! Um . . . sad."

  "No, this is sad,” she said, holding up her own plastic wineglass.

  "Agreed,” he laughed.

  "Swill,” she whispered, dragging out the s sound, just touching his hand with her fingers, and they both giggled as they moved on to the next picture. And the next letter too, it turned out. T was for tarnished, for trashy, for tragic.

  Del had made the full circuit. Even from across the room, I could see the elbows shining on his blazer. Then he turned and saw me and made a little side-nod with his head, motioning toward the door. Time to head back home. Back to the trailer.

  I looked once more at the painting of the couple on the beach. I'd thought it was pretty. Still did.

  I'd thought the wine had tasted pretty good, too.

  But suddenly it all left a bad taste in my mouth.

  * * * *

  A bad taste still as we drove south now.

  The steep turns and drop-offs that had taken us out of Taos had given way to little villages, small homes on shaded roads, people up and about, going about their lives. I saw a couple of signs pointed toward the Santuario de Chimayo, which I'd visited when I first moved out this way, picking Northern New Mexico just because it seemed different, in every way, from where I'd grown up. I'd found out about the church in Chimayo from a guidebook I'd ordered off the Internet, learned about the holy earth there and how it healed the sick. When I'd visited it myself, I gathered up some of the earth and then mailed it off to Mama—not that she was sick, but just unhappy. I don't know what I'd imagined she'd do with it, rub it on her heart or something. “Thanks for the dirt,” she told me when she got it.

  "Do you think they've found him yet?” I asked Del.

  "They?"

  "I don't know, Del. The police. Or the cleaning lady or a customer."

  We were nearing another curve and Del eased the Nova around it slowly, carefully.

  "Probably somebody will have found him by now. Like I told you last night, I tied him up pretty good, so I don't think he'd have gotten loose on his own. But by now..."

  He sped up a little bit. I don't think he did it consciously, but I noticed.

  A little while later, I asked, “Are we gonna do anything fun with the money?"

  "What kind of fun?"

  "I don't know. Clothes, jewelry . . . a big-screen TV, a vacation. Something fun."

  He scratched his beard. “That's just extravagance."

  "Are you gonna make all the decisions?"

  "All the good ones,” he said. He gave a tense little chuckle. “Don't you ever consider the future?"

  But again, he missed what I was saying. The future is exactly what I was thinking about.

  * * * *

  We bypassed Santa Fe proper, and then Del had us two-laning it again on a long road toward Albuquerque: miles and miles of dirt hills and scrubby little bushes, some homes that looked like people still lived there and others that were just crumbling down to nothing. The Ortiz Mountains standing way out in the distance. We got stuck for a while behind a dusty old pickup going even slower than we were, but Del was still afraid to pass. We just poked along behind the truck until it decided to turn down some even dustier old road, and every mile we spent behind it, my blood bega
n to boil up a little more.

  I know Del was picturing roadblocks out on the interstate, and helicopters swooping low, waiting for some rattling old Nova like ours to do something out of the ordinary, tip our hand—even more so after I asked about that gallery owner getting loose. But after a while, I just wanted to scream, “Go! Go! Go!” or else reach over and grab the wheel myself, stretch my leg over and press down on the gas, hurl us ahead somehow and out of all this. And then there was all the money in the trunk and all the things I thought we could have done with it but clearly weren't going to do. Once or twice, I even thought about pulling out that pistol myself and pointing it at him. “I don't want anybody to get hurt,” I might say, just like he would. “Just do like I ask, okay?” That was the first time I thought about it, and that wasn't even serious.

  Still, it was all I could do to hide all that impatience, all that restlessness and nervous energy. None of it helped by that tap tap tap tap tap of the mirror against the windshield. I felt like my skin was turning inside out.

  "I need to pee,” I said, finally.

  "Next place I see,” said Del, a little glance at me, one more glance in the rearview. I looked in the side mirror. Nothing behind us but road. I looked ahead of us. Nothing but road. I looked around the car. Just me and him and that damn mirror tapping seconds into minutes and hours and more.

  * * * *

  We stopped in Madrid, which isn't pronounced like the city in Spain but with the emphasis on the first syllable: MAD-rid. It used to be a mining town back in the Gold Rush days, but then dried up and became a ghost town. Now it's a big artist's community. I didn't know all that when we pulled in, but there was a brochure.

  We pulled up by one of the rest stops at one end of the town—outhouse, more like it. Del waited in the car, but after I was done, I tapped on his window. “I'm gonna stretch my legs,” I said, and strolled off down the street before he could answer. I didn't care whether he followed, but pretty soon I heard the scuff scuff of his feet on the gravel behind me. I really did need a break, just a few minutes out of the car, and it did help some, even with him following. We walked on like that, him silent behind me except for his footsteps as I picked up that brochure and looked in the store windows at antiques and pottery and vintage cowboy boots. Fine arts, too. “Wanna make one last last job?” I wanted to joke. Half joke. “Get something for me this time?"