“What’s up, sir?” Roy asked.
“Registration and license.”
“Temporary registration and bill of sale are in the glove box, and my license is in my wallet.”
The detective nodded. Roy got his wallet out of his back pocket and produced his driver’s license. Carol passed him the temporary car registration and bill of sale. He handed both to the detective. The detective examined them both and handed them back.
“Mr. Stevens, you’ve been interfering in police business.”
Roy looked at him quizzically. “I’m not sure—”
The detective shook his head. “You keep acting stupid, you’re going to make me angry.”
“We don’t want any trouble.”
“Then quit following those guys you’ve been following. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I better not see you again.”
Roy watched the detective in his side mirror until he got back into the Impala and drove off.
“So we’re all done,” Carol said.
“No. It’s only going to be a few more days. I can feel it. We just need to be more careful, and we need a new car.”
“We’re going to trade in the Bronco?”
“No. Any legit car is just going to lead to me. I’ll steal something for tomorrow.”
Roy drove around in circles for a while, just in case anyone else was following them. They ate dinner at The Pasta House, a chain spaghetti restaurant near their motel. Then they stopped at a Quick Shop to fill up their gas tank and buy some snacks before they went back to their room.
The parking spaces in front of their room were full, so they parked across the lot. Carol got out of the car carrying a bag of snacks and a six-pack of beer. “Where will you get a car tomorrow?”
Roy locked the car. “Find a long-term parking lot. Train station is a good bet. We’ll only need the car for a few hours.”
Roy led the way. Just as he came to the door to their room, room key in hand, Stevie sprang out of the shadows and sucker-punched him in the side of the head. Roy staggered off balance. Stevie stepped forward and punched him in the gut. Roy folded up. Carol gasped. The snacks and the six-pack fell out of her arms. Roy scrambled around a breezeway post. Carol scurried backward across the parking lot, looking for other attackers. Roy caught Stevie on the chin with a right cross and shifted back behind the post, but Stevie charged after him. Carol spun around. The Bronco. She shoved her hand into her handbag, searching for the spare car keys, but her hand found the butt of the Smith & Wesson. She pulled it out, glanced at Stevie and Roy struggling on the breezeway, looked at the gun. She couldn’t do it, could she? Stevie grabbed Roy by the throat and started banging his head against the wall. Christ. She had to help him. She raised the .38. She was too far away. Without thinking, she rushed up behind Stevie, shoved the pistol into his back, and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked.
Stevie’s head swiveled. Roy tore free of Stevie’s grip, pushed past him, and snatched the gun from Carol’s hand. Then he pivoted and backhanded the pistol hard into Stevie’s face. Blood sprayed onto his clothes. Stevie staggered. Roy hit him again, the barrel of the gun striking Stevie’s temple. He fell to the pavement, his face a bloody mess. Roy kicked him. Stevie didn’t move. Roy glanced around the parking lot. No one was watching. He leaned against a nearby car to catch his breath. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t think I could do it,” she said.
“But you did. You saved my ass. I’m not going to forget it.”
“I wanted to run.”
“Everybody wants to run.”
“Why didn’t the gun go off?”
“It was on an empty chamber. If you’d pulled the trigger again, you would have woken up the neighborhood.” He spotted the Dodge Charger parked two cars down. “Hell, there’s his car. Help me drag him to it.”
“Is he dead?”
“No. I should kill him. He deserves it. But that might spook the other two. We’re going to take their score before I deal them out. Give me a hand. We need to get out of here.”
They dragged Stevie to his car and loaded him into the back seat. “Pooch must have seen us. We should have been paying more attention, should have been looking for their cars. We need to move every day from here on out.”
They got their suitcases from the motel room, picked up the six-pack and the snacks from the pavement on their way to the Bronco, and drove onto the beltway. “Where to?”
“The next interchange should be fine.”
“The cops have warned us off.”
“Yeah.”
“Your old partners know we’re here.”
“What’s your point?”
“Is it too dangerous?”
“I won’t lie to you. The clock is ticking. We can’t be around here much longer, that’s for sure. But I still think we can rip them off. Will you trust me on it?”
“Okay.” She nodded. “I’ll trust you.”
* * *
Darius and Bobby Reese were sitting in a gray Volvo in the parking lot of the Light Fantastic Gentlemen’s Club. It was Jimmy Shane’s money laundry. There’d been fights there the last few nights, and Jimmy had sent them there in case the bouncers needed extra help.
Bobby patted the pistol in the pocket of his hoody. “Your old lady will be pissed if she finds out you were here.”
Darius shifted in his seat. “She knows it’s just business.”
“Woman that pregnant ain’t thinking straight. She’s thinking about how long it’s been since you been fucked.”
“How the hell would you know?”
“I’m just saying—”
“You’re just saying bullshit. That woman be on me night and day if I was home.”
“Man, that’s not a picture I want in my head.”
“Then shut the fuck up.”
They sat for a while watching men go into the club. Finally, Darius said, “Hey, you notice those cars fluttering around the edges of our pick-ups and deliveries?”
“Yeah. I told Jimmy. He took care of that,” Bobby said.
“How’s that?”
“He put Smiley on it.”
“I don’t trust Smiley.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a cop. He’d sell us out to save himself every time.”
“Jimmy trusts him.”
“Jimmy pays him; he don’t trust him.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Tomorrow’s the big money day. If somebody wanted to jack us, that’s their best day to try. Tony’s doing collections. You’re supposed to be off. You hang back, stay out of sight at Jackson Street. When I leave out of there with the money, you follow me. If those guys ambush me, you follow them, tell the boss where they are.”
“Let them take the cash?”
“Jimmy will want them all dead. We get in a gunfight, maybe we win—maybe we don’t. If you follow them, find out where they’re at, Jimmy can send a crew to clean them up.”
“What about you?”
“Dead or alive, you won’t be able to help me.”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting to follow you.”
“Great,” Darius said, “Of course, nothing’s going to happen.”
Bobby smiled. “You’re right. Nothing’s going to happen.”
* * *
Stevie staggered into the Elm Street house, his eyes black and the front of his shirt bloody. Pooch jumped up from the sofa. “Jesus Christ! What happened to you?”
“Fucking Paul broke my nose.”
Jacob came out of a bedroom. “You were supposed to phone us.”
They followed Stevie into the kitchen. He went to the sink, splashed cool water on his face, and patted his face dry with paper towels.
“All swelled up, but not so bad with the blood off,” Pooch said. “A touch crooked to the right, though.”
“Straighten it out,” Stevie said.
Pooch put his hands on both sides of Stevie’s nose a
nd applied gentle pressure.
“Jesus fuck, how about taking it easy?” Stevie said.
“You want it straight?” Pooch said. He lowered his hands. “That looks better.”
Jacob got a beer from the refrigerator and handed it to Stevie, who held the can against the side of his nose.
“Where was he?” Jacob asked.
“Econo Inn out at the end of Greene Boulevard.”
“How did the kid take you?” Pooch asked. “He’s not much of a fighter.”
“I had him until the girl put a gun on me. Lucky I didn’t get shot.”
Pooch chuckled. “That little girl pulled a gun?”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, he’s gone now,” Jacob said.
“I know it.”
“Maybe he’s been scared off,” Pooch said.
“Are you kidding? He’s not going to give up for nothing. Would you?” Jacob asked.
Pooch shrugged.
“We’re just going to have to keep our eyes open. Good thing this job is already in the bag.”
“I want him,” Stevie said. “I want to fuck him up and then kill him. And that girl’s going to take a beating.”
“You need to settle down, hoss,” Pooch said, “or that nose will start bleeding again.”
“We got to get them,” Stevie said.
“Don’t worry,” Jacob said. “He’s going to turn up. He has to. He can’t leave well enough alone. When he tries for the money, we’ll take him and the girl.”
* * *
Roy and Carol were in a room on the backside of the Budget 8 Inn, the last motel on the access road at the next interchange. Roy was sitting up in bed with a plastic bag of ice pressed against his face. The local news was on the TV, but there was no report of an altercation at the Econo Inn or of a man found in a car.
“How are you feeling?” Carol asked.
“Fine, really, other than the bruised face.”
“So we’re still on our plan?”
“Steal a car, set up on the Jackson Street house, don’t let the cops see us, follow the minivan. If the guys strike, follow them, take the money.”
“What if they’re ready for us?”
“Of course they plan to be ready for us. But we get to choose our time. They can’t be on their guard every minute. They’re going to believe they’ve outrun us, they’re going to party, and we’re going to get the money.”
“But what if they catch us in the act?”
“If we’re past the point of no return, then we’ll have to shoot it out.”
“Roy, I don’t know—”
“I know you don’t know. You’re still afraid you might run. That’s okay. Everyone starts out that way. Don’t worry about it.”
“Did you?”
“Oh, yeah, first time out, I was scared half to death and afraid my partners would find out.”
“Your ice is melted.”
She took the bag of ice into the bathroom where she’d put the ice bucket. She looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know why—why at this moment—but she wanted to have sex with him, wanted to feel the physical intimacy that matched the emotional intimacy she felt. She didn’t care what she’d told Terry. She still felt loyal to him. It was like an old habit she couldn’t give up, but she knew now she didn’t love him anymore. What she felt for Roy—it was something new and deep that she couldn’t yet put into words. He’d said that she’d saved his ass. She smiled to herself. She’d done that. She’d made that choice. She felt so, felt so—what? Free wasn’t the right word. She wanted him inside her.
When she came out of the bathroom carrying the ice bag, she was naked. Her long dark braid hung over one shoulder and swayed with her breasts as she sashayed across the room to the bed. She watched Roy watching her. She knew she was going to get her way. She handed him the ice bag. “You see something you like?”
He set the ice bag on his night table without taking his eyes off her. “God, you really are beautiful.”
She climbed onto him and started unbuttoning his bloody shirt.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want to.”
“You think it’s a good idea?”
“Don’t care.” She leaned down and kissed his lips.
* * *
Later in the night, Roy lay beside her, watching her sleep—her relaxed, open expression, her soft breathing, the occasional flutter of her eyelids. The first time they had sex, after Pooch jumped her, she’d needed affirmation that having sex with marks didn’t taint her, and he’d given her that. But this time, she’d made love to him, given herself emotionally as well as physically, simply as a gift. They were completely intimate now. Their relationship was exactly where he wanted it to be. So if they were going to continue together, there couldn’t be a lie between them. They had to be skin on skin. As soon as this job was over, he was going to tell her the truth about how Terry got arrested. And then she would have to decide if she would stay with him or go back to Fredericksburg to wait for her boy.
8
The Robbery
Friday afternoon, Roy and Carol were sitting in a stolen Chevy Monte Carlo a block back from the Jackson Street house on the other side of the street. Roy was wearing a ball cap, wraparound sunglasses, and a black windbreaker. Carol was wearing a blond wig and a gray raincoat. It was raining, fat drops coming down hard, so there were no pedestrians on the sidewalks or children playing outdoors. Half a block up, on the same side of the street as the money collection house, the Dodge Charger sat at the curb. Since Roy and Carol had started watching, three different men had made deliveries to the Jackson Street house. It was almost 5:00 p.m. when a ponytailed man in a leather jacket came out of the house with a gym bag, jogged over to the minivan, and drove away. The Charger started after the minivan, and Roy and Carol followed the Charger.
Thunder boomed. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with the downpour, but Roy managed to keep the Charger and the minivan in view. As the minivan approached the parking lot of a shuttered Save-U-Mart discount store, a white Suburban sped through a stop sign and rammed into its front end, crashing it into a light post. The Charger pulled over. Roy and Carol slid to a stop about half a block back. Two men wearing facemasks and carrying assault rifles jumped out of the Suburban and rushed through the torrent to the wrecked minivan.
“Looks like Stevie and Pooch,” Roy said.
* * *
In the minivan, Darius spat out his mouth guard. The airbags were deflating. He had the gym bag in his lap and a sawed-off shotgun across his knees. When Stevie jerked open the van door, Darius pointed the shotgun.
“Relax, bro,” Pooch said. “It’s all good.”
Darius unzipped the bag. There were five bundles of money. Four of them were labeled “$10,000.” He took one of the $10,000 bundles and slipped it into his jacket. “Just as agreed.”
Stevie nodded. Pooch grabbed the gym bag.
“Hold up,” Darius said. “This needs to sound real.” He pulled a pistol from his pocket, fired it into the roof, and then fired the shotgun into the back of the van.
* * *
Roy and Carol heard the gunfire and watched as the two men disappeared with the gym bag into the Save-U-Mart parking lot. “Damn rain,” Carol said. “Can’t see anything.”
“The guy in the Charger isn’t being left behind.”
When the Charger pulled back into traffic, they followed. It turned left at the stoplight, turned right at the next corner, and right again six blocks later. A Ford Explorer was sitting in the parking lot of the All-Trust Independent Insurance Agency. The Charger pulled up beside it, and Pooch and Stevie climbed out with the gym bag and the rifles and got in. The Charger drove three blocks down to Greene Boulevard, turned left, and headed for the freeway interchange, Roy and Carol following two cars behind.
* * *
Darius got out of the wrecked minivan and jogged through the rain to the black pickup truck that he’d parked on the s
treet. He sat down in the truck and smoothed his wet hair back out of his face. His end of the take—$10,000—was tucked inside his jacket. He’d seen Bobby drive by, following Stevie and Pooch, so there was only one thing left for him to do. He drove to the Shell station on the corner of First Street and used the pay phone.
“Jimmy?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve been jacked.”
“What?”
“Some guys T-boned me and took the bag.”
“Where?”
“At the old Save-U-Mart.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Bobby is tailing them.”
“How’s that?”
“We were talking the other night, thought there might be trouble since those cars have been following the pick-ups, so I had him following me.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“What was the take?”
“Forty-three thousand, six hundred and forty.”
“Get back here.”
“On my way.”
Darius hung up and called home. “Melody?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Be ready to go.” He got back into the pickup truck. The dominos were falling just right. Jimmy and the guys were going to be completely focused on Jacob and his crew until they killed them and got the money back. By the time Jimmy found out the money was short, he and Mel would be way down the road. He’d secured a new life for his family. He smiled to himself. Jimmy was never going to see him again.
* * *
Bobby cut across the Save-U-Mart parking lot in an old Ford Pinto and watched the two hijackers climb into a black Ford Explorer. Darius had been right. Smiley was worthless. He hoped Darius was okay, but he couldn’t stop to check. He had to keep after the Explorer. If he lost the money, there would be hell to pay. The rain started to let up. He was parked on the street across from All-Trust Independent Insurance Agency when a blue Dodge Charger pulled up, and the two guys with the gym bag got out of the Explorer and climbed into it. But something was strange. It seemed as if a red Monte Carlo was also following the money. There it was, just ahead of him as he followed the Charger down Greene Boulevard. He glanced at the shotgun on the seat beside him. That was Jimmy’s money. If the people in the Monte Carlo got in the way, he was going to deal with them.
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