by Mia Ford
She tapped the tip of the pen to the paper and stared at me as she spoke. “Well, ma’am, for starters, you can tell me what you’re doing hanging around the people that we think killed your fiancé.”
I suddenly felt like a criminal myself, as if I’d just been caught committing a major crime. I said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She reached into her jacket pocket and brought out five Polaroid mugshots and lay them out on the table one by one as if she were dealing cards. The five mugshots were of Rick’s crew. The first one was Rick and the last one was Eddie. Chunk, Ronnie, and Pete were the middle three.
She tapped a fingernail on the table. “Miss Duval, can you identify any of these men?”
I didn’t look down at the photos. I looked her in the eye and said, “No.”
Her eyebrows shot up like window shades. She grinned at me. “No?”
“No.”
“Miss Duval, have you been working at a dive bar called Dick’s Place for the past week or so?” She asked the question and gave me a stern look, waiting to see if I was going to lie. I clenched my teeth together and tried not to cry.
“Are you following me?” I asked quietly.
She ignored the question to ask, “Have you seen any of these men at the bar?”
When I didn’t answer, she put the cap on the pen and tossed it on the table. She leaned back with her arms over her chest and swept her eyes over me again.
She said, “You’ve certainly changed your looks since I last saw you.”
“I just thought I’d try something new,” I said shyly, tucking my hair behind my ears. I tried not to sound defensive, which was hard since she seemed to have the ability to see right through me. I tried to hold her gaze. I tried not to blink. My eyes started to water.
“This one, Eddie Wright,” she said, tapping the fingernail to Eddie’s mugshot. He was grinning. The silver tooth on display. “We’re pretty sure this is the one who killed your fiancé.”
She tapped on Ronnie’s mugshot.
“This was the guy who was with him. We have the surveillance video from the shooting to match them for height and weight, a description of the car, and a confidential informant ready to testify that they were criminal associates of the clerk. It was a deal gone wrong. At least that’s what I thought until I got the report from the surveillance team that’s been watching them for a week.”
She let the words hang in the air for a moment.
I said, “I don’t understand.”
“This one, the one you’re sleeping with.” She tapped the fingernail to Rick’s photo and left it there. “I believe the other two were following his orders. He was responsible for your fiancé’s death, Miss Duval, and now you’re fucking him. It makes me wonder, were you in on the murder, too? I know your fiancé had a sizable life insurance policy. Did you conspire with The Wright Brothers to kill Brent Griffin? Because that’s the way it looks to me and I’m pretty sure the D.A. will see it the same way.”
“No… I would never… I loved Brent…”
“You’ve got a damn funny way of showing it,” she said, her voice filled with disgust.
That did it.
My resolve broke and my eyes slowly lowered to Rick’s mugshot. I couldn’t believe that he had anything to do with Brent’s murder. I had convinced myself that it wasn’t possible. Rick was a good man, regardless of what she was saying. Or was he just good at deceiving stupid women who fell for his charms hook, line and sinker?
She picked up the pen and took off the cap, then leaned into the table. “Miss Duval, I’m going to give you one chance to make things right, for the sake of Brent Griffin, a man you once claimed to love. If you had anything to do with his death, or if this is just one huge coincidence, you have one chance to come clean. Otherwise, you’re going down with the rest of these pieces of shit.”
I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand and took a deep, shuddering breath. For Brent’s sake, I said, “I just wanted to kill them all…”
RICK
Chunk was behind the wheel of the panel van he had stolen for the Crown job. It was pale blue when he stole it from a Wal-Mart parking lot two days ago. Now it was white with a fake license plate and a City Electric magnet on the side.
I was in the passenger seat. Eddie, Ronnie, and Pete were in the back. Dottie was sleeping peacefully in Barstow at the Motor Inn. Sandy was probably at home. Waiting for my call.
The plan was for Chunk to drop us off at the curb in front of Crown’s, then remain behind the wheel with the motor running, parked half a block down. Me, Eddie, and Ronnie would go inside. Ronnie would take out the security guard with a stun gun and Eddie would watch over anyone that happened to be inside. I would force old man Crown to hand over the diamonds. Pete would stand watch on the sidewalk and alert us if any trouble headed our way.
We had to be in and out in less than three minutes because that was the average response time for LAPD in this part of town. Any longer and our chances of getting caught increased exponentially.
I had one firm rule when we were pulling a job that involved people. No guns. Ronnie had the stun gun, Eddie and I had the telescopic steel batons; neither of which were considered a deadly weapon by the state’s legal system. The reason I did not allow guns on a job like this was the amount of time you’d serve if you got caught in the act of robbery with a deadly weapon.
Get convicted of robbery with a gun in your hand and the minimum sentence was five years and the average was fifteen.
Get caught with a stun gun or a baton and you’d be out in twenty-four months; eighteen with good behavior.
Eddie always said he could do eighteen months standing on his head.
I’d never been in jail, but I imagined it wasn’t as easy as Eddie let on. Nothing ever was.
* * *
We sat down the block for half an hour, watching people and traffic come and go. Crown’s was relatively quiet. No one had gone in or come out in the last half hour. I looked at my watch. It was 4:30. Dottie had told me the armored car always came at 5 o’clock on Friday. Old man Crown usually spent a couple of hours getting the shipments ready in a locked back room, meaning the diamonds would not be in a safe. Ronnie could crack a safe, but not in three minutes, which was all we had. I had yet to find a locked door I couldn’t put my foot through in a couple of seconds.
“Okay, let’s do this,” I said. I looked over my shoulder and made eye contact with Eddie. “Everybody be cool, do what you’re supposed to, and we’ll be in and out in no time.”
Chunk pulled out of the parking space and stopped directly in front of Crown Jewelers. Me, Eddie, and Ronnie pulled our black ski masks down over our faces, put on black latex gloves, and made it from the van to the store’s front door in three seconds. Chunk pulled away and Pete stood casually on the sidewalk outside.
We came through the door so quickly that the guard barely had time to react before Ronnie shoved the stun gun into his meaty neck and knocked him out cold. Ronnie took the guard’s gun and emptied the rounds from the chamber, then slid the gun back into its holster. He pulled the guard’s hands behind his back and zip-tied them.
I set the timer on my watch to three minutes. Eddie locked the door and flipped the Open sign to Closed. We were all relieved to find no one else in the showroom. I went directly around the display case and into the doorway that led to a short hall. On the left were an office and a restroom. On the right was a door with two deadbolts installed.
“Fucking deadbolts,” Eddie said with a grin. “Seriously?”
I rolled my eyes, then lined up and put the heel of my right boot into the door, next to the knob. The door frame cracked, but the door didn’t open. I lined up and kicked it again, this time next to the deadbolts. The door frame splintered and the door flew open.
Old man Crown was sitting at a long table with a diamond loop in his eye and a horrified look on his face. On the table in front of him were a dozen tidy little piles of loose diamonds.
Eddie and I looked at each other and smiled.
* * *
I set the black duffel bag I’d carried in on the table while Eddie put the old man on the floor and zip-tied his hands. Crown didn’t say a word. He just held up his hands and complied with Eddie’s commands. I guess his six or seven decades in the jewelry business had taught him not to resist during a robbery, especially when everything we were stealing was probably over-insured.
Inside the duffel was a pair of sweats and an old pair of tennis shoes with socks stuffed inside. I tugged out the socks, then carefully scooped up each pile of diamonds and slid them into the toes of the tennis shoes, which were lined with plastic. Once I had every diamond from the table inside the shoes, I shoved the socks back into the shoes and zipped the duffel bag. I glanced at my watch. We had thirty seconds to go.
“That’s it,” I said, grinning at Eddie. I picked up the duffel and held out a hand to motion him to the door. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, little brother.”
Eddie grinned back at me. He ran his tongue over the silver tooth and pulled the small walkie-talkie off his belt. “Chunk, you fat motherfucker,” he said happily. “Pick us up.”
* * *
Ronnie was waiting by the door. When he saw Eddie and I emerge from the back room, he grinned and unlocked the front door and led the way out.
The white van skidded to a stop in front of us. I saw Chunk behind the wheel, but I didn’t see Pete, who was supposed to be standing lookout on the sidewalk. I assumed that he was already in the van. I’d give him hell for breaking protocol once we were safely away.
“Where the fuck’s Pete?” Eddie asked as he reached for the van’s side door.
“Beats me, let’s just go,” I said, looking up and down the street. A feeling I’d never felt before came over me, like a cold wind blowing down my neck. I glanced at Chunk. He had tears in his eyes. He lifted his left hand from the steering wheel to show me the handcuff around his wrist. The other end of the cuff was clipped to the steering wheel.
The van’s side door slid open with a loud metal clank. Inside the van were three SWAT members in full black Ninja gear. They all had M-4 automatic rifles, one each aimed at Ronnie, Eddie, and me. Little red laser dots danced across our chests. One of them grinned and put the dot between my eyes, blinding me. He said, “Gotcha, motherfucker.”
The sidewalk around us quickly filled with black uniforms. I dropped the duffel bag and held up my hands. I told Eddie and Ronnie to do the same.
It was over.
The Wright Brothers had pulled their last job.
Oddly enough, all I could think about was Sandy, waiting for my call, ready to run away with me to start a new life.
I wondered how long she would be willing to wait.
SANDY
Eighteen months was a long time to wait for someone; especially when that someone didn’t even want to see or speak to you.
I had tried to visit Rick every month since he went away, but he always refused to see me. I drove to the prison on visitation day and sat patiently at a metal table for hours waiting for him to appear. But it was the same thing every time. The guard would eventually come over to tell me that the prisoner did not want to speak with me and that I shouldn’t come back again.
But I did come back, every month for eighteen months.
Rick hated my guts and I guess I couldn’t blame him. It was my testimony that helped put his brother, Eddie, away for twenty-five years to life for the murders of Brent and the clerk at the convenience store.
Ronnie also struck a deal with the district attorney and testified against Eddie. Rick was never charged with the murders because Eddie swore his brother had nothing to do with them. Eddie and Ronnie had their own shady dealings with the clerk that Rick knew nothing about. It was all about a truckload of stolen cigarettes and the fact that the clerk had screwed Eddie out of his cut. Brent had just gotten in the way. Wrong place, wrong time.
Eddie and Ronnie were also convicted of the Crown Jewelers robbery. They took a deal that tacked on another twenty-four months to the sentences they received for the murders. Eddie would probably be in prison for the rest of his life. Ronnie might get out in ten years with good behavior.
Rick didn’t fight the robbery charges.
He pleaded guilty and took a plea that sent him away for twenty-four months. I was in the courtroom the day he went away. He refused to even look at me.
With good behavior, he would be released after eighteen months.
The eighteen months runs out tomorrow.
RICK
Eddie once said he could do eighteen months in the pen standing on his head. I wondered if he still felt that way, now that he was doing twenty-five to life. I would have loved to have asked him, but he was upstate at a maximum-security prison and I was three hundred miles away on a minimum-security work farm. He was in a prison and I was on a work farm. He would have loved to have given me shit about that.
I’d spent the last eighteen months working in the kitchen and helping in the fields, keeping my head down and my nose clean. It wasn’t hard to do the time. The place was a resort compared to a real prison. I was probably the only real criminal in a place full of white collar assholes, crooked politicians, and doctors who overprescribed pain meds to their patients for cash under the table.
I had no idea how I’d managed to be sentenced to the work farm until an assistant D.A. told me it was part of a deal Sandy arranged in exchange for testifying against my brother. I was already pissed at her for lying to me, not to mention her little plot to kill me and my crew that came out in court. Knowing that she sold my brother out so I could do a cushy stretch just pissed me off even more.
* * *
“Take it easy, Rick,” the guard at the gate said, slapping me on the back like we were old pals. “Don’t let me see you back in here again.”
I gave him a smile. “Don’t worry. You won’t.”
I tried to be patient as he went inside the guard shack to hit the button that opened the main gate that separated the farm from the free world. The gate rumbled and slid noisily to the right. As soon as there was enough space to step through, I went out the gate and started walking. I didn’t look back.
I was wearing the clothes I had on the day I processed in; a pair of jeans that now hung off my narrow hips rather than hugged them, motorcycle boots, and a black t-shirt. They had given me back my wallet, which was empty except for an expired driver’s license, my watch which had since stopped working, and a cellphone that no longer had service.
I had a hundred and eight dollars in my pocket; money earned from working on the farm for eighteen months. It came out to about six bucks a month. In the old days, I made a thousand times that in a week, but the old days were gone.
There was a bus station three miles from the work farm. I could have called a taxi to pick me up, but I decided to walk. I wanted to stretch my limbs and breathe fresh air and feel the sun on my face and the taste of freedom on my lips.
I was told to turn right at the gate and keep walking down the dusty road until I saw the Greyhound sign. I hoped a hundred and eight dollars would get me home. If it wouldn’t, I’d buy a ticket for as close as I could get and hitch the rest of the way.
I didn’t have much left for me there, but I had a little money stashed around and still owned the bar. My plan was to sell everything I owned and get the fuck away once and for all. Find some place nice, get a normal job, meet a nice girl, and settle down.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many other criminals had walked down this same dusty road with the same good intentions in mind.
And how long was it before they went back to their old ways.
* * *
I saw the sun reflect off the shiny grill of the black Cadillac before I realized who was behind the wheel. The car was coming at me at a pretty good clip. I could hear the growl of the engine as the driver downshifted to a stop in the middle of the country road, stopping directly in f
ront of me.
She opened the door and stepped out of the car. It took me a minute to recognize her. Her hair was long and blonde, pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her blue eyes were bright and clear. Her cheeks flushed when she saw me. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I hated her guts. And I hated myself for wanting her so badly.
She licked her lips and gave me a nervous smile.
“Hi,” she said, propping her arms on top of the open driver’s door. She rested her chin on her arms and stared at me. “Can I give you a ride?”
I thought about ignoring her, just keep on walking, like she wasn’t even there. But as I glared at her, forcing myself to hate her, struggling to resist the urge to take her in my arms, I realized that she wasn’t to blame for any of my troubles.
Her world was just fine until Eddie burned it down.
I couldn’t blame her for wanting him dead, for wanting me dead. I didn’t kill her fiancé, but I knew Eddie was a dangerous man. Maybe if I had tried to control him more, from the time we were kids, her fiancé might still be alive.
I blew out a long breath and gave her a nod.
“Yeah,” I said, “a ride would be great.”
SANDY
We didn’t talk much at first. Rick’s deeply tanned face looked gaunt and tired. I asked how he was and he said okay. He asked how I was and I said better now. He gave me a little smile, then turned to look out the window at the free world passing by. He let out a long sigh and closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.
I was a little relieved that we weren’t talking. I still didn’t know what to say to him, or if we could put the past behind us and start again. All I knew was that I was willing to try if he was. I’d ask him as soon as he woke up.
In the trunk was his go-bag, with his passport, money, and clothes; just as he’d left it with me.
I’d packed several suitcases of my own. There was no way I could go anywhere with just one bag.
I got on the interstate and headed south toward Baja rather than north to Bakersfield. I would take him back to Bakersfield if that’s where he wanted to go, but I was hoping that he would agree to lie on a nude beach with me for a few weeks so we could sort things out in paradise.
