Anna and I started off as lovers, and became partners somewhere along the way.
For a second, I couldn’t figure out why I was seeing her as I used to. Then it came to me: because of Roy and Lily, I was afraid of losing what I had.
“I’m just thinking how lucky I am to have you,” I said.
Anna reached out and put her hand on my leg.
“I missed you, too, baby,” she said.
I drove us back to Arlington, navigating the heavy afternoon traffic, with Anna’s hand resting on my leg, not in a sexual way but in a connecting way, a reminder of how we belonged together.
As we pulled into the driveway, my throat went dry and I felt cold all over. I had a terrible feeling I was being given another sign. Maybe it was Karen, or even Max reaching out, but something was sending me a clear reminder to appreciate Anna in the way I had those very first days.
Anna was in the shower, and I was leafing through menus trying to decide what we should have for dinner. I had just finished reviewing a one pager on an ex-con named Roy Ripson that Anna’s PI contact had dug up. Everything in Roy’s story matched what he had told me. He did five years in Walpole. A previous residence was listed in Tampa, Florida. He had a few other convictions, but those were misdemeanors. It wasn’t the worst criminal record I could have imagined, but this guy was no Pollyanna either. At least now I knew his last name.
The doorbell rang. I marched down the hall and opened the door without asking who it was.
Lily and Roy greeted me on the front porch. Lily wore a lime green sundress that hid the size of her belly and leather cowboy boots. Roy was wearing a thin leather jacket, black tee, and dark jeans. They looked like a cool, hip couple, friends we’d never have, but I knew their true colors, and the colors of their auras, too.
Lily was holding a brown paper bag emanating a familiar odor. I could even smell Anna’s favorite tofu dish.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in a low voice.
“We saw you come home and thought we might join you guys for dinner,” Lily said, hoisting up the bag of Chinese food. Roy held a smaller bag, showing the pressed outline of a six-pack of beer.
“It’s our treat,” Lily continued. “I got Anna her favorite, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to have us over. Besides, she’s never met Roy. Not in any proper way.”
The blood rush to my head tingled my skin. My hands became fists, my eyes turned fierce. Lily licked her lips, savoring the encounter. My heart was racing. Roy’s sharp-eyed, sly expression told me what they were after. I was going to make them say it, regardless.
“Again, why are you here?”
Roy pushed past me, entering my home uninvited, and Lily followed. My mouth fell open.
“Hey, we don’t want your food.”
From the bathroom I heard the shower turn off and Anna call out, “Gage, is someone here?”
Roy’s eyes narrowed on me, glaring.
“How much did you tell her?” he asked.
I was right. They were here to feel me out. My anger spiked as I gripped Roy’s arm, but somehow I managed to keep my voice down. “You’re not welcome here.”
Roy looked down at my hand clasped around his bicep, and then he lifted his head slowly until our eyes met. His expression darkened, and I knew to let go without his having to waste the words.
“Gage?” Anna called again.
I cleared my throat. “It’s Lily and Roy,” I said. “They brought dinner and wanted us to eat together.” I unfurled my fingers from Roy’s arm one by one.
“Hi, Anna,” Lily called out in a sickeningly sweet voice. “Welcome home. I got you your favorite from Lilac Blossoms. I also wanted you to meet Roy. Since he’s living with me now, we thought it was only right.”
Anna said through the bathroom door, “That’s great. Give me five minutes to change and I’ll be right out.”
Roy’s fingers wrapped around my arm, constricting with incredible force. His turn. We locked eyes, Roy’s look meaning to intimidate. “I’ll know if you told her,” he said to me. “I’ll know it within minutes.” He let go of my arm and his expression changed, the way a passing cloud can reveal the beauty of the moonshine it had been concealing. A warm, delighted smile came over his face.
“We’ll set the food out,” he called to Anna. “I’m really looking forward to meeting you.” Like a snake retreating into its hole, the smile slipped back into a sneer. Roy eyed me once again.
“I’ll know it,” he said. “Remember, Nicky is expecting you’re doing the drop. And trust me when I say, you don’t want to go against Nicky Stacks.”
CHAPTER 38
Anna entered the dining room with her hair still dewy from the shower and the smell of soap lingering. She saw the Chinese food spread first, Lily second, and Roy third. She’d put on a white boat-neck tee and jeans—regular attire, comfortable and relaxed.
I watched as Anna appraised Roy quickly and then looked to me. Is he all right? Are we in danger of losing the baby? Should we be worried? She asked all those questions with just a glance. Of course there was more, questions she couldn’t know to ask.
Taking an audible breath, Anna approached Roy with her hand extended. “I’m sorry we haven’t met before,” she said, sounding more than a little uncertain. “I’m Anna. It’s really nice to meet you.”
Roy took her hand. His eyes focused in an appraising way, studying Anna’s body language for any hint of knowing. Perhaps he saw worry in her eyes, but that was just her fear of things unraveling. From what I could tell, Roy seemed satisfied that I’d kept my promise about keeping quiet.
His face lifted slightly into a half grin, bringing some warmth to his steely expression. It was a look designed to make people like him, but Anna wasn’t fooled. She wasn’t ready to trust him and wouldn’t until she had the baby in her arms, adoption papers signed by the judge, and Roy out of her life forever. But he was here for now, a part of things, and so she’d embrace him, without letting down her guard, though it was clear to me what Anna was thinking. She worried that Roy and Lily would vanish with the baby, while I knew they were already gone.
We sat down to eat. Anna and I faced each other at either end of the table, with Roy and Lily seated between us. Nobody spoke as we spooned food from the piping-hot cartons onto the plates I’d set out. Roy put his six-pack of beer on the table, but I was drinking only water. Figured I’d need my wits about me a few hours from now. I guessed Roy was more seasoned. A couple of beers weren’t going to dull his instincts any. I poured glasses of water for Lily and Anna as well, while Roy popped his beer top and drank.
I took a single bite of food, a nibble of Anna’s favorite tofu dish, but it felt tasteless on my tongue. My stomach wasn’t in a state to take in much food regardless. If the tables were turned, if Anna were the one deceiving me, if she knew I was destined for a brutal fall, a coming pain unlike any other, she’d have a hard time eating, too.
“I really appreciate what you’re doing for Lily,” Roy said. “For me, too, letting me stay with her and all.”
Anna made a grimace, an attempt at a smile.
“It’s fine,” she said, taking a mouthful of food.
I thought about making a grand confession. I saw myself rising to my feet, pointing an accusatory finger at Lily and Roy.
“They’re blackmailers,” I wanted to stand up and shout. I tried to imagine how it would go down, picturing myself telling Anna in front of Lily and Roy everything—from the stolen folder, to the threats they had made against me, and predicated it wouldn’t go very smoothly. For one thing, there was the little matter of the recording Roy had. That would be tough to explain away. They needed only to say how Lily had grown close to Anna and would never hurt her like that, not for any amount of money. Roy had recorded my bribe just in case I got threatening, they could say. Instead of accepting the payout, they had refused my offer and vowed to work harder to make me feel more comfortable about them—hence the impromptu Chinese dinner. I imagined An
na becoming tearful as well, enraged with me, uncertain what or whom to believe. Was I just desperate to stop the adoption? There was also the little matter of Nicky Stacks to contend with as well. Climbing back out of the hole I had dug appeared to be a lot more difficult than digging through to the other side.
Roy took a swig from the can. He held out the beer in a taunting way and wagged it in front of Lily.
“Sorry, baby, none for you.”
He laughed and shoveled a heaping bite of food into his mouth, followed by another long drink. Anna retreated into herself, showing only her uncomfortable smile.
“Roy just likes to tease,” Lily said, dismissing him with a wave and several—that kooky Roy!—shakes of her head. “To be honest, I don’t really miss beer,” she went on to say. “Now if we’re talking a glass of wine . . .”
Anna hoisted her glass of water in solidarity and, with a look, encouraged me to do the same. “We’re all in this together,” she said to Lily. “If you abstain, we abstain, right, Gage?”
I shot Lily a strained little smile, finding it hard not to let my disdain show and noting how skillfully she stayed in character.
“Yes, of course,” I answered, instead of saying what I was thinking: you belong on Broadway.
Anna turned to Roy.
“So, Roy, where are you from? Can you tell me a little about yourself?”
Roy was looking down at his food, shoveling in mouthful after mouthful like he’d gone days without eating. He chewed and at the same time used his beer to wash it all down.
“Not much to tell,” Roy said, looking over at me—a warning.
“What do you do for work?” Anna asked with a slight swing to her voice. She wanted to penetrate the impenetrable. Fort Roy.
“Kinda in between jobs at the moment,” Roy said. “Mostly I drive.”
“Trucks?” Anna asked.
“Yeah, trucks,” Roy said as if any additional explanation would sail right over her head.
Meanwhile, my insides shriveled. Stop these lies! End this charade now!
Lily entered the conversation: “Roy’s always on the road.”
And he’ll soon be on the road again.
“That must get hard,” Anna said, seeking common ground, something relatable. But I knew her real goal. Are you friend or are you foe? She was looking for a way in, a crevice through which she could peer into Roy’s heart to see his intent.
“It’s not so bad,” Roy said. He took another swig of beer.
“And where again are you from?” Anna asked.
“Florida,” Roy said. “Been there?”
“A few times,” Anna said. “It’s nice.”
It’s nice.
Obviously, Anna could give two shits about Florida. She had something else on her mind. Something she was bound to ask. I could feel it like a slight ground tremor announcing the earthquake to come. She was never a big fan of small talk.
“Roy,” Anna said. “I know this is a lot for you. I’m hoping you’re okay with everything. You’re not going to fight the adoption, are you?”
A hush settled over the table. Everyone froze in place; only our eyes moved about the room. Lily looked over at Roy. I looked up at Anna, while Anna looked down at her plate, evidently nervous for having broached this sensitive topic with the subtlety of a brass band.
Meanwhile, Roy held his gaze on Anna until she felt compelled to look up, to look directly at him. A hot collar of sweat circled my neck, red and itchy. Anna shifted in her chair, and it was obvious she felt magnificently uncomfortable. A look from Roy had the power to burn, almost like red laser beams shooting out from his cold, gray eyes.
Everyone else had slipped into something like catatonia, but not Roy, who took in another mouthful of food and made two overly exaggerated chews. He crinkled the sides of the empty beer can with one hand and popped a toothpick into his mouth with the other. He never once broke eye contact with Anna, but Lily evidently had had enough. She looked away.
Eventually, Roy’s eyebrows arched and his whole expression reset itself. This guy could terrify with one look and with another ease tension as good as any massage. Roy twisted his head in my direction, allowing his steely stare to linger, and next rotated his head slowly to make eye contact with Lily, waiting a beat or two before returning his gaze to Anna once again. He offered her a wide smile.
“Listen to me, Anna, and listen good,” Roy said. I heard a faint drawl in his voice, an echo of his Southern heritage. “I think you and Gage will be the best parents this baby could ever have. Truth is, I just needed a place to stay until I get some work going. I support Lily, her decision, and you guys. You got nothing to worry about from me, Anna. I promise you that. Nothing in the least.”
Anna and I made eye contact. The joy I saw on her face, the tears glassing over her eyes, hollowed out my guts.
Anna pushed back from the table. “Please excuse me,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “I need to use the bathroom.”
Soon as she was gone, Roy gripped my leg with crushing force.
“Good boy,” he said. “You kept your mouth shut.”
Digging through is easier than climbing out . . .
Anna returned from the bathroom with a tissue. “Gage, are you all right?” she asked. “You don’t look so well.”
“He’s fine,” Roy said, lengthening the word fine—fiiiinneee—as if I were more than okay. “I think he just ate a bad shrimp is all.”
From under the table, out of Anna’s view, Roy kicked me. I looked down at him flashing his phone, making sure I took special notice of his finger hovering just above the play button on the built-in recorder app.
Digging through . . .
Yeah, the drug deal was going to go down.
Eight hours to go.
CHAPTER 39
Roy and I hadn’t said a word in the last ten minutes. He was really working his toothpick, thinking about something. I was thinking about how I’d ended up in East Boston, on the verge of committing a terrible crime, amazed how it all began with meeting Lily, the crying woman. Of course, I was also thinking about Anna, trying to stifle my guilt with thoughts of how my actions were justified. We had to rid ourselves of Lily and Roy. These weren’t the sorts of people we’d want in our lives.
The pale blue glow of moonlight spilled into the Camaro, putting a natural spotlight on the muscles of Roy’s ropy neck and arms. We were both wearing tight-fitting, long-sleeved compression shirts—black, of course; new purchases Roy had made—as well as our darkest pants and shoes. Roy looked like something out of a Nike commercial, all defined and cut, while I looked a little bit like somebody lying on the couch watching Roy’s Nike commercial.
In the trunk of the car was a black case. Just to make a point, to prove to me this was the genuine article, Roy had popped it open to show me the sock-sized bags of pills—thousands and thousands of pills.
“That’s half a million dollars right there,” Roy said, picking up one of the bags and bouncing it in his hands. The pills inside rattled like some sort of rhythmic instrument.
I’d already popped some pills of my own, an extra push of Adderall—just a few milligrams more than my usual OD. I was still bothered by the finances of this deal, curious to know if the combined payout, my contributions, plus Roy’s cut, would buy him time with the D.C. smoke smugglers, or cover the debt completely. When I brought it up to Roy on the drive back to Eagle Square, he looked at me but didn’t answer. I pressed him for a response.
“Just tell me,” I said. “How much is Nicky paying us for this job?”
“Enough,” Roy said with force, implying two meanings: enough to take care of his problem and enough of my asking questions.
For ten minutes, while we sat parked just south of the floodlights illuminating the warehouse truck bay, I didn’t press him for an answer. But my patience ran out.
“I can’t believe there’s enough cash here,” I said, fighting off a shiver of cold even though the night was windless and hu
mid. “Are you telling me Nicky’s paying eighty grand?”
“You know what you should be doing?” Roy asked, pointing a finger at me and cocking his head to flash me a sneer. “You should be thinking about this deal.” He tapped me multiple times just above my heart with the tip of his finger. It hurt, too. “Picture it in your mind. See it going down, because if it’s not clear in your head the way you imagine it should be, it’s going to be whatever it wants to be, and that could end up real bad for the both of us.”
“I’m going to stand at the end of the alley keeping watch,” I said. “How hard can it be?”
Roy moved mongoose quick, grabbing the front of my shirt and pulling closer before I could pull away. He got up in my face, flashing me his angry eyes, jabbing at my skin with his toothpick, bathing me with his hot breath.
“This isn’t a game, Gage,” he said. “There are no do-overs, here. No second chances. What I need is for you to do your job and do it well.”
I detected a slight tremor in Roy’s voice, a chink in his personal armor, and there was no doubt something was making him very edgy. The Moreno brothers? Nicky Stacks? Or was it the other something, perhaps related to the unsolved issue of money? As I tried to pinpoint the source of his distress, Roy strengthened his grip on my shirt and bent over to reach for something underneath my seat.
When his hand reappeared he was holding a gun. He shoved the weapon into the palm of my hand, then forced my fingers closed around the handle. Without my having to make any adjustments, my fingers slid into the notches of the grip.
“This is a real gun,” Roy said, still keeping hold of my shirt, twisting it some more as if he was helping me wring out some water. “It weighs nine hundred and ten grams loaded. It’s a hundred eighty-six millimeters long. It has a mag capacity of seventeen, a trigger pull of five-point-five pounds. That’s not a lot of pounds of pressure for something that takes a whole heck of a lot of balls to make happen. Now, listen and listen close.” Roy’s teeth were clenched, making his pronounced jawline look even more chiseled. “If I’m in trouble out there, I’m counting on you—you, nobody else, Gage, just you—to make five-point-five pounds of pressure happen. Does that make sense? Is that being clear enough? Try this just to be sure: if something happens to me, it’s not going to be good for you. If Nicky doesn’t get his money, there’s no country big enough to hide you. We’ll all be dead.”
Desperate Page 20
