Interlude

by Anna Cruise

  “Lydia! Where are you?”

  Silence.

  Claire glances at the phone in her hand. “Lydia?”

  “Claire.” Lydia’s voice is barely a whisper.

  “Thank God you’re okay.”

  “Okay? She’s not okay.” A new voice comes through the speaker. A familiar voice.

  Gino.

  twenty-one

  The color drains from Claire’s face. Her mouth is open but no sound comes out.

  “Lydia?” I lean closer so she can hear me. “Are you okay?”

  “No, dumbfuck, she’s not okay,” Gino sneers.

  “Lydia?” I say her name again, hoping she’ll respond.

  “That bitch is done talking. Now you talk to me.”

  Claire’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel. The hand holding the phone is shaking so badly, I think she might drop it.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  Gino laughs. “What the fuck do you think I want? I want what’s mine.”

  “Okay,” I say quickly. “We’ll get it to you. No problem.”

  “Well, see, it kind of is a problem” he says. “Because you stole from me. People who steal from me end up…regretting it.”

  “She didn’t steal your drugs. Joey did.”

  “I don’t care how the fuck it happened. She has ‘em. They belong to me. And I better get them back or this bitch dies.”

  Claire swerves and we almost hit the white Accord in the lane next to us. The driver honks and gives us the finger.

  I wrench the phone out of her hand. “We can get them,” I tell him.

  “So can I.” He laughs again. “I’m standing outside the building they’re in. But this bitch doesn’t have the key. So I ask her, ‘Where is it? Unlock the fucking lock.’ You know what she tells me? She swallowed it. Fucking whore swallowed my key. So unless you have another one, she’s dead, man. ‘Cuz I’ll fucking cut her open right here and get it out of her.”

  Claire gasps and we veer right again and I’m thrown against the door.

  I grab her arm. “Focus, goddammit!”

  Her face is streaked with tears but she nods and tightens her grip on the wheel.

  “So she’s calling to say goodbye…”

  “No!” Claire screams.

  “Hold on.” I’m panicking. I don’t care about Lydia – at least I don’t think I do – but no one deserves this fate. “Let’s figure something out, okay?”

  “It’s all figured out, man,” Gino says. “She dies. I get my drugs. And then I come after you and the blonde bitch. Got it?”

  The cobwebs are still in my head, mucking things up, but I try to clear them, try to focus. “That’s an awful lot of blood on your hands. Did the cops find you at my house? You and your friends? Because if they did, they have you tied to me. And to Joey. And, by default, to Lydia. You think they won’t be able to put two and two together and pin all this on you? You’ll be worried about more than your drugs if you off all three of us.”

  “Fuck you,” he growls. But I can hear the hesitation in his voice.

  “Let’s figure something out,” I tell him. I’m using my gentle voice, the one I reserve for Sara when we’re fighting, or Sherlock when I’m actually feeling affectionate toward him.

  “There’s nothing to figure out.” There is a sound, a scraping, and Lydia screams.

  Claire pulls over and grabs the phone. “Lydia! Oh my God! Lydia!!”

  “He has a key,” Lydia whimpers. “He has the key.”

  I’m confused. “Who has the key?”

  Gino is, too. “Who? Who has it, bitch?”

  “Nash.”

  I stare blankly at the phone. “What?” And then, because I realize she’s giving us an out, buying us time, I quickly add, “Yeah. Yes, I do. I have one right here. Let me bring it to you. We swap. Lydia for the key. You get back what’s yours and no one gets hurt. And we all go our separate ways.”

  Gino snorts. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “But it can,” I tell him. My head is spinning, and not just from being sick. “It can. We can all walk away.”

  “No one’s fucking walking away.”

  “Joey’s already dead – and he’s the one who stole from you,” I remind him. “This could be the end of it. Right here. No police. You go your way, we go ours.”

  I don’t have anything else to offer him.

  “And we wipe your info,” Lydia says.

  She’s talking about the drive. How does he know about it?

  “Everyone else is going down,” she tells him. “But you’ll go free. Only if you let me go. Because no one else has access to it.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  “Because.” Lydia’s voice is firmer now. “Because you have no choice but to trust me.”

  “I want the drive,” Gino says. “You’ll wipe it with me there and hand it over.”

  “I don’t have it with me.”

  “So we’ll get it.”

  “You’re going to have to choose.” For someone being held against her will, and by someone who has just threatened to slice her open, Lydia is remarkably calm. “The drugs or the drive. Because you aren’t getting both.”

  She plays a good bluff. I would be shitting my pants if I were in her position. Because we don’t have a leg to stand on. She told Gino I have a key – and I don’t. She told Gino he’d get his drugs back – but as far as I know, we have no way of opening the storage unit. And she said she’d wipe his info off the drive – considering my limited interactions with her, I wouldn’t believe her, either.

  “Drugs first,” Gino says gruffly.

  I glance at Claire. She inched us on to a side street off Clairemont Mesa and we’re parked in front of a blue stucco house. Two kids are sitting on the driveway, drawing a hopscotch with sidewalk chalk. They shoot us curious looks every few seconds.

  “I don’t have it,” I mouth to her.

  She nods. But then she reaches into the pockets of my shorts, digging around. I shirk away from her but not before she latches on to my wallet and pulls it out. She opens it and flips it upside down. Dollar bills and receipts flutter out, followed by a small silver key.

  “What the—?”

  She gives me a grim smile. “Where are you?”” she asks Gino. “We have the key. And we’ll meet you there.”

  twenty-two

  I end the call and Claire bursts into tears.

  “Hey.” I reach out and lift her chin up. “Get it together. We don’t have time for breakdowns.”

  She nods, but tears still leak out of her eyes and she’s convulsing as she breathes.

  “One step at a time,” I tell her. “We give Gino the key. Get Lydia. And then get the hell out of there.”

  “Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath.

  She turns the key in the ignition and the radio and AC turn back on. The kids in the driveway glance at us again.

  “You okay to drive?” I ask her.

  “No,” she says. “But I will.”

  We pull back out onto the boulevard and drive in silence to Simply Storage. It’s tucked behind an industrial park, a series of one-story, metal-sided buildings that house plastic manufacturers and furniture makers and a wholesale medical supply company. The lot just outside the storage facility is empty, save for a souped-up, black El Camino. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out it’s probably Gino’s car.

  Unlike the first facility, this one has inside units, the kind where people can rent anything from storage closets to storage rooms. Claire kills the engine and is halfway out the door when I put my hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

  She whirls around. “What?”

  “We need a plan.”

  “We have a plan.” She’s holding the key that was in my wallet. “We give this to Gino and get my sister.”

  “What if he doesn’t give her to us?” I ask.

  Her eyes go wide and flood with tears.

  “I’m not saying that’s
going to happen,” I say, holding up my hand. “But we need Lydia before he gets the key.”

  She nods. “Okay, that makes sense.”

  I hold out my hand. “Let me hold it.”

  “No.”

  “Look, you’re a mess,” I tell her. “And rightfully so. But we need someone who isn’t emotionally invested in this. And that’s me.”

  She hesitates.

  “Come on, Claire. Trust me.”

  I can see in her expression that she is struggling. And I realize then that she has no reason to trust me, in the same way that I have no reason to trust her or her sister. We’ve all been thrown together by circumstance, and we’re all looking out for our own interests.

  “I won’t let anything happen to her,” I say quietly. “I promise.”

  “I can’t lose her,” she says, echoing her statement from earlier.

  “I know. And you won’t.”

  Reluctantly, she hands the key to me.

  My legs are wobbly as we cross the parking lot and head toward the building, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m still weak or because I’m just scared shitless. Probably a little bit of both.

  Despite what I promised Claire, I have no idea what five minutes from now will look like. Will Gino take the key and give us Lydia? Will he just say fuck it and kill all three of us? After all, he could just pry the key out of my dead hands. Problem solved for him.

  But Lydia told him about the drive. And I think I know why. She needed something to bargain with, something that would give her a small chance of getting out of this alive. So I cling to that thought as we approach the door and hope that she gambled right.

  “Over here,” a voice calls from the side of the building.

  We both stop in our tracks. It’s Cigarette Guy, and he has a gun trained on us. I’m surprised, because we took his gun when he showed up at my house. But who am I kidding? These guys probably have an arsenal.

  I hold up my hands and show him the key.

  He nods, then waves the gun, motioning us over. Claire follows behind me and I hear her rummaging in her purse.

  We round the corner and Gino is there, leaning up against the wall, waiting.

  “Where’s Lydia?” I ask.

  He smiles. “She’s here. Where’s my key?”

  I hold it up.

  He pushes off the wall and heads toward us.

  “Not so fast,” Claire says.

  I turn around. She has two guns, one of them Cigarette Guy’s from the night at my house and the other the one she pulled on me. She gives me one.

  She is suddenly calm, in control, the cool and sophisticated woman who kissed me on my sidewalk, and I think maybe she should be the one negotiating, after all. But I steal a glance at her hand and see her fingers trembling and know that, even though she’s trying to put on a brave face, she’s an utter disaster.

  “Where’s Lydia?” I repeat.

  “I want the key first.”

  I shake my head. “No dice. You hand over Lydia, we give you the key. Or the deal is off.”

  He laughs and folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to bargain.”

  “Oh, really?” I level the gun at him. Claire’s is trained on his buddy. “I think we’re pretty evenly matched right now, don’t you?”

  He tries to maintain a neutral expression but a muscle in his jaw twitches.

  “So here’s what we’re gonna do,” I say. “You get Lydia out here. They leave.” I motion to Claire. “And then I give you the key. That’s it. I walk away. You get your drugs. And we all go home happy and forget this ever happened.”

  He watches me for a moment, sizing me up. His eyes are as cold and hard as I remember, but he finally nods. “And the drive? How do I know that shit is even real?”

  “You don’t,” I admit. “You have no reason to trust Lydia. No reason to trust me. But is that really something you want to gamble on? Because I’ve seen it, bro. I’ve seen what’s on there.” I’m lying now – I’ve seen it but I have no clue what I was looking at. “And there’s enough there to bring down your whole operation. With you falling the hardest.”

  Gino swallows.

  “We don’t want to be a part of this,” I tell him. “We just wanna go home. Okay? And if the drive ever sees the light of day, ever makes its way to someone else’s hands, your info won’t be on it. That’s a promise.”

  “I believe you,” he finally says. He smirks. “Because I know where you live. And you know I’ll fuck you up if you’re lying.”

  I don’t point out that he might be in jail and unable to fuck me up if Lydia doesn’t wipe the drive. “Exactly.”

  He nods and I feel a wave of relief wash over me.

  “Bring the bitch over,” he calls out.

  Within seconds, another guy appears, someone I’ve never seen before. He has Lydia by the elbow, and he drags her along with him. Claire starts toward her but I shake my head and block her path.

  “Let her go,” I tell the guy.

  He has a thick goatee, so thick it hides his lips. He looks at Gino and, after a slight pause, he nods. The guy releases his grip on Lydia’s arm.

  “Nice and slow,” I tell her, keeping the gun on Gino. Claire has shifted her stance and is waving her gun slowly back and forth between Cigarette Guy and Gino’s other buddy, like the way someone would hold a hose as they water a garden.

  Lydia reaches her sister and Claire drops her gun.

  “Get it back up,” I bark.

  “Trust issues?” Gino asks, his eyebrows raised. “Alright, pretty boy, You have what you want. Now give me what’s mine.”

  “Go,” I say loudly, without looking back.

  “But—”

  I cut Claire off. “Get in the car. Now.”

  She doesn’t argue again.

  I wait a few seconds, then glance behind me, making sure they’re gone.

  “I’m waiting.” Gino’s voice has an edge to it.

  I’m not sure how to do this. Do I just hand him the key and hope he doesn’t shoot me? And what, really, are the odds that his buddy won’t just put a bullet through me once I do? Because Gino and I don’t exactly have a great record. Suddenly, my plan looks pretty shitty. I break out into a cold sweat. Am I looking at and living the last minute of my life?

  I drop the key and it clangs to the pavement. I keep the gun on Gino.

  “I’m gonna back up,” I tell him. “Don’t go for the key until I turn the corner.”

  He smiles. “Diego could shoot you right now, man.”

  “I know.” I nod as I keep walking backward. “But I bet I could get a shot off, too. And we both know where my gun is aimed.”

  Gino glares at me. Because he knows I’m right.

  It feels like it takes hours to walk twenty feet, and the gun in my hands is as heavy as an anchor. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Claire’s car. The engine is running.

  I bolt for the car. Tires squeal and the front bumper comes within inches of my leg. The passenger door opens.

  “Get in,” Claire screams.

  Lydia is behind the wheel. I jump in, half on Claire’s lap, and she slams the door shut and Lydia floors it out of the parking lot.

  I drop the gun on the seat next to me and collapse against the headrest. My heart feels like it’s gonna explode and my muscles are coiled tight.

  Claire is crying and Lydia is flying down Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. She’s easily doing sixty.

  “Slow down,” I tell her.

  “No time.”

  She turns right on Balboa and I’m convinced we’re headed toward the freeway and back to the apartment. But she bypasses the onramp and heads into PB, turning right onto Lamont, heading straight toward my house.

  “What the hell are we doing?” I ask, sitting upright.

  There are no cops outside my house. The front door is closed. It looks normal. Ordinary.

  Lydia pulls into the alley and leaves the car running as she j
umps out and disappears into my backyard. Less than a minute later, she’s back, holding a box of Fruit Loops.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  With one hand on the wheel, she pries open the box and fishes out a brick of brown powder.

  “This is what’s going on.”

  I stare at the baggie in her hand. It’s a gallon storage bag, folded down.

  “Is that heroin?” I ask, dumbfounded.

  She nods.

  “Why did you come back for this?” Claire asks. “What is this one brick going to do? Jesus, Lydia, are you insane?”

  “This one brick is half a kilo,” she tells us. “This is what Gino wants. What he’s looking for.”

  My mouth drops open. How can one half-full baggie be worth over sixty-five thousand dollars?

  “So what’s in the storage unit?” Claire asks slowly.

  Lydia turns to look at her sister. A small smile forms on her lips. “Nothing. Which is why we need to get the hell out of here.”

  twenty-three

  “Jesus Christ.”

  This just keeps getting worse.

  “What do you mean, it’s empty?” Claire asks. “And where the hell are we going?”

  We’re on La Jolla Boulevard now and it’s clear we’re not headed toward the freeway.

  “It’s empty,” Lydia repeats. “The drugs were never there.”

  “But you said…”

  “I know what I said,” she says impatiently. “I lied.”

  I lean back and take stock of the situation.

  I’m in a car with two guns and a half a kilo of heroin. I just lied to a drug dealer who I previously held at gunpoint and locked up in my bathroom. And I’m with two strange women – one of whom repeatedly lies to me – and I have no idea where we’re going.

  “Stop the car.”

  Lydia keeps going.

  “I said stop the car.” My voice is louder this time.

  “What, right here?” Lydia asks. She glances at me in the rearview mirror. “So Gino can pick you up and finish you off? Don’t think you’ll be able to sweet talk your way out of this, Nash. He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out there’s nothing there for him.”