Mondo Crimson
Page 9
Now
Once they were on the highway, Brenda held the gun in her lap and looked over at the black girl she was making drive her rental car, studying the side of her face. She was young, maybe twenty-five at a guess. Pretty. Nose ring. Blinked a lot. Nervous, mind on overload. Big hoop earrings. Hair dyed this subtle shade of cool purple. Dressed stylishly, modern, but nothing looked high-end. Given the circumstances, the girl was holding herself together admirably. It didn’t smell in here like she’d pissed herself at least.
Brenda cleared her throat and said, “What’s your name?”
The girl peeked over at her passenger holding a gun on her. She opened her mouth, then closed it, pressing her lips together so hard they lost their color.
“I won’t bite,” Brenda said. Her smile did not reach her eyes and she knew it. “I just want to know your name.”
“Mel.”
“Nice to meet you, Mel. Keep it in this lane.”
The girl did as told.
“Mel. That short for something?”
The girl’s blinks quickened, but she couldn’t seem to say anything.
Brenda said, “Melody, Melissa, Melinda? Am I getting warm?”
“Melanie.”
She couldn’t say why, but the name stopped Brenda – familiar, somehow. But she couldn’t place it. She didn’t know a Melanie. “Melanie what?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your last name, shithead.”
“Williams. It’s Williams. Fuck.”
“You can cut the sass, Melanie Williams, all right?” Brenda raised the gun into the girl’s peripheral vision, shook it. “Wouldn’t be smart forgetting who’s holding this and who isn’t. Understand? I said, do you fucking understand?”
“I understand, I understand.”
The silence resettled inside the car.
They drove under an overpass, darkness falling then lifting away again.
The name Melanie, even now knowing her last name, still wasn’t ringing any bells.
“Anyone expecting you to show up anywhere today?”
The girl said nothing, but Brenda could see her thinking. Deciding what would be the smart thing to utter in a situation such as this.
“Answer me.”
“I was supposed to take this car and drop at some garage in St. Paul.”
“Well, Melanie Williams, I think it’s pretty safe to say that’s not happening. Anyone else?”
“No.”
“You married, Melanie Williams? Got any little ones at home?”
“No.”
“Roommate? Significant other? Boyfriend?”
“My girlfriend might wonder where I am and call the police.”
Brenda could see that the girl wanted that to be terribly frightening, but it didn’t affect Brenda one way or another. Call the police, she thought. Go ahead. There’s a lot of open road to comb. Plenty of places they won’t think to look for you.
“So, are we talking girlfriend as in gal pal, or girlfriend as in girlfriend-girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend-girlfriend.”
“Hold up. The girlfriend-girlfriend might wonder where you’re at? Does that mean she might also not?”
Brenda watched the girl realize she’d fucked herself.
“Having a bit of a lovers’ spat, are we?”
The girl, still clearly mad at herself, didn’t respond.
“What’s girlfriend’s name?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
Brenda showed her the gun again. “Oh?”
“Dani. Her name’s Dani.”
“Okay, Dani what?”
“Ngô.”
“Happen to still care about Dani Ngô, do you, Melanie Williams?”
“Yes.”
“Remember that,” Brenda said. “Maybe you two can work things out when this is all over, provided you behave yourself. Next question, and I want you to answer right away, got it? Here we go. When was the last time you and Dani spoke?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Try.”
“Maybe two weeks ago?”
“Are you asking me or telling me, shithead?”
“It was two weeks ago, two weeks and a day.”
“Good job.” The girlfriend-girlfriend would be nothing to worry about. “Give me your phone. And though I doubt at this point it needs to be said, don’t try anything.”
She watched as the girl used her arm with the cast to hold the wheel steady and bring the phone out from her jeans pocket with her opposite hand.
Snatching it away from her, Brenda said, “Is that all you’ve got on you?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have a burner?”
“No.”
“This your personal phone?”
“Yes.”
“Now, Melanie Williams, should I reach over right now and feel a knife or something else in your pockets, I will kill you for lying to me. So, last chance to come clean. Do you have anything else on your person?”
“No.”
Brenda waited for a tell, but none showed. She believed her.
The wind screeched and the car’s bottled warmth was sucked out when Brenda lowered the passenger-side window and let the girl’s phone drop. Raising the window again, she reached into the back seat to grab the girl’s backpack. She dropped it into her lap, dug around inside, and found a couple changes of clothes, the slim-jim, and buried near the bottom was the girl’s money-clip – which was clamped around only eighty bucks and her photo ID. Melanie Latisha Williams, age twenty-four, organ donor, photographed well. She was smiling in her picture big and nice like she’d been tickled pink to be at the DMV that day. Young people.
“This your actual driver’s license?”
“It is.”
“Chicago, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Born and bred?”
“No.”
Brenda rolled her eyes. “Then where are you from originally, shithead? You ever engage in a conversation with another human being before?”
“I’m from Erie.”
“Pennsylvania?”
“I don’t know of another one.”
“Don’t get smart,” Brenda said. “Well, Melanie Latisha Williams originally from Erie but now residing at 3091 MacArthur apartment 11M in Chicago, Illinois, regale me: how long have you been stealing cars?”
“This was my first time.”
“My ass.”
“I’ve never done this before. I swear.”
“Huh. Seems beginner’s luck doesn’t apply to grand theft auto.”
“I usually just work on them, not steal them,” the girl supplied, all on her own.
Brenda brought out the slim-jim from the girl’s bag and turned it, looking at the length of flat aluminum with the hook on its end and rubberized handle. It looked new. “What brought about the vocational shift?”
After a significant delay, the girl said, “I owe someone some money.”
“Debt’s always good for tweaking the moral compass, isn’t it?”
The girl seemingly could only nod – a flicker of anger showed amid the fear clouding her features. I’ve hit a nerve. Interesting.
“How much?” Brenda said. “And I swear to fucking god if you ask me how much what….”
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
Brenda whistled. “Pretty penny.”
“I’m working it off. That’s why I’m here, why I was sent out here.”
“Was this money you’re paying back borrowed or did Melanie Latisha Williams steal it from someone?”
The girl took too long to respond. “I—”
“That answers that. A little of column A and a little of column B. What were the purloined funds going toward?”
“To start a business, at first,” the girl said, “but then to help a relative of mine who got sick. And I didn’t steal it, I borrowed it. It was a loan.”
“When someone gives you money with the understanding they’ll be getting it back and you don’t make good on that, Melanie Latisha Williams, it’s called theft. That’s how that works.”
The girl’s jaw flexed, but she said nothing.
“So,” Brenda said, “what’s wrong with them, this sick relative of yours?”
“Could we please talk about something else?”
“We don’t have to talk at all. I was just making conversation for your benefit, Melanie Latisha Williams. Trying to put you at ease.”
“You could put me at ease by letting me go.”
“No, I think you and me are going to take a little ride together, Melanie Latisha Williams.”
“Why do you keep saying my name?”
“I’m sorry, does that bother you?”
The girl glared over at Brenda.
“Eyes on the road, shithead. Better?”
They went along for a while in silence, Brenda just staring at the girl while she, the girl, quite clearly aware of the eyes on her, drove looking straight ahead, keeping it under the speed limit, using her turn signal when changing lanes, checking her mirrors, a model law-abiding driver.
It was nice being outside. Brenda had been inside the same apartment for seven days straight with very poor company who became less talkative as the days wore on, and even if it meant seeing nothing but the highway and the dead cars and the trash heaps and the homeless shanty towns wedged underneath the overpasses, the change of scenery was still appreciated.
“Are you…going to kill me?”
Brenda applied some lip balm and checked herself in the passenger-side visor mirror, giving the girl’s question honest thought. “That wasn’t easy for you to ask me, was it?”
The girl said nothing.
With unnecessary force, Brenda slapped the visor back up. “Answer me.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“Because that’s an awfully big question. Biggest there is, arguably.” Brenda let the girl stew in a few long silent seconds. “I’ll keep you posted.”
The girl said, “Who are you?”
Brenda laughed. “How about this? You keep us on the road and I’ll ask the questions. Matter-of-fact, let’s address the elephant in the room – or car as it were. What’s the story with that?”
“The story with what?”
Leaning across the center console, Brenda tapped the gun barrel against the cast swallowing the girl’s right arm, producing a hollow knock. “That.”
The girl recoiled, the wheel slipping in her hands. One sharp chirp from the tires and when she’d regained control, “I broke my hand,” she said, “and part of my wrist.”
“Is that right? Poor thing. How’d that happen?”
“I got upset.”
“Is that so? Who with?”
The girl hesitated. “I guess you’d call him my boss.”
“This being the guy you’re working off the debt with.”
“Yes.”
“The one who sent you out here to steal a car.”
“Yes.”
The engine started to growl, the needle on the dial lifting to seventy then seventy-five.
“Watch the speed, lead-foot.”
The girl slowed them back under sixty-five again.
“Hate him?”
“Who?”
“Your boss. Fucking keep up. Do you hate him?”
The girl stammered, “I-I don’t like to think that I hate anyone, I just—”
“Uh-huh. You hate him. You do. So you smacked him one. I get it. You should probably learn how to throw a punch before trying to just wing it. Great way to hurt yourself. Clearly.”
“I didn’t hit him.”
“Then I’m confused.”
The girl drew a deep breath. “He made me upset,” she said, “so I punched the steering wheel of my car and that’s how I broke it.”
“What’d he do to upset you, Melanie Latisha Williams? Call you into his office and make you look at his dick? Because, in case you were unaware, they make these handy things called box cutters.”
“I don’t mean anything by this, but if you want me to drive, that’s fine, but with you pointing that gun at me and saying all this shit at me, it’s making paying attention to what I’m doing a little—”
“I don’t recall expressing to you that I give a fuck, Melanie Latisha Williams. I asked you what your boss did to make you so upset you did a silly thing like break your own hand instead of his face.”
Fear and anger falling back, the girl now looked like she was in pain. “He’s….”
“Complete sentences.”
“He’s been threatening me.”
“Okay, threatening you how?”
The girl swallowed. “He says he’ll hurt someone I care about if I don’t do what he says.”
“This being the aforementioned sick relative, I’m assuming?”
“Yes.”
“Your dad, your mom?”
“Uncle.”
“And what’d your boss say he’d do to them?”
“He’s never spelled it out in detail.”
“Ambiguity. Always good for making threats. Makes you paint your own picture. Smart. I think I like this boss of yours,” Brenda said. “You’re speeding. Again. Consider this strike two.”
The girl let up on the accelerator, again.
“Jesus. Just talking about him gets your dander up.”
“I will admit that I do not care much for the man.”
Brenda said, “Chicago seems like a long way to send someone just to steal a car.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“But you decided you’d better not question it.”
“Yes.”
“Because of what he might do.”
“Yes.”
“To your uncle who’s under the weather.”
“Yes.”
Something wasn’t adding up. Turning in her seat, Brenda wanted to closely watch the girl’s face and how it might change following what she said next. “So. When your boss told you to come here to steal a car,” Brenda said, “were you told to just pick one that tickled your fancy or were you given a specific make and model to look for?”
“I was told to look for this car.”
Brenda’s chest went tight. “Excuse me?”
“I was told to look for this car.”
“This car? This car specifically, this exact car?”
The girl tightly nodded. “Yes. He texted me the plate number and the address of where I’d find it, and what day and time to go get it,” she said, her voice shaking. “I could’ve shown you the texts if you hadn’t thrown my phone out.”
Brenda could feel her pulse in the sides of her neck. “Pull over.”
“What? Here?”
“Yes, right here.”
When the girl – for Christ sakes – put on her blinker and checked her mirrors, Brenda reached across, grabbed the wheel, and wrenched it. Drivers behind them blared their horns as they were forced to dodge around the decelerating car.
Gravel and slush flew as they skidded to a stop on the road’s shoulder. Their seat belts locked. Velocity terminated, they sat there, Melanie Williams’ shaking hands at ten and two on the wheel, staring straight ahead, her breaths fast and shallow.
Each time a car flew past them the cold, displaced air nudged them and made the car rock and the hydraulics squeak, reminding Brenda of the last time she, Steve, and the girls went out on Steve’s brother’s boat and the constant, nauseating rocking. She didn’t know why she was thinking about that now, but it’s what came to
mind – something from that life, that Brenda’s, the woman whom she couldn’t be right now. Maybe it was an internal retreat, the fear too big to accept directly, but the fact of it now, nonetheless, was deafening: Someone is trying to set me up.
“What’s his name?” Brenda asked the girl.
“Please, I’ve got nothing against you, I was just told to—”
“Shut up. Tell me his name, shithead, or I will end your goddamn life. Right here, right now.”
“He gave me a bus ticket, told me to come out here today, find this car and—”
“His name.” Not caring if any of the other commuters roaring past them on 694 right now saw it, Brenda raised the gun and pressed the barrel to Melanie Williams’ temple and thumbed back the hammer. “I’m not fucking around.”
The girl took her hands off the wheel and raised them, leaning to one side as if trying to get the cold metal off of her, but Brenda just leaned across more, the leather seat creaking under her, crushing the girl under the gun barrel, pushing her under the steering wheel and down into the floorboard. “Do you want to die?”
“Felix,” the girl said. “His name is Felix Eberhardt.”
Interstice One
“Why, yes, I received your down payment this morning,” Felix Eberhardt said into his phone, “every last red cent. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, because I ask everybody I work with this question: are you sure that this is what you want?”
Felix listened to the person whom he had on the line give their response and responded with, “We can swing that, absolutely. No problem at all. Again, it’s nothing against you, friend, I just like to give every client of mine a moment to make their decisions with as much of a clear head as possible. Because, and this is not meant to spook you any, a lot of times once things are set in motion they’re tough to slow down. I’m a visual learner and maybe you are too, so think of a line of dominos.”
His house was as dark and silent as it was large. He moved through it by memory, knowing every square inch of its 6,500 square feet, passing the painting he had recently commissioned of Joan of Arc’s buddy and inspiration for the story Bluebeard, none other than Gilles de Rais, gleaming in his polished plate armor and that unfortunate haircut of his. What a beast of a man. Talk about someone who grabbed life by the balls, boy howdy.
Then Felix moved into the study where a man sat slumped in a Louis XIV armchair with a hole in his forehead and his skull’s contents splashed across the wall behind him. Felix fished a smoke out of the dead man’s shirt pocket. Wasn’t like he was going to be burning one anytime soon.