Good People

by Marcus Sakey

  He blinked, groaned as she moved against him, then said, “Baby, it’s not time, it won’t work.” His voice thick and heavy with sleep.

  In the dark of the room he saw her flash those teeth again, perfect white teeth, and then she said, “Shhh.” Spun against the mattress, his arm still draping her, her lips coming to his neck, his chin, his cheek, her breath sticky in his ear as she said, “I know,” and then she was pushing him back, sliding one slim thigh over his hips, ghostly in the dim light, body arching, the T-shirt riding up to reveal pale skin and a dark tangle of pubic hair, her fingers tugging at his briefs, her hand electric, the best thing he could imagine until he felt the wetness of her and slipped inside.

  He moaned and thrust upward, resting his hands on the curve of her hips and forgetting about calendars, about rhythms and schedules and optimal ovulation windows.

  When at last they were both spent, when she’d collapsed against his sweat-drenched chest and he could feel the pounding of her heart like some trapped and delicate bird, he said, “Wow.”

  She laughed through her nose and said, “Yeah.”

  “I mean, wow.” He shut his eyes tight, then opened them, blinking.“Jesus.” His head felt light, his arms strong. The edges of the curtain were drawn in white light. Dawn must have come while they were making love. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Are you kidding?” Anna nuzzled against him, leaving little kisses on his shoulder. “We’ve had more sex in the last year than since we were, like, twenty-two.”

  “Yeah. But. You know what I mean.”

  She hesitated, and for a second he was afraid that he’d hurt her, that she’d taken it as a rejection. Then she smiled, a wry sort of thing, and said, “Yeah.” She put her head on his shoulder, yawned. “Nice.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It is.” With his arm wrapped around her shoulders he collapsed into sleep.

  HE WOKE WITH ONE forearm flung across his eyes to block the light. Before anything else came the memory of her atop him, and he smiled. Yawned, stretched, shoulders popping. Looked at her side of the bed. The pillow was empty, the sheets in disarray.

  Tom rose, snapped off the rain machine on the night table, sat on the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor. Eleven A.M. He didn’t sleep that late often. But then, he’d happily trade a couple hours of daylight for her to awaken him like that. Plus, it wasn’t every night you found $370,000 and a dead body.

  The thought sideswiped him, and his eyes came the rest of the way open. Jesus. Had everything last night been real? He stood, pulled on yesterday’s jeans. Opened the bedroom door and started down the hall.

  Most weekend mornings he found her in the living room with a cup of coffee and a stack of envelopes, a pen behind her ear. They had an arrangement: He cleaned the bathrooms, she handled the bills. But the couch was bare.

  “Babe?”

  They’d planned to turn the spare bedroom into a nursery, but all the books said not to do things like that in advance, that it would only add pressure, remind you of the thing you most wanted but did not have. Good advice, except that all they ended up using the room for was scattered storage, a kind of dump for boxes and photo albums that only telegraphed that the room was in transition, served to remind them anyway. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t at the stove, either, or at their kitchen table. Maybe she went to get bagels.

  He opened the drawer, rummaged through it. The spare keys were gone. He went out the front and down the stairs. The door to the bottom unit was unlocked, and the air still had an acrid undercurrent of smoke. “Anna?”

  Quiet, from the other room. “In here.”

  She sat on the dresser, wearing a Columbia College T-shirt and a pair of his boxer briefs, one leg tucked beneath. Her hair was loose, and she played with a lock of it, twisting it in her fingers as she flashed an unconvincing smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He crossed his arms, leaned against the door frame. “What’s up?”

  She hesitated. “I was just thinking about him.”

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t know. Not him, really. More that he died. That someone died, right there.” She gestured toward the bed. “It’s weird, you know?”

  He nodded. Waited.

  “I mean, we never knew him. And now he’s gone. Yesterday he was alive, and now he’s just… gone.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe he was a really good guy, and we never knew.”

  “Maybe he was a complete bastard,” he said. She glared, but he shrugged. “He certainly didn’t go out of his way to be friendly.”

  “I guess not. I’m just feeling strange about it.” Her expression suggested she was referring to more than Bill’s death. He looked at the bed, the sheets rumpled. Last night he’d asked the police if they were taking the sheets, and one of them laughed, said no, he didn’t figure Bill would need them anymore. “Yeah.”

  Taking the money, he’d been buoyed by the insanity of it. By the way it could be set against years, against dreams, like time and hope had been transmuted to paper. It wasn’t money they were claiming; it was life. Who didn’t want more? Now, though, standing in the abandoned bedroom, he found everything seemed less clear.

  Then he had a thought. Felt himself smiling.

  “What?” She cocked her head. Smiled back, curious. “What?”

  “I know how to cheer us up.”

  “CAN I OPEN MY EYES?”

  “Not yet.” Tom leaned forward, passed the cabbie a twenty. “Keep the change.” He opened the door, then put a hand under Anna’s arm. “Easy. Slide out.” He stepped to the curb, guided her beside him, then spun her south, facing down the strip of glittering window fronts. Saturday afternoon, and Michigan Avenue was jammed. On the opposite corner, a good-looking kid danced to a boom box beside a sign reading “Grad Student Discos for Dollars.” A crowd of tourists ringed him, snapping pictures and clapping. “Okay. You can look.”

  Anna took her hands from her eyes, looked down the strip of shops. “The Mile?” She cocked her head. “We’re going shopping?”

  “Ooooh yeah.”

  She laughed. “Do you think we should?”

  “Why not?”

  “What if it turns out he has a family?”

  “Then we’ll return it. But I think we’re entitled to a couple grand. Call it a finder’s fee.”

  She shaded her eyes and looked down the row of stores. He could see her thinking about it, deciding. Then she turned back to him, said, “One question.”

  “What?”

  “Where do we start?”

  It was a surreal experience, carrying five grand in his front pocket with the full intention of blowing it. Peeling off the first bill was hard, instinct kicking in to ask what the hell he was doing dropping six hundred on a leather jacket for her, three hundred on sunglasses for him. But by the time he stacked five bills on the counter for two pairs of heels, he was getting the hang of it. And when she leaned out of a Neiman Marcus dressing room wearing a twelve-hundred-dollar Carolina Herrera cocktail dress and a wicked smile, her finger crooked in invitation, he felt right at home. He stepped into the tiny room and pulled the door shut behind him, the two of them fighting first giggles and then moans as they made love against the mirror.

  Afterward, laden with bags, they wandered over to State Street. There was a half-hour wait at the Atwood Café, but he slipped the hostess fifty, and suddenly they were sitting at a primo table in the corner of the patio. He started to order a beer, thought better of it. “You have any champagne?”

  The air was sweet with spring, sun shimmering off the windows of cabs and the graceful flutes of bubbly. He sighed, closed his eyes and breathed it all in. “Now, this is living.”

  “I could get used to it.”

  He laughed. “Don’t get too used to it. At this rate we could burn four hundred grand pretty fast.”

  She winked at him over the rim of her glass. They ordered and ate, chatting about nothing. After he’d scooped up the last bite of his sa
lmon and washed it down with the last sip of champagne, he leaned back, crossed his ankle over his knee. “Times like this I wish I hadn’t quit smoking.”

  “Times when you’ve dropped five grand in two hours?”

  “If I had a nickel, right?” He ran his hands through his hair. “You want to talk about it?”

  “No, I think it was good you quit smoking.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  She twisted pasta around her fork, stabbed a shrimp. Popped it in her mouth and chewed slowly. Shrugged. “What’s to talk about?”

  “Just want to make sure you’re okay with everything.”

  “I feel pretty good right now. A shopping spree will do that for a girl.” She set her fork on her plate, dabbed at her mouth with the napkin. “This was fun. But shopping sprees weren’t the reason I wanted to take it.”

  “I know. Just thought I’d lighten the mood.”

  “No, I’m glad you did. But…” Anna leaned forward, put her hand over his. “Tom, I want to try again.”

  “For a baby?”

  “Not a baby, a child. People talk about wanting a baby like it’s a puppy. I want the whole thing. To raise a child together.” She paused. “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, of course. It’s just…” He shrugged, stared out at the sidewalk. “I don’t know. It’s been rough. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want a kid. I do. It’s just it seems like so much work right now. The shots, the waiting, the appointments. Plus…”

  “What?”

  He hesitated. Watched two cops come out of a deli, coffee in their hands. One of them said something that made the other laugh.

  “What is it?”

  He turned to look at her. She was squinting against the sun, her hair lit gold, and he felt a wave of love for her, one of those moments when he was really seeing what he had, instead of taking it for granted. “This is going to sound silly, but I had fun today. And last night too. It felt more like it used to. Before.”

  “The sex.”

  “Sure, but not just that. I mean all of it. The feeling that we’re in it together, that it’s us against the world. Partners in crime.” He laughed. “Literally, now.” Her hand was warm against his, and he traced the edge of her index finger. “I guess I feel like the fertility stuff has just stressed us out so much. What if we didn’t go for IVF again? What if we thought about adoption?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. “We talked about that before. After everything we’ve been through…”

  “There are a lot of kids out there.”

  “There really aren’t,” she said. “You know that. There are a lot of older kids, but not a lot of baby-babies. The process can take a long time, if it happens at all, and meanwhile, the odds of me ever being able to get pregnant keep declining. And I don’t want to go all Madonna and adopt from another country. It seems like it could put too much on them when they grow up.”

  He played with his spoon. “I just don’t want to lose you in all of this.”

  “I know what you mean. I do.” She squeezed his hand. “But things are different now. So much of the problem between us had to do with money.”

  “You think?”

  “Are you kidding? We’ve got three credit cards maxed, a fourth on the way. The mortgage. We work sixty hours a week. Add all the fertility stuff on top of that? Yeah, it had a lot to do with the money.”

  He rocked his head back and forth. She had a point. Every time things hadn’t worked out, every procedure, every visit to the clinic, some part of him was punching buttons on a mental calculator. Now that wouldn’t be a worry. They could pay their bills, get themselves even, and still have maybe three hundred grand, enough for as many tries as it took. It would help. “It’s not just the debt, though. I’ve missed…” Tom held an empty hand up. “Us.”

  “I know.” She shrugged. “I know. But now it can be different. We can make a point of it. Only now we won’t have to worry about anything. No bills, no panic that it’s a waste. Besides.” She leaned forward. “Imagine holding a child in your arms. Our child, yours and mine. Can you imagine how beautiful she’ll be?”

  “She?” He smiled. “I thought we’d worked this out. You’re having a boy.”

  “No chance. You’ll be a complete sucker for a little girl, and I like seeing you squirm. Now,” she said, and leaned back. “Pay the nice lady. I want to go home and try on my new dress.”

  “I’m just going to end up taking it off you again.”

  Anna cocked an eyebrow. “Why do you think I’m putting it on?”

  6

  THE CAR WAS A HONDA CIVIC, ten years old, black and in need of a wash. It was exactly like five or six others on the block, which was why they’d chosen it. Jack had stood watch while Marshall jacked it from a parking deck down on Lake. The deck was an art deco trip, the façade designed to look like the grille of a car. The Honda had been parked smack in the middle of what would have been the radiator.

  Jack reached for his coffee, took the last cold slug, then tossed the empty cup in the back and squirmed in his seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. Three hours parked and staring at everyday people hurrying off to their little jobs was enough to put a crick in anybody’s back.

  “Still no sign of Will.” Marshall tapped an unlit cigarette against his thigh. Man didn’t smoke, but always carried a pack. Claimed they were useful, an easy way to get close to somebody or to start a conversation with a chick. “You don’t think the little prick lied to us?”

  “No.”

  “I guess you’re right. Number you did on him, he’d have ratted on Jesus Christ.” Marshall scrunched his face up like he was in pain, cast his voice high. “ ‘Ohgodohgod, please, not my other hand, I’ll tell you where he is, just not my other hand, please!’ ” He blew a breath. “That was heavy shit, you doing it anyway, after he told us.”

  “Had to be sure.” Something queasy happened in Jack’s stomach, and he had an image of the boy the way they’d left him, cruciform, facedown, a pool of blood spreading fast, pouring out of his neck to darken the hardwood like a hose left on the concrete. He pushed it away, a mental twitch that was becoming easier. The boy hadn’t been his first.

  “Poor Ray. Just bad luck, him being Will’s nephew.”

  “Yeah.” Jack closed his eyes, rubbed them with his fingertips. “Poor Ray.”

  “Funny, the way luck works. Going about your business, thinking about what car to buy, whether you want to stay with your girl or look for a new one, and wham! Head-on collision with fate.”

  “Fate?” Jack shrugged. “It wasn’t fate. It was us. We did it.”

  “Sure. Fate’s messengers.” Marshall spun the cigarette between his fingers. “Let me ask, how many times you pull the trigger on somebody?”

  “A few.”

  “You remember the second?”

  “Huh?”

  “I got this theory. The first you’re always going to remember. Like losing your cherry. I remember the first time perfectly. Julia Buckley. I was fifteen, she was fourteen, in her parents’ basement. They had this orange shag rug, and we did it right on top.” He paused. “Thing is, I can’t remember the second time we fucked. Already started to lose the novelty.”

  Jack ran his tongue between his teeth and his lips, shifted in the seat. “I remember the second time.”

  “Second time you killed or the second time you fucked?”

  “Both.”

  “Huh.” Marshall stared out the window, spoke slow. “You notice how none of them believes it’s happening? Take your toughest tough guy, he won’t believe it. But it’s like getting hit by a bus. Anybody can get hit by a bus, anytime. Bus don’t care what you’re thinking, that you aren’t ready. It’s just getting from A to B.” He jerked his chin toward the windshield. “There’s the other neighbor.”

  Jack followed his stare to the brick two-flat forty yards down. A woman was stepping out of the door that led to the second-floor apartment. When they’d first arrived, he’d go
ne into the vestibule that fronted the place and checked the mailboxes. The first floor read Bill Samuelson, close enough to “Will” that it’d be automatic to respond when people said it. The second floor listed a Tom and Anna Reed. A guy Jack could only assume was Tom had left earlier, wearing rock star shades.

  They watched her lock the door and head down the block, her low-rise jeans tight enough to show off the sweetheart of her ass. She climbed into a late-model Pontiac and pulled away.

  Jack reached in back and pulled the shotgun, handed it to Marshall.

  ANNA COULDN’T GET used to how easily she’d gotten used to it. The money. Only a couple of days since they’d found it, and everything felt different already.

  Like her job. Normally, given all the time she’d missed for doctor’s appointments, today she would have gone in early. Tried to make some headway against the mountain of e-mails. Butter up her boss. Spend some time schmoozing the client, letting them feel they were involved without letting them muck anything up.

  There’d been a time when she’d loved it. Loved the hours and the excitement of a downtown ad firm, loved wearing heeled boots and working on the forty-first floor, loved the free lunches and Friday-afternoon beer. But lately it had come to seem so… pointless. Working sixty-hour weeks to create advertising – the one product people actively tried to avoid.

  And this morning she just couldn’t face it. So after Tom had left, she’d called in to say that she was wiped out from the treatments. Then she’d put on her favorite jeans, gone to the basement, and taken eight bundles of their money.

  Their money. That was another funny thing. She no longer thought of it as Bill’s. From the moment she lied to the detective, it had started to become theirs. Little images popped up against her eyelids when she closed them: the house paid off, a baby girl in her arms and another on the way, an annual vacation to South Carolina to play in the surf. Nothing elaborate, no jet-set life or movie-star parties. Just a family and the security to enjoy it. That was all she had ever really wanted.

  She flipped her signal, turned onto Lincoln. A lovely spring morning, the trees suddenly green along the neighborhood blocks, sunlight playful off storefront windows. A perfect day to play hooky. She decided to treat herself to lunch. Maybe even call her sister, see if Sara wanted to join.