by Marcus Sakey
Sara, on her way to the kitchen, threw the words over her shoulder. “I know, right? One minute I’m dropping E with the shower boys at Spin, next I’m Betty Crocker.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I’m not sure how I got here.”
Her voice was weary, but there was nothing like regret in it. Anna forced a smile. “Yeah, well, I don’t know about Betty Crocker. She can cook.” A baby seat hung from bungee cords in the hall entrance. She tugged at it, and the thing bounced up and down. “Where’s the Monkey?”
“Julian’s sleeping, thank God. Coffee?”
“Sure.” She moved a bright plastic rattle and sat at the table. Sara returned with two mugs and a box of Girl Scout cookies pinned beneath one arm. “What’s in the bag?”
“Sweats,” Anna said. The lie came easily, just falling off her tongue. “I thought I might stop by the gym afterward.”
Sara nodded, tore open a sleeve of cookies. “So how are you really?”
“I’m okay.” She sipped at the too-hot coffee. “It gets easier every time. That’s a terrible thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Oh, honey.”
“I don’t know. Maybe next time.”
“You guys are going to try again?”
“Yeah. Sooner or later the odds have to work in our favor, right?”
“But I thought…” Sara cocked her head.
Shit. She’d forgotten talking about how broke they were, how they couldn’t afford to pay their bills. “Well, you know. We can live on credit cards for a while.”
It sounded lame, but Sara didn’t pursue it. They sat in awkward silence for a moment, and then Sara said, “Come on. I need help picking an outfit for my interview.” She grabbed the coffee and led the way. Anna dropped on the bed while her sister went into her walk-in closet.
“So how are things with Tom?” Sara’s voice disembodied.
“Okay. It’s tough.” She fiddled with the edge of the duvet. “We’ve been together forever, and we love each other, but sometimes marriage seems like so much work.”
“That, sweetheart, is why I’ve got a strict six-month dating policy.”
Anna laughed. “It’s weird. The longer you’ve loved a person, the harder it is to articulate why.” She looked up as Sara stepped out, holding a bright red dress cut for cleavage. “No,” she said.
“No?”
“Not unless you’re applying to be a secretary-with-privileges.”
“If I could only find a boss that looked like George Clooney.” She vanished again. “So what does that mean, hard to articulate?”
“It’s just, you get so used to loving each other as an idea, you sometimes forget to do it.” She leaned over to look at a picture on the night table, Sara and three girlfriends in a bar booth, her sister’s head flung back in laughter.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Are you sure Tom wants a baby as much as you?”
She was glad Sara couldn’t see her wince. “I don’t know. How much is him wanting one and how much is him doing it for me gets kind of murky.”
“How about this?” Sara’s arm extended out the door, holding a pin-striped suit.
“Mehh.”
She pulled her arm back. “Does that scare you?”
“Are you kidding?” Anna opened her sister’s night table drawer, peered in, part fidgeting, part nosiness. Lip balm, tissues, a silver vibrator, okay, didn’t need to see that, some postcards. “Of course it does.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I think he’d be a great dad, but-”
“I know,” Anna said, cycling through the postcards: a black-and-white shot of a flamenco dancer, a pattern in avocado and orange, a flock of birds in flight. “I get scared by it, like I said. But to be honest, I don’t think that’s the problem. Have you ever seen him with kids? He goes totally-” She turned to put the cards back in the drawer, and her mouth fell open.
“Totally what?”
“Why do you have a gun?”
“Huh?”
It lay beneath where the postcards had been. A revolver, short, like the kind cops in old movies carried. Anna stared at it, wanting to touch it, wanting not to.
Her sister stepped out with a white blouse and a guilty expression she covered by going aggressive. “Snoop much?”
“Why do you have a gun, Sara?”
She shrugged. “A cop friend gave it to me when I moved into the city. He said, you know, a woman alone.”
“A cop friend?”
“Okay, a cop boyfriend.”
“And you kept it?”
“It seemed kind of romantic at the time. After we broke up, I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“What about Julian?”
“He’s too little to be going through drawers.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” She stared at her sister, feeling her face scrunch up. “I wonder how many parents say that just before their kid has an accident.”
“That’s a little dramatic.”
Anna held the gaze, raised her eyebrows. After a moment, Sara rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll get rid of it.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean, that is way out of his reach-”
“Sara.”
“Okay, okay.” She held up the blouse. “What do you think?”
Anna shook her head, dropped the postcards to cover the pistol, then shut the drawer. She sighed, then said, “With the gray skirt.”
“The short one?”
“The long one.”
Sara tossed the blouse on the bed. “You’re no fun.”
They finished the coffee, then went to peek at Julian. He lay flat in his crib, doughy arms splayed out, hair mussed. His eyes were open and staring at a mobile of black-and-white shapes. When he saw Anna, he giggled and smiled and farted, and thin needles tore into her heart.
“Look who’s awake,” Sara said, in that exaggerated baby voice.
“Look who it is!” She leaned in and picked him up, one hand behind his head, and straightened with a groan. “You’re getting so big.”
“Hi there,” Anna whispered. She held out a finger, and Julian’s tiny fingers closed around it, and she knew. They would make it happen. The money would make it possible. It was like something out of a fairy tale. A magic lamp that could grant wishes. And she had only one.
THE LINEN CLOSET? Too frequently opened.
On top of the armoire? The quarter inch of dust was good. But there wasn’t enough space.
Her cell phone rang, but she ignored it. Under the bed? Too risky.
After Sara left, running out the door in a whirl of curses and instructions, Anna had burped Julian and changed his diaper, wiping his little bottom and dusting him with talcum powder. He’d cried for a while until she’d put a CD on, Cake’s Prolonging the Magic, and danced around her sister’s house bouncing him to the beat and singing that sheep go to heaven while goats go to hell. She had him giggling and grinning, waving his little fists like he was cheering.
“Ten months old and already a rock star,” she’d said. “You’re going to break a lot of hearts, kiddo.”
When he’d grown tired of their duet, she’d put him in his “office,” a plastic ring of bright toys with a canvas seat suspending him in the middle. He banged things happily. She dragged it into the hallway so she could keep an eye on him as she paced.
The living room didn’t offer many options. A coat closet, a couple of cabinets filled with DVDs, a bookshelf. Besides, it seemed too exposed. The bedroom felt better psychologically, deeper in the house, separated by another door. But she couldn’t find a good spot there, not somewhere she was sure Sara wouldn’t come upon.
It felt a little dirty, looking at her sister’s home as a place to hide stolen money. She’d considered renting a safe-deposit box. But something in her rejected it. For one thing, it felt too risky. Cameras and security, police on call. And the banks must have master keys to open their own boxes. It was irrational to think that they would, of co
urse, but it just seemed better to have the money stored somewhere no one else knew about. A place she could get to anytime.
The kitchen had potential. Her sister considered mac and cheese challenging, had often joked that her culinary skill began and ended with ordering. The cabinet beside the stove was filled with shoes. The oven held two loaves of Wonder Bread. Anna squatted down, peering into a cabinet that held one skillet, a saucepan, and one pot large enough to boil pasta. Maybe if she put it all the way in the back? She leaned in, feeling around. There was plenty of space, and the angle as the counter met the wall made for a blind spot. It might do. With a grunt, she hoisted the bag in, then pushed, the weight of it cumbersome, all those stacks of bills moving and shifting. It took a little arranging, but she got it out of sight, then put the pots back in the same positions.
Not bad. Anna stood, checked it from other angles. Decided to leave it there for the moment, see how she felt as the afternoon wore on. She opened the fridge, grabbed a Diet Coke, popped the can as she walked to the living room. It was a gorgeous day, one of those right on the blurry edge between spring and summer, and she watched the sunlight trip over trees and bushes to fall in the angles of afternoon shadows. The street was quiet, just a woman in shorts walking a dog, the faint banging of a construction project. Two men sat in a black Honda down the block. As she watched, the car started and they pulled away.
The money would be safe here. If Sara happened to stumble on it, she’d recognize the bag and call Anna. It would make for an awkward scene, but she was sure her sister would understand. And now their house was clean.
She sat down cross-legged in front of Julian, who was repeatedly pushing a button that made a cow go moo. Every time it did, he would gurgle as if surprised. She wondered if it was the sound that startled him or the fact that he made it happen. Probably the latter, she decided. That was the beautiful thing about babies. As they discovered the world, you got to watch them, and to rediscover it yourself. They were so helpless, and yet they had a greater capacity for-
What the hell was she doing?
She’d been so focused on finding a hiding place that she hadn’t thought about anything else. But now, sitting with Julian, watching him press a button over and over, reality sideswiped her. Was she really hiding stolen money in her sister’s house? Money men had already died over?
She stood in a dizzy rush of blood. Sprinted down the hall to the kitchen, tore open the cabinet, knocked the pans out clanging, then grabbed the strap and hauled the duffel bag out. No. No way.
She believed everything she’d said to Tom, that there was no reason that the thieves would draw a connection to them. The odds against it seemed astronomical, and considering the benefit, it was a risk she was willing to take. But for herself.
Her cell phone rang again. Still thinking of what she’d almost done, she answered it without checking the number.
10
AS HE BIT INTO THE DRIPPING SANDWICH, Tom supposed he ought to be angry, but he wasn’t. Actually, he felt good. Better than good. Great. Buoyant.
Which was unexpected. The morning had been a disaster, seen him called out on the carpet by his boss’s boss. Internal politics, a turf war two levels above him, but today he’d had to serve as the whipping boy, getting questioned in humiliating detail about the project he’d headed for months. A project Daniels had signed off on at every step, by the way, though of course today his boss sat silent and stern, like he was disappointed in Tom.
All of which should have pissed him off, and did, but didn’t dampen his mood. The reason was pretty simple – halfway through the meeting, he realized that it didn’t matter. That if he wanted, he could tell everyone in the room to sit and spin, punch up a Dropkick Murphys album on his iPod, and stalk out with middle fingers in the air. It was a silly vision he hadn’t indulged in years, not since he was first starting professional life. A kid’s dream, the kind of fantasy that could only belong to someone without responsibilities.
Or to someone who had three hundred thousand dollars in a duffel bag.
He took another bite of Italian beef, chewed with relish, loving the crunch of hot peppers amid the soggy mess of meat and bun. Grease glistened on his fingers as he turned the page of his novel. Mr. Beef was a Chicago institution, and though the walk from the office cut an hour’s lunch break thin, today he didn’t give a rat’s ass about getting back in time.
At first he’d thought Anna was crazy for wanting to keep the money, especially after the break-in. Oddly enough, what had settled his stomach was the story in yesterday’s paper linking Will Tuttle to the Shooting Star case. Yes, the money was stolen, and he supposed that, in some black-and-white way, that made him a bad person for wanting to keep it. But it had been taken from a movie star who commanded fifteen million a picture, even for that last piece of dreck about the asteroid. Not only that, but from the beginning, the tabloids had been full of rumors that the Star was buying drugs.
“You mind?” A sharp-dressed black man gestured at the empty bench seat opposite Tom’s. The lunch crowd was thinning out, and there were other seats available, but Tom shrugged, said, “Be my guest.”
Considering where the money came from, why shouldn’t it end up theirs? Better them than either a Hollywood brat or the thieves who targeted him.
Across the table, the man carefully tucked a silver tie between the fourth and fifth buttons of an orange shirt. “I love a sausage now and again, but they are messy.”
Tom didn’t say anything, just dipped a fry in ketchup, popped it in his mouth. He ate pretty healthy overall, but sometimes you needed grease.
“Yes, sir,” the man continued. “And nobody likes a mess. Am I right?”
Without looking up, Tom nodded.
“A mess” – holding the bun in slender fingers – “is a sign of a disordered mind. And a disordered mind is a sign of weakness.”
Tom put a finger in the margin of his book. The man didn’t look crazy. The suit was expensive and clearly tailored, and the thin mustache against his dark skin gave him an air of gravity. He looked like an entrepreneur, or a particularly stylish politician. “Do you agree, Mr. Reed?”
“What?” How did…
“Do you agree that a disordered mind is a sign of weakness?”
“I’m sorry. Have we – do we know each other?”
“And here’s the problem with weakness. You show weakness, you open yourself up to your enemies. The world is defined by strength. When you’re strong, actual violence isn’t much necessary. The threat is plenty. But for that to work, you can’t be seen as weak.” The man took a bite of sausage, chewed slowly. He picked up his napkin and wiped his fingers carefully, then said, “Do you love your wife, Mr. Reed?”
Something icy slid down the back of Tom’s thighs. Caught between fear and anger, he decided on the latter. He started to rise, saying, “Excuse me? Who the hell-”
“Anna. She’s lovely.”
Three words. Just three words, but the world warped under the weight of them, like the restaurant was tilting. He sat back down, his hands shaking. The money. This had to be about the money. Jesus. “Who are you?”
“Generally, I’m too busy to read as much as I’d like,” the man said, ignoring the question. “But I do a fair bit of business in Los Angeles, and I like a book when I fly. Mostly history. Coming in from LAX my last trip, I went through something on Genghis Khan. Interesting stuff. His empire was bigger than Rome, you believe it? Genghis, he marched all over the world. Fought his whole life. Got so that countries were so scared of him, they’d lay down arms just because they heard he was coming. And if they did, you know what happened?”
Tom felt a vein jump in his forehead. He looked around the room. The exit was only a dozen feet away. But between him and escape sat a muscular man in a maroon track suit. An untouched basket of fries lay in front of him. His hands were large and scarred, and his eyes, lazily half-open, were locked on Tom.
“I see you’ve noticed Andre. But are
you listening, Mr. Reed?”
He found his voice. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” The man raised his eyebrows. “Nothing. The Khan would welcome them into the empire. I mean, there’d be slaves taken, some tribute due. Basically, though, everybody could go on about their business. But if they resisted him, well. He tore cities down to nothing. Killed everybody, women and children, even livestock. Had the earth salted so crops couldn’t grow. Know why?” He leaned forward. “Because by resisting, they had tried to make him appear weak. So he had to look especially strong in victory. Had to look like anybody who cost him reputation, what they call face, would suffer. And not just his enemies, but everyone who loved them, helped them, even sheltered them.”
Some part of Tom wanted to just say, Take the money. I’m sorry, we’re sorry, take the money and go. But remembering what the man had said about weakness, he tried to keep his voice even, to give nothing away. “What does this have to do with me and my wife?”
The man in the suit steepled his fingers. His eyes were steady and his voice was calm. “Not long ago, a group of men cost me face. And as I’ve explained, world I operate in, that can’t happen. So I’m burning cities, and I’m salting earth. Understand?”
Tom swallowed hard, nodded.
“Good. Now. I’m going to ask you a question, and I suggest you think hard.”
Here it comes. He felt a hollowness inside, a mix of fear and adrenaline and loss. Perhaps it shouldn’t hurt to give up what had never been theirs to begin with. But it would. It would rip away the safety net they had begun to enjoy. It would cripple their dreams of a child. Plus, he realized with a rush of fear, they had spent so much of it. Would he be able to convince them that this was all they had found? He remembered the way this stranger had said his wife’s name, pronouncing the syllables as if he owned them, as if he could do with them what he liked.
Then the man spoke, and Tom wondered if he’d understood correctly.
“Whose side are you on?”
“What?”
