by Paul Hina
do.
Of course, he hopes that she'll be smart enough to know that she's been found out and not run at all.
He opens the newspaper, and pretends to read as footsteps come up from behind him.
"What can I get you?" Emma asks, standing in front of him now.
"You look different."
"What's that?" she asks.
"I said you look different," he says, folding the paper down and looking at her.
At first, there is a moment of startle in her eyes, and what he feared might turn to panic, but instead faded into a look of quiet resignation. She knew she was caught.
"How'd you find me?" she asks, sitting down across from him.
"Asked some questions," he says. Then he reaches into his inside jacket pocket, pulls out the letter she had sent to Kevin, and tosses it on the table. "This didn't hurt, though."
She looks at the letter. "He give you that?"
"No, I intercepted it."
"You mean you stole it."
"That's one way of putting it."
"That wasn't very nice."
"Not sure I'm prepared to be lectured by you on what is or isn't nice."
"I know why you're here."
"I suppose you would."
"You're wasting your time. I didn't have anything to do with it."
"But you sure didn't waste any time getting out of town."
"I was scared."
"So scared that you went straight to Ramsey's?"
"Who told you that?"
"A little birdie told me."
"Did my brother tell you that?"
"Did you pay Ramsey off before or after the accident?'
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm talking about the fifty-five hundred dollars you took from the bank earlier that afternoon."
"That was to pay Ramsey what Kevin owed him. They were threatening him. I thought he was going to be killed."
"Then, why, if you were paying off Kevin's debts, did Ramsey tell Kevin that he could clear his debt by cutting Brett's brake lines?"
"You'd have to ask Ramsey that question."
"But it's so much easier for me to ask you since, you know, you're sitting right here and all."
"Listen, I can't talk in here," Emma says, standing up from the booth. "Follow me."
Clay gets up and follows Emma around the lunch counter, past the guy with the paper and the guy chatting up the blond waitress, and through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
"I'm taking five," she yells to the cook.
"Make it quick," the cook yells back, not even looking up to acknowledge her.
"I've really only got five minutes before the morning rush starts," she says, opening a side door to the alley outside.
"Tell me about the five grand," Clay says, standing with his back to the street. There's a building behind her. He's hoping to block any possible escape route.
"Cut the crap, Clay. I don't want to stand here and have you chase me in circles with questions. I don't have time for it. You already know too much. Why don't you just tell me what you know? I'll tell you if you get anything wrong."
"Have it your way," Clay says. "I think you took the five hundred and kept it for yourself. You knew you were about to be on the run and would need a little cushion to hold you over for a bit. Then I think you took the five thousand to Ramsey that same afternoon. I think you had asked him to get rid of Brett for you, and he agreed but wanted paid. I'm still not sure why you wanted Brett dead, though. Maybe you were tired of Brett knocking you around. Maybe you were jealous of someone he was seeing. Maybe it was Crystal," he says, trying to gauge her reaction to the name.
"Jealous?" Emma asks, almost laughing at him. "I wasn't worried about her. She was just one of Brett's playthings. Nothing was going to happen with her. But I knew that Ramsey was jealous."
"Brett told you about being kicked out of the poker game the week before."
"That's right, and my brother filled me in on the details."
"So, you exploited what you already knew was a rift between Ramsey and Brett."
"You might say that."
"How?"
"I told him things that weren't true."
"Like?"
"That Brett and Crystal had been sleeping together."
"And that did it."
"They're dead ain't they."
"So, you did pay him?"
"Yeah, but I'll deny it if you tell the police."
"There's a lot of that going around," Clay says.
"If you're done, I've—"
"Just a couple more things."
"Make it quick."
"How'd you know the police would think you were the one in the car?"
"Because Ramsey told me they would."
"I wonder why?"
"Same body type, I guess. I don't know. He seemed pretty sure about it, and I believed him. He said he would take care of everything, and all I had to do was get him the money, and be ready to leave town late that night."
"Did Ramsey tell you all this directly?"
"Yes."
"So, you met with him personally."
"No, I never saw him."
"How'd he tell you this directly then?
"Once I reached out to him in Fremont, he started leaving me messages through his guys, or through little notes here and there."
"Little notes? How do you mean?"
"He left me notes on scorecards at baseball games, in magazines at the beauty parlor, things like that."
"Ramsey did that?"
"That's what I said."
Clay is stunned for second by this, but he tries not to show it. "And you guys had agreed that he would forgive your brother's debts with the money you paid him?"
"Yep."
"So, why did Ramsey have him cut Brett's brake lines?"
"He was collateral."
"For what?"
"Ramsey thought that, if Kevin was involved in the crash, it would give me extra incentive not to talk to the police."
"And did he tell you that, or—?"
"I figured that one out on my own," she says. "We almost done here?"
"One last thing."
"What's that?"
"Why'd you want to kill Brett?"
"Because he was a worthless brute. Had been since I met him. I just decided that I wasn't going to let him lay his hands on me ever again."
"And you couldn't leave him. You weren't actually married, and you needed his financial protection. So, you had a will drawn up."
"Wayne talked to you?"
"I did," a voice says from the street side of the alley, behind Clay.
"About time, Wayne," Clay says, not even turning to look at him. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't show your face."
"Go home, Wayne," Emma says.
"I'm not going anywhere," Wayne says, approaching them.
"I suppose you're the dope that hired this guy?" Emma asks, motioning toward Clay.
"And he told me everything," Clay says.
"Is that true?"
"You just disappeared. What choice did I have?"
"Keep your mouth shut for a couple more weeks. That would've been a good start."
"But you didn't tell me what was going on."
"Why would I tell you?"
"Because we had a deal!" Wayne shouts at her.
"Oh, you did, huh," Clay says, walking in between Wayne and Emma, leaning back on the exterior wall by the diner's kitchen door. He reflexively reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. No cigarettes, of course. If he'd known he'd be in all these tense situations, he would've put off quitting a little longer, or, at the very least, he could've remembered to bring a baseball with him, just to have something in his hands. "I'd love to hear more about this deal."
"Oh, so, he didn't tell you everything."
"Emma, let's not do this. Let's go somewhere. We can talk about—"
"Wayne hired you because he was angry with me for cutting him out."
"Emma, this is—"
"Cutting him out of what?" Clay asks.
"He wanted Brett's money."
"How was he going to get that?"
"How do you think?"
"She's lying, Clay. She'll say anything. You can't trust a girl like this."
"You should've thought of that before you got involved with a girl like this," Clay says, and then looks back to Emma. "Tell me what I think."
"Emma don't," Wayne says, pleading.
"Too late," Emma says. "When I met Wayne, we were close right away. He knew Brett was abusive, and he seemed every bit as hurt and angry about it as I was. So, he came up with a plan. We would write up a will and get Brett to sign it. That would be the easy part. Brett was stupid about money, and he liked to talk about it as much as he liked to think about it, which was not at all. He always had it, and just assumed it would always be there. And he signed the will without so much as a question, agreeing to give all his money to me if something were to happen to him. Then we just had to wait until he was passed out drunk some night at the house, which was pretty much every night, and then we would… Why don't you tell him?"
"She's making this up," Wayne says to Clay.
"We were going to torch the place," Emma says, staring at Wayne. "I was going to conveniently spend the night with a friend that night, giving me a solid alibi, and then Wayne was going to burn the place to the ground. Then we were going to collect the money and start a new life together. Right, Wayne?"
Wayne just stares at her.
"And everything was going as planned. That is, until you lost your nerve," Emma says, staring at Wayne.
"You wouldn't be patient," Wayne snaps back at her.
"I was sick and tired of being his punching bag."
"I know, baby," Wayne says, approaching her.
"Stay away from me," Emma says, holding her arms out straight in front of her.
Wayne goes to grab her arms, but she swings and hits him in the head.
"Get away from me," she yells.
He tries to embrace her, but she keeps swinging her hands and arms, beating him about the head and shoulders. He grabs her face with his hands, and squeezes it.
"Wayne, back off!" Clay yells, grabbing his shoulder.
Wayne swings his arm back toward
