watch. He looked at Chris then with a mild expression and said it again.
"It's up to you."
Last November there were rock fans in the alley behind St. Andrews Hall, new-wavers in studded leather, spiked hair in Easter colors; normal-looking fans went unnoticed. Inside this auditorium without seats they pressed in a mass against the stage and rocked to Iggy Pop and his Brits turned loose: Iggy nonstop trying to twist himself in the air to levitate over his reaching fans while Chris, in the low balcony, watched and wondered what it was like to have that energy, to feel that response rising from outstretched hands and lighters flaming and all those eyes never letting go Today there were young black guys in the alley by the back door to the hall, waiting there, watching Chris coming toward them. Three guys with wide shoulders and skinny pants, wearing Pony sneakers. Their attitude was familiar to Chris but not their faces. A fourth guy, with bigger shoulders stretching his silky green jacket and holding a baseball bat, came out of the row of cars facing the alley.
This one was very familiar. He didn't have to stick out his tongue to be identified.
Chris took a quick look toward the parking lot full of cars. He didn't notice a red VW.
Juicy Mouth was saying, "This the man let Hooker blow his self up."
Announcing it to the three young guys, who were too cool to do more than appear half asleep.
It gave Chris time to look for a connection and think of Wendell saying there wasn't one, not between Booker's bomb and Woody's. But look at this, there was some kind of connection. Robin and Juicy? That didn't sound right.
Donnell and Juicy?
"Make it easy on you," Juicy was saying to him now.
"No fuss, stick your leg out, your foot on the bumper of that car, we be done and gone."
"You want to break my leg?"
Juicy held up the bat.
"Check it out. What have I got here?"
"For what?"
"Listen, I told the person I do more. They say no, don't put him away, put him in the hospital a while. That be fine, that do it."
"What person you talking about?"
"Can't tell you that, man. Same as like a lawyer won't tell you shit how he knows something. Check it out, it's the same thing what I'm saying."
"Was it Donnell Lewis?"
"Man, I just told you what I ain't gonna tell you."
Chris saw Juicy look up and move slowly toward the back of the old building. Chris stepped to the parking lot side and a car crept past them, going up the alley. Juicy came away from the building watching Chris, about twenty feet between them, but said to the young guys, "You get it open?"
One of them said, "I need a tire iron. Something to pop it."
Chris said, "You think I'm going in there with you?"
He unbuttoned his coat, his hand brushing the big grip of the automatic stuck in his waist, and held the coat open for Juicy.
"You see it?" He half turned to the three guys by the door, still holding open the coat.
"You see it?" Then said to Juicy again, "Was it Donnell?"
Juicy said, "You not suppose to have that, man. What is that, some kind of gun?"
Chris pulled the Clock from his waist and looked at the three well-built young guys as he palmed the slide, racked it and the gun was ready to fire. He said to them, "What you do now, you run, fast as you can. I don't want to ever see you again."
Juicy, taking his time, was coming toward him now, saying, "Man, is that thing real? That's a strange-looking piece, man. It shoot bullets or what?"
Chris said to the three young guys, "I'm gonna count to two."
The three guys stood posed at rest, dull-eyed, slack, hips cocked at studied angles.
Chris said, "One," raised the Clock and fired at the metal door behind them, past the nearest guy's head, and they were running as that hard sound filled the alley and Chris said, "Two."
He saw Juicy duck into the parking lot and went after him down a line of cars," catching glimpses of a moving figure, silky green, came to the exit drive, on the street, and there was no sign of him. An older black guy, the parking attendant, stood in the door of the shack, his office. He kept staring at the gun in Chris's hand till finally he pointed a direction and stepped back inside. Chris moved along the front of the cars facing the street, past the grill of a Rolls, another car, heard door locks snap closed and saw Juicy behind the wheel of a white Cadillac sedan, Juicy staring straight ahead. Chris approached on the passenger side and tapped the barrel of the Clock against the window.
"Hey, Juice? Who is it wants my leg busted?"
The guy refused to speak or turn his head, hands locked on the steering wheel.
"You can tell me, it's okay. Just don't stick out your tongue. Man, that thing is scary, like it's something alive, you know what I mean?
Living in your mouth… Who was it, Donnell?"
Juicy didn't answer or move or twitch or anything.
Chris said, "You think I don't see you? Okay, that's how you want it."
Chris put the muzzle of the gun flat against the glass and said,
"Juice? Look."
But the guy still wouldn't move.
Chris said, "You know what Mel Gibson would do?" and was anxious to show him as he thought of Mel blazing away with his Beretta. Shit, the Clock held more rounds.
First, though, Juicy had to be looking at him. And second, he had to be careful, not shoot through the car and hit something else, or somebody on the street a block away.
So Chris walked around to the front of the Cadillac. He raised the Clock in one hand and stood sideways-not the way Mel Gibson did it, two-handed-Juicy looking right at him now, aimed at the fat top part of the seat next to the guy and began squeezing off shots-loud, Jesus, they'd hear it at 1300-counting "four" as the shatterproof windshield came apart, counted from five through ten and stopped. Where was Juicy? There, his head showing as he came up, very cautious, behind the steering wheel. Chris fired five more quick rounds into the car before Juicy could move, continued to hold the gun aimed in the silence and said, "Was it Donnell?"
Juicy nodded, up and down.
"Say it."
"It was him."
"You feel better now?"
"I don't owe him nothing. He busted off my tooth one time, was in a Men's."
"You could've told me it was Donnell before and saved your car getting wrecked."
Juicy said, "What, this? This ain't my car."
Robing used to roll joints Skip said were the next thing to being factory made. She had rolled him one hard and tight he was smoking now, sitting low in her fake-leather chair. Robin had a hip on the edge of her desk, red sunburst still on the wall behind her, watching him as she fooled with her braid.
"Are you afraid of him?"
"All I'm trying to tell you," Skip said, "I think he's the kind of fella we could've cut a deal with. Stays out of our way long as we don't make a lot of noise." Skip drew on the cigarette and his voice changed, tightened.
"I didn'teven want to do it to him, send him over there to be crippled."
"I guess he could've picked up a gun," Robin said.
"But to start shooting-" "Listen," Skip said.
"I was across the street. These guys come by me like they're out to set a new four-forty record. He goes after the other guy, finds him and I swear fires twenty shots into that car before he's through. You see him as some broke dick with his hand out. I saw him holding a gun in it that never stops firing."
"What did he do then?"
"I told you, I took off. He might've gone back to the bar. He knows who set him up."
"You're saying he might come here."
"I was him I'd already be here. That's why we have to clear out. What I've been trying to tell you."
"You have a gun, don't you?"
Skip said, "You want me to do it? You keep changing the plan, come up with different ideas, shit, now you want me to clean up your mess. He comes in, shoot him right here in your apartment. That what you want?"
He inhaled and reached out, offering her the joint.
Robin shook her head; she straightened. Skip watched her step away from the desk but not going anywhere. Inside her head now, still stroking her braid.
Skip said, "I think we better move out to your mom's for the night."
"He knows you were there."
"Then let's go to a motel."
She stopped pacing and turned to him and he liked the schemy smile coming into her eyes.
"I've got a better idea," Robin said. he part Greta played in the movie they shot in Detroit was GIRL IN BAR, filmed in an actual bar, Jacoby's, on Brush Street. The camera follows an actor playing a detective as he enters and comes over to the bar where she's standing with another actor. (Both of them had familiar faces, but she didn't know their names.) The one at the bar says to the one that comes in, "She's trying to figure out what I do for a living."
GIRL IN BAR: "Don't tell me, okay?"
The guy is wearing a tie with a plaid wool shirt and a suitcoat that doesn't match the pants. GIRL IN BAR: "You teach shop at a high school, right?" Then there's the sound of a beeper going off. As the one that comes in takes the beeper from his belt, she sees his bolstered gun. GIRL IN it BAR: "You're cops. That's the next thing I was gonna say."
When she told Chris about the scene he said, "Yeah, then what happens?"
Nothing. That was all she did in the movie, the one scene. Every once in a while she'd imagine being in Jacoby's and wonder what might happen next if it were real life. If for some reason she's there alone and the guy with the wool shirt and tie comes up to her and starts talking… It still wouldn't go anywhere, because she wasn't GIRL IN BAR. Played by Ginger Jones. She wasn't either of them.
She was Greta Wyatt, resting on her elbows at the kitchen table, the only place in the empty house to sit down, outside of her bed, and she didn't want to go upstairs yet.
The idea of being alone was to have time to look at her situation: see where she was in relation to her goal in life, if she had one, and figure out why she was confused-if it took all night.
As it turned out, she had a revelation in less than half an hour.
Dance Fever appeared on the black-and-white TV her folks had left for her on the kitchen counter. Dance Fever was a talent contest judged by semi-well-known names from the entertainment world. Greta watched couples come out and perform acrobatic dances in sequined costumes that would catch the studio lights and flash on the black-and-white screen.
She watched the girls especially, studied each one and thought, Oh my God, she's a Ginger Jones. Four part-time Ginger Joneses, one after another, with their huge thighs and show-biz smiles locked in place, throwing themselves into their routines and trusting their muscular little partners to catch them. She had even said to Chris the other night, "You know how many Ginger Joneses there are just in Detroit?" Talking about if she had talent or not. And he said, "There's only one Greta Wyatt that I know of."
She realized now a revelation could be right smack in front of you all the time, but so simple you miss it.
Why use a fake name that makes you think of yourself as a third-rate performer?
The movie director had told her she was really good, a natural, as GIRL IN BAR. Greta Wyatt acting, playing a part that wasn't anything like her. Why give Ginger Jones the credit? Someone she didn't respect.
She'd call up the movie company in Hollywood and tell them she'd like her credit changed to read: GIRL IN BAR, dot dot dot, Greta Wyatt.
How many Gretas were there in Hollywood these days?
Next. See Woody and relieve her mind of that part.
Settle with him fairly; accept his original offer. Even if he did rape her, or try to, it didn't mean she should take advantage of him.
Twenty-five thousand was plenty. She didn't need a car anymore. Or need to get mixed up in what could become a mess, his brother already dead, and find herself caught in the middle. End up being one of those girls that gets her hair done, then opens her door for the news people, the TV cameras, and acts innocent, holding a hanky to her nose… Or open the door wearing sunglasses and act mysterious, escorted through the crowd to a big car, and the next thing you know Farrah Fawcett wants to play you in the movie.
New rules to live by. One, be yourself. No more Ginger. Two, see Woody and get that over with. Three…
Three was still up in the air but seemed okay. What to do about Chris Mankowski. His voice on the message recorder said, "Greta, I haven't changed one bit," and it made her feel good, the way seeing him walking around in his underwear made her feel good. She was herself with him, or she could play around acting cute with him and he loved it. Now she missed him and wanted him to hurry up and call. But then thought of the scene in Jacoby's again and wondered what she would look like on the screen.
She thought of Woody and saw him handing her a check.
Thought of Chris in bed wearing his dad's glasses.
Thought of the director, the way he looked at her when she finished the scene, the way he put his hand on her arm.
She saw Woody, he was making her take a check for a hundred thousand, insisting, and saw herself coming out of his house putting on sunglasses.
Greta smiled.
She thought of Chris, his body, the scars on his legs.
And now she was in a dark movie theater, watching titles appear on the screen, waiting for her name…
It was after seven by the time Chris got hold of the building manager, back from somewhere with his toolbox, and told him Miss Abbott didn't answer when he buzzed her apartment. The manager, grim as ever, said when that happened it meant the person wasn't home. Not trying to be funny. Chris came close to grabbing him by the throat.
He held on and said in a fairly nice tone, What he was about to ask, would it be too much trouble to look in her apartment and make sure?
The manager said he was already late sitting down to his supper.
Standing in that dingy hall by the manager's apartment Chris said, "I better inform you, you could be charged here with creating an improper diversion in violation of ordinance 613.404. Carries, I think, up to a year."
The manager, frowning, thinking about it, said, "Creating a what?"
Chris hunched in close to the guy's flashing bifocals and said, "Get the goddamn pass key."
Robin wasn't home.
He got back in his dad's car and drove out to Bloomfield Hills.
Northbound traffic was light on the freeway and he was able to go seventy or better, feeling an urgent need to get Robin and Skip nailed down, located, under some kind of surveillance. He knew where to find Donnell.
No more fooling around in the gray area, the first one. There was a second gray area now: a white '87 Cadillac sedan, license number JVS 681. He was thinking about asking Jerry Baker if he'd check with the First Precinct, see if the owner had reported a blown-out windshield and fifteen 9-millimeter rounds in the backrest of his front seat. Or through and through, into the back seat. There might even be a couple in the trunk. At this point Jerry Baker, the gray area expert, might ask, "What's gray about it?"
It was something to think about driving up the freeway, eight o'clock and still light. Chris imagined a conversation as sort of a rehearsal for conversations to come, a chance to get a few answers straight in his mind, starting with Jerry asking what's gray about the guy getting his car shot up.
CHRIS: Let's-say it happened in the line of duty. The city pays for the damage, right?
JERRY: But it didn't.
CHRIS: Looking at it retroactively, it could turn out that it was in the line of duty. That's the gray area.
Jerry doesn't understand that. No one would.
CHRIS: Look at it this way. While holding evidence until Monday, I've put myself in a position to observe the perpetrators, aware of the possibility they could, A, show their hand, B, fuck up, or C, as it happens sometimes with these people, they have a disagreement and go after each other instead of the intended victim, Woody.
JERRY: Or they could go after you.
CHRIS: That's right. You could get a leg broken. But when the attempt fails and a Cadillac sedan, JVS 681, is damaged in the process, there are two ways to look at it. One, it was a matter of a private citizen defending his life.
JERRY: Who's the private citizen?
CHRIS: Me. Or, another way to look at it, the car was damaged by a police officer in the performance of his duty.
JERRY: But you're not a police officer.
CHRIS: I am if they'll reinstate me retroactively, in consideration of the undercover work I've been doing, lining up the perpetrators. All right, that's done. Or it will be. Then Monday, Homicide throws a full investigation at them. Get them with dynamite in their possession. Then I bring out the evidence I've been holding over the weekend, five sticks of Austin Powder. We match it to their dynamite, same lot number and all, and we're on our way. Maybe Homicide'll want to go about it a little different, but here's hard evidence that could lead to a conviction. Get 'em for one homicide, one attempted.
JERRY: You produce the five sticks of dynamite-that's all?
Not the check for twenty-five grand?
CHRIS: I don't know. That's still in the gray area all its own, isn't it?
Jerry doesn't answer. The gray area expert doesn't know either. Or won't say…
In the next hour and a half Chris arrived at Robin's mother's house, off Lone Pine Road, pressed close to the windows in all three garage doors and saw a Lincoln and two clean, empty spaces; no red VW. He pressed close to windows along the back of the house, came to a door and rang the bell. If he had I.D. he'd get the Bloomfield Hills cops to go in. Just checking. But he didn't have I.D." so he poked his elbow through a pane of glass, reached in and opened the door. Right next to it on the wall was the panel of buttons you punched as soon as you entered, to turn off the silent alarm system. Shit. So he got in his dad's car and drove back to Robin's:
Buzzed her apartment and got no answer. Buzzed the manager…
From 9:30 till 3:00 A.M. Chris sat in the car parked across the street from 515 Canfield, in the dark. He pictured Robin and Skip in a bar, two ex-cons talking past their shoulders, scheming, grinning at each other as they had fun getting smashed. Seeing them in a bar because he would love a drink. Go somewhere to have a few and get something to eat. He hadn't had anything since breakfast.
A box of popcorn in the show. He should've called Greta.
He caught a glimpse of Phyllis, the cotton between her toes…
Then saw Greta in her T-shirt now, bending over the stove.
Saw her sitting at the desk in the squad room. Saw her walking, her thighs moving in the skirt. Saw her in his dad's car, in profile.
And saw Mel Gibson playing the burnout and saw Juicy in the Cadillac, the Clock going off, Jesus, and saw Juicy's gray tongue in the pink interrogation room.
Greta was alone in that empty house, the phone and message recorder on the bare floor. He should've called.
He wasn't different.
He saw Donnell in the library, that dismal room, it seemed dusty, a gray area of figurine lamps and leather chairs, Donnell getting the checkbook out of the desk, holding it close to him.
Greta, he liked her name. He liked her red hair against the pillow, her mouth…
He saw Donnell and Skip and Robin standing slack, not moving a muscle.
They better not. He was covering them with the Clock auto. But where would it happen?
Donnell kept waiting for the man to fall asleep so he could go downstairs a while, have some time to himself.
The house would be quiet and Donnell in his room listening would think, Finally. Then would hear the man's voice from down the hall.
"Donnell?"
And he'd move through the dark to the master bedroom, light showing inside. Three times now, walk out of the room dim, the night light on in the bathroom, come back to it lit up.
"I'm right here, Mr. Woody."
"I can't sleep."
"You keep turning the light on, how can you?"
"But I can't see. " "That's the idea. You close your eyes and you have sweet dreams. Think of like you lying in a hammock and this lovely woman, has a flower in her black hair, is holding a banana rum daiquiri, big, big one, kind you love, and you sipping it through a straw." Give the man some kind of shit his wet mind would recognize and accept. Patient with the man, kindly, that new page for the will downstairs in the desk drawer.
"Put the light on in the bathroom."
"The night light's on in there. You see it?"
"I want the light on."
"You got it."
Donnell stepped over to the bathroom. As he came back the man, the mound under the covers, big curly head against the pillow, said, "I thought I heard you go out."
"Ain't I right here?"
"You went out last night. I woke up, I didn't know where you were."
What the man meant, he didn't know where he was.
"I told you I had to go out, Mr. Woody. My mother had a dream I died and I had to show her I was fine. Then I had to look in the Dream Book for her, see what number it meant to play."
That quieted the man. Either give him some shit his mind would accept or, the other way, confuse him, shut him up.
"You be fine now," Donnell said and reached down to touch the man's toes under the covers, about to tell him good night. What he said to him instead was, "Mr. Woody, you forget to take your shoes off, didn't you?"
Picking the knots out of the man's shoelaces woke him up some more. One thirty in the morning he believed maybe a drink would help him go to sleep. Donnell said, "Yeah, that's what you need"-on top the fifth or more of scotch, the fifth of gin, the half dozen cans of beer the man'd had today-"a nightcap. Why don't I bring it to your bed?"
And if that didn't do it, hit him over the head with something.
Donnell went downstairs wishing he had a baby bottle.
Fill it with booze and let the man fall asleep sucking on it.
There was scotch at the bar in the library, but no ice left from the man's evening entertainment; the refilled trays in the fridge underneath the bar weren't half frozen. He'd have to get a couple of cubes from the kitchen. Always something, catering to or picking up after. He turned off the light in the library, walked through the front hall to the dining room turning lights on, pushed through the swing door to the butler's pantry and was in darkness again edging into the kitchen, running his hand along the wall. There it was. Donnell flicked the light on, turned and said, "Jesus!" loud, feeling his insides jump.
A man and a woman were sitting at the kitchen table.
He said, "Jesus Christ Almighty," sounding out of breath.
They were grinning at him now.
"How'd you get in here?"
Robin said, "It wasn't hard," and looked at Skip.
"Was it?"
Skip let Robin handle it. When Donnell wanted to know what they thought they were doing, Robin told him they were here because he'd fucked up. Donnell said, "Wait now, I have to hear this." But first had to run upstairs, get the man settled with his nightcap. He left and Robin said to Skip, "Bring our stuff in."
"All of it?"
She said, "We're going to use it, aren't we?"
Skip went out through a back hall where there were two doors: one that went into the garage and the one he'd jimmied open with a screwdriver, nothing to it. (Coming in, Robin said, "No alarm system?" He told her maybe Donnell was afraid a burglar alarm might catch one of his buddies. Skip bet, though, the ex-Panther had a gun in the 1 house.) He went out through the busted door to the VW parked in the drive by the garage. First he brought their bags in. Robin, still alone in the kitchen, was looking in the refrigerator.
When he came in the next time, lugging the wooden case of Austin Powder, Used in 1833 and Ever Since, Donnell was at the kitchen table talking to Robin.
He looked up, appeared to become rigid, and said, "You ain't bringing that in here."
In this moment Skip decided he wasn't going to have any trouble with Donnell. If the man was ever an ass-kicking Black Panther he must've forgotten what it was like.
Skip put the case on the end of the table away from them and Donnell stood right up. Look at that. Made him nervous Skip could tell Robin saw it, too.
She said to Donnell, "It won't hurt you," with a tone meant to soothe him.
"All we want to do is stash it someplace. By Monday morning I promise it'll be gone."
Skip liked that. It would be gone, all right, along with whoever was standing nearby. He wanted to wink at her, but she wasn't through with Donnell yet, saying to him now, "You must have a gun in the house."
Skip could tell Donnell didn't want to say.
"I believe there might be one."
"I'd find it if I were you," Robin said.
"You know why?" Talking down to him, making the guy ask, No, why?
Skip didn't care for her tone now, going from soothing to bored and superior. Or the way she said, "
"Cause your buddy the cop's going to come looking for you. The kids you sent to do a job on him blew it."
That wasn't right. She wasn't there, she didn't know what she was talking about. It seemed to antagonize the man, from his expression, more than it scared him.
Skip stepped in and said to the ex-Panther man to man, leaving the snotty woman out of it, "Actually it wasn't they blew it so much as they misread him, thought it was gonna be easy and it wasn't. What she's trying to say, Donnell, we don't want to make the same mistake."
Donnell said, "Mankowski is coming here?"
Skip said, "Imagine he will. See, but I'm the one set him up with the brothers. He comes here with a wild hair up his ass-man, I'd like to have something to hold him off with. You dig?" Skip shook his head as though imagining that situation and then said to Donnell, "A long time ago I tried to buy a gun off a you. You didn't know who I was, you told me to take a hike. Well, I wouldn't mind borrowing one now, for my own peace of mind. What do you say?
Or-I don't like to think about it, but if it does get down to the nitty-gritty and one of us has to take him out, well…"
Donnell went upstairs to find the gun, and now Skip had his chance to wink at Robin, giving him a cold look.
"Hon, that's how you do it with niggers that used to be Black Panthers.
You don't talk down to 'em or you don't arm-wrestle 'em, either. You act like we're all created equal, got bussed to their school and loved it."
Okay, here was the plan, the one Chris went to sleep on in his dad's bed about 4:00 A.M.:
Call Greta first thing in the morning. Ask her if he could move in with her for a few days. She'll say there isn't any furniture. He'll tell her that's all right; what he needs more than a place to sit down is a Detroit residence address. And would she pick him up this afternoon? Move his things over. She'll say fine, but the people who bought the house could be moving in soon. He'll say, Well, since we're both looking for a place to live-and she'd say something in her cute way… So, call Greta about nine. At ten, drive over to Woody's and put the gun in DonnelFs face.
"Where are they?" Robin and Skip. Or throw him in the swimming pool and hold the gun on him. Fire a couple into the water close to him.
"Where are they?" Haul Donnell's terrified ass out of the pool and get him to make a statement.
Maybe to use later, maybe not. See what happens… Go over there about ten. He wouldn't have to wear a coat and tie. But would never wear that raunchy-looking outfit Mel Gibson had on. Something casual..
..
The phone next to the bed woke him up at twenty after eleven Sunday morning, his dad calling from Toronto.
"How about meeting us at the airport?"
Chris said, "Yeah, I guess I could," feeling his plan coming apart before he'd even spoken to Greta.
"What time you get in?"
"We're standby on a flight that arrives around three thirty. We don't make it, then we'll be on one that gets in-I have it written down somewhere. Here it is, five forty."
"How'll I know which one you'll be on?"
"The way you work that," his dad said, "you go out to the airport and stand at the gate. If you don't see us come off the plane at three thirty, it means we're on the other one."
"That's… over two hours later."
His dad said, "Yeah?" and waited.
Chris said, "I bet it takes longer to drive from here out to Metro than it does to fly from Toronto to Detroit."
Thinking, And then drive back here. It could be seven thirty, the earliest, before he'd be able to get away.
His dad said, "We can take a cab. It only costs about fifty bucks, with the tip."
"It does? That much?"
"I don't want to inconvenience you…"
"No, that's all right."
"I thought since you been using my car…"
"No, I'll be glad to pick you up."
"And it's Sunday and you're not working anyway…
They put you back on yet?"
"I'm hoping this week."
"You find a place to live?"
"I think so."
"What about-is your friend still there?"
"Who, Greta? No, she went home."
His dad said, "Uh-huh." He said, "Well, listen, we'll see you later."
"I'll be there." Chris could hear Esther's voice then and his dad speaking away from the phone, saying, "What?… Yeah, we could." His dad talking to a woman in a hotel room in Toronto. Chris said, "You having fun on your trip?"
His dad said, "Yeah, it's a nice town, lotta things to do.
Listen, Esther says British Airways comes through here to Detroit.
We'll see what they have. Don't go anywhere the next hour or so. We get a different flight I'll call you back."
Chris tried Greta's number. The line was busy.
He went into the kitchen and began revising his plan as he put the coffee on and got three eggs out of the refrigerator. He should talk to Greta first. Tried her again, but the line was still busy. At least she was home. Fixing his breakfast he realized how hungry he was. The idea of having scrambled eggs became a cheese and onion omelet. He looked for a can of tomato sauce in the cupboard, give it a Spanish touch, brought out a can of chili instead and kept swallowing as he watched it bubble in a saucepan, poured the chili over the eggs and ate it, Jesus, it was good, wiping his plate with bread, ate every bite before he thought of Greta again.
This time when he called her phone-answering voice came on, though not the cute Ginger one saying she wasn't home, doggone it. The voice said, "Hi, this is Greta Wyatt.
If you'll leave your name and number, please, after you hear the beep, I'll get back to you." Chris waited for the beep and said, "Greta?
It's Chris. I'm home-" Then heard her real voice come on saying, "Hi.
I was listening, hoping it was you."
"You have a different way of answering."
"Yeah, I changed it. It's a long story. Well, actually it isn't so long, but it's hard to explain."
"I called before, your line was busy."
"It's Mother's Day, I was talking to my mom and dad.
Also, the real estate guy called first thing this morning. The people buying the house have to get out of theirs-I think they've been putting it off-and now they want to move in Tuesday."
"That soon?"
"I told the real estate guy, Swell, now I have to hurry up and find a place. I've been reading the classifieds, but I don't know where any of the streets are and the two I called up both sounded colored."
Chris said, "I have to do that too. Find a place."
There was a silence on the line. Now that he was facing it he wasn't sure what to say. Moving in with a young lady and going apartment-hunting with her were two different things. He was glad Greta didn't say anything cute.
"My dad's coming home this afternoon. I have to meet them at the airport."
"I have to wait for the real estate guy to call me back," Greta said.
"He thinks maybe he can find me something, but if he doesn't… I don't know, I'll call a few more."
Giving him his cue again. Chris said, "Well, listen, after I get back from the airport, how about if we go out, get something to eat?"
"Sounds good."
There was another silence.
"I'd help you look for a place, but I have to wait for my dad to call."
"That's okay."
"See if they get an earlier flight. Then I'll be over soon as I can."
"Fine, but you better call first."
"Okay."
"If I have to go out I'll leave a message on the answering thing, when I'll be back, okay?"
He didn't want to hang up.
"I couldn't call you last night. I got into something… Well, I'll tell you about it. What did you do?"
"Nothing. Watched television and went to bed." She said, "Chris, I miss you."
"I miss you too. I wish you were here."
"I'm gonna have to hire a mover, for my stuff."
"I can get a truck. Don't worry about it."
She said, "What would I do without you?"
They said goodbye right after that and hung up, and he wondered if she was being sarcastic. Except she'd said she missed him. He thought maybe she sounded different.
Yesterday she thought he was different. They weren't yet in touch with what slight change meant in each other. He shouldn't assume anything, outside of she was a little more serious, her mind taken up with finding a place to live, and he hadn't been any help to her at all. He should call her back and tell her there was nothing to worry about, they'd find a place.
Or tell her at least that he'd help her find a place.
Or talk about something else. Tell her about Juicy.
She might not think living together was such a good idea anyway. This soon.
If his dad and Esther got on the flight that arrived at three thirty, they'd be at the Toronto airport by two-something. Leave the hotel an hour before that… He'd have to leave here by two, drive all the way to Metro, find a place to park… He'd have time if he left right now to stop off and see Donnell first. Except it wasn't a stop-off kind of job.
Holding the gun on the guy, say, "We'll have to finish this later. I have to go pick up my dad." Shit, he'd have to stop off at 1300 and reload the Clock or else pick up a box of nines somewhere. Find a gun shop open on Sunday. He had to see Donnell today. Locate Robin and Skip. Be ready for Monday morning. He should've told his dad he was working or made something up. There was nothing worse than waiting for a phone to ring when you knew it might not.
And it didn't.
Two P.M. he was ready to leave, wearing a blue button down shirt and khakis, and didn't feel right. For six years he'd never left wherever he was living without his SpyderCo knife, his Mini-Mag flashlight and a gun, things you needed pockets for. So he put on his beige sportcoat.
Then put on a faded red tie and felt better. He left the apartment a little after two and made one stop, at 1300, went up to Firearms and Explosives and reloaded the Clock auto. He considered taking along a box of 9-millimeters but decided against it. If he couldn't scare the shit out of Donnell with seventeen rounds he had no business trying.
Mis dad came off the plane with a dazed look, shaking his head, his raincoat and Esther's mink over one arm. He put the other arm around Chris and they gave each other a kiss on the cheek. Chris went to Esther, flashing her blue-shadowed, sixty-four-year-old eyes at him, hunched over and gave her a kiss while his dad told them they shouldn't make up a schedule if it don't mean anything.
Look at what time it was, seven thirty, for Christ sake.
Standing there talking about it. Moving finally, creeping along, Esther telling about Toronto, asking him to guess who they saw, staying at the Sutton Place. Touching his arm and stopping in the crowded aisle of the terminal to tell him: Tom Selleck. And the one who was in "Cheers," Ted Danson. His dad saying, And that broad, what's her name, the blonde. Esther saying, Kathleen Turner, staying at the same hotel, they saw her in the lobby, twice… Chris trying to move them through the crowd, get them out of there.
It was after nine by the time they'd crossed Detroit and reached St.
Clair Shores. Chris had to help Esther up with her luggage and then stand in the doorway while she told him what a fine man his dad was, Chris nodding-till he opened his sportcoat and put his hands on his hips, let her notice the automatic stuck in his pants. Esther cut it short and said good night.
His dad wanted him to have a drink. Chris said, Just a short one, calling to him in the kitchen as he went down the hall to his dad's bedroom. He sat on the bed and dialed Greta's number.
Her phone-message voice said, "Chris? Hi. I'm going to see Woody and get that over with. Tell him I'm not going to marry him." There was a pause.
"That's a joke. You're supposed to laugh. Anyway, I should be back around five."
There was another pause before her voice said, "See you later. I hope."
Chris waited, heard the beep and kept waiting for her real voice to come on…
J% 11 afternoon Skip kept trying to place a call to Bedford, Indiana, to wish his mom a Happy Mother's Day. He'd dial the number and then the operator would come on to tell him the circuits were still busy everybody in the entire country calling their moms. He'd hang up the phone and there would be Robin waiting for him, practically tapping her toe with impatience.
"Have you found a place yet?" Meaning to wire a charge that would go off after they left Monday morning.
He'd tell her he was still looking.
"Oh, on the phone?" Using that pissy tone. At one point she said to him, "I'm doing all the goddamn work," and he told her it was about time she did some thing. It was fun to get her pulling on her braid, like she was going to tear it off. Then, out of bitchiness wouldn't let him have any blotter when a craving for acid took hold of him, telling him in that pissy tone, "Not till you do your work." Still anxious for him to wire the charge that would kill two people and leave him and her rich. So he promoted some weed off Donnell and started calling her Mom.
"Okay, Mom…
Anything you say, Mom." He believed if he squinted hard enough he'd see smoke coming out of her fucking ears. It was a weird situation.
Last night, Donnell had returned to the kitchen and laid a.38 revolver on the table, like the one Skip had stuck in his pants. Donnell waited for Robin to go upstairs, find a guest room, before he said, "That's the gun, but ain't nothing in it. Look at me. You think I just come off a cotton field? I'm gonna tell you how it is. Only first, you put that dynamite out in the garage." They had some scotch and Skip decided a white man and a colored man could have more in common than a white man and woman-easy, if the woman was Robin. A whiz at thinking up dirty tricks and getting you to do things her way, but otherwise a pain in the ass.
What Robin meant by "doing all the work" was having to act sweet and girlish with Woody.
The man didn't come downstairs till afternoon and was already half in the bag. Skip would never have recognized him on the street after all these years. Woody blinked, startled by this woman giving him a hug and a kiss and then acting hurt, curling her lower lip, saying, "You don't remember me?" Woody said, "Gimme a hint." Robin gave him more than that. She unbuttoned her shirt and his eyes opened to a picture from his past, though now hanging a bit lower.
"Robin!" Woody said.
"How much you need?"
He remembered that, how she used to get him to loan her money. And he remembered her being here last Saturday, now he did, but didn't recall agreeing to buy her books to turn into a musical. So Robin pouted again and seemed about to cry-Skip wondering if she ever actually had, at some time in her life. Robin said, "But we did, we talked about it," and showed Woody the contract, all the legal bullshit-"herein referred to as the Fire Series"-without mentioning the amount out loud, the $425,000 for each of the four books.
Donnell stepped over to say to Skip, "The man ain't buzzed enough. I could slip him a 'lude."
For that matter, Skip was thinking, he could put an arm lock on the man till he signed. The contracts were something to show the police, after, proof they'd made a deal with Woody before a mysterious explosion took his life. (And the life of his chauffeur.) Skip couldn't tell Donnell that, so he said, "Robin'll handle him."
And she did, by convincing Woody they'd lined up Gordon Macrae to star.
"Don't you remember talking about Gordon Macrae?" Sure he did. Woody said, "Boyoh-boy," taking the pen Robin offered. Skip made a face, watching the man sign the contracts: it seemed the next thing to robbing the dead.
Yet here was the man happy as could be, saying, Let's celebrate, have a party, telling Donnell to go pick up some Chinese for when they got hungry.
Robin said she'd go with him.
Skip had to wonder about that. He followed them out to the kitchen, where Robin was saying she wanted to see Woody's signed check. Anxious.
Donnell said, "The checkbook is in the desk and it stays there.
Nobody touches it till I write in this name and the numbers and hand it to you as you leave. After the man has called the bank. Understand?
Be cool, girl. You know how to be cool? Try."
Donnell took car keys off a hook by the door. Skip saw Robin getting her killer look and held on to her arm, letting Donnell walk out, down the back hall to the garage.
Close to her Skip said, "He's showing us who's boss, that's all. It doesn't hurt any. You took something away from him last night and now he's got it back."
Robin turned to look Skip in the face. After a moment she said, a little surprised, "What'd I take?"
"His manhood. Don't you know anything? You put him down, I have to pick him up." Skip stepped to the window as he saw a gray Mercedes appear in the back drive, out of the garage. He saw Donnell, behind the wheel, raise a remote control switch to close the garage door. The car moved off, past Robin's VW and around the corner of the house. Skip stared out at the backyard now.
Robin said, "We don't need Don-nell. " "Then what'd you bring him in for?"
Standing with his back to her he heard Robin say, "I don't know, it seemed like a good idea."
He heard the flick of her lighter.
"You know yet where you'll put the dynamite?"
Skip turned from the window and had to grin at her.
Funny she should ask. He said, "Once you have the idea, it's easy.
Later on, after Donnell gets back, take him in the bathroom or someplace. Huh? You do what you're good at and I'll do what I'm good at, maybe we'll get lucky and pull this off."
Robin said, "Luck has nothing to do with it." She blew smoke at Skip and walked out of the kitchen.
He turned to the window again and looked at Robin's red VW thinking, Five sticks under the hood, wired to the ignition. Go on get the car started, I "II be right with you. Tell her you forgot something and watch from a window. It made more sense than placing the charge where he had in mind.
Skip was still in the kitchen when Donnell returned with three sacks of Chinese cartons. They shared a joint while Donnell placed the cartons inside the big restaurant size oven, Skip thinking that disrespecting a man and killing him were two entirely different things.
Full of thoughts today.
He said, "Robin rolls a joint."
Donnell said, "She good for something, huh?"
"She's dying to get you in the bathroom."
"What you telling me that for?"
"It's the only time she's pleasant."
Skip drew on the joint, handed it to Donnell and said in his constricted dope voice, "I gotta go call my mother."
Donnell said, "Hey, shit, I hjive to do that too."
Donnell knew the one to keep an eye on was Robin.
Skip was a man went headfirst right to it. Robin, you had to watch your back with her, she'd circle on you. Said she'd like to see the signed check; shit, she like to slip one out of the book, put her name on it later on. When she gave him eyes, letting him know she wanted her needs met, that was all right. Skip had said this situation excited her and she was hot. Fine, but it wouldn't be in no bathroom this time, not with all the beds in the house. It made it easy to keep an eye on her, lying underneath him, straining her head against the pillow going "Ouuuu… ouuuu. " There was a woman Donnell had in this same bed screamed when she was peaking, cute woman that came in to clean the house and loved to sing but would get the words all fucked up. Like the Christmas song about chestnuts roasting in an open fire, then the next part, instead of Jack Frost, she'd say "Jack Paar nippin' at your nose." But, man, she moved underneath you, and even screaming was better than Robin with that ouuu, ouuu. When they were done, getting dressed, Robin gave him this cool look over the shoulder like she was prize pussy. Donnell said to her, "Robin?" serious, giving her a look back. When she said what, he said, "I think you getting better."
Skip walked into the pool house and said, "Jesus Christ," at the sight of Woody floating on his rubber raft, flapping his hands in the water.
Robin came out with Sunday papers under her arm and Skip said, "Catch this."
"Beautiful," Robin said.
Skip watched her walk over to the table and sit down, barely glancing at the mound of flesh out there.
He said to her, "I been a good boy, Mommy. I did what you told me while you were upstairs getting laid. Can I have my candy now?"
"Where'd you put it?" Still curious about the dynamite, but not enough to look up from the paper.
"You're gonna love how it works," Skip said, and had to let it go at that. Donnell was coming out of the sunroom and around the shallow end. Look at the dude, a regular breath of spring in a yellow outfit now, like he was going to a party, DonnelFs gaze holding on that sight out in the water. Skip said to him, "The man's bare naked."
"Yeah, I think he must've forgot he has company. You leave him here alone?"
"Few minutes. I had to go the bathroom."
"Yeah, he thought it was time for his swim. Man will take a shower and come out rubbing his hands together, means it's the cocktail hour."
"Shit, he won't miss that money, will he?"
"Won't even remember it's gone."
Skip turned his back to Robin sitting at the table.
"You ever drop acid?"
"I have, but it don't agree with me."
"If you want to try again…"
"I like the bad habits I have."
"Well, I think I'll trip, if you'll watch the store."
All three of them heard the doorbell, Robin looking up from the paper.
Donnell said, "Everybody be cool now."
Skip watched him walk out through the sunroom and come back a few minutes later with a good-looking redhead, escorting her the way a cop will hold you by the arm.
As soon as she saw Woody, Greta said, "Oh, my Lord," and looked away.
What was going on here? People watching a naked man… She recognized Robin, dressed this time, wearing jeans and a light sweater, the woman staring at her; but didn't know the guy with the beard and ponytail, scruffy looking, grinning at her. Donnell seemed friendly, holding onto her arm, saying, "This is Mr.
Woody's friend Ginger."
The bearded guy said, "Hey, Ginger, how you doing?"
But not Robin, she didn't say a word or look very happy about this interruption.
"I'm sorry to barge in like this…"
Donnell said, "Well, you here now."
"I just wanted to talk to Woody a minute."
"He's right there go ahead."
Greta said, "Yeah, I noticed," raising her eyebrows in fun.
"I better come back some other time."
Donnell said, "No, it's all right. Talk loud, he hear you.
Watch." Donnell brought her around by the arm to face the pool.
"Mr. Woody, look who come to see you. Over this way, Mr. Woody.
Look, it's Ginger."
"I should've called, I'm sorry."
"Hey, he's waving to you." Donnell raised his voice.
"Better get out, Mr. Woody. You gonna be all wrinkled like a prune."
"I can come back tomorrow."
Donnell said it again, "You here now," turning her from the pool to the table.
"You sit down. Mr. Woody's about done with his swim. Make yourself at home, I'll get you something to drink." Sounding friendly, but he wasn't, his hand tightening around her arm as she made a move to pull it away.
"I really can't stay. I thought I might have just a minute, you know, to talk to him, but I'll come back some other time. I'm supposed to meet somebody anyway."
The next moment it became scary.
Robin said, "For God's sake, will you sit down."
The bearded guy came over and pulled a canvas chair out for her, saying, "You may as well enjoy yourself. What would you like, sweetheart, a drink?" He had spooky eyes, pale, pale blue.
Sitting down, at least she was able to free her arm of Donnell. She looked up at the bearded guy and shook her head.
"I don't care for anything, thanks."
He was looking at Robin with his pale eyes, just barely grinning as he said, "I bet I know what she'd like."
Greta saw Robin look up through her rose-tinted glasses and pause before she said, "Yeah…" dragging the word out in a thoughtful sound.
"I really don't care for anything." None of them paid any attention to her.
"Really."
Robin got up and left without saying a word. Donnell and the bearded guy went over toward the bar, behind where Greta was sitting. She turned her head to one side, alert, wanting to hear if they said anything, and all of a sudden rock music came blaring out, filling the whole room. What was going on? None of them acted drunk or stoned.
They sounded friendly, except for Robin. Then why was she scared? They couldn't hold her here if she didn't want to stay. They weren't going to tie her up. Greta felt herself getting mad. Damn right…
Turned her head and said, "Oh, my God!"
Woody was out of the swimming pool, coming toward her bare naked, shaking his head back and forth, saying, "No no no no no, that isn't what I want to hear. Donnell!"
They did seem friendlier. Even Robin was sort of smiling as she kept watching her. When the bearded guy handed her the vodka-and-tonic Greta said, All right, just one, then she was leaving. And the bearded guy said, "One's all you'll need, Ginger." She told him not to call her that. The bearded guy said, "You're a cute girl, you know it? How you feeling?" He kept asking her how she felt and Robin kept watching her. She felt fine. Woody sat next to her saying boy-oh-boy in a terrycloth robe. She felt a little funny, but generally fine, thinking maybe she could get Woody aside for a minute, and said, "About your offer. I think I'll take it." Woody said, something like, "Yeah?
Okay. What offer?" And she realized it was going to take longer than a minute. She could smell marijuana. Now the bearded guy and Woody were singing "On the Street Where You Live" along with the deep, syncopating voice on the stereo, trying to do it with the same timing and inflections as the voice. They were awful but thought they were good. Donnell handed her a joint, saying, "Here, girl, ease yourself off," and she thought, What the heck, and took it. Robin was saying, "Jesus Christ, will you play something else?" They kept playing it over and over. Now Donnell was saying, "Five o'clock, munchie-wunchie time," and she thought, It couldn't be, and tried to remember what time she got here. About three? Now Donnell and the bearded guy were putting take-out cartons and paper plates on the table, pouring wine, dishing out something that seemed alive. They were alive-little white worms crawling over each other on the plates and these people were eating them. Woody had worms all over his chin.
The funny part was, the worms didn't look too bad. They seemed pure.
Heck, everybody was digging in, so Greta said, "Here goes nothing," and took a big bite. Mmmmm.
But when she felt how slimy they were crawling around in her mouth and down her throat, she gagged and all of a sudden jumped up from the table, knocking over wineglasses, wanting so bad to clean out her insides, ran straight to the swimming pool and threw herself at the water.
The light above the door showed Donnell in his yellow outfit, his expression almost a grin, getting ready to or thinking if he should or not, the look becoming a relaxed pose. Maybe a little vague, stoned.
He was holding a brown plastic trash bag, folded flat.
"I've been standing here five minutes," Chris said, "ringing the bell."
"Couldn't hear it with the music. Having a jivey kind of evening out by the swimming pool. I happen to go in the kitchen for something..
.." He showed Chris the trash bag.
"Man, you might not believe it, but I'm glad to see you stop by. Get some things straightened out here."
"Where's Greta?"
"Mean Ginger? She's out there."
"What's going on?"
"Man's having a party, entertaining his guests, what he does. Come on in, it's fine."
Donnell started to turn, hand on the door, then waited as Chris looked out at the street, at his dad's Cadillac parked behind Greta's blue Escort.
"The other people," Donnell said, "their car's around the back."
"Friends of Woody's?"
"Old ones. They been doing a little business, now they having some fun. Man, this is the most could happen, you showing up here. I expect you looking for Ginger. She mention she suppose to meet somebody, I figured was you."
"I was coming anyway," Chris said.
Donnell squinted to show pain and moved his shoulders, looking out at the night.
"That business with Juicy, huh? That wasn't suppose to been like that." His gaze came back to Chris, calm now, serious.
"The Juice, what I meant for him was to talk to you was all. You understand? Ask you kindly would you mind stepping away from something wasn't any of your business."
Chris said, "Or get my other leg broken."
"No"-Donnell again showing pain-"nothing like that was to happen."
"You and the Juice may have to pay for a windshield and new seats,"
Chris said, "but that's something else.
What I want you to tell me right now's where I can find Robin. We'll see how you do with that and then we'll go on from there."
Donnell's face turned deadpan.
"Like to speak with Robin, huh? How 'bout the Skipper? Like to speak with him too?"
Chris took a moment, looking at Donnell trying hard not to show any expression, the man playing with him, putting him on. Chris said, "You gonna bring them out or what?"
Donnell said, "Shit," and let his stoned grin come.
"How'd you know?"
"You'd better lead the way."
"We been waiting on you, man. What you been doing all day, sleeping?"
Once they reached the hall Chris could hear the stereo and recognized U2, the Irish rockers. He said, "That doesn't sound like Woody."
"It's Robin's tape," Donnell said.
"Robin's had enough of Mr. Woody's shit." doming out of the sunroom Chris saw the pool illuminated pale green in semidarkness and saw figures in soft lamplight, in the lounge area by the bar and stereo.
Three seated, one standing. The beat and Bono's voice filled the room.
Moving ahead of him, opening the trash bag, Donnell said, "Look at who I found, everybody. It's Officer Mankowski come looking to see what he can score."
He heard a voice, Robin's, say, "He's too late."
"We got leftovers here, officer." Donnell was at the table now, dumping the dinner remains into the trash bag.
"Help yourself."
Chris moved past him. He saw Greta get up from the sofa, her hair strange-looking, pasted to her head. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt, white with a black band around the middle, that reached to her mid-thighs: legs and feet bare in the sweatshirt mini dress Robin, smoking, sat at the end of the sofa. Skip, next to her, was in a director's chair tilted back against the wall.
On the cocktail table in front of them were their drinks and sets of typewritten sheets of paper. Woody, in a bathrobe, stood at the bar pouring a scotch.
Greta stood waiting. She gave Chris a weak smile.
"What's the matter?"
She shrugged, raised her hands and pushed up the sleeves of the sweatshirt. Her face was drawn, without makeup.
"What'd they give you?"
Behind him, Donnell: "She fell in the pool."
"She tripped," Skip said. He reached out, waited, and Robin handed him the joint.
Donnell's voice, behind Chris, said, "Yeah, shit, that's what she did, she tripped."
Chris looked at Robin.
"You gave her acid?"
"I didn't give her anything," Robin said.
"Skip did."
Skip said, "Hey, what's wrong with you? You don't tell him something like that. He could go fucking crazy on us."
He said to Chris, "It was just a half a one. She wanted it.
Ask her."
"You tell her what could happen?"
"Hell, she's okay. Don't sweat it."
Chris stepped toward him and swiped the leg of the chair with his foot, taking it out from under him, Skip yelling, "Hey!" banging his head on the wall as he hit the floor. Chris stood over him.
"You tell her what could happen?"
"Man, look at her. She's fine."
"You slipped it to her, didn't you?"
"Ask her, go on, how she feels."
Chris said, "Don't move."
As he turned to Greta, Robin said to Skip, "Are you going to take that from him?"
Skip said, "Will you stay out of this, for Christ sake?"
Chris put his hands on Greta's shoulders. She looked up at him, her face pale.
"How do you feel?"
"Just kinda tired, that's all."
"He tell you what he was giving you?"
"I don't know, I had a drink and he said… I don't know what he said."
"Sit down, okay? Just for a little while; we'll be going soon." Chris eased her into the sofa. He turned to Robin and saw her sly look in those pink glasses, almost a grin.
Tell this one to Wendell. They come to threaten money out of the guy, the same ones that killed his brother, and end up they have a party and everybody gets ripped.
Wendell says, Is that right? And you were there, huh? What did you do? You hang around, you leave, what?
"What time'd she take it?"
Robin shrugged.
"I didn't notice." She offered the joint, extending it toward him.
"You must've been one of the crazies, way back."
"No, I was political. I had a crush on Che Guevara."
"What'd you do, blow up a ladies' room in the General Motors Building?"
"That was somebody else."
"Do police cars? Stick of dynamite underneath?"
"Not me. Skip might've."
"I never, " Skip said.
"Jesus Christ." Down on the floor shaking his head.
"It's cool," Donnell said, coming over with the trash bag.
"Was like seven eight hours ago, we into mellow now.
Ain't nothing can get us upset or turned sideways-even you picking on poor Skippy. Come on, you need to have that edge taken off. You want weed, you want booze? How 'bout both? You see how it is, you gonna need 5owthing, believe me."
"When I see how what is?" Chris said.
Donnell had turned and was saying, "Mr. Woody, look at who's here.
That nice police officer, come around collecting again."
"Well, I'll be," Woody said from the bar.
"I know that guy, that's-he has a Polack name like Kaka… It's Kakakowski, isn't it?"
Donnell said, "You close, Mr. Woody. That's what they call him, Kaka, on account of he don't know shit."
Now all four of them were grinning, including Woody, having fun at the party, Chris looking at them, thinking, You gotta get out of here. But then took a few moments, time nothing to them, and looked at Donnell.
"I'm missing something, aren't I?"
Donnell's grin got bigger.
"Not just something, man, everything. Sit down there next to your Ginger. Skip'll pour you a drink and Robin, she's gonna read you something, sitting right there on the table, will show you how fulla shit you are in judging people." Donnell lifted the brown plastic bag by the neck.
"While I go throw this in the trash."
Donnell walked through the main hall liking himself and the sound of his voice, replaying it in his head, Mr.
Woody saying Kaka, not knowing shit what he was saying, then taking it from the man and running with it. He was back on top. The only part that had bothered him was having to trust Robin to give him his million out of the check later on; which had bothered him more with her being disrespectful last night, but he'd got that settled. Said to her,
"Convince me I should trust you. You don't give me a good answer the deal's off." She'd said, "You know why you're going to? Because this is so easy we can do it again next year. But if I try to fake you out of your share, I'm through. Right?" He liked that. Seeing as there were two kinds of greed, take-it-and-get greed and long-term greed.
Since she had spent time to write all those books to pull the stunt, then she must operate on long-term greed and that was good. Donnell hadn't thought about doing it again next year.
From the kitchen he went down the back hall and opened the door to the garage thinking, Yeah, but wait a minute. How was she gonna write four more books in a year?
Then his mind was taken off that as he flipped on the light switch and nothing happened. Shit, the light was burnt out. He went back to the kitchen, opened drawers till he found one of Mr. Woody's many flashlights. Tried it, it worked fine.
Now he followed the flashlight beam into the three-car garage, swept clean, just the Mercedes in there now; followed the beam to a row of plastic garbage cans and got rid of the trash bag. The light beam turned with Donnell, moved over the plaster wall past bamboo rakes, gardening tools… stopped and came back, lower along the wall by the floor, stopped again and held near the lighted doorway, where Skip had set down the case of dynamite last night.
Where Donnell had watched him set down the case of dynamite. Right there. Only it wasn't there now.
It wasn't anywhere. Donnell swept the garage with the flashlight, got down and looked underneath the Mercedes.
That wooden case wasn't anywhere in sight. He ran through the back hall to the kitchen and looked around.
Ran through the front hall to the library before he told himself to slow down, be cool. He laid the flashlight on the bar, poured himself an ounce of scotch and drank it.
Now then. Look at it.
Donnell looked and thought, Get the signed will out of the desk and leave the motherfucking house, now.
He took another little shot of the scotch. Looked again and thought, Ask Skip what he did with it.
Thought, You crazy? He sneaky, scheming something or he would've told you. Him and Robin.
Thought, He could've put it back in her car…
And ran from the library back to the garage, reached inside and pressed the button on the wall that would raise the garage door. Nothing happened. Pressed it some more.
Nothing happened. He moved through the dark to the Mercedes-use the remote control box in the car.
The car was locked. He had come back from the Chinaman's and had not locked it, but now it was. He wanted to see in the car. But he'd left the flashlight in the library.
Donnell said it to himself again, Be cool. hey talked about the man to his face and he didn't seem to realize it, sitting in his bathrobe with his drink, Robin standing next to his chair in a kind of protective pose. She had turned off the stereo. It was quiet, talk running down. What else was there to say? Chris looked at Greta, eyes closed, head nodding. He looked at Skip, making a drink at the bar, and then at Robin again.
"You make it sound like you're defending him."
"He knew what he was doing," Robin said. She put her hand on Woody's shoulder.
"Didn't you?" Woody didn't move.
"You weren't drunk when you signed the contracts."
"The man's alcoholic, he's always drunk," Chris said.
"His lawyer knows that. You're conspiring to extort money.
The only difference, you're using paper now instead of a bomb."
Robin said, "All right, what's the problem? If you think it'll be contested, let's wait and see."
Chris looked at Woody.
"Are you listening to any of this?"
"He's asleep," Robin said. " "I almost feel asleep myself," Skip said,
"the way you're beating it to death. It's done, let's get the party going."
Chris watched Donnell come out of the sunroom and cross to the bar, taking his time; watched him pour a scotch, not saying a word. Skip nudged him.
"Go put a tape on. We got to pick this up before it dies." Chris watched Donnell give Skip a look, deadpan, that Skip missed as he walked away from the bar with a drink. He came over to Chris.
"Hold this for me."
Chris looked up at him.
"Just hold it a second, it won't hurt you."
"Put it on the table."
"Take it, or I'll pour the goddamn thing on you!"
Chris held out his hand and Skip put the drink in it.
"You got a good grip on it?"
Skip reached behind his back, beneath his jacket and came out with his .38 Special.
"Now show me that goddamn gun you have, whatever it is, with just two fingers of your one hand. Take the magazine out and hand it to me and chuck the gun in the swimming pool. Can you remember all that, or you want me to go through it again?"
Robin came over. She said, "Break his nose."
Skip said, "Just take it from him-Jesus."
Chris brought the automatic out with his left hand and Skip stepped back, arms rigid aiming the.38.
"Let me have it," Robin said.
Chris said, "Don't tempt me."
She reached down and snatched the pistol out of his hand and said,
"Weird," looking at it.
Skip said to Chris, "You're spending the night here so we won't have to worry about you. Tomorrow morning, fine, you can leave. But not before we say."
Robin extended the Clock in both hands, aiming at Chris's face and closing one stoned eye.
"Is this how you do it?"
They brought Chris and Greta to the library. Chris watched Robin, still holding the Clock, waving it idly as she looked around. She said, "You're sure?" Skip pulled aside a panel of the heavy damask draperies to show grillwork covering the inside of the window.
"Been on there forever, but he'd need a wrecking bar, at least." Chris watched Robin move to the desk. She was opening a drawer when Donnell came in with Woody. Donnell gave her a look and she gave him a shrug, closing the drawer. Now she raised the Clock in two hands, sighted on Donnell guiding Woody to his TV chair and said, "Pow." Donnell looked over, stared a moment before helping Woody into the chair, Woody saying, "What's the movie?" Donnell didn't answer. Chris said to Greta, "We're gonna be here a while."
She didn't seem to mind. She looked so small in the sweatshirt. He put her in the chair next to Woody. Donnell looked at him. Chris waited. He heard Robin say, "Donnell? Bring the phone when you come."
Donnell said, "It ain't the kind you move." Robin opened the drawer again, brought out a pair of scissors and snipped the line close to the phone.
She said, "Never mind." She walked away from the desk with the Clock auto and the scissors. Donnell turned the set on. Woody asked him again, "What's the movie?" Donnell said, "Whatever comes on," his voice flat.
"This's surprise night." Chris waited. Donnell looked across Greta at him.
"You have to go to the bathroom you tell me and I tell him."
Chris said, "The Skipper?"
Donnell stared at him deadpan. He walked away, following Robin and Skip out of the library. The door closed.
Chris turned to the TV screen. He didn't recognize the movie or any of the actors; they were all teenagers. He looked at his watch. It was