Teddy said, “I never seen so much money in one place in all my days. I’m going to buy me a Ford F250 4 × 4 with the extended cab and a set of twenty-inch rims. That is one sweet truck.”
He reminded Kate of a kid on Christmas.
Celeste knelt across from Teddy. She put her pistol on the rug, picking up crisp, just-off-the-press packets of money. The white bands that went around the bills had “$10,000” stamped on them.
“What’re you going to get yourself?” Teddy said.
“Anything I please,” Celeste said.
“That’s the way,” Teddy said. He was eating potato chips out of the bag, drinking a can of Bud. He said, “Hey, know what the best beer in the world is?”
Celeste didn’t acknowledge him, her attention fixed on the money.
“Free beer,” Teddy said.
“What if you don’t like it-it isn’t your brand?” Celeste said.
“Who cares?” Teddy said. “If it’s free, it’s good.”
Kate watched them from the breakfast room while she set the table. Like the two million in front of you, she was thinking. She didn’t care about the money, just wanted them to leave.
Teddy was on his knees on the floor, picking up handfuls of it. He glanced at Kate and said, “Well, I sure am grateful to you for this. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. Now, where’s my supper at?”
“It’s cooking,” Kate said.
“Well, hurry it up,” Teddy said. “I’m so hungry, I could eat the ass out of a wild boar.”
Celeste got up and sat on one of the leather couches, feeding Leon a pretzel. She said, “Does him yike that? Does him tink it’s nummy? Does him?”
She sat on the edge of a cushion now, patted her thighs, looked at Leon, and said, “Uppy. Come on, uppy.”
Leon looked at her like she was crazy and then thought what the hell and lifted his front paws up. She grabbed them and said, “Thay, thay, thay…”
Then Celeste let go of Leon’s paws and slid off the couch on her knees, hugging the dog who went down and rolled over on his back, pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Celeste scratched his chest and rubbed his neck. “Him’s tha big man, yeth him ith, yeth him ith.”
Leon rolled over and got back on his feet and Celeste gave him another pretzel. She said, “Him’s a cooter, ithn’t him?” She took his head in her hands and rubbed it. “Yeth him ith. Yeth him ith.”
Teddy took a swig of beer and said, “Why’re you talking in that stupid fucking voice? God, that’s annoying.”
Celeste said, “You’re annoying. You don’t like it, don’t listen.”
Jack was on the other side of the room by himself, sitting in a leather chair, cuffed to a belly chain. He looked helpless. Kate met his gaze, thinking, you brought this on yourself, don’t look at me for sympathy.
She went back in the kitchen and flipped the burgers that were sizzling, grease popping in a fourteen-inch skillet. She’d made six patties from a two-pound mixture of round and chuck. Teddy’d said he was hungry and told her to get her ass in the kitchen and make them supper. Her real motivation was to feed Luke, who said he hadn’t eaten much in three days.
Kate heated up a couple cans of Bush’s beans and made potato salad with red skins and celery and red onion mixed with oil and mayo. She was thinking about the scene in the yard as she watched the meat fry-the situation tense till Luke diffused it: Mom, just do what they want, will you?
After they released Luke she led them to the pump house, a log structure that looked like a mini version of the lodge and had a well inside. The pump house was in plain sight, nestled between the yard and the woods. She opened the door and there was the money stacked on the floor. She’d parked in the woods and unloaded it.
DeJuan said to Jack, “What’s the matter with you? Money right here, Jack still looking for clues.”
Jack said, “You got it, don’t you? What’s the problem?”
They’d turned on him after that, like it was their plan all along. DeJuan brought the chain from his car and cuffed Jack on the spot.
DeJuan said, “Check it out-Hiatt-Thompson belly chain, answer to all your security needs. Meets US National Institute of Justice tests for workmanship, strength and tamper resistance.”
He glanced at Teddy and said, “Best of all, it’s made right here in the good ole US of A.”
Kate was thinking a belly chain could’ve come in handy with the neighborhood men who’d hit on her-lock them down and send them home to their wives.
Jack said, “What is this?”
DeJuan said, “This payback, motherfucker.” He pulled on the chain. “How that feel? Feel like you back in the joint, I can see it.”
Teddy said, “We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
“Jack,” DeJuan said, “he not loyal to no one but his self.”
Kate could relate.
She heard DeJuan’s voice now, turned and saw him come in the room, still carrying the shotgun. Teddy was on the floor hoisting handfuls of money like a pauper idiot.
“Yo, be cool,” DeJuan said. “Don’t be bruising the greens.”
Teddy said, “Huh?”
DeJuan said, “Give a brother some love.”
He threw a banded packet and DeJuan caught it with his right hand. He brought the stack of bills up to his nose, inhaling like it was something he’d just taken off the barbecue.
“Nothing like the smell of fresh green,” DeJuan said.
Luke was in bad shape-face beat up, wrists bleeding from the handcuffs. Kate rubbed Neosporin on the cuts and gave him Motrin for the pain. His clothes were mud-covered. He was standing at the kitchen counter stuffing food in his mouth: cheese and crackers, hunter’s sausage, slices of bread and butter. She’d never seen him so hungry. She held his little face in her hands and said, “What’d they do to you?”
“Teddy likes to hit people.”
Kate could feel herself getting angry. “Well, he’s not going to hit you anymore.”
“It’s my fault,” Luke said. “I shouldn’t have come up here.”
“They were going to do it anyway.”
“I thought Jack was your friend.”
“I did too,” Kate said.
Luke had tears in his eyes and she hugged him and said, “It’s going to be okay now.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said.
“They’ll be gone soon and we’ll go home,” Kate said.
He glanced down at the floor and back up, meeting her gaze. He looked like he was about to say something, but hesitated.
Kate said, “What?”
“I heard them talking,” Luke said. “We know what they look like. They said they’re going to… kill us.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Kate said. “They got what they wanted. There’d be no reason to.” Then she thought about the killers in In Cold Blood. They didn’t have a reason, either.
“No reason to do what?” DeJuan said, coming in the kitchen.
“You want something?” Kate said, her voice tense.
“Checking up on northern Michigan cooks. There a meal somewhere in our future?”
Kate said, “We’re all set. Everybody sit down.”
“Well halle-fucking-lujah,” DeJuan said.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Luke said. There was no way, she told herself. They were going to eat and leave. Jack would never have agreed to that. But, as she analyzed the situation, Jack didn’t appear to have much sway at the moment. Kate brought the burgers to the table on a platter with slices of red onion and tomatoes and dill pickles. She went back in the kitchen and got the bowls of potato salad and beans and put them on the table next to the burgers. She said to Teddy, “Okay, here you go.”
Teddy and DeJuan and Celeste sat down and filled their plates and ate like it was the last supper. Kate thought it was odd that these people who’d just collected two million dollars were so concerned about their stomachs.
DeJuan held his burger in his hands and said, “You and the little man sit down, join us,”
“I’m not hungry,” Kate said.
“Don’t matter,” DeJuan said. “Want your company.”
She knew their names now: Teddy, Celeste and DeJuan-Teddy had introduced everyone earlier like they were neighbors getting together for the first time. Luke sat on the end next to DeJuan, with his back to the room. Kate sat next to Celeste, across from Teddy, who was shoveling potato salad in his mouth and had grease from the burger dripping off the end of his chin.
“What about Jack?” Kate said.
“What about him?” Teddy said.
Kate said, “Can I give him something to eat?” She wanted a chance to talk to him, find out what he thought, what he knew.
“Hell no,” Teddy said. “He gets to set there, smell it and get hungry.”
Kate could feel her patience wearing thin.
Teddy had mayo in the corners of his mouth, talking while he chewed his potato salad. “I was thinking I might get me a Harley-”
Celeste said, “Think you could stop talking with your mouth open, use your napkin? You got the manners of an animal, I swear.”
DeJuan said, “Man spent his formative years hanging with sheep. What you expect?”
Kate felt the tension building. She couldn’t hold it in any longer and said, “You’ve got your money. Why don’t you take it and get the hell out of here?”
“Whoa,” Teddy said, and grinned. “What the hell’s got into you?” He winked at Celeste and she smiled. “I don’t think she likes us.”
“I don’t think about you one way or the other,” Kate said. She made eye contact with Luke, could see he was worried.
“Oh, you don’t, huh?” Teddy said. “What’s the matter? We not good enough for you?”
“She wants us to leave,” Celeste said. “Then what’s she going to do, call the police?” Celeste looked across the table at her. “You going to tell them what we look like?”
“ ’Course she is,” Teddy said. “She’s going to tell them everything about us.”
Celeste said, “My-oh-my, what should we do with ’em?”
Teddy looked at her and flashed a lunatic grin. “You know what we’re going to do.”
Kate could see he got pleasure out of this-making them squirm. She glanced at Luke and then at Teddy. “You’re not going to do anything,” she said, trying to convince herself. She was afraid now, but smiled at Luke, trying to ease the tension.
Celeste said, “I’d be worried if I were them.”
“Don’t listen to that,” Jack said. “They’re just trying to scare you.”
Teddy glanced over at Jack and said, “The fuck do you know?” Now he looked across the table at Kate and said, “He tell you what happen in Arizona?”
Jack said, “That’s old news.”
Teddy ignored him and said, “We hit A.J.’ s-this rich-folk gourmet market in the foothills of the Catalinas. Planned it for Sunday evening, get their take from the weekend. Do it with a lot of people around, we don’t attract attention. Me and him,” indicating DeJuan, “filled up carts like real shoppers.”
He shoveled a forkful of beans in his mouth and kept talking.
“The office was upstairs, so Jack and I go up and open the door and catch the manager fooling around with this young cute thing, had her blouse off, man pawing her sweater puppies. They both looked at us and manager says, ‘Can I help you?’ And Jack says, ‘Yeah, you can take your hands off her and show us the safe.’ The manager says, ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ Jack pulls his Colt Python and says, ‘Does this look like a joke to you?’
“Jack went in the other room and cleaned out the safe and I duct-taped the manager and the girl together and watched the door. After about ten minutes, I went to check on him, and he wasn’t there. Disappeared with $257,000. Left me standing there holding my dick. Pardon my French.”
Teddy glanced across the room at Jack. “That sound about right to you?”
What Teddy left out-the most important part-was the police showing up. Jack had cleaned out the safe, filled two A.J.’ s grocery bags, the kind with paper handles. Glanced out the window behind the store. There was a driveway for delivery trucks to pull up and beyond it a brick wall that bordered the employee parking lot. He watched two Tucson police cars cruise in at high speed, lights flashing, and hit their brakes.
He crossed the room, went into the manager’s office. The manager and his half-clothed assistant were still on the couch, duct-taped together. He didn’t see Teddy at the door and he left the office and walked into the hallway. He heard the din: sounds and voices coming up the stairs from the market floor. He followed the hallway to the end, pushed open a steel door that had a sign that read: do not OPEN ALARM WILL SOUND.
It didn’t.
And now he was running across the green metal roof of the strip mall over Starbucks, Target, Blockbuster, Subway, Home Depot. He hid behind a giant air-conditioning unit, catching his breath. He looked back, saw a cop in a tan uniform appear on the roof a hundred yards away, holding his gun with two hands, swinging his arms in a short jerking motion like cops on TV.
Jack opened a roof hatch, slid his hands through the handles of the paper bags and climbed down a steel-rung ladder into the Home Depot stockroom. He saw boxes arranged on huge floor-to-ceiling shelves. He could see a guy driving a Hi-Lo across the room and walked in the opposite direction, went out a swinging door into the showroom with his two A.J.’ s grocery bags full of money and kept going.
Jack walked four blocks to the Adobe Flats motel, checked in and poured the money on the queen-size bed and counted it. There was $166,000 (although A.J’s would later say it was $257,000 and that was the amount quoted in newspaper articles).
He took a wad of bills and folded it and put it in his pocket and put the rest back in the bags. He stood on the bed and reached up and pushed a ceiling tile in. The room had a drop ceiling. He put the money up in the space and replaced the tile.
He heard sirens outside and got off the bed and went to the window and pulled the curtains apart and saw two police cars speed by on Campbell, lights flashing. If they got split up, they were supposed to meet at the Rodeo Bar on Speedway. But first he had to have something to eat. He was starving, hadn’t had a thing since morning and it was going on six in the evening. He walked out of the motel and crossed the motor court and went two blocks to a taco stand with picnic tables he’d seen earlier, called Guero’s. He wanted an ice-cold Dos Equis for his parched throat and a plate of chicken burritos and beans and rice for his empty stomach but got a couple of Glock nines in his face instead.
Jack never found out who dimed him but suspected the old dude who checked him in the motel. He was watching TV when Jack came in the office, a western-dandy type with a waxed moustache, wearing a lot of turquoise and silver jewelry.
DeJuan said, “Motherfucker got greedy, decide to take it all for his self.”
Teddy grinned, showing a mouthful of beans. He said, “Now you know why he’s over there and we’re over here.”
They didn’t have a clue and Jack wasn’t going to explain it. He felt like a fool for letting these clowns get the jump on him. Never saw it coming. But he had to admit, DeJuan was a lot smarter than he seemed.
What bothered Jack as much as losing his share of the money was finding out he had a kid. Never thought he’d be a dad, marriage not being something he ever wanted any part of. And yet, he found himself studying Luke, checking him out to see if there was any resemblance. Looked at his features: his nose and eyes and ears and forehead and cheekbones. Jack thought he favored Kate more than him. Had her fair complexion and thick full hair and thin build. But it was Luke’s hands that caught his attention. They were his hands-only a smaller version. Luke being his kid wasn’t going to change anything. It was way too late for that now.
Jack thought about his life and wondered: If he could do it over, would he do it different? And the answer was-no. He pictured himself belly-chained like he was, going back to prison-a two-time loser-doing ten years this time and it scared the hell out of him. He had to figure a way out of this somehow.
He watched the group at the table like some dysfunctional sitcom family. Kate got up without saying anything and moved into the main room.
Teddy said, “Where you think you’re going?”
“Upstairs,” Kate said. “I’ve got to get Luke some clean clothes.”
“The hell you are,” Teddy said.
Kate ignored him. She went to the stairs and started up.
“Hey,” Teddy said, “you hear what I told you?”
DeJuan got up. “I’m on it.” He came around the table and went after her.
She was in Luke’s room, taking a pair of jeans out of his dresser, when DeJuan came in, standing in the doorway, the shotgun in his hands like it was glued to him. He sat at Luke’s desk, watching her.
Kate glanced at him. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
DeJuan smiled. “You not? What a relief.”
“You don’t need the shotgun.”
“Which probably mean I do.”
She opened the closet and took a red and blue flannel shirt off a hanger, draping it over the jeans.
DeJuan said, “What up? What you really doing?”
Kate said, “What’s it look like?”
“Getting feisty, huh? Givin’ DeJuan attitude. What it look like-look like you tryin’ to sneak out, get away. That what you doing?”
“Why don’t you go back down?” Kate said. “I’ll meet you in a few minutes. I’ve got to get something in my room, go to the ladies.”
She walked past him now, out of the room, carrying Luke’s clothes. He followed her down the hall to her room. He got on the king-size bed, leaned back against the headboard, pillows propped under him, laid the shotgun on the comforter.
She went to her dresser, opened a drawer, and took out a brown cable-knit sweater she bought at Nordstrom, remembering the price-$180 marked down three times to $22. She opened her underwear drawer-not knowing what he could see-and gripped the Smith and Wesson.357 Airweight, bringing it out of the drawer, hiding it in the pile of clothes between her sweater and Luke’s shirt.
DeJuan said, “Now this the kind of bed I like-extra firm.”
She closed the drawer and glanced over her shoulder, saw him grin at her and grab his crotch.
“Yo, girlfriend, I got something else over here extra firm.” He patted the bed next to him. “Got something special for you-never seen nothing like this.”
She started moving across the room toward the door.
He slid off the bed, leaving the shotgun where it was and caught her before she got to the door. Stood in front of her, acting like he thought she was interested.
She gripped the handle of the Airweight under the clothes and said, “Let’s see what you’re so proud of.” Wanting to pull the trigger, get it over with, but knowing she couldn’t. It was too risky with Luke downstairs.
DeJuan dropped his pants to his ankles standing there posing-his thing hanging out-a sly grin on his face.
Kate said, “That’s all you got?” She stepped past him and he tried to grab her, tripped over his pants and fell on the floor. She ran along the upstairs hall and went down the stairs. Celeste met her at the bottom, pointing the Ruger at her chest.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said and slapped her across the face with an open hand.
Kate had her finger on the trigger. Jack was still in the same chair like he was paralyzed. She didn’t see Luke, and that was what kept her from making a move. Don’t be dumb, she told herself.
“Put it on the floor,” Celeste said. “Let’s see what you’ve got there.”
Kate bent down and placed the clothes on the rug.
Celeste shuffled through the pile and the Airweight fell out. Celeste picked it up and aimed it at Kate as DeJuan appeared at the top of the stairs and said, “Yo, we got company.”
Teddy came in the room now, pulling Luke by his shirt collar, and said, “Cop just pulled in. Sheriff ’s deputy.”
Celeste said, “How many?”
“Looks like just one,” Teddy said. He glanced at Celeste. “Stay here and watch ’em.”
“You stay here,” she said. “I’m gonna take care of this one. It’s my turn.”