Mule (32 page)

"Where's Kate?"

"Kate? I don't know. Isn't she at home? She was there with the kids when I left."

"Did she tell you anything about what's happening?"

"What's happening?"

"Where are you right now?"

"At the beach."

"Don't make a fucking move until I call you and tell you what to do."

"Okay."

I texted Nick: "stay away from the house."

A few minutes later, he texted back: "why??"

I texted him: "raided. go away." Then I turned off that phone.

I drove to the Vault to get my passport, the money. When I got there, I sat outside in the car. Kate had the keys.

I pounded on the steering wheel over and over. Then I sat and looked out at the day. Somehow the day was still going on. How had I forgotten about the keys? I'd have to go to Kate's friends' place and find them. Then I'd have to come back here and get the money. I was wasting so much time! Where had we agreed she'd hide them? The downstairs toilet tank. And this new thought came to me: I'd find out at her friends' place if my wife still loved me. If the keys were there, maybe she did. And if the keys weren't, she didn't.

One of my phones rang. Kate.

It wasn't Kate. It was my mother.

"James? You have to come over right now. There's a detective here. He wants to talk to you. What have you been doing?"

"A detective?" Tell him I'm out of town, I thought to tell my mother. But I knew my mother wouldn't tell him that. I began the drive to my mother's on the Trail. Up to this point, time had been frenetic. Now it slowed, became dreamlike. Where were all these people going in these cars? Did any of them know how good life was? The sky so blue, the world so beautiful. Why had I given up on that? What if I didn't go to my mother's? Would I be on the run? Would they freeze our documents? Would they keep Kate and the kids from getting on the plane? I couldn't do that to them.

I thought all these things as I hurried up the Trail: Maybe they were just going to ask me questions. Maybe they didn't really know. Maybe it was about something else. Maybe they wouldn't arrest me.

But as I drove through the bright afternoon, I knew none of that was going to happen. Soon I would be in handcuffs, and then in the cage in a cruiser. Wasn't it a relief? That it was finally over? That even though I'd never hold my children again, the police would be responsible for my family's safety now? After all the miles I'd done? To show up right now? I'd give them Darren. I'd give them Deveny. I'd take whatever deal they gave me. Then I'd be in prison.

 

A black Crown Victoria Interceptor with tinted windows was sitting in the driveway of my mother's house when I pulled up. Unmarked. A narc car. I knew as I walked past it I was taking my last free steps.

I saw them talking in the doorway, the plainclothes cop and my mother. He was burly, tall, in a white collared shirt and khaki slacks: a detective. My mother looked past him when she saw me. I'd never seen that kind of worry on her face. It made me feel so ashamed I had to glance away. When I looked back, the detective had turned around. His face was covered with acne scars.

"James," Eric's guy Manuel said to me, "you're supposed to be on your way to New York." I hadn't seen him in a year, but had no problem recognizing him. From sitting on Eric's couch that first day. That first nerve-racking day when Eric had had his muscle with him and I hadn't even known he had. Not until now. Now I understood that Manuel was Eric's muscle.

He grabbed my arm, started marching me down the walkway. Behind me, my mother was saying, "What have you been doing? What were you supposed to be doing in New York?"

I said to him, "Don't shoot me in front of her."

He said, "Shut the fuck up. And get in the car. You drive. I know you're good at it."

He sat in back, had a gun on me. I reversed the Interceptor out of the driveway.

"Where we going?"

"You know where we're going."

"I won't give him anything."

"What if he tortures you?"

I made the obvious plan. I would crash us into a tree. I would wrestle the gun from him. Before I could do that, Manuel said, "Circle the block."

I hooked a left, began to do that through the neighborhood of small houses. There was no one around. He tossed a manila envelope on the seat beside me. "Special delivery."

I opened the envelope with one hand as I drove us slowly up the street, shook out whatever was in it. There were pictures, black-and-white pictures of Danielle and me. Danielle and me naked on the bed, the telltale upper arm; she'd taken the pictures herself. I was passed out, she was sweaty, her hair plastered across her brow. It was obvious what we'd just done.

"Get back to work," Manuel told me. "Otherwise she texts those pictures to your wife. To your wife's phone. And if your wife doesn't have that phone anymore, they'll go in the mail. To that little house. To that bigger house. Don't make me come down here again. I'll kill your mother. I'll kill your wife. I'll kill your kids. Then I'll dead-check all of them. You think I like killing women and children? You think I've never done it before?"

Back at my car, Manuel put the gun away, popped the trunk on the Interceptor. The suitcases were in there; I loaded them into my Forester. Before he drove away, Manuel said, "Don't fuck around. If I have to come back down here, I'll shoot your mother. Don't ever make me drive weight around for you again. That's not my job, it's yours."

I got on the road. Clarity began entering into me. Eric Deveny thought he knew me, thought he had something on me that would always keep me working for him. But I'd already told my wife. He didn't have anything on me at all. Was Kate gone? Did it matter now? He'd played all his cards and he had nothing. I knew what I had to do to end this.

To end this, I needed something I didn't have right now, the thing that had gotten me into it in the first place: I needed the money.

One of my phones began blowing up: my mother.

"James? What's going on?"

"There's something I haven't been telling you, Ma. There's something I've been lying to you about for months."

"What is it?"

"The yacht-detailing crew."

"What about the yacht-detailing crew?"

"It isn't really about detailing yachts."

"It's not?"

"It's about stealing them."

"Stealing them?"

"Stripping off the serial numbers and sending them somewhere else."

"Why would you have gotten involved in that?"

"I needed the money."

"Did Kate know what you were doing?"

"Yeah, Kate knew."

"Why would Kate have let you do that?"

"Kate knew we needed the money."

"Are you going to jail?"

"I'm not sure."

"I can't believe you did this."

Neither of us said anything. Then she said, "I don't really know you, do I?"

"No, you don't."

"I let him push you too hard."

"It wasn't you. It wasn't him. It was always just me."

I told her, "You have to do something now whether you like it or not. You have to leave your house. You have to stay in a hotel until I call you. It doesn't matter where, any hotel. It may take a few days. Be patient. Don't worry about the money. Take your cell phone, leave it on. Don't call the police if you want your grandchildren to have parents. I love you." Then I hung up.

I called Cristina. "The money in the teapot on the stove—there's two thousand dollars left, take it all. Get your shit together, don't leave anything behind. Take a taxi to the airport, get a one-way rental car to Tallahassee. Drive up there as fast as you can, drop off the car at the airport. Take a shuttle downtown. Get a room at the Governors. Stay in the room until I call you and tell you what to do next. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm working on getting your money."

"Okay, James. I'm leaving right now."

Then I called Eric Deveny.

"A few facts," Eric told me when he picked up. "Fact number one: you came to me. Fact number two: that mess we took care of for you can and will come back up. Fact number three: your wife will get those pictures. Fact number four: you can shut this down and get back to work. You're the one who came crawling to me. You're the one who wanted it."

"I want those fucking pictures to disappear."

"Give me your connection."

"Then I'm giving it to you. But you have to help me with something first."

"Tell me what it is, I'll tell you if I will."

 

I hustled to New York. Drove through the night. Would this be the last time I would ever have to carry weight? Or would the cops catch me at last? The road was long and empty. The cops did not catch me.

I parked at Newark, grabbed a taxi to the city. It was a clear, cold morning. The city stood before me in its solemn length as the driver took me in.

At her place, Danielle came to the door with the gym bag. Was she frightened to see me? She was not. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, looked like she was taking the day off.

"I saw the pictures," I said.

She smiled. "What did you think of them? I mean, I never studied photography or anything like that. But I think I did a pretty good job. You know what? You should have gotten better at this before you got in over your head. See you in two weeks? I hope so. Where will you be if you aren't here, you know?"

"How much did he pay you?"

She shut her door on me.

Back in my car at Newark, I quickly counted the money in the gym bag: $181,000 in thousand-dollar bundles. Sixty-two of the bundles belonged to me. But right now that wasn't the point. The point was: now I had the money.

I got on the road. The road went on before me. Should I stop in Savannah and get some sleep? I did not stop. There would be time for that later. Right now I had a lot to do. Everything I had to do, I had to do in Tallahassee.

 

In the room at the Marriott the next morning, Darren Rudd was pacing like a trapped tiger. Had what had happened to him begun to settle in while I'd been away? He threw JoJo Bear at me when I opened the door. He said, "You know how many fucking times I almost picked up the phone? You know how many fucking times I almost took you down? It's time for you to start taking care of this situation. It's time for me to meet your guy and get back on my feet."

"Relax," I said. "Everything's okay. We're going to go and meet him right now. I hope you'll remember how I helped you when the two of you decide what to do with me."

"Fucking middle man," Darren said.

"Isn't that how it works? Cut out who you can, get all the money?"

He sniffed, put his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He said, "I never tried to do that to you."

"I never gave you the chance."

We went down to the car. I began to drive him across Tallahassee. What did he think of Florida? I asked him. Piece of shit place, he told me. Too flat, too commercial, nothing compared to the Siskiyou Mountains. Had he ever dreamed of Mount Shasta? I asked him. Dreaming of the mountain was for moonbeams, he told me, not for people who had been born up there. How long had Billy worked for him? I asked. Billy had worked for him for almost eight years, he said. What kind of work was Billy going to do now? I asked. Whatever the fuck kind of work he wanted to, Darren said, because now Billy was a free fucking man.

"They're not going to charge him?"

Darren didn't even glance at me. He said, "Oh yeah. I meant free from the business."

When we pulled up to the garage with the pond beside it, it was a beautiful day. The pond was flat and reflected the sky. The wind moved quietly through the pine trees all around us.

"Let's go," I told him. "My guy's waiting in there."

Darren looked at the closed door of the garage for a long time. Was he having second thoughts about meeting Deveny? Or was he just being cautious? He opened the door of the car, stepped out, put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and started walking down the gravel drive.

"We're going to have to work with a few different networks at first," Darren told me. "You're going to have to start carrying heavier weight. You'll have to go and check on things for me, see which of my bunkers are still up, which ones they've taken down. People are probably thinking they can fuck around out there, but I'll work out some kind of muscle with this guy, then we'll send you all out there together. You're going to make a shit ton of money now, James. Much more than before. Nobody is going to cut you out."

I turned the knob of the metal door at the side of the building, opened it for my new boss, guided him gently in with my hand. He was still yammering away about the business when I shut the door behind him and began sprinting away. Then the shots rang out.

When the shooting stopped, Eric Deveny poked his head out the door. "All clear, my man," he called over to where I was crouched beside the car. "I just solved your problem."

I walked along the gravel drive. Did I want to see what had happened in that garage? No. Was I going to have to see it? Yes.

Inside, Darren was crumpled against the wall as though a great wind had blown him there, his gun on the floor a dozen feet away. But I knew it hadn't been a great wind; it had been fourteen or fifteen bullets from the assault rifle in Eric Deveny's hands. I'd wondered in Eric's kitchen, the first time I'd seen it, if there were bullets in it, and what would have happened if I had picked it up and pulled the trigger. What would have happened was a whole lot of bullets would have sprayed out.

Eric was dressed in white, holding that rifle, a big smile on his face. His brother with his messy beard was standing beside the worktable with the Skilsaw. The two of them were there because I'd told Eric on the phone two days before that if he wanted to have my Cali connection, he had to help me with a problem.

"What's the problem?"

"One of my mules."

"What's he doing?"

"He's blackmailing me."

"What's he got on you?"

"You know what he's got on me. You're the one who cleaned it up."

"Fifty thousand dollars."

"Done."