Nina, the Bandit Queen (19 page)

Merlina and Lady headed over to Elwell’s on their own one afternoon. They wanted to make it clear to both the Mr. Elwells that what happened to the dog in the junkyard was an accident. They wanted their family name to stop being a swearword as far as the Elwells were concerned, and they wanted them to stop thinking terrible things about their mother and father. The accident was caused by backing up over the dog in the dark, they said.

L. Ray said he wasn’t especially surprised. “I never figured either Ed Oataway or your dad was smart enough to be able to kill a dog on purpose,” he said.

L. Roy sat up straight and said it surprised him to hear hear L. Ray say that. “It wasn’t the least bit funny.”

“Wasn’t trying to be funny,” L. Ray said. “I believe these young ladies shouldn’t hear anything but the serious truth.”

“Is that because they represent the future of the whole human race?”

They looked at the girls for about a minute then turned back to the TV set above the counter, that was showing a weather lady giving the report on the big screen, and in a little picture down at the bottom, a weatherman on a different channel also giving a weather report.

“That’s not funny either,” L. Ray said.

“Watching two weather persons fight to the death on TV?”

“No. About these children being the future.”

“You could try looking on the bright side.”

“What bright side?” L. Roy said.

“That by the time the future gets anywhere near to where we are —”

“— we’ll be —”

“— long gone. Long, long gone,” they said at the same time, then shouted “Yeah!” and gave each other high-fives. While they sat there laughing, Lady wandered out into the shop. Merlina yelled at her to come back, but L. Roy said it was okay, so Merlina sat and watched TV with them while Lady went around and watched what the mechanics were up to.

“Let’s go back. It’s neat there!” Lady said the next day. So they started visiting a lot. On the way home, Lady would tell Merlina how that particular day she’d learned how to replace a catalytic converter, for example.

“What the fuck’s that?” Merly said.

“A thing cars have,” Lady told her.

“Having you girls around civilizes the place,” L. Roy said one day.

“The guys out back even watch their language,” L. Ray said.

L. Roy looked at Merlina. “So it seems only fair if you children did the same.”

“I’ve got to tell you, there’s a lot of Frank in that little lady, Lady,” L. Ray said to L. Roy another time.

“Not to change the subject,” L. Roy said to Merlina, “but how is your mama’s fundraising campaign coming along?”

“Raking in the millions?” L. Ray said.

“She quit that,” Merly said, not taking her eyes off the TV.

“She quit it?”

“Now she’s hiding. She says everybody is out to get her.”

“Out to get her?” L. Roy said.

“Everybody?” L. Ray said. “I’ll be goldarned.”

“That makes both of us,” L. Roy said.

The girls still lived at the Oataways’. D.S. showed up in the yard from time to time and yelled at them through the back window to tell Nina he needed a whole lot of that stolen money she had so he could get himself to safety for a crime he hadn’t committed. “Why is she making it so difficult for me? I never expected her to turn into a selfish bitch.”

Ed and JannaRose told him he was right. Nobody deserved the money more than D.S. did, except for Ed. They were about equal, the one having been forced to work and suffer at Total all those years, and the other having been Frank’s friend through all those years that Frank was screwing him. Although, it also shouldn’t be forgotten that Ed had been Frank’s close associate in carrying out the actual crime that resulted in all that wealth Nina had hidden away.

“We can talk about this later,” D.S. said.

“Who’s talking about anything?” JannaRose said. “I’m just saying what’s fair.”

Nina snuck around to see the girls when the other adults were busy somewhere else, such as when the ice cream truck came by. That’s when they would disappear, because they didn’t want to feel guilty about not giving her kids any money for treats. Now, when it saw them, the truck said things like, “Here’s Guinevere! Hey, Guinevere! Why don’t you come down and get some of these delicious frozen dog turds. We don’t know anybody who loves dog turds more than you.” And, “Merlina! Hello! We know you’ve been waiting for this. A Puke Slushy made with real puke we threw up just for you.” For Lady it would be, “Lady, Lady, Lady! Your dream come true! Snotsicles! Snotsicles in every flavour you want — dirty snot, filthy snot, snotty snot, and shit snot.” Then, “Fabreece! Our sweetest, very, very favourite Fabreece! Here’s the sweetest, sweet treat you’ve been wanting for so long: A Hundred-Below-Zero —” and made a noise that sounded like a fart.

That’s when Nina would poke her head around the corner and crook her finger for them to follow her. She’d give them money to buy chips at the Korean’s store so they wouldn’t put pressure on JannaRose to feed them and get her even madder at Nina than she already was.

After a couple of weeks, Nina’s chin was drooped down between her shoulders. “We can’t live like this,” she said. “It’s awful.”

“Daddy says we can’t live like this either,” Guinevere said. “And he wouldn’t have to if you gave him that money.”

“I haven’t got it.” Her tone said,
How many times do I have to go over this
? “I don’t know who has.”

Lady said she didn’t think D.S. would kill Nina, even if he got the chance, but it must be hard with so many other people out to get her.

That was when Merlina said why didn’t they all go and hide somewhere together — the four sisters and Nina? Except nobody could think of a place. After they gave it quite a bit of thought, they couldn’t think of one the next day, either. Then something started going on in Merly’s mind. People later said it was like something they’d seen a long time before on TV. She couldn’t remember anything like it, though. All she thought was there had to be some way to protect Nina and the rest of them, and they wouldn’t be protected if they hid somewhere in some dark corner of an alley, because what if somebody found them there and nobody else knew where they were?

“What?” Nina said.

“If you hide out somewhere and nobody knows where you are,” Merly said, “then whoever finds you could do bad things and nobody else would ever find out. If you’re going to hide out —” she had to work through this kind of slowly “— then it’s probably better to hide out where everybody knows where you are.”

“That’s stupid,” Guinevere said.

“I don’t know,” Merlina said. It did seem kind of confusing.

“It’s so fuckin’ like you,” Gwinny said. “You just have to talk, even if everything you say is the stupidest shit.”

“I’m just —”

“Do you really think that if you’ve got a big fuckin’ diamond ring or something and you hide it on the middle of the sidewalk —”

“I don’t — I think it isn’t —”

“— that the first person that comes along and sees it lying there isn’t going to take it and run like hell. What do you think people are, complete fuckin’ —”

“Gwinny,” Nina said. She looked like somebody who was thinking harder than their brain was certified for. “Shut up for a minute, okay?”

And they all shut up until Nina gave a twittery laugh. “Maybe I should steal another one of Ed Oataway’s cars,” she said.

“Why not a bus?” Lady said.

“A bus would be perfect.” Nina looked kind of forlorn when she said this.

“No!” Lady was looking at Merlina. “Me and Merly. We know where one is.”

“Elwell’s have all these old cars and things out the back,” Merly said. “One of them’s this old school bus.”

“A
yellow
one,” Lady said. “Who’s going to kill you if we’re all riding around in it?”

“You want us to drive around for the rest of our lives in some dirty old fuckin’ wreck of a school bus?” Gwinny said.

“Gwinny,” Nina said.

“What?”

“Fuckin’ shut up. Like I already asked you. I’m trying to think.”

The plan called for Merlina and Lady to go to Elwell’s with Nina. Nina told Fabreece and Guinevere they would pick them up at five thirty in the morning, before it was light. But a little after five, D.S. clomped through the front door of Ed Oataway’s and JannaRose’s. When he could only find two of his kids, he started muttering, “Where the hell is everybody? Where’d they all go?”

If he noticed they were already dressed when he yanked them out of bed, he didn’t say anything. Instead he kind of sang, “Come on guys, going for a picnic. Come on for a picka-nic, a picka-nicka.”

It’s hard to say whether Fabreece and Guinevere were more scared or confused. Nobody had mentioned the possibility that D.S. might appear and drag them away to do something they’d never done before: have a picnic. “Daddy, it’s dark,” Fabreece said. If he suspected something was up, or if he’d instinctively decided the time had come to spring into action, not even he could say for sure. And if two out of four daughters were all he could round up, they would do. He’d tell Nina that if she wanted to see them again, she better stop holding out.

He was rushing them through the front door as a police officer was climbing out of a blue convertible. If Sergeant Toole had suspected something was up, or if he’d instinctively decided it was time to increase surveillance on the girls, he wasn’t exactly certain. The only thing he was interested in was Frank’s loot, and if Nina got away with it and her daughters, he’d have a hard time tracking it down.

He was surprised to see a big fat blonde woman pulling two of the girls out of the house. “What’s going on?” he yelled.

“Mind your own fuckin’ business,” D.S. yelled back.

“Who the fuck are you?” Toole yelled.

“
Me?
Who the fuck are
you?
” D.S. yelled.

D.S. started to move around him, and Toole was just about to yell that he was the fuckin’ police, that’s who, when the most amazing thing happened, at least from the point of view of everybody else in her family. It amounted to the first time anybody could think of that Fabreece was paying attention. What she did, though, was crouch down. Then with all her might she sprang forward and butted her head into Robbie Toole’s crotch. This caused him to fall down and roll around in a ball, groaning.

D.S. hollered, “Let’s go!” and started pushing Gwinny and Fabreece past the detective, who was making noises like he was going to be sick. But just then Toole stood up and threw a punch that knocked D.S. over backwards.

“Hey!” Toole said, picking up the wig. “You’re no fuckin’ woman.” Then he took a closer look. “
Wait!
You’re the asshole that’s wanted for murder.” And he kicked D.S. in the crotch. Now it was D.S. rolling around in a ball, groaning.

That’s when the second most amazing thing happened from the point of view of anybody who knew Fabreece. Gwinny was standing there looking at Ed Oataway and JannaRose’s house as if she was frightened and might run back into it. Merlina’s theory was that she’d forgotten all the lipsticks and makeup she’d shoplifted over the years and wanted to go back for them. It didn’t matter, because Fabreece wasn’t taking any of her shit. She grabbed her sister by the hair and started dragging her up the street, making her go faster and faster.

Nina arrived with the school bus while all this was going on. Fabreece dragged Guinevere in through the open door.

“Here we go,” Lady said.

“I guess so,” Nina said, and pulled away from the curb.

At first they stuck to streets in the east end of the city, east of SuEz, and after the sun had been up for awhile, Nina nosed the bus into a plaza because everybody was hungry. “No stealing!” she shouted after the girls as they went into a store to buy chips and drinks. “This won’t work if we do anything illegal.”

“What won’t work?” Fabreece said.

“What we’re doing,” Merlina explained.

“Oh,” she said.

Because of what had gone on between D.S. and Sergeant Toole, the police would know by now that they’d taken off. This meant it hadn’t been necessary to ask the Elwells, when they got to work that morning, to call the cops and tell them their school bus had been stolen. Nina thought it was still too soon for word to have gotten around, though, so they were safe stopping for breakfast.

She’d been sort of surprised to see it really was a school bus. Five rows of two seats each on both sides of the aisle. Maximum Capacity twenty. And while it was yellow like most school buses, instead of having the name of a school district or whatever on the side, it had “Metropolitan Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre.” The Elwells said that before it got old and they bought it, it had been used for picking up drunks and taking them to the detox. The big red lights on the front and back worked the same as on regular school buses, though, and Nina kept them flashing all the time. This threw a lot of drivers for a loop, because they’d only seen school bus lights flash when one was stopped, and they were supposed to stop, too, both ways.

The Parkway was jammed with people going to work when Nina squeezed on to it. Then, after it was starting to feel like they’d be creeping along forever, she said, “Okay everybody, here comes one,” and a police car with its own lights flashing pulled up alongside. The cop motioned for Nina to pull over, but instead she pointed to the dashboard of the bus, and for a long time he couldn’t figure out what she meant. Then he pulled ahead a bit until he could look over his shoulder. And what he saw Merlina.

She was standing at the front window holding two wires with bare ends. At the same time, Nina kept pointing over and over at the dashboard — not at the dashboard itself, but at a thing that the wires Merlina was holding were attached to. Nothing happened for a minute, then the cop dropped back really fast and stopped all the traffic behind them.

“Jesus!” Nina said. “It worked!”

“What worked?” Fabreece said.

“This.” Merlina tapped the thing the wires were attached to. “It’s like what they used to blow up our house.” Exactly like. It turned out that Raoul, the bomber, had become a firm believer in redundancy after electrocuting Frank. If one system didn’t work, he insisted on having another that would do the job right. “Me and Lady found it in a bag behind our house after they took the body away.”

“So you’re going to blow up our bus?” Fabreece said.

“Don’t be fuckin’ —”

“No, sweetie,” Nina said. “But the police will be real careful about how close they get if they think we might.”

“Especially with us on it.” Fabreece nodded approvingly.

Getting this point across was a very important part of the plan. So was the next part. They needed a cop off by himself with nobody else too near. In the meantime, they were stranded between traffic jams — one behind, where the cops were holding all the traffic back, and one in front where the cops were waving all the traffic off at the next exit. They didn’t move until there was nothing ahead but a clear highway, except for the line of police cars that stretched from one side of the Parkway to the other, all their lights flashing and travelling at the same speed as the bus. Then they saw one cop all alone on the shoulder. It was a lady cop, and she was standing beside her cruiser as if waiting until everybody went by, but Nina signaled and pulled over.

When the door opened right in front of her, the cop looked definitely unprepared for anything like that. “Ma’am,” she said, “I have to ask you to let the children off. And to get out. And —”

“Hold on, officer,” Nina said.

“You see this?” Merly said, holding the two wires close to each other and pointing with them at the thing on the dashboard.

“Ma’am —”

“In case you wonder about it,” Merly said, “this here is its twin sister.” It turned out Raoul didn’t just believe in redundancy, he was weird for it. There were two extra bombs in the bag the sisters found.

“Catch,” Lady said, and tossed the other one to the cop, who caught it easily. Then she looked at it, her mouth dropped open, and she held it as far away as she possibly could. “It’s — it’s —”

“Dynamite,” Lady said.

“Now listen, please.” Nina held up one hand like she wanted the cop to be calm. “I’d like you to please tell anybody that wants to know that the money they’re looking for is right here with us. We put it in the tires.”

“It’s in the tires!” Lady said.

“Money?” the cop said.

“Yes! The
money
everybody is looking for. It’s in the
tires!
” Nina shouted, pulling away.

“Hey, ma’am?” the cop shouted.

“It’s in the tires! It’s in the tires!” Nina and Lady shouted.

The bus was dirty and old except for the tires. That’s how they looked, anyway. At first they looked as old as the rest of the bus, but then Lady had an idea. She borrowed a jug of Armor All from the Elwells and wiped it on them and they turned shiny black, just like in the ads on TV. Anybody looking at it would think,
Shitty bus. Nice tires, though
. And they’d figure somebody must have done some work on them lately. Certain people would think that for sure, especially once the money got mentioned.

“I got to pee,” Gwinny said.

“Everybody’s trying to help,” Merlina said. “But not Gwinny. Gwinny only cares about Gwinny. And Gwinny’s got to pee.”

“Shut up, Merly,” Nina said.

“I got to pee, too,” Fabreece said.

So did Merlina. She’d had to for about an hour, but she was absolutely not going to let on. Anyway, Nina hauled off at the next exit and gave the entire police department a brain hemorrhage. They had to race around until they got a bunch of police cars in front of the bus again, but Nina only drove along for about a block before pulling into a parking lot. “
McDonald’s!
” Fabreece shouted, like it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her life. “It’s a
McDonald’s!
” They’d only been in one a few times — except to go to the bathroom. Nina said it cost too much to eat there.

“Okay, Gwinny, you go and take Fabreece to the Ladies,” she said. “Merly, you stay right there in the window holding those wires.”

“Fuck,” Merlina said.

“What?” Nina said.

And when they came back, Merly went and Lady held the wires — they were wrapped around the dynamite, not actually attached to anything. None of them had any idea how they could make it explode. After Merlina, Nina took Lady.

They were gone for a long time. A long, long time. The McDonald’s was surrounded by police cars, and even though the sun was out, so many lights were flashing that Merly thought it was like being in the middle of a lightning storm. Finally they came out, but with a McDonald’s lady who was carrying a great big box full of McDonald’s stuff. Lady was so astonished she could hardly talk. Nina thanked the McDonald’s lady and closed the door, and it wasn’t until they were back on the freeway with the police cars racing to get out front again that she told them what happened. What happened was they were on TV.

“They have pictures from helicopters and from overpasses that show the bus and us and where we are,” she said. “On the TV over the counter you could see us right down in that McDonald’s parking lot. And the manager looked at me and said, ‘Is that you folks? You’re famous!’ And she told us we could have anything we wanted for free.”

“But we couldn’t think what to get,” Lady said.

“So they gave us this box full of everything.”

“
McDonald’s
,” Fabreece sighed, and she touched all the stuff in the box.