Nina, the Bandit Queen (20 page)

The bus lurched. Sharply.

It lurched again. It swung toward the centre guardrail. “Mom!” Merlina yelled. Nina’s chin was on her chest and her eyes were closed.

“Mom!” Merlina and Lady yelled at the same time. Nina snapped upright and looked around, yanking the wheel so hard the other way, the girls were thrown across the aisle. “What?” she said over and over, steering back and forth, toward the guardrail, toward the shoulder, until she finally got settled down and going straight.

She blinked a couple of times, using her whole face. “We’ve got to get off.” She sounded dazed. “I’m almost falling asleep.” There was an exit right ahead that she followed on to a street. They’d been making big loops, one after the other, following the freeways and expressways and the parkway around the central part of the city, and just along the street was another McDonald’s. She pulled into the lot and stopped. Her face was white, as if she was going to be sick. She dropped her head on to the steering wheel.

“Mom?” Merlina said.

Nina didn’t answer. She was out cold.

“Now what?” Lady said. She didn’t sound hopeful. They watched police cars zip around until this McDonald’s was surrounded, too. They dragged Nina out of the driver’s seat and got her on a couple of passenger seats, where she could stretch out a bit. She didn’t notice. None of the girls spoke. It was as if they couldn’t even talk. Or think. Or feel anything except maybe an ache that was wired directly into Lady’s question: Now what? Until this, Merlina and Lady had at least felt like they were doing something. Now nobody was doing anything. And not doing anything felt a lot like the whole thing was falling apart. More than a lot. It felt awful.

Fabreece pointed to a McDonald’s kid who came out and waggled his arms over his head. “What does that man want?” she said.

Merly opened the door. “What do you want?” she yelled.

“Take a —” the kid yelled, then he paused and changed his approach. “That bomb you’ve got isn’t going to go off or nothing, is it? Blow us all up?”

“No way!” Merly yelled. “We’re real careful. We don’t want anything bad to happen.” Behind her, Lady waved the two wires to show how far apart she was holding them.

“Good!” The kid looked relieved. “So then, take a look up there!” He pointed at the big McDonald’s sign where big gold letters were winking across it that said, “Welcome Nina and Girls! McDonald’s Welcomes You! We Love You Nina!”

“McDonald’s loves Mommy?” Fabreece said.

“I got to pee,” Guinevere said, and opened the door.

“Here we go again,” Fabreece said when she and Gwinny came back with bags full of McDonald’s stuff. Gwinny was looking a little bit happy for the first time in weeks. She said everybody in the restaurant was watching a TV that had live pictures of them. When she and Fabreece got to the counter, the manager showed them what was on the other channels.

“It was us!” Gwinny said. “We were on all of them!” She floated around the bus, hugging herself.

“What an asshole,” Merlina said.

“You’ll be sorry when I’m a star,” Gwinny said.

It was another hour before Nina woke, and when she got them back on the freeway, she asked what they were going to do once it got dark and they all needed to sleep. Nobody knew what to say, except Gwinny.

“It’s awesome,” she said, spreading her arms and waving at the crowd at an interchange. Everywhere they could get a view people were gathering, waving at the bus. Some held big signs. “We Love You Nina!” and “Burger King Loves You & Girls — Next Exit & Turn Right!” and McDonald’s with its own signs telling the exits where they could be found. And Popeye’s and Arby’s and all kinds of other places telling them they’d get all the food they wanted for free if they’d only stop there. Sometimes Ronald McDonald would be by the freeway, blowing kisses.

The police cars behind them were followed by a solid stream of ordinary cars that stretched back as far as Nina could see. They had their blinkers flashing. Flags streamed out the windows.

“Why are they doing that?” Merlina said.

“Because they want the money,” Lady said.

“Because they love us,” Gwinny said. “We’re on TV!”

Signs started showing up that said, “Nina the Bandit Queen!” and “Long Live Bandit Queen Nina!” Nina had no idea what that was all about unless it was because the Elwells reported the bus was stolen. They had no way of knowing that reporters on TV had been saying that, according to police sources, Nina Dolgoy wanted to save her local swimming pool. To do this, she had been going around robbing the gangsters and drug dealers in SuEz of their criminally gotten gains. And she had hidden the money in the school bus’s tires for safekeeping, millions of dollars stuffed into each one. Then the TV would show close-up pictures of the tires that were no longer as shiny as when they’d started out, but still were a bit.

It was nearly dark when one of the police cars up ahead stopped and left an orange traffic cone on the pavement. They stopped and read the note tied to it: the police would clear a parking lot at a mall and put in a Johnny-On-the-Spot that they could park beside. They could stay there till morning. The police would leave them alone. The police needed a rest, too. She should blink her lights if that was okay. She blinked her lights and was led to an exit, then up to a mall where a huge lot had been cleared. All alone in the middle was a Johnny. The door was open so they could see that nobody was inside waiting to jump them.

When the police surrounded the lot, hundreds and hundreds of other cars swarmed up behind them, honking their horns and blasting music. Every now and then the yelling would coalesce into a chant. “Nina! Ban-dit Queen-a! We love Nina! Bandit Queen-a!”

“That should be Nina the Welfare Queen-a,” was all she said when she heard it.

Blankets and pillows had been left beside the portable toilet, and while they were getting them arranged, Fabreece yelled, “Look who’s coming! Look who’s coming!” It was Ronald McDonald himself. He’d gotten through the line of police cars and was carrying bags of McDonald’s stuff. He stopped halfway to the bus and waved a kind of Hiya! then started forward again.

“What’s the matter with Ronald?” Lady said.

“What?” Merlina said.

“Ronald is skinny,” Lady said.

“Skinny?”

“Ronald is always skinny. Except today he’s not. He’s real big!” And she ran out the door yelling at him. “You stop right there,” she yelled. But he didn’t, he just slowed down. “Don’t you move!” she yelled. “Blow the horn at him, Merly!” Merlina started blasting on the horn. Finally he stopped.

“Get away from here!” Lady shouted.

He leaned in their direction. “We don’t want you any closer,” she said. He made a kind of who, me? gesture. Then after a minute or two, somebody at the police cars with a loudspeaker said, “Okay. Leave the food. Come on back.” Ronald turned and did a well, you can’t win them all thing, and walked away on his big flapping shoes.

“Why’s Ronald leaving?” Fabreece said.

“He’s a fake,” Merlina said.

They’d been lied to. The police would trick them if they could. Somebody was going to have to stay awake all night to keep guard. They decided they’d each do an hour, then sleep until it was their turn again, except for Fabreece.

“I think it was the real Ronald,” she said. “This food he left is real.”

Some of them wondered about that later on. Maybe it had some kind of sleeping drug in it. Or maybe it was what they had to expect when they put their faith in a fuckin’ idiot like Gwinny, Merlina said. Because when it was her second time to hold the wires while the others slept, she fell asleep, too.

The next thing any of them knew, the motor started. Merly sat straight up. The bus started to move. The parking lot was lit almost as bright as day, and she could see Nina sprawled on the seat across the aisle. Cops were moving cars out of the way, other cops were waving the bus ahead, through the opening.

Merlina looked at the man in the driver’s seat.

“Fuck,” she said.

He was waving thanks to the cops. Merlina’s sisters were sitting up and saying “Oh my God!” and making screechy noises.

“Did we get arrested?” Lady yelled.

“No!” It was Nina. The others got real quiet. “He’s not a cop.”

The driver nodded, as if she couldn’t have been more right about anything.

“What do you want?” she said.

“Let’s everybody take it easy,” he said. “We’re all going to be fine, okay?”

“Who is it?” Guinevere whispered.

“James G. Bradley, at your service,” he said.

“It’s Gladly Bradley,” Lady whispered.

“Who’s that?” Guinevere whispered.

“The mayor.”

He gave a big goodbye wave to the cops who had let them through.

“Fuck,” Merlina said.

The next very important part of their plan had been to drive around the freeways for twenty-four hours. If they could do that, they figured everybody who needed to know where the money was — or where it was supposed to be — would know it. So when daylight came, they were going to ask the cops to get the police chief to come and talk to them. When he got there, they’d give up to him, and everybody who needed to would see them getting led away empty-handed from the bus with the shiny tires. Nina the Welfare Queen and her girls, as poor as ever. This part of the plan was actually the most important part of all.

And whatever was going on had totally screwed it up.

Since he was the mayor, when Gladly Bradley showed up and told the cops he was going out to the bus to talk to that woman and settle this thing, nobody was about to tell him he wasn’t. And he started right in as soon as they were out of the parking lot. “Mrs. Dolgoy,” he said, looking at her in the rearview, “I believe we can all profit from this, even if nobody that I personally have in mind ends up with the eighteen million dollars you hid in the tires.”

“It was one 1.18 million, and you know it,” Nina said. “And my brother got set up and didn’t get it.”

“Whatever you like, Mrs. Dolgoy,” Gladly said. “Myself, I never argue with the media. What matters now is that you and me get a chance to benefit from it in a way that’s profitable to both of us. If you end up getting to keep the money —”

“There is no money.”

“If you get to keep the money,” he continued, “that’s fine with me. And if I get some small bit of recognition —” he held his thumb and index finger so close they almost touched “— as the man who saved this dangerous situation from turning into a bloodbath, or worse, then it will be worth more than eighteen million —”

“I don’t fuckin’ believe this,” Nina said.

“ — it will be worth far more than mere money to me. So,” he said, “if you will kindly shut the fuck up, we’ll go somewhere that isn’t quite as public and discuss our arrangements more fully.”

Gwinny put up her hand. “I got to pee,” she said.

“Who gives a shit?” he said.

All the people who had been partying all night on behalf of Nina were pretty quiet until they saw the bus go by. This got them cheering again about how much they loved her and the girls. The girls were so nervous, they started waving back. The chant started again. “Nina! Ban-dit queen-a! Nina! Ban-dit Queen-a!” She and the girls could hear it all the way down the ramp and onto the freeway, where everything was the same as before.

The line of police cars in front. Another line behind. The ordinary people racing to get into formation behind them, honking their horns. But Gladly was driving really, really slow, not even half as fast as Nina had.

He gave her a big wink in the rearview. “Just waiting until there’s enough light so they can get a good look at us.” He meant the helicopters, since he pointed toward the roof.

When the sun did come up, there were even more helicopters than the day before. Some flew right alongside with their cameras aimed at the bus. Gladly waved like crazy and gave the thumbs up. He opened the driver’s window and leaned way out so they could get a better shot of him waving. He even blew kisses like the Ronald McDonalds along the expressways had. Then, after about half an hour he pulled over to the side the way Nina had when she needed a rest. The police cars stopped. He turned sideways on the seat. Let’s see what you and me can come up with, Mrs. Dolgoy.”

“Like what?”

“Exactly,” he said.

They would drive to City Hall. Nina and the girls would get out and tell the media how the mayor talked them into stopping their campaign … their crusade … their reckless, endless drive around and around the city … their whatever it was they’d been doing. That if it hadn’t been for him and how much they trusted him, they would still be driving around recklessly, endlessly, maybe forever.

“Yeah?” Nina said. “You really don’t care about the money?”

“Money? I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. So —” He looked out the side window. They all did. A police motorcycle that had rumbled up behind them swung past the bus and parked in front of it. When the cop climbed off, he removed his helmet and put on a police officer’s hat.

Then he pulled out a gun. “Open the door,” he shouted.

“What the fuck is this?” Gladly Bradley shouted back.

Nina was wondering the same thing. It turned out it wasn’t a police motorcycle, just an old blue Honda. The police uniform was way too big, all baggy around the middle. The hat came down over his ears. His hair stuck out over his collar. When he shouted “Open the door,” his accent made it hard to understand. It sounded like “Hobben de doe.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Gladly shouted, looking out the back window where the police officers had piled out of the patrol cars that stretched across the highway. They were standing in a circle, waving their arms, pointing at each other, pointing at the bus. Up ahead, the other police cars were getting tangled up as they jockeyed to turn around so they’d be facing the bus.

The cop-type person with the gun shouted again. “Hobben de doe.”

“Shit,” Gladly said. “I know that guy.” Then, “Who are you?” he shouted. “Where do I know —”

There was a bang. The bullet made a hole in the windshield just above Gladly’s head and went zinging out through the roof behind him. Gladly vanished under the steering wheel. But Nina didn’t think the cop-type had been trying to shoot him, or to shoot anything. Because when the gun had gone off, he stepped back, staring at it like he was trying to figure out what happened.

A siren up ahead started screaming and a police car came tearing down the road. “Hold it! Hold it!” Gladly started yelling, and maybe he thought of making a run for it, because he opened the door. But instead of rushing through it, he dashed to the back seat. The cop-type climbed aboard. The police car rocked to a stop and the driver jumped out.

“Fuck me,” Nina said. It was Sergeant Toole.

He was terrifically agitated. To him it looked as if some kind of clown cop had shown up and was horning in on top of the mayor who had already horned it to get Frank’s money before he could. The clown cop had his back to Toole because he was waving his gun at Gladly Bradley, who was yelling at him not to shoot.

“Drop it!” Toole was aiming his own gun at the middle of the clown cop’s back. “Drop it!” he yelled. “Drop that fuckin’ gun.”

The clown cop whirled around. He must have recognized Toole’s voice. His hands were shaking. It was Carlo, Toole’s new boyfriend. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Toole demanded. “Why are you wearing my old uniform? Why have you got my old fuckin’ gun? Didn’t you hear me tell you to drop it?”

Carlo opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. But instead of dropping the gun, it looked as if he thought he was supposed to hand it to Toole. Maybe it was a language problem. He started holding it out. Cops always take a narrow view of guns in other people’s hands, no matter what their relationship is, especially if they’re staring at the barrel. They take them very seriously. They don’t take their eyes off them. They get scared.

Toole’s first shot hit Carlo in the middle of the chest. The next two missed, possibly because Carlo fell down, possibly because Toole was so upset, possibly because he wasn’t all that good a shot. They missed Carlo, that is. One of them caught Gladly Bradley in the thigh.

Toole collapsed on top of Carlo, yelling, “What were you doing? What were you doing?”

Gladly Bradley, on the other hand, was shrieking in pain. “You crazy fuck! You fuckin’ shot me!”

By this time, cops were all over the place. When they rushed the bus, they had to hold Sergeant Toole down and take his gun away because he was trying to put the barrel in his mouth and blow his brains out. Then the paramedics carried the mayor out on a stretcher. “Sit me up so I can speak to my people,” he told them. There were only two or three cameras and a couple of microphones around so far, but he started going on about how it had been worth it, facing death in the line of public service. It was worth it because he so terribly much wanted to bring to a safe conclusion — safe for all but himself, he said, pointing bravely at his bandage — the ordeal of this poor woman and her children that had captured the world’s attention and brought this great city to a complete standstill.

The instant Gladly Bradley had run to the back of the bus and Carlo jumped aboard, Nina herded her girls behind Carlo’s back and out the door. They ran until the shooting stopped, and the next thing they knew they were standing beside the Elwell’s tow truck with its yellow lights flashing as if there had been a traffic accident and they were looking for customers. L. Roy and L. Ray were telling the police that Nina hadn’t stolen the school bus after all. There had been a clerical error. Somebody in middle management got overexcited when they saw it wasn’t in the yard and called 911. To tell the truth, they had loaned it to the Dolgoys so they could go down to the beach for a swim. Little did the Elwells dream what might happen as a result.

Then they told Nina they were retiring from the service centre and, out of gratitude to her for being so community-spirited, and because of their affection for her late brother Frank, they were letting her have the tow truck for her own personal use for as long as she wanted.

“What?” Nina kept saying.

“What?” Even the cops were saying it.

But the Elwells said they’d cleared everything with their attorneys, led the sisters over to the truck, and boosted them into it. Because it had four doors and a back seat, they all fit in with room to spare.

“Now get the hell out of here,” L. Ray said to Nina.

“While the getting’s good,” L. Roy said.

“And this is as good as it’s ever going to get.”

“Don’t listen to him,” L. Roy said. “He says that to all the girls.”

Nina didn’t leave right then, though. She parked the truck out of the way a bit and told her daughters to be quiet. She wanted to make sure. And before long, a police department hauler hooked on to the school bus, pulled it up on its flatbed, and drove off with it, the tires still a little blacker than they had been.

“There,” she said.

Then they got the hell out of there. For a long time nobody spoke. For one thing, nobody but Nina knew she had the seventy-five hundred dollars socked away that her brother Frank had hidden in the tire-repair can and, what with one thing and another, it didn’t occur to her to mention it. For another, it never occurred to anybody that they were about to get into the tow-truck business until Nina asked, out of the blue, “I wonder how you tow something with one of these?”

“Ask Lady,” Merlina said.

Lady had been leaning forward studying the dashboard with its dials and buttons and switches and toggles and levers and police-radio scanners. She looked very intense. “It’s so not a problem,” she said.