The Blade Itself (21 page)

His laugh made her think that maybe date night would work out after all. As they walked to their table, he rested a hand on the small of her back. He didn’t pull out her chair – she hated that – but waited to sit down until she had, and smiled at her again.

‘So,’ she said, ‘they let you out of your cage.’

He nodded. ‘Thank God.’

She folded the napkin in her lap and sipped her water. He
looked around the room as if taking it in. Their eyes met for a moment and then skidded away, like they were on an awkward first date.

‘Good evening, folks.’ The waiter stepped forward with an obsequious smile. He handed her a menu, then one to him, and set the wine list in the center. ‘We have several specials this evening.’

They’d been coming here for years, and though Danny teased her for it, she always ordered the same thing. So instead of listening to the specials, she watched Danny fidget with his silverware. His shoulders were clenched. He nodded thoughtfully from time to time, but never in response to anything the waiter said. Truth be told, despite the sharp clothes, he looked wrecked, and her optimism about date night began to evaporate.

‘You want another?’ She gestured at the scotch he’d already drained.

‘Guess I was thirsty.’ His smile didn’t quite fit.

‘I’ll catch his eye.’

He nodded absently, and turned back to the menu.

‘Want to get an appetizer?’ she asked.

‘Sure. Whatever you want.’ It would have sounded sweeter if he’d been looking at her.

‘How about the shrimp?’

‘Okay.’

‘Danny.’

He looked up at her, dark craters under his eyes.

‘You’re allergic to shellfish.’

‘Right.’ He blew air through his mouth, not quite a laugh. ‘Sorry. I’m not all here tonight.’

‘Where are you?’ When he didn’t respond, she sighed. ‘What’s going on? And don’t tell me work.’

He looked at her, then looked away. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You know,’ she said, her voice sharp, ‘a lot of women would start to get suspicious if their boyfriend was suddenly working late every night. Start wondering if “working” was a way of saying “sleeping with somebody else.”’

That got his attention. He turned, his eyes firm on hers. ‘Of course not.’

She felt ashamed. That had been a cheap shot. ‘I know.’

He nodded, looked away again.

‘Danny…’ Her voice trailed off. Everybody had rough times. She wanted to believe that’s all this was. But the signals he was giving off were all wrong. In the past they’d always worked through things together, but now he seemed to be pulling away. ‘Is it me? Something I’ve done?’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s not you.’

Somehow that was scarier. ‘Then what?’

‘Look.’ He leaned forward, hesitated, like he was searching for the right words. ‘Right now is just a crazy time. I have a lot of things going on, and it’s starting to get to me. But this will all be over soon.’

‘When?’

‘By the end of the week. Things will be back to normal. I promise.’

It was the kind of answer she should have hoped for, but somehow, it wasn’t comforting. She held up her glass and spun it idly, watching the wine swirl. She felt the grip of one of those weird moments when the physicality of the world – the noisy bar, the art photographs on the wall, the wine rolling red and glinting along the bowl of her glass – overwhelmed any sense of meaning. Left her feeling stranded. Without stopping to consider, she tossed the question like a grenade, hoping they wouldn’t be wounded in the blast.

‘Why did a detective call our house today?’

Silence. She looked up to find him staring.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘A Detective Nolan. He left a number. It’s on the machine. He said he had some things he wanted to ask you about.’

It was only an instant. But for a ragged fraction of a second, she saw clear through him. Past what he called his game face. Saw his mouth hanging open and his mind scrambling for a lie.

And then it was over, and his mask slid back into place. ‘We’ve had some break-ins. Vandalism, some tools stolen. It’s probably just kids, you know, but I have to go through the motions.’

She nodded. She didn’t know what she’d seen, didn’t know what it meant, but she knew she wasn’t going to sit still for it. She’d always pitied women – people – who chose to blind themselves to what was right in front of them. Better to deal with things, even if they were painful. She looked at him again, took in his friendly expression and calculated look, and then she finished a last sip of wine and stood up.

‘Good night, Danny.’

He blinked, stuttered her name. Asked her to wait.

She didn’t.

When he’d come by and said they were going to lunch, Debbie had said no. Tommy would be scared if she was gone for more than a couple of minutes. They stood in the construction yard, the skies gray and heavy, the motion of traffic barely visible through that orange slatted stuff they wove into chain-link fences. Evan had just looked at her, muscles and strong chin, soap-opera stubble, a tiny grin on his lips, and next thing she knew, they’d been up against the outside of the trailer, her jeans tangled at her knees, panties tugged to one side, the aluminum siding freezing when her breasts rocked against it. And as always, he’d gotten her off so hard her legs melted.

The girlfriends who tried to steer her away from the guys she liked had never understood that it was precisely the fact that they were bad that drew her to them.

Still, as the waitress plunked their burgers down on the Formica table, she fought a wave of guilt. ‘We should hurry.’

He reached for the Tabasco and began to drench his fries in the stuff. ‘Why?’

‘You know.’ She cut her hamburger in half, then in quarters. It didn’t taste right otherwise.

He shrugged, seeming to lose interest in the conversation before it began. ‘Proud Mary’ played in the background, the volume way too soft. If you were going to do Ike and Tina, you had to be able to feel it. Otherwise, what was the point?

‘So this is going to be a big score, huh?’

A waitress swayed by, a tired-looking bottle blonde with a
nice figure, and she watched his eyes follow her ass before he answered. ‘Sure.’

‘How much?’

‘Enough.’

‘For what?’

‘Jesus, ease up, okay? I’m trying to eat.’ His voice barely rose, like she wasn’t worth getting annoyed at.

She shrugged, picked up a quarter of her burger. Overcooked but still yummy, and she ate quickly, glad to have a break from microwave dinners. When she finished she leaned back and tossed her napkin on the plate. He shook his head. ‘You really are in a hurry, aren’t you?’

She shrugged. ‘
The Rockford Files
are on at two.’

‘So?’

‘I told Tommy we’d watch it together.’

‘What, are you playing at motherhood here? You want to adopt him?’ He had a thin-lipped grin that she didn’t like, that made him look like a school-yard bully. ‘This is a job, Deborah.’

The name made her grit her teeth, and he knew it, so she stopped herself from correcting him. ‘I know. That’s why I want to get back.’

‘So you can watch
The Rockford Files
?’

‘No. Because Danny’s plan –’

‘Whoa. Danny’s plan?’

‘All I mean is, shouldn’t we be there, just to make sure nothing goes wrong?’

‘Jesus fucking Christ. You and he sound like the same broken record.’ Evan pitched his voice girlishly high. ‘Oh geez, I hope nothing goes wrong. Oh gosh. Things could go wrong.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘That’s more like it.’ He laughed, leaned forward to stub out his cigarette. ‘Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To make a phone call.’ He threw money on the table and got up, grabbing his leather jacket in one hand. She stood and followed him through the half-empty diner, the music now ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone,’ still too low. They walked past the chrome-trimmed counter, the short-order cook behind it scraping at the grill, metal rasping on metal. Between the bathrooms, the phone hung on shabby brown paneling, the cheap kind that felt cozy only at 4:00
A.M
., waiting for the caffeine to counter the alcohol enough that you could see yourself home. The restaurant was quiet here, just an old guy at the edge of the counter twenty feet away. Evan took a matchbook from his jacket pocket and opened it to a phone number.

‘Who’s Dick?’ Debbie asked.

‘Danny’s boss.’

He fished for a quarter and stabbed it in while she processed that, it coming on her in a rush. ‘Wait a second. You mean Tommy’s –’

‘Yeah.’ He started punching numbers.

‘You aren’t going to call him from here, are you?’

‘Why not? Something could go wrong?’ Before she could reply he held up a finger for silence. ‘Dick. You know who this is?’ His voice into the receiver was slow and menacing.

Jesus.

She looked around, fighting rising panic. The old man at the counter seemed to be reading his newspaper. The hostess faced the other way, slumping across the register with her arms folded. It looked like they were clear.

Evan continued. ‘That’s right. You have the money?’ He paused. ‘Half the money, you get half your son. You want the top or the bottom?’

She hadn’t wanted to hear this part. It brought it all home, changed it from babysitting a kid to something a
million times more awful. Falling for bad boys was one thing. This was something else entirely.

‘By tomorrow. We’ll call later to tell you when and where.’

Putting on blinders and pretending it was an innocuous job was nonsense. She knew that, always had. But sometimes you went along to get along. Now, she was wondering how big a mistake that had been.

‘And Dick, you know what happens if we even
suspect
you’ve called the police? We shoot your little boy in the head.’

Beside them, the door to the men’s bathroom swung suddenly open. A chubby guy in a Bears jersey came out, not looking at Evan, his eyes on her for a second, just a second, but something weird in them, like he’d caught something he shouldn’t have. Then he was past them, taking a jacket from a booth near the door.

She looked at Evan, his eyes narrow as he watched the fat guy at the register, the hostess asking if everything was all right, the man nodding, reaching in his wallet.

‘Good. Wait by the phone, Dick.’ Evan hung up, gesturing her closer. ‘That guy heard.’

His tone scared her more than anything she could remember.

‘No,’ she said. Tried to smile. ‘I don’t think so.’

She could see him calculating, and suddenly realized that if she couldn’t convince Evan, then that guy was going to get hurt. Or worse. She remembered Danny telling her about the gun Evan had brought when they took Tommy.

Then the right answer came natural as anything. She knew just what to say. ‘Nah. He was too distracted.’

‘By what?’

She smiled. ‘My tits.’

He looked at her, steady for a moment, then breaking into a laugh. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

Relief boiled sweet through her, leaving her skin hot and hands tingling like a thousand needles. She’d done it. Part of her wanted to hoot for joy, but she had to stay calm. So she just started for the door, putting an extra sway in her hips to cover the trembling.

‘Bye now,’ the hostess singsonged as they stepped through the glass door. The air was fresh and sharp, the cold welcome. They walked around the restaurant to the parking lot in the back, by the Dumpster and the big air conditioner. The lot was bare, only a couple of other cars. The chubby guy walked ahead of them, toward an SUV parked beside the Mustang. She wondered if he’d ever know that she had saved his life. Did that karmic debt tie them in some way? She didn’t exactly believe in reincarnation, but energy was energy, and you never knew.

‘See?’ Evan said, fishing in his jacket pocket for the car keys. ‘I told you there was no reason to worry.’

She smiled over her shoulder at him. ‘You’re the man, baby.’

‘Maybe I’ll take you back to the trailer and fuck you up against the other side.’

Even after her earlier panic – or because of it – that sent a flush of heat through her, and as they reached the passenger side of the car she turned, her tongue flicking her lips, starting to lean back, ready to give him a kiss that would send lightning down his spine and back up the other side – only he kept going, pushed past her, and opened the driver’s side of the SUV, the engine already running, the fat guy yelling as Evan leaned in and grabbed him by his shirt front and yanked him right out of the truck, slamming him up against the side of the Mustang like a rag doll, the guy grunting, his arms raised, Evan holding him with his left hand and using his right to punch the guy in the throat, not like the movies where men hit each other on the chins and
their heads and hands snap back, no, Evan’s fist continuing too far, and when it pulled back coming out bloody, the ring of keys still in his hand, two of them braced between knuckles dripping scarlet, and then winding up again, and again, three times, the guy not making a sound anymore, everything that fast, and Debbie still standing there, frozen in a vamp pose, her lips and her legs open, as Evan let the body drop to the cement, blood pouring from the neck.

He turned, his face a brutal mask. No longer the soap-opera bad boy of her imagination, but a wild-eyed beast kept too long in a cage. Then he thrust the bloody keys into her hand and ducked down to grab the man’s feet.

‘Open the trunk,’ he said.

She took one look at the brass keys shining and wet in her palm, turned sideways, and booted her burger all over the pavement.

Half of Detroit burned down every year on the night before Halloween. Or it used to, back in high school, when Karen had lived downriver. In Wyandotte the pranks had been more on the level of blowing up mailboxes than torching warehouses, but she’d always hated Devil’s Night anyway. Maybe because of her brothers; they’d always go out, prepared like commandos, dressed in black and packing duffel bags stuffed with eggs, toilet paper, M-80 firecrackers, spray paint, God knew what else. They always let her paint camouflage makeup from the drugstore on their faces, but when she would beg them to let her come along, David would laugh, and Brian would ruffle her hair and say that it was guy stuff. Then they’d leave on their adventures and she’d sit home stewing.