The Carrier (3 page)

“
Thanks, Duane. That makes
it a lot clearer for me.”

Duane was about two seconds from
throwing Cyril out of the car; sarcasm was something he really
didn’t really need. But he calmed himself—Cyril wasn’t used to this
kind of life.

That was, what, three years ago now?
Back then Duane thought the organization was tight, and the money
would always come in big, regular chunks. But nothing ever stays
the same. You never recognize the high-water mark. Yeah, trouble
was coming, and Cyril would just have to take care of
himself.

CHAPTER 4

Is it stupid to bring a girl with a
gun back to your motel room?

Yes, it was stupid. Cyril knew that.
It didn’t take a genius to see a problem coming, but this was the
middle of the country where average people carried guns—housewives,
realtors, undergrads. He’d been lonely and he’d just loved the
sound of Willow’s voice—going on about her classes, and the
professors who were all a little sleazy, and the way she loved to
feel gooseflesh rise on her skin in poorly heated dorms. It was all
lies, but she told them so well.

“
The money. Where is it? I
know you have it,” she said.

She held the gun like she knew how to
use it, and she wasn’t shaking. It was a small pistol, a nine
millimeter, but it was powerful enough to stop his
heart.

“
My wallet is in my pants,”
Cyril said, still in just boxers.

Willow fished the wallet out of
Cyril’s jeans and checked.

“
There’s thirty-five dollars
in here,” she said.

“
Keep it”

“
Come on. The
money.”

“
What do you mean by
the
money?”

“
You’re going to make this
difficult?”

Willow went through Cyril’s bag—a
change of clothes, deodorant, a paperback, his passport. She opened
all the drawers—all empty.

“
Is it still in the car?”
she asked. “You left that kind of cash in the car?”

“
Can you tell me what money
you think I have?”

“
You know what
money.”

“
You can check the car. The
keys are on the table. It’s a gray Toyota. There’s only two or
three cars in the lot anyway. You’ll see it.”

She wasn’t sure whether she could
leave him alone in the room. Maybe she was even starting to doubt
that she had the right guy.

“
What do you do for a
living?” she asked.

They hadn’t got around to discussing
that. She knew about all his childhood injuries and his favorite
songs. She’d talked more than he had, and he’d laughed a lot, a wry
shake of the head that she really seemed to like. Then they’d
compared the size of their hands. Yeah, it was all cheap, sexy
nonsense.

“
I’m in web development,” he
said.

“
Like in computers?
Programming?”

“
Sure.”

“
What do you mean
sure
?”

“
I mean that I do some
programming, yes.”

Cyril tried to look like a poor
traveler who thought he’d met a nice young lady in a bar and was
now trapped in a nightmare.

***

Willow wasn’t buying it. This was the
man. She’d got the right address, and she’d practically picked him
up from in front of his house, then hung onto that car all the way:
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. She’d lose him for
a minute or two and then find him again; she’d gambled and won on
when to get gas. She’d followed his gray Toyota all the way to this
crummy motel in Iowa, and Cyril was the only one who’d gotten out
of that car. Of course he was going to deny as much as he could.
Losing money was a very dangerous thing for a man like
this.

“
I’m not any kind of—bank
robber,” he said.

“
Who said anything about a
bank robber?”

“
Whatever you think I am.
Look, if there’s no money in the car, will you believe
me?”

Willow’s eyes scanned the walls—vents,
flaps in the wallpaper? Or could he have hidden it somewhere
outside of the room? If so, when did he do that?

“
Come with me,” she
said.

“
Can I put on a shirt and
pants?”

“
Yeah, but no
jacket.”

He put on his jeans and his shirt. He
reached for his socks but she stopped him.

“
No shoes.”

“
No shoes in the parking lot
in the middle of the night?”

“
Walk.”

He walked out the door, and
she followed. Her Beretta was the same color black as her hair. She
let the sleeve of her jacket flow over the gun to conceal it, but
it wouldn’t keep her from firing if she had to. She kept a few
paces between them at all times. As they moved toward the lot, they
could see the woman behind reception. She was young and heavyset,
reading something in her lap and drinking an enormous cup of
Sprite. He slowed his pace. Would he call out to
her—
help me, save me obese, night worker
at chain motel
.

“
Keep going.”

They made it to the parking lot. Even
though it was less than half an hour since they’d been outside, it
felt a lot colder. Willow pointed to a spot on the ground, about
fifteen feet from the car.

“
You sit down here and
watch. Answer questions if I ask. Otherwise, please don’t talk to
me.”

He sat still, no fidgeting. First
Willow went for the trunk where she found jumper cables, a spare
tire, a flashlight, a towel, and a filthy tee shirt. Next she
opened the driver side door and shined a flashlight in the car—a
few old CDs and a box of tissues. She picked up the box—nothing.
She opened the glove compartment—a few papers, a map, a Swiss army
knife, and a cell phone. She put the phone and the knife in her
pocket, then she pressed down on the seats and reached in between.
If there was anything in the car, it must be hidden away, sewn
under the seats, stuffed into the gas tank? What was she going to
do, take the car apart? Why did everything have to be so difficult?
She peeked under the car briefly, turning her back to Cyril for
just a moment. When she whirled back on him, he hadn’t
moved.

“
Okay,” she said, “I’m
taking the car.”

The money had to be in here, didn’t
it? It couldn’t be anywhere else. Or could he have stashed it
somewhere? If so, then all she was doing here was stealing an old
Toyota. She’d waste a day figuring out how to rip it apart, while
he slipped the money out of the wallpaper and laughed his way
home.

“
You really have to take my
car?” he asked.

“
No. You could give me the
money—then you’ll get to keep your car.”

“
There’s no money in the
car.”

“
I think there is. I’ll
drive it somewhere and take it apart until I find the money. And I
will find it.”

“
You’re going to take apart
my car?”

“
Why not just tell me where
it is now? Then you get to keep your car and your wallet, and I
save a few hours.”

Cyril looked at her
carefully.

“
You’re not really a student
at the college here, are you?”

“
Maybe you should stop
talking to me like I’m stupid.”

CHAPTER 5

Marcus found himself defending Danny
Chin to Saida.

“
He didn’t do—anything. Not
really.”

“
They put him in
prison.”

“
Yeah, okay. He got arrested
for sensual assault, yes. But that was a mistake.”

“
It’s sexual
assault.”

“
What did I say?”

“
Sensual
assault. You can’t say sensual
assault.”

“
All right, fine. Sexual
assault.”

“
No, I mean—you can’t go
into the world and talk about someone committing sensual
assault.”

“
They said he pressed up
against a lady on the train. I mean, is that
sensual
enough for you? Can I just
explain—”

“
So that’s your friend?
That’s the kind of guy you like to watch football with?”

“
It was a setup.”

“
A setup? Marcus, every man
who ever got put away says it was a setup.”

The following Monday after an overtime
victory by the Chargers, Marcus again found himself pleasantly
drunk on Danny’s couch.

“
What would we do without
football?” he asked.

“
Man, I don’t know. Soccer?
If they ever ban football, they’ll try to fob soccer off on us.
They’ll even insist we call it
futbol.
I had a friend inside who
tried to get me into soccer—didn’t happen.”

“
You made a lot of friends
in there?”

“
Really just Luis. Some
people started calling us Cheech and Chong. Because, you know,
there’s an Asian guy and a Latin guy.”

“
What’s Cheech and
Chong?”

“
Cheech and Chong made these
movies about two guys running around trying to get stoned. So some
people thought we were called Cheech and Chong because we could get
drugs. And as it turned out, we could. So we started to do okay in
there, but it’s hard to really be sure that you’re getting your
cash when you’re inside. Luis is still in there, and he’s getting
dicked around by his people on the outside—so I’m in the cold,
right? But his daughter is this real sharp girl, Inez. And she
found out about some money that’s going to be easy to grab. She’s
going to set it up, and I’m going to take it.”

“
Whose money is
it?”

“
It’s ours.”

In the three weeks Marcus had known
him, Danny had nearly always been light, telling jokes or accepting
whatever Marcus threw at him in stride. But now Danny showed the
face of a man with a serious side, not just a silly little guy with
bright clothes who liked to fondle women on mass
transit.

“
So this guy
Cheech—”

“
Let’s call him Luis,” Danny
said.

“
Okay, Luis. He brought the
drugs in, right? He had the connection outside?”

“
Right.”

“
What did you do? Why did he
want you for that? You’re not a big guy or part of a gang or
anything, right?”

“
I was his friend. We had
some really deep conversations about religion and spirituality,
like about whether animals have souls. But the main thing to
understand is that we—you and me—can pick up some serious money,
just by being at the right place.”

Danny tapped the table in front of
them. It had cigarette burns, like someone used the top as an
ashtray. Marcus had never seen Danny smoke; the furniture was
probably left over from the previous tenant. A lot of people just
took off in the night at this complex, and no one had nice
furniture. Marcus didn’t mind that much. Who needed nice things,
fancy things? He had hot water and a roof over his head. It was
only for the sake of Saida that he wanted more, because he really
was ashamed when he thought of what he had to give her.

“
What do you say, dog?”
Danny asked.

Could be some kind of setup. But what
would the setup be? Marcus was broke and Danny knew it, so there
couldn’t be any money con going on. The only possibility was that a
crime was going to be pinned on him in such a way that would
benefit Danny. That seemed very complicated. It seemed more likely
that Danny needed a big, cash-strapped guy to help him out with a
job.

“
Is it going to be
dangerous?” Marcus asked.

“
It’s not exactly getting
the dry cleaning, you know? But from what I understand, there’s one
guy picking up some money in a car, and he doesn’t travel with a
weapon. It’ll take a lot of driving and some boring scenery, but I
think it’s going to work.”

“
Who’s the guy?”

“
Just a guy they have who
mules their product ordinarily. This time he’s going out there to
pick up straight cash.”

“
Out where?”

“
Nebraska, Iowa—one of those
corn states.”

“
I get cash?”

“
Of course you get cash.
We’re not going to take vouchers or nothing like that. We get cash
money, legal tender USA. I want you in for this, man.”

Marcus nodded slowly.

“
Let me talk it over with
Saida,” he said.

“
Okay, I respect that you
have a strong relationship and everything, but you cannot
talk-it-over with Saida. You understand me?”

“
What do I tell
her?”

“
Nothing until the job is
done. And then you lie about where the money came from.”

“
What’s my
share?”

“
You get fifteen percent. I
think it’s close to a million in the bag.”

Marcus couldn’t do all the math in his
head, but he knew this was serious money.