The Weight (40 page)

“All I’ve got is the one Solly fixed me up with—” I stopped myself even before I saw her mouth move. “I know,” I told her.

“I’ve only got that one clean set,” she said. “Lynda Leigh. There’s others, but those were for living with Albie. And after that note …”

“How old is it?”

“What?”

“Lynda Leigh. That set.”

“Oh. Well … I’ve had it for a long time. That makes an ID really strong, when you use it for things. Like credit cards.”

“Albie taught you to make ID, right?”

“So? What are you saying, Sugar?”

“I wonder how clean that Lynda Leigh stuff really is.”

“How can you even
say
that? Albie—”

“I know, you made it yourself, sure. But that was when Albie was still teaching you, right? So maybe, by the time he was teaching you, he didn’t have the … technique to do it himself anymore.”

“Yes, he did,” she said. Her eyes burned me like the tips of two
cigarettes. “I made the ID, with him watching. He could lose his perfect touch, maybe, but he’d never lower his standards.
That
I know for sure.”

“I’m not saying this right, Lynda. I’m just saying, behind that note he left and all, isn’t there a chance those men who come to visit, they’ve got a copy of it all?”

“Then they’d know how to find me, Sugar. And Albie never would have left that note then, would he?”

“He couldn’t say two things in the same note.”

“But he
did
. He couldn’t know who’d see it, don’t you understand?”

“Sure. He could say
some
things. But, like you said, he couldn’t know who’d see it first. So he couldn’t tell you, ‘Nuke that Lynda Leigh ID,’ see?”

“You’re the one who doesn’t see! There’s a thousand ways Albie could have said that without them knowing what he was talking about.”

“You’re sure?”

She walked off. Came back in a minute and sat down in the same place. Only, she had a little piece of paper in her hands. I knew what it was. She motioned me to look over her shoulder, pointing with a red fingernail.

“Hah!” she said. “See?”

“See what?”

“See where he says, ‘You know where to go’? Albie
never
would have told me to come here if he’d shown that ID to those men.
Never
.”

“You’re right.”

“What? Just like that, you turn around and—”

“Didn’t he also say something about there
was
no will?”

Her long red fingernail moved. “Yes! Just like you said, Sugar. Right here. He says—”

“You see that? Albie was the smartest player in the whole game. Solly never had a chance.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about now?”

“Where’s Albie’s stamp collection,
Lynda
?”

“What stamp collection? Are you crazy? What would Albie want with collecting stamps?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that locks it down. Solly thought he had it going both ways. And he’d take either one.”

“What?”

“What if I’d just asked you, when I first showed up, I mean, ‘Where’s Albie’s little blue book?’ You’d say you didn’t know what I was talking about, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. I already told you what—”

“Wait. I ask you, and you say you don’t know what I’m talking about. Fine, that’s what you already told Solly by
not
mentioning it. So
then
I say, ‘Okay, then, what about his stamp collection?’ Now you
really
know something’s wrong, see?”

“Sugar, if you don’t tell me—”

“I will, if you’ll shut up a minute. See, all that time you’d be thinking I’m lying. Me, I’d
know
you’re lying.

“Be Solly for a minute. You send Sugar down to get a blue book. He
has
to come back with that book. You know Sugar. If he says he’ll do it, he’ll do it.

“Sugar doesn’t get a charge out of hurting people. He looks scary. You, you’re a girl Albie … keeps. Probably all Sugar has to do is lean on you a little bit. Only, you say there’s no book.

“That might be true. To Sugar, I’m saying. It might sound right to him. You’re a live-in girlfriend, the guy’s old enough to be your grandfather; why tell you any real secrets? And you made
sure
to play it that way, too. Remember that, Miss Plastic Tits?

“So, in Sugar’s mind, you might not know about that book. Why would Albie trust you that much? But there’s no way you wouldn’t know about the stamp collection. Which means you’re a stone liar. And you
do
know where that little blue book is.”

“So
then
Sugar wouldn’t mind hurting me, is that what you’re saying?”

“Wouldn’t mind tying you up and taking the house apart, piece by piece. The book’d
have
to be in that house, somewhere.”

“And if he still didn’t find it …?”

“In Solly’s mind? Sugar, he’d either make you talk or make you dead.”

“What a purely evil man.”

“Not evil enough, girl. I was the best Solly had, and I never had a chance against Albie, not even against his ghost. He had it set up so Solly’d play himself out of position, no matter what. Remember, you said those guys who came around, they were the real thing. Hard men, you called them.”

“They were.”

“That’s what Solly always said about Ken. That he was a hard man. If it was Ken coming around to see you, you know what he’d do? He’d find out the truth before he did anything. He’d look real close. And Albie, he left his mark on Solly. Put him right on the spot.”

She started to open her mouth, then brought her lips together.

“You know what Albie’s mark is, girl? That ‘will’ he was supposed to have sent to Solly. If the hard men showed up and found Albie gone, they would have called Solly, right? And Solly, first thing out of his mouth, he’d tell them all about the partners desk. But once the hard men saw that paper Albie left, he’s cooked. Solly’s getting himself some visitors. When they show, no mattter what story he tells, he’s a dead man.

“Solly, all those years, he still had Albie figured wrong. That’s why he’d tell those hard men about the desk in a flash. That’s a prove-in, that he knew Albie’s secrets. Only, it was Albie who knew
Solly’s
secrets. See?”

“Oh God.”

“Yeah. And now that we know
that
, we know what we have to do. It’s easy.”

“What’s
easy?”

“Making choices. When you’ve only got one, I mean. My ID, it’s not worth crap to me, but it’s gold to Solly. My credit card’s a goddamned tracking unit, like it was stuck under my skin. Solly could find me, no matter where I went.”

“So what can we do?”

“We’re gonna burn my ID.”

“And I make you a new—?”

“Not burn it with a match, Lynda. Burn it by using it.”

“Sugar, I’m not keeping up.”

I can’t really explain how her saying that made me feel. I wasn’t trying to confuse her or anything, but I could see that it was me who knew what to do. Me, not Lynda. I knew what to do. So I told her:

“We’re going back to New York. You and me. We’ll rent a car. And not just so the Caddy’s plates won’t show on any turnpike scanner, either. It’s a long drive. We’ll have to stop along the way. In a motel, like. That’s two ways to use the card. And there’s others, too. Like buying gas. Or food.

“I’m gonna tell Solly I got it done. Which I damn well did. He wouldn’t expect me to use the phone he gave me, so it wouldn’t spook him that it’s not signaling.

“But he can track me through the card; he’ll see I’m headed home. That’s perfect. He wouldn’t expect me to say what he wants to hear on the phone. And the book, that I’d have to hand over to him in person, anyway.

“So, before he even knows I’m in town, I slip back into the bank, take my money out, and stash it with you, before I go to see him.” I knew it couldn’t happen like that—I’d have to do Solly before I went near that bank. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Lynda. I guess it was that old pass-the-polygraph thing in my head coming up again.

“Are you going to—?”

“After I see Solly, I don’t need any new ID. I just go back to being me. I even got a plan how I can do that. You, you’ll be Lynda Leigh.”

“We’ll see.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘We’ll
see,’
didn’t I?”

“I get it. You mean, you’ll make me a perfect new ID anyway, just in case, right?”

“What part of ‘We’ll see’ didn’t you understand?”

We got started early the next morning. Lynda dropped me off a block away from a cabstand, then took the Caddy back to its garage. By the time she got to the American Airlines terminal, I’d been waiting almost an hour.

We used my Stanley Wilson credit card to rent one of those big SUVs. Then back to the condo, where we loaded up.

By lunchtime, we were on the road.

The SUV had this gigantic navigation screen. With Lynda reading it for me, we didn’t even need a map.

Everything was going fine. I thought I had it pulled off, but Lynda caught wise.

“What the
hell
are you doing?”

“Seeing if you trust me.”

“Sugar … what?! This isn’t where we should be—”

I pulled into one of those rest stops. Stopped the SUV. Turned off the ignition.

Lynda wasn’t saying anything, but her breathing was tight and fast, like a boiler getting ready to blow.

“Do you trust me?” I asked her again.

“Sugar, how could you even
ask
me that? After all we’ve—”

“I’m asking you, Lynda. There’s only one way to make this work without having to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”

“What makes you think you—?”

“Did you hear what I said?
Our
lives. You want to go your own way, now’s the time.”

A cigarette appeared in her hand like magic. She took a puff, blew a stream of smoke at the roof, tapped her nails on the dash. Not saying anything. Not
going
to say anything. Okay, then: time to find out.

“I need Albie’s note, Lynda.”

“You
need it? For what?”

“So Albie could finish his last job. That note, either you’d find
it, or these other men would. Albie couldn’t know. That’s why he tried to cover you from both sides.”

“He
did
.”

“No. No, he didn’t, girl. He did the best he could, but there’s more than two sides to cover. Tell me, that tiny little writing, would you recognize it?”

“You mean, would I know it was from Albie? Of course I would. And if you look close, you’d see it was torn right out of his book. And his
tallit
—you know how old that must be? How many places it must have been?”

“All I know is, you have to give it up.”

“Give it up?”

“All of it.”

“Sugar, you’re scaring me.”

“You never got mail at that house, right?”

“Of course not. There was a box in—”

“And, like you said, the bills got paid by themselves, from this computer thing.”

“So?”

“So how’s anyone gonna know Albie’s dead? It’s not like it would be a news story or anything. Maybe they had some signal you don’t know about, but—”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The men who visited Albie.”

“Oh. Well, if they did, I can’t see what it could be. I mean, we had no phone, just the cell. I’ve got Albie’s cell. It hasn’t rung once since he—”

“Okay, when these men would show up, did Albie ever tell you they were coming?”

“He … no. No, he never did. I don’t think he knew himself. We’d just be, I don’t know, sitting in the living room, having tea, and they’d just … 
be
there. The first time it happened, I thought they were robbers or something—I was so scared they’d hurt Albie.”

“Good. That means we got a shot. Solly knows Albie’s gone,
but he wouldn’t pass that info along until he was sure he was covered. That’s what he was using me for, see?

“The window’s wide open, Lynda. But it could drop closed any minute. If it drops before we get all that stuff back inside, it’ll be like one of those guillotine things, chop off our heads like
this
,” I told her, snapping my fingers.

“You want to leave Albie’s things back there? Albie left them to
me!”

“What he left you was
protection
. Only, you’re not using it.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, Albie, he didn’t leave you fucking
keepsakes
, okay? What he left you was tools. And you’ve gotta
use
them, not hang on to them.”

“I’m not giving up my—”

“You don’t have to, Lynda. Just give me Albie’s blue book. I’ll drive you back to your condo, and then I’ll go back to where I came from.”

“Sugar …”

“I came down here for two things. I was supposed to check out this Jessop and get that little book. I have to tell Solly I got all that done if I want to get close to him again.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? You can
have
the little book, all right?”

“If that’s the way you want it.”

“What I
want
is what you said. We were going back to New York just long enough for you to show Solly you got the job done. That’s ‘we,’ as in
both
of us. Why can’t we still do that?”