Trust Me (29 page)

    "Do it quick," she said, "okay? I want to get out of here."

    Bobby looked at her and said, "What do think I'm going to do, take my time, make a night of it?"

    "I never know with you," the blonde said.

    "Yeah, well don't worry about it."

    The blonde said, "I'm not worrying, I'm just telling you."

    "We're going to take your car," Bobby said to Karen, "so it looks like you're coming back from wherever you've been."

    He had gone through her purse and found her keys. She'd left her gun in the trunk.

    Bobby said, "Who's at the house watching the money?"

    "A friend of mine," Karen said. "A guy named Bingo." She thought using a real name would sound more believable.

    The blonde said, "What kind of name is that? Is he a clown?"

    "No," Karen said. "He's a security guard, big teddy bear of a guy. You don't have to worry about him." She did know a security guard named Norm Darwish who had worked auto shows with her and his nickname was Bingo, but he didn't have anything to do with this.

    "Okay," Bobby said, "but I'm warning you. You try anything…" His words trailed off.

    He opened the back door and they went out. Bobby had his hand on Karen's biceps, guiding her across the lawn and through an open gate in the fence to the neighbor's yard. It was dark out and still hot. The Audi was sitting in the Krippendorfs' driveway where she'd left it. Virginia had mentioned they were out of town and suggested that Karen park there.

    Bobby opened the front passenger door for Karen and helped her get in. He went around to the driver's side and got in behind the wheel. He reached across her and grabbed the seatbelt and pulled it around her and buckled it. He started the car and backed down the driveway.

    "Imagine my surprise when the safe was empty," Bobby said. "But then again, it isn't over till it's over, is it?"

    She could see a little grin on his face.

    "My mother used to say,
'Ha a ball kezed viszket penzt kapsz,'"
Bobby said. "Know what that means?"

    "My Hungarian's a little rusty," Karen said.

    "If your left hand itched, you're going to be rich," Bobby said. "And my hand is definitely feeling itchy."

    He was already counting the money. Karen took him out to an area in West Bloomfield where the lots were big and the houses were far apart, and picked a place that didn't have lights on. "Think you could loosen this tape a little so I could get some feeling back in my hands?"

    "We're going to be there in a couple minutes," Bobby said, "aren't we?"

    "My fingers are turning blue," Karen said.

    Bobby said, "I can't help you. Let me tell you something else. If the money isn't there-"

    "Slow down," Karen said, cutting him off. "It's right up here."

    Bobby downshifted. They were out in the middle of nowhere. There were no streetlights and it was dark now and hard to see. The houses were single-story on enormous lots. Karen said, "There it is."

    Bobby turned left into the driveway. It was forty, fifty yards to the house, a brick ranch with no lights on.

    "Where's your friend?" Bobby said.

    "He must be at work," Karen said.

    Bobby stopped about halfway to the house. He glanced over at her. "If he's in there with a gun, you're the one I'm going to shoot first."

    "If he was home his truck would be parked there," Karen said. "Do you see a red Chevy Silverado jacked up like Big Foot? If you don't, he's not here."

    "Maybe it's in the garage," Bobby said.

    "It doesn't fit in the garage," Karen said. "You need a step-ladder to get in it."

    Bobby slowed down and stopped the car about halfway to the house, and turned off the engine. He pulled the key out of the ignition and put it in his pocket.

    Karen said, "What're you doing?"

    "Going to the house," Bobby said, "surprise any security guards named Bingo who might be waiting for me." He reached behind him and pulled the.32 from the waistband of his Levi's. He got out and walked up the driveway toward the house.

    Karen's wrists were taped, but she could use her hands. She unhooked the seatbelt, but waited till Bobby was almost to the house before she opened the door and got out. She kept a spare key in a little magnetic box under the rear fender, her dad's advice. God bless Dick Delaney. She got it and got in behind the wheel. She opened the box and took out the key. She started the Audi and put it in gear, and gunned it, doing a 180 on the grass and then headed back down the driveway. She saw Bobby in the rearview mirror, running after the car. She buried the accelerator and he disappeared.

    Bobby wanted to know where she got the key. Why didn't he check the car? His spirits were at an all-time low. He was walking in the pitch fucking dark in the middle of bum fuck and had no idea what he was going to do when he saw headlights approaching.

    Now he stood in the middle of the road, waving his arms. The car flashed its brights and swerved around him and came to a stop about twenty yards down the road. Bobby ran to it, a white Dodge Neon, coming up on the passenger side. The window was down. There were two clean-cut black dudes in the front. They were wearing white shirts and ties.

    The one in the passenger seat said, "Sir, do you need help?"

    The driver said, "Can we give you a ride?"

    What was this? Were they putting him on? Bobby pulled the.32 out from under his shirt and said, "I think I'll just take your car." They were Jehovah's Witnesses and Bobby hoped they learned a lesson here today. "Never stop and offer to help someone, understand? You might get car-jacked."

    Bobby went back to Karen's mother's to get Megan and it looked like the set of a cop show, police cars everywhere, lights flashing. He wondered what could've happened. He saw Megan come out of the house in handcuffs escorted by two Garden City cops. He saw his Mustang parked down the street but he didn't dare go near it with all the police around.

    Bobby drove downtown to Megan's apartment in the white Neon that had about forty horsepower, and a Bible on the seat. He sat in the parking lot, staring up at the dark windows of her apartment, overcome by paranoia. The cops could be up there waiting for him. He picked up the Bible and felt a vibe. Maybe this was the way it was meant to be. He didn't have the money, but considered himself lucky. Wade was dead. Lloyd was in jail. And Megan, it appeared, was on her way. Bobby had a couple grand and a fresh start. He'd learned a shitload about trusting people where money was concerned too. You didn't.

    He decided to go back to Canada, lay low for a while. He could see the shoreline of Windsor across the river. He took Jefferson to the tunnel, paid his toll and drove the mile and a half under the Detroit River into Windsor, Ontario. Traffic moved fast. He was back in Canada in a couple of minutes, then stopped in a line of cars waiting to enter the country.

    When it was his turn, Bobby pulled up to the customs booth and grinned. The guard, a petite brunette in a blue uniform, didn't look at him for at least a minute, staring down at a piece of paper, pretending to read. Bobby liked the situation, the fact that this girl, who'd probably gone only as far as high school, was trying to intimidate him with her sophisticated customs guard tactics. Bobby was going to say something he'd just read in the Watch Tower Bible. "No discipline seems for the present to be joyous, but grievous; yet afterward to those who have been trained by it yields peaceable fruit, namely righteousness." Hebrews 12:11.

    The guard beat him to it, she looked up and said. "Citv. Where you were born?"

    "Montreal," Bobby said, not thinking. It just came out.

    "What were you doing in the United States?"

    "Working," Bobby said. "I have a green card." He almost said at Tad Collins Buick-Lexus, forgetting for a second he was in a stolen car.

    "Can I see some identification?"

    Bobby handed her his driver's license and green card.

    "Sir, are you the owner of this vehicle?"

    "It belongs to the ministry where I work," Bobby said.

    She came out of her booth and stuck a white card on the windshield and told Bobby to drive over and park the car, they wanted to ask him a few more questions. Bobby said, "Sure, no problem, officer, happy day." Happy day. Where'd that come from? Just popped into his head, but sounded like something a God Squader'd say.

    Bobby put the car in gear and considered his options. He could floor it right now and probably not make the street in this dog of a car before they shot his tires out and maybe shot him. Or he could pull over and answer their questions while they searched the car. What would they find? He had thrown the.32 out the window in the tunnel on the way over. He was a Jehovah and had the Watch Tower Bible to prove it.

    What he didn't expect was a customs inspector pulling a bag of weed out from under the front seat. And now Bobby was in a detention cell, thinking you couldn't trust anyone.

    When Karen got back to her mother's the street was blocked off. She had to park on Windsor. She could see Garden City High in the distance. It was dark now and there were four blue and gold Garden City police cars and an EMS van in front of her mom's, lights flashing. Karen wandered over to where crime scene tape had been strung across the front lawn. Neighbors were coming out of their houses, starting to gather as if it were a block party.

    She had stopped on the way and pulled the tape off her wrists. She found the seam and dug it open with her front teeth.

    Karen asked a Garden City cop, what was going on? His nametag said, "Officer Swinney." He was standing next to a patrol car. The driver's door was open and she could hear the static chatter on the police radio. The lights on the roof flashed across his face. He looked young, too young to have a Glock 9 on his hip. He wore his hat low over his eyes, maybe trying to look older, or look tougher. He had his hands on his hips, flexing muscular arms under a short-sleeve shirt.

    Karen said, "Can you tell me what happened?"

    "There was a shooting," Officer Swinney said, "a homicide."

    "Was Mrs. Delaney hurt," Karen said. "She's the woman who lives here?"

    "Are you a relative?"

    "No, a neighbor," Karen said. "Mrs. Delaney's a friend of mine."

    "She's okay," the cop said. "A little scared, but fine. A forty-three-year-old white male was shot and killed." He tilted the brim of his hat up.

    "Do you know his name?" Karen said.

    "I'm not at liberty to disclose that information."

    He sounded like a cop now. Karen thanked him and walked down the street lined with pickup trucks and SUVs to her car. She hoped her mother was okay and wondered how she was going to explain all this to her. Karen went past the Cardells' house and pictured Mr. Cardell, a retired lathe operator, sitting on the front porch after work in his undershirt, drinking beer. Now she was passing the Griffis, Paula and Larry, who lived on the corner, their lawn perfect, like a golf course fairway. Karen was approaching the Audi; she could see her old high school in the distance and thought about how she used to twirl a baton all the way from her house to the parking lot, three blocks away without stopping. She took out her key, pushed the remote and heard the beep, and saw the tail- lights flash. Then she saw someone appear coming around the side of a Ford Explorer parked behind her. She stopped and looked, she was almost to her car now, but it was too dark to see his face. Karen pulled the door handle up and someone grabbed her from behind. She tried to get her right hand in the bag that was hanging from her shoulder, but her arms were pinned to her sides.

    There were two of them, and now she was lifted off the ground and carried to a dark SUV. The bearded one opened the back end and pulled up the lift gate, and laid her flat on the cargo floor. He tied her feet together and her hands behind her with pieces of thin plastic rope. She caught glimpses of their faces and recognized them as the Arabs from Lou's house the night before and Schreiner's a few hours earlier.

    Beard said, "You are Karen Delaney?" He had a thick Middle East accent, sounding like relatives of Samir's who had come over from Beirut.