Deadly Expectations (46 page)

“Hungry?” I asked Paul.

“Yes.”

So I put on enough rice for two.
 
The two big pieces of chicken in the oven would be enough.
 
I pulled the leftover salad out of the fridge.

“Beer?”
I offered while I still had my head in the fridge.

“Please.”

I poured it in a glass and put it on the table then I sat down across from him to watch the little charge bars light up over and over on the front of my phone.

“Bee knows you pretty well,” he said finally.
 
“She’s known you a lot longer this time than I have.
 
She says I’m not going to get past your stubbornness.”

I nodded.

“For the record I’m somewhat hurt.
 
If my father hadn’t told me to back off about it I would have been quite embarrassed by your behaviour in front of him.
 
Have I done something to make you not trust me?”

“No.
 
This isn’t about trust between me and you.”

“But it’s still a trust thing?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You don’t trust someone else … Ray’s father?”

I nodded again.
 
“You and Ray don’t know if I can trust him.
 
I didn’t like him.
 
He treated me like a child which really rubbed me the wrong way.
 
Like you tell a child there are no monsters under the bed … or maybe you do to keep them from wandering off on their own during the night.
 
Maybe that’s all I really am.
 
I don’t know if he said what he did to scare me or to reassure me … maybe I’m the monster under the bed.”

I reached across the table to hold his hand as the rice started to boil.
 
I sighed and got up to turn it down and set the timer.
 
When I sat back down I took his hand.

“I can spin your ring right around your finger now,” I showed him.
 
“I couldn’t do that before I left.
 
Our daughter only said my trip would be hard on you.
 
I didn’t realize what that would mean.

“He made me like this Paul.
 
I doubt myself a lot.
 
What parts of me are really me and what parts
are his programming
?
 
Are you going to like who I am when this is over and the pieces he gave me are gone?”

“I fell in love with you before any of those things changed in you and I haven’t stopped,” he said softly looking into my eyes.
 
“I will love whatever you are left with when this is over.”

I stood up and leaned across the table to kiss him.

“My love for you hasn’t changed either,” I whispered in his ear before I sat back down.
 
“It’s because of that I’m doing things this way.”

We sat silently at the table for a while.

“You know we haven’t had a meal alone together since that last night after Sturgis … before you came and found me.”

“Yes,” I said.
 
“I’ve missed it.”

“Me too.”

“This time next year there will be a highchair at the table.”

“Yes,” he agreed laughing.

We talked through dinner.
 
The easy humour filled conversation we had been so good at during our first encounters.
 
Before he moved on and I found him again.
 
We talked about the bikes I was fixing up and the work we both had no real plans to go back to.
 
It was a huge relief to me that it was still so effortless to like each other so much when the things around us weren’t completely crazy and distracting.
 
Compared to before I met him things were completely upside down and backwards but as things went now they were unremarkable and that was welcome.
 
Very welcome.
 

After dinner I cleaned up the dishes and Paul took the phones up to Ray and Denis then he brought them back down to get their gear.

“I hope the beds are okay … Alina and her friend had those rooms when they lived with me in college.
 
Before I took in Mrs. Desmond and moved downstairs.
 
You can move her boxes into the spare room on the main floor or into the shed in the back.
 
It’s the same key as for my door.”

“Thanks Anna,” Ray said.
 
“So what’s up with the phones … I thought you said to keep them off.”

“Keep the ones from home off.
 
We don’t want them traced.
 
You’ll need to buy cards for more minutes.
 
If we’re going to be here for a while we need to start being hidden now.”

“Makes sense,” Paul agreed.

“The truck needs to go … if one of Damian’s men drives by to see your truck with
California
plates on it then we might as well sit on the front steps and wait for him.
 
It’ll fit in the garage but all the stuff in there needs to go.
 
I’m going to buy a mini van or something tomorrow that Mrs. Desmond can get in and out of.
 
At least we can park that out front.
 
Can one of you drive me around to take care of that?”

Denis said he would.

“Paul, I hate to ask this since you don’t like that I was a crook … but would you agree to
getting
alternate ID?”

“How alternate?” he asked.

“Alternate enough to do time in a Canadian prison just for having them … but they’ll be good enough to pass pretty much any check the authorities want to run on them.
 
No guarantees of course but they’ll be the best you can get.”

I got out my Rachel passport and driver’s license and my legitimate Anna ID to show him.

“No difference,” I said.
 
“These are relatively cheap to do; it’s the back end records with the government that are expensive.
 
If you want to get in a bar at seventeen the driver’s license is enough.
 
If you get pulled over and they run the card you’ll be in trouble without electronic records to match.
 
I have a few sets and they’ve always held up.
 
I wasn’t lying to Iverson about that.”

Paul looked unhappy about it.

“Don’t tell me you never worked under another name before.”

“Of course I have,” he said shaking his head.
 
“But those were legal.”

“These are legal …
ish
.
 
I’ll take care of it if you give me the go ahead.
 
You don’t have to use them but do you really want to find yourself needing them and be kicking yourself for telling me no?”

“She’s right Paul,” Ray said.
 
Denis nodded in agreement.

“Alright,” Paul said finally.
 
“How much is it going to cost?”

“I got it covered,” I told him.
 
Then I got out my new phone and punched in the code to hide my number and dialled Kenny.

“It’s Bitch Seat,” I said when he answered.
 
Denis started to giggle so I punched him in the arm and he shut up.
 
“I have some friends looking for
work for a couple of weeks … do you have
anything for them?”

“How many?” he asked.

“Three.”

There was a pause.
 
“Yeah, I could use them.”

“They’ll appreciate it.
 
So how many
klicks
have you put on that piece of shit you’re riding?”

“Forty thousand,” he said.

“You need a woman to ride instead,” I laughed.
 
“Riding your bike that much is a fetish.”

“I have six,” he laughed back.
 
“Let’s do lunch.
 
Maybe I’ll get lucky and make it seven.”

“Go pound sand,” I told him and hung up.

“That’s it?” Paul asked.

“I’ll take the payment and your pictures to him tomorrow … they’ll be ready seven days from today.”

“Come on, I’ll take the passport pictures now and the driver’s ones tomorrow.
 
Think about doing something different with your hair for those.”
 
I put a new storage card into the camera for the pictures to make sure that there was nothing traceable on it and took a couple of each of them in front of a pull down back drop I had in my spare room.

“How much is this going to cost?” Paul asked when I was done.

“I didn’t make my dirty money stealing cars … we were into documents for a while.
 
Paid a lot better.
 
My friend still does it.
 
I have enough.”

“But how much?”
Paul insisted.

“Forty big ones,” I said quietly.
 
“You’re doing me a favour … that money has dirty written all over it and it’ll be someone else’s problem after lunch tomorrow.”

Paul put his hands on his face and went into the living room.

“Was that Kenny you called?” Ray asked.

I nodded.

“And why do you call yourself Bitch Seat?” Denis was laughing again.

“Back seat of the bike.
 
He would double me in to whatever we were taking … no jacket or helmet.
 
They got in the way when I went under the steering wheel to start it.
 
Remember to do something different with your hair tomorrow … it’s wasted effort if we have the same pictures for both.”

They said good night and left so I went and joined Paul in front of the TV.
 
“Some of the guys got in real trouble working shipments to and from the
US
.
 
Drugs going south … guns coming up north.
 
Kenny and I stayed out of that but his brother is still in jail.
 
I was very lucky to get away with the small amount of trouble I got in.
 
Kenny still does favours on the side with the ID.

“I don’t want to get into the how’s it any different than when the Colonel gives you what you need to do your job argument again.
 
I know my way is wrong … some of the money will go into the hands of people who do some really bad things,” I sighed.
 
“The people setting up the
ID’s
are probably the same ones who make them for your Colonel anyway.
 
It’s all I can offer to help.”

He sighed then he put his arms around me and leaned back on the couch.
 
“So I get to meet Kenny tomorrow?”

“No, you don’t.
 
If you’re coming you’re going to be out of sight or he won’t meet me.
 
You’ll have to stay out of sight to or he’ll leave and we won’t get a second chance.
 
It’ll be crowded so you can keep an eye on things from a distance without him noticing.”

“Can you come back up to see Bee tomorrow?” he said eventually.
 
“What I said in the truck … we’ve been working on it but it’s hard to practice on each other … men who have their lines set.
 
She said there’s something different about yours and she wants to test us by seeing if we can figure it out.”

“Sure … I guess.
 
Did she say what?”