Road to Paradise (34 page)

She kept it. “Floyd wouldn’t do this,” Candy insisted. “He went to church with me. He sang in the choir with me. We sang hymns and Psalms together, every Sunday.” She wouldn’t move from the now empty metal box, holding on to the fifties. “What if this is all that’s left?” she whispered. “It can’t be. It just can’t!”

“It’s not,” I reassured her, patting her shoulder, trying not to touch anything else, trying even not to touch her. Imagine patting someone without touching them, it’s not easy. I wished I could float and not stand on the filthy floor. And all the while, my heart thumped dully, thickly in my chest, all the while, I kept listening for the sound of Floyd’s car, dreading the confrontation.

“What are me and my baby going to do?” Candy whispered. “It’s not enough to get to Australia.”

I took a breath. “Candy, we’ll have to make you a plan B. Just in case you can’t get the passports and all.”

“I don’t have a plan B,” she said, clutching forlornly at what
she suspected was all that was left of her money. “I have only one plan. To take my money from Floyd and go to Australia.”

“You’ll make it,” I said. “You’ll see.”

“I have to start a new life,” she repeated stubbornly. “I can’t start it on a thousand dollars.”

“It’s not the money, it’s the life,” I said.

“No, philosopher queen,” said Candy, “in this instance it is actually the money.”

Dejectedly, we looked once more for other boxes, other hiding spots then, filled with disappointment, we lowered the busted blinds, turned off the lights, and left.

Candy refused to leave Interior. We could go if we liked, that was fine, but she wasn’t going anywhere until Floyd returned and gave her her money. While Gina banged her head against the car door, I tried to convince Candy to come back in the morning.

“Let’s go,” Gina said finally to me. “She told us to go. Let’s go.”

“No.”

“If you want, we’ll come back for her in the morning. I can’t stay here another minute, can you?”

“We’ll stay one more minute.”

“Can we at least go to the Horseshoe and get some food? It’s after eleven!”

Suddenly, Candy said she’d be right back and disappeared, running down the road to the bar. I called after her, but it was too late. She was gone fifteen minutes, during which Gina exhorted me for each one of those 900 seconds to get in the car and go. Then Candy was running toward us, her hands full of warm bacon and cheese potato skins. “Get in,” she breathed. “Eat. I found out where he is.”

The guys at the Horseshoe knew Floyd. They said he hung out at the Fireside Brewing Co. in Rapid City. Apparently, he had a really cute girlfriend.

“Why didn’t we think of asking at the Horseshoe earlier?” I wondered, starting up the Shelby in relief and inhaling the skins.

“Because you, genius, said you wouldn’t go in there,” Gina pointed out. “We’d be sleeping by now if it weren’t for you.”

After nearly two hours and a hundred miles on a threadbare Route 44, no lights, no other cars, we got to Rapid City’s old center square nearing one in the morning. Rapid City surprised me because it wasn’t the western town I had been expecting, a hole in the wall with tumbleweeds. It was laid out on a wide grid, the buildings square, six-storied, and orderly. It looked like an old small town. Candy knew the manager at the “historic” Alex Johnson hotel; unfortunately he was off duty at one in the morning, so we had to pay for our room up front, eighty bucks. I paid. I felt bad for Candy. We parked in an alley behind the hotel, off the street where the car would have been in full view, dropped our things in the small room on the top floor and ran to Fireside Brewing Co. before it closed at two.

Inside the loudly crowded bar/restaurant, it took Candy less than a minute to scan the place, say, “I don’t fucking believe it!” and walk from the bar to a small group of rowdy studs. Gina and I followed.

“Well, well,” said Candy, loud, her hands on her hips, eyes blazing. “If it isn’t fucking Floyd.” Her denim skirt was short, her pink halter top faded in the smoky light.

A boy with nappy hair looked up. He was flushed and smooth like a baby, but unlike a baby, inebriated and sheepish. “Hey, Candykins,” he said. “What are
you
doing here?”

“What am I doing here? Don’t screw with me, Floyd. I talked to you four weeks ago, told you I was coming. I talked to you yesterday and you told me to meet you at Wall Drug! Or did you forget?”

His eyes were darting from drink to drink. “Oh, yeah,” he drew out. “Was we supposed to meet tonight?” He chuckled. “I didn’t think you meant
tonight
. Sorry, hon. Did you wait long?”

“Yeah, about four fucking hours at your hole in Interior.” She looked over the guys sitting with him. “You want to talk in front
of them?’ Cause I don’t mind.” Candy’s hands were still at her hips. Floyd’s friends were tipsy and equally useless at wading through the bullshit. Should they stay or should they go? the song kept insistently asking. They decided to go, tripping over each other in their intoxicated effort to make tracks.

“So, how are you?” He looked broke, and was just making conversation.

“I’ll dispense with the niceties,” said Candy. “Where’s my money, Floyd?”

“Money?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, like you never heard the word money. Where’s the forty grand I sent you over the last two years?”

“Forty?” He shook his head, tried to focus, tried to solemnize. “I don’t think it was that much, sugah.”

“Oh, you can be sure it was,” said Candy, yanking a white envelope out of her Mary Poppins bag. “It’s all here, the dates I sent the wires, the amounts.”

He was red in the face, and she was impressive the way she stuck up for herself, how she didn’t back down. He hemmed and hawed. He said the money was in the bank, and it was Saturday night, the bank wouldn’t be open till Monday. “But if you wanted to come back …” he drawled in his false tenor.

“I’m not leaving without my money,” said Candy. “So cough up, buddy. Don’t give me any of that sugah shit. You made 20,000 bucks for doing nothing but keeping it under your pillow, as per my instructions. Remember?”

“I do, I do. But I don’t have it right now. It’s in the bank, I tell you. I’ll get it for you Monday. Are you girls hungry?”

“Yes—” That was Gina.

“No!” Candy slammed the table. Floyd recoiled. “Let’s go, and you can show me the bank statement, Floyd. Your most recent bank statement with the balance in black print.”

“Oh, I don’t keep that stuff. You know me.” He giggled like a girl, his contrite head bobbing on a thin gooseneck, his face round
and flushed pink. “Don’t be upset, hon. I’m always happy to see you.”

“Fine, you didn’t know we were coming, but now we’re here, and we’ll be out of your hair in a jiffy, just as soon as you get me my money.”

He coughed. He said tomorrow banks were closed. No one opened up banks on Sundays, not around these parts.

“Floyd, you told me to meet you in Wall Drug!”

“Oh, yeah …” he drew out slowly. “They sacked me just last week.”

“We spoke on the phone yesterday,” Candy said, just as slowly. “Your exact words were, I’m getting off work at six, I’ll see you then.”

“I might’ve misspoke, hon,” said Floyd, his eyes darting to the black bag on the floor near his booth.

“Point is,” said Candy, “while sitting around waiting for you, and we had plenty of time, you know, we had a drink out of the sink, and then I thought I’d write a card to my mother, telling her I arrived at your Interior abode safely. And I couldn’t find a pen that worked, though believe me, I looked. I couldn’t find any stamps, or envelopes. I couldn’t find,” Candy said caustically, “my Western Union receipts, the receipts telling me how much money you were stashing for me. Zilch. You know what else I couldn’t find? A checkbook. Imagine that. Keeping thousands of dollars in your account and not having a checkbook.”

The visibly shaking Floyd, I was realizing with increasing concern, looked strung out, not drunk. I’ve seen drunk plenty, but I’ve seen a guy on junk only once, and he was almost walking until the police picked him up. I thought that was worse. Gin was cheap. Drugs were not. Floyd was shifting his weight, nervously ticking away the seconds under Candy’s glare by obsessively rubbing his fingers, like he was washing his hands. His mouth kept moving in a silent defense, but he wasn’t looking at her. The music was loud. The waitress came over to ask if we needed something.

“Yes, twenty grand,” said Candy. “Got some of that?” The waitress slunk away.

“Where’s my fucking money?”

“See, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Cand, and you’re not listening.”

“Oh, I’m listening, all right. Where’s my money?”

Floyd lowered his voice. His body swung from side to side.

“I can’t hear you,” said Candy. “What?”

“JD has it.”

“Who the fuck is JD?”

“Well, I thought he was a friend of mine,” Floyd replied theatrically, drawing out the word
thought
so that it sounded like
thawwwwwght
.

“I hope you’re not wrong about that,” Candy said, “especially if he has my money. And why has this JD got it anyway?”

“He has to give it back to me. I’ll get it for you, sweetheart, I will. I just need a little time.”

“I don’t have time,” said Candy. “I don’t have five minutes. I need my money, and I need it tonight.”

“Oh, darling, I don’t know where JD is,” he wailed plaintively, as if he were about to cry. “I need to find him myself. I’m looking for him.”

“Floyd, Floyd.” Candy took deep breaths. Floyd was shifting, avoiding her gaze. Things were looking bleak for Candy’s money, judging by Floyd’s ungainly jitters.

A girl stepped up. “Floydie,” she squealed, “where you been, baby? I thought you were going to meet me at Justin’s. I’ve been waiting, like, five minutes.”

“I’m here, hon,” he said, turning her by the shoulders to face Candy. “Hon, this is my friend from back east. Remember I told you about her? Candy Cane? Candy, this is Lori. She’s my girl.”

Lori was a bird of a girl, dressed in black, and wobbly herself. Beside Floyd, she didn’t seem too bad, but standing close to Candy who was motionless, you could tell that Lori was a parable, a cautionary tale of what happened when you weighed eighty pounds wet and did too much junk. Her black tank top revealed bare, skeletal arms, the insides of which were scarred from bicep
to wrist with the livid track marks of needles. Candy did not shake her trembling, proffered hand, she barely looked Lori’s addled way.

“I appreciate your fine manners, Floyd,” said Candy, “but I don’t have all night to stand here and make nice with your bag brides. Now where is my money?”

Floyd pushed Lori away. “Go and get us two beers, hon, please? You girls want anything? Go, Lori. I gotta finish up here.”

“What money she talkin’ ’bout? You owe her money? And what did she just call me?”

“He doesn’t owe me money,” snapped Candy. “He has my money, which he needs to fork over, my 20,000 dollars.”

The girl threw back her head and laughed, a good, merry laugh. Floyd pushed her a little more forcefully. “Just go, I said. Go get me a beer, will you.”

“Floyd, is she crazy? You ain’t got that kinda money.”

“Lori!” He lowered his voice. “Seen JD?”

“No. That punkhead’s vanished.”

When she left, Floyd turned to Candy, whose angry arms were crossed on her chest. “Look,” he said, “sit. Sit for a sec. I need to tell you things. I’ll get you your money, but I gotta talk to you first.”

Candy did not sit down and motioned for Gina not to. “Floyd, you know my situation. I don’t have to tell you what kind of trouble I’m in.”

“You and me both, girlfriend,” Floyd said tiredly.

“You’re wasted, strung out, blasted and lit-up,” said Candy. “It’s none of my business. Float all you want. I just want my money.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t have it at the moment. JD has it. But we’re going to get it back from him. You’ll see. Come with me. We’ll find him together, you’ll explain the situation. He’s an okay guy. Except for that last thing …” Floyd shook his head. “Don’t want to talk about it. But other than that, he’s been pretty good to me.”

“I’ll ask you just one more time,” said Candy. “Why does JD have my money?”

“To help me out,” said Floyd. “I needed a little help. So I gave it to him to hold.”

“Why?”

“I was afraid I was going to spend it. And I didn’t want to do that. So I gave it to him to hold for me. But every once in a while I’d come to him because I needed something, and he’d give it to me. Then he’d say, this is on the house account, this little bit. I didn’t know what he meant, so I’d say, yeah, fine, whatever, but this last time he gave me stuff, it was no good. It was just gunk, horrible. I had to get more stuff from somewhere else, because his was ridiculous, just blanks, blanks and blanks—”

“Floyd, you’re a beamer?” A beamer is a serious addict.

“No, no, I’m just an ice-cream user. A baby. Just once in a while. It’s so good, Cand, you gotta try some, you just have to, you won’t go back. I’m not a beamer, oh, every once in a while, if I can’t get the good shit, I’ll have some light brown sugar, but I hate it, really.”