Tempted by Trouble (16 page)

I rubbed my eyes. I’d seen Sammy twice in the last three hours.

Jackie moaned again just as I cruised into downtown Phoenix. Bank headquarters, law firms, and government buildings greeted me as I moved through five lanes of morning traffic, cars filled with men and women chasing a dream that only a few would ever catch. First I heard Jackie’s breathing change from smooth to heavy, then I heard her moving around in the backseat. She was waking up. She coughed. Then her hand reached up and she grabbed the back of the passenger seat. She struggled to find her center of gravity and sit upright. What I saw rising in my rearview mirror was like something from a Japanese horror film.

I adjusted my fedora and hoped Jackie couldn’t get a good look at my bruised face.

“
I don’t care about your father’s fedora
.”

I whispered, “I do. You might not care, but I do.”

Jackie asked, “Who are you talking to?”

I said, “Go back to sleep.”

She sat back and licked around inside her mouth. Static took over the airwaves and I changed the radio and stopped at a religious station. I wasn’t listening, just hoped that Jackie would think I was in tune with the preacher and not talk for the next sixteen hundred miles.

I liked her better when she slept.

She shook her head. “Change the station. I hate waking up to the voice of idiots.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Change the station.”

She cringed, then sat back and looked out the window, watched the world go by at sixty miles per hour. She was hungover. It looked like she was reading the interstate signs, trying to figure out where we were. I changed the station on the radio, landed on a conservative talk show, and let it play.

Jackie cleared her throat. “I’m thirsty and I have to use the bathroom, but not in that order.”

“Once we clear Phoenix, I’ll find a gas station.”

“At a hotel. Not a 7-Eleven and not a truck stop. Those bathrooms are disgusting.”

“You’ll have to go inside the hotel and rent the room.”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “I guess I should be embarrassed.”

“How much do you remember?”

She whispered, “Sammy is dead.”

I let a moment pass. “What do you remember about last night?”

She paused. “I loaned you most of my money.”

“You loaned me some money, yeah.”

“I was drunk and loaned you four thousand dollars.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I need that money back and I want it back right now.”

“Sorry, Jackie. I don’t have the money, not anymore.”

“What do you mean you don’t have my money?”

“It’s gone. The money is gone.”

“How can it be gone? I just loaned it to you. You have to have it.”

“As we agreed, I’ll pay you when we finish with Eddie Coyle.”

“That money is for my kid, Dmytryk. I’ll kill you if you screw me over.”

“Well, Jackie, you’ve already tried to screw me and kill me, but not in that order.”

“I’m serious. Make your jokes at my expense, but I’m serious.”

“I know you will, Jackie. I know you’ll go shopping for old carpet and a new gun.”

“Eddie Coyle has used a lot of carpet and I’m not afraid to do the same.”

When I crossed into the Phoenix/Chandler area, hotels were lined up on the right side and I exited I-10. Jackie wanted to rent a room at the Holiday Inn Express. I parked out front and stood off to the side while Jackie rented a room. She had straightened herself up the best she could, but she still looked like a shapely hooker who had a very bad evening and worse skin. It hurt me to stand up straight, so I guessed that I looked like an ailing businessman who was the next customer on her sexual merry-go-round. It was early morning in Arizona and a dozen families were down for the free high-cholesterol buffet the hotel offered. Most of the faces were Native Americans. Peaceful families and their children. By the time Jackie had the card-key to her room, I had pulled a self-serve cart up and fought my pain and loaded her bag. I was in too much agony to carry the bag more than ten feet. Driving wasn’t a problem, not as long as I was sitting in one position and going in a straight line and not changing lanes too often. That was constant pain that I could handle. Jackie led the way and we checked into a second-floor room that had yellow walls, abstract art, and a Philips Magnavox television.

Jackie said, “I got drunk and passed out and slept in my makeup.”

The agony came in waves. I took a step and stumbled.

Jackie came closer and looked me up and down. “What happened to you?”

My body betrayed me and revealed that I was in pain, severe pain, but I tried to not let the extent of my misery show, not to Jackie. She would kill me and dump me on the side of the road if she knew.

She said, “Did you get into a fight?”

I took my fedora off and tossed it on the bed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Did you get robbed?”

“I don’t have your money, so you can stop asking about it, okay?”

“Somebody took the money I loaned you?”

“Go get cleaned up. You smell. Get cleaned up and get some rest.”

She took her carry-on and rushed inside the bathroom. The weather report was on. It was minus 3 degrees in Memphis, minus 33 in Bismarck, and minus 1 in Atlanta with a hundred accidents. Detroit’s temperature was at 12 degrees. That was twenty degrees below freezing. No one was at my home. It had been left on its own. Abandoned. I hoped the pipes at the house hadn’t frozen or burst. But a burning in my gut and another shot of pain told me that busted pipes in an old house were the least of my worries. I tossed my keys on the desk, then went to the window and grimaced out at rain and 38-degree weather. There was a row of eighteen-wheelers underneath my window. A La Quinta hotel was next door, beyond the parking lot and the sparkling waters in the swimming pool. Mountains were in the distance, beautiful mountains that outlined the edges of the Sonoran Desert, nature as beautiful as the line of palm trees.

I grabbed my fedora and picked up the keys to the Buick again. My pain-filled strides took me through the lobby, past a line of Native Americans, and out into the brisk air that helped cool the sweat on my skin. I went to the Buick, started it up, and drove around to the back of the hotel. I crawled out and opened the trunk, then stood there for a few moments, looking at traffic passing by on I-10, looking at people leaving the hotel and loading up their family vans and trucks. It felt as if I were underwater. When the parking lot was clear, I summoned my strength and tugged out Sammy’s and Rick’s bags. It took all of my power, but I growled and pushed them inside a green Dumpster. Rick’s bag busted open and a thick green Bible tumbled out. I tried to adjust it, but I made it worse and other things, maps and papers, fell out. The maps were of the streets in some part of Alabama. There were schematics for two, maybe three buildings as well. One large building and several small ones. The other papers were programs. A Bible and church programs. I guess I didn’t know Rick. Maybe that was what he was going to tell me. He’d turned religious and wanted out before it was too late. Without looking the programs over, I collected everything and threw it all into the Dumpster. It had been too much. I was not in any condition to labor and my mind wasn’t in gear, so I was unable to process the maps I had disposed of. I moved at a pace a baby’s crawl could beat. Again I coughed and tasted blood in my saliva. I stood still until I could handle the pain.

At the mouth of the entrance of the hotel, my world began to spin like a top. Still I pressed on. I needed to get back to the room and fall across the bed.

I staggered into the lobby and stood surrounded by convivial brown-skinned Native Americans. A wave of agony battered me, its tide as high as a tsunami, and I fought a battle I couldn’t win. My world went dark and I collapsed on the floor as a beautiful woman screamed.

 

 

 

 

Wrapped in darkness,
I was plummeting from the seventy-second floor of the Ren Center, but I was close to consciousness, trapped with my bloodshot eyes halfway open, neither here nor there. Both worlds were out of focus. Jackie’s voice surrounded me, her rapid words strong yet inaudible.

The Ren Center and the Detroit River and Windsor faded away and the descent ended.

At first I thought I was inside a hospital or had been arrested and was surrounded by police officers, but I was inside the hotel room, no police officers or FBI in sight. I heard a fight. It wasn’t a physical fight, but the slamming of the bathroom door was like a gun going off. Grogginess held on to me, pulled me like the undertow of a mighty river, but I heard Jackie arguing and I fought my way through twelve layers of darkness, headed for her voice. It was a fight to wake up, a battle to get free from whatever was weighing me down, but I snapped to when she raised her voice and said my name, said that I had passed out and now she was freaking out because she couldn’t wake me up, said she couldn’t leave me in Arizona, said she wanted to but she couldn’t. I heard her say that I owed her over five thousand and there were no other options, then she said the name Eddie Coyle over and over, asked why he invited me on the job in the first place. She snapped that she knew Sammy was dead. She said things about Rick and Sammy, said things about Bishop. It all felt like a bad dream.

Then I thought I heard a name that pulled me from the edges of dreamland and startled me back into this murky world. Cora. I thought I heard the name Cora. Jackie was inside the bathroom and her voice echoed. I had been dumped on the queen-size bed, had been left on my back, my white undershirt pulled off and the covers pulled up to my waist. The curtains were drawn, but there was enough light for me to look down and see the dark bruises on my arm and across my abdomen. Jackie’s argument died down. It didn’t end, but it lowered until her words were nothing more than inaudible mumbles. I heard water running in the bathroom and heard Jackie’s voice and looked around. Her luggage was near the door, like she was ready to leave this town. My suit was draped on the back of an armchair, my shoes on the floor.

Jackie hurried out of the bathroom. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she had a plain black baseball cap on her head. Her dress was gone and she had on blue jeans and pink Reeboks and a black sweater. Her jeans hugged her frame, and her complexion—with the makeup—was tolerable.

I said Jackie’s name and she jumped like she had been shot.

She caught her breath, saw me sitting up, and said, “You’re still alive? That’s disappointing.”

It took me a moment to find my voice. “You were talking to Eddie Coyle.”

“Was. Yeah. He wanted to see where we were.”

“Sounded like there was a problem. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. Nothing is wrong, but it’s something I wasn’t aware of until now. Sammy and Rick were aware, but I had been left in the dark. Everything is on schedule with the job.”

“Cora.”

Jackie paused. “What about her?”

“While you were on the phone, it sounded like you said my wife’s name.”

“You’re delirious. You must’ve been screwing her in your dreams. Or getting screwed by her.”

“Well, I know that I heard you say my name.”

“What were you doing, eavesdropping?”

I said, “You look nervous.”

“My boyfriend was killed robbing a bank, one of his incompetent partners might still be alive and turning snitch, his other incompetent partner took my money and now he’s having blackouts, and my skin is breaking out, and I’m tired of the legal system and planning a kidnapping, planning to rob another bank in a few days, I’m planning on getting a new identity, so pardon me if I look preoccupied and nervous.”

“Not that kind of nervous. Something else on top of that. Seeing me awake scared you.”

“And you look as drugged as a crackhead. You friggin’ passed out in the damn lobby.”

“Lower your voice. I’m okay now, I’m okay. I had to . . . my body had to adjust . . . that’s all.”

“Were you on something yesterday morning? Is that what happened? You fell asleep on the job and you cost Sammy his life? Is that what happened, Dmytryk? You’ve been doing drugs?”

“No, Jackie. And please, stop engaging in this insane revisionist history.”

“I thought you had dropped dead, you idiot. Maybe you should skip the job in Atlanta. It would be for the best, the best thing you could do for everybody at this point. Just go back to Detroit.”

“Why? Because the Wells Fargo job went to hell?”

“
Look in the mirror.
You’re in bad shape. This job with Eddie Coyle, it might not be for the best.”

“I owe you four plus interest.”

“You owe me five thousand two hundred dollars.”

“Well, if I’m not in on the job, only God knows when I’ll have the money to pay you. It might be months before Eddie Coyle calls with another job. You know that. That’s the way it is, Jackie. If you want to call Eddie Coyle and get me pulled off the job, go ahead. Just remember that you’ll be putting the money I owe you on indefinite hold. And if that happens I will pay you what I owe you, but I’m not paying any additional interest.”

She nodded and looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t.

She said, “I need my money. I need you on that job no matter what.”

A moment passed with her looking as if she were filled with insurmountable stress.

I asked, “What happened with Eddie Coyle? Why did my name keep coming up?”

“That’s for you and Eddie Coyle to talk about. I’m in this for one friggin’ reason and it isn’t for the joyride. You’ve been professional no matter what, so let’s keep it that way, no matter what.”

I pulled the covers back and looked at the bruises on my left leg, then I pulled the covers back up.