Tempted by Trouble (22 page)

My voice was soft, my words just above a whisper as I motioned at Cora. “Wife.”

Her words wore barely a whisper as well. “Don’t call me that.”

“I could call you a lot of things at this moment, so be glad I’m using the word
wife.
”

Cora rubbed her forehead like she was fighting an aneurysm. She chewed her words, her face a mixture of anger, shame, and relief. To see the one you used to love but no longer love is a sobering moment. To see someone you still love who no longer loves you, that is hell.

I said, “Handshake. Let’s rewrite the terms of this marriage. We have new vows now.”

She regarded my extended hand and cringed. Her tongue moved around a mouth filled with saliva. It looked like she was going to spit on my flesh.

I said, “In this business your handshake is how you sign a professional contract.”

She frowned at me before she glanced at Eddie Coyle. She had become his queen.

Eddie Coyle nodded. “Dmytryk is right. He needs to know he can trust you until this is done.”

She took a breath, swallowed, adjusted her sleeves, then she extended her hand.

I touched her skin and an electrical shock moved from my fingers to the end of my arm. From there the power split and half went toward my heart, the other half surged lower, made my manhood struggle to betray me. Cora blinked a hundred times, my touch disturbing her as well.

We shook once and she yanked her hand back, hurried and wiped her palm on her pants.

I wiped my damp hands on a napkin. My sweat was thick as blood from an open wound.

She lowered her voice and said, “Eddie Coyle. You just railroaded me.”

“I didn’t railroad you. I made it so you could stop hiding. I was tired of it and so were you.”

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing Dmytryk in on this. This had nothing to do with him. Absolutely nothing. So, way to go. You got me on this one. But don’t
ever
railroad me again. I don’t like being played. I don’t appreciate being used.”

The waiter brought the food.

Catfish and scrambled eggs and pancakes and sausage and grits and biscuits and omelets and toast and sweet tea and lemonade and orange juice. I was famished, weak, subsisting on very little sleep and too much Vicodin, but I’d lost my appetite. I asked the waiter to put my food inside a Styrofoam box.

Eddie Coyle started eating. My wife frowned at me. Her lips were tight with anger at the things I said.

I smiled a very thin smile. Eddie Coyle did the same and drummed his fingers on the table.

I said, “I don’t think that you’re giving me the details of the job this morning.”

Eddie Coyle said, “Later. Not now. I wanted Cora to meet the other man on my team.”

Cora said, “We’ll meet again later and lay out the details of the job.”

I maintained eye contact with Cora. “I look forward to that meeting.”

The waiter came back with my to-go box, and I stood to put on my overcoat, scarf, gloves, and fedora. And now, once again, it was time to get away from the scene of a crime. But so much anger was inside of me and I had to leave before I exploded. Cora looked at me. Our eyes met and I saw a glimpse of the woman I had met when I was working on the line.

I said, “Eddie Coyle?”

“Dmytryk.”

“Safe house.”

“It’s in Dallas.”

“Dallas? That’s another twelve-hour drive in the wrong direction.”

“Not the Dallas where President Kennedy’s head was opened up. It’s next to Hiram, Georgia. Small city with about six thousand people. Safe house is off Memorial Drive.”

“How far is that dream city from here?”

“An hour. In this weather, might be two.”

“I need the info.”

“I’ll text it to you after I eat.”

“Big place?”

“Two bedrooms.”

“It’s five of us here. We’re all staying together?”

“Yeah. Same protocol for the team. We’re all staying together so we can cover the details.”

“All of us.”

“All of us.”

“I look forward to all of us being together. Until then,
que tenga un buen día.
”

“No Mexican talk.”

“It’s not called Mexican talk. It’s called Spanish.”

As I limped away, the glass door to the diner opened and Jackie came inside. She wore a gray dress—one that made her look like a CEO—and dark leggings. Her boots came up to her knees and looked both classy and expensive. She had makeup on, but I could see the acne. Stress had exacerbated her ailment and her skin looked worse than it had two days ago. Pimples spread like a row of small mountains, her right cheek being the side with the biggest problem. She was pretty with the pimples but would probably have been beautiful without. Not magazine beautiful, but average-woman beautiful. If she lost thirty pounds and fixed her skin, she’d look like a brand-new woman. But the weight she had fit her frame and gave her the kind of curves that men adored. Sammy’s mistress was wearing a red midlength coat. I evaluated that vixen, then passed by her and gave her a simple nod. She paused when I passed her, then I heard her turn around, her square heels clicking as she came behind me and called my name. I kept going. She caught up with me, grabbed my arm, stopped me inside the vestibule.

I turned and faced her, my expression that of an animal ready to bite her throat. “You knew.”

“It wasn’t my place to say anything. Dmytryk, it wasn’t my place.”

“So you knew where my wife was all this time.”

“She sold herself to the highest bidder.”

By then other people were trying to exit while another couple tried to get inside from the cold. As sleet fell against the window, I put my hands in Jackie’s hair and pulled her face close to mine. In heels, she was much taller than I was, but I pulled her down to my height.

“You’re hurting me, Dmytryk. Stop pulling on me.”

I kissed her. I put my tongue inside her mouth and hoped my wife and Eddie Coyle enjoyed the show. When I let go, Jackie was wide-eyed and nervous. She’d used me the way she had used Sammy, and now she carried herself like she was an honest woman.

Jackie frowned. “She’s a writer and a writer ain’t nothing but a damned reporter.”

“Who is?”

“The Vicodin. So, do you want to play stupid, or do you want to play along?”

I smiled at Jackie and held eye contact.

She said, “Abbey Rose has a Web site and a Facebook page. A Facebook page that was updated this morning. Dead people don’t update Facebook pages. Abbey Rose. I know all about her. She writes stupid books about mysticism and thaumaturgy.”

I nodded.

Jackie asked, “What happened in L.A.?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. Especially since she drives a black BMW. It’s on her Web site.”

I held my stern expression.

She said, “We’ll talk.”

“Sure.”

“Before I tell Eddie Coyle and Bishop, before I drop that woman’s name in their laps and see how literary they are, make yourself available to talk to me. And bring your wallet.”

Jackie went inside, her face down as she shook her head side to side. From here, it looked as if Cora was staring at Jackie and my wife’s eyes had become an evil shade of green.

Wrapped in my overcoat, my father’s fedora on my head, I vacated Thumbs Up and took to the inclement weather once again. I didn’t look back, but I knew they were watching me and talking. I knew Eddie Coyle wore the smile that came from a Pyrrhic victory, and Trouble wore anguish, disappointment, and anger. I had no idea what expression Jackie would wear.

I crossed White Way with sleet assaulting and bouncing off my fedora and my coat. I jumped around a river of rain and slush and made it to the curb as the winds picked up and the coldness began numbing my toes. My aches and pains grabbed at me.

Again I coughed and spat on the frozen sidewalk. My saliva was thick and tinted the ice with spit the hue of my wounded heart. Sartre must’ve built this wretched world, a rotating purgatory that had blizzards, earthquakes, bitter wives, and no exit.

I stared at the bank in front of me. If I had money, I could move on.

As I drove away and found the slick streets that took me back to Cascade Road, it felt like my insides were coming apart and in turmoil, possibly ruptured. I’d driven that damage across the country without stopping for medical assistance.

Maybe that well-earned death was following me, as inevitable as the next sunrise.

This death had started in L.A. and since then it had teased and refused to let me go free.

To break free from
Eddie Coyle and Trouble, I needed to make bank withdrawals on my own, and I had to make my move right then. Plotting, I sat in the parking lot at one of Magic Johnson’s Starbucks and waited for the traffic to clear up, then I drove Cascade Road and searched for an escape from this situation I’d fallen into. The only thing that could get me out of the nightmare was money.

Rick said, “Be careful, Dmytryk. The roads are slick and these country bumpkins can’t drive.”

I was back near exit 7, cruising through another forest of banks, trying to pick one to rob.

Rick said, “You can do this, Dmytryk.”

“We’re right here, Dmytryk,” Sammy said. “We have your back. I’ve had your back for a year.”

My friends were inside my head. I took a breath, then chuckled nervously. “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a criminal.” Then I looked in the rearview and saw Rick and Sammy, clear as day sitting in the backseat.

It took a long time to battle through two traffic lights and drive to Fairburn Road. I turned left and went inside the strip mall that housed a Walgreens pharmacy. A SunTrust bank was in the middle of the shops. I sat outside and did a two-minute countdown using my pocket watch.

I whispered, “We were like brothers, Rick. Did you know? Did you know Cora was down here?”

“We let each other down, brother.”

I glanced at him and saw blood gushing from a gunshot wound in his chest.

“I’m sorry, man,” I said, lamenting. “If I could do it over . . . I’m sorry.”

Rick groaned and shifted. “You left me, Dmytryk. I could’ve made it and you left me.”

I put my eyes back on the street. “I’m sorry. Everything happened so fast, Rick.”

“You left me dying on the damn concrete like I was a stray animal. I looked in your eyes and you looked in mine and I begged. What did you do, brother? You drove away like a damn coward.”

I turned to face him and expected to see Rick frowning at me, but no one was there. Then I adjusted the rearview and looked in the backseat. I saw Sammy. Half of his face was missing.

I blinked and when I opened my eyes, Sammy was gone. No one was there.

I said, “How would we do this, boys? Which bank should we chose? None of these, right? Right. Not in this weather. What was that, Rick? Closer to the interstate?”

I listened for Rick’s and Sammy’s voices. I listened for one of them to tell me that the odds were against me, that the lone bank robber was the fool bank robber and that at best I’d get two or three thousand. Rick and Sammy were supposed to talk some sense into me.

But they were gone. For now, they had abandoned me.

I told myself, “Get it together. Pull it together. You can handle this. You’re stronger than them.”

I headed back toward Cascade and found a Washington Mutual Bank waiting on the other side of the traffic light. I’d been the getaway man but I knew enough about how to step inside a bank and pull a job. I’d been around criminals like Eddie Coyle, Sammy, Rick, and Jackie long enough to know how to do a job by myself. The weather was my primary concern.

The bank was no more than a mile from the on-ramp to I-285 at exit 7. On a clear day I could make it to exit 7 in less than two minutes. But with these conditions, with the way the streets and interstates had been brought to a halt, the back roads would be the best bet for an easy escape. The back roads could have been iced over. One ice patch could have left me sitting upside down in a ditch.

I was going to take a chance.

There weren’t any large businesses or houses on this end. There were strip malls, every other one being a place to get your cholesterol refueled. I parked at the end of the strip mall, saw another bank, a Wachovia. This bank was in a better position, its lot feeding right onto Fairburn Road, that two-lane road flowing east, the same direction I’d come here on I-285.

I exited at Fairburn Road, timed the drive back down to I-285 in this weather and traffic. There were two lights and more than enough traffic heading in that direction. But the traffic had me concerned. I crossed under 285 to see what was on the other side. An empty lot, second-rate gas stations, then another strip mall, this one anchored by Blockbuster and Kroger, a few small shops in between.

Another Bank of America was inside that lot, on the edges of Cascade Road and Cascade Parkway, no more than sixty yards from the interstate on-ramp. This area had more banks than the financial district. I parked across the street at a Marathon gas station and let my windshield wipers wipe away the sleet, my heater ratting as cool air seeped in through any imperfection my Buick possessed.

It would be a hard escape, but it was doable.

Sweat gathered across the back of my neck as I wrote out a note using simple block-style letters, a note that said this was a robbery, no dye packs, no alarms, and there wouldn’t be any problems. After that I moved from the Marathon gas station and parked outside the bank, backed in so when I left I’d be able to jump inside and go. I left the car running. I didn’t have a getaway man, so I had to leave the motor going. Then I adjusted my clothing, stood tall like I was Cary Grant, walked like I wasn’t in pain, entered the bank, and stood in line behind two more people.

The two transactions in front of me took a lifetime. When I made it to the teller she looked me in my face and asked me how she could help me. She had a natural hairstyle that made me think about Abbey Rose. I had traumatized her. But so be it, trauma was part of the business, just like losing a job or a home or watching your wife laugh in the sleet with another man.