Trust Me (28 page)

    The blonde looked at him and yawned. "Yeah, you really know what you're doing." She said it sarcastic.

    "Mom, I'm sorry about this," Karen said.

    "Isn't that precious," Bobby said.

    Karen could see tears in her mother's eyes, and she felt awful. She hadn't wanted to involve her family and now they were in the middle of it. Bobby slipped the.32 in the front pocket of his khakis and picked up a roll of silver duct tape that was on the coffee table.

    "Give me your hands," Bobby said.

    Karen put her hands together and moved her arms toward him. He ripped a twelve-inch strip off the roll and looped it twice around her wrists, taping them together.

    "Where's the money?" Bobby said to her.

    "At a friend's house," Karen said.

    "A friend's, huh? Must be somebody you trust a whole lot," Bobby said. "We're going to go get it, and we're going to leave Mom and Sis here with my associate."

    The blonde got up and stuck the revolver in the waist of her black capris and said, "I've got an idea, why don't you stay here with Mom and the freak and I'll go with her and get the money."

    "What's the matter," Bobby said, "don't you trust me?"

    The blonde said, "Are you going to screw up like you did last time?"

    "I guess you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

    O'Clair opened his eyes. He was groggy, trying to focus, trying to figure out where he was. A voice said, "It's about fucking time." And now the biker appeared, standing in front of him. "Hell, I was starting to wonder about you."

    O'Clair was sitting in a chair in a basement room, wrists held tight by leather restraints attached to chains that were bolted to the wall. His mind flashed back to the biker coming up behind him and hitting him, and then something heavy crashed into the back of his head. He couldn't believe these two amateurs had taken him. Jesus Christ, it was embarrassing. "What'd she hit me with?"

    "Cast iron skillet," Fly said.

    "You going to tell me what you want?" O'Clair pulled on the chains with his arms but couldn't budge them, the leather restraints strained but held his wrists tight.

    "Give it a rest, " Fly said. "That's high tensile steel. You're not going to get out till I let you out. Now tell me what you're doing here?"

    "Looking for Karen," O'Clair said, and noticed he had a blue-green fly tattooed on his neck and barbed wire that wrapped around his biceps, the tat for idiots with no imagination

    Fly said, "What the hell you want her for?"

    "She stole some money," O'Clair said.

    "It must've been a lot," Fly said. "You're a real high roller, aren't you? Got that '99 Caddy and twenty-eight bucks in your wallet. Man, I'm impressed."

    Fly wore a black leather vest with nothing under it, his fat gut hanging over his belt. "Belongs to a guy I work for," O'Clair said. "She ripped him off for over a million."

    Fly rubbed his chest. He had a heavy beard but not much body hair, and he smelled.

    "Help me," O'Clair said. "I'll cut you in."

    "You will, huh? Oh, boy." Fly flashed a crazy grin. "We gonna be partners?"

    "You know where she is?" O'Clair pulled on the chain with his right hand.

    "I might," Fly said. "Tell me, what the hell I need you for?"

    "How're you going to open the safe?" That stopped him, got his brain in gear.

    Fly said, "How do I know there is a safe?"

    "I work for a bookmaker," O'Clair said. "He had a million dollars in a safe stolen from his house. Karen lived with him. Karen was seen the night of the robbery in front of the house, positively identified by a neighbor. You think I'm making this up? Where is she?" If that didn't get through to him, he might have an easier time breaking the chains that were holding him.

    Fly said, "You got the combination?"

    "That's what I'm saying," O'Clair said.

    "Let me see it," Fly said.

    O'Clair said, "It's in my head."

    "Maybe I should just beat it out of you." He held up the blackjack like he was going to use it and grinned. "All right, I believe

    He unlocked the restraints, first one then the other, dropping them on the floor. O'Clair rubbed his wrists, stood and stretched, glancing around the room now. "What do you do in here?"

    "All kinds of crazy shit," Fly said. "It's our dungeon."

    O'Clair shook his head. He didn't get it. "So where is she?"

    "Karen? Right now, at her mom's with Virginia, the girl you came to visit."

    So it was her after all. "They were calling her Ariana at the store."

    Fly said, "That's her pretend name, you know, when we go to the dress-up parties and such."

    "How'd you get involved in all that?" O'Clair said.

    "Just lucky, I guess," Fly said. "Want a beer?"

    O'Clair wanted a beer more than anything. They went upstairs to the kitchen and Fly pulled two bottles of Miller High Life out of the refrigerator, popped the tops and handed one to O'Clair. He stared at the cold bottle before he brought it to his mouth and guzzled half of it. He didn't know if a beer had ever tasted so good.

    "Jesus," Fly said, watching him, "you're a beer drinker, aren't you?"

    O'Clair was staring at a photograph of Fly with hair down to his shoulders on a motorcycle, Virginia standing next him with a joint in her mouth. "What happened to your hair?"

    "I was out at a farm one day buying weed and this dude was shearing a horse," Fly said. "It was ninety-seven degrees out and I had long hair as you see. When the dude finished the horse, I asked him if he'd clip me."

    O'Clair said, "Shave it yourself?"

    "Or Virginia does me in the shower," Fly said.

    O'Clair tried to picture Virginia naked and wet with her purple hair, shaving Fly, the image stirring his loins. He drank his beer.

    "She said she was lookin' out for Karen, that's why she invited you over here," Fly said. "I just wanted to make sure."

    O'Clair slugged down the rest of his beer and said, "Who're you looking out for?"

    Fly said, "Who do you think?"

    O'Clair raised his empty. "Got another one?"

    He held the Caddy-with the new windshield that cost twelve hundred bucks, and the two side windows that were three bills each—steady going sixty. There were still holes in the front and back seats where the arrow had gone through, but he didn't care about that.

    O'Clair had gotten his keys and wallet back, including the twenty-eight dollars that Fly had folded and stuffed in the front right pocket of his jeans. Fly wore a silver skull and crossbones ring on one hand. O'Clair had noticed it when he handed him the money.

    "You've got to admit you don't appear to have much going for you," Fly said. "Dude, you seen a mirror recently. Look at you, your clothes. That sport coat's a fuckin' relic."

    O'Clair said, "What convinced you?"

    "You mentioned he was a bookmaker with a safe. I remember Karen going out with him-an A-rab, isn't he? And then it all made sense. Maybe you knew what you were talking about. There was something else that was strange. She paid me two hundred to pick up her car at this motel. I think she was shacking up with some dude."

    Right, O'Clair was thinking. He had to pick up her car 'cause she took Johnny's. Why exactly, he couldn't quite figure out. They were on 696 heading for Garden City, a town O'Clair had never been to in his life, Garden City the gateway to Romulus. Fly hadn't stopped talking since he got in the car. Now he was bragging about his days riding with the Renegades, a Detroit biker gang.

    "Sixty of us badasses would rumble into a small town, scare the shit out of people. I mean like a western movie. Grown men ducking into stores, mothers pulling their children to safety. Cops would just watch us, too afraid to do anything. We'd go into a bar challenge the whole place." He glanced over at O'Clair. "What's the matter? Am I boring you?"

    O'Clair looked out the window, saw a street sign that said "Windsor." They were in a residential neighborhood, passing parked cars and small brick ranch houses.

    Fly said, "Take a left up there. It's the third house on the left."

    O'Clair made the turn, pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.

    "Okay, let's go get her," he said to Fly.

    The first day back from the hospital Samir had slept all afternoon and all night, and was still sleeping when Ricky went to check on him the next morning. He hoped and prayed Samir would die in his sleep, but no such luck. Ricky listened to his labored breathing and watched his chest rise and fall.

    He went back to check on him an hour later and Samir was awake, but groggy. His eyes would open and look at Ricky and then close and open again.

    "How you feeling?"

    Samir said, "Where's the money?"

    "What money?" Ricky said, playing dumb. "Oh you mean the money Karen stole from you? No word yet, but I'm on it."

    "The collections," Samir said.

    Ricky said, "You've been asleep since you got home."

    "Now I'm awake."

    Ricky thought he had a few days before Samir would bring this up, and by then the Iraqis would have Karen and he'd be able to pay Samir back the $82,000 he'd lost, and be rich. "The doctor said you shouldn't work or even think about business for two weeks at least."

    "Bring me my money," Samir said, raising his voice. He started coughing and couldn't stop.

    Ricky went over and picked up the water glass on the bedside table and handed it to him. He drank some water and it helped. He drank more and stopped coughing. "I'm not going to jeopardize your health." Ricky remembered the doctor saying something like that at the hospital. Ricky thought it sounded good. What could Samir say to that?

    "I'm not going to ask you what you did with the money," Samir said. "You have till tomorrow to give it to me—all of it."

    "Take it easy," Ricky said. "I've got it."

    Ricky went downstairs and called Tariq. His phone rang three times.

    Tariq said, "Yes?"

    "What's going on?" Ricky said. "Talk to me, tell me something good."

    Tariq told him they went to the lawyer's house and almost had her.

    Ricky said, "Almost had her? What're you doing? Two of you can't handle a girl? You've got to find her today. I'm going to give you each $50,000. You know how much money that is?"

    "If you pay $150,000," Tariq said, "I guarantee we will find Karen Delaney."

    Now the Iraqis were trying to take advantage of him. "I'll go one twenty but you better deliver." He hung up and thought, but what if they didn't find her? What if he didn't recover the money? Ricky needed a backup plan. He called Wadi Nasser. He hated to do it but didn't have a much of a choice. He asked Wadi if he could borrow a hundred grand for a few days, a week at the most.

    Wadi said, "I don't know Ricky, that's a lot of money. I'd have to charge you 20 percent."

    Ricky said, "That's fucking robbery."

    "Listen," Wadi said. "I'm doing you a favor. You want it or not?"

    "Your mom's very disappointed you're mixed up with someone of my ilk," Bobby said. "That's a direct quote."

    "I am too," Karen said.

    Bobby said, "You propositioned me, remember?"

    Yeah, she remembered, and regretted it every time she thought about what happened. They were in the kitchen ready to leave. The little blonde was standing a few feet away. She looked bored.