Mrs. Million (29 page)

Once he had the money he could dispatch the husband and the woman and be on an airplane before they found the bodies. He would be in Italy to see the sun rise.

André started the car, imagining a luncheon of prosciutto, freshly shelled fava beans, and fine Italian cheeses.

Barbaraannette hugged her pillow and watched the telephone on her bedside table, marveling that the oddly shaped plastic device could awaken her from a sound sleep and speak to her, bringing remarkable news. Bobby was alive, and Phlox had found him. But this André Gideon seemed to be in charge. He was either in league with Phlox, or he had kidnapped her, too. He still wanted the money. In fact, he was desperately afraid that she would not give it to him. For a few moments, by threatening not to pay, Barbaraannette had been in control. She had gotten what she wanted.

She swung her feet out past the edge of the mattress, dropped them into her slippers. All this time she had been feeling like a victim, things happening around her, buffeting her like a bit of flotsam on a rough sea. But maybe there was another way to look at it. She had started it. She was the one who had won the lottery and she was the one who had offered the reward. And the money was power. Nobody wanted Bobby except her. He was a commodity with a market consisting of one person: Barbaraannette. It was a buyer’s market.

She set about making coffee, feeling much better now about the way things were going. Gideon would call her in a couple hours and he would tell her where and when and what she was to do with the money, and she would listen to him and then decide what she wanted to do. She did not think that he would hurt Bobby. If he did, he would not get the money. She would tell him that. She would tell him exactly the way it was going to be.

T
HE BRINKS TRUCK ARRIVED
at Cold Rock Savings & Loan at 9:10
A.M.
precisely. Art Dobbleman and Moe Freidrichs, Cold Rock S&L’s part-time security guard, received the shipment: two sealed canvas bags containing one million dollars in cash. Art and Moe brought the bags into the vault, where Art pried open the lead seals, loosened the tops of the bags, and emptied them onto the stainless steel counting table. The money was packaged in shrink-wrapped bricks of hundred-dollar bills, each brick labeled with a band reading $10,000.00. There were one hundred such bricks.

Art handled money every day, but he had never seen so much of it in one place. He stacked the money on one of the vault shelves, then closed the vault and went to his desk to sit and wait for Barbaraannette.

At 9:34, Barbaraannette entered the bank in black jeans, sunglasses, a black, long-billed wool cap, and a leather flight jacket. Art did not recognize her at first. Usually, Barbaraannette dressed like an elementary school teacher. She walked straight up to his desk and said, “Well?”

“You look great,” Art said.

Barbaraannette smiled, tilting her head. “I mean the money, Art.”

“Oh, that’s here. But you still look great.”

“It’s just some things I had in the back of a closet. It seemed appropriate for the occasion.” She seemed unnaturally calm.

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

Barbaraannette shrugged. “Let’s look at the money.”

Art led her back to the vault, showed her the stacks of shrink-wrapped bricks.

Barbaraannette lifted her sunglasses onto her forehead. “Good lord. Are those all hundred-dollar bills?” Her quiet voice filled the tiny, metal-walled room.

“Ten thousand of them.”

Barbaraannette lifted one of the ten-thousand-dollar bricks. “You could fit one of these in your pocket easy.” She cut through the shrink-wrap with a fingernail, peeled it back, and riffled the bills. “When I think how hard I’ve worked to earn just one of these…”

Art said nothing, watching her as she picked up several bricks, weighed them in her hands.

“It’s a lot of money,” she said, her voice a whisper.

Art nodded.

Barbaraannette checked her watch. “I should probably get back home. The man is supposed to call me there.” She put the money she was holding back on the stacks. “Do you have something I can carry it in?”

Art tried not to let his disappointment show. He had thought for a moment that she had changed her mind. “We’ve got the bags it came in. Or we could probably fit it into a briefcase.”

“I don’t have a briefcase.”

“I could give you mine, if you want. I need a new one anyway.”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

“You don’t have to do that. The bank will reimburse me.”

Barbaraannette smiled. “I’m not destitute, Art. I can still afford to buy you a briefcase.”

“I’d rather have Nate pay for it. Listen, were you planning to do this alone?”

Barbaraannette nodded, her jaw set.

“Would you like some company?”

“No thank you,” she said.

Art stepped closer, took one of her hands between his palms and held it there. “If you want me to do anything, I’ll be here. No matter what. Okay?”

Barbaraannette nodded, watching his mouth and eyes, pulling her hand gently from his grasp.

The briefcase was both heavier and lighter than she had expected. A million dollars. It made her feel powerful, and afraid. She paused at the front door of the bank, looked up and down the sidewalk, then walked quickly to her car. She locked the doors, something she had never before done in Cold Rock. Barbaraannette did not believe in horoscopes or UFOs or ESP, but the briefcase on the seat beside her had an aura about it, an invisible glow. She could feel it on her right elbow, a burning cold like dry ice or the way the wind feels on flesh at twenty degrees below zero. She imagined that people on the street could feel it as she passed by, radiating.

She drove slowly through town, wondering what awaited her at home. The man would call, he would tell her where to take the money. Or would he? He might be waiting for her there. She imagined herself opening the door and finding a pink-cheeked man with a gun. Maybe Phlox would be there, too, and Bobby, all of them laughing at her, taking her money.

She turned on Third Street, rolled past her house, circled the block looking for a green car, then pulled into her driveway and sat for a full minute before getting out and taking the briefcase inside. She slammed and locked the door after her, then went through the house room by room with the briefcase, locking the back door and all the windows and pulling the shades down. Once she felt secure, Barbaraannette set the case on the kitchen table and opened it and put her hands on the money. It felt cool and inert. The plastic shrink-wrap was thick and scratchy at the seams, with a faint greasiness to it. The smell reminded her of new textbooks on the first day of school.

Hugh Hulke positioned a plastic-tipped cigar in the good side of his battered mouth and lit it with a disposable lighter. “You see how she hung on to that thing, Rod Man? Like a million goddamn bucks was in there.” His head disappeared in a cloud of cheap smoke.

“Yeah. But what’s she gonna do with it?” Rodney asked.

“How in the goddamn hell should I know?” Hugh coughed and winced, gently touching his swollen jaw. His head had collided forcefully with Rodney’s face when the van had rolled. One corner of his mouth was cut and taped together, his jaw was all purple lumps and broken veins.

Rodney Gent had also sustained damage. His nose had doubled in size and both eyes were blackened. He said, “You think you know every other goddamn thing.”

“I know she came out of the bank with a briefcase, goddamnit. That’s our money in there is what it is. She’s gonna pay that son of a bitch off is what. I can smell it.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong.” Rodney clasped his hands over his orange cap. “I got one mother of a headache.”

Hugh puffed on his cigar. “You bitch like a she-dog.”

“My wife’s gonna kill me, I bring her car back all stunk up.” The tiny red Isuzu was Sue Gent’s pride and joy.

“You can buy her a new one. This is a can’t-miss, Rod Man. Think about it. The guy that grabbed Bobby, that Gideon guy, is a crook. He put the snatch on Bobby, clobbered ol’ Dale, and took a few shots at yours…
ours
truly. He’s fair game. All we got to do is stick with the money and as soon as she pays it over, we land on him like flies on shit. It’ll be like finding money in a trash can.”

“What if she doesn’t have the money? What if we lose track of her? What if he starts shooting at us again?”

Hugh grinned. “There’s the beauty of it. The guy attacked a cop and then shot up my van. That’s how come I brought the shotgun. According to the law of the land, we get to shoot him.”

“I thought that was just if they broke in your house.”

Hugh shook his head. “Uh-uh. The way it works is once you get shot at, you get to shoot back. Pretty soon now, Rod Man, we’re gonna be millionaires.”

“Yeah, I believe that. Just like we were gonna make all that money on Montana ranch land. First I listen to Bobby, now I’m listening to you. I got a bad feeling about this whole thing. I got a headache and I don’t want to get shot at. And my goddamn wife…”

Hugh raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.

“My wife says to me—I’m grabbing her car keys and she’s yelling at me—she says to me, ‘Rodney Gent, you’re a goddamn moron is what you are.’” Rodney cradled his forehead in his palms.

Hugh produced a few billion more smoke particles, bringing the visibility in the car down to twelve inches. “So?”

“So I dunno. Maybe she’s right.”

Another thing Barbaraannette had never told anyone: She did not believe in horoscopes or UFOs or ESP, but she believed in fate. She believed that it took the unremitting application of willpower, great amounts of luck, or tremendous artfulness to alter one’s predestined path in life. She believed that the day she was born she had married Bobby and lost him and won the Powerball. It was this belief that enabled her to drive with her eyes closed and teach a classroom full of seven-year-olds.

The telephone rang at ten o’clock precisely, as promised.

“Hello?”

“Do you have it?” the man asked.

Barbaraannette looked out the window to make sure he wasn’t standing outside her door with a cell phone and a battering ram. “I have it,” she said.

“Good. How is it packaged?”

“Packaged? It’s in a briefcase.”

“What will you be driving?”

“It’s a Chevrolet. A little blue one. The passenger door is brown.”

“Excellent. Here are your instructions. First, I want you to drive over the bridges. All six of them. Once you have done this you will take the highway north out of town approximately three miles until you reach the service station at Benson Road.”

“Is that the Kum & Go?”

“I believe so. There you will fill your gasoline tank, and I will contact you.”

“Is that where Bobby will be?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re not getting the money until I have Bobby.”

“Mrs. Quinn, permit me to explain something to you. Once I have taken delivery of the reward money, I have no reason not to return your husband to you. You know my identity, and my crimes are a matter of record. By injuring your husband or the woman I would only be creating additional problems for myself.”

“I’m not paying you until I see him.”

“You are not listening. Allow me to explain it in another way, Mrs. Quinn. If you refuse to pay the reward, then I have absolutely nothing to lose. I will kill the woman and your husband. Admittedly, this course of action will not profit me, but I will do it to make a point. Do you understand?”

“I won’t pay unless I know he’s okay.”

“You have your instructions. I will expect you at the Kum & Go in precisely twenty-five minutes.” He hung up.

Hilde knew that she hadn’t been herself lately. A simple look around her room told her as much. How could she have allowed herself to stay in a hotel without a minibar in the room? She must’ve had too much to drink last night—she didn’t even remember checking in. She sat up on the edge of the bed and let her thoughts settle. The room was familiar. In fact, she realized after looking around, she lived here. Or someone did. But was she alone? A quick check of the sitting room and bathroom showed that she was the sole resident.

Something in her mind was refusing to engage. She decided to take a shower, do her face and nails, and get dressed up in something sharp. That would help her think. She would go with the black wig today. Dark-haired women were smarter. She would get herself fixed up, she would drive over to Barbaraannette’s and pick her up and together they would go shopping.

Hilde smiled. Now that she had a plan, her thoughts began to crystallize.

T
OAGIE’S EARLIEST MEMORIES
of her eldest sister were of Mary Beth glaring balefully at her, stuck at home babysitting her and Barbaraannette. Mary Beth had changed over the past twenty-five years. Her once athletic body had thickened, her face had broadened, and her hair had gone gray. Her baleful glare, however, had survived the decades unaltered.

Toagie, squirming under its heat, said, “Barbaraannette seems to know what she’s doing, Mary Beth. Maybe we should stay out of it. She’s a big girl.”

Mary Beth pursed her lips, then took a sip of coffee. The hit of caffeine increased the intensity of her gaze. “You always were an irresponsible child, Antonia.”

“It’s her money and her husband.”

“It’s a million dollars and her husband is a worthless piece of garbage.”

“Sure, but you know Barbaraannette. Have you ever got her to change her mind about anything?”

“She’ll have to listen to reason.”

“You’re going to have to knock her down and sit on her.”

Mary Beth’s eyebrows collided in a frown. “Only if absolutely necessary,” she said, standing up. “Are you coming?”

Barbaraannette had the briefcase in hand and the front door open when Mary Beth’s silver-gray Lincoln glided up to the curb. Mary Beth was driving. Toagie sat beside her. Suppressing an urge to duck back into the house and lock the door, Barbaraannette went straight to her car, tossed the briefcase on the passenger seat, and climbed in. Mary Beth got out of the Lincoln and started toward her. Barbaraannette locked the door and started the car.