Popped Off (20 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Allen
52
The guy on the left in the barn entrance was unfamiliar, but I recognized his partner.
The guy who I’d tangled with at Comanche River.
And Myrtle Callaghan was standing between them.
“Who the hell are you?” Moe asked, immediately slamming the door on the U-Haul shut.
“Mr. Winters, nice to see you again,” Callaghan said.
“If you say so,” I said.
There was no love lost for me when it came to her and her casino flunkies. I was still irritated at the way I’d been treated there, and I didn’t care what the reason was. The suite didn’t make up for it, either. She was someone I’d hoped to never see again.
“You’re Elliott’s cousin, I presume?” she said, motioning at Moe.
“Why are you here?” I asked before he could answer. “Were you following us?”
“I told you we would find a way to recoup our money,” she said. “One way or another.”
“Way to not answer my question.”
She ignored me and gestured for the suits to approach the truck. I heard the lock snap in place.
“There’s no money in there,” Moises said.
“We’re gonna take a look, anyway,” Myrtle said.
“There’s no money in there,” I said.
“Again,” she said, “we’d like to take a look.”
“You’re problem isn’t with us,” I said. “It’s with Elliott.”
“Who isn’t here at the moment.”
The suits stopped when they reached me.
“Fine,” I said to Moe. “Let ’em look.”
“But . . .”
“There’s no money in there,” I said to Myrtle. “We let you have a look and you walk. Deal?”
“No deal.”
“Really?” I looked at the suits. “Got any bolt cutters on you?”
They looked at each other, then at her.
She pursed her lips.
“Because I think we just forgot the combo,” I said. “In fact, I’m positive we did.”
Myrtle thought this over for a moment.
“We let you look,” I said again. “And when there’s no money in there, you walk away. And stay the hell off my tail.”
“I’m not gonna promise that,” she said. “I want my money back.”
“You’ll get it,” I said.
I could feel Moises shift behind me, nervous.
“Really? You know where it is?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You’ll get your money,” I said. “I’m working on it.”
“So you’ll vouch for it?” she said. “You’ll take responsibility for it?”
I didn’t like the way she said that, but I had to put my money—or hers—where my mouth was.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll vouch for it.”
She stared at me for a moment, then nodded. “Deal. Open it.”
I looked at Moises. “Let ’em look.”
He looked at me, totally bewildered.
“Just do it,” I said. “It’ll be fine.”
He shook his head, confused, but dialed the combo on the lock. He pulled it off, opened up the doors, and stepped to the side.
The suits rushed past us and climbed up into the truck. They immediately started ripping boxes open. After a minute, the one I’d wrestled with looked back at his boss in frustration.
“There’s nothing here but a bunch of kids soccer trophies,” he told her.
He held one up for good measure.
The trophies were about six inches high, an oversize metal soccer ball perched on a wooden platform.
ROSE PETAL SOCCER
was engraved on the platform.
ROSE PETAL SOCCER
was engraved on the platform.
Myrtle approached the truck and held her hand out. The suit handed her the trophy. She spun it around in her hands, shook it, stared at it.
It remained a trophy.
She handed it back to the suit and stared at me. “All right. You win.”
“Hardly.”
“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “You’re on the hook now.”
“I’ll live.”
“If you say so,” she said. “But a deal’s a deal.”
I tried not to let out an audible breath.
“When will I see my money?” she asked.
“Soon.”
“I want a date.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” I said. “And I’m happily married.”
She gave me an icy look that told me she couldn’t take a joke, and that made me worry about my sperm count.
“Soon,” I said seriously.
She folded her arms across her chest. “All right. Soon. But I won’t wait long.” She lifted her chin at the suits. “Let’s go.”
The one I didn’t know jumped down first. My pal was next, and I managed to hip check him just before he hit the ground. He fell to his right and tumbled onto the dirt floor.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”
He bounced up, his face red, his fists balled up.
“Teddy,” Myrtle said. “Leave it alone. We’re leaving.”
He looked from her to me and back to her.
“Now,” she commanded.
He reluctantly unclenched his fists and dusted himself off.
“We’ll see you,” Myrtle said, backing up, heading for the barn entrance. “Soon.”
I hoped so.
53
“How exactly are you going to pay them?” Moises asked.
We’d backed the truck up out of the barn, and he’d just finished relocking it.
“I’m working on it,” I said.
“You heard those girls,” he said, irritated. “They aren’t going to cover it. That’s why I hid this stuff in the first place!”
“I know that.”
“And that chick was crazy enough to follow us out here, and I don’t think she’s gonna forget that you told her she’d get her money soon.”
“I know that.”
“So what are you going to do?” Moe demanded. “How are you going to get her that money?”
“I told you,” I said. “I’m working on it.”
“How? By planning a bank robbery?”
“Have I so far managed to keep your butt safe today?” I asked him. “Have I screwed anything up yet for you today? Or have I managed to keep everyone who’s pissed at you from kicking your ass?”
He shrunk again but didn’t say anything.
“Exactly,” I said. “And I don’t have any plans to screw it up now. So maybe, just maybe, you should let me run the show here and trust me.”
His head hung like a dog that just peed on the new carpeting. “Okay. I just don’t get why you wanna help me.”
Truth was, I didn’t know, either. I did think he was sorry for the mess that he’d created, but this really was all of his own making. He’d made the decisions, and now the consequences were surrounding him like alligators.
But there was something vulnerable about him that was making me soften toward him. I didn’t like the people around him, either, and part of me felt like they had all preyed on a guy who was easy to prey on. And that didn’t feel right to me, either.
Moe climbed into the driver’s seat of the U-Haul, and I walked around to the passenger side. He was gonna drive me out to the edge of the property and then we’d grab my car and he’d follow me back to the house to make the exchange.
But I wasn’t lying to him.
Coming out to this property and listening to the things he’d told me about Haygood got me thinking.
And for some foolish reason, I started thinking I could come up with a plan to solve everybody’s problems and minimize the damage.
That was probably why Julianne often told me I shouldn’t do so much thinking.
54
Victor was still screaming when we got back to the ramshackle house.
“Oh, great!” he shouted when I walked through the door. “You did decide to come back. What a treat for all of us.”
“Good to see you haven’t been harmed,” I said.
He was sitting on a ratty-looking couch between Amber and Megan. Megan’s arm was looped through his. Elliott was sitting across from them, scrunched down in a torn-up easy chair. The other girls were spread out around the living room floor, guns either at their sides or in their laps.
Just another normal afternoon at the sorority house.
“I could’ve been!” he shouted. “You gargantuan traitor!”
“Has he been like this the entire time?” I asked Amber.
“Oh, pretty much,” she said, chomping on a piece of gum. “But it’s, like, you know, kinda cute.”
“Really? Cute?”
“Oh, totes,” she said, nodding and chomping.
“Mmm-hmm,” Megan purred.
“You and I are gonna have a serious talk when we get outta here,” he said, his eyes narrowed.
I didn’t doubt that. I really couldn’t blame him. I’d absolutely hung him out to dry, and if he’d done the same thing to me, I would’ve been furious. Somehow, though, I didn’t think the girls would’ve found me as charming.
But we could argue that later.
“The truck is outside,” I said.
Amber jumped up and started clapping her hands. “Yay!”
Suzie scrambled to her feet and headed out to inspect it. She was back in thirty seconds.
“It’s locked,” she said. “Combo?”
“I wanna talk to Amber first,” I said. “Alone.”
“I’m gonna tell your wife,” Victor spat.
“And I’m gonna tell yours that you spent the entire afternoon holding hands with Megan.”
He quickly disentangled himself from a disappointed Megan. “You wouldn’t.”
“Close your trap and I won’t have to.”
He let out something akin to a growl but didn’t say anything.
“I want the combo,” Suzie said. “Now. That stuff is ours, and I wanna see that it’s there.”
“It’s there,” I said. “All of it. But I wanna talk to Amber first. Out back.”
All the girls perked up a bit, and tension rippled through the room, as they clearly thought I was trying to pull something over on them.
“Bring a gun,” I said. “I just wanna talk. I’ll give you the combo after we’re done. Promise.”
Amber shrugged. “Cool. Come on.”
Annoyance crept over Suzie’s face, but she didn’t say anything.
“Try not to leave me and steal my car again,” Victor grumbled.
“I won’t,” I assured him.
He made a face at me.
Amber grabbed a handgun off the floor. “Just in case.”
I followed her out the back door, and she hopped down the stairs and into the grass. “Okay. What’s up?”
“I wasn’t lying,” I said. “All the trophies are in there with the Viagra. They were right where Moises said they were.”
“Sweet!” she said, grinning. “That’s totally gonna make everyone so happy, and we won’t have to shoot anyone today! Those are always good days!”
I momentarily wondered about the days they did have to shoot people, but quickly swept it aside.
“So Moises is good with you, then, right?” I asked.
She thought, then nodded. “Yeppers. I’m still pissed at him for stealing from those soccer kids, but I think it’s totally good if we just go our separate ways now.”
“I agree,” I said.
“And we totally will give you the trophies,” she said. “We can unpack ’em and just keep the little blue pills.” She giggled. “But the trophies are yours. I don’t want the kids to not get ’em.”
“Let’s talk about the kids for a second,” I said.
She wrinkled her nose, confused.
“I can give them the trophies,” I said. “But I can’t give them their season.”
“Totally not comprehending.”
“The money that Moises stole to pay you—it belonged to them.”
“I know, silly. You already told us that. Huge bummer.”
“I mean, not only is their season done, but the entire association is probably gonna close. They won’t be able to operate anymore.”
“Seriously,” she said, frowning, “that just sucks.”
“I agree. It does suck. So I’m wondering if you could help me out.”
She wrinkled her nose again.
“I want you to help,” I said.
“How?”
“I want you to make a donation to the association,” I said. “So we can play games this weekend and keep it afloat.”
“Do you guys play on, like, water?”
“It’s an expression. It means to keep it running.”
“Ohhhh.”
“Yeah.”
She chomped on the gun for a minute. “How much?”
“Seventy-three thousand dollars.”
Her eyes bulged, and she burst into laughter. “That’s funny!”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh my God, I might pee my pants. You’re hilarious.”
“I’m not kidding, Amber. I want you to do this.”
She stopped laughing and looked at me like I was crazy. “You want us to just give them the money?”
“I saw how mad you got when you learned that he took the money from the soccer association,” I said. “You know it’s not right.”
“Well, duh.”
“And they have no way to get that money back. Their bank account right now is completely empty. Every kid in Rose Petal is going to be crying this weekend, when I go back and tell them that we can’t rent the fields and that we can’t pay for the referees.”
Her lips tightened. “Can’t you do, like, a fund-raiser or something?”
“By Saturday? Uh, no.”
She nodded, realizing that wasn’t possible.
“They need the money,” I said. “And you have it. I’m willing to bet that seventy-three thousand is a drop in the bucket for you guys right now. Right?”
“Oh, I don’t do the money,” she said. “Megan does.”
“Call her out here.”
She turned to the house. “Megan!”
Ten seconds later Megan emerged on the porch. “What?”
“Come here.”
Megan trudged down the steps. “The little man is being mean.”
“He’s always mean,” I said.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Trust me.”
“Megan, do we have, like, a ton of money in our accounts?” Amber asked, hands on her hips.
Megan glanced at me, then at Amber. “Why?”
“Cuz I wanna know.”
Megan started to say something, then leaned in closer to Amber, cupped her hand around her mouth, and whispered into Amber’s ear.
Amber’s eyes went huge, and she punched Megan in the shoulder. “Shut! Up!”
“Ouch!”
“We have that much!”
Megan rubbed her shoulder and nodded.
“Oh my God, you’re like the best treasurer ever!” Amber said, then wrapped her arms around Megan tightly.
Megan stood there stiffly, unsure what to do.
Amber let her loose. “Okay. You can go back in. Thanks!”
Megan headed back up the stairs and disappeared into the house.
“I take it you guys are doing okay,” I said.
“Uh, yeah!” Amber said, looking like she was about ready to break into a clapping fit again. “I am so not good at math, but thank God Megan is, because whatever she is doing, it is totally working! We are, like, rich!”
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “So you can donate the money.”
Her enthusiasm waned. “I dunno. It feels like we’re just giving him his money back, and that’s a total no-no.”
“He’s not going to be running the soccer programs anymore,” I said. “That’s a guarantee.”
“For sure?”
“For sure. There’s a woman named Belinda who I think will probably be in charge.”
“Oh, I love the name Belinda!”
“Uh, sure. Okay.”
“So we would be giving her the money, then? Not him?”
“You’d be giving it to the association, but she’d be the one managing it,” I assured her. “And honestly, Amber. It’s their money. They shouldn’t suffer because Moises has a gambling problem. That isn’t fair. It’s not fair to my daughter and all the other kids.”
“But we didn’t take it from them. He did.”
“I know that,” I said, feeling like I had her close. “But this is a chance to do the right thing.”
She chewed on a fingernail. “What if I say no?”
I pretended to think on that for a moment. “Well, there’s not much I can do, really. I promised you the Viagra, and I’m giving it to you. Probably the only thing I could do is to tell the people in Rose Petal that the soccer season is over because Moises gambled away all the money with you guys and now—”
“Whoa,” she said, concerned. “Whoa. You would tell them about us?”
“Well, I wouldn’t use your names, but it sounds like most everyone would know who you are. Do you get a lot of clients from Rose Petal?” I asked.
“Like, a ton, yeah.”
“Oh. Well, that might not sit so well with the parents. They might want to take their business elsewhere. But who knows?”
Amber stuck her index finger and thumb in her mouth and ripped off an ear-shattering whistle. Suzie and Megan materialized on the porch in seconds.
“Meeting,” Amber said, waving them down. “Right now.”
She escorted them over to the corner of the yard, where I couldn’t hear them. It was like Amber transformed right in front of my eyes. She went from being the ditsy, gum-chewing face of the organization to the absolute leader in seconds. Her face was grim, and she was gesturing with her hands to her two sorority sisters, speaking emphatically. They were listening raptly. She moved her gaze from each of them, and then they both nodded.
All three came back over to me.
“Okay,” Amber said. “You have a deal.”
“Really?”
“For sure,” she said, lapsing back into her dumb girl mode. “But you have to promise me that you’ll talk us up, ’kay? Don’t give us a bum rap, ’kay?” She paused. “I don’t wanna have to come and shoot you!”
It was silent for a moment.
Then she dissolved into a fit of giggles.
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