Quiver (16 page)

“They’re here,” Jack said, coming in the kitchen.

She heard them drive in the yard and looked out the kitchen window. There were two cars, an old Z28 Camaro and another one she could only identify as a customized mid-eighties Chevy. It had a custom paint job and rims and a landau top.

“Don’t go out there with a gun,” Jack said. “They might get the wrong idea. Give it to me or put it on the counter. Let’s not have any trouble, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay,” Kate said. She walked past him and moved through the main room and out the front door.

She watched Luke being lifted from the trunk of the Camaro and it made her mad, made her want to raise the gun and shoot them. She was conscious of the black guy who held a shotgun across his body like he was getting ready to shoot skeet. He was on her left about thirty feet away. Jack was to her right, half that distance, and Mullet,
Luke and the girl straight ahead on the gravel drive.

Luke’s hands were cuffed behind his back like a criminal. They looked at each other, made eye contact and he tried to come toward her, but Mullet held him in place with a chain that was looped around the cuffs. She could see his face was bruised and he looked thin and weak standing there. “Luke, honey, are you okay?”

The girl aimed her pistol at Luke. She said, “He ain’t going to be, you don’t drop the automatic. I’ll shoot the little asshole and wouldn’t that be a shame after we’ve been so patient?”

They all looked familiar. Kate remembered Mullet, the creep from the bar, sitting across the table from her with his greasy hair and confident grin. She remembered him saying they’d probably see each other again because he knew they would, the kidnapping had been planned by then.

She remembered the girl too, thinking she and Mullet didn’t go together. It seemed even more apparent now, as Kate studied her in her black pointed-toe pumps and bootleg jeans, sweater hanging below her tweed fitted jacket, the outfit displaying a mix of fabrics embellished with beads—like she just walked out of an Anthropologie catalog.

The black guy looked familiar too. She remembered the cornrow hair and the gold warm-up and the letter
D
hanging from a heavy chain around his neck—anodized bling. She’d seen him somewhere before, she was sure of it. But where? It was his gold metalflake Chevy that jogged her memory. She remembered it from the gas station in Grayling. He was filling up next to her. Asked her for directions, which seemed odd now, if he was following her. She remembered seeing him at the house, too. He was the DTE man dressed in a blue uniform, checking the meter in the backyard.

Mullet said, “Jack, you tell your girl what we talked about, what we decided?”

Kate said, “No, Jack, I don’t believe you did.” She thought Jack would take charge of the situation, but he stood there looking like he wasn’t sure what to do or who he was siding with.

Jack said to Kate, “There’s only one way out of this, you’ve got to give me your gun.”

Jack stepped toward her and she raised the Beretta and aimed it at him.

He put his hands up and said, “Take it easy.”

The black guy said, “Yo, Jack, where the money at?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “She hid it somewhere.”

The black guy said, “He got one job to do, can’t even do that.”

Mullet said to Jack, “You better tell her what to do, or I will.” Mullet grinned at Kate, the grin mocking her—and in a flashback she saw the face of the skinny cop in Guatemala—looking at her the same way, underestimating her.

Kate held the Beretta at arm’s length down her right side. She’d shoot the black guy with the twelve-gauge first. Then go for the girl. She’d never get Mullet, though, with Luke standing in front of him. She said, “Let him go.”

“We let him go, you put the gun down,” the black guy said. “We cool? You give us something, we give you something—everybody happy.”

“What’re you asking her for?” the girl said. “You tell her.”

“Back nuba, simba,” the black guy said. “We negotiating.”

“Why don’t I just shoot her,” the girl said, “put an end to all this?” She extended her arm, aiming her gun at Kate.

“You hear this thug gangsta bitch?” he said to Mullet.

“You got the twelve-gauge,” the girl said, “you do it, then. Why we putting up with this?”

The black guy said, “Everybody be cool. We gonna make the transaction. Ain’t nobody gonna shoot nobody. We like family now.”

Kate said, “If you shoot me, how you going to find the money?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” the black guy said to Kate. “Let’s quit flambosting, chill this motherfucker. Give peace a chance.”

Mullet pressed the barrel of his gun, a big chrome-plated automatic, against Luke’s temple. He looked at Kate and said, “You got ten seconds—one … two …”

“Don’t worry,” the black guy said, “doubt he can count that high.”

“Mom,” Luke said, “just do what they want, will you?”

Mullet stopped counting.

Everyone turned and looked at him.

Kate dropped the Beretta.

The girl said, “Kick that little weenie gun over here.”

“Little man like Talleyrand,” the black guy said.

“What you talking about?” Mullet said, “Running your mouth, you never stop.”

“Talleyrand, Charles Maurice, motherfucker—French diplomat, homie a Napoléon.”

Teddy said, “Who?”

The black guy shook his head. “Man doesn’t know who Napoléon is.”

Kate knew, of all of them, he was the one to keep an eye on. Don’t be fooled by the street rap, the hip-hop cool, the fractured syntax—he was the smartest one by far, including Jack, who, instead of taking charge, waited to be told what to do like he was the hired help. What happened to him?

Mullet unlocked the handcuffs now and Luke ran to her and put his arms around her and held on tight and she could feel him tremble in her embrace.

The black guy grinned at her and said, “Now we making progress. Got the little man back, take me to the mon-ey.”

When Bill Wink heard the eyewitness account, he couldn’t help but think it was Kate. Joe Lamborne said she looked rich and then described her in perfect detail: a real knockout, five seven, a hundred and fifteen, blond hair, nice rack, looked about thirty-five.

If it wasn’t Kate McCall, she had a twin. The car she was driving sounded familiar too. Wasn’t her
friend cruising around in a green Lexus? Sure, the one with the busted taillight. Bill remembered it parked in front of the market in Omena.

He didn’t say anything to Joe, who’d been suspended without pay, pending an investigation—or to his sergeant. The way he viewed it, Kate was in trouble and this was the perfect opportunity to help her and be a hero.

Of course, his first question was, why was she driving a stolen car? Bill’s mind wrestled with that one until he got a call from Johnny Crow, Johnny saying he saw the rich lady—you know, the one from the woods—she was picking up money, a lot of money, from the bank in Traverse.

Bill called the bank manager, Mr. Ken Calvert, who’d said Mrs. McCall had withdrawn a substantial amount of cash but bank-customer confidentiality prevented him from giving Bill any more information—even in his law enforcement capacity. Although Calvert said he could tell the deputy that he understood it was being used to consummate a real estate deal.

As far as Bill was concerned, it all pointed back to the kidnapping theory. He believed Luke was being held hostage somewhere, and Kate, he believed, was in trouble—needed his help, but was too afraid to
contact him. He was pumped thinking about it, standing in front of the mirror in his bathroom getting dressed, looking at himself, his face with the confident grin. He was wearing his uniform pants and a white T-shirt. He turned sideways and flexed his right arm, the biceps rolling up, making a muscle. He looked strong. He was strong. He could bench-press 325 pounds. Do it five times.

He slipped on a Point Blank Pro Plus vest. It was their top-of-the-line body armor, designed to stop a.357 Magnum 158-grain round, a 240-grain.44 Magnum, and even a 148-grain.762 Nato round fired by an M16. Only thing it couldn’t handle was a 30.06. If one of the kidnappers had a big bore rifle he was out of luck, but he seriously doubted that would be the case.

He put his uniform shirt on over the vest, buttoned it and tucked it in his pants. He strapped his black leather Safariland duty belt around his waist. Fully loaded it weighed fourteen pounds and had everything he needed: his ASP tactical baton, two sets of handcuffs, two extra magazines for his Glock, flashlight, key keeper and pepper spay. The pepper spray had an aerosol projector for long-range deployments, which meant he could blind a perp from fifteen feet or more. He unhooked his holster and drew
his Glock 21, pointed it at the mirror image of himself.

He’d cleaned the gun the night before, dipped a patch in solvent and passed a jag through the bore to loosen the fouling. The barrel was still dirty, so he did it again. Then he’d dipped a phosphor brush in solvent and scrubbed the forcing cones, ejectors and slides where a lot of powder residue had built up, working it until everything was nice and clean. He’d popped in the magazine, pulled back the slide and loaded a hollow point in the throat.

He looked at himself in the mirror again, nodded his approval and walked out of his trailer where the mud-splattered cruiser was parked. He made a mental note to get it washed. He was a Leelanau County sheriff ’s deputy, and as such, he had to portray a positive image.

He opened the trunk, took out his Hi-Standard Flite King twelve-gauge and loaded it with five Hevi-Shot Nitro Magnum shells. He closed the trunk, got in the car, put the shotgun on the floor—barrel pointing down. He forgot his hat and went inside to get it.

His stomach was nervous when he got back in the car. The full import of what he was about to do weighing on him now. Should he call for backup?
He couldn’t say with absolute certainty that something was actually going to happen. It was all a hunch and if he was wrong, he’d look like a fool. But if he was right, then what?

Teddy said, “I never seen so much money in one place in all my days. I’m going to buy me a Ford F250 4 × 4 with the extended cab and a set of twenty-inch rims. That is one sweet truck.”

He reminded Kate of a kid on Christmas.

Celeste knelt across from Teddy. She put her pistol on the rug, picking up crisp, just-off-the-press packets of money. The white bands that went around the bills had “$10,000” stamped on them.

“What’re you going to get yourself?” Teddy said.

“Anything I please,” Celeste said.

“That’s the way,” Teddy said. He was eating potato chips out of the bag, drinking a can of Bud. He said, “Hey, know what the best beer in the world is?”

Celeste didn’t acknowledge him, her attention fixed on the money.

“Free beer,” Teddy said.

“What if you don’t like it—it isn’t your brand?” Celeste said.

“Who cares?” Teddy said. “If it’s free, it’s good.”

Kate watched them from the breakfast room while she set the table.
Like the two million in front of you
, she was thinking. She didn’t care about the money, just wanted them to leave.

Teddy was on his knees on the floor, picking up handfuls of it. He glanced at Kate and said, “Well, I sure am grateful to you for this. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. Now, where’s my supper at?”

“It’s cooking,” Kate said.

“Well, hurry it up,” Teddy said. “I’m so hungry, I could eat the ass out of a wild boar.”

Celeste got up and sat on one of the leather couches, feeding Leon a pretzel. She said, “Does him yike that? Does him tink it’s nummy? Does him?”

She sat on the edge of a cushion now, patted her thighs, looked at Leon, and said, “Uppy. Come on, uppy.”

Leon looked at her like she was crazy and then thought what the hell and lifted his front paws up. She grabbed them and said, “Thay, thay, thay …”

Then Celeste let go of Leon’s paws and slid off the couch on her knees, hugging the dog who went down and rolled over on his back, pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Celeste scratched his chest and
rubbed his neck. “Him’s tha big man, yeth him ith, yeth him ith.”

Leon rolled over and got back on his feet and Celeste gave him another pretzel. She said, “Him’s a cooter, ithn’t him?” She took his head in her hands and rubbed it. “Yeth him ith. Yeth him ith.”

Teddy took a swig of beer and said, “Why’re you talking in that stupid fucking voice? God, that’s annoying.”

Celeste said, “You’re annoying. You don’t like it, don’t listen.”

Jack was on the other side of the room by himself, sitting in a leather chair, cuffed to a belly chain. He looked helpless. Kate met his gaze, thinking, you brought this on yourself, don’t look at me for sympathy.

She went back in the kitchen and flipped the burgers that were sizzling, grease popping in a fourteen-inch skillet. She’d made six patties from a two-pound mixture of round and chuck. Teddy’d said he was hungry and told her to get her ass in the kitchen and make them supper. Her real motivation was to feed Luke, who said he hadn’t eaten much in three days.

Kate heated up a couple cans of Bush’s beans and made potato salad with red skins and celery and red
onion mixed with oil and mayo. She was thinking about the scene in the yard as she watched the meat fry—the situation tense till Luke diffused it: Mom, just do what they want, will you?

After they released Luke she led them to the pump house, a log structure that looked like a mini version of the lodge and had a well inside. The pump house was in plain sight, nestled between the yard and the woods. She opened the door and there was the money stacked on the floor. She’d parked in the woods and unloaded it.

DeJuan said to Jack, “What’s the matter with you? Money right here, Jack still looking for clues.”

Jack said, “You got it, don’t you? What’s the problem?”

They’d turned on him after that, like it was their plan all along. DeJuan brought the chain from his car and cuffed Jack on the spot.

DeJuan said, “Check it out—Hiatt-Thompson belly chain, answer to all your security needs. Meets US National Institute of Justice tests for workmanship, strength and tamper resistance.”

He glanced at Teddy and said, “Best of all, it’s made right here in the good ole US of A.”

Kate was thinking a belly chain could’ve come
in handy with the neighborhood men who’d hit on her—lock them down and send them home to their wives.

Jack said, “What is this?”

DeJuan said, “This payback, motherfucker.” He pulled on the chain. “How that feel? Feel like you back in the joint, I can see it.”

Teddy said, “We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

“Jack,” DeJuan said, “he not loyal to no one but his self.”

Kate could relate.

She heard DeJuan’s voice now, turned and saw him come in the room, still carrying the shotgun. Teddy was on the floor hoisting handfuls of money like a pauper idiot.

“Yo, be cool,” DeJuan said. “Don’t be bruising the greens.”

Teddy said, “Huh?”

DeJuan said, “Give a brother some love.”

He threw a banded packet and DeJuan caught it with his right hand. He brought the stack of bills up to his nose, inhaling like it was something he’d just taken off the barbecue.

“Nothing like the smell of fresh green,” DeJuan said.

Luke was in bad shape—face beat up, wrists bleeding from the handcuffs. Kate rubbed Neosporin on the cuts and gave him Motrin for the pain. His clothes were mud-covered. He was standing at the kitchen counter stuffing food in his mouth: cheese and crackers, hunter’s sausage, slices of bread and butter. She’d never seen him so hungry. She held his little face in her hands and said, “What’d they do to you?”

“Teddy likes to hit people.”

Kate could feel herself getting angry. “Well, he’s not going to hit you anymore.”

“It’s my fault,” Luke said. “I shouldn’t have come up here.”

“They were going to do it anyway.”

“I thought Jack was your friend.”

“I did too,” Kate said.

Luke had tears in his eyes and she hugged him and said, “It’s going to be okay now.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said.

“They’ll be gone soon and we’ll go home,” Kate said.

He glanced down at the floor and back up, meeting her gaze. He looked like he was about to say something, but hesitated.

Kate said, “What?”

“I heard them talking,” Luke said. “We know what they look like. They said they’re going to… kill us.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Kate said. “They got what they wanted. There’d be no reason to.” Then she thought about the killers in
In Cold Blood
. They didn’t have a reason, either.

“No reason to do what?” DeJuan said, coming in the kitchen.

“You want something?” Kate said, her voice tense.

“Checking up on northern Michigan cooks. There a meal somewhere in our future?”

Kate said, “We’re all set. Everybody sit down.”

“Well halle-fucking-lujah,” DeJuan said.

She couldn’t stop thinking about what Luke said. There was no way, she told herself. They were going to eat and leave. Jack would never have agreed to that. But, as she analyzed the situation, Jack didn’t appear to have much sway at the moment. Kate brought the burgers to the table on a platter with slices of red onion and tomatoes and dill pickles. She
went back in the kitchen and got the bowls of potato salad and beans and put them on the table next to the burgers. She said to Teddy, “Okay, here you go.”

Teddy and DeJuan and Celeste sat down and filled their plates and ate like it was the last supper. Kate thought it was odd that these people who’d just collected two million dollars were so concerned about their stomachs.

DeJuan held his burger in his hands and said, “You and the little man sit down, join us,”

“I’m not hungry,” Kate said.

“Don’t matter,” DeJuan said. “Want your company.”

She knew their names now: Teddy, Celeste and DeJuan—Teddy had introduced everyone earlier like they were neighbors getting together for the first time. Luke sat on the end next to DeJuan, with his back to the room. Kate sat next to Celeste, across from Teddy, who was shoveling potato salad in his mouth and had grease from the burger dripping off the end of his chin.

“What about Jack?” Kate said.

“What about him?” Teddy said.

Kate said, “Can I give him something to eat?” She wanted a chance to talk to him, find out what he thought, what he knew.

“Hell no,” Teddy said. “He gets to set there, smell it and get hungry.”

Kate could feel her patience wearing thin.

Teddy had mayo in the corners of his mouth, talking while he chewed his potato salad. “I was thinking I might get me a Harley—”

Celeste said, “Think you could stop talking with your mouth open, use your napkin? You got the manners of an animal, I swear.”

DeJuan said, “Man spent his formative years hanging with sheep. What you expect?”

Kate felt the tension building. She couldn’t hold it in any longer and said, “You’ve got your money. Why don’t you take it and get the hell out of here?”

“Whoa,” Teddy said, and grinned. “What the hell’s got into you?” He winked at Celeste and she smiled. “I don’t think she likes us.”

“I don’t think about you one way or the other,” Kate said. She made eye contact with Luke, could see he was worried.

“Oh, you don’t, huh?” Teddy said. “What’s the matter? We not good enough for you?”

“She wants us to leave,” Celeste said. “Then what’s she going to do, call the police?” Celeste looked across the table at her. “You going to tell them what we look like?”

“ ’Course she is,” Teddy said. “She’s going to tell them everything about us.”

Celeste said, “My-oh-my, what should we do with ’em?”

Teddy looked at her and flashed a lunatic grin. “You know what we’re going to do.”

Kate could see he got pleasure out of this—making them squirm. She glanced at Luke and then at Teddy. “You’re not going to do anything,” she said, trying to convince herself. She was afraid now, but smiled at Luke, trying to ease the tension.

Celeste said, “I’d be worried if I were them.”

“Don’t listen to that,” Jack said. “They’re just trying to scare you.”

Teddy glanced over at Jack and said, “The fuck do you know?” Now he looked across the table at Kate and said, “He tell you what happen in Arizona?”

Jack said, “That’s old news.”

Teddy ignored him and said, “We hit A.J.’ s—this rich-folk gourmet market in the foothills of the Catalinas. Planned it for Sunday evening, get their take from the weekend. Do it with a lot of people around, we don’t attract attention. Me and him,” indicating DeJuan, “filled up carts like real shoppers.”

He shoveled a forkful of beans in his mouth and kept talking.

“The office was upstairs, so Jack and I go up and open the door and catch the manager fooling around with this young cute thing, had her blouse off, man pawing her sweater puppies. They both looked at us and manager says, ‘Can I help you?’ And Jack says, ‘Yeah, you can take your hands off her and show us the safe.’ The manager says, ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ Jack pulls his Colt Python and says, ‘Does this look like a joke to you?’

“Jack went in the other room and cleaned out the safe and I duct-taped the manager and the girl together and watched the door. After about ten minutes, I went to check on him, and he wasn’t there. Disappeared with $257,000. Left me standing there holding my dick. Pardon my French.”

Teddy glanced across the room at Jack. “That sound about right to you?”

What Teddy left out—the most important part—was the police showing up. Jack had cleaned out the safe, filled two A.J.’ s grocery bags, the kind with paper handles. Glanced out the window behind the store. There was a driveway for delivery trucks to pull up and beyond it a brick wall that bordered the employee parking lot. He watched two Tucson police
cars cruise in at high speed, lights flashing, and hit their brakes.

He crossed the room, went into the manager’s office. The manager and his half-clothed assistant were still on the couch, duct-taped together. He didn’t see Teddy at the door and he left the office and walked into the hallway. He heard the din: sounds and voices coming up the stairs from the market floor. He followed the hallway to the end, pushed open a steel door that had a sign that read: do not
OPEN ALARM WILL SOUND
.

It didn’t.

And now he was running across the green metal roof of the strip mall over Starbucks, Target, Blockbuster, Subway, Home Depot. He hid behind a giant air-conditioning unit, catching his breath. He looked back, saw a cop in a tan uniform appear on the roof a hundred yards away, holding his gun with two hands, swinging his arms in a short jerking motion like cops on TV.

Jack opened a roof hatch, slid his hands through the handles of the paper bags and climbed down a steel-rung ladder into the Home Depot stockroom. He saw boxes arranged on huge floor-to-ceiling shelves. He could see a guy driving a Hi-Lo across the room and walked in the opposite direction, went out
a swinging door into the showroom with his two A.J.’ s grocery bags full of money and kept going.

Jack walked four blocks to the Adobe Flats motel, checked in and poured the money on the queen-size bed and counted it. There was $166,000 (although A.J’s would later say it was $257,000 and that was the amount quoted in newspaper articles).

He took a wad of bills and folded it and put it in his pocket and put the rest back in the bags. He stood on the bed and reached up and pushed a ceiling tile in. The room had a drop ceiling. He put the money up in the space and replaced the tile.

He heard sirens outside and got off the bed and went to the window and pulled the curtains apart and saw two police cars speed by on Campbell, lights flashing. If they got split up, they were supposed to meet at the Rodeo Bar on Speedway. But first he had to have something to eat. He was starving, hadn’t had a thing since morning and it was going on six in the evening. He walked out of the motel and crossed the motor court and went two blocks to a taco stand with picnic tables he’d seen earlier, called Guero’s. He wanted an ice-cold Dos Equis for his parched throat and a plate of chicken burritos and beans and rice for his empty stomach but got a couple of Glock nines in his face instead.