Run For the Money (21 page)

“You got the money.”

Emma looked over her shoulder to the tub. “Yeah. Isn’t it great? I knew you’d be coming so I wanted to have it all ready to go.”

“You knew I’d be coming, huh?”

“Well, yeah. You’re all over the news, babe. How did you do it?” That was a genuine question. How the hell did he manage to beat the odds to come all this way just to screw up her plans?

“It was an act of God.” Slick stood firm. He wanted to give her enough rope.

“Well, then, praise Jesus. Mind if I get dressed?”

“Go ahead.” She went to the closet to pick out a new outfit.

“Got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

“Sure. Help yourself.”

Slick went to the kitchen. Emma called to him from the bedroom. “So how did you not get caught? It must have been hell trying to get here and not get noticed.”
Especially with that ugly mug.

“You have no idea.”

Slick opened a cabinet and took out a box of Strawberry Pop Tarts. He opened one of the foil bags and started eating.

Emma came in wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. “Aren’t you gonna toast that?”

“No,” he said through a full mouth. “I like them better this way.”

“So,” she said. “What’s the plan?” Her mind spun with ideas from clobbering him with a frying pan to offering to split the money and go their separate ways.

“I figured I’d come along on your plan.”

“What plan?”

“Whatever you’ve got cooking over here. I’ll . . . tag along. If you don’t mind.”

Shit. He knew something. Not sure what, but something.

“My plan was to get the money and wait for you to get here with a plan.” She forced a laugh.

“Is that right?” She should have stayed naked. He wouldn’t have shot her naked. “You still thinking the islands?”

“Yeah. You know I love the beach.”

“I was thinking mountains. Is that a problem?”

Some kind of trick question, Emma knew it. There was no right answer. “If that’s what you want, babe. You earned the money. I just kept it warm for you.”

“That’s not all you kept warm.” Her fake smiled faded.

A knock at the door. Emma moved quickly there. “Who is it?”

“Delmer.”

Emma never thought she’d be happy to hear that idiot’s voice. Slick sank back into the doorway to the bedroom as she opened the door. It wasn’t Delmer’s face she saw first.

It was Bo.

“This guy says he knows you. Wants to come in.”

Bo tried to smile, but his face wouldn’t cooperate. One half of him smiled, the other stayed wilted, the blackened hole in his cheek whistling with each breath.

“Yeah. I know him. Thanks.” What a Goddamn shame, whatever happened to him, thought Emma. Such a pretty boy and now look at him. She might even choose Slick over a guy with a hole in his face.

Emma opened the door wider for Bo to enter. At least with him inside the bulls-eye would move off of her.

“Thanks,” said Bo, spit gathering at the edges of the hole.

“And Delmer,” Emma turned to him, smiling. “Tell your mom I have her rent. She should come down to get it.”

“Rent’s due on the first.”

Fucking retard wasn’t getting it. “Just tell her I have her money.”

“You got time still.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Just tell her.” She closed the door, not confident at all her message got through to Delmer. If Sylvia showed up, Emma could use it as cover. Sylvia would call the cops for no reason at all, two wanted fugitives in her basement? Can’t dial 9-1-1 fast enough.

So far the plan was: throw enough shit at the wall and see what sticks.

“Hello, partner,” said Slick emerging form the bedroom, gun in hand.

“Hey there,” said Bo resting a hand on the gun in his front pocket, a poor man’s holster.

“I thought I left you on the train tracks.”

“You did.”

Slick waved the gun at Bo’s cheek. “That happen in the wreck?”

“Nope. Guess you’re not the only one who has it out for me this week.” Bo leaned his head back exposing his neck and the row of bristles cutting along his knife wound.

“Yeah,” said Slick. “It’s a dog eat dog world out there.”

“Ain’t the dogs I’m worried about.” Bo managed a smile.

Emma walked past the men into the kitchen, cutting the tension. “Bo, what are you doing here?”

“I want my share.”

“Share of what?” Slick said. “Share of the job you fucked up?”

“I want my share. Not a dollar more. Then we go in opposite directions.”

“Like hell.”

“You go where you want. I was thinking more like a beach somewhere.” Emma got sad. Bo would have been a perfect plan. Two against one they take out Slick and she runs off to an island with Bo. He’d be good for some hammock humping. But now, Jesus, black hole in his cheek, Frankenstein scar on his neck.

Slick’s mind did calculations.
Shoot Bo, then Emma
. The whole house would hear. He could get the money into that suitcase on the bed in under a minute. The Challenger was a half block away. No way cops could respond that fast. The house was all college girls and an old lady. If that halfwit son of hers tried anything stupid he’d get a bullet in the brain.

But wait. Shoot Bo, keep Emma. Make her pack the money. Take her along then dump her when he needed to.
Or would she slow him down?
Okay, okay, shoot Bo then shoot Emma—

Bo drew his gun, he spun it and aimed it at Emma’s head. He figured better not to point a gun at Slick. No negotiating with that. But Emma, there was leverage.

“All I want is my half.”

“You could have had it if you didn’t get caught, dumbass.”

“It was your brilliant idea.”

“Not the getting caught part.”

Emma backed away from the gun until her back hit the counter. She gripped a drawer handle to steady herself.

“Slick, look,” Bo started. “We both got a second chance. We both made it here. I know it wasn’t easy for me and I doubt it was easy for you. We split the money and split up. Like it was from the start. When that van crashed, it hit reset on the whole job. This is like being back there on the night of the split. Just act like I never got picked up.”

“But, you did.” Why was he arguing? Shoot them both.

“You’re not hearing me. This is do-over time. This plan was good enough then. Let’s stick to it. Your plan.”

Slick saw the fear in Emma’s eyes. He knew why he couldn’t shoot her. Escape. Part of the plan. But never alone. That wasn’t ever on the list. He’d been getting by on small scores for years. The kind of stuff that never would have gotten him twenty-five years. But, once she came in to his life, he did it all for her. To leave now without her made it all pointless.

Well, what do you know? At his heart, Slick was a romantic.

“Emma, get the man a bag.”

Bo half-smiled. Emma couldn’t believe it. “What kind?”

“I don’t care.”

“I got one of those eco bags for groceries.”

“Emma, I don’t give a shit. Just give him something.”

Under the sink Emma retrieved a large square bag with a green recycling symbol on the side. She handed it to Bo.

“Where’s the money?”

“The bathtub,” she said.

“Let’s go.” Bo walked her at gunpoint into the bathroom. Slick followed, hand on his gun, but he left it down around his waist. Before he got any fancy ideas of pulling a Wyatt Earp he had to make perfectly sure Bo wasn’t going to have time to fire a round into Emma or that his death grip wouldn’t discharge a final shot as he went down.

The worst case scenario to this whole thing still had Slick coming out over three hundred grand ahead. Not too bad. The rent on the last forty-eight hours was pretty damn high, though. The full $642,000 would about cover it.

Bo stood over the tub looking at the money like a long lost friend. Even though it was rain soaked and droopy, the stacks of green were a welcome sight. One of those stacks would fit through the mail slot on his Mother’s house. An apology and goodbye.

Bo gestured with the gun to Emma. “Fill ‘er up.” His cheek was numb but his headache was back, a needle behind his eyes. Should have gotten a doggy bag for that morphine.

Emma crouched to her knees and started lifting fists of money into the bag she had open on the tile beside the tub.

“Should I count?” Bo asked.

“No,” said Slick. “Don’t bother. Just do half the stacks.”

“Slick, I thank you for being a gentleman about this. Who says there’s no honor among thieves?”

“Fuck, everyone says that.” Slick whipped his gun around and fired.

Splatter from Bo’s skull dotted the cash. Emma felt a warm wetness on her right side. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the blood.

For a strange nanosecond the pressure of Bo’s headache was lifted and he died feeling a great relief. Bo slumped and fell, his head hitting the sink as he went and the porcelain separated an already loose piece of skull making a flap that opened above his left ear, exposing his brain like a fruit on display at the grocery store.

Emma stifled a scream. She stood, shaking the way someone does who’s been subjected to something gross like bird poop or vomit from a drunk friend.

Slick reached behind him and dumped out the suitcase on the bed. He slid the open, empty case along the floor to Emma’s feet.

“Like the man said, fill ‘er up.” He kept the gun trained on her.
Hot damn
, he thought,
finish line in sight
.

Emma tried to ignore the sound of blood flowing from Bo’s head onto the tile floor like someone left the faucet on. She peeked through slitted eyes down to the tub and reached in for the money stacks as if she was being asked to grab the contents of a full toilet bowl.

“Drop it, Eddie.”

Slick heard a second dripping behind him playing in out-of-sync stereo with Bo’s bleeding on the bathroom floor. He turned to see MacKaye, a revolver outstretched before him and wet like a rag.

Like a hostage released from a siege, Emma let tears overtake her and she slid to the floor beside the bathtub.

Slick aimed his gun right back at MacKaye. MacKaye knew he was dealing with the most dangerous of men – one with nothing to lose.

“I said drop it, Eddie.”

“No one calls me Eddie any more.”

“Okay, Slick. Just do it.”

“How’d you get out of the car?”

“Good Samaritan stopped to help me. I commandeered his car in the name of the law.”

“Must have been a swimmer in high school.”

“All state.”

Slick nodded with a little grin.

“Let me ask you this,” Slick said. “Is she not the best piece of ass you’ve ever had?”

“Is that why you ran me off the road? Over her? Or because you didn’t want to get caught?”

“A little of both. I tell you what, I’ll let you have her. I’ll take the money. Deal?”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“You already broke the rules when you fucked her, didn’t you?”

Emma wiped her tears and looked up at Slick. So he knew. And he was genuinely hurt by it. “Slick, I—”

“You shut up!” He never took his eyes off MacKaye. It was a rage Emma had never seen directed at her before. Other people, yes. Plenty of times. But, never her. His back was to her but she knew his scar would be pulsing purple.

She wanted MacKaye to hurry up and shoot him.

“Slick, you already came to peace about going on up to Wharton. Let’s finish that ride.”

“You know what? Wait, what’s your name anyway?”

“MacKaye.”

“Alright, MacKaye, you know what? I was never really on board with the idea of prison. I do like the idea of taking a ride though. Where would you go? If you had all that money.” Slick nodded his head towards the bathtub. MacKaye didn’t answer. “Me? I’d go to the mountains. She wanted the beach. And you know, I was gonna go there. Keep her happy. That’s how much I loved her. I guess I should have seen it for what it was. We’re two different people. She’s a beach girl, I’m a mountain man. She’s a little bit country, I’m a little rock and roll. It never could have worked, could it?”

Jesus Christ, thought Emma. Shoot him already!

Slick continued: “You better ask yourself MacKaye, where would you go? Because she’s gonna ask you. She’s gonna try to talk you into the beach. She’s gonna use her body. She’s gonna lie. But, if you’re going to please her, I’m here to tell you, it won’t work out that way. An escape isn’t an escape if you’re not going where you want to go. That’s just prison with another name.”

The first shot caught him in the neck. It spun Slick’s body and sprayed blood from an artery like a sprinkler head. Slick wheeled around to where the shot came from. The floor of the bathroom. Emma. Holding Bo’s gun.

Slick fired. Emma’s white t-shirt, speckled with Bo’s head, sprouted a red stain all her own.

MacKaye shot, catching Slick in the chest and sending him back toward the bed. Slick began to fall. He turned his body and lifted his arm, firing wildly once which hit the wall next to MacKaye and once more catching MacKaye in the forehead. His head snapped back and his body fell out the doorway into the kitchen area. He landed looking up at the underside of the table where he nailed Emma. MacKaye died with vivid memories on his mind.

Slick fell to the floor, his heart stopped pumping, the muscle too damaged to go on. He died thinking of a mountain stream, a cabin with smoke curling from the chimney and no one else for miles around.

Emma drowned to death, her lungs filling with blood that choked off all oxygen to her brain. She died thinking if she could only make it to the phone and change her reservation to a later flight . . .

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D
elmer wasn’t the type to lift Emma’s shirt and look at her tits just because he could. He would have been very disappointed anyway, what with the hole in the right one. The one she considered the better of the two.

He looked down at the carnage like a picture in a book, studying. The ten percent lack of understanding, the curse of his learning disability, became a blessing. He wasn’t repulsed or horrified. Just curious.

Sylvia rushed in behind him, a large leather satchel in her hand.