The Carrier (9 page)

“
I didn’t say
that.”

“
And it may not even come to
that. We’ll see.”

The man and the woman went back into
their room. Danny and Marcus pressed their ears up against the
wall, but again the man and woman didn’t speak loudly. Sometimes
Danny almost felt like he could understand what they were saying,
but the next moment it sounded like they were speaking a foreign
language, tense but not ugly, like an argument between adults who
respected each other. Soon enough, they went back out to the car,
and the man started trying to remove the tracker.

“
They see it,” Marcus
said.

“
Yup.”

“
So that’s it? We’re
done?”

“
Not necessarily. We just
have to keep them in sight.”

“
You think there’s any way
they’re still going to try to make the pickup?”

“
If they’re greedy enough,
sure. They’ll try to shake us and give it a shot. That’s what I’d
do.”

“
I don’t know if I’m that
greedy.”

“
I think you have to be. We
just have to follow them the old-fashioned way.”

“
That’s going to be
hard.”

“
Gee, you really
think?”

“
I don’t like the way you’ve
been talking to me.”

Danny’s hard edge of sarcasm had come
on suddenly.

“
A lot of times when you
want to make a few hundred thousand dollars you have to put in an
honest day’s work.”

“
They know we’re following
them and the girl has a gun.”

“
Obstacles, yes. But we’re
still going to do this.”

It looked like the man had
given up on removing the tracker. Soon after he and the woman
started scanning the lot, clearly worried that someone was
watching. Well, guess what,
you’re
right
.

“
They’re scared,” Marcus
said.

“
They’ll make
mistakes.”

“
I want a bigger
share.”

“
Dog, that’s all been
settled.”

“
No, now there’s a girl with
a gun, looking around like she wants to shoot someone. You want me
to jump her. I should get more money.”

“
I thought we were friends,”
Danny said.

“
I want half.”

“
You can’t have half—Luis
gets half.”

“
I want half of what’s
left.”

“
Fifty percent
of
fifty percent—that’s
twenty-five percent.”

“
Then that’s what I
want.”

Danny looked at the bigger man. This
was no time to fight. If necessary, he could figure something out
later.

“
You said it would be easy.
You lied to me.”

The man and the woman went back into
the room.

“
What now? Don’t they know
it’s time to run?” Danny said. “Unless they really need to make
just a little more love.”

Danny pressed his ear to the
wall. The man and woman were talking again. He even thought he
heard the words
Your
People
. After about two minutes, they came
out of the room and took off at a quick walk, out of the parking
lot and to the shoulder of the road that led back toward the
town.

“
Give it a minute, then you
follow in the car and I’ll follow on foot,” Danny said. “Keep your
phone on, okay?”

“
Where are they
going?”

“
Probably to
her
car.”

Danny started to fill his water bottle
with soap and tap water.

“
What are you
doing?”

“
We’ll need the tracker too.
Get the car, count to a hundred, and then drive past them. Don’t
slow or look at them.”

“
Don’t look at
them?”

“
Well,
see
them, but don’t act like you are
checking them out. Park when you get closer to Main Street. Keep
your eyes open and we’ll figure things from there.”

Danny shook the bottle until he had
bubble mixture. Marcus probably didn’t have enough money to get
home on his own. If he bailed, he’d have to hitchhike back to Saida
and return even more broke than he’d been.

They walked out to the parking lot and
Danny tossed soapy water on the tracker then hacked it off with a
screwdriver. Marcus got behind the wheel of the car and started the
engine. Danny ran over, waved his arms, and mimed rolling down the
window.

“
Okay, first of all, you did
not count to a hundred,” he said.

“
Yes, I did.”

“
Then you count really fast.
More important, you take this.”

Danny handed Marcus the tracker—it was
still a little wet.

“
What do I do with
it?”

“
Look for out of state
plates—back east probably, most likely more New York
plates.”

“
And I just slap it on a car
with New York plates?”

“
Call me if you find a car
like that and we’ll talk it out.”

“
Okay. What are you going to
do?”

“
I’m going to follow on
foot. If I see them get in a car, I’ll call you.”

“
Okay. Should I go
yet?”

“
97, 98, 99, 100. Okay,
let’s go.”

CHAPTER 14

Inez had a little trouble with the
front door key.

“
Need a hand?” Duane
asked.

“
No, I can open a
door.”

They walked up to the third floor, and
Inez opened to a small one-bedroom apartment. There were afghans on
a bright red couch and bad fake antique lamps on plastic tables. It
wasn’t her apartment. Maybe it was a sublet—there was no way this
junk belonged to Inez.

“
How long you been here?”
Duane asked.

“
A while.”

“
You picked out all the
furniture yourself?”

“
Stop saying things,” she
said and took off her jacket. Then she took off her shoes and
socks, her shirt, and her jeans. She wasn’t a user, not even just
for fun on a Saturday night. That was clear to see. Her skin was
smooth, unmarked, and she smelled a little like an apple. They made
love quickly, quietly, but with an edge of pain. Inez scratched up
Duane’s back as if that were the point; then he pinned her arms
down. She broke free and scratched him up one more time.

He was already looking forward to
trying again, but he also needed to figure out exactly what was
going on. He had plenty of the handsome man’s vanity, but he also
realized that it was possible for a woman to sleep with him for
reasons other than her uncontrollable lust.

“
How come you don’t have
tattoos?” she asked.

“
Why would I want a
tattoo?”

“
Afraid of a
needle?”

“
I’m not afraid of a
needle.”

“
You don’t like
Art?”

“
Not even a
little.”

“
See, I need a man who’s
more cultured.”

“
Like Tony?”

“
Why you even want to say
his name? I find that sinister.”

Tony had tattoos on his arms and neck,
and they were starting to fade. Duane thought tattoos were stupid.
You see some old guy who got a fire-breathing dragon the day before
he dropped onto the Mekong Delta, and now it looked like a bad
magic marker job. Top used to have a small flare of ink—a
blade—that popped from under his collar. He’d had it
removed.

Inez walked across the room. She
glanced out the window then continued to the sink where she poured
herself a glass of water.

“
I see his car,” she
said

“
Who?”

“
Who you think?”

“
You see
him
?”

“
No, just his car, parked in
front of the building. He’s probably right by the front door.
Unless someone let him in already.”

It was impossible to see the front
door from the window without sticking your head all the way out.
Duane had no problem leaving through windows, but that looked
impossible in this case.

“
Why is he doing this?” he
asked.

“
I don’t know. He hates you
and he thinks I’m his girl. That shit’s been going on since, like,
Socrates.”

“
He doesn’t have a key to
the place, does he?”

“
You afraid of
him?”

“
Like I’d be afraid of a
certain kind of cunning animal.”

“
Like what kind of
animal?”

“
One of those mean,
mid-sized ones with teeth? I don’t know—a badger or a wolverine.
It’s better if you know where it is and what it might be
thinking.”

“
Okay so what do we
do?”

Duane started to put on his
clothes.

“
You’re a smart girl. Any
ideas?” he asked.

“
We can order a
pizza.”

“
Okay?”

“
What does he do—we order a
pizza?”

“
Can
we order a pizza this time of night?”

“
Angelo’s,” she said,
gesturing to a pile of menus on the table. “So what does he do if a
pizza comes to the door?”

“
If he thought it was coming
to us—”

“
And he will. We’re the only
ones still up.”

“
Then he takes it and tries
to deliver it to us. And he probably thinks he’s the smartest
motherfucker in all of Newburgh. What do you think he does to the
pizza boy?”

“
You care?”

“
It might
matter.”

“
If he’s smart, he gives him
fifty dollars. If he’s stupid he shoots the kid in the
head.”

“
Tony can be a whole lot of
stupid.”

“
Either way,” Inez shrugged.
“When he gets the pizza, then he comes up here. I just leave the
door open and call from the bathroom—
put
it on the table.”

“
No, better to get him on
the way up. The stairs. Is there a good place to hide on the
stairs?”

“
I wouldn’t know. I don’t
hide in staircases.”

Inez was working on the problem, but
she didn’t seem too concerned about the result. Did she not get
that Tony might want to hurt her too? Or did she have some plan of
her own?

“
Have you ever brought him
here, to this apartment?” Duane asked. “Is he familiar with the
building.”

“
He’s familiar with it,
like—he knows there are stairs and then a door you got to open
before you come into my apartment.”

“
You got anything to hit him
with?”

“
Don’t you got your little
baton?”

“
Something
bigger?”

“
You went Derek Jeter on
that guy’s knee back in the bar.”

“
Derek Jeter? Is he still
alive?”

Duane had found that the
baton was a good weapon to carry around in the
who-knows-what-can-happen
world, but
you could hit someone with it and not end the discussion. That
wasn’t the worst thing in a bar fight, but it was a bad way to go
when the other guy had a gun.

“
I want something a little
heavier,” he said.

Inez spread out her arms; she was
still naked.

“
Anything you see you can
use. I got a frying pan, a toilet duck, some adobo.”

“
What’s adobo?”

“
You never cook a chicken
for yourself?”

Duane lifted up the
mattress.

“
I need to take your bed
apart,” he said.

“
You’ll buy me a new
one?”

“
A better one.”

He kicked a solid metal slat out of
the support and swung it.

“
You think that’s better
than your pipe?”

“
Yes.”

“
A gangster like you doesn’t
have a gun?” she asked.

“
I’m not a
gangster.”

“
Okay.”

“
Why,
you
have a gun?” Duane
asked.

“
No.”

But her answer was odd. The cool
customer just gave something away. Why? Was she showing
off?

“
Hold on—you’ve got a gun in
here?” he asked.

“
No.”

“
Because that would make
things a whole lot easier.”

“
I don’t got a gun. Check
the place. I already said you can use whatever you find. Just stay
out my panty drawer.”

“
Because that’s where you
keep your gun?”

“
No, that’s where I keep the
panties. And you let a man play with your panties on his own, he
starts to get weird.”