The Take (8 page)

“Say,
that’s great,” he replied. “I want you to know I sure do appreciate it! I’d be
much obliged if you’d let me pay for — “

“Oh,
you won’t have to pay us anything,” Felina said, sugar seeping through her
voice. “We’d be happy to give you a ride.”

“Why,
that’s mighty nice of y’all. Mighty nice.” Then he extended his hand. “By the
way, I’m Lowell Garner. From Brenham, Texas. Big B.”

“I’m
Felina. And this is Eddie. We’re from Houston.”

She
gestured for him to sit next to Eddie. He did.

”Ah,
Houston,” Garner said. “Lotta things happening there, all right. Lotta
things. But it’s just too damn big for my
tastes. Ha! Bet you’d never thought you’d hear a Texan say that about anything.”
He shook his head once as if he’d really amazed himself. “In this case, though,
it’s true. Houston’s just gotten out of control. Too much traffic. Too
expensive.”

Felina
nodded. “You’re two hundred percent right, Mr Garner. That’s why we’re leaving.
We’re moving to New Orleans.” Her smile held Eddie’s eyes. He loved it.

Garner
beamed at this disclosure. “Yeah, now there’s a town for you. New Orleans …” He
didn’t seem aware that his
voice
had trailed off to a whisper, while his eyes drifted just a little farther
away.

Finally,
Eddie quit fidgeting with his burger. He pushed his plate a couple of inches to
the side so his elbows could park on the tabletop.

Clasping
his hands together, he said, “If you got any stuff you want to take, you better
get it, ‘cause we’re leaving in a few minutes.”

“Right,
yeah. I got my bag in my car. I’ll go git it.” He jumped up from the booth and
started for the door, then turned and said, “Hey, thanks again, y’all. I sure
do ‘preciate this.”

The
screen door slapped shut behind him. Eddie leaned across the booth, as he
growled through clenched teeth. “What the hell are you doing, dragging him into
this? What is this shit? We don’t need —”

“Eddie
honey, listen to me,” she interrupted. She put her dainty hands in his and
spoke with patience, like a teacher talking to one of her mediocre students. “There’s
people after us and we’ve got to get away from them. This guy sounds like he
knows New Orleans. Maybe he can help us out somehow.” Then she returned her
attention to her hamburger. She picked it up to take a bite, but before she
did, she shifted her voice to business level. “Besides, Val’s gonna be lookin’
for you and me in your old Toyota, not three people in this car we got now.
Okay? It’s bad enough we’re only going to New Orleans. So we need all the cover
we can get.”

Eddie
definitely didn’t like this, but she had a point. He had to admit, it was a
good one. Then his eyes swept over her again, as he began to soften. While she
sat there eating, even
as she
dabbed her napkin at the dressing dribbling down her chin, she was so easy to
look at, so hard to stay mad at.

“Okay,”
he said. “We’ll take this rube with us. But we can’t keep him with us forever.
Just long enough to get to New Orleans.”

A
minute later, Felina looked down at her plate. She swished a french fry around
in a pool of ketchup.

“Eddie.”
Her voice turned singsongy.

“What?”

“When
we get to New Orleans …” She looked up at him and licked her lips once. Just
that one lick made them look so wet. “… I want to make love to you like no one
ever has before. I told you I would make it up to you and I meant it. Is that
okay?”

A blush
tinted his face as he quit breathing and there were big stirrings south of his
belt buckle. Breaking a slight smile, he looked around to make sure no one
could hear.

“Baby,
we’ll do whatever you want. When we get settled down, I’m gonna buy the biggest
damn bed they make. Round. They make ‘em round, you know. And I’m gonna get
sheets of the best silk.”

“What
are you gonna do to me?” she giggled.

More
stirrings — deep, nervous ones, the kind that always took control of him,
that always gave him the whimwhams. They began to drown his thoughts and slur his
speech.

“Oh,
that’s easy. First, I’m gonna take your sweet, sweet legs and I’m gonna put —”

“Okay,
I’m all set.” It was Garner, bag in hand, splashing cold water all over them. “Want
me to wait outside or … or whatever?”

Eddie
cleared his throat, jumping back into the real world. “No. No, we’re ready to
go now. I’ll pay the check. Y’all go on out to the car.”

Outside,
Eddie opened the trunk. As Garner put his bag in alongside Eddie’s and Felina’s,
he said, “Say, that’s some old suitcase you got there, Eddie. Real leather,
with those buckles, like they used to make ‘em. You must’ve had that one quite
a while.”

“Yeah.
Quite a while.” He slammed the trunk shut.

T
hey stayed on
the old road, away from the Interstate, drifting through the lovely, lazy towns
of south Louisiana. New Iberia, Jeanerette, Morgan City. All were quiet in the
deep afternoon, their low, flat buildings somehow blending with the bearded
oaks and pecan trees spread-eagled beneath a reddening sky.

All
through this silent backdrop, Lowell Garner yakked and yakked from the back
seat. He wouldn’t shut up.

“Yep,”
he said, “I used to have four clubs in central Texas. Smallest one seated
eighteen hundred. Willie Nelson played all four of ‘em several times — he’s
a good friend of mine, you know. I been knowing Willie for about twenty-five
years now.”

“Ooh,
Willie Nelson,” said Felina. “He’s really big.”

Garner
tossed off a smug grin. “No brag here, young lady, but the money really did
roll in pretty good for a while. And I’d still be in the damn saddle if I’d’a
kept my eyes open. But that’s what happens, you know, when you get to a certain
position, when you get a little bit o’ success.”

“What
do you mean, Mr Garner? she asked.

“Well,
you know, you start thinking that the top of the pile is all yours by divine
right. Like you’ll be there forever. You get to feeling that nothing can touch
you. And you forget what put you there in the first place. Hard work and sharp
eyes! Yessir. Hard work and sharp eyes, especially in the back of your head.”

Eddie
reflexively eyed the rear view mirror. Felina seemed to be listening, and
increasingly Garner directed his monologue toward her, in search of an
audience. Eddie tried
rolling
down his window, hoping to drown him out with road noise, but no luck.

“`Course,”
Garner went on, “I like to make a bet on an occasional football game, too. And
you know, that doesn’t usually help the ol’ finances.”

The old finances
, Eddie thought.
Occasional bets! That’s what put me here in the first place. If only
the goddam Dodgers … I’d …

Then
Felina’s words came floating back to him: We’re millionaires.

Hmph. What good’s all this dough if I can’t
spend it?

His
foot remained steady on the gas, but his insides rolled over. He was fearful,
mortally fearful, of the tracking that by now had surely begun. But of course,
he would never know the status of the hunt, nor even the identity of his
pursuers, apart from Raymond Cannetta and Val. He was certain, however, that
they would never quit. And he knew that they carried with them the assurance of
long, horrible death, with no compromise. Only in the deepest, darkest corners
could he hope to find a sometime-sanctuary from the sweeping beams of their
searchlights.

The
thing was, nobody made him do this. It’d be a damn sight easier to deal with
this whole thing if he only had someone to blame. But he’d walked into this
bargain with his eyes open, then closed the door behind him. Now it gnawed at
him like a dentist’s drill that just wouldn’t stop.

Exactly
what did he think he was going to do with all this cash? Where did he think he
could go? Where was he going to live? He’d never lived anywhere but Houston
till now. He and Felina couldn’t stay long in New Orleans, that was for damn
sure.

But he
just had to see Linda. He had to. He couldn’t go away without telling her. She’d
never forgive him.

For
now, though, the only thing he could count on was Felina. He’d taken her, and
now she was all his. God damn, it was what he had always wanted. He couldn’t
stop saying that to himself. He didn’t want to.

He
looked at her as she sat there in the passenger seat, turned slightly toward
him. She was now the other half of this … this new thing he had become.

The she
half.

This
she was powerful, wanton, and like all the shes Eddie had known, cruelly corrupting.
He’d already stolen, killed, then put his own damn neck close to the dangling
noose. He didn’t originally do it for her, for this she, but he might as well
have. Because given the chance, he damn sure would’ve.

God
damn right he would have.

He’d do
it all over again if he had to, whatever the hell it took, he’d do it in a
heartbeat. Make no mistake about it.

Not
only that, he’d turn that car around right now and go straight back to Houston
if he thought he could give Salazar back his money and walk away with her. But
no, it was past that now. He couldn’t do that.

Now he
was a millionaire.

T
he car rolled
at a leisurely pace, keeping pace with Eddie’s thoughts. By nightfall, they
were on the outskirts of New Orleans.

“Where
can we take you, Mr. Garner?” asked Felina.

“Down
in the French Quarter, if it’s not too far out of your way,” he replied. “The
Louis Philippe Hotel. You know where it is?”

Eddie
spoke for the first time in over fifty miles. “I know that place. My sister
plays piano in there.”

“Your
sister? She that pretty blonde gal — the one that’s been playin’ there a
few years now?”

“Yeah,
that’s her,” Eddie replied.

“Man,
can that li’l ol’ gal sing or what! I’ve heard her a buncha times.” He leaned
forward and tapped Eddie’s shoulder. “She can play a pretty mean piano, too.
She’s your sister, Eddie? Hot damn!”

A
shiver of pride swept over Eddie as they crossed a huge bridge, which appeared
to be the gateway to the city.

“You’re
gonna have to direct me,” he said over his shoulder to Garner. “I’ve never been
to New Orleans before.”

“It’s
on Bourbon Street, in the French Quarter,” Garner said. “Just turn up here, the
other side of this bridge, and we’ll be there in no time.” Eddie made the turn.
Some minutes later, they crossed a wide, wide street, then entered the cramped
confines of the French Quarter.

≈≈≈

The narrow old streets, barely separating tucked-together buildings,
made Eddie slow down and take notice. They were old, these buildings, older
than any he’d ever seen. They splashed color, too, even now at dusk. Not the
vivid riot of Mexican primary colors, but subtler, more unusual Crayola shades:
mulberry, jungle green, burnt sienna. After a lifetime in the wide, dried,
gray-white expanses of Houston, he twitched uncomfortably from being suddenly
enveloped by the closeness of these bizarre, aging structures.

Balconies
protruded from almost every one of them, while upstairs lights behind curtained
windows made him feel as if someone was watching from a hidden position. On the
street, people moved languidly. He saw no telephone poles or wires overhead,
which made him think. Apart from electric streetlights and a few other
concessions, the nineteenth century had stood still here, like an embalmed
memory.

Garner
was guiding Eddie through the one-way streets, when he said, “Say, how’d y’all
like to join me for dinner? They’ve got a great restaurant at the Louis
Philippe, and I’d like to treat you to a good meal. Kind of show my
appreciation.”

Eddie
was about to decline the offer, when Felina smiled and said, “Oh, that’s very
nice of you, Mr. Garner. We’d love to.”

“Mighty
fine, said Garner. “Here we are. You can park in the hotel lot, Eddie. And by
the way, y’all, please call me Lowell.”

Eddie
pulled into the hotel’s auto entrance. The attendant handed him a ticket, then
slid into the driver’s seat, all in one
practiced motion. Garner was still talking to Eddie, arm draped around
his shoulder. But Eddie’s nervous attention remained riveted to the car as it
whisked up the ramp, tires squealing, with the hot fortune in the trunk.

T
he restaurant
of the Louis Philippe Hotel reeked of class. Eddie had never been in such a
place. He was impressed by the sheer size of the handsome chandelier hanging
over the center of the room, even though he had no way of knowing that it was
made of Spanish crystal from another century. Nor could he ever spot the
high-priced original artwork on the walls.