Trust Me (17 page)

    Johnny heard sirens and saw something going on in the Mountain Jack's parking lot, and then he saw Karen come out of the room, rolling the suitcase along the balcony and he felt sick to his stomach. He got out of the car and waited behind the stairs. He could hear the suitcase coming down, bumping the edge of each step, taking forever. When Karen got to the bottom, he stepped out and surprised her.

    "Jesus," she said. "Where've you been? We've got to get out of here."

    "You weren't going to leave without me," Johnny said, "were you?"

    "I heard sirens and got nervous," Karen said.

    He studied her face to see if she was lying, but couldn't tell. "You think they're coming for you?" Johnny gripped the handle of the suitcase. He glanced at all the action in the Mountain Jack's parking lot and said, "Everything's cool, baby. Somebody probably had a heart attack, or got a chicken bone stuck in their throat, that's all."

    Johnny lifted the suitcase and started up the stairs, so much for their new life together.

    Karen didn't know if she should say something else or just let it go. She assumed Johnny believed her because he wanted to. Now she had to come up with another excuse to get away from him. Maybe she'd just wait till he drank more champagne and fell asleep. He stood the bag up on its wheels and closed the door. She was going to ask him where the vodka was when he turned and hit her and then she flew over the bed and landed on the floor, dazed, the shoulder bag twisted around her neck, choking her.

    After that, it was like waking up out of a deep sleep. Karen was woozy, not fully conscious. She watched him come around the bed, towering over her. He stepped toward her and kicked her as she was trying to sit up and the pain exploded in her ribs, knocking the wind out of her. Her first instinct was to get air in her lungs. Then she put her hands up, trying to protect herself as he came at her and kicked her again. Her shoulder stung where he made contact. She fell back on the floor, the thin carpeting not giving her much of a cushion.

    When she looked up he had a gun in his hand, a small semiautomatic. He racked it and aimed it at her, hesitated, moved to the bed and picked up a pillow. He was going to kill her there was no doubt in her mind. Karen panicked, reached her hand in her purse, trying to find the Mag. She felt the barrel and moved her hand down and wrapped her fingers around the grip as Johnny moved toward her again. The gun was stuck. She couldn't get it out and held up the purse, a Kate Spade knockoff, and pulled the trigger and the gun
roared.

    The round hit him in the stomach and went through him, punching a hole in the wall. He dropped the pillow and stepped back and sat on the bed, a look of surprise on his face, glancing down at the little red spot on his white designer polo. He still had the gun in his hand. He tried to raise his arm up and aim it at her, but didn't have the strength, and he fell back on the bed and didn't move.

    Karen's ears were ringing from the gunshot. She sat up on her knees, her legs bent underneath her. She was still dizzy and leaned on the bed and pulled herself up and sat on the edge. Her vision was clearing, taking in the scene. Johnny was flat on his back- dead, eyes open staring at the ceiling.

    Karen felt sick and got up and went in the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. She went to the sink and rinsed out her mouth and checked herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face hurt. Her left cheekbone was red and puffy. She went back in the bedroom and wrapped a washcloth around a handful of ice cubes from the bucket and pressed it to her face. She went to the window, hoping she wasn't going to see police cars pulling up, and cracked open the curtains. There was a red Mustang creeping though the parking lot below. Karen felt her heart race.

    She opened the motel room door and watched Bobby and Lloyd cruise to the end of the building and turn right. She picked up her bag and left the room and went down the stairs, walked past the first floor rooms to the breezeway where the vending machines were, and crossed through to the opposite side of the building. The red Mustang was stopped behind her Audi. Bobby was out of the car looking through the driver's side window. She'd parked the Audi there yesterday because there were no spaces in front. Inconvenient at the time-now it was a stroke of luck.

    Karen ran back upstairs, heart racing, nerves jangled, and fished the keys out of Johnny's pocket. She covered him with the bedspread and wheeled the suitcase out of the room.

    Lloyd pulled into the Mountain Jack's parking lot and Bobby saw the flashing lights. Saw the minivan surrounded by cop cars, an EMS van, a fire truck, and a reporter from the Channel 7 Action News team, a good-looking black girl with a solemn expression, talking on camera. It reminded Bobby of a movie scene, people standing behind yellow police tape, gawking, trying to find out what was happening. Two paramedics lifted Wade out of the mini- van onto a gurney.

    "We better check the restaurant," Lloyd said.

    Bobby said, "You think she stopped to have a piece of prime rib, do you?"

    "You're the fucking know-it-all. Why're you asking me?"

    Lloyd was developing a real attitude problem. Bobby said, "I think we've got a better chance of finding her at the motel if she's still around."

    "Don't let me stop you," Lloyd said.

    There was a Red Roof Inn next door. Maybe she went over and made a phone call, or got a room, and if they were real lucky, she'd checked in with her own name. They weren't. There was no guest by the name of Karen Delaney or Karen anything. The hick behind the reception desk, whose name was Gregg with three g's, couldn't remember seeing an attractive woman with red hair around the property. Property? Referring to it like it was a resort. Bobby got a kick out of that.

    "You'd remember her," Bobby said.

    They cruised through the parking lot hoping to spot Karen, but what they saw behind building number three was almost as good, a silver Audi A4 with black interior, the Audi looking out of place among all the trucks and SUVs. Bobby flashed back to Eastern Market, and saw Karen getting out of a car just like it. Lloyd said he was going to start knocking on doors. He'd check every goddamn room if he had to. He wasn't leaving till he found the money. Bobby had a better idea. You want to get people out of their rooms? Create an emergency.

    Karen brought the suitcase down the stairs and saw Johnny's

    BMW parked across the driveway. She'd get her car later.

    "Hey, miss, your brother's looking for you."

    She heard the voice, a southern accent, and saw this sleazy-looking guy coming toward her. He was talking to
her.
She slipped her hand in the shoulder bag and gripped the Mag and said, "I don't have a brother."

    "Well he's here looking for you. I'm Gregg with the motel."

    She moved toward the BMW and he went with her.

    "You were supposed to meet him."

    She wondered if this Gregg with the motel was all there. "Listen to me," Karen said, "he's not my brother, we're not related." She approached the BMW and opened the trunk and Gregg helped her load the suitcase in it. Then the alarm went off and God was it loud, like the sound of a car alarm but twenty times louder. Gregg turned and looked around and said, "If you'll excuse me, I've got to check this out."

    He took off heading for the office and people started coming out of their rooms now, trying to figure out what was going on. There was a guy with a towel wrapped around his waist and shaving cream on his face. Was there really a fire? Karen didn't see any smoke or anything. She turned and saw Bobby coming through the breezeway, locking his gaze on her as she got in Johnny's car. Things were happening fast. She heard sirens and people were scrambling all over the place. Karen slid the Mag out of her purse and put it on the seat next to her. She put it in reverse and backed up as Bobby ran to the BMW, standing in front of it, blocking her. She knew he couldn't do anything with all the people around.

    Karen accelerated and the BMW took off and Bobby jumped out of the way. He tried to keep up with her, he ran next to the car, yelling something at her until she punched it and saw him fade in the rearview mirror.

    O'Clair ordered lamb and rice and Roditis that was served up to the brim in a little juice glass. He sat in a booth and ate, watching the room with its fake Greek decor-plaster columns and plastic olive vines and black and white photographs of Greek monuments framed on the walls. The lunch crowd was about gone at 1:30 in the afternoon. People had eaten and headed back to work. O'Clair studied Lou Starr, watching him greet people as they came in the door, wondering why a guy who owned twenty-five restaurants didn't hire someone with a little more personality to do it.

    "Welcome to the Parthenon," Lou said in a flat voice that had no enthusiasm. The voice saying I don't care if you eat here or not. He didn't have a Greek name. He looked Greek though, stocky, bull of a man, with a surly hardass edge. Nothing like Anthony Quinn in
Zorba the Greek,
who made being Greek look like a lot of fun, dancing and drinking wine.

    O'Clair cut a piece of lamb off the shank. He piled some rice and tomato sauce on his fork and shoveled it in his mouth. The lamb was dry and hardly had any taste. He washed it down with a swig of wine.

    Lou Starr said something to the hostess and disappeared down a hallway. O'Clair had seen it when he came in. There was an office and restrooms. O'Clair thought Lou should let somebody else greet customers and concentrate on making the food better. He'd have given it one star if he were a restaurant critic, one out of four. He got up and paid his bill.

    The cashier said, "How was everything, sir?"

    "The lamb was dry and the rice tasted like it was made yesterday, other than that it was okay," O'Clair said.

    The cashier, a chunky bottle blonde about forty, in a beige uniform that had
Lou Starr's World Famous Parthenon
embossed on her chest, stared at him, wondering if he was trying to be funny. "Thanks for visiting us," she said. "Remember, everyone's a star at Lou Starr's Parthenon."

    "Is that right," O'Clair said. "I don't feel like a star. I feel like someone who just had a second-rate meal." She tried to hand him a black and white photo of the restaurant exterior. He shook his head and moved past her, trying to dig a piece of lamb out of his teeth with his fingernail that wasn't long enough. He tried sucking the meat out now as he went down the hall toward the rest-rooms. He should've grabbed a toothpick.

    Lou Starr was sitting at his desk, adding up the day's receipts. Business had been off for a while, the check average was slipping at all his restaurants, which he blamed on a combination of things, the stock market, the slowing economy, people weren't dining out as much, they were hanging on to their money. He felt the presence of someone and glanced up at a guy filling the doorway. It was amazing how many people stopped here thinking it was the rest- room. Lou wanted to say, Hey, you see any toilets? No? Then it's not the men's. He'd been thinking it for a while and finally put it into words.
The consumer was a fuckin' idiot.
Lou said, "It's down the hall, door on the right." He didn't want him going in the ladies' by mistake, give some broad a heart attack, get sued by that loudmouth attorney, Fieger.

    The guy came in the room and pointed to one of the animal heads, hunting trophies he had covering the wall. He was big, six feet, two twenty. "What's that?"

    "A dik-dik," Lou said, "it's a kind of antelope."

    "How about this one?" the guy said.

    "Rocky Mountain ram. That one made book, Boone and Crockett."

    No reaction. He didn't know what Lou was talking about. He wasn't a hunter.

    "They really bang horns when they fight?"

    Lou said, "I saw two rams go at it forty minutes without stopping."

    "Why do you have all these heads in here?"

    "My fiancé, ex now, didn't want them in the house," Lou said. "They made her nervous." The guy surprised him, caught him off guard. "Before you start your spiel," Lou said, "I've already got a cigarette machine. You may have noticed it when you came in the door. I don't need another one. So you're wasting your time." He sure looked like a salesman.

    "What're you talking about?"

    Or was he a cop? Maybe he had the guy all wrong. "Is this about the robbery? Have you found them yet?" The guy made him uncomfortable, sitting on the edge of the desk like it was his office.