Danny figures it out, once in a row.
“You want the envelope,” he says. “That’s what your text said.” He pauses. “It’s inside.”
“You better hope so.” Sinclair picks up the blowtorch, points to the trailer. “Let’s go.”
The envelope is not inside.
Neither is Chrissie or the money.
The door on the shed out back that was closed is open now, the storage space empty.
Sinclair takes my gun and watches us while his bodyguard, the slab of meat who’d been standing by the truck, searches the double-wide. After a few minutes, Slab-O-Meat returns to the living room and shakes his massive head.
“Start talking.” Sinclair turns on the blowtorch, and a blue tongue of heat emerges.
“Chrissie.” I lick my lips. “She was in on it. She took the cash and the envelope.”
“That’s funny.” He turns up the flame. “Who do you think put me onto you two?”
“Chrissie?” Danny looks at me. “She s-s-screwed us?”
I nod, the fear a physical presence in the pit of my stomach, a lead brick that sits there.
She screwed us and good. She came in late and screamed so there would be no way she could be tied to the robbery. She arranged the hideout and apparently the getaway car hidden in the shed. She told me the key was important, not the envelope itself.
“Where is she?” Sinclair approaches, my gun in one hand, the blowtorch in the other.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Honestly, have no idea.”
“That’s too bad,” He waves the blowtorch. “Because I really need that envelope.”
I don’t say anything. All I can do is stare at the blue flame. The fire consumes my consciousness to a point that I almost don’t react when he tosses me my handgun.
I catch the weapon, look at Sinclair and his guard.
The Slab-O-Meat holds a pistol by his side but is not aiming it at me.
“You’re gonna get that envelope back,” Sinclair says.
I nod slowly.
“If you don’t—” he holds up the torch — “then I’m gonna start on your toes and work my way up.”
I look at my gun, afraid it’s a trick. The magazine is still there, a round in the chamber.
Then I get it. Sinclair knows I won’t do anything. I’m just poor dumb Czech trash that’s been given a lifeline, a slim chance for redemption. His power and reach in my world is all-consuming.
I start to shake and sweat uncontrollably.
He smiles at me like I’m a three-legged dog, his face reflecting the utter self-confidence one gets when dealing with lesser life forms, a look of supreme control.
I grip the gun, think about bringing it up.
“That ain’t the way this plays.” Sinclair shakes his head. “You coulda taken me out a dozen times over the years, but you didn’t. You’re not gonna grow a set now.”
I lower the gun.
“Just in case you don’t get the gist of what I’m talking about,” he says, “I’ll give you a little demonstration on Danny the Dumb-ass.”
Danny gasps, runs for the door.
Slab-O-Meat grabs him with one hand, holds out a skinny arm. His other hand brings up the pistol my way. Danny yells, struggles.
“Not like anybody’s gonna miss him anyway.” Sinclair walks toward my friend, blowtorch at the ready. He pauses, looks my way. “You ain’t got a problem with this, do you?”
I hesitate, breath caught in my throat. Then I shake my head and wait for hell to commence.
TWO WEEKS LATER
The darkness is all-consuming, even in the bright light of day. The permanent night that is in the center of my mind never rests. I have a tiredness about me that no sleep will ever cure, not even death.
But I do have a goal, and that’s important, according to the guidance counselor at juvie lockup way back when and a self-help book I read one time. The counselor had said, “A goal is a good way to break free from lowered expectations that people place on you.”
My goal is Chrissie, and I am as close as fleas on a pound dog to reaching her.
I stand outside the end unit of a motel a block from the beach in Port Aransas, at the north end of Padre Island. Peeling paint, rusty window frames, a couple of old cars and sand in the parking lot. A flickering neon display that reads “Vacancy.”
Early November, and there’s only one occupied room and barely anybody in town, most places closed since the season ended months ago.
I grip the shotgun and kick in the door.
Sunlight spills into a darkened room that smells like cigarettes, burnt metal, and sweat.
Chrissie screams, pulls the sheet up to her neck.
A man in his forties with a week-old beard sits in an easy chair by the desk. He’s comatose, mouth slack, eyes rolled back in his head. A bent and blackened spoon is on the desk next to a lighter and a syringe.
“Where’s my money?” I cross the room and slam the barrel down on her legs underneath the sheet, aiming for a knee.
She screams and babbles, words unintelligible.
I let her cry.
The guy in the chair doesn’t move, doesn’t appear to breathe. He is thin, cheeks hollowed. His skinny, needle-scarred arms look like twigs sticking out of a San Antonio Spurs T-shirt.
“Please-don’t-hurt-me-please-please.” Chrissie shivers even though the room is warm.
“The money,” I say. “And the envelope.”
She cries harder, shakes her head.
I raise the barrel of the gun.
She holds up a hand. “D-d-don’t. Please.”
I stop.
She rolls off the bed, naked. Wraps herself in the dirty sheet, pads across the room to a dresser, limping from my blow.
“Don’t try anything.” I shoulder the gun, aim at her torso.
She shakes her head. Tears stream down her face. From a duffel bag on the dresser, she pulls out the envelope. She crosses the room and hands it to me. It’s empty.
“Where’s the money?”
“What money?” She wipes her eyes, sniffs. “Look around, willya.”
A wallet sits by the bent spoon and the syringe on the desk. I open it. No cash. The ID reads “Joel MacIntosh, Parole Officer.”
“He promised me we’d leave Texas,” she says. “We were gonna start over in California.”
“Where did it all go?” I mentally slap myself as soon as the words leave my mouth.
“Where do you think?” She points to the spoon. “Up his arm. At the dog track. Hell, it just blew away like the damn wind.”
I read the outside of the envelope, the name of a bank in Atlanta, a phone number, some other cryptic marks. The information so important to Sinclair.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says. “I just want to go home.”
I point the muzzle at her stomach, and an anger blacker than the darkness in my mind oozes from my pores.
“Jesus please no.” She shakes. The sheet drops, and she makes no move to cover her nakedness.
“We’ve known each other since we were kids.” I tighten my finger around the trigger. “And this is what you do to me?”
“I just wanted out.” She crosses her arms, covering her breasts now. “I wanted to go somewhere new.”
“You finally got to see the ocean at least.” I close one eye, aim at her face.
“I could buy my way back home with the envelope, couldn’t I?” she says. “It’s all I’ve got. Please tell me I could.”
And then, like a light extinguished, the anger is gone.
“I’m sorry about Danny,” she says. “But Sinclair told me he needed to make an example out of somebody, you know, to keep people in line.”
“You’re not fit to say his name.” I sling the shotgun over my shoulder by its strap and pick up the lighter.
“You and me,” she says. “We could ransom the envelope to Sinclair. Use the money to start over.”