“Oh, yeah, this is the time,” Jerzy said. “I gotta get in the spirit of things to come.” And when he looked closely, Dewey saw fury in the big man’s bloodshot eyes.
“Main-tain, dawg,” Tristan said with real concern in his voice as he and Dewey walked to the door. “A dead woman ain’t no good to nobody.”
“Don’t hurt her!” Dewey said, his voice tremulous, and this time he was very close to meaning it.
When the door was closed, Jerzy walked to the bed, and when Eunice could actually smell him, she lost some of her aplomb and said, “How about a cigarette, Jerzy? Let’s you and me have a smoke and talk things over.”
By way of an answer, he took the roll of duct tape from his jacket, bit off a ten-inch strip, and taped her mouth shut.
And at last Eunice Gleason trembled in fear.
He said to her, “Now I’m gonna burn a pipe. And when I’m finished smokin’ glass, I’m gonna rip off that tape for two minutes. And in that two minutes, you’re gonna give me the right answers. ’Cause if you don’t, I’m gonna put that tape back on your mouth and go to work on you. And when the tape comes off again, you’re gonna beg to tell me the right answers.”
He saw sweat beading like pearls on her forehead. That pleased him.
TWENTY
WHILE GETTING READY for work the next morning, yet another overtime shift, Malcolm Rojas was nervous and anxious. His mother had been complaining again about not receiving her share of his recent paycheck.
After he’d eaten the cooked breakfast she’d prepared for him at 6 A.M., he said, “If you don’t stop nagging me about money, I’m gonna move in with my friend Phil.”
That stopped her, and she looked worried when she said, “Who’s Phil?”
“A guy I work with in the warehouse,” Malcolm said, trying quickly to come up with details about a fictional friend to make his threat more plausible. “Phil and me been talking about sharing the rent. His mom’s always nagging him too.”
“I’m not always nagging, sweetheart!” his mother said, pouring him more orange juice. “But money’s not easy to come by, and it’s not cheap living here in Hollywood. You know that.”
“Maybe it’d be better for both of us if I move out,” Malcolm said. “And pretty soon I’ll have enough money to do it. I’ll be getting a new job.”
“You’re not thinking of quitting your present job?”
“Pretty soon I am,” he said.
“For what? Where you gonna work?”
“I have… prospects,” he said.
“Where? Who with?”
“I’ll tell you when it happens,” he said. “Now I gotta go or I’m gonna be late.”
After he brushed his teeth, his mother was waiting at the door with his lunch in a paper bag. “Please don’t do anything yet, sweetie,” she said. “Let’s talk it over about you quitting your job. And don’t worry about giving me any money this time. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, pleased at how he could still manipulate her.
When she reached up and put her hands in his hair, about to kiss him on the cheek, she said, “My sweet boy.”
He grimaced and said, “Don’t do that! How many times do I gotta tell you?”
She jumped back so fast she bumped her head on the door frame. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Sometimes I forget how grown-up you are.”
When he was driving out of his parking space, he felt miserable, and it was all because of her. He vowed that when he started working for Bernie Graham, he really was going to move away from her forever. Her touch gave him an icy-cold feeling that would usually be followed by heat. He could feel it coming already. He knew the heat would grow as the day progressed. It might turn into the thing he couldn’t control, the burning sensation in his belly that worked its way up to his skull when he thought of all those bitches.
Tristan Hawkins fell onto Eunice Gleason’s bed, fully clothed. Dewey tried to get some sleep in his own bed but could not, suffering from severe acid reflux, which seldom troubled him like this. At 6 A.M., Dewey was dressed and in the kitchen making coffee when Tristan shuffled in, yawning and scratching.
“Jerzy shoulda called us by now,” Dewey said. “I don’t like this. I got a bad feeling about this.”
“Shut the fuck up and pour me some coffee,” Tristan said. “I got enough to worry about. Anyways, this was mostly your plan.”
“I thought she’d fold ’em the second she saw you two,” Dewey said. “I was wrong.”
“How long you been married to that woman, Bernie?”
“Nine years.”
“Nine years and you ain’t figured out yet that she’s twice as smart as you and ten times the man?”
Dewey poured two cups of coffee and said, “The milk’s in the fridge. The sugar’s in the cupboard there.”
After sipping his coffee, Tristan said, “Lemme ask you somethin’ about that woman. Would she stick big money in a bank account somewheres, knowin’ full well that if your business enterprise ever got brought down, the cops could find that money without a whole lotta trouble? Especially if they got all the records around here, and what must be stored in those computers out there in the other room? Would she do that?”
“I know what you’re getting at,” Dewey said. “Don’t you think I’ve looked for evidence of a safe deposit box?”
“Bernie,” Tristan said, dead-staring him. “Did you ever think she might do what you do? Like maybe take the cash to some nice fireproof, earthquake-proof, safe and secure storage locker? A place where she could go in and clean it out in a minute and boogie on outta town?”
Dewey’s eyes flickered just for an instant, but it was enough for someone as streetwise and sly as Tristan Hawkins. Dewey looked away and had a sickening thought that in this unholy foursome, he might actually be the dumbest!
“Speak to me, Bernie,” Tristan said. “This ain’t the time to be gamin’ me. Your old lady might be past talkin’ at this point. We may be on the verge of grabbin’ what we can and gettin’ the fuck outta Dodge.”
At that moment, the resolve of Dewey Gleason melted. He was so far out of his depth, he was ready to join forces with this wily young man sitting across from him. He said, “I did find a key in her wallet one time, and yeah, it looked like a padlock key.”
“And where’s that key?”
“I don’t know. It was gone the next time I looked.”
“That means,” Tristan said, “I was right when I told the Polack that you had no intention of transferrin’ funds and havin’ a way to beat the wait period, and all that bullshit you said. You hoped to get that key and whatever information you needed to get in her secret place and clean it out and leave poor Creole and the dumb Polack with nothin’ but your half-dead wife.”
“Don’t say ‘ half-dead,’ ” Dewey murmured, and Tristan thought he was about to start blubbering.
“Get used to it, Bernie,” Tristan said. “She might be fully dead by now, because I seen how the Polack gets when he smokes crystal, and it ain’t pretty.”
Then tears did well in the eyes of Dewey Gleason, and Tristan said, “So, all in all, it might jist be you and me against the fuckin’ world right now. And I’m ready to tear this place apart to scope out a key and try to find the lock it belongs to.”
Dewey said, sniffling, “She drove me to this! I’m not a violent person. I never hurt anybody in my -”
“Me neither,” Tristan interrupted, “but if you don’t main-tain and get hold of yourself, I jist might do some violence on you. Now wipe your fuckin’ nose and let’s get to work!”
They had begun ransacking Eunice’s closet, searching in the pockets and linings of every hanging piece of clothing, when Tristan heard the man sob.