The Bird. New name for the beginning of a new time in his life. Different, not so Indian-sounding as he played with it in his mind. Who are you? I’m the Bird. Not a blackbird or a seagull, but his own special kind. He liked the way Richie Nix said it, the guy sounding proud to know him, wanting to show him off. Donna came in from the kitchen with a dark drink in each hand. Richie said, “The Bird’s from Toronto,” and Donna said, “Oh? I was there one time, it’s real nice.”
Armand the Bird took a sip of the drink and wanted to spit it out. Jesus Christ, it was the worst thing he ever tasted. Richie said, “What’s wrong, Bird?”
The Bird becoming just Bird now.
“What is it?”
“That’s a Southern and Seven,” Donna said. “It’s our favorite.”
Armand, or whoever he was this moment, went out to the car, where he had four quarts of Canadian Club in the trunk, for the stay at his grandmother’s, and brought one of them inside. He said to Donna, “I don’t drink that. I only drink real whiskey.”
Once he made this known, Donna stuck close to Richie and didn’t say much, peering out through her big shiny glasses like some kind of bird herself, pointy face and a nest of red-gold curls sitting on her head. Hair fixed and face painted like she was going to the ball—except for her tennis shoes and the lint and hair all over her black sweater. Coming here after they’d stopped for drinks and had a talk, Richie Nix had said, “Wait till you meet Donna. She was a hack in the joint where I met her and got fired for fucking inmates, man, if you can believe it.”
The Bird didn’t care for what he saw of Donna, a woman who had to get it off convicts, or this dump she lived in, a little frame house he could tell in the dark coming here needed to be painted and was overgrown with bushes. He couldn’t see how two bedrooms would fit in here and how Richie Nix could sleep with that woman, if he did.
He didn’t care too much for Richie either, except the guy had nerve. With a gun against his head saying, “You’re just the guy I’m looking for.” To pull that off, get the Bird to believe it, took something that couldn’t be faked. Telling him, “No shit, I mean it. I’m glad this happened.” Telling him, “Man, you have to be somebody, drive a car like this, a piece under the seat.” Respect in his tone of voice. Then telling in detail about the deal he had going. The Bird listened and came to realize this punk actually had something, wasn’t making it up. It could even work. The Bird had seen enough variations of it in Toronto, all kinds of shakedowns and protection deals; he knew how to convince a slow pay to come up with what was owed. This one was different, a one-shot deal, but based on the same idea: scare the guy enough and he’ll pay every time.
There was one part of the deal that bothered him. He had to concentrate to think about it in this living room decorated with prison photographs on the walls: Donna in groups of officials and corrections officers; Donna with groups of inmates, one of them signed “To Donna ‘Big Red’ Mulry from the boys in E Block.” Pictures of Donna’s life behind walls, not wearing glasses in any of them. She and Richie were on the sofa watching television, a cop show with fast, expensive cars and Latin rock music. Richie saying now, “Look at that, Bird. I don’t believe it.” The Bird looked and didn’t believe it either, the cop acting emotional, broken up about something. Cops didn’t do that, they were cold fucking guys that never showed what they felt—if they felt anything. Here or across the river in Canada cops were the same. There were cops in Detroit right now investigating a homicide that happened this morning in a hotel and would not be broken up about the old guy or about the girl either. This guy Richie Nix, this punk, was grinning with a dreamy stupid look, the woman Donna moving her hand underneath his T-shirt that said it was nice to be nice. She had looked at it when they came in and said, “Oh, is that ever cute.” What was she trying to be, his mother or what? The Bird had asked what people called him and he said Richie, that was his name, Richie Nix. “Donna likes Dick,” he said, “if you know what I mean, but it isn’t my name.” There was an Elvis Presley doll in a white jumpsuit standing next to the stereo. There were stuffed animals on the sofa and chairs, little furry things, bears, a puppy dog, a kitty, there was a turtle, a Mr. Froggy ... This woman who used to be a hack, with her pile of hair and her glasses, was going to stuff Richie and use him as a pillow if she could. That was what it looked like.
The Bird got up out of his chair, walked over to the TV and turned it off. He heard the woman say, “Hey, what’re you doing?” When he looked at her she was sitting upright with her back arched, one leg underneath her.
“Time for you to go to bed.”
“I got news for you,” Donna said. “This is my house.”
“Yeah, and it’s a dump.”
She said, “Well, you certainly have your nerve.”
He said, “You want me to take you in there?”
Donna turned her head to look at Richie sitting next to her with his mouth open. Richie looked up at the Bird who waited, not saying anything. Now Donna was looking at him again. Still the Bird waited. After a moment she got up and walked out of the room. Richie called after her, “And close the door.” He grinned as they heard it slam.
“You phone the guy tomorrow morning,” the Bird said.
“What guy?”
The Bird moved to the sofa, taking his time, and sat down. “The real estate guy. You call him and say to bring the money out to one of the model homes, four o’clock in the afternoon. We’ll go out there before and take a look, decide which one.”
“Sounds good.”
“You know why we do it this way?”
“We’ll be out closer to the interstate.”
The Bird shook his head. “We do it because if there are cops, he tells them and that’s where they gonna be.”
Richie waited. “Yeah?”
“We go to his office before he leaves for the model home. Watch his place, we don’t see any cops around, or ones that could be cops, we go in. Say about two.”
5
NELSON DAVIES REALTY was in a big white Victorian home on St. Clair River Drive that Wayne thought looked like a funeral parlor. It must have belonged to somebody important at one time, probably a guy in shipping or lumber. Nelson Davies had added on a first-floor lobby in front with glass doors. But this house had so many wings and angles as it was, added on over the years, Wayne didn’t believe the modern front entrance made it look any worse.
Carmen had told him to park in back. Her car was there with two others. She seemed nervous the way she smiled, looking him over in his dark-blue suit, asking what happened to the handkerchief she’d put in the breast pocket. Nothing, he’d taken it out, that’s all. Then losing the smile as her gaze reached his tan scuffed work shoes.
She said, “Wayne . . .” disappointed, but that was all.
One of the things he liked most about Carmen— besides her brown eyes and the way she could give him a certain look after twenty years—was the fact she would never moan or wring her hands over something that couldn’t be changed. She might kick the lawnmower when it didn’t start; but something like this, she’d never go on about his work shoes. He followed her legs up the stairs, the skirt stretching around her neat fanny. Wayne loved Carmen’s legs in those skirts that came a few inches above her knees. He’d see her when he got home from work and have an urge to pull the skirt up around her hips. There were times he could tell she wanted him to and he did, the two of them alone in the house with Matthew gone.