Robert saw movement to his left. But when he turned his head there was nothing there. To the side of a building were several dumpsters and trash bins. He stepped out of the car.
“Richie,” he said, in as kind a voice as he could muster, “come on out, Richie. I’m not going to kill you. But if you make me sift through garbage, I am.”
There was no answer, just the breeze blowing bits of debris over the streets. Down the road he could hear a radio playing somewhere but couldn’t make out what it was saying.
“Richie,” he said, walking close to the trash bins, “I’m going to count to three. If you don’t come out I’m going to start firing into the garbage bins. One…two…three.”
There was no response. Robert aimed at the first bin and fired two shots. He aimed at the second and did the same, one shot low, one shot high.
“All right!”
After the sound of trash being displaced, Richie crawled out of one of the bins. His clothes already had stains on them and Robert could smell putrid garbage coming off him in wafts.
“Really? Was that worth it, Richie?”
“You were gonna kill me.”
“I wasn’t going to kill you. If I wanted to kill you I would’ve walked by when you were sitting in your car and put two slugs into your brain. Now I didn’t do that, did I?”
“What’d ya want from me?”
“Information. The man that picked up the package, you said he looked Mexican, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Could he possibly have been Middle Eastern?”
“What’s that?”
“Wow, our education system is going to be the death of us. From the Middle East, dipshit. Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran. Did he look like he could be Muslim?”
“Oh. Yeah, yeah I think so.”
“Did he have an accent?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he sound like Speedy Gonzalez or Apu?”
“What?”
“Nevermind. What did his accent sound like?”
“Um, I don’t know, just an accent.”
“Richie, you’re not thinking hard enough. And if you’re not thinking hard enough, you’re not helpful to me.”
“You don’t have to get all crazy, man. I’m tryin’. Um, his accent, I don’t know, I guess it didn’t sound Mexican.”
“Good, good. What exactly did he say to you?”
“He just said he was there to pick up the box. That’s what he called it, the box. I gave it to him and he asked if anyone else was with me. I said yes. I said there was two other guys watchin’ us. There wasn’t but I got a creepy feelin’ from this dude and didn’t want him to think we was alone.”
“Oh, so you do have some brains after all. What happened next?”
He just took it and went back to a Jeep that was waitin’ for him. I swear, man. That’s all that happened.”
Robert stared at him a long while, but Richie didn’t look away. “Okay,” Robert said, a smile coming over his lips. “Okay, I believe you.”
“So can I go now?”
“Here’s the problem, my young friend. In the years and years I’ve been doing this, no one’s ever seen my face.”
“Whoa, whoa, dude, look I just-”
Robert raised his weapon, pointed at Richie’s throat. He took a step forward and Richie screamed.
“You sound like a girl. At least try to have some dignity when you die.”
“I’ll give the money back,” he said frantically, taking a few steps back and realizing he’d pinned himself against the garbage bins. “I’ll give all of it back.”
“No, no, not enough. What else you got?”
“My girl, yo, my girl is hot yo. I’ll let you fuck her, man. I’ll let you do it.”
“Sex doesn’t interest me. You’re running out of time.”
“Um,” he said, panicked, “ah, um, I can find the dude that has the box.”
Robert stood frozen, he didn’t move and didn’t speak for what seemed like a long time. Then he lowered the pistol by his side. “Now you’ve got my attention. How do you plan to find him?”
“I got his license plate. Just in case I needed it.”
“If he had any brains it was a rental or a fake plate.”
“No, there was two cars. One of ‘em was parked where they thought I couldn’t see it. I got the plate to that too and they were Hawaii plates.”
Robert smiled. “Richie, you are impressing me more and more every second. Where’s the number?”
“First you gotta promise not to kill me.”
“If I’m the type of person that can kill you, I probably won’t have any problem breaking a promise, but okay, I’ll play along. I promise I will not kill you if you give me the plate number.”
Richie pulled out his phone. He held it in front of him and Robert took it, noticing that Richie’s hands were shaking. Robert memorized the number and letter sequence and then handed the phone back to Richie.
“You’ve been very helpful, Richie. You’re free to go.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Robert turned and began walking away down the sidewalk. He heard footsteps fading in the distance behind him.
Robert stopped, and closed his eyes. He listened intensely to the footfalls. They were far apart; Richie was taking long strides. He wasn’t zig-zagging and he hadn’t run down the alley. He was running directly behind Robert in the opposite direction.
Robert spun, his weapon up, and fired three shots. Two hit their mark and Richie collapsed onto the pavement. If he would’ve zigged and zagged, Robert may not have been able to hit him.
“Maybe you weren’t as smart as I thought,” Robert said aloud, putting his weapon away. He began walking back to his hotel, humming to himself.
CHAPTER 27
Samantha awoke and, for a single, terrifying moment, didn’t know where she was. The hotel room suddenly didn’t look familiar. She had been back in Atlanta only a moment ago, taking care of her mother’s funeral arrangements, staring down into the casket at the face of the woman who had raised her. The face appeared as a mask, like it had been painted on. The spirit that had animated it was no longer there and it was no more different, or beautiful, than a table or a chair.
It took a few moments but the events of the previous weeks flooded back into her mind as she watched the sunlight streaming through the windows of her room. She rose and walked to them, looking down on the streets below.
The first thing that struck her was the growth of the vegetation. Lawns were unmowed and hedges untrimmed. Ralph was right: nature was slowly and steadily taking back what was hers.
She took a quick shower and then filled a few buckets she had gotten from a hardware store with water. It was uncertain how long utilities would remain on since maintenance crews were growing slimmer and slimmer.
She went out to her bike and checked her gas gauge; about half a tank left. She decided to walk instead. The gas stations had all been closed as well. Not because of orders, but because no gas shipments were coming in and they had ran out of reserves within a week. She didn’t know when she would need her bike and it wasn’t worth the gas to save the mile and a half walk from the hotel.
There were no clouds today and the sun broiled the city as heat waves bounced off the cement and cooked the streets.
The city appeared like a Hollywood movie set. Without people to animate it there was just cement, steel, and wood. The wind rustled through the streets and bits of trash flew with it. She hadn’t noticed it before but the level of trash was increasing every day despite people not being out as much. She couldn’t walk more than a couple of feet without some debris on the sidewalk in front of her. Even a week ago, she had been impressed with how clean Honolulu was compared to other American cities.