Kate could relate.
She heard DeJuan’s voice now, turned and saw him come in the room, still carrying the shotgun. Teddy was on the floor hoisting handfuls of money like a pauper idiot.
“Yo, be cool,” DeJuan said. “Don’t be bruising the greens.”
Teddy said, “Huh?”
DeJuan said, “Give a brother some love.”
He threw a banded packet and DeJuan caught it with his right hand. He brought the stack of bills up to his nose, inhaling like it was something he’d just taken off the barbecue.
“Nothing like the smell of fresh green,” DeJuan said.
Luke was in bad shape-face beat up, wrists bleeding from the handcuffs. Kate rubbed Neosporin on the cuts and gave him Motrin for the pain. His clothes were mud-covered. He was standing at the kitchen counter stuffing food in his mouth: cheese and crackers, hunter’s sausage, slices of bread and butter. She’d never seen him so hungry. She held his little face in her hands and said, “What’d they do to you?”
“Teddy likes to hit people.”
Kate could feel herself getting angry. “Well, he’s not going to hit you anymore.”
“It’s my fault,” Luke said. “I shouldn’t have come up here.”
“They were going to do it anyway.”
“I thought Jack was your friend.”
“I did too,” Kate said.
Luke had tears in his eyes and she hugged him and said, “It’s going to be okay now.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said.
“They’ll be gone soon and we’ll go home,” Kate said.
He glanced down at the floor and back up, meeting her gaze. He looked like he was about to say something, but hesitated.
Kate said, “What?”
“I heard them talking,” Luke said. “We know what they look like. They said they’re going to… kill us.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Kate said. “They got what they wanted. There’d be no reason to.” Then she thought about the killers in In Cold Blood. They didn’t have a reason, either.
“No reason to do what?” DeJuan said, coming in the kitchen.
“You want something?” Kate said, her voice tense.
“Checking up on northern Michigan cooks. There a meal somewhere in our future?”
Kate said, “We’re all set. Everybody sit down.”
“Well halle-fucking-lujah,” DeJuan said.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Luke said. There was no way, she told herself. They were going to eat and leave. Jack would never have agreed to that. But, as she analyzed the situation, Jack didn’t appear to have much sway at the moment. Kate brought the burgers to the table on a platter with slices of red onion and tomatoes and dill pickles. She went back in the kitchen and got the bowls of potato salad and beans and put them on the table next to the burgers. She said to Teddy, “Okay, here you go.”
Teddy and DeJuan and Celeste sat down and filled their plates and ate like it was the last supper. Kate thought it was odd that these people who’d just collected two million dollars were so concerned about their stomachs.
DeJuan held his burger in his hands and said, “You and the little man sit down, join us,”
“I’m not hungry,” Kate said.
“Don’t matter,” DeJuan said. “Want your company.”
She knew their names now: Teddy, Celeste and DeJuan-Teddy had introduced everyone earlier like they were neighbors getting together for the first time. Luke sat on the end next to DeJuan, with his back to the room. Kate sat next to Celeste, across from Teddy, who was shoveling potato salad in his mouth and had grease from the burger dripping off the end of his chin.
“What about Jack?” Kate said.
“What about him?” Teddy said.
Kate said, “Can I give him something to eat?” She wanted a chance to talk to him, find out what he thought, what he knew.
“Hell no,” Teddy said. “He gets to set there, smell it and get hungry.”
Kate could feel her patience wearing thin.
Teddy had mayo in the corners of his mouth, talking while he chewed his potato salad. “I was thinking I might get me a Harley-”
Celeste said, “Think you could stop talking with your mouth open, use your napkin? You got the manners of an animal, I swear.”
DeJuan said, “Man spent his formative years hanging with sheep. What you expect?”
Kate felt the tension building. She couldn’t hold it in any longer and said, “You’ve got your money. Why don’t you take it and get the hell out of here?”
“Whoa,” Teddy said, and grinned. “What the hell’s got into you?” He winked at Celeste and she smiled. “I don’t think she likes us.”
“I don’t think about you one way or the other,” Kate said. She made eye contact with Luke, could see he was worried.
“Oh, you don’t, huh?” Teddy said. “What’s the matter? We not good enough for you?”
“She wants us to leave,” Celeste said. “Then what’s she going to do, call the police?” Celeste looked across the table at her. “You going to tell them what we look like?”
“ ’Course she is,” Teddy said. “She’s going to tell them everything about us.”
Celeste said, “My-oh-my, what should we do with ’em?”
Teddy looked at her and flashed a lunatic grin. “You know what we’re going to do.”
Kate could see he got pleasure out of this-making them squirm. She glanced at Luke and then at Teddy. “You’re not going to do anything,” she said, trying to convince herself. She was afraid now, but smiled at Luke, trying to ease the tension.
Celeste said, “I’d be worried if I were them.”
“Don’t listen to that,” Jack said. “They’re just trying to scare you.”
Teddy glanced over at Jack and said, “The fuck do you know?” Now he looked across the table at Kate and said, “He tell you what happen in Arizona?”
Jack said, “That’s old news.”
Teddy ignored him and said, “We hit A.J.’ s-this rich-folk gourmet market in the foothills of the Catalinas. Planned it for Sunday evening, get their take from the weekend. Do it with a lot of people around, we don’t attract attention. Me and him,” indicating DeJuan, “filled up carts like real shoppers.”
He shoveled a forkful of beans in his mouth and kept talking.
“The office was upstairs, so Jack and I go up and open the door and catch the manager fooling around with this young cute thing, had her blouse off, man pawing her sweater puppies. They both looked at us and manager says, ‘Can I help you?’ And Jack says, ‘Yeah, you can take your hands off her and show us the safe.’ The manager says, ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ Jack pulls his Colt Python and says, ‘Does this look like a joke to you?’
“Jack went in the other room and cleaned out the safe and I duct-taped the manager and the girl together and watched the door. After about ten minutes, I went to check on him, and he wasn’t there. Disappeared with $257,000. Left me standing there holding my dick. Pardon my French.”
Teddy glanced across the room at Jack. “That sound about right to you?”
What Teddy left out-the most important part-was the police showing up. Jack had cleaned out the safe, filled two A.J.’ s grocery bags, the kind with paper handles. Glanced out the window behind the store. There was a driveway for delivery trucks to pull up and beyond it a brick wall that bordered the employee parking lot. He watched two Tucson police cars cruise in at high speed, lights flashing, and hit their brakes.
He crossed the room, went into the manager’s office. The manager and his half-clothed assistant were still on the couch, duct-taped together. He didn’t see Teddy at the door and he left the office and walked into the hallway. He heard the din: sounds and voices coming up the stairs from the market floor. He followed the
hallway to the end, pushed open a steel door that had a sign that read: DO NOT OPEN ALARM WILL SOUND.
It didn’t.
And now he was running across the green metal roof of the strip mall over Starbucks, Target, Blockbuster, Subway, Home Depot. He hid behind a giant air-conditioning unit, catching his breath. He looked back, saw a cop in a tan uniform appear on the roof a hundred yards away, holding his gun with two hands, swinging his arms in a short jerking motion like cops on TV.