“That’s fine,” he said. “Anything.”
She was on her way out when he called to her. “Ron?”
“What?”
“I want you to let me go.”
She sighed.
“Things are going to get rougher than you know,” he said. “I wasn’t lying about the bank robbery. I wasn’t lying about Julie trying to kill me that time. And I wasn’t lying about my partner, either.”
“He’s a real bad-ass, this partner of yours?” There was no sarcasm at all in Ron’s voice.
“That’s one of the best descriptions of him I ever heard,” Jon said.
She stood poised in the doorway like something in an arty photo. Then she said, “I’ll think about it,” and was gone.
He grinned at the door, which Ron had halfheartedly pulled shut. Only partially shut: he could hear her footsteps on the stairs very clearly.
He felt good, considering. She was going to let him go, he knew it. He’d won her over. He felt like Burt Reynolds. He’d fucked her over to his side; turned the dyke into a woman. What a man. He sat there, grinning, handcuffed.
A few minutes later, there was a banging sound downstairs: somebody at the front door. Pounding the hell out of it.
He heard the door being opened.
Ron’s voice said, “What is it?”
“Things are falling apart, Ron. I need you. I need your help.”
A woman’s voice.
Jesus fuck. No.
Julie.
“Come in, come in,” Ron said. “Is it raining out?”
The door shut.
“Drizzling,” Julie said. “Cold. Icy. Maybe snow, I don’t know. Listen, that kid.”
“What about him?”
“I’m going to have to go away for a while.”
“Yeah?”
“But I’ll be back. I’ll be back for you, Ron.”
“You will?”
“I’m dumping that asshole Harold, and we’re going to be together, you and I. But first I have to go away for a while.”
“I don’t understand...”
“I’ll have five thousand dollars in cash for you, in just a few minutes. I’m going to the club to get it, before I leave.”
“Five thousand dollars?... For me? Why?”
“It’s time.”
“Time?”
“You said you could make that kid disappear for me, any time I wanted. Well, it’s time. And I want it.”
“What?”
“You to kill him, what do you think?”
“Kill him? I don’t know... I don’t mind sitting on him for you, but...”
“Ron! What’s the matter with you? You said last night you’d as soon cut his throat as look at him! Since when did you care whether some goddamn man lived or died?”
There was silence.
“I want more,” Ron said.
“What?”
“I want more than five thousand. I want ten.”
“Well, Ron... we’ll be together...”
“Maybe we’ll be together and maybe we won’t. I want ten.”
“Okay. You got it.”
“You go get the money. It’ll be done when you get back.”
“No. You do it now, Ron. I want it done now.”
He could hear the shrug in Ron’s voice. “All right.”
He struggled with the cuff his wrist was in, as he heard her footsteps on the stairs, but it didn’t do any good, it didn’t do any goddamn fucking good, and then she was in the doorway, with a .38 in her hand.
She shut the door behind her.
“You bitch,” he said, his free hand a fist.
He didn’t have to swing it: his words struck her like a blow.
“Please, no,” she said. Whispering. Her eyes looked wet.
She set the gun on the nightstand.
She fumbled in her front pocket The jeans she wore were tight; she had trouble finding it but then she brought it out: a small key.
She unlocked the cuff at his wrist.
“We’re only one floor up,” she whispered. “There’s just ground under the window, not cement or anything. Hang out the window and drop.”
“Ron...”
“I’m going to tell her you got away. I came up here and you were gone. I’m going to tell her I had you tied, and you got loose. She doesn’t have to know about the cuffs.”
She was undoing the cuff at his ankle.
He got up; she helped him. He was dizzy. Hard to keep balance. He started unsteadily toward his shoes.
“Never mind that,” she said irritatedly, pushing him toward the window.
He grabbed her by the small of one arm. Looked at her. Touched her face.
“Get out of here,” she said.
She opened the window for him, and he climbed out into the darkness, hanging by the sill, facing toward the house, and the night air felt cold, the drizzle felt good. He dropped.
The ground was hard, and one of his ankles gave, twisted. Fuck! He fell backward but was up in a second, and hobbled across the cold ground, wishing he had his goddamn shoes. This wasn’t as clear a night as last night, but he could still make out the general shape of things. The old two-story farmhouse. The bare yard going back to what was apparently a plowed cornfield. Trees off to the left, which he was heading toward now.
His ankle hurt like hell, but he was so glad to be out of there and maybe, just maybe get out of Julie’s grip, that the pain felt good, as good as the cold, wet air. The pain meant he was alive.
Then he was in the trees, and he could see the road: there were trees on either side of it, so it would be easy enough to head for cover if a car came. And since a car could mean Julie again, he didn’t dare flag one down, so he hobbled in the road, because with his turned ankle it was better than moving through the trees and bushes and high grass. And he heard a noise behind him, back at the farmhouse. Something that could have been a shot.
He stepped up the pace, coming as close to running as a guy with a bum ankle can get; sort of a drunken jog.
Pretty soon headlights were coming up behind him, and he headed to the right, into the trees, and dropped to his stomach in the tall, wet grass; the car slowed, as if the driver had thought she (and this was certainly a she: Julie) had seen something moving in the road ahead but wasn’t sure. Then moved on.
He waited what seemed forever and was possibly a couple minutes.
Then he made his way back to the road. He listened very carefully before he started his drunken jog again, listened for an idling motor, in case Julie had pulled over and cut her lights up ahead. He heard nothing, except the sound of the rain — the drizzle had already turned to rain — against the ground, the trees, the road.
He started moving again.
Should he stop at a farmhouse? There’d surely be one soon. He didn’t know if he could come up with a story that could get him safely out of this area without the cops getting into it. A guy with no shoes, looking bruised and beat-up, coming to a farmer’s door for help? Assuming he didn’t get shot first, what could he say?
Better to get to a town, if that didn’t take forever; if luck had headed him the right direction down this road, he might end up at Gulf Port before long. A tavern there would ask no questions about his appearance, and he might even be able to bum a dime to try to call Nolan again.
But he felt sure Nolan would be on the way. He just didn’t know how to connect up with him.
Up ahead there was a curve in the road. He got off to the side, so he could make a quick move off into the trees if a car came unexpectedly around it. And just as he jogged around the bend, the beams of headlights hit him like a spotlight, and he knew he’d never make the trees in time.
16
WHEN NOLAN got back to the motel room, the girl was asleep.
He sat on the bed next to her and watched her. She looked young. Very peaceful, her breasts rising, falling, with an easy rhythm. He hated to wake her. He hated to let her in on what had just happened. But he couldn’t think of any way around it.