"Maybe it's not about him, or not entirely."
"You been talking to your wife?"
That seemed to be a switch in subjects, but maybe it wasn't. Since he'd been back, everything had become even more snarled together. "I've been keeping in touch with my sister-in-law."
"The one with all the kids. Your kids. You talk to her but not your wife?"
"I've called Joan, too, but she's never there."
"Maybe she's got a new man. You said she deserved better."
"She does, but it's not a man."
"How can you be sure? You walked out and it's been a couple of years, right?"
He thought of Joan with another man and, though it made sense, he just couldn't bring himself to believe it. She'd stuck by him through so much already no matter how hard he tried to push her away. Her love was real, it had meaning even if he couldn't return it in full. He looked down at his hands and recalled, one instance after another, all the evil he had done with them, and knew he could never put them on Joan again without wanting to die.
"What about the money? You find out where your father hid it yet?"
She hadn't even asked if he'd figured out who'd kidnapped Mary Burke. The girl wasn't really a part of it, just the cash. She was even more bent than him. "I told you, if he'd taken the money, he wouldn't have snuffed it a drunk in the gutter. Somebody else nabbed it."
"You still planning on killing Edwards?"
"I don't think so. I had a chance the other day. He had one to kill me too, and he didn't."
"Maybe you've both just got other things on your mind. Like you and the bad guy partner. A friend of mine saw you on Main Street with some characters. In a Rolls Royce." She couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice.
"It was a Bentley."
"That belong to your dealer buddy? Did he finally sniff you out all the way up here?"
He didn't like the way she said it. "Would that friend be Jimmy Devlin?"
"No," she said, "it was somebody else."
So she was still working Jimmy, had maybe even set him on Crease again along with the other Jimmys. What did she think that would earn her? Did she hope he'd get hurt so she could nurse him the way he'd taken care of her? Tighten the bond between them. Was that her play? To win him over, take her back to New York with him?
"Don't be too star-struck with fancy cars."
"Why not?"
"Police impound them all, sooner or later."
"Then you just go get another one. Isn't that how it happens?"
"The guys with two hundred grand in a briefcase under their beds are usually the cheapest sons of bitches there are. They're stressed all the time about spending the money. They're more worried about the IRS than they are the feds."
"The smart ones figure their way around that, right?"
"Sometimes."
Crease was going to tell her about Tucco and his whores, some of the things the guy did to the women that got on his nerves or didn't bring in enough cash. Where his business rivals wound up deep-sixed and knife-juked and glass-choked.
Except he knew that's what she wanted to hear. That it was all part of her dream, the hope that she might be able to grab a piece of that action, no matter the cost. She was more like Crease than he'd given her credit for. She'd been working her own edge. Maybe that's why he stayed with her, maybe he'd picked up on it that first night back when he saw her blood on the women's room door.
Call it what you will, she had her own style and was making her own fun.
He'd botched it. He'd thought he was helping her, but really, he was just keeping himself locked and loaded. He'd never be able to warn her off now. Anything he said would just pique her even more.
"A Rolls Royce," she said. "How much have you got put away, Crease?"
"Not much."
It was the wrong thing to say, he was losing his cool again. Even though it was the truth, she wouldn't buy it. Her eyes were whirling like numbers on a slot machine. He'd been pushing the wrong buttons on her. Yeah, the big money came in, but it went out just as fast. The life cost. The more you made the more it took.
She was falling back to type. He was worse for her than Jimmy Devlin or anybody else. He'd put the fear and the need back into her, and saw in the eagerness of her eyes that the coiled energy tamped down within her was going to break soon.
He should get out. He never should've come here in the first place, and now he had to go.
Before he could move she slid in close, the red hair burning in front of his eyes, and said, "I'll do right by you, Crease. Better than your wife. I'll be good to you." She licked her plump lips and raised her chin, turning her head, coming in for a kiss.
"You wouldn't know how, Reb," he told her.
She snapped her head back as if he'd backhanded her. "That's a damn crude thing to say!"
She was right, it was. He said, "I'm sorry," and was surprised that he actually meant it. "I really am. I've got to go."
"What? Go where?"
"I'm leaving, Reb. Thanks for everything."
"Did you just tell me thanks? Thanks, that's all? Is that what you fucking said to me?"
"Goodbye, Reb."
He stood and got his jacket on, reached for the pack and realized he was finally out of those menthols, thank Christ. He turned to ask her if she had a cigarette and caught a dark blur of motion in his peripheral vision.
Shit, he wasn't on his toes.
He started to wheel about faster. His hands were already moving before he fully realized what he was seeing, but it was already too late. Goddamn, you couldn't relax in the game for a minute. Reb was coming around with the candlestick. He would've laughed if he'd had the time, but he didn't. A candlestick. He'd seen people get their heads cracked a lot of ways, but this would be a first. It was a movie moment, something out of a drive-in. She connected and he felt a wide arc of his blood leaving him. He whirled and hit the wall. He let out a chuckle because he knew this was about the fifteen grand. He couldn't blame her. She was too small-minded to realize how short a stash that was, how few bills it paid, how it could hardly get your ass out of debt. He was mad he'd put the time into fixing the screen door, chopping up the tree. He felt a brief, sudden wash of pity for Reb, who in another life might've been his girl. He staggered two steps and didn't get anywhere near her. Then she hit him again and he didn't feel sorry for her at all anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
The hands were taken care of, felt like cuffs.
His arms were behind him, around a chair. A thin spike of agony rammed through the top of his skull down through the top of his jaw. The spike was made of voices and colors jacked up beyond understanding. Lightning blitzkrieged him with every beat of his pulse.
He'd been here before in this position. It wasn't something you expected to go through more than once in your life, but he figured this was around number three or four. You really had to be looking for it to have it happen so often.
There was somebody close to him but he couldn't focus his eyes. Dried blood on the side of his face pulled his skin taut. That strange sense of duality filled him again. The two versions of himself were drifting side by side. The cop and the crook. It filled him with a wave of joy and loathing.
He heard rain against the windows. Reb's voice came from somewhere across the room. "He's awake." She sounded slightly worried, knowing she was heading into new territory she'd never be able to return from, but excited about it. He'd made this happen.
He blinked but still couldn't distinguish who was right in front of him, the face right there, two inches away. The breath stank of beer, but everybody's in this town did, you couldn't narrow down the list that way. He tried to shake his head and the pain rushed through him again and he had to clench his teeth against it.