Lloyd heard movement and felt the floor above him sway and held the bow, watching the backyard through a section of latticework. He could see a couple canoes beached at the edge of the pond. People fished its murky depths, kids mostly, catching goldfish and carp.
Lloyd rubbed his leg trying to get some relief from the pain, and had to breathe a certain way or it hurt more. The pond reminded him of a lake he swam in when he was a boy in northern Minnesota. He'd float in the warm clear water and then dive into the cold depths, the water temperature changing as he went down, getting colder and darker until he touched the bottom and scooped up a handful of sand, and then shot up toward the light, lungs ready to explode, coming out of the water, taking gulps of air. He'd show his friends the sand, proof that he made it all the way down.
He was directly above Lloyd now, the metal creaking. Then he was on the deck, his footsteps sending dust through cracks in the plank floor. Lloyd sat up with the bow ready to fire as a khaki leg appeared and then another one. He took a breath and knocked a broadhead, aiming at the guy's leg and he heard the wail of a siren.
Chapter Twenty-two
Karen parked on the street four houses north of Lou's in front of the Robertses, Jeff and Shelley. She knew them and liked them. It was Friday night and they were having a party. There were cars lining the street and her Audi blended right in. It was 9:30 and dark, and still hot, a sliver of moon hanging over the lake. She could hear music and voices from the party as she walked between the Robertses' house and their neighbor's down to the water, and moved along the beach back to Lou's house. He didn't care about swimming and let the reeds grow tall along his 150 feet of waterfront.
The house was dark. Karen knew he was back from Vegas and had been trying to reach him. She had called his cell phone and left a message. She tried his office at the restaurant and got his answering machine. Well as long as he wasn't home. In her current state of mind Karen was in no mood for a confrontation with Lou. She'd had enough excitement for one day. She was exhausted, drained.
She crossed the backyard and took the steps up to the deck, and used her key to open the sliding door. She went into the family room with its comfortable couches and chairs and great view of the lake, locking the door behind her. The house was hot and stuffy. The air wasn't on and hadn't been on for some time. She stood and listened, but didn't hear anything. It was dark and she waited till her eyes adjusted. She had come back to get letters her dad had written, and a one-karat diamond wedding ring that had been her Grandmother Nonie's.
She moved through the house to the living room and looked out. There were cars parked along the street all the way to the Robertses'. None she recognizedjust dark shapes in the dim light. She went in the front hall and saw a pile of mail (days worth), on the floor, confirming that Lou hadn't been home for some time. She went through the living room into the bedroom, and thought about the night Bobby and Lloyd broke in, the night it all started.
Karen opened a drawer in the antique desk and found the letters and her grandmother's wedding ring. She decided to take some of the clothes she'd forgotten when she walked out. She went in the dressing room and got her small suitcase and put it on the bed and unzipped it and folded the top open. She went back in the dressing room, opened dresser drawers and grabbed a pair of jeans, her white shorts and a couple blouses. She couldn't see very well so she turned on a small lamp that was on top of the dresser, and picked up a pair of boots and a pair of shoes and took everything in the bedroom and laid it on the bed. She went back in and grabbed the pearls she'd bought herself at Tiffany's, and a couple necklaces and bracelets and turned off the light.
Ricky was in the back seat of the Escalade, watching Lou Starr's house on Walnut Lake for the second night in a row, talking to the Iraqis, Tariq and Omar. They were lucky tonight, someone was having a party, and it must've been a big one. There were cars parked down four or five houses.
Once Ricky realized Samir might not make it, and he was in charge, running the show, it was easy. He was the boss now and didn't have to take shit from anyone. All Samir's collectors: Romey, Saad, Joey, Nasir and now Moozie reported to him. They brought the money they collected and gave it to him, and he couldn't believe it. He was rolling in dough. He'd paid off Wadi Nasser, and still had plenty left over, and more was coming in every day.
Ricky was thinking about the night of the robbery. He'd heard a girl's voice, and that girl he believed was Karen Delaney. She had lived in the house, slept with the man for six months. She probably had an idea how much money was in the safe, and he wouldn't doubt it if she also knew the combination. He didn't know why Samir had hit her and knocked her down and thrown her out of the house, and then burned her clothes in the backyard, first dousing them with gasoline. His uncle wouldn't let anyone mention her name after that. Ricky was thinking, do that to a woman and she would be angry, and he believed an angry woman was capable of anything.
He had contacted the Iraqis a couple days after the robbery. He'd gotten Tariq's cell number from a friend at the Chaldean Social Club, realizing there was no one on his payroll qualified for this kind of work except O'Clair, and there was no way he was going to involve him. So who? And the Iraqis popped into his head. They'd be perfect.
He invited them to Samir's house, and received them in Samir's office, sitting behind Samir's massive oak desk, commanding authority and feeling good about himself. He was the boss now and the Iraqis gave him their full attention and respect as he laid out his plan to find Karen. He gave them photographs of her, shots Samir had taken on their many trips together, close-ups of her face, smiling, happy, white teeth, red hair cut short in one and longer in another, the photographs capturing her with unmistakable clarity.
The Iraqis, as it turned out, were interesting. Tariq told Ricky how they had left Baghdad on the second night of the American air strikes that shook the city, and believed, as did many of their countrymen, that the American weapons were far superior to anything Saddam had. They snuck out of the garrison, stole a car and drove into Syria.
Ricky said, "How'd you get from Syria to Dearborn?"
"We drive to Damascus," Tariq said, "and then Beirut."
"How far is that?"
Tariq looked at Omar and Omar said, "I think is eighteen hundred kilometers, maybe two thousand."
"And then what?"
"We take flight to Naples, Italy," Tariq said, "another to Amsterdam. From there, we fly to Toronto, Canada. My cousin drive from Dearborn to pick us up."
Ricky was impressed. They'd traveled halfway around the world and made it look easy and he'd get lost driving through downtown Detroit. He liked these wacky Iraqis. That's how he thought of them: strange and weirdly formal, but they got the job done.
Ricky was watching the dark house and thought he saw a light go on in one of the side windows. "Hey, you see that?" he said, looking through the space between the front seats where the console was. Tariq, behind the wheel, looked over his shoulder at Ricky.
"What is it?"
When Ricky looked back at the house the light was off. "Someone's in there," he said.
They got out of the Escalade, Omar had a crowbar in his hand, Tariq had a shotgun. Ricky walked behind them up the driveway to the two-car attached garage that had a glass-paneled entrance door. It was still hot at 10:30. Ricky had soaked through his nylon warm-up pants and tank top. He said, "Be quiet. Try not to make any noise. We'll sneak in and see who's there." He looked both of them in the eye when he said it, and they glanced back at him blank-faced like they didn't understand.
Omar turned with the crowbar and punched one of the glass panes out of the door, glass shattering on the concrete floor inside the garage. "Hey, what did I just fuckin' tell you? Why don't you ring the doorbell, tell her we're here."