There was one part of the deal that bothered him. He had to concentrate to think about it in this living room decorated with prison photographs on the walls: Donna in groups of officials and corrections officers; Donna with groups of inmates, one of them signed “To Donna ‘Big Red’ Mulry from the boys in E Block.” Pictures of Donna’s life behind walls, not wearing glasses in any of them. She and Richie were on the sofa watching television, a cop show with fast, expensive cars and Latin rock music. Richie saying now, “Look at that, Bird. I don’t believe it.” The Bird looked and didn’t believe it either, the cop acting emotional, broken up about something. Cops didn’t do that, they were cold fucking guys that never showed what they felt—if they felt anything. Here or across the river in Canada cops were the same. There were cops in Detroit right now investigating a homicide that happened this morning in a hotel and would not be broken up about the old guy or about the girl either. This guy Richie Nix, this punk, was grinning with a dreamy stupid look, the woman Donna moving her hand underneath his T-shirt that said it was nice to be nice. She had looked at it when they came in and said, “Oh, is that ever cute.” What was she trying to be, his mother or what? The Bird had asked what people called him and he said Richie, that was his name, Richie Nix. “Donna likes Dick,” he said, “if you know what I mean, but it isn’t my name.” There was an Elvis Presley doll in a white jumpsuit standing next to the stereo. There were stuffed animals on the sofa and chairs, little furry things, bears, a puppy dog, a kitty, there was a turtle, a Mr. Froggy . . . This woman who used to be a hack, with her pile of hair and her glasses, was going to stuff Richie and use him as a pillow if she could. That was what it looked like.
The Bird got up out of his chair, walked over to the TV and turned it off. He heard the woman say, “Hey, what’re you doing?” When he looked at her she was sitting upright with her back arched, one leg underneath her.
“Time for you to go to bed.”
“I got news for you,” Donna said. “This is my house.”
“Yeah, and it’s a dump.”
She said, “Well, you certainly have your nerve.”
He said, “You want me to take you in there?”
Donna turned her head to look at Richie sitting next to her with his mouth open. Richie looked up at the Bird who waited, not saying anything. Now Donna was looking at him again. Still the Bird waited. After a moment she got up and walked out of the room. Richie called after her, “And close the door.” He grinned as they heard it slam.
“You phone the guy tomorrow morning,” the Bird said.
“What guy?”
The Bird moved to the sofa, taking his time, and sat down. “The real estate guy. You call him and say to bring the money out to one of the model homes, four o’clock in the afternoon. We’ll go out there before and take a look, decide which one.”
“Sounds good.”
“You know why we do it this way?”
“We’ll be out closer to the interstate.”
The Bird shook his head. “We do it because if there are cops, he tells them and that’s where they gonna be.”
Richie waited. “Yeah?”
“We go to his office before he leaves for the model home. Watch his place, we don’t see any cops around, or ones that could be cops, we go in. Say about two.”
5
* * *
NELSON DAVIES REALTY was in a big white Victorian home on St. Clair River Drive that Wayne thought looked like a funeral parlor. It must have belonged to somebody important at one time, probably a guy in shipping or lumber. Nelson Davies had added on a first-floor lobby in front with glass doors. But this house had so many wings and angles as it was, added on over the years, Wayne didn’t believe the modern front entrance made it look any worse.
Carmen had told him to park in back. Her car was there with two others. She seemed nervous the way she smiled, looking him over in his dark-blue suit, asking what happened to the handkerchief she’d put in the breast pocket. Nothing, he’d taken it out, that’s all. Then losing the smile as her gaze reached his tan scuffed work shoes.
She said, “Wayne . . .” disappointed, but that was all.
One of the things he liked most about Carmen—besides her brown eyes and the way she could give him a certain look after twenty years—was the fact she would never moan or wring her hands over something that couldn’t be changed. She might kick the lawnmower when it didn’t start; but something like this, she’d never go on about his work shoes. He followed her legs up the stairs, the skirt stretching around her neat fanny. Wayne loved Carmen’s legs in those skirts that came a few inches above her knees. He’d see her when he got home from work and have an urge to pull the skirt up around her hips. There were times he could tell she wanted him to and he did, the two of them alone in the house with Matthew gone.
Nelson Davies had the front office, a good size one. The first thing Wayne saw was the trophy-class buck mounted up on the striped wallpaper. Jesus, a twelve-point rack on it and the guy sold real estate.
“You never told me he was a hunter.”
“Nelson goes duck hunting,” Carmen said. “See the decoys?” There was an entire shelf of them behind the reddish-brown desk the size of a dining-room table. Mallards, greenheads, susies, one or two Wayne couldn’t identify right away. It didn’t matter, he was more interested in that trophy buck.
“He didn’t get that around here. He might’ve, but I doubt it.”
“He tells everybody he only went deer hunting that one time.”
“I bet he hit it with his car.”
Wayne looked around some more as Carmen told him Nelson was never late for his appointments and should be back any minute. Wayne asked how he would know what time it was from that thing. The clock on the wall didn’t have any numbers on it. Then saw another one between the ceramic lamp and the computer on the desk, a gold-plated alarm clock that looked like some kind of an award. Carmen told him to sit in Nelson’s chair, soft black leather with chrome trim, see what being the boss felt like. She left saying she’d get him a cup of coffee.
When she came back with it Wayne was sitting in the chair, his feet up on the desk, scuffed cowhide on polished teak.
“I think I like it.”
Carmen said, “See?” and left him there to go do some work.
Fool with papers, fill out different forms—what Wayne believed the real estate business was all about. Writing in numbers. There was a pile of forms on the desk. Escrow Closing Instructions. Seller’s Proceeds Net Out Work Sheet. Jesus. Mortgage Payoff/Assumption Request and Authorization. Wayne thinking, I can’t do it. He could read blueprints but not this shit. A Limited Service Agreement that was all fine print. A person could ruin their eyes selling real estate. Wayne looked at the computer, pressed a couple keys: it made clicking sounds but nothing happened. He got up and walked over to the big picture window, to sunlight and a clear blue sky, the river and the dark edge of Walpole Island over there. He thought of Lionel, coming to the house at four. He looked down at the roof of the lobby, with a little decorative slat fence around it, that stuck out a few feet below the window. What good was putting up that fence if there was no reason to go out on the roof? He would see this kind of bullshit ornamentation and be thankful he worked up on the iron.
A blue Cadillac pulled up to the house and parked on the street.
Wayne watched a guy come out of the car and toss his head, getting his hair out of his face as he looked up at the house; the guy wearing a sport coat that seemed too big for him in the shoulders, the sleeves too long. Another guy came around the back of the car buttoning his suit coat; this one older with a stocky build, his hair slicked back and shining in the sun. They reminded Wayne of the couple of guys who’d been given a bath and secondhand clothes at a street mission. As dressed up as they’d ever be. Not used to a residential neighborhood either, the way they looked up and down the street. Coming up the driveway they looked toward the back of the house, then turned into the walk and Way
ne lost sight of them.
He returned to the desk, sat down and picked up a color brochure that described “Wildwood, modern living in a back-to-nature setting.” It showed model homes on a bare tract of land, some of it fill, some of it cleared, where they’d bulldozed out the existing trees. Why did they do that? Carmen said this way you could plant your own trees, sit out on the patio and watch them grow for the next fifty years. Saying it with a straight face. She’d do that and he’d have to think about how she meant it.
He looked up, hearing the door close.
The two guys from the Cadillac were standing in the office: the older, stocky one turning from the door as the skinny one, wearing sunglasses now, brushed his hair out of his face and looked around coming over to the desk. He opened his loose sport coat and put his hands on his hips. Now the older one was looking around the office. Both of them right at home. The skinny one grinned at Wayne as he said, “I told you you wouldn’t know which one I’m gonna be when I come in? Remember? Well, here I am.”
Wayne said, “What?”
“On the phone. Four days ago.”
“I think you want to talk to somebody downstairs,” Wayne said. “They’ll help you.”
The skinny one looked over at the older guy, who was studying the trophy buck now and didn’t seem to be paying attention. “You hear that? He’s playing dumb.”
“He’s fucking with you,” the stocky older guy said, still looking at the buck.
It caught Wayne by surprise. He eased up a little straighter in the leather chair, already feeling irritated, not caring much for their attitude. Now he was curious as well as irritated; but careful. He watched the skinny one come over and plant his hands on the desk to hunch in closer and stare at him through his sunglasses.
“Are you gonna give me a hard time? You know what I want. Where’s it at?”
He had a little diamond stuck to his ear.
Wayne said, “Where’s what at?” Staring back at the guy, barely able to see his eyes behind the glasses. Wayne wondered if the idea was not to be the first one to blink, then wondered if the guy had some kind of disease. He looked sickly, hardly any color in his face.
“You gonna try and tell me I never spoke to you?”
“No, I think what he saying,” the older guy said, coming over to the desk, “he don’t believe what you told him on the telephone. What could happen to him. So he’s fucking with you.”
The guy was Indian.
Wayne realized it for the first time. At least he was pretty sure, looking at the guy’s face now, close, the hair, the thick body in the tight suit. Indian or part Indian and something else familiar about him that made Wayne think of Walpole Island right away and Lionel, though Lionel didn’t sound like this guy. This guy had just the trace of an accent. Wayne didn’t know what kind, maybe French-Canadian. He began to see the Indian as the one to watch, though the skinny guy irritated him more.
“Show him you mean it,” the Indian said, standing close to the desk now, “how you can hurt his business.” He reached out, still looking at Wayne, and brushed the coffee mug with the back of his hand, tipping it over on Nelson Davies’s real estate papers. “Like a sign, ‘ey? What can happen.”
The skinny one said, “Hey, yeah,” coming alive.
Wayne watched him grab the gold-plated alarm clock from the desk, look around for a target and throw it at the numberless clock on the wall. He missed, said, “Goddamn it,” picked up the coffee mug, threw it and missed again. He said, “Shit,” and now he looked mad, picked up the ceramic lamp and shattered it against the wall. It seemed to make him feel better. Now he was looking around for something else, the Indian patient, watching.
Wayne thought about getting up and walking out. What would they do? But he sat there, watching now as the skinny guy went over to the trophy buck, tossing his hair as he looked up at it, then jumped, grabbing hold of the antlers. He hung up there for a moment struggling with it, kicking against the wall, came down all of a sudden with the deer head, that beautiful twelve-point rack, and threw it across the room. Wayne saw him breathing hard, out of shape for a young guy, looking around for something else. Maybe the decoys, all of Nelson’s wooden ducks in a row. These guys could mess up the office, but there weren’t enough things to break. Unless they threw the decoys through that big picture window. Wayne thinking he could put the skinny one through it, no problem. The Indian might be more to handle.
The skinny one said to Wayne, “Am I making my point?”
The Indian shook his head. “You wasting your time.”
“Well, he’s gonna be a dead fucking real estate man he don’t give us the cash, I already promised him that.”
“Yeah, but he don’t believe you.”
“Then I’m gonna show him.”
Wayne said, “Okay, you win,” and pushed up from the chair. “I’ll get it for you. It’s downstairs.” He walked around the desk and the Indian stepped in front of him.
“I’ve seen you someplace.”
They were close enough that Wayne could see the guy’s eyes, a deep dark brown, calm but worn out, bloodshot. He smelled of after-shave. Wayne couldn’t name the brand, something cheap. For some reason it helped him remember where he had seen the Indian, the same place the Indian had seen him. Yesterday, in the variety store on Walpole Island.
“Where was that I saw you?”
There was the trace of an accent. Where was dat . . . Wayne shrugged. He heard the skinny one say, “Let him by. I want to show him something.”
The Indian kept staring at him. He was a few inches shorter than Wayne but a good thirty pounds heavier. The skinny one was saying it again, “Will you let him by?” The Indian took his time, none of his moves hurried, and the skinny one was waiting, anxious to have his turn. He moved in to stand even closer than the Indian, his sunglasses about level with Wayne’s eyes, right there, like he was a big-league manager and Wayne was an umpire about to get chewed out.
The skinny guy said, “Remember me telling you I’ve killed people? I want to be sure you believe it.”
Wayne didn’t. Not from what he saw of this skinny guy’s face, imperfections all over it, lack of character hiding behind the sunglasses. Even if he’d been told, he wouldn’t believe it. Till the guy’s hand came up from somewhere with a big nickelplate revolver and stuck the barrel under Wayne’s nose, giving it a nudge. Wayne tried to raise his head believing now, yes, it was possible.
Very gently he pushed aside the gun barrel with the tips of his fingers, still looking at the guy’s sunglasses, and said, “I never doubted for a minute.”
“I want you to be sure,” the skinny guy said to him. “So you know what can happen to you.”
Wayne felt himself shoved from behind, the Indian saying, “He believes you, okay? Let’s go.”
They went downstairs, Wayne leading. He paused in the foyer to say, “It’s this way,” and took them along the remodeled hall past rows of office cubicles partitioned in panels of knotty pine and frosted glass, most of them empty. Carmen’s desk was at the end of the row, on the right. He didn’t want her to be there. But she was, talking on the phone. Wayne saw her look up, saw her eyes, her surprised expression, as they walked past and came to a glass door in the rear of the house. Wayne was pulling the door open when the Indian placed his hand against the glass. He held it, looking out at the gravel parking area in the backyard.
“It’s in your car?”
The skinny one, anxious, said, “Where else would it be? He’s taking it out to that house I told him.”
The Indian said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Wayne pulled the door open. He was stepping outside when he heard Carmen’s voice behind him, raised, coming from the hall, “Wayne?” but didn’t turn or even pause. He kept going, hearing the Indian say, “Who’s Wayne?” and the skinny one, closer to him, say, “Who cares? Somebody works there.” Then saying, “You drive a truck?” as Wayne approached the side of the pickup bed and reached over to work
the combination on the metal tool box. Wayne said, “When I go out on the job, yeah,” slipping the lock off, lifting the lid and reaching in with his right hand. He heard the Indian say, “There’s a woman there, watching us,” Wayne’s hand touching cold metal now, a spud wrench, a bull pin next to it—too short—his hand groping until it found the sleever bar, thirty slender inches of solid metal, about three pounds worth, one end flat for prying. Wayne gripped it hearing the skinny guy say, “What’re you doing?” The Indian saying, “She still watching us.” The skinny one, closer to him, saying, “Come on, will you?” His hand still in the tool box, Wayne turned his head enough to see the skinny one right there and the Indian a few feet behind him, looking toward the office.
“I found it.”
The skinny one said, “Well, gimme it.”
And Wayne said, “Here.”
* * *
Carmen saw it through the glass door, the heavyset man in the way at first because he was watching her and looked as though he might come back inside.
She saw Wayne come around from the truck with the sleever bar a flash of metal, knew what it was and saw the one with the hair twisting away, sunglasses flying and the metal bar raking him across the shoulders. He stumbled, yelling at Wayne, but didn’t fall down, not that time, not until Wayne swung at his legs, going for his knees. The guy was jumping back as Wayne connected, hitting him low in the thighs, and his legs went out from under him. Carmen saw the heavyset man hurrying to get his suit coat unbuttoned, Wayne after him now, raising the bar to swing it at him, the heavyset man reaching into his coat, but had to bring his hands out fast to protect himself, hunching, and Wayne hit him twice across the arms, high, around the shoulders, the man trying to cover his head, and that was when Wayne swung the metal bar with both hands, like a baseball bat, and slammed it into the man’s stomach, hard. The man doubled over, bringing his arms down, and Wayne hit him across the back two-handed, coming down with the bar, twice, and the man dropped to his hands and knees in the gravel, then onto his elbows and knees, covering his head again with his big hands. But it wasn’t finished. Carmen saw the other one, the one with the hair, getting to his feet with his head down, trying, it looked like, to get his belt undone and shove one hand into his pants. She saw him look up as Wayne came at him swinging and this time he dodged out of the way and went into a crouch facing Wayne, Wayne circling him, it looked as though to keep him in the yard, backing him this way toward the house, Wayne stalking him with the sleever bar. It amazed her, she had never seen that cold, intent look on her husband’s face before. She saw the heavyset man still on the ground. Then got a shock to see the one with the hair coming right to the door, one hand holding his groin, his face close for a moment through the glass, white and drawn, then ugly, turning into some kind of wildman, as he banged against the door. She tried to hold it shut but he pushed through, knocking her against the wall and ran past her toward the front. Carmen hung on to the door, holding it open for Wayne, and yelled after him running up the hall, “Wayne, he’s got a gun!” Wayne yelled something back over his shoulder but she didn’t know what it was he said, he was moving away from her fast, intent on getting the one with the hair.