“Hey, shit,” Kenneth said, “we gonna have a party.”
TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
THE PHONE RANG AS KAREN, IN BED, WAS STARING AT LUMINOUS numbers in the dark: 3:45. She was sure it was Foley. In the moment it took to get up on her elbow and reach for the phone, no other name was in her mind. She said hello and felt a letdown as the woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”
“It’s okay,” Karen said, “you didn’t.”
“Reason I’m calling, I need to ask a question.”
It was Moselle.
“Go ahead.”
“If I know something’s gonna happen—like a job is gonna be pulled and I don’t tell the police I know about it? Am I, you know, could I be charged for knowing?”
“When is it supposed to happen?”
“See, I knew something this other time when a man was killed and I didn’t say nothing?”
“You told me about it. You said a man was blown up.”
“That’s the one. They said if I told anybody I’d be dead, too. So I didn’t. See, this time I been told the same thing. Only there’s a reason I could get mixed up in it, too, and I don’t want it to happen.”
“Who threatened you, Maurice?” There was a silence. “If you’re withholding information about a crime, yeah, you’re complicit, participating in a wrongful act by association. You don’t have to actually be there. When is this taking place, tomorrow?”
“Before that. Okay, I’ve told you and you know I’m not mixed up in it.”
“But when is it going to happen?” Karen said, and waited. “Is Maurice there?”
“He left.”
“You’re alone?”
“I don’t want to say no more than I have.”
“Moselle, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Will you wait for me, not go anywhere?”
She had hung up.
Karen called Raymond Cruz at his home, woke him up and stared at the clock while they spoke for a minute and a little more. He told her a car with a man from Robbery would be at the hotel by the time she was dressed.
• • •
KENNETH WALKED UP TO THE REDHEADED MAID IN THE BATHROOM saying, “What’s your name, mama?” She wouldn’t tell him, wouldn’t say a word till he hooked a finger in the waist of her panties, pulled on the elastic as he looked in there and said, “Hey, shit.”
The redheaded maid said, “Get out of there, you creep,” and slapped his hand.
Kenneth, grinning at her, said, “Maurice got to see this,” and took her by the arm out of the bathroom, past Foley and Buddy like they weren’t even there.
“He’s gonna jump her,” Buddy said.
Foley kept quiet. They followed behind, along the hall to the master bedroom, Kenneth glancing around at them once; they didn’t seem to bother him. He took the maid into Ripley’s bedroom: the front part like a sitting room, full of fat, cushy chairs and a sofa, all white, everything white or black, a wet bar, a big TV, CD player, the man’s king-size bed in there through an archway where Maurice, out of his coveralls, was taking suits and sport coats from the walk-in closet to look them over, drop some on the floor, lay some over a chair.
Alexander was in the sitting room part with White Boy. As Kenneth came in with the maid, Alexander yelled out her name, “Midge!” and started for Kenneth, telling him to leave her alone. Foley got to the doorway in time to see White Boy take Alexander around the neck, rub the kid’s scalp with his knuckles until he screamed and throw him on the sofa.
Kenneth had a finger hooked in her panties again, Midge holding on to his wrists, Kenneth saying, like he was making an announcement, “The bitch has a red puss on her. Y’all ever see a red one?”
Foley saw the maid let go of Kenneth’s wrist and slap him across the face. Kenneth half turned from her, came back with his fist cocked and threw a left at her, a hook that jarred against the side of her face. She landed on the sofa, head bouncing against the cushion. Right away, as Foley watched, Alexander edged over to brush her hair from her cheek and take her hand, the woman looking up at Kenneth, stunned.
“I’ve seen ’em dyed blond on sisters,” Maurice said from the other part of the room, “but I don’t believe I ever seen a natural red one.”
“This boy,” Kenneth said, “been squirrelin’ the maid, getting himself some house-sitting pussy.”
Maurice said to Alexander, “How is she, boy, pretty good?”
Kenneth said, “I think she like to tussle with a man for a change. Get boned a way she gonna remember.”
“Not till you done looking,” Maurice said. “Will somebody please find the fucking safe?”
Out in the hall again Buddy said to Foley, “They’re gonna gang-bang her. What’re we supposed to do, watch?”
• • •
MOSELLE WAS ON THE SOFA, CIGARETTE IN ONE HAND, HOLDING her robe closed with the other. Her gaze moved from the detective waiting in the foyer with his phone to Karen Sisco standing over her. More white people in the house these days than when white people lived in the house.
“I tell him it’s none of my business. See, but he likes to brag on what he’s doing. He knows I ain’t gonna tell on him. But now this time he wants me to tell something. And if I do, I know it will mess me up good. See, there’s two white men with him . . .”
“Tonight?” Karen said.
Moselle nodded and drew on her cigarette, wanting to tell it right, but not tell too much.
“Right now, this minute. They left with Maurice.” Moselle paused, her gaze going to the foyer, then raising to Karen Sisco again. “But they not coming back with him.” She watched Karen ease down to sit on the edge of the sofa, close to her.
“He’s leaving them there.”
She understood.
“You could say that.”
“You know their names?”
Moselle shook her head. “Never was introduced.”
This Karen said, “Are you playing with me?” Sounding irritated, not the nice person anymore. “What’s your game? What’re you telling me?” Getting a fierce look in her eyes.
Moselle leaned away from her. “I don’t know the man’s name till Maurice tells me. See, then I’m suppose to tell the police who this person is and where to find him, out at this rich man’s house. Okay, if I do, it’s gonna mess up my life good and I’ll prob’ly go to jail. But if I don’t, then I’m gonna be gone from this world, honey. That’s what I’m telling you.”
Karen seemed to ease back saying, “But why give up this particular guy?”
“’Cause Maurice wants the reward you get for turning him in. Hoping, you understand, they pay off if the man’s dead.”
Moselle stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray she held on the arm of the sofa, feeling Karen Sisco staring at her.
“See, the man’s an escaped convict from Florida.”
Feeling her staring and then feeling her get up and when Moselle looked, Karen in her long coat was across the room already, leaving.
• • •
THEY HAD THEIR MASKS OFF AND HAD TORN UP RIPLEY’S bedroom: drawers pulled out and dumped, pictures off the walls, bed covers stripped, the mattress slashed.
Foley and Buddy, back from checking rooms, stood in the hall looking in. Foley said, “Would you hide walking-around money in a mattress?”
“I leave mine on the dresser,” Buddy said. “This is a bunch of shit. These assholes are gonna end up with TV sets.”
“You want to leave?”
“I’m ready anytime,” Buddy said, “but what about the maid, and the kid?”
“I don’t know,” Foley said, looking at them now, on the sofa in the sitting room area. He did know, but didn’t want to say. They seemed rigid, holding each other’s hands, afraid to move. Kenneth, near them, was taking bottles of wine and booze from a cabinet and lining them up on the wet bar.
Buddy said, “I can see you don’t have your heart in this.”
“I never did.”
&nb
sp; “Before we go,” Buddy said, “I think we’re gonna have to settle with these assholes.”
Foley nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” He turned to Buddy then. “Listen, why don’t you leave and I’ll clean up.”
“What’re you talking about?” Buddy frowning.
Foley didn’t answer because there was no way to explain what he felt, that these were the final scenes of his life playing out, that pretty soon it would be over and he was resigned to it happening. Here, not against the fence in some penitentiary. It was like if Clyde Barrow, driving along that county road in ’34, knew he was going to run into all those Texas Rangers and there was nothing he could do about it. How did you explain that kind of feeling to anybody? Even to Buddy. Buddy was confused enough already and it made him appear restless. Foley said, “Take the truck and get out of here.”
Buddy, still frowning, said, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but we’re going together, once I get the keys offa Kenneth.”
They heard Maurice then, in there trying on clothes, say to Kenneth, “Put some music on,” and saw Kenneth at the wet bar going through a rack of CDs.
“All he’s got’s Frank Sinatra,” Kenneth said, “some others, little Sammy Davis, all ofay jive.”
“Put Frank Sinatra on,” Maurice said, looking at himself in a full-length mirror. “I can go Frank Sinatra.”
“Hey, shit, the man’s got Esther Phillips.”
“Now you talking. Put Esther on.”
“’Confessin’ the Blues.’”
“See has it got ‘Long John Blues’ on it.”
Foley and Buddy, by the doorway, looked from Maurice to Kenneth.
“Yeah, number ten.”
“Play it, man. Woman goes to see Long John, this seven-foot-tall dentist,” Maurice said, looking at himself turning this way and that in the mirror, like the suitcoat might fit him if he caught it at a certain angle, not hang on him like a sack, the tips of his fingers showing. “Yeah, that’s it, Long John telling the woman her cavity needs filling,” Maurice watching himself, head bobbing slow motion, barely moving but on the beat. He caught Foley and Buddy in the mirror watching him from the doorway. “How y’all doing? You find anything?”
Foley held up empty hands. Then turned as White Boy brushed past them into the room, White Boy holding up a wad of bills in a rubber band.
“Six hundred, found it in the kitchen.”
“That’s a start,” Maurice said, as Alexander came off the sofa.
“It’s mine. Mr. Ripley gave it to me.”
Alexander made a grab for the money and White Boy held it at arm’s length above his head.
“Come on—I need it for school.”
White Boy said, “Oh, okay, here,” offering the wad of bills; but when Alexander tried to take it, White Boy raised his arm straight up in the air again, grinning at him, holding him off with his other hand.
“You rob kids?” Buddy said. “How about old women?”
“Anybody we can,” Kenneth said, his head bobbing to Esther Phillips. “You a robber, it’s what you do, man. You rob people.”
Buddy started into the room and Foley took hold of his arm to stop him. They watched White Boy play with Alexander, waving the money at him, then raising it out of reach when he made a grab for it. They watched Midge get up to help Alexander and Kenneth right away step in front of her holding up his hands, feinting with them at her breasts. They watched White Boy drag Alexander by the hair to a closet, throw him inside and lock the door.
Buddy pulled his arm free and Foley said, “Stay out of it.”
“I can’t.”
“Let’s go see the Snoop.”
They walked through to where he stood looking at himself in the mirror. “There’s no safe,” Foley said. “There’s no cash or stones hidden anywhere.”
Maurice studied his profile. “You look good?”
“Glenn was dreaming.”
“Fucking Glenn,” Maurice said. “Yeah, well, you take what you can get. You want a suit? You want a sport coat? The ones on the floor there, you can have any of those, I can’t use ’em. You want shoes? The man has, must be twenty pair of shoes in the closet. Too big for me.” He looked past their reflections and yelled, “White Boy! They’s some cardboard boxes in the truck? Dump out the shit’s in ’em and bring the boxes up here. We’ll take the wine and the booze . . . Hey, and look in the kitchen, the freezer. See what looks good to you.”
They saw White Boy in the mirror start out and then stop and look back.
“How about somebody helping me?”
Maurice said, “Y’all want to give him a hand?”
“We’re leaving,” Foley said.
“We all are, pretty soon now.” Maurice turned and yelled at White Boy, “Get Kenneth!”
“He ain’t here.”
“Well, where’s he at?”
“He took the redhead down the hall,” White Boy said.
And Foley thought, Here it comes.
• • •
TOWNSHIP AND SHERIFF’S RADIO CARS STOOD ALONG Vaughan Road, dull metal shapes in the dark, the sky overcast, unmarked cars against the snowbank, by the wall in front of the residence and blocking both ends of the circular drive. The detective from Robbery said, “Let me find out what’s going on,” and got out of the car. On the way here he had asked about the GCI prison break and that was pretty much what they’d talked about. The Robbery detective said he’d never heard of Jack Foley.
Karen was out of the car when he came back from the group standing by one of the sheriff’s cars. He told her they were waiting for Inspector Cruz, he hadn’t arrived yet. They walked to the nearer end of the circular drive and the Robbery detective pointed out the truck parked at the front entrance. He said they’d contacted the company and found out a truck was missing from their property and must have been stolen that evening.
Karen said, “It looks like the front door’s open.”
“It is,” the detective said. “A guy came out just a minute ago. Got some boxes from the truck, went inside with them and kicked the door shut, but it didn’t close all the way.” Karen stared at the front entrance. The detective said, “Raymond should be here soon.” He said, “You want to smoke? It’s okay here by the wall.” Karen shook her head. He had trouble with his lighter, getting it to flame. He lit his cigarette finally, looked up and said, “Hey, where you going?”
Karen walked up the drive to the front entrance, right hand in her coat pocket gripping the Sig Sauer .38.
• • •
FOLEY SAW IT HAPPENING AS HE LOOKED IN THE MIRROR AND in a way it was like watching a movie:
“Kenneth’s like a bullfrog: it moves, fuck it,” Maurice said, turning this way and that to study his image, taking on a dead-serious look then as he stopped and said to Buddy, “Man, what are you doing with that?”
Now Foley was looking at the snub-nose .38 in Buddy’s hand, holding it on Maurice, Buddy saying, “You guys are bad, Snoop.”
And Maurice saying, “You know bad these days, man, is good,” as Buddy stepped in and hit him in the mouth with his left hand and Maurice stumbled against the mirror and stood there with his hand to his face, his eyes taking on a shrewd kind of look.
“Watch the Snoop,” Buddy said, “while I go find Kenneth.”
Foley brought the Beretta out of his overcoat, saw Maurice’s gaze follow Buddy for a moment and come back to him, Maurice touching his bloody mouth as he looked at the gun. Taking off the suitcoat he said, “Jack, you don’t use a gun, do you?”
“Hardly ever.”
“You nervous?”
“A little.”
Maurice dropped the suitcoat on the floor and walked past Foley to the bed. Picking up his white coveralls he said, “This kind of setup, you don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing. Be honest with me—do you?”
“You’re right,” Foley said, extended the Beretta and shot him through the coveralls he was holding in front of him. “So I thought, why tak
e a chance,” Foley said, and shot him again and saw the Snoop’s bloody mouth and his eyes staring, glazing over, saw him drop the coveralls and heard them hit the carpeted floor, something heavy in one of the pockets, and saw the blood in the center of the Snoop’s white sweatshirt. He watched him sit down on the bed, then fall back with his eyes open and stay that way. Foley got the Snoop’s piece, another Beretta, from the coveralls and ran out of the room.
He saw Buddy near the end of the hall looking back this way, his arm raised now, waiting for him. He said, “Two-gun Foley. What’d the Snoop do, pull on you?”
“He had it in mind,” Foley said. “Listen, Kenneth’s gonna be ready if he isn’t deaf.”
“I’m gonna bang in there and shoot him,” Buddy said. “Something I’ve never done before, shoot anybody.”
“You know he’s got that shotgun.”
“If you stand against the wall next to the door, reach over and turn the knob . . . You know what I mean?”
Foley slipped the pistol in his left hand into his coat pocket, put his back against the wall and looked at Buddy, standing now in front of the door. Foley’s left hand reached for the knob. He turned it. Buddy kicked the door, going in with it, and the shotgun blast blew him back into the hall—past Foley already moving into the doorway. He saw them bare, both sitting up in bed, Kenneth racking the pump gun, Midge turned away from him, gathering up the covers hanging off her side of the bed, and coming around to throw them like a net at Kenneth as the shotgun went off and the covers caught fire and Foley was pumping one two three shots into Kenneth somewhere under there. Foley watched Midge, bare naked, jump up and drag the burning covers from the bed and saw Kenneth now, the bullet holes in his chest.
Foley knelt over Buddy in the hall, felt his throat for a pulse and said, “Shit.” He looked up to see Midge—the woman not caring she was still naked, or maybe not even conscious of it—standing over him. “He’s dead,” Foley said.
She gave that a moment before asking, “Where’s Alexander?”
“In the closet,” Foley said, getting up. “But stay here. One of them’s still around.”
• • •