David Putnam - The Replacements

Anger rose in Dad’s tone as he regained his composure.

“I clubbed him over the head with the ball bat, but he fell forward into me. He should have fallen away from me. I think someone from the street shot him in the back.” Dad’s voice grew distant as he asked the man standing by him, protecting him, protecting the children. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Dad, where’s Marie. Is Marie okay?”

Back into the phone, he said, “How should I know? She’s on her way to see you. To help you. I don’t feel so well.” He let out a groan. In all the time I had lived with him, he’d never showed pain or discomfort. He always hid his ailing, looked at it as a personal trial. This was bad.

“What? Wait, are you sure about Marie?” Sirens came over the phone and made hearing difficult.

“I have to go, son, it’s getting busy here. Call me back later.”

“Where did Marie say she was going to meet me?”

Dad clicked off. I whispered to no one, “Take care of yourself, Dad.”

Why had Marie felt a need to come help? How did she think she’d help out? And the bigger question, how did she think she would contact me? I tried to control my breathing and laid down. The sudden adrenaline overload made my body quake.

I closed my eyes. Marie wasn’t a fugitive. I didn’t think she was, anyway. She was wanted for questioning, but, as far as I knew, there wasn’t a warrant for her. She could get on any regular airliner and enter the US with her passport. She would be okay. Sure, she would. But how would she find me? I hadn’t told her where I was staying.

Mack. She’d call Mack. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed the phone, and dialed.

Mack picked up right away. “Thought you’d be asleep.”

“Where are you?”

“Why?”

“Did Marie call you?”

Silence.

“You’re picking her up at the airport, aren’t you?”

“Now, Bruno, you know Marie better than I do. I didn’t want to be on her bad side. She told me not to tell you. She wanted it to be a surprise.”

“What kind of an idiot are you? Can’t you see how this complicates matters?”

“Don’t call me an idiot. And of course I do. She didn’t ask me, she told me she was coming. She told me . What was I going to do, huh?”

“All right, all right, put her up in a nice hotel. I’ll deal with her when I have time.”

“When you have time? All you’re doing now, good buddy, is catching some Zs, and waiting for tomorrow night. Right, Bruno? That’s right, isn’t it, Bruno? You’re not going out in public, that’s crazy. You need to stay put.”

“Yeah, well, that sleeping thing just changed. I need to get this caper done and over so we can get home. Dad’s alone with the kids and shit’s happening down there.”

“What moves do you have to make? There aren’t any. We have to wait for that phone call tomorrow night to set up a meet with this asshole. Bruno, whatta you got going? You’re not going to do something crazy, like rob a bank? Bruno?”

“Just do me a favor. Get Marie to a nice hotel, okay?”

“Can’t do it, old buddy. Tell me what you’re going to do.”

I clicked off.

The answer I’d been mulling over, how to come up with the money, chose that moment to flutter down out of the gauzy fatigue.

Of course, how simple .

I shimmied into my pants, put on shoes, grabbed my shirt, and headed for the door. I went back for the two cell phones and the Glock under the pillow. I needed the gun. What I needed more was to slow down and think. When fatigued, I made too many mistakes. I stuck the dirk in my sock and the derringer in my back pocket.

My mind automatically shifted to the problem at hand. If Mack drove to LAX to pick up Marie, the fifty-minute drive there added to the fifty-minute drive back-that’s if she waited at the curb when he got there-gave me an hour and forty minutes. Plenty of time to do what needed to be done and get away. I stopped at the door. But if Marie flew into Ontario, that was fifteen minutes there and fifteen back.

I opened the door to darkness. Where had the time gone? When you wanted time to slowly ooze through your fingers it never obliged, and when you wanted time to hurry on past it-

Out in the parking lot, a Yellow Cab pulled up and stopped. Marie stepped out. She saw me. Her face broke into a huge smile.

I’d been cut short on my plan. At the moment, I didn’t care one whit. I caught her contagious smile and smiled back. Hers glowed warm with affection. We had not been apart one day in the last nine months. I had missed her terribly, and didn’t realize how much until I saw that smile. I met her halfway, picked her up, and twirled her around. I kissed her long and deep.

I set her down and held on.

She looked up with her green eyes telling me how much she loved me. “What?” she said. “Did you stop off at the deli to get a turd sandwich? Because your breath smells like it.”

Her way of saying she was mad for flying thousands of miles to save my ass, but at the same time didn’t want to scold me.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m the one that should be mad. You were supposed to stay home with the kids and take care of Dad.”

She socked me in the shoulder and smiled. “Things like these are fluid, you have to roll with it.” Words I’d given her in the past, ricocheting back.

“I guess I have to quit telling you the details of my old capers and how they worked.”

“You better not. And the kids are fine, and so is your dad.”

“When’s the last time you talked to them?”

“Why? What’s happened?” She’d read my tone.

“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

Wu walked up. “Hey, Leon, how come you’re not out working, chasin’ down leads on the third kid?”

He must have been out of the information loop. He hadn’t heard about or seen the mall cam video where I grabbed Jonas. Or that the shot-callers in the FBI wanted the blunder kept under wraps. The well-being of the children stood in the balance. Sure, that had to be the reason, or he would have thrown down on me and taken me into custody. This time luck had landed firmly on my side of the fence. I had to be more careful. I should’ve visually cleared the parking lot before going out. I wouldn’t get many more chances. I leaned over Marie and fought the urge to turn around. Without the ball cap and glasses, Wu might recognize me anyway. “Just taking a break to be with my girl,” I said.

“I can see that,” he said to my back. “What is it, that ‘three-week thing’? You two only been together for three weeks, or something like that? Still in that mushy love phase?”

“That’s right,” Marie said. She’d caught on to my fear and held me close.

Wu came closer, only to get a better look at Marie. I spun her around on the outside closest to Wu and headed to the room. Marie had the curves in all the right places, and Wu would be not be looking at me.

We’d made it to the door when Wu said, “Hey, we’re putting a bag together with a GPS for the drop tomorrow night. There’s a briefing in forty minutes at Montclair PD.”

I waved my hand over my head and, with the other, I unlocked the door. Wu said, “Make it a quickie, huh? From here, it’s a twenty-minute drive to Montclair.”

Marie turned. “That leaves us twenty minutes, enough to do it three times.”

Wu yelled as I closed the door. “For sure, that’s the three-week thing talkin’ right there. You lucky bastard.”

I got the door open and the both of us inside. I flipped on the light. Marie kissed me again, reached around and flipped the light back off. The threat of a lifetime in prison tended to intensify emotions, particularly love. We tore at each other’s clothes. Once naked we heated up the sheets, took a break, breathing hard, and then heated them up again. We didn’t have the time. Wu might be briefed at any second and say, “Hey, I just saw him going into a motel room.” The FBI could be surrounding the place any minute. Or, they might wait for the outcome of the children, keep my involvement as an ace in the hole, a scapegoat to blame along with all my other alleged crimes.