Linwood Barclay - Never Saw It Coming

“I’m betting I can guess.”

“I want your half.”

“What?”

“The money Dwayne gave you for finding me. I know we agreed to split it, but now I want it all. And…” He rubbed his chin. “Another two grand on top of that ought to do it. Let’s call it forty-five hundred. You give me that, and I don’t tell the cops what I saw.”

“If you tell the cops what you saw, then you’re saying you were there.”

Justin waved his index finger at her. “Good point. But there’s nothing to say I can’t make an anonymous call, is there? Maybe confirm a few things for the cops. Get them looking in the right direction.”

“You’d do that,” Keisha said.

Justin laughed. “Hey, I’m doing you a favor here. You don’t see me going to the cops first. I’ve come here with an opportunity for you. And you know what else I was thinking? I was thinking, you and me, we should work together in the future. We make a good team.”

“I don’t know that I can get you that kind of money,” Keisha said. There was the five grand from Gail Beaudry, but right now it was in Kirk’s back pocket. How likely was he to surrender it? Hesitantly, she said, “I don’t know if Kirk will give it to me.”

“Kirk? That’s your boyfriend?”

She hesitated again. “Yes.”

“You saying he won’t give it to you? To keep you from getting arrested?”

“He’ll take some convincing.”

Justin asked, “Does he know what went down today?” Keisha nodded. “Then you need to talk to him. Convince him.”

“Maybe you should ask him yourself. I’m expecting him back in a little while.”

Justin nodded confidently. “Okay, good, I’ll talk to him. I can wait. I’m guessing he’s not gonna want his sweetie to get into any trouble.”

“Yeah,” Keisha said flatly. “He’s always thinking of me first.”

Justin was getting antsy standing by the front door, so he went uninvited into the living room and plopped down onto the couch. He cast his eye over the half-full beer bottle and the Twinkie remnants. “You got anything to drink?”

“No,” Keisha said.

“Some host,” he muttered under his breath. “So tell me, what’d you do after you left Garfield’s house? You must have been a mess. You go through a car wash with all the windows open?”

She didn’t answer him. She was at the window, watching for Kirk.

“Fine, ignore me,” Justin said. “So this boyfriend of yours, what’s he do? Does he predict the future, or track down aliens, or some other shit like that?”

“He works construction,” Keisha said. “But not for a while. He hurt his foot. But he’s walking okay now.”

“That’s nice,” Justin said. “I look forward to doing business with him.”

Keisha heard a familiar rumbling, then saw Kirk’s truck turn into the driveway. The truck bed, as far as she could see, really was empty. Kirk got out and came strutting up the walk like a man who was not only proud of himself, but expecting to get laid.

He came into the house and said, “Hey, babe!”

“In here,” Keisha said.

He took a couple of steps into the house and scanned his eyes across the living room. Justin stood and extended a hand.

“Hey, how ya doin’,” he said. Kirk shook his hand, his face a puzzle. “Don’t think we’ve ever actually been introduced. I’m Justin. Last time I was here, you were still snoozing.” He grinned. “Had to keep my voice down. Keisha here didn’t want to disturb the beast.”

Kirk didn’t know what was going on. He’d never met Justin, although Keisha had told him about the scam she’d run with him. Only thing was, she’d told him her share was a thousand, not twenty-five hundred.

“Justin and I did that job together,” Keisha reminded him. “His parents hired me to find him? We set it up ahead?”

“Oh yeah, right,” Kirk said. “Nice.”

“Yeah,” Justin said, smiling. “My idea, totally. I was just telling Keisha here, we should do some more work together.”

Kirk shrugged, like maybe that was a good idea. “That why you’re here now? You cooking up something?”

“No, this is about something else,” Keisha said.

“Keisha tells me you’re all up to speed on what happened today,” Justin said.

Kirk eyed him warily. Even he wasn’t dumb enough to admit to anything until he knew what it was Justin knew.

“Possibly,” he said slowly.

Justin understood his caution. “The Garfield house. I know all about it.”

Kirk glared at Keisha. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Keisha said. “He was there. Looking through the window. Spying.”

“Well,” Justin said, “I think spying is a tad judgmental. Especially considering you went there to rip him off. And really, it wasn’t spying. I was just hoping to broaden my horizons, see how Keisha did her thing. Who knew she’d moved from bullshit predictions to eye surgery?”

“How would he even know to be there?” Kirk asked.

Keisha quickly explained that Justin had been by the house in the morning, suspected she might go see Wendell Garfield, and found her at the man’s house.

“Yeah,” Justin said proudly. “And my mom says I lack initiative.”

But even with all this explanation, Kirk was still confused. “So what are you doing here, if you’re not planning something new?”

“He’s here to blackmail me,” Keisha said.

“What?”

“He wants money to keep quiet about what he’s seen.”

Kirk, reflexively, reached around and touched the bulge under the back of his winter coat.

“How much?” he asked.

“Forty-five hundred,” Justin offered cheerily. “That’s Keisha’s share out of the scam we pulled on my parents, plus another two grand.”

Keisha thought, Nuts. She could see Kirk doing the math in his head. He looked like a caveman trying to figure out how to take pictures with a smartphone. He said to her, “You told me you only got a thousand out of that job.”

Keisha shrugged. “You got me.”

Kirk would deal with her later. To Justin, he said, “So you’re asking for nearly five grand or you tell the cops Keisha killed Garfield.”

“Good,” Justin said, like Kirk was five. “You deserve a sticker.”

Kirk said, “And you figure we’re just going to give it to you.”

“Don’t you think it would be kind of dumb not to? I make an anonymous call to the cops and they’ll be over here. And if you’ve been helping her cover up what she did, that makes you an accomplice, so it’s as much in your interest to keep this all under wraps as it is hers.” He waited for some kind of response. “Hello?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m hearing you,” Kirk said, stepping further into the living room, crowding Justin and forcing him to take a couple of steps back. “Well, you’re kind of in luck, as it turns out, because I’ve got the money on me.”

Not exactly what Keisha was expecting. She looked at him, dumbfounded.

“No shit?” Justin said, like a junkie seconds away from a fix. “You’re kidding, right? No one carries that kind of money on them. I’d have given you a couple of days to get it together.”

“No, no, I got it,” Kirk said, and reached behind him for the wad of cash Gail had given Keisha.

“Fuck me,” Justin said, not believing it as Kirk fanned out the bills in his two hands.

“I’m gonna keep five hundred back, because there’s five grand here,” Kirk said.

“Shit, you rob a bank or something?” The kid couldn’t take his eyes off the money.

Kirk took the five hundred and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. He extended the rest of the money to Justin, and just as the young man was about to take it, Kirk let the money fall to the floor. It fluttered like giant confetti.