Andrew Vachss - The Weight

“Sugar, I’m not keeping up.”

I can’t really explain how her saying that made me feel. I wasn’t trying to confuse her or anything, but I could see that it was me who knew what to do. Me, not Lynda. I knew what to do. So I told her:

“We’re going back to New York. You and me. We’ll rent a car. And not just so the Caddy’s plates won’t show on any turnpike scanner, either. It’s a long drive. We’ll have to stop along the way. In a motel, like. That’s two ways to use the card. And there’s others, too. Like buying gas. Or food.

“I’m gonna tell Solly I got it done. Which I damn well did. He wouldn’t expect me to use the phone he gave me, so it wouldn’t spook him that it’s not signaling.

“But he can track me through the card; he’ll see I’m headed home. That’s perfect. He wouldn’t expect me to say what he wants to hear on the phone. And the book, that I’d have to hand over to him in person, anyway.

“So, before he even knows I’m in town, I slip back into the bank, take my money out, and stash it with you, before I go to see him.” I knew it couldn’t happen like that-I’d have to do Solly before I went near that bank. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Lynda. I guess it was that old pass-the-polygraph thing in my head coming up again.

“Are you going to-?”

“After I see Solly, I don’t need any new ID. I just go back to being me. I even got a plan how I can do that. You, you’ll be Lynda Leigh.”

“We’ll see.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘We’ll see,’ didn’t I?”

“I get it. You mean, you’ll make me a perfect new ID anyway, just in case, right?”

“What part of ‘We’ll see’ didn’t you understand?”

We got started early the next morning. Lynda dropped me off a block away from a cabstand, then took the Caddy back to its garage. By the time she got to the American Airlines terminal, I’d been waiting almost an hour.

We used my Stanley Wilson credit card to rent one of those big SUVs. Then back to the condo, where we loaded up.

By lunchtime, we were on the road.

The SUV had this gigantic navigation screen. With Lynda reading it for me, we didn’t even need a map.

Everything was going fine. I thought I had it pulled off, but Lynda caught wise.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Seeing if you trust me.”

“Sugar… what?! This isn’t where we should be-”

I pulled into one of those rest stops. Stopped the SUV. Turned off the ignition.

Lynda wasn’t saying anything, but her breathing was tight and fast, like a boiler getting ready to blow.

“Do you trust me?” I asked her again.

“Sugar, how could you even ask me that? After all we’ve-”

“I’m asking you, Lynda. There’s only one way to make this work without having to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”

“What makes you think you-?”

“Did you hear what I said? Our lives. You want to go your own way, now’s the time.”

A cigarette appeared in her hand like magic. She took a puff, blew a stream of smoke at the roof, tapped her nails on the dash. Not saying anything. Not going to say anything. Okay, then: time to find out.

“I need Albie’s note, Lynda.”

“You need it? For what?”

“So Albie could finish his last job. That note, either you’d find it, or these other men would. Albie couldn’t know. That’s why he tried to cover you from both sides.”

“He did .”

“No. No, he didn’t, girl. He did the best he could, but there’s more than two sides to cover. Tell me, that tiny little writing, would you recognize it?”

“You mean, would I know it was from Albie? Of course I would. And if you look close, you’d see it was torn right out of his book. And his tallit -you know how old that must be? How many places it must have been?”

“All I know is, you have to give it up.”

“Give it up?”

“All of it.”

“Sugar, you’re scaring me.”

“You never got mail at that house, right?”

“Of course not. There was a box in-”

“And, like you said, the bills got paid by themselves, from this computer thing.”

“So?”

“So how’s anyone gonna know Albie’s dead? It’s not like it would be a news story or anything. Maybe they had some signal you don’t know about, but-”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The men who visited Albie.”

“Oh. Well, if they did, I can’t see what it could be. I mean, we had no phone, just the cell. I’ve got Albie’s cell. It hasn’t rung once since he-”

“Okay, when these men would show up, did Albie ever tell you they were coming?”

“He… no. No, he never did. I don’t think he knew himself. We’d just be, I don’t know, sitting in the living room, having tea, and they’d just… be there. The first time it happened, I thought they were robbers or something-I was so scared they’d hurt Albie.”

“Good. That means we got a shot. Solly knows Albie’s gone, but he wouldn’t pass that info along until he was sure he was covered. That’s what he was using me for, see?

“The window’s wide open, Lynda. But it could drop closed any minute. If it drops before we get all that stuff back inside, it’ll be like one of those guillotine things, chop off our heads like this ,” I told her, snapping my fingers.

“You want to leave Albie’s things back there? Albie left them to me!”

“What he left you was protection . Only, you’re not using it.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, Albie, he didn’t leave you fucking keepsakes , okay? What he left you was tools. And you’ve gotta use them, not hang on to them.”

“I’m not giving up my-”

“You don’t have to, Lynda. Just give me Albie’s blue book. I’ll drive you back to your condo, and then I’ll go back to where I came from.”

“Sugar…”

“I came down here for two things. I was supposed to check out this Jessop and get that little book. I have to tell Solly I got all that done if I want to get close to him again.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? You can have the little book, all right?”

“If that’s the way you want it.”

“What I want is what you said. We were going back to New York just long enough for you to show Solly you got the job done. That’s ‘we,’ as in both of us. Why can’t we still do that?”

“Because I have to get back into that house, Lynda. I have to leave Albie’s stuff right where we found it. That’s the only way those men who come to see him will ever understand what happened.”

“You’re losing me, Sugar.”

I probably am , I thought. But what I said was, “You already said it. Those hard men, they’re going to come, sooner or later. They won’t find Albie. Or you. What could they do then except call Solly?

“First thing out of his mouth, he’s gonna tell them about that partners desk. If we don’t get that stuff back where Albie had it stashed, they’ll find an empty space.”

“But if-”

“You’re wasting time, Lynda. And we don’t have much. You know what Solly’s gonna say was supposed to be in that desk? Come on. What ?”

“Albie’s book,” she said. She bit her lower lip to stop herself from crying.

“Yeah. And when they find that slot empty, they’ll naturally think you cleaned it out and took off. They want that book, girl. People like them, you think they won’t be able to find you just because you got some nice new ID?”