Marcus Sakey - Good People

“I know, babe. I know.” She took his hand. “But nothing is going to. We’ll be careful. We won’t spend any more. Forget we have it, live like normal. We won’t give any hints that we took the money, give anyone a reason to suspect us. And if things get worse, we can always give it back then.”

He played with the whiskey glass, spinning it on its edge, his eyes focused on the swirl of gold.

“Are you okay?”

He shrugged. “I hate this. I don’t even care about the money. Not really.”

She snorted.

“You don’t believe me?”

Anna shook her head. “I don’t believe you felt like you had to say it.” She put a hand up to his cheek, the skin rough with blue-black stubble. “I know you, baby. Better than anybody.” She smiled at him, saw the crinkle around his eyes, the lines in his forehead. “Don’t think of it as money. It’s never been about that.”

“What has it been about, then?”

His question shook her. She’d thought they were in it together, that there had been one simple reason to take it, the simplest reason in the world, the one that was only complicated for them. For a moment, she stared at him, then she stepped around the counter so that they faced each other. She reached for his hand, the fingers larger than hers and rougher, and with her other hand she pulled up her shirt and pressed his palm against her belly, let him feel the heat of it. She stared at him and didn’t say a word.

Finally he nodded, a slow, reluctant gesture. “Okay.”

SHE WAS STILL AWAKE.

Tom was on his back, one arm thrown off the bed, the sheet bunched around his hips. Anna leaned on an elbow and looked at him, the faint trace of his features by the light of the clock. How many nights had they gone to bed together? Thousands. Too many to count. Thousands of nights of brushing teeth and washing faces, of conversations about bills, funny anecdotes, trembling embraces. She could smell his skin, his hair. His faint snore rose and fell against the steady drone of the rain machine. She’d told him she liked the machine for the rhythm, never had the heart to tell the truth, that it drowned out his snoring.

The hardwood floor was cool underfoot. She stepped lightly, dodging the squeaky spot. Closed the bathroom door and peed in the dark, then flushed the toilet and turned the light on. Stared at herself in the mirror, naked except for a pair of cotton panties and a white T-shirt, her hair tangled, skin red from the pillow. Stared and stared, and then when she was tired of thinking about it, she pulled her robe from the bathroom door, killed the light, and crept out.

The house was inhabited by night. The familiar surroundings seemed different, the counter looming, the kitchen table and chairs a beetle with a tangle of legs. She eased the back door open.

The stairwell was old, lit only by a high Plexiglas window, and she moved carefully, wishing she had thought to put on slippers, her bare feet tracing the edge of the wood steps. The light faded the lower she went, until she closed her eyes and just let her feet guide her, one gentle motion at a time: slide, ease down, touch the next stair. When she felt concrete, she opened her eyes and fumbled around left-handed for the light switch.

Dusty yellow pushed against the darkness, but not very hard. The mass of the water heater sat to her left, their barbecue grill, draped in spiderwebs, to the right. The air smelled old, with a faint tang of bleach from the washing machine. She moved forward, the concrete cold, careful to watch for pebbles and nails, the detritus of a hundred years. The furnace was a dark tentacled shape. She stepped past it, then moved to the wall and lifted off the plywood panel that sealed the crawl space. The scrape was loud and accusatory.

It’s not stealing. It’s not. I’m not taking from him, I’m not even lying to him. I’m just looking out for our best interests. He wants it as badly as I do, and for the same reason, but he’s scared, thinks he has to protect me.

I have to protect us from him protecting me.

She squatted down and reached into shadow, fumbled against the pipes and dust until she found the strap of the duffel bag. She pulled it out, surprised again at the weight, at how she had to drag it until it was clear enough for her to get a good angle and haul it to her shoulder. She replaced the panel and stood up. Walked back the way she came. When she flipped the light off, blackness fell like a blanket.

If he thinks he’s protecting me, he might do something stupid. He might panic and just give it up without thinking. We can’t afford that. We have to think. To plan. We have to move carefully. That’s all I’m doing. Being careful.

Her mouth tasted sour as she unlocked the outside door. The air was cool, heavy with the smell of growing things. A truck went down their street too fast, the engine revving. She hesitated at the edge of the building, conscious suddenly of wearing nothing but a robe and panties, her hair a mess. But it was after three, dead hours, and no one was on the sidewalk. She went to the car and did what she had to do, covering the bag with a pile of clothes she’d been meaning to donate.

Walking back to the house, she felt an absence in her chest, like she was hollow, a vacuum in there that was tugging at the rest of her. Her heart beat quick, and the night air found its way past her robe to tighten her nipples and send a shiver down her spine.

This is the right thing. I love you, Tom. I do.

She hurried up the steps and snuck back into her own home.

NO. NO, NO, NO, fucking no !

Jack’s hands shook, and he set the newspaper down on the diner counter so that he could read it properly. Like the problem had been the tremor of his fingers, and not the plain black and white of the Tribune .

Will Tuttle stared up at him. The shot was a couple years old, Will back in his Hollywood days, hair frosted and mussed above the standard Screw-You-Pig expression everybody wore in a mug shot. And beside it, a headline that changed everything.

MURDER SUSPECT FOUND DEAD IN LINCOLN SQUARE APARTMENT

The story went on to say how Tuttle was a prime suspect in the recent “Shooting Star” robbery that had left two dead. How he was a felon with a history of assault and armed robbery who had been living under a false name. How his landlords Anna and Tom Reed, hearing a smoke alarm, had let themselves into his apartment to find him dead, victim of an apparent overdose. How policehad no comment at this time, other than to say that they were diligently pursuing all leads in the Shooting Star case.

For days they’d been watching the house, and all the time Will had been dead already. Jack clenched his hands into fists, let the nails bite into his palms. Bobby dead, and now there was no one he could repay for it, no way to balance the score. By dying, the prick had forced a stalemate.

“It’s time we thought about leaving,” Marshall said.

Jack snatched the paper from the counter, crumpled it up into a ball, watching Will’s face wrinkle and distort. He mashed it tight, then hucked it at the trash can on the other side of the counter. A trucker sitting two down from them looked over, his expression hard. Jack stared back. “Something on your mind?” The man shook his head quickly, turned back to his eggs. Jack kept his gaze locked until the trucker’s fork started to shake.

Marshall cleared his throat. “Are you hearing me? With him gone, it’s highway time.”

“An overdose, for Christ’s sake. Drifted off like he was taking a nap.”

“Look, you’ve got blood for blood. His nephew went hard.”

“It’s not enough.”

“You want to piss on his grave?” Marshall shrugged. “Fine. We give the fucker a twelve-pack salute to float him into the afterlife. But then we split.”