Blow Fly

43

LUCY STARTS THE MERCEDES and suddenly stares at Rudy in the pitch dark.

"Oh my God! I can't believe it!" She pounds the steering wheel with her fist, accidentally blaring the horn.

"What!" Rudy jumps, startled and suddenly frantic. "What the hell? What the hell are you doing!"

"My tactical baton. Goddamn son of a bitch! I left it on the night table inside the room. It's going to have my fingerprints on it, Rudy."

How could she make such a brain-dead mistake? All went according to plan until she made an oversight, a mindless blunder, the very sort of blunder that catches people on the run all the time. The engine rumbles quietly on the side of the dark street, neither Lucy nor Rudy quite sure what to do. They are free. They got away with it. No one near or inside the hotel saw them, and now one of them must go back.

"I'm sorry," Lucy whispers. "I'm a fucking idiot," she says. "You stay here."

"No. I'll take care of it." Rudy's fear turns to the more manageable emotion of rage, and he resists taking it out on her.

"I fucked it up. I get to fix it." She swings open the car door.