The Way Home

SIXTEEN

Mindy Kramer ate in the same place most every weekday. It was a Thai restaurant up in Wheaton, off University Boulevard, in an area heavy with Hispanics and Orthodox Jews, where nothing was upscale and fast-food wrappers and cigarette butts littered the streets.

The restaurant itself had little ambience, holding eight four-tops and a half-dozen deuces, with the standard royal family portraits hung on plain blue walls. But the food was clean, the service mostly efficient, and the specials went for four dollars and ninety-five cents, including a choice of spring rolls or watered-down lemongrass soup.

Thai Feast was out of the way from Mindy’s core business, which was down in Dupont, Capitol Hill, and that broad area of Shaw that included the neighborhood she and her fellow real estate professionals called Logan. Mindy made the half-hour trek out to Wheaton because Thai Feast had become her base camp. The girl who always served her, Toi, gave her the same deuce by the window, leaving it unoccupied until her arrival, and had her ice water and iced coffee on the table shortly after Mindy had taken her seat. As Mindy made her calls and answered e-mails from her BlackBerry, Toi was busy fetching the spring rolls that came with the special and making sure the main dish that Mindy had chosen would come out right behind it. The bill was always seven forty-nine, and Mindy always left one forty-nine in the tip column of the check, exactly 20 percent.

Mindy Kramer was all about routine and organization. She had married at twenty-two, had one daughter, Lisa, and divorced her layabout husband at twenty-five. She had raised and supported Lisa by herself as she got her license and grew her business. Now she had an office in Northwest, where “a girl” handled the phones and paperwork. Mindy had trained and polished two young sales proteges who, along with her, made up the Dream Team. Unfortunately, Lisa had made the same mistake as her mother and married a young man who had no energy or ambition outside the bedroom. She was now single with two little girls, ages six and four, of her own. Because she felt that Lisa was not emotionally equipped to be a proper mother to them, Mindy often took the children, Michelle and Lauren, with her to the office or dropped them off at summer day camp.

She handled all of this because she was efficient. And she looked good. At fifty-five, she was toned, well-dressed, and properly made up and manicured. There wasn’t one gelled, spiked, highlighted hair out of place on her head.

“How is your family, Toi?” said Mindy Kramer, as she added the tip and signed the credit card voucher before her.

“They are well,” said Toi with a smile.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Mindy.

“Thank you so much,” said Toi, her smile frozen in place.

Mindy Kramer got up and, smoothing her sleeveless lavender shift down her thighs, her purse in hand, left the restaurant, donning her oversize sunglasses as she walked toward her C-class, parked in the lot.

Watching Mindy through the plate glass window of Thai Feast, Toi let her smile fade. She couldn’t stand this weathered shrew with the stupid haircut, who would never round up the tip one penny to an even one fifty, who asked about her family but never really listened to the reply or looked into her eyes. But this was what you put up with every day. It was work.

Mindy got into her Mercedes and turned the ignition. She glanced at the Anne Klein watch on her tan, lightly freckled wrist. She was exactly on schedule to make her meeting down at the row house in Logan. She had gotten a call from a gentleman that morning, telling her he was interested in taking a look at the house. It had been a week since the break-in, and several months since she had bought the home at auction. The market was extremely soft, her interest rate had not been optimum, and the clock was ticking. But, like all good sales professionals, she was an optimist. Perhaps this would be the client she had been waiting for. It could very well be Mindy’s day.

There were two men standing at the top of her row house steps as Mindy Kramer pulled into a nearby space on the street. Her immediate impression, looking at them through the windshield of her sedan, was that these men could not be her potential buyers. They looked more like workmen than clients.

She got out of her car, smile in place, and walked across the sidewalk and up the steps to greet them. She kept her smile rigid as she got a good look at them, thinking, God, why are they wasting my time? She would qualify them quickly and let them know with diplomacy that this was too much house for them and that perhaps she could find them someplace else, in a neighborhood, say, where trailer trash was more welcome.

“Mindy Kramer,” she said, extending her hand to the larger of the two men.

“Ralph Cotter,” he said, vise-gripping her hand, showing her a row of grayish, cheaply capped teeth. “This is my friend Nat Harbin.”

“Pleasure,” said Nat Harbin. Tattoos of some kind showed on his veined biceps beneath the rolled-up edges of his T-shirt, and tattoos sleeved his forearms. He wore black ring-strap boots.

Cotter had not released her hand. She looked at his and saw a tattoo, like a four-leaf clover, on the crook of it. Cotter let go of her, stepped back, and smiled.

Both were in their late thirties and both wore jeans. Harbin in a black T-shirt and Cotter in a windbreaker with a white oxford underneath. Harbin had some sort of chain going from his wallet pocket to his belt loop. He was short and wiry, with a bushy mustache that appeared to originate in his nose. His eyes were flat and brown. His long brown hair was parted in the middle and it was unclean.

Cotter was tall, broad, and strong, with a big chest and an unchecked gut. His black hair was also on the long side and swept back behind his ears. He wore a dark walrus mustache on a face with high, pronounced cheekbones. His eyes were black, mostly pupil, and did not appear to be threatening or unkind.

Mindy prided herself on reading people. She was in a business that required such a talent, after all. These two were strange, stuck in a time warp, perhaps new to the city, and uninterested in current fashions. But they weren’t here to do her any harm. In any event, there had never been a situation that she couldn’t handle.

Mustaches, wallet chains, boots… costume macho. Gay bikers, thought Mindy Kramer. Okay, I’m projecting. Gay would fit fine here, though. But do they have the dosh to buy this house?

“You gentlemen are both interested in the property?” she said. “You’re considering it… together?”

“Yeah,” said Ralph Cotter. “Can we have a look inside?”

“Of course!”

Mindy opened her small purse, where she kept her BlackBerry and keys, and negotiated the lockbox hung on the doorknob.

“No alarm system?” said Cotter.

“No need,” she said, looking over her shoulder and up because he was so tall.

“Street looks peaceful enough.”

“You notice no bars on the windows, either. We really don’t have those kinds of problems in this neighborhood. It was dicey at one time, but”… she opened the door… “no longer.”

They stepped into a foyer, where a staircase led up to the third-floor bedrooms and a hall went straight back to the body of the house. The little one, Nat Harbin, shut the door behind them. The closing of it darkened the foyer, and Mindy switched on a light.

“Where did you find out about this home?” said Mindy. “I always like to know if my advertising dollars are well spent.”

“Drove by it and saw the sign,” said Cotter. “Then we got on the Internet and learned the particulars.”

“So you’ve read the entire listing.”

“We know the price,” said Cotter patiently. “We can handle it.”

“You gentlemen are in what business?”

“Don’t worry, we qualify,” said Cotter. Not annoyed, just matter-of-fact. “Let’s see the house.”

“Okay,” said Mindy. “We’ll start with the kitchen.”

They went down the hall. The one named Nat eyed the layout and various rooms as they went along, but Cotter kept his focus on Mindy. He looked down at her head, noticing her scalp showing through all the clumps of hair glued together and sticking up straight. There didn’t seem to be much to her under that dress. She had an ass but not enough of one. She had small cans and she was old. He didn’t mind the old part, but he liked a woman with big tits.

“Here’s the kitchen,” she said, casually sliding a dimmer switch mounted on the wall and bathing the room in a yellowish glow. “Granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, as you can see.”

Granite countertops were now as remarkable as toilet paper holders in bathrooms, and stainless steel surfaces had no bearing on the quality of the appliances themselves, but the public was gullible. Who was Mindy Kramer to educate them when she was merely trying to move a house?

“Nice,” said Cotter, nodding his head.

“And all new,” said Mindy. She placed her purse on the granite counter. “Do you two like to cook?” Neither of them answered, and Mindy said, “This is a very diverse neighborhood, you know.”

Cotter and Harbin looked at each other and laughed.

Mindy scratched at her neck. It was something she did when she became a bit self-conscious and insecure, and she hated herself for succumbing to the reflex now. These two were vulgarians. They were not going to buy this house, nor could they afford to. They were wasting her time.

“Internet said this place had a library slash den,” said Nat Harbin. “Can you take us to it?”

“Yes, but… please understand, I have a very busy schedule today.”

“We’d like to see it,” said Cotter, still smiling, his capped teeth perfect and ugly in the yellow light. “If you don’t mind.”

She led them back down the hall. She stumbled, catching the toe of one Stuart Weitzman sandal on the walnut floor, and Cotter grabbed her elbow with his big hand and steadied her.

“Easy now,” he said, and as he held her elbow with one hand, he lightly stroked her bare arm with the other. Bumps rose on her flesh.

She went into the library and they followed her. She crossed her arms and looked out the window that gave to a view of the street, and then back at the men. The one who called himself Ralph Cotter stood blocking the door. The little one, Nat Harbin, was looking at Cotter expectantly, waiting for a signal or direction.

“Get to it,” said Cotter.

Harbin bent forward, hiked up the left leg of his jeans, and pulled a knife from a tie-down sheath inside his boot. The knife was hardwood handled, with a heavy-duty pommel and a spine-cut surgical-steel blade.

Mindy Kramer hugged herself and looked down at her feet.

“That’s right, honey,” said Cotter. “You just stand there and mind your own.”

Harbin went to a corner of the room, lifted a bit of the carpet, and cut cleanly beneath it in a filleting motion. He pulled back a triangle of the Berber and with his knee kept it pinned down. He found the notch in the cutout of wood floor and lifted the piece away, and when he saw there was nothing in the basket that had been fashioned beneath it, he said, “Shit.”

“Nothin, huh,” said Cotter.

“It’s empty,” said Harbin.

Cotter shook his head. “That’s a problem.”

“Where is it, lady?” said Harbin.

“Where is what?” said Mindy Kramer in a small voice, keeping her eyes to the floor.

“I had somethin in that hole,” said Cotter. “It belonged to me.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Mindy.

“Look at me,” said Cotter.

Mindy willed herself to raise her eyes and face him. “I swear to you. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I bought this house to flip it. I’ve never lived here. I’ve never even looked under that carpet, not once.”

“Rug looks brand-new to me.”

“I replaced it, just a week ago. Not me, of course…”

“Who?”

“I used a local company.”

“Who exactly? ”

“I’ve got the information. I keep a file on all the work I’ve done here. Warranties and such.”

“Where?”

“It’s in the kitchen.”

“Let’s go.”

Cotter stepped out of the room to let her pass, Harbin close behind her, knife in hand. They all went back down the hall, and in the kitchen Mindy maxed out the dimmer switch and pulled open a drawer near a stainless steel gas cooktop. On top of a stack of use-and-care manuals was a manila file folder, and she withdrew it. She opened the file on the granite countertop, her hand visibly shaking as she rooted through papers and found the one she was looking for.

“Here it is,” she said, handing it to Cotter.

He examined the piece of paper. The name of the company and the billing address were at the top of the page. The cost of goods and the labor were line-itemed in the body of the bill. At the bottom, in the total slot, the number had been changed and initialed.

“Flynn’s Floors,” said Cotter. “And you dealt with…”

“The owner. Thomas Flynn.”

“Looks like he gave you some kind of break on the price.”

“It was an adjustment. His installers did a poor job. They had to come back and redo the work.”

Cotter and Harbin exchanged a look.

“You wouldn’t recall the names of the in- stallers, would you?” said Cotter.

“I…”

“C’mon, honey. You’re doing good so far.”

Mindy Kramer chewed on her lower lip. “I’m going to reach into my purse. I need to get my BlackBerry.”

“Do it,” said Cotter.

She took her purse off the counter, opened it, and retrieved her phone. She scrolled through her contacts and found the one she was looking for. She had entered it using a memory device so that she could recall it easily.

“Here’s one of them,” said Mindy, handing him the phone.

“Chris Carpet,” said Cotter, squinting to read it.

“I didn’t get his last name.”

“Describe him for me.”

“Young. Big, with blond hair.”

“You said there was two of them.”

“The other installer was black. Young and strong, like his partner. Tall. That’s all I can remember about him. I’m sorry-”

“That’ll be fine. Write down Chris Carpet’s phone number on the back of the bill for me, will you?”

Mindy found a pen in her purse and did as she was told. Cotter took the bill of sale, folded it, and slipped it into the pocket of his windbreaker. Then he stepped forward and pressed himself against her. His cock grew hard. Because of his height and her lack of it, he pushed it against her belly. She turned her head to the side. A tear sprung loose from one eye and rolled down her cheek. He felt her body shiver against his.

“Don’t cry, honey,” said Cotter.

“I can’t… help it.”

“You wanna know what I had in that hole?”

“No.”

“I had money.”

“No…”

“How about our real names? Wanna know what they are? Bet you’re curious.”

A string of mucus dropped from Mindy’s nose and came to rest on her lip. “I’m not.”

“Course you’re not. You think if I tell you my name I’m gonna go ahead and kill you. Ain’t that right?”

Mindy’s tears flowed freely and she closed her eyes and shook her head. Cotter stepped back. A triangle of urine had darkened the crotch of her dress.

“Look at that,” said Harbin. “She tinkled.”

“I’m not gonna kill you, Mindy,” said Cotter. “Not you. I don’t need to.” Cotter put his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled free a cell phone. He flipped it open and punched buttons clumsily with his thick thumb. “I got a phone, too. Not as fancy as yours, but hey. Here we go.”

Cotter handed her the phone. She looked at the screen and made a small choking sound from deep in her throat.

“You recognize those little girls, right? Kinda hard to see ’em, I know, ’cause I was far away. But that’s them. That would be your granddaughters, right?”

Mindy did not answer.

“Say it’s them,” said Harbin.

“It’s my granddaughters,” said Mindy Kramer.

“Okay,” said Cotter. He pointed to the ink on the crook of his hand. “Now, do you know what this is?”

“A clover?”

“It’s a shamrock, honey. Means I’m part of something, kind of like a club. We got members in prisons all across the country. We run the prisons, matter of fact. Got a lotta members who are out and in the world now, too. All of us, in this club, forever. When you ride with the rock, you’re protected. And if anything bad does happen to you, you’re avenged. Families, children… we’ll kill ’em all and not even think on it twice. It’s part of the blood oath we take to get in. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“I hope you do. You know what we were doing this morning? We were parked outside your office, watching you bring in your granddaughters, watching you bring them back out. After, we followed you to where you dropped them off, at that rec center outside the elementary school. What was that, Thirty-third Street? Yeah, that’s where it was. Where I snapped these pictures from my phone.”

Cotter reached out and took his cell from Mindy Kramer’s hand.

“You never met us today,” said Cotter.

Mindy Kramer nodded.

“You ain’t gonna talk about this to your priest or rabbi, or your shrink, or nobody else. You’re not gonna warn Chris Carpet that we’re looking to speak to him, either.”

“I won’t.”

“Because if you do, my little friend here will visit your granddaughters.”

“Please, don’t-”

“He’ll cut their heads off and skull-fuck ’em both, Mindy. Do you get it?”

Mindy Kramer nodded.

“Say you do,” said Harbin.

“I get it,” said Mindy.

“I think she does,” said Cotter. “C’mon.”

Harbin sheathed his knife. He and Cotter walked down the hall, straight out of the house, closing the door behind them and taking the steps to the sidewalk, not caring if they were seen.

When Mindy Kramer heard the shut of the door, she dropped to the kitchen floor and sat with her back to the cabinets, weeping, her head between her knees, chest heaving, mascara running down her face. She made no move to phone the police or anyone else. She sat there and waited for the fear to leave her. She sat there for a long while. What they had taken from her would not come back soon. Maybe it would never come back at all.

The men walked to their car, a 1988 Mercury Marquis they had picked up from a cancer-ridden old man in West Virginia. From the long-term lot at Dulles Airport they had switched out plates, and the car now bore D.C. tags. The sedan was boxy and black, with a landau roof and red velour interior, a fake-fur-covered steering wheel, and a V-8 under the hood.

Ralph Cotter and Nat Harbin were not their names. The big man with the walrus mustache was Sonny Wade. He had chosen the fake names from two of the many novels he had read while incarcerated at the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. In those books, Cotter had been a stone killer and Harbin had been a career burglar. It was at Lewisburg that Sonny Wade had met the little man, Wayne Minors, who had been his cell mate. Wayne did not read books.

Sonny got himself positioned in the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. Wayne looked tiny beside him, as if he were Sonny’s child, if Sonny could have had a son his own age. Wayne’s features were compressed toward the middle of his face, folding into one another, so he looked like a piece of fruit that had begun to rot. Wayne drank and used speed, but his longtime cigarette smoking had done the bulk of the damage to his looks.

Wayne lit a Marlboro off a butane flame as Sonny pulled out of the spot on S Street. They were headed toward New York Avenue, where they had a room in a flophouse motel populated by unwitting tourists, assorted losers, prostitutes, alcoholics, drug addicts, and people on the government tit.

“She wasn’t so full of herself when we got finished with her,” said Wayne.

“She won’t speak on this to anyone,” said Sonny.

“She pissed her panties.”

“That she did.”

“Kramer’s a Jewish name.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You hear what she said about us being together? And askin, do we like to cook?” Wayne’s eyes crossed slightly as he considered this. “It was like she thought we was faggots.”

“She thought you was,” said Sonny.

“Your daddy was,” said Wayne.

They were silent as Sonny wheeled the radio dial, trying to find something he liked, settling on a station playing a Rascal Flatts song. Wayne smoked and studied the city as they passed through it, looking at the whites and the blacks together in these neighborhoods, wondering how a father could let his daughter live among these low coloreds in a shithole such as this.

“Those installers took my money,” said Sonny after a while. “Had to be them.”

“We’ll get it back.” Wayne pitched his cigarette out the open window. “Sonny?”

“Huh.”

“Why’d you tell that woman I’d fuck those little girls and cut their heads off? You know I wouldn’t do no such thing. I wouldn’t kill a kid. I’m a gentleman. I ain’t like that.”

“And I’m no AB. I was just puttin the fear into her, is all.”

“I’d kill a nigger,” offered Wayne.

“You might could get your chance,” said Sonny. “But we’re gonna talk to Chris Carpet first.”