Buffalo jump

CHAPTER 40

Buffalo: Friday, June 30

A scream was building inside Amy Farber and she wasn’t sure she could keep it in much longer. She could feel it swarming her insides, trying to force its way up through her body and out her mouth. She pursed her lips tighter and breathed in through her nose. It was like fighting the urge to vomit. It’s okay, she told herself. You get this way every time. It will be over soon enough. Keep busy, she told herself. Make yourself do something. Come on, girl, get up and go. At least get the table ready. Now!

She walked unsteadily to the dining room, staying close to the wall, keeping her hand on the wainscotting. She knew she shouldn’t have taken a painkiller, an anti-inflammatory and a sedative all at once, but she also knew when the night was over and all the people had gone, Ricky Messina would come to get his money. She’d have to look him in the face, in the eyes-he would insist-and she’d relive everything that had happened the night he came to their door dressed like a pizza boy.

She pushed the table against the far wall so people would be able to serve themselves buffet-style. Hip-checked it home hard enough to rattle the plates on the wooden rail that ran around the dining room walls above eye level. She opened the bottom drawer of their pine hutch, a Mission-style knock-off they had found in East Aurora, and took out a clean linen tablecloth. Everything else was going to be plastic so the tablecloth might as well be nice. She had plenty of plastic wineglasses and juice cups left from last month’s event. Barry would be back soon with the paper plates and the fruit platters. Had she asked him to stop at Premier Liquors? She couldn’t remember. She just wished he’d get back. She didn’t like being alone in the house anymore, no matter how many lights she turned on or what music she played. Even low-dose ambient New Age made her jump.

Amy pushed the dining room chairs against the wall to open up some space and unfolded four bridge chairs. At least thirty people would be coming between six and eleven, judging by orders received. That was her deal with Barry: every shipment that came in had to be sorted, sold and out of the house within forty-eight hours. She couldn’t stand it any longer than that.

Amy wondered if Rich Leckie would come. No one was seeing much of him these days. Marty Oliver was picking up his goods for him and paying for them too, all the things Rich had needed before and some new ones too. She admitted to herself she didn’t want Rich to come. She knew she’d take one look at him and burst into tears.

A door banged close by and she grabbed the dining room chair nearest her and held tightly onto its frame until she heard Barry shout, “I’m home.”

He came clumping in with plastic shopping bags in both hands. “That’s everything,” he said. “Plates, forks, knives, spoons, cups, nap-”

“We didn’t need cups.”

“What?”

“You said you got cups. We didn’t need cups. We still have cups left from last time.”

“Okay, so what’s the big deal?”

“We didn’t need them. What’s so hard to understand?”

“Honey, they don’t go bad or anything. We always need cups.”

“That’s right, Barry. Always. For the rest of our goddamn lives, thanks to you.”

“Me? Ah, Christ, what are you crying for?”

“I can’t keep doing it, Barry. Every time I know he’s coming here, I want to run. I want to get in the car and drive to a hotel where nobody knows me and lie in bed with the covers over my head until he goes away or dies. But he won’t let me. He tells me I have to be there, so I am. He tells me I have to look into his eyes, so I do. He tells me… he… oh, Barry,” she sobbed, “what did you do? What did you fucking do?” She sank to the ground slowly, wrapped in her own arms, her face tight to her shoulder and twisted in misery.

“Every time, Barry,” she panted, “every time he comes for the money he makes me hand it to him and he holds onto my hand and won’t let go. He rubs it between his fingers and he smiles at me like I’m supposed to like it or something, and I don’t know if I can make it through without screaming, Barr, I swear I don’t know if I can.”

“Ssshhh, Amy, you’ll make it through. Take a sedative, honey.”

“I just did, you miserable shit.”

“Amy, please.”

“Well, who got us into this? Who else but you would be stupid enough or stoned enough to steal a shipment of drugs and not expect someone would come for it. For us, damn you.”

“I know I fucked up, Amy.”

“Then get us out of this.”

“How?”

“I don’t care. You got us in, get us out.”

“What do you want me to do, go to the cops? Because apart from that I don’t know what else to suggest.”

“At least don’t let him touch me, Barry… Barry? Look at me, goddamn you. Say you won’t let him touch me, not this time. Not my hands.”

“I…”

“You what?”

“I’ll give him the money.”

“He always says I have to.”

“I’ll do it tonight. I promise.”

“Don’t promise, Barry. Swear. Swear on your life.”

“I do, Amy. I do. I will. I swear.”

She looked up at her husband, so much taller than she was but half her size in heart. She wondered if Rich Leckie even crossed his mind anymore.