Go-Between

Chapter Eleven

She sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, trying to count the money.

The suitcase weighed at least fifty pounds. Most of the bundled bills were hundreds, but there were bundles of twenties and fifties as well.

One hundred bills in each bundle. So each bundle of hundred dollar bills was $10,000. There were sixty of those.

$600,000 in hundred dollar bills.

She counted out the stacks of fifties and twenties. Sixty bundles of fifties. Another $300,000.

Fifty bundles of twenties. Another $100,000.

A million dollars.

Michelle rolled onto her back and stared at the popcorn ceiling.

What was she supposed to do with all this money?

“Why don’t you… just… get away for a while?” she heard Danny say. “Until this gets settled.”

Just take the money and run.

She took in a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. Thought about places she might go.

Where? What made sense? Was there anyplace far enough away?

Maybe that was what Gary wanted her to do, to try to make a run for it.

How far could she really expect to get?

Besides, that would leave Danny right where he was.

She felt like she was adrift in a dark sea, all the things that made up her life shipwrecked, bobbing up and down in the black water just out of her reach. Nothing was solid. Nothing was hers.

She’d made a promise to herself that she was going to help him. Not because they were going to be together for the long haul. Maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe it would be just this one time, maybe not ever again.

Just this once, and call it even. But she had to keep that promise.

She had to hold onto something.

She rolled up to her feet, retrieved her phone and called Gary.

“Well, hello there.” He sounded typically cheery. “Everything go okay tonight?”

“Sure. It went fine.”

She’d thought about what to say. She couldn’t be sure who might be listening, that Gary wouldn’t use her words against her, somehow.

“It was a little more than I was expecting,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.” A chuckle. “The stars just kind of lined up for that.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Just hang onto it for a spell. Somebody’ll be by to pick it up.”

“When? I can’t exactly just…”

Stash a suitcase with a million dollars in it under my bed.

“I’m not comfortable having it here. This apartment… it’s not that secure.”

A long, drawn-out sigh. “I suppose you have a point,” he finally said. “I’ll send somebody over in an hour or so. Just sit tight.”

The first thing she did was separate out her share of the money and repack the suitcase.

She took three bundles of hundred dollar bills and four bundles of fifties. Her $50K.

It’s not that bulky, she told herself. She could hide it, somewhere.

Not in the freezer. People were always hiding things in freezers in the novels she used to read, and they always seemed to get caught.

Not under her mattress. This too was a cliché that never ended well.

Finally she put half of it in one of her suitcases that she stored in the bedroom closet. She’d make that a go-bag, in case she needed to leave in a hurry. She tucked another couple of bundles between folded towels in the hall closet. The rest she divided between her purse and under a couch cushion, which really needed to be vacuumed.

I’d better get a small safe, she thought. Not for all of the money, but for some of it. So if someone broke in, that’s where he’d look first. A decoy.

Gary was right about one thing. She needed to figure out what to do with all this cash.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with the problem. Danny had done some cash business back in Arcata, like those gigs for Bobby. Some of the money they’d funneled into Evergreen. She knew this was technically money laundering, but she preferred thinking of it as an investment. The rest, he stashed wherever it was he stashed such things. “Don’t worry,” he told her once, when they were lying in bed together, her back pressed against his chest, feeling his half-erect cock on the curve of her ass, “I’ll make sure you can get to it, if something happens.”

What might “happen,” they never talked about.

Well, something had happened, all right, but she still didn’t know how to get to Danny’s money, if there even was any.

She changed into clean clothes. Yoga pants and an old Air Force T-shirt that Danny had given her. She desperately wanted a shower. But “an hour or so” in the Gary-verse could mean anything from 3 a.m. to five minutes from now.

It was just after 10 p.m. She put on the local news. Watched a segment about a rodeo fashion show that was some kind of fundraiser for kids in foster care. Turned off the TV. She couldn’t focus on it.

She got out her iPad and surfed for a while. Looked at the New York Times, then Zagat and Yelp for Houston restaurants. There were supposed to be some good ones here. Might as well do a little research.

None of it engaged her. She kept on clicking. Anything to keep her mind off of where she was, and what she’d been doing.

Who would he send? A cartel thug? Some white supremacist militia crazy?

One of the Boys?

Whose money was this?

Our donation.

She pulled her purse next to her on the couch, holster side next to her, so her hand could easily grasp the.38.

10:35 p.m.

At 11:05, the doorbell rang.

Michelle flinched. Snatched the gun and jumped up. Then thought, fuck, I’m wearing yoga pants. There are no pockets in yoga pants. I can’t walk to the door with a gun in my hand. If they see it…

That might make things much worse.

She grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder and went to the door.

On the other side of the fish-eye peephole was a woman, with long brown hair and glasses.

Michelle kept the chain lock on and cracked open the door.

“Yes?”

“I’m supposed to pick something up?”

She sounded younger than she looked. In her early thirties, Michelle thought. A little heavy, her flat brown hair parted in the middle and falling past her shoulders. Wearing sky-blue shorts and a white, scoop-necked top, sturdy pewter-colored wire-framed glasses. A gold necklace with a Tinkerbell charm.

This was who Gary sent?

“Right,” Michelle said. “Come in.”

Her name was Carlene. “Cute place,” she said.

“Thank you.” Michelle supposed she was being polite. There was nothing about her industrial-upholstered hotel furniture decorated apartment that was remotely cute.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “Some water? Some…”

What did she even have here?

“Wine?”

Carlene hesitated. “A Coke or sweet tea, if you have it.”

“Sorry, I don’t.”

“I’m fine, then.”

Shit, Michelle thought. She needed to stall her, somehow. To get a hold of Gary. To make sure that she was actually supposed to hand over nearly a million dollars in cash to a sort of dumpy woman wearing a Tinkerbell necklace.

But why else would Carlene be here?

Her phone was in her purse, which was still slung over her shoulder.

“You know, let me check the fridge,” she said. “There might be a Coke left in there.”

“Oh, thanks,” Carlene said. She smiled at Michelle. Something about her eyes looked blank.

Michelle shuddered, in spite of the heat.

Out in the kitchen, she retrieved her phone and dropped her purse on the counter. Opened the refrigerator and shuffled around the bottles of Pellegrino and cartons of coconut water with one hand and texted Gary with the other. One word:

carlene?

She moved a few more bottles around, hoping for an answer. Got out a Pellegrino and poured it in a glass. Nothing.

Shit, she thought again. She wanted her phone, and she wanted her gun, because the woman sitting on her hunter green industrial upholstered couch might look harmless, but if Gary sent her?

She tucked her revolver into the waistband of her yoga pants, at the small of her back, not sure about the holster Terry had given her. Felt the steel cylinder press against her skin. The T-shirt she was wearing was pretty baggy. She hoped it hid the gun well enough. She hoped the waistband was tight enough to hold the gun in place.

She especially hoped she didn’t accidentally shoot herself in the ass.

She left her phone on the counter.

I will never wear pants or shorts without pockets again, Michelle thought.

As she took a step toward the living room, glass of Pellegrino in hand, her phone skittered on the counter. A text.

:d

That was it.

Fuck you, Gary, she thought.

Back in the living room, Carlene still sat on the couch, texting on her big phone… no, not texting. Playing a game, it sounded like. As Michelle drew closer, she saw that it was something that involved cartoon birds.

“Sorry,” she said, putting the glass down on the wood veneer coffee table. “I thought there might be a can of Coke in the back of the fridge, but there wasn’t. I brought you some sparkling water. Just in case you’re thirsty.”

“Thanks.”

Carlene picked up the glass and took a sip. Her lips puckered, like she’d sucked on a lemon. Maybe because there was no sugar in it. “I should probably get going,” she said. “It’s past my bedtime.”

“Oh. Sure. I’ll be right back.”

Michelle pulled the blue canvas suitcase out of the bedroom closet and slid the mirrored door shut.

Gary had to have sent Carlene, as unlikely as it seemed. If he was going to LOL in response to her questions, what else was she supposed to do but hand over the money?

Besides, this wasn’t her money. As tempting as it was to think about keeping it, about running away with it, it wasn’t hers, and nothing good could come from keeping it.

“Here you go,” she said as she wheeled the suitcase out to the living room. “You need help with this out to your car?”

“Maybe getting it into the trunk,” Carlene said. “I have a bad back.”

Michelle heaved the suitcase into the trunk of Carlene’s car, a late-model silver Hyundai with a bumper sticker that said owned by a pug. After that, she stood by the door for a moment as Carlene slammed the trunk shut.

“Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” Michelle said.

“Not a problem. Just doing my job.” Carlene gave her one last, unblinking look. “That’s a not a very good way to carry,” she said.

My back’s fine, Michelle thought, and I lifted with my legs.

And then she got it. The gun tucked into the waist of her yoga pants, pressing against her back.

“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. Thanks.”