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.”
Chapter Twelve
“I don't know, hon,
where do you think we should stay?”
“Well, it depends on what you like,” Michelle said.
She and Caitlin sat in the Great Room at Caitlin's house, Michelle with her Safer America-issued laptop, a tiny Sony VAIO. It was just after 3
p.m.
, which meant that Caitlin had opened a bottle of wine. Another chardonnay, which seemed to be her go-to.
Maybe I can get her into sauvignon blanc, Michelle thought, or a good rosé or even vinho verde. Something light and crisp for a horribly hot day like today.
But that wasn't why Caitlin was drinking, was it?
She'd arrived at ten this morning per Caitlin's instructions to find that Caitlin was still in bed.
“Is she okay?” Michelle had asked Esperanza.
“Sometimes she just sleeps late,” Esperanza had replied, with an eloquent shrug. “You know
. . .
she doesn't always feel so good.”
When Caitlin finally did show up, just after 11:30, her face looked puffy, her eyelids swollen. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I had a little bit of a migraine.”
Maybe she'd kept drinking after Michelle had dropped her off last night. Or maybe she'd just been too depressed to get out of bed. You couldn't be too hard on her for that, Michelle thought. She'd had a few days like that herself, after Tom had died.
“I guess we might as well stay at the Century Plaza,” Caitlin said now, leaning back against her beige-wheat couch. “That's where the fundraiser is.”
“There's nice hotels in Santa Monica,” Michelle found herself saying. “Right by the ocean. It's a really great area with a lot of good restaurants. Maybe you could
. . .
take a little extra time. Enjoy yourself.”
It's not that I really care, she told herself. Caitlin's problems were Caitlin's problems, and Michelle had plenty of her own.
But the way Caitlin looked, the dark circles around her eyes, the slight tremor in her hand
. . .
I'm supposed to be taking care of her, Michelle thought, and she doesn't look good at all.
“I know some good yoga classes in that part of town,” Michelle said. “Plus there's great hikes, there's the beach
. . .
”
Caitlin's smile remained in place, but her eyes looked puzzled. Lost.
“You wanted to start working out, right?”
“I suppose I did,” Caitlin finally said. “All right.” Something in her shifted. Focused. “Why don't you pick the hotel? Arrange an extra day on either end. We'll get started on that.”
Stupid, Michelle thought, as
she checked hotel prices and availability on the desktop in Caitlin's office. Really stupid.
She'd lived in Brentwood for seven years. She had friends who lived in Santa Monica. She'd
taken yoga
in Santa Monica.
What were the odds she'd run into someone who knew her?
Maybe she should book a hotel in Beverly Hills.
She shook herself. And thought: So what if someone recognizes me? So what? I'm Michelle again, not Emily. It might be a little awkward, she'd have to trot out Gary's stupid story about traveling around the world to find herself or rekindle her passion for life, or whatever it was she was supposed to have been doing for the last couple of years. But she didn't have to worry about getting arrested.
And her late husband was magically no longer a crook.
The Shore was booked. Too bad, she'd heard great things. It hadn't opened yet when she'd left for her vacation in Mexico.
Emily's phone buzzed. She'd set it to silent, but she could see it light up at the bottom of her purse, see the tiny tremor in the objects around it.
Carrying Emily's phone felt dangerous. Stupid, even. But so did leaving it behind. And this was a phone call she couldn't afford to miss.
Their lawyer, Derek.
She swiped the screen to answer. “Can you hang on a minute?”
Outside, the late afternoon heat felt like plunging into a bowl of hot soup. She made her way to the shade of one of the old oaks.
“So we have a date for the new bail hearing,” Derek said. “It's next week, Wednesday.”
“Shit, I
. . .
” she began, then stopped herself.
Won't be in town,
she'd almost said. Michelle would be in Los Angeles, babysitting Caitlin for the big fundraiser.
Emily wasn't supposed to be in Houston at all.
Her phone was already slippery with sweat.
“I don't know if I can make it. I
. . .
my father
. . .
he's in the hospital, and
. . .
”
“Understood. Look, don't worry about it. We've got your statement. We've got letters from the fire chief and from a few other businesses about Jeff's ties to the community, what an asset he is. I even got that couple he helped find when he volunteered to fly search and rescue.”
Jeff's a standup guy,
she heard Bobby say.
“Do you think
. . .
is that going to be enough? Should I
. . .
should I try to come? Would that help?”
There was a moment of silence on the other end. “I don't think it'll make a difference one way or another.”
“So it doesn't look good.” It wasn't a question. She didn't really need to ask.
“I'll be honest with you, Emily. They're a taking a pretty hard line with Jeff. I'm not sure why, given his lack of priors. It may be they want to push us into taking some kind of deal.”
“A deal? Like what?”
“Immunity or a reduced sentence in exchange for information. Maybe. They're not showing their cards yet.”
She couldn't say what she wanted to say, that she doubted this was why “they” were taking a hard line, that assuming Gary had arranged the bust, the last thing “they” wanted was for Danny to talk.
“And you know, I could be reading the situation incorrectly. I just want to prepare you for the possibility of an outcome we're not going to like.”
“Right,” she said.
“Emily
. . .
has anyone contacted you? I mean, any law enforcement agencies, for questioning?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, that's good news,” he muttered.
“Who should I expect?”
“Most likely, Arcata Police or the DEA. It's not clear to me how they're handling this investigation so far.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think they're still scrambling to put the pieces together. Jeff's arrest
. . .
it didn't happen because of a long investigation, as far as I know. There was a confidential informant involved, and we won't have access to his or her identity until a week before the trial.”
Not Gary. He wouldn't put himself directly on the line like that. Most likely someone he or another intermediary had paid off.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Keep me posted. And
. . .
tell Jeff to call me. Okay? Can you do that?”
She couldn't call him. The jail didn't allow it. He had to call her, collect.
“Marisol's seeing him tomorrow. I'll make sure she tells him.”
The next day, Thursday,
she left work a few hours early, bought a car, and opened two bank accounts.
She didn't want to keep the rentalâshe'd bet they had some kind of black box tracking device in it. Using the Safer America car for anything other than Safer America business was out of the question.
She took a cab to a used car lot on Southwest Freeway, not too far from the hotel where she'd stayed her first night here, when she'd come to visit Danny in jail.
She picked out an eight-year-old silver Toyota Corolla that had about 60,000 miles on it. $9,500, plus tax and registration. Something you wouldn't notice.
“So, let's talk financing.” They sat in a tiny beige office. The salesman, a young guy with a thatch of blond hair, leaned over his veneer desk. High-school athlete, Michelle thought, whose shoulders strained against a wrinkled blue button-down shirt that was damp with sweat.
“That won't be necessary.”
She got out an envelope she'd earlier stuffed with cash and counted out the bills.
The salesman took in the stack of money. Sat back with raised eyebrows and gave her a lopsided grin. “That's a lot of cash.”
She smiled back. “Babysitting money.”
At the first bank,
one in River Oaks not far from Tootsie's, she opened a checking and a savings account, depositing $3,000 in checking and $3,000 in savings. She could have her paychecks direct-deposited here. Her official bank.
For the second, she drove out to a bank near George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Opened a checking account under Emily's name with $2,000 and rented a safe-deposit box, where she stashed another $9,000.
“How about a savings account?” the teller asked.
“Maybe later,” Michelle said. “After I've saved a little up.”
That left close to
$25,000 in her apartment.
It wasn't ideal. But none of this was ideal, was it? Gary could easily find out where she'd opened bank accounts. Could have that money taken away as quickly as she'd deposited it.
Probably quicker.
Sitting in evening traffic in her silver Toyota, she asked herself what the point of all this was. Opening different bank accounts, packing a go-bag, would any of that really help?
She had the money for now, was promised more, but could she hold onto it?
Would Gary really let her walk away from this situation?
Would he let Danny go?
The freeway was a sea of red lights. Barely crawling.
Danny didn't call. Not
that night. Not the next day.
Caitlin had a Friday morning appointment at the hairdresser, she'd told Michelle on Thursday, as she topped off her first glass of chardonnay, “So there's no need for you to rush on in.”
Michelle went to the gym in her complex first thing Friday morning after a cup of coffee. It wasn't a very good gym. Most of the space was taken up by a couple of machines, a cable setup, two treadmills, an elliptical trainer and a recumbent Lifecycle, but there was a rack of dumbbells, two bars and some plates, a good enough bench, a set of bands and a couple of fitness balls. Enough for her to come up with a decent workout and clear her head with sweat.
After that, she stood outside the gym on the lumpy common lawn that smelled vaguely of dog shit and called Marisol Acosta.
“I saw him, and he's fine,” Marisol said. “He's in good spirits. And he told me to tell you not to worry.”
“Did you tell him to call me?”
A pause. “Yes, I did.”
“He hasn't yet.”
“Well
. . .
I really think it's just because he doesn't want you to worry.”
Her heart started to race in her chest, and she wasn't sure if what she felt was anger, or panic.
“Tell him that not talking to me is what's worrying me. Okay? Tell him that.”
“I will,” Marisol said. “I promise.” Another pause. “Do you have a landline?”
“A landline? No. I mean
. . .
”
Michelle didn't have a landline. Emily did, back in Arcata. Which did her no good at all here in Houston. “I'm running around so much, I'm not close to a landline most of the time.”
“That might be why you haven't heard from him.”
“He can't call my cell?”
“He can, but you'll need to go to Securus and set up an Advance Pay account. It's pretty easy. They have a website.”
“Securus?”
“The company that runs the prison phone system. They've got contracts all over the country.” A dry chuckle. “I'm guessing they make good money, from the amount they charge for those calls.”
He finally called on
Sunday afternoon, while Michelle was packing her bags for Los Angeles.
An automated phone tree called, rather, that same flat, cheerful woman's voice that was always sorry when you spoke and it “didn't get that,” and asked if she was willing to accept a collect call from an inmate at Harris County Jail.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, her Armani jacket spread on her lap. She could hear noise in the background, men's voices, shouting, laughing, what sounded like metal doors slamming, now and again.