If anyone deserved a twenty thousand
dollar brick falling out of the sky and hitting her in the head, it
was her sister Margaret. She could buy a new rope for those
toddlers she watched, get herself some decent clothes. It wasn’t
right that a woman who worked as hard as Margaret should ever
struggle for money. Saida always felt warm and sentimental and
generous toward her sister until she actually had to see
her.
Saida knew she couldn’t stay
in Brooklyn too long: there were bound to be people interested in
getting their gold back. But it would take those people more than a
day or two, wouldn’t it? Saida wasn’t stupid: she’d just be in and
out. A hug and I love you, then hide one of the bricks, maybe two,
for Margaret to find later on. Tuck it in her bed or in the
medicine cabinet—
Margaret, you’ve done so
much for me, let me ease your burden
. Some
hallmark bullshit like that, except she really meant it.
It put a smile on her face thinking of
it. The best part of lugging fifty pounds of bricks into Brooklyn
was the idea that Margaret might get a little bit of a
cushion.
“
Gorgeous, slow down. Talk
to me, gorgeous.”
A middle-aged man eating from a box of
cheap Chinese takeout. Saida simply gave him the finger and kept on
walking.
“
Saida Brown?”
Saida glanced back but didn’t
stop.
“
When did you get back?
Come, talk to me,” he said, now speaking without the
leer.
The man looked familiar—sad old lush
sitting on the steps—and he knew her name. Great, she was
famous.
“
I’m not Saida. Saida went
to jail for cutting a man.”
As she approached Margaret’s building
she saw the rope and the line of toddlers—staying together, singing
about the wheels on a bus, or some such nonsense. Where was that
going to get them in life? They waddled in their little down
jackets, like they were going to their job.
Margaret was doing it alone today. She
usually hired help to take care of her kids, but for the most part
they didn’t work for more than a few months. Either they quit, or
they didn’t live up to Margaret’s standards—no hitting children, no
blank stares, no drugs. Saida watched from the street as the kids
were led into the building. She watched as the moms came for
pickup—the last of them was more than half an hour late. She waited
in the cold with her heavy duffel bag until she’d seen all fourteen
of the kids leave the building. Then she went in. Margaret didn’t
say anything, just threw her arms around her sister and hugged her
like she was someone from the Bible, returned home. There was a
story in there about return, right? Saida never had much time for
church business.
“
You should have told me you
were coming today,” Margaret said, still with a little bit of her
toddler voice on.
“
I didn’t know.”
“
Are you all right,
dear?”
“
Yeah. I’m all
right.”
“
Everything all right with
Marcus?”
“
Well, I’ve left
him.”
Margaret nodded—no surprise
there.
“
He was cheating on me. And
that I will not allow. This waitress—cheap dyed hair, thick ankles
like a . . .”
Saida got tired of this invented
adulterer. Margaret continued to nod.
“
And I just needed to come
back home.”
“
That’s right. That’s all
right. What about your studies?”
Your studies? Who talked
like that? Ancient people, people on
Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman
might
talk that way.
“
How about you? The
kids—it’s all going well?”
“
Oh, yes. It’s a great group
of angels.”
Angels. Yeah, Margaret called them
angels. Saida had forgotten about that also.
“
Now, tell me why you aren’t
at your college.”
“
I came down to—observe some
marketing firms here in the city.”
“
Saida, I don’t like it when
you aren’t truthful with me.”
“
In what way am I not
truthful with you? How you going to tell me I’m not being truthful
with you?”
“
Better not to say
anything.”
“
I’m in marketing, right?
The marketing capital of the world is right here.”
“
You don’t have to tell me
anything if you don’t want to, but I can’t have
dishonesty.”
Sometimes it was insufferable to hear
her talk. Keep this up and you won’t get your bar of gold. Come to
think of it, Margaret probably wouldn’t even cash in the brick.
She’d assume it was stolen and turn it in to police. Then the
police would ask questions, and that would be a profoundly
unnecessary headache.
“
I want you to hold my hand,
Saida. And I want you to just listen to a few words.”
And here she went—using some
Jedi-Jesus tricks on her little sister? That’s where Saida stepped
off this bus.
“
No, I’m not going to hold
your hand. I would like to think we can just talk like two adult
people.”
No, Saida couldn’t leave
Margaret anything. The sole reason for coming down to New York was
now off the table. Still, it was easier to get places from New York
than from God damned Rock Pile, Massachusetts. The Plan? Florida,
probably. First sell a bar or two right in downtown Brooklyn. She
knew places that bought
Gold Gold
Gold
, no questions asked. You could walk in
with a gold ring on a severed hand and they’d be happy to buy. Next
she’d take a bus south. Or maybe a train. She wasn’t going to fly
with this kind of treasure—she knew that much. And then the beach.
All winter on the beach. A quiet part of Florida. Not the
twenty-four hour reggaeton party, but not the Klan part of Florida
either. Maybe she could stay in a hotel for a month or two—not
extravagant, but classy. Someone else cleans your room for you,
does all your laundry. She’d cash in her gold slowly, in different
places. Saida knew the money wouldn’t last forever if she went all
champagne all the time, but this was going to be nice—so very
nice.
Saida expected a pleasant sleep, but
she woke up to ugly predawn dreams of being caught under collapsed
scaffolding. She could smell the ocean, but she couldn’t move her
legs.
CHAPTER 43
Inez nearly hit a deer, somewhere in
Connecticut. A few minutes later she crashed into the guardrail for
no apparent reason. Her fender was bent, but the car could still
run. She was a horrible driver, especially at night. She considered
pulling into a motel somewhere and resting until dawn, but she knew
she had to keep pushing or she’d lose Saida forever. So she pressed
on, finally making it to predawn Brooklyn, to the gentrifying edge
of Prospect Heights. A few party people were heading home, sequined
and still buzzed, and three Mexican guys holding thermoses stood
out in the cold, waiting for something. Inez parked two blocks away
from the address she had written on a napkin sitting on her
dashboard.
She made it to the building, a decent
looking brownstone on an uneven block. Inez waited, and just after
six AM Saida came out of the building with the duffel bag strapped
to both shoulders like one of those European backpackers. She
glanced back once and saw Inez but didn’t seem alarmed. Inez didn’t
look out of place—just a girl strolling through the neighborhood.
Just as Inez started to quicken her step, Saida stopped
walking.
***
Saida was already tired from the
weight. She readjusted her straps. But the more pain it was to lug
around, the richer she’d be. Carry the weight now so it’s all easy
for the rest of her damn life. Just before she put the bag back on,
she smelled a fruity flavor—watermelon, green apple? It was a cheap
candy. What did they call those? Jolly Ranchers?
Right before she put the bag back on
she took two bullets in the side of the head.
CHAPTER 44
Cyril woke up, looking out at the dark
Nevada desert from a westbound passenger train. A middle-aged woman
sat watching him closely.
“
Man, you were out,” she
said. “I thought you might be dead. Serious. I put my hand under
your nose—you know?”
“
I’m awake now.”
“
Partying in
Denver?”
“
No, I was just
tired.”
“
You missed all the
craziness here. The cops hauled a lady off, and she was screaming.
You just slept through it.”
“
What was going on, with the
lady?”
“
She didn’t have a ticket.
She said Amtrak had stolen her babies. It was all pretty
wild.”
Duane tried to think if this could
have anything to do with him. Who could the ranting woman be, and
what was her game? No. There was plenty of drama in the world that
had nothing to do with his bag of gold. The voice on the public
address warned them against putting paper towels in the
toilet.
“
Jesus, would you stop it
with that? I’m not going to put any paper towels in the damn
toilet, okay?” The woman shook a fist at the sound coming from
overhead. “They keep announcing that. Telling us not to put towels
in the toilet. I paid for my ticket to ride a train like a
civilized person, and here they are treating us like animals, you
know? Like the kind of animal you can’t even trust to treat a
toilet a proper way.”
Cyril worked a knot out of his
neck.
“
Anyway,” the woman said,
“are you holding?”
“
Am I holding
what?”
“
Look, if you got nothing
left, you got nothing left. Just tell me that.”
“
What are you talking
about?”
“
I just want to know what
knocked you out like that.”
“
Can’t I just be really,
really tired. Working really hard, not getting any
sleep.”
“
Yeah, what do you do for a
living?” she was spiteful now.
“
I don’t know.”
Where were the decent, hardworking
Americans? When was he going to get to meet them? The woman moved
to the next car before they crossed into California, and Cyril
tried to figure out the best place to close out his bank account.
It might last him a month or two, living on the road. What else?
32.15 ounces of gold in his jacket pocket. But when he felt for it,
it was gone. His best guess was that it lay under four feet of wet
dirt somewhere back in the middle of the country.
More from Preston
Lang
For information and titles
go to his
author’s page
Or just click on a title:
Everyone knows that
cigarettes will kill you. Mark works the overnight in a grimy
deli in the Bronx, selling gray market smokes and bad meat. His
hotheaded manager Janet pushes him to help her con their boss into
paying cash for a truck full of tax-free cigarettes. Soon he
finds that Janet is willing to do nearly anything to grab the
money, and what they’re up to is a lot more dangerous than three
packs a day.
The Blind
Rooster
When con-man Ralph does a
runner on the check at a shabby diner in an unfamiliar town,
he doesn't expect it to catch up to him. But the waitress
Arlene tracks him down and ropes him into a bizarre heist involving
ugly family secrets and a well-secured safe. Add in a violent
stepfather and a sultry karaoke queen, and Ralph will need all his
guile to make it through a job that has him wishing that he'd just
paid for his meal.