The Night Always Comes

by Willy Vlautin

  Lynette was so scared she couldn’t speak. Kansas’s full weight was on her chest and his legs pinned her arms against the concrete floor. The blond-haired man brought over the knife and a brown wool blanket. Kansas grabbed her hair, leaned back, and, taking his weight off her, pulled her toward him until she was nearly sitting up. The blond-haired man put the blanket underneath her and then Kansas threw her back down, knocking the wind out of her. “Get the drum now,” he yelled and looked at Lynette. “Tell me whose stuff this is.”

  Lynette shook her head. “Please,” she finally whispered. “Don’t kill me because if you do, you’ll have to worry about Cody. And we both know Cody will talk. You’ll have to kill him, too. And what’s the point of killing him? That means you kill two people for seventeen thousand dollars, some jewelry, and a bag of drugs you say you don’t even want.”

  He opened the knife blade and brought it to her neck.

  “I can bring you an eighty-thousand-dollar Mercedes,” she said and began crying.

  “What?” said Kansas.

  “I have . . . I have a Mercedes I could give you tonight.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “I just do.”

  “Where?”

  “North Portland,” she whispered.

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “I have the key in my purse. I swear I have it and I’ll give it to you. I just took it from a man I know to screw up his night, to be mean. But you can have it if you don’t kill me.”

  “I’m going to kill you unless you tell me whose safe this is.”

  “It’s just a woman I work with,” said Lynette. “She’s not dangerous. She just owed me eight thousand dollars and said she was broke. But I knew she was lying, so I took the safe. But I didn’t want to steal anything from her, not really. I just wanted what’s mine.”

  Kansas stood up and smiled. “I wasn’t going to kill you. I just wanted the truth.” He closed the knife, set it on the workbench, and said to the blond man, “Empty her purse.”

  The blond man poured Lynette’s bag out onto the shop table. There was the jewelry, the silver dollars, the papers and photos, the drugs, a pack of mints, hand lotion, tampons, a pack of Kleenex, lip balm, a set of keys, a phone, gum, and a single key with a Mercedes emblem.

  Kansas picked up the key. “What kind of Mercedes?”

  “It’s brand new, I know that. He just got it. And it’s a four-door. A sedan. And it’s black.”

  Kansas went to the corner of the workbench where a laptop sat. He turned it on while the blond-haired man took the dust mask off and sprayed more gas into it.

  “It’s just a rich guy’s car,” said Lynette and walked slowly toward her purse. “He’s harmless and he won’t do anything about it, not really. I can drive Cody to it and he can bring it back to you.”

  Cody was still standing behind the woodstove, looking at them. Kansas rubbed his eyes and again looked at the computer.

  “I have photos of the car on my phone. I’ll know what model then,” she said and moved to the workbench. Kansas was trying to type in Mercedes, but he couldn’t spell Mercedes. She picked up her phone, moved away from the bench, unlocked it, and looked at the signal. Five bars. She dialed 9-1, and then in a shakier voice said, “I’ve just dialed 9-1. All I have to do is hit 1 and they’ll find me.”

  “If you do call the police, I really will kill you,” Kansas said and got up.

  “Then you’ll go to prison,” said Lynette. “And the thing that you don’t know about me is that I don’t care if you kill me. I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

  The blond-haired man grabbed a box cutter from the shop table and began pacing as he showed Lynette the blade. His breathing grew quicker and quicker until he just stopped and puked into the dust mask. Vomit spilled out of the sides and ran down his neck. He was still on his feet when he blacked out and fell, hitting his head on the edge of the shop table on the way down. On the concrete floor he went into a seizure. Kansas ran to him and pulled the mask from his face, and Lynette went to the table, grabbed her purse, shoved everything from the safe, including the money, back inside, and headed for the door.

  Kansas looked up at Cody in a panic. “Stop her,” he screamed while the blond-haired man continued to convulse. White foam frothed from his mouth, and blood poured from the cut on his head and a pool of it formed around him on the concrete floor.

  Cody didn’t move.

  “I know about seizures,” Lynette said to Kansas. “Make sure to put him on his side. You don’t want him to choke on his vomit. Get the knife out of his hand, too, because he might start thrashing around.”

  Kansas only put his fingers in the man’s mouth.

  “You don’t have to do that,” said Lynette. “He won’t swallow his tongue. But he could bite your fingers. He could clamp down on them. Just put him on his side and try to stop the bleeding. You have to get him to the hospital. He could be bleeding in his brain.”

  Kansas grew frantic. He began shaking his head with a look of terror on his face. He picked up the man with blond hair and held him in his arms.

  “Get the key to the door from his pocket,” Lynette said to Cody, but he was still motionless by the woodstove. She yelled at him, “He has the key in his fucking pocket! You’ve got to let him get to the hospital. Do you want him to die?” Cody looked at her, then slowly went to Kansas and took the key from the blond man’s coveralls pocket. He pulled the security bar from across the door and unlocked the bolt lock.

  The blond-haired man kept spitting white foam from his mouth and Kansas moaned out, “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” over and over. But even with the blond man in his arms and having seizures, Kansas went for Lynette’s purse. In the struggle he dropped the blond man hard on the floor and hit Lynette in the stomach. She fell and he put the purse on the blond man’s chest and picked him back up. He headed for the door, but the blond man convulsed so hard that the purse dropped to the ground.

  “I’ll carry it for you,” said Lynette. “But you better hurry. He’s gonna die if you don’t get him to a doctor.”

  “But the purse is mine,” cried Kansas. “It’s mine.”

  “I know,” said Lynette. “I know it is.”

  Kansas was running with the man in his arms when he hit the right side of the door with the man’s leg. The edge of the metal security bar holder went into his calf with such force that it tore the blond man’s coveralls and put a long gash in his leg that instantly leaked out blood. Kansas kept going. He turned left toward the gravel lot and jogged down the path. Lynette grabbed the purse and ran out of the door, turning right into complete darkness. She took her phone from her coat pocket, turned on the light, and put the strap of her purse over her neck. She ran alongside the building until it ended at a ten-foot chain-link fence and an empty field on the other side.

  She started climbing it and was nearly to the top when Kansas came running back to her. He shook the fence trying to get her to fall. “Give me the fucking purse,” he cried in his broken voice. “Give me the fucking purse.”

  Lynette was halfway down the other side when she dropped to the ground. Dogs in nearby yards went crazy with barking and Kansas began going back to where he left the blond man on the wet gravel and was almost to him when he once again turned around. He ran back to the fence and screamed, “The purse!” but by then Lynette had disappeared into the darkness.

  13

  The field ended at a paved road and a row of houses. There were no sidewalks and dogs barked from every home she passed. She worked her way back to the derelict house and the shop behind it. At the edge of the property she waited but heard and saw nothing. From her front pocket she took out her car keys, again unlocked her phone, hit 9-1, and began walking down the gravel road. A floodlight was now on and she saw Cody sitting on the trunk of her car in the steadily falling rain.

  She was twenty yards away when she yelled, “Where are they?”

  “They went to the hospital. Let’s get the fu
ck out of here,” he yelled back.

  “You’re sure he’s gone?”

  “He drove off in his truck, but he might have called someone. So let’s go.”

  Lynette ran to her car and they got in. She locked her door and the car started on the fourth try. She pulled it onto the street and drove out of the neighborhood to 82nd Avenue. After a mile she pulled over in front of Ocean City Chinese Restaurant.

  “Get out of my car,” she told Cody.

  “That’s bullshit. I ain’t getting out.”

  “I’m serious. Get out.”

  “The buses have quit and it’s raining like a motherfucker. No way I’m getting out. Just give me my cut and a ride back to the Dutchman.”

  Lynette wiped the condensation from the windshield and set the rag back on the dash.

  She looked at the Chinese restaurant. It was closed, but the inside lights were on. The walls and tables were gold. There were two women vacuuming and Lynette leaned over and opened the glove box. She grabbed a pint of Jägermeister from it, took a long drink, and handed it to Cody. He drank from it and then put the bottle between his legs.

  “Just get out, please,” she begged.

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Lynette sighed.

  Cody took another drink. “Well, there was nothing. I mean I wasn’t going to fight him. I told you he was psycho. And remember you’re the one who wanted to steal the safe, not me. I had nothing to do with it. So just give me my money and take me back to the Dutchman.”

  Lynette again sighed but began driving.

  Cody lit a cigarette. “What are you going to do with the drugs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I could probably sell the package for you.”

  “You told Kansas you didn’t want them.”

  “I don’t, I can’t even have the shit near my house, but I know some people who could get rid of it pretty easy.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lynette.

  “Do you know anyone who’d buy that much?”

  “I don’t even know what it is.”

  “At least let me see,” he said.

  They came to a stoplight and Lynette took the gallon freezer bag from her purse and handed it to Cody. Inside the bag was another bag. He opened it, took a small pinch, and put it in his mouth.

  “It’s coke.”

  “I thought it probably was,” said Lynette.

  “Why would your friend have that much coke?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cody took a larger pinch from the package and snorted it off the back of his hand.

  “Jesus, what are you doing? I thought you get drug tested.”

  “I do, but it’s random and they just tested me. I should be alright.” He took another drink from the bottle. “I really could sell this for you.”

  “No way. I don’t want anything more to do with you. Just put the package in the glove box.”

  But Cody held on to it and snorted more off his hand. When Lynette turned west on Division Street, he put the package in his hoodie pocket and shut the glove box.

  They drove in silence until she turned right on 48th.

  “What about the Mercedes?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was that for real?”

  Lynette nodded.

  “I could sell that for you, too.”

  She laughed. “I’m just gonna drop you off. And take the coke out of your pocket and put it in the glove box.”

  “The stuff in the safe is mine as much as it is yours,” he said and wiped the condensation on the windshield with his arm. “You couldn’t have stole it without my help.”

  The Dutchman’s neon sign came into view. Lynette pulled to the side of the road. The windshield wipers went as fast as they could and the rain hit the hood and roof of the car. She took five hundred dollars from her front pants pocket and handed it to him. “Give me the package and get out. The five hundred’s all I’m giving you because you told him to take whatever he wanted. You guys set me up, and when he had me on the floor and I thought he was gonna kill me, you didn’t do anything. You didn’t help at all.”

  “Look,” he said and took a drag from his cigarette. “I’ll be honest. I’m not good when shit gets weird. But I wasn’t gonna let you die. I had a plan. You just jumped in before I could do anything. And listen . . . an idea that just came to me. I have seven grand at my place. Would you take seven grand for the car? I know a guy who could sell it. You keep my cut and the coke but give me the car and I’ll give you seven grand.”

  “How do you have seven thousand dollars?”

  “When I got out of prison, my mother gave me my college fund. Ten grand. I was broke and she knew by then I was never going to go to college, so she gave it to me so I wouldn’t move in with her. I mean she has a three-bedroom house off Halsey. Lives by herself in a fucking castle but won’t even put me up for a year.” He looked out the window. “And worse than that she probably won’t even give me the house when she dies. She’s crazy for my cousins, sends them to science camp and shit like that. They’ll probably get everything.”

  “There’s no way you have seven grand,” said Lynette.

  “I do,” he said and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I really have it.”

  “Then why haven’t you bought a car if you hate the bus so much?”

  “Because I’m just waiting on the right deal. Looking around. But I have the money. I already bought an Xbox and a mountain bike. I’m just trying not to blow it all at once. And I have trouble with my license, too, that’s a lot of it, but that ain’t my fault either. They just fucked me over and took it away. I swear to God I have the money. I rent a room in a house off 160th and Sandy. The money’s there and I’ll give it to you if you really have the car.”

  “I have the car.”

  “And whose is it?”

  “No one you know.”

  “As long as it ain’t somebody who’ll come back and kill me. Is it that kind of guy?”

  “No, he’s just a rich old guy like I told Kansas.”

  Cody took a drink of the Jägermeister and set it on the floor in front of him. “Look, you know it wasn’t my fault what Kansas did. I mean you were there. It wasn’t me that pulled the knife on you and it wasn’t me who was gonna cut your throat. Maybe he and I talked about taking more than what we’d agreed on, but we were just talking. To me a deal’s a deal. You and me had a plan and I was gonna stick to it no matter what. And in the end Kansas wouldn’t have gotten shit but his five hundred. That’s the truth. And look.” He took Kansas’s Buck knife from his pocket. “When shit got crazy with the blond dude, I stole the knife. I would have fucked him up. It just wasn’t time yet. But I’m a go-to person and you know it. I mean, you needed a guy to open the safe and I found that guy. It got weird, sure, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. The price of doing business. But you came to me and I got the safe opened. So really I’ve done everything you’ve asked. There was just a little drama, sure, but we got out of it. So give me the car and I’ll give you the money. I’m on the bus three hours a day to work a shitty job at a shitty restaurant. I mean they really fuck people getting out of prison. The Mercedes could be a good turning point for me ’cause I know a guy who is a Mercedes mechanic, and he’ll have no problem getting rid of it. So I give you my word and my word’s good. I’ll give you the money if you give me the car.”

  “Then give me back the cocaine first.”

  “Alright,” he said and took the package from his hoodie pocket and handed it to her.

  At the edge of Gresham was a 1970s single-story ranch house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Two cars and a truck were parked in the driveway and no lights were on. Lynette pulled behind a lifted black Dodge pickup and left her car running. On the back windshield was a large decal of a skull wearing a German helmet and on the bumper was a sticker that read KICK THEIR ASS TAKE THEIR GAS. Cody opened the passenger-side door, got out, and ran i
nside.

  Five minutes passed, but he didn’t come back. Lynette grew more and more nervous and pulled onto the street. With the engine running and the lights off, she got out of the car and opened the trunk. Underneath the spare tire she put the seventeen thousand dollars, the cocaine, the jewelry, the photos and papers, then got back in and locked the doors. Five more minutes passed and she was about to leave when Cody came jogging out from the side of the house wearing a red hoodie. She unlocked the passenger-side door and he got in.

  “What took you so long?” she asked.

  “I had to do a few things first.”

  “Like what?”

  “I had to change clothes. I was wet as shit.”

  “That took you almost ten minutes?”

  “And I was on the can and I couldn’t get off, okay? Is that good enough? Coke always fucks up my guts.”

  “Do you have the money?”

  “I have it,” he said.

  “Let me see it.”

  “Don’t worry, I got it.”

  “If you don’t let me count it right now you can get out. There’s no way I’m trusting you.”

  Cody sneered but reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a white U.S. Bank envelope. Lynette turned on the overhead light, took the envelope from him, and counted it.

  “There’s only five thousand here.”

  “I told you I bought a bike and an Xbox. And I needed to keep some to cover my rent. I mean I have to keep my room. My parole will get fucked up if I don’t have a real place to stay, so you can’t ask me to risk that money, too. That’s going too far.” He took the envelope from her and put it back in his hoodie pocket, and she began driving. She took I-84 west into the city and crossed the Fremont Bridge and went along Highway 30. The St. John’s Bridge came into view and she took it back over the river into North Portland. They didn’t talk until they saw the Mercedes underneath a street lamp across the street from the closed-down Tulip Pastry Shop.