Today, before they got on the road, Bette twisted the cap from a bottle of Maalox, broke the safety seal, and dropped the bottle into the truck’s cup holder. Layla didn’t ask why; she already knew the answer.
She’d woken to the sound of retching from the bathroom, and rolling over, she’d found the other bed empty and barely disturbed. Once again, Bette had spent a good part of the night sitting by the window of their motel room, staring out through the part she’d made in the curtains.
She emerged from the bathroom a ghost, her white nightshirt hanging from her bony shoulders, barely interrupted by the flattened sacs of her breasts. The room’s curtained dimness deepened the hollows around her eyes, making a skull of her face.
It was clear to Layla that Bette was on a downward spiral, and if flu was at the root of her ills, as she’d once claimed, it was one hell of a case.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Layla said. “Or maybe the emergency room.”
Bette turned away from Layla and grabbed the glass of water she’d left on the dresser. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. And it’s time to call an end to this road trip. For now, anyway.”
Bette drained the glass and set it down. “Not when Phoenix is just a day away.”
An old suspicion of Layla’s resurfaced: that this trip was about more than exchanging some old possessions of Vic’s for art stuff for Jake. Why else would Bette be so determined to complete it? But this wasn’t the time for that discussion.
“A lot can go wrong in a day, Bette.”
Bette scowled and pushed past Layla, started pulling on her jeans. “I’ll go it alone then. I’ll get you on a plane and back to your life.”
“No, no, no. I don’t want you to go it alone.”
After a few more back-and-forths, and additional attempts to make her case, Layla gave in. She’d play along with Bette just until she could figure out a better plan.
Now, as the truck rolled them closer to Phoenix, Layla filled the silence by worrying over answers to What now? What next? One step was certain: it was time to call Marla, at her next opportunity for some privacy.
As they passed a sign for McLean, Bette took her first, generous swig of the Maalox. Setting the bottle back in the cup holder, she glanced into the rear-view mirror. Her eyes widened, and her face slackened, as if in disbelief—a look Layla hadn’t seen since they crossed the Indiana line.
Layla checked the side-view mirror and saw exactly what had triggered Bette in Indiana: a white car, a good way behind them.
She reached for Bette, then checked herself, guessing that any attempt to comfort her might do the opposite.
Fucking speed up, Layla thought, looking again to the side-view mirror. Pass us! But the white car held steady behind them.
She kept silent, clutching her hands together, wanting to squeeze this whole situation into something small and within her control, for Bette’s sake.
It’s just another white car.
Layla wanted to believe this, and she wanted Bette to believe it—to feel it—too.
The truck surged forward, pressing Layla back against her seat. Bette was leaning into the wheel and slightly rightward, floorward, pressing all her weight toward the gas pedal. She zoomed them sharply right and onto Route 83, off their westward course.
As they sped forward, Bette’s old story surfaced in Layla’s mind. She imagined that other white car pulling up to their side, its ski-masked passenger drawing a gun.
To reassure herself, Layla glanced to the mirror, saw a red car trailing them at a respectable distance. Farther behind it, a truck. No white car.
Still, Bette was holding to a speed well over the limit. Infected by her fear, Layla turned her attention back to the side-view mirror.
Within seconds, she sensed movement behind them—a car taking to the shoulder, churning dust. What the fuck?
It passed the truck, then the red car. Now it was right behind them: the white car.
Layla spied a male driver and a male passenger, both in sunglasses. Their windshield’s glare made it impossible for her to discern anything more specific.
Bette upped their speed, zooming them past various road signs. One of them: Ridley’s Gas-N-Shop, 1 Mile.
“There’s a gas station coming up,” Layla said. “And I need to pee.” A lie.
Bette didn’t answer.
“Did you hear me?”
Bette kept silent, leaning into the gas.
“Pull over, or I’m peeing in your truck.”
A moment later, Layla spotted a weather-beaten, gap-lettered sign: Rid___s Gas-N-Sho_.
“There it is!” she cried, pointing right. “Pull. O-ver!”
Bette held her silence, kept up her speed. Then she hauled the wheel right, spraying gravel, bringing them to a long, skidding stop on the station’s asphalt. To their left, on 83, the white car slowed, not by much. Not long enough for Layla to get a better handle on the driver or the passenger. Then it was gone.
Layla pressed a hand to her thrumming heart, then started to take in their surroundings. To their right, at the pumps, a Stetson-hatted man gaped their way while filling his truck. From the truck’s cab, a panting sheepdog watched them too, looking equally curious.
As her heart settled, her fear drew down into something hot and sharp.
“What the fuck’s going on, Bette?” Layla knew that Bette’s story about being spooked by white cars—just any white cars—was bullshit. It was time to get the truth.
She waited for an answer, then asked, “Did you hear me?”
All at once, Bette slapped a hand to her mouth. A long, low burp rolled up from her depths, then a groan. An instant later, she was out of the truck and sprinting toward the “shop” part of the station.
Please let there be a bathroom, Layla thought—open and at the ready.
Bette didn’t enter the store. She dashed past it and behind it.
Layla took out her phone and dialed Marla’s number, which she’d programmed in the night before. She got Marla’s voice-mail greeting and hung up before the final beep, not wanting to leave an alarming message.
Instead, Layla headed for the store, guessing Bette might welcome a cold bottle of water. As she neared the entrance, she heard Bette retching from somewhere behind the building.
Go check on her?
No. Give her some time.
She went inside for the water.
By the time Layla got back outside, she detected nothing but the sound of highway traffic. Water in hand, she walked toward the rear of the building, afraid of what she’d find.
Layla heard Bette’s voice, low and insistent. She crept closer and listened.
“I know, Wes. I know. But I need someone on the case. Now.” Silence, then: “The sooner the better. I don’t want my sister mixed up in this shit.”
What shit?
Before Layla could have second thoughts, she rounded the corner of the building.
She found Bette sitting on one of two sun-bleached milk crates, amid wind-blown trash: napkins, pop cans, a deflated foil balloon flashing silver. The sour smell of puke drifted from somewhere—Layla suspected the rusted barrel several paces to her left, where the asphalt met a weedy field.
Layla couldn’t tell whether Bette had noticed her arrival. She was sitting forward, elbows to her knees, listening to the voice from her phone—Wes’s.
“All right,” Bette said. “Give me an update when you can.”
As she pocketed her phone, she met Layla’s gaze, levelly. Without surprise, it seemed.
Layla grabbed the other milk crate and pulled it over to face Bette, handing her the water as she sat down.
With a few big gulps, Bette emptied the water bottle, then dropped it to her feet. She wiped her hand against her mouth, all the while glaring at Layla, as if she were t
he one who’d been hiding something. As if the water had revealed itself as poison.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Layla asked.
Bette held steady with her glare. “I’m dying.”
A confirmation of Layla’s suspicions, which she’d been struggling to keep to herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling the hollowness in the words, in herself.
Bette nodded as if acknowledging a banal courtesy, which was the truth.
“I got the news about two months ago, before Dad was gone. But I didn’t tell him. Or Jake. Or Marla. Though, as you could probably tell, she knows something’s wrong.”
Layla decided not to ask the nature of the illness. If Bette wanted to tell her, she would. “You’re sure nothing can be done.”
“Nothing I want to go through again, given my odds.”
Again suggested a long road, perhaps a lapsed remission.
“How long do you think you have?”
“The doctor gave me about six months. So, I guess I’m down to four. But right now, that’s feeling pretty optimistic.”
A wind gust flipped the foil balloon, revealing a Happy Birthday! wish.
“So, what could be more important than getting you home, Bette? Or to a hospital? Don’t tell me it’s that art stuff for Jake.”
Bette patted her pocket, searching again for the phantom cigarette. “It isn’t. And I know I should have told you the whole truth sooner. It would have come out eventually.”
“Well, now’s your chance.”
As if collecting herself, Bette closed her eyes and turned her face skyward. Sunlight flashed on her diamond studs, which looked brighter than ever against her yellowed skin. Then she turned back to Layla.
“About a year ago, when Dad knew he didn’t have much longer, he told me about some money he’d set aside for me and Jake, and I don’t mean pocket change. Honestly, this was news to me. As far as I knew, all he had was peanuts in Social Security, and a few thousand in his savings account. I figured the money from his high-rolling days was long gone, forfeited to the government.”
Layla couldn’t resist asking: “How much are we talking about?”
“A couple million.”
“Shit.” The fifty thousand dollars in the velvet box made a little more sense now, and she felt even more uneasy about accepting it.
“That was my reaction, exactly. I didn’t understand how he had all that money, or where it came from. And he wouldn’t tell me.”
“Because it’s dirty, probably.”
Bette glanced aside, withholding a yes or no. “I knew he wasn’t making the big bucks from his landscaping business. That last year or two, his heart was so weak, he could barely mow his own lawn. That became my job.”
“So, what did you tell him, about the money?”
“I told him he should save it for his old age. Because I had just the thought you did: that it was dirty. And I felt like if I took the money, that dirtiness would catch up with me. Somehow.”
“How’d he respond to that?”
“He said, ‘How long do you think I’m going to live?’ If I was being honest, I’d’ve told him two years tops, twice what he got. But I kept my mouth shut, about that, anyway. About the money, I said he should sleep on it. And he said, ‘That means dying on it,’ which he refused to do.”
“So, what happened?”
“He told me everything I needed to do to get to the money—the name of the contact who’s holding it, in Phoenix of all places, and where exactly to find him. He didn’t write any of this down, and he asked me not to write it down either. I had to commit it to memory.”
Layla wondered whether the contact’s name was assumed. Everything about this was sounding like something out of a movie.
“I told myself I was going to let that money stay just where it was, indefinitely. I figured that by the time my retirement rolled around, I’d have enough money put aside for me and, more importantly, for Jake—to make sure he’s looked after once I’m gone. But, as you can see, it’s not going to work out that way. Right now, I don’t have much of anything saved for him, or me.”
For Layla, a few puzzle pieces seemed to have fallen into place. She now understood the urgency of the trip, and that it really was about Jake. Just not in the way she’d been led to believe.
Still, she had questions. “What’s ‘this shit’ you don’t want me mixed up in? And what does Wes have to do with it?”
She also wondered, Who is Wes, really? She had a hard time believing he was just a kindly uncle type. But she held this question for now.
Bette sat forward and scrubbed a hand through her hair, as if steeling herself. “That couple million dollars? It was a matter of some dispute.”
“What kind of dispute?”
“I’ll get to that. But I need to back up a bit. Years ago, when Dad was in the thick of his old business, he had some close partners and some every-now-and-then partners, guys he dealt with temporarily, to get some mutually beneficial thing done.”
Layla’s mind lingered on the term “business,” which seemed to sanitize the reality of Vic’s three-state burglary ring. Then again, in her use of the word, Bette was tacitly acknowledging the continuum along which all exchanges of goods and services operated, from the most innocent of transactions to those settled with blood.
“One of these every-now-and-then partners was a guy named Gordon Cross. Him and Dad were always on kind of rocky terms, but after Dad got out of prison, things really went south between them.”
Layla didn’t remember the name Gordon Cross from coverage of the trial, or of the events leading up to it. Like the savviest—or luckiest—criminals, he must have flown under the radar. “Vic was involved in this shit after prison?” Deep down, Layla wasn’t surprised.
“Not by his choice, as far as I know. When Dad was released, Cross felt it was time to pay him a visit and settle some unfinished business—unfinished in Cross’s mind. He came to collect some money he said Dad owed him, from a deal they did years before.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Don’t know. Dad didn’t like to share the details of stuff like that.”
“So, what happened?”
“Dad immediately called bullshit on Cross, said he’d already paid him what he was due, and that he was broke anyway.”
“A lie.”
“The broke part, yes. But not the part about Dad owing Cross anything. In fact, he said he’d overpaid Cross at the time the deal closed, just to get him off his back.”
A hawk cried from somewhere, startling Layla. She looked skyward and saw nothing but scattered puffs of clouds on bright blue. “How do you know all this?”
“I was at Dad’s when Cross came calling, and things got pretty loud. Loud enough for me to hear them from upstairs. Of course, after Cross left, I had a bunch of questions for Dad, but I didn’t get many answers. He definitely didn’t tell me about the two million dollars he’d socked away, not then anyway.”
Layla wondered what else Bette might have overheard—and seen—over the years, where the darker side of Vic was concerned. “Do you really believe what he said about not owing Cross anything?”
Bette stared off a moment, thinking. “You ever heard that phrase ‘Honor among thieves’? Well, in Dad’s circle it was gospel. For pretty much everyone except for Gordon Cross. Dad told me, ‘He’s not a man to turn your back on.’ And I believe it.”
The hawk cried again, louder. Still, Layla couldn’t spot it.
“Anyhow, to get to your question, Cross resurfaced six or so months ago, for reasons I’m not sure of. Maybe because he was more desperate for money than ever. We’ll never know.”
“He’s dead?”
Bette nodded.
“Natural causes?”
In Bette’s silence Layla sensed the an
swer was no. “Did Vic kill him?”
“I told you Dad couldn’t stand the sight of blood.”
Layla wasn’t sure how much to trust this explanation. Still, she said, “Then Wes did it.”
More silence. It lasted so long Layla took it as a yes.
“If Cross is gone, then what’s the problem?”
“He had his own crew. And those two who are following us? I have no doubt they were on his payroll. Somehow, they must have found out about the money in Phoenix.”
Clearly, the “road anxiety” Bette had mentioned wasn’t purely a matter of the mind. There seemed to be a good reason for it, and for the gun in the glove compartment. This sent a fresh chill through Layla.
“I didn’t want to tell you this, ’cause I didn’t want to worry you. But these two guys are why I’ve been looking out the window at night. And not for no reason. At the first motel, they rolled into the parking lot a little after midnight and cut the engine. And they sat there for a long time, just staring at our room, like they were ready to bust into it.”
Layla wondered whether Bette had had the gun with her that night, after all.
“But they split by dawn, for some reason. Not before I got their license plate number.”
“What about the other nights?”
“No sign of them. But that’s little comfort now, clearly.”
“So, you want Wes to do something about them.”
“Yes.”
Layla remembered the “business travel” that supposedly kept Wes so busy. She imagined it was a euphemism covering countless dark purposes. “So, he’s around here somewhere?”
“No. But he has connections in Amarillo. He told me they’ll make sure the problem is taken care of.”
By more bloodshed? Layla held this question, not wanting to get into disturbing specifics. Not right now.
“What’s in all this for Wes?”
“Dad was a good friend to him, for years, and he took good care of him. Financially, and otherwise. In return, he asked Wes to look after me and Jake, after he was gone.”
Friendship aside, honor among thieves aside, Layla wondered how far even Wes could be trusted. “How much does he know about the money in Phoenix?”
I Mean You No Harm Page 12