Go-Between

by Lisa Brackmann

  Danny was right. She should have turned Gary down. Should’ve run. Should’ve done … something. Anything other than taking this job and driving down a sketchy-looking street in god knows where, Houston, so she could “pick something up” for that fucker Gary.

  She’d packed a change of clothes this morning: jeans, Nikes, black T-shirt, a light-weight women’s cut hoodie she wore on nicer days in Arcata. But she hadn’t had time to change, so here she was in her black silk Eileen Fisher T and her black Stella McCartney slacks.

  She did take the time to put on the Nikes. In case she had to run.

  The address Gary gave her was for a trailer park called “Shady Acres.”

  Shady Acres. She had to roll her eyes at that. Fucking Gary. She’d bet good money this was his idea of a joke.

  Probably you’d call this a mobile-home park as opposed to a trailer park, she thought. The homes here were single-wides, long rectangles that looked like flimsy shipping containers made out of plastic siding, plywood and corrugated tin, the skirts around the bottoms warped and buckling, satellite dishes clamped or bolted onto the structures like the remnants of some advanced alien technology.

  There were trees, at least, patchy attempts at landscaping here and there, kids’ bikes sprawled on the dirt. Not that many people outside. Maybe it was still too hot.

  At the end of the road was her destination: #52.

  It looked like most of the others. Single-wide, two-toned, in this case cream with ochre trim, rusting here and there around the edges. A Harley and some kind of late-model Ford sedan were parked on a tiny patch of asphalt next to the entrance. A flag fluttered from a skinny pole stuck into a stanchion mounted on a wood beam holding up the canopy that shaded the door. It was one of those flags with a black coiled rattler on a yellow background with the legend don’t tread on me.

  Please don’t let there be a pit bull, Michelle thought.

  She parked. Took a deep breath, then another. Thought, I’m not going to get killed here, that wouldn’t make any sense, this whole setup with Caitlin and Safer America is too elaborate, there’s more at stake, this is just Gary fucking with me, because he can.

  She got out of the car, stood by the door for a moment. Breathe. Just breathe.

  Get it over with, she thought.

  She walked past the Harley, up four mold-stained cement steps, paused on the landing. Listened for a moment. Voices. A burst of laughter and music. Something on TV.

  She knocked on the door.

  Chapter Ten

  An explosion of barking greeted her knock: high-pitched yapping.

  That doesn’t sound like a pit bull, she thought.

  Though had she ever actually heard one bark?

  She could hear movement behind the door: a scrabbling of blunted claws on linoleum, more barking, then a heavier, human tread.

  She smoothed the wrinkles in her black silk T-shirt and ran her fingers through her hair. Because I want to look my best for whatever maniac Gary sent me to meet, she thought briefly.

  The door cracked open.

  “Yeah?”

  In his late fifties or early sixties, thinning gray hair combed back from his forehead, falling over the collar of a short-sleeved button-down checked shirt. A smallish man with a round gut that made him look almost pregnant.

  Behind him, she heard more high-pitched yapping and nails scrabbling on linoleum. “Get back, Roscoe,” the man snapped.

  For a moment, her mind went completely blank. A fresh wave of sweat broke out on her forehead and back. Gary hadn’t told her what to say. Gary hadn’t told her anything.

  “I’m here for the pickup,” she said.

  The man’s head tilted back. He looked her up and down. “Come in.”

  A small dog with long cream-colored hair scampered around her feet, rearing up on its hind legs and barring its overbite of tiny fangs with a high-pitched growl.

  “Shih tzu,” the man said. “They’re very loyal. Chinese.”

  She nodded.

  Past the small rectangle of linoleum of the entrance was a stretch of rust-colored pile carpet. The living room. The TV she’d heard, a large flat screen, took up most of the narrow end of the rectangle. It was playing a reality show. The Bachelor. An overwrought woman in a Little Bo Peep costume and lots of lip gloss wrung her hands at another woman dressed up like a cowgirl—that is, if cowgirls wore short shorts and crop tops with their cowboy boots.

  The man aimed a remote at the TV and muted it. He indicated a loveseat-sized brown and gold upholstered couch across from a leatherette recliner with a TV tray table parked at its side.

  Michelle sat.

  “Something to drink? Water? Sweet tea?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  He shrugged. “Be right back.”

  As he headed down a truncated hall, the dog skittered over, sniffing at her ankles with bared teeth and quivering with barely suppressed canine rage.

  “Roscoe! Go sit!” the man yelled over his shoulder.

  The dog retreated with one last outraged trill, and hopped up onto the recliner.

  She heard metal catch on metal: a key, sliding into a lock. A door opening. Her mouth was dry. I should’ve taken that water, she thought. She stared at the Remington print framed in battered walnut, a cowboy on a bucking bronco, hung on the opposite wall.

  All this place needs is a wagon-wheel lamp, she thought.

  The man hobbled back into the living room, a canvas duffle bag on each shoulder, laboring under the weight. He lowered them down onto the shag carpet, the longer bag on his right shoulder landing with a solid thud. Muffled metal.

  “Everything’s there,” he said. He leaned over, stiffly, and unzipped the larger bag. “Check it if you want.”

  She didn’t want. Not at all. But maybe she was expected to.

  She stood. Looked into the bag.

  Bubble-wrapped objects. About three feet long. Rifles.

  “Four Colt AR-15s, two Bushmasters, six Sig Sauer 226s. Good condition.” He shrugged. Or maybe he was just working out a kink in his shoulder. “I threw in a couple of Colt full auto kits.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Great.”

  “You need a hand out to the car?”

  “I …”

  She thought about it. There was something she needed, all right.

  “Do you have any revolvers?” she asked. “Any .38 specials?” She smiled. “For me. I’m new in town.”

  His name was Terry. He tried to talk her out of a .38. “Wouldn’t you rather have a nice semi-auto? I have a sweet nine-millimeter Beretta you might like. Fits great in a purse.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “but I’d rather have a .38.”

  Something small, reliable and that she already knew how to shoot. She’d spent a lot of hours on a gun range with her .38, back in Arcata.

  “Well, I do have a Smith and Wesson Chief’s Special. Really nice piece. And clean. I can let you have it for four hundred. That’s a discount.”

  She paid him cash for the pistol. He threw in a cheap nylon concealment holster (“So you aren’t carrying it naked”). He never said anything about payment for the rest of the guns. Already taken care of, she had to assume.

  Terry insisted on helping her out to the car, wobbling under the weight of the duffle bags, the little dog dancing around his heels.

  He slammed the hatchback shut. Took a moment to smooth out his plaid short-sleeved shirt. Like she’d done when she’d stood at his door.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said. “You’re a nice change from the usual suspects.”

  Fucking Gary.

  Her hands gripped the wheel, so tightly that her wrists were aching. His directions had led her somewhere northeast. She had no idea where, what kind of place it was. Just street names that didn’t mean anything. Anonymous broad avenues with beat-up convenience stores, an occasional gas station, a stucco hospital complex. Skinny condos where the faded paint was peeling off the wood siding. A lot of chain-lin
k fencing, graffiti sprayed on beige-coated brick.

  It had to be a bad neighborhood, she thought. Because, fucking Gary. She’d bet anything he was sitting back with a scotch—well, maybe not, given his health kick—but she’d bet he was laughing his ass off right now, thinking about the situation he’d put her in. He got off on it.

  Why do dogs lick themselves, right? she heard Danny say.

  Given that she was using the GPS on her iPhone, Gary probably knew exactly where she was.

  “Fuck you, Gary,” she muttered, in case he was listening.

  “In four hundred feet, turn left,” her phone said.

  She’d turned into a housing tract. Late 1950s, she guessed—smaller ranch-style homes, single story. Run-down, most of them, from what she could see in the dark and the few sputtering streetlights. Dead lawns. for sale signs here and there, bank owned slapped on some of them.

  Boarded-up windows. Junked cars.

  Abandoned.

  “Your destination is on the right.”

  A brown stucco house with a darker brown paint trim, a withered oak tree in the front yard and a bug zapper by the door doubling as a porch light.

  She pulled over to the curb. Sat there for a moment with the engine running, breathing hard.

  Deep, calming breaths, she told herself. Think about what you’re going to say.

  Like what, she thought? What could she possibly say? “Hi, I’m here with your guns”?

  If she’d been sweaty before, she was drenched now, shivering in the chill of the air conditioner, stomach clenched and roiling.

  She turned off the engine, killed the power. In the silence that followed, she could hear faint strains of ranchera music coming from the house, the scrape and chirp of crickets.

  It’s a long game, she told herself, Gary’s playing a long game. He doesn’t want to see me dead, not yet. Not so soon.

  That wouldn’t be fun for him at all.

  She took one last deep breath. Got out of the car. Locked it, put the keys in her purse. Put her hand on the butt of her new revolver, tucked in the concealed holster in her purse, next to her wallet, comb and lipstick. Stupid, she told herself. What good would that gun really do her if she was walking into a house full of the type of people who would buy illegal weapons?

  Still, she kept her fingers wrapped around the rubber Pachmayr grip. It felt like muscle and bone, hard beneath a slight yield. You know how to shoot this if you have to, she told herself.

  You’re not going to die.

  The doorbell didn’t work. She knocked. Rapped three times, the first one tentative. The second two, harder.

  The music quieted. She waited.

  She didn’t hear footsteps, just the sudden scrape of the deadbolt as it retracted into the door, then the rattle of the chain lock, pulling taut.

  “Yes?”

  She could see a slice of his face: smooth brown skin, short black hair, a dark eye.

  “I have your delivery,” she said.

  It was the best she could come up with.

  “Delivery?” he asked, in accented English.

  “You’re expecting something, right?”

  A pause. “Excuse me. One moment.”

  The door closed.

  She stood there, heart pounding, hand clutching the .38 in her purse, mouth so dry the sides of her throat stuck together as she swallowed.

  The chain lock rattled again. This time, the door opened wide.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We did not expect you.”

  He wasn’t that young. In his thirties, at least. Short, barrel chest, close-cropped hair, round, full cheeks. Not quite baby faced, but close. He wore a green-striped polo shirt and jeans. She could see the blurred blue ink of a tattoo on his neck, disappearing into his shirt collar. The letter L, and a number that she couldn’t make out.

  “It’s in the car,” she said.

  The man in the green-striped polo shirt and another younger Latino wearing a white undershirt and baggy shorts followed her to the curb.

  She popped the hatch. Gestured at the duffle bags. “There,” she said.

  The man in the green striped polo shirt stepped up to the bumper while the younger man in the white undershirt waited behind her. Watching her. She could feel it. She relaxed her hand that rested on the edge of her purse, poised above the pistol. Don’t make him nervous, she thought.

  The man in the green striped shirt leaned over and unzipped the larger duffle. Took a quick glance. Zipped it up and nodded.

  The younger man trotted forward and hoisted the two duffels onto his shoulders, then turned and jogged slowly across the dead lawn to the front door.

  She and the man in the green striped shirt stood across from each other. Close enough now that she thought she could make out the number tattooed on his neck, in an elaborate font that reminded her of medieval manuscripts.

  73.

  His face, with its smooth, round cheeks, showed no expression. He stood there, seeming to stare at a point just past her.

  I just want to get in the car, she thought. Get in the car and drive away.

  But she was supposed to get her money. Wasn’t she?

  Fucking Gary, she thought. Of course he wouldn’t make it clear.

  Should she ask?

  Something in 73’s expression suddenly changed, a sort of wince. He shifted back and forth on his feet. Then his face turned hard again.

  What did it mean?

  She let her fingertips slip down and graze the grip of her revolver.

  “Sorry,” he suddenly said. “For making you wait.”

  She felt a sudden flush of sweat, of something close to relief. “Oh. That’s all right. No need to apologize.”

  A moment later, the younger man in the white undershirt came trotting back, pulling a navy-blue wheeled suitcase behind him. Too big for a carry-on.

  He pushed the handle into the suitcase, hoisted it up and laid it in the trunk of her Prius.

  The man in the green striped shirt gestured at the suitcase.

  Was she supposed to inspect it? Like she did the guns?

  She leaned over and unzipped suitcase. Lifted up the flimsy canvas.

  Money. Banded bundles of it. Hundreds and fifties and twenties. She had no idea how much it was. But it looked like a lot more than fifty thousand dollars.

  She zipped the suitcase shut. What was she supposed to do? He had to know how much money was in there. She couldn’t exactly tell him he’d made a mistake.

  Something of her confusion must have shown on her face when she looked up to meet his eyes.

  He nodded slightly. “Our … donation.”

  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, bobbi
ng 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.