“It’s a no-go. Stick to your cheese puffs.”
“Cheese curls, Norton,” he said. “Curls, far superior to puffs.” He looked longingly at the North Star with greedy, beady eyes, and back up at me. He lifted one of his great big bushy eyebrows. In the months I’d been gone, the left one had turned mostly white, while the right one hadn’t. It made him look pretty much nuts.
Dropping the brochure on his desk, he glugged his Diet Dr Pepper as the AC whirred. The bottle hissed when he pulled it from his mouth. “Welcome back to the free world, Norton. You want me to call one of the girls up for you? Get you a little”—he set down his can and made a finger-boinking gesture—“action? On the house. A welcome-back-to-town present. No charge.”
Boink, boink, boink went the demo, paired with a matching wiggle of his nonmatching eyebrows.
The finger fuck was the last straw. I’d had it with all his shit. I couldn’t take one more second of the beady-eyed stares, or the cheese powder blizzard, or offering up women like a round of drinks. I couldn’t take being tied to this asshole for one second more.
So I made a split-second decision. I pulled my keys from my pocket and began to take my motorcycle key off the ring. I thought about how right it had felt to have Stella on my bike with me; I thought about how much I’d miss doing that again. But I was determined to do this thing with her the right way, and my gambling debts had no place in that. For myself, for my future, for the sake of a clean slate, the new Nick Norton was starting the fuck over, even if he had to Uber home to do it. “My bike’s outside. Worth at least as much as I owe you. Take it, and we’re done.”
The Texan exploded with a roar of laughter that sent crumbs spewing from his mouth, pelting me with cheesy buckshot. He slapped his desk and whacked the remote by accident, turning the AC from meat locker to off.
The room went silent. No crunching, no AC, no knuckle cracking. Just the slow creak of the Texan, leaning back in his undersize and bottom-of-the-line office chair. He clasped his chubby hands over his enormous gut and said, “You owed me twenty, Norton. But that was seven months ago. So unless your bike is worth a hundred large, you’re gonna have to do a fuckload better than that.”
13
STELLA
Sirens, so many sirens. I was the first one to notice them. Ruth was listening to something in her earbuds, absorbed by another session with the briefcase. Meanwhile, Roxie was in the shower, a project so time-consuming that we had to block off two hours for the water heater to recover afterward. But I heard the sirens loud and clear. And I didn’t like the sound of them at all. I checked the time on my phone—it was worrisome. Just the right moment for the clerk at the jewelry store to have realized that two-carat princess cut on the twirling platform was actually plastic. It had been a big risk for me to take, but for Mr. Bozeman it had been worth it.
Unless it meant we were about to be busted.
We’d never been busted. Since that afternoon all those years ago at the ice rink, we’d played it safe. For a few years after we helped poor Gus, we didn’t steal a thing. We did talk about it sometimes—that rush, that thrill. The joy of helping someone who needed a hand. But we hadn’t acted on it. Not at first.
One day, when I was about thirteen, I’d been down in Arizona, visiting my grandparents. My grandpa and I were out mucking the stalls, and he rolled up his shirtsleeves. And there I saw it. A tattoo of a spade. Just like I’d seen on the man at the ice rink. It brought me right back to that big moment. All for one, one for all. So I asked him about it. I asked Grandpa about everything—about horses and life and religion, and history and farming and politics. If he could answer, he did. If he couldn’t, he’d look it up in the encyclopedia.
He didn’t have to pull out the encyclopedia for that question, of course. Instead, he looked down at his arm and said, “It’s the mark of the thief. Which is what I was.”
Over cookies and milk, he’d told me. Some people’s grandpas told them fishing stories. Some told them war stories. Mine told me about being a bootlegger, about moving tequila up from Juarez in bales of hay. He told me about stealing to feed his family during the Depression. He told me about the strange and curious life of an upstanding thief.
I told Grandpa about Gus, and Ruth and Roxie too.
And then, little by little, Grandpa taught me everything he knew. Including the most important rule of all: never go in armed, unless you’re prepared for a life sentence. And we never had.
After that, Ruth and Roxie and I stole armed with need, not want. We broke into bullies’ lockers and stole back things they took from those who couldn’t fight back. A baseball cap, a pager. Small stuff that meant something to our friends. While other girls in high school were doing ridiculous things like stealing five-dollar earrings from Claire’s at the mall, I was at the library learning computer code. Ruth learned safecracking from a book she bought at a used bookstore. And Roxie fostered her natural talent for turning heads. In time, we got more sophisticated. We learned to make fake IDs. We watched heist films and picked them apart. We cut out newspaper articles and learned what worked and what didn’t. We learned about fingerprints and footprints and how to ensure we left no trace. We taught ourselves the practical side of thievery, all the while honing our skills. Our jobs got bigger as our responsibilities grew. We adapted from security tapes to memory cards, from hardwired systems to wireless ones. We learned, we changed, we got more confident. We grew from three girls with a devious side and a mission into the Shimmy Shimmy Bangs.
And we’d never had sirens coming at us or after us. Until now.
A piercing set of BWEEP-bip-bip-BWEEPS made my heart freeze. From far away came a long, ominous Eeeeeeeeeeeee. I turned down the volume on the television a few notches so I could get a better bead on where they were coming from. Or going. They seemed to be getting closer, but I had no sense of whether they were moving north to south or crosstown. I heard the whoop-whoop of police cruisers. What I didn’t hear was the eee-ooooo-eeee-ooo of an ambulance or the wah-wahhhhhhhh of a fire truck. All cop car noises. And getting louder. Much louder.
My heart raced, but I remained as calm as I could, until a screech of tires and another, louder, whoop-whoop! pierced the air. It was so loud that it made Ruth rip her earbuds out of her ears. We stared at each other, as car door after car door slammed in the parking lot.
Crawling on my knees across the carpet, I peeked out from between our houseplants. To my utter horror, three unmarked cars were already in position, blocking the entrance to our apartment complex as well as the exit. They didn’t have their guns drawn, not yet, but two of them were out of their cars on their radios, watching our building.
Calm, Stella. Calm. I turned to face Ruth and switched into our code. “I think the UPS man is on his way.”
She nodded curtly, just once. Ruth made cool cucumbers seem like they’d been parboiled. She took my notebooks and printouts from me and placed them neatly on the bottom shelf of our safe. She put the Zero Halliburton on the second shelf and locked up the safe, spinning the combination. She adjusted the floral tablecloth to disguise the safe as a side table, and then she grabbed her sensible, small purse from the floor. She looped the strap over her head and straightened it over her body. “Ready, Freddy.”
Roxie emerged from the hallway and stood in the kitchen, with her hair dripping wet, wearing a pair of black capris and a tank top emblazoned with a sparkly unicorn. She was towel-drying her hair; when she saw me she froze, midscrunch. Even though she looked like a reborn Marilyn Monroe, she was nobody’s dummy. “UPS?”
“Look out the bathroom window,” I told her. “See if it’s clear.”
“On it,” Roxie said, and pattered off through the kitchen as I headed toward Ruth’s bedroom, which had a better view of the lot than the living room.
My stomach was in my throat as I peeked out through the slightly parted vertical blinds. One more cop car pulled into the parking lot, and a clump of beefy cops were huddled together, heads ben
t, holsters unsnapped. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were after us for; if there was one thing we were, it was careful. But in this business, the cops showing up at the door was a risk we ran. And one we had to be ready for. With my purse over my shoulder, I headed for the kitchen.
“All clear,” Roxie reported back.
“Out the bathroom window,” I said.
The bathroom window was tiny, barely more than decorative when it was all the way open. Roxie affectionately called it “the fart vent,” and she wasn’t far off. But we had no choice. We either had to put our faith in the fart vent or go out the front door into the welcoming embrace of Albuquerque’s finest.
Ruth climbed out first, as lithe and lean as Catwoman. She went out backward and leveraged herself on the top of the window outside, doing a pull-up, maneuvering out without even brushing her skinny jeans on the sill and landing in a crouch. For about two seconds I flashed back to some scene in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Next was Roxie, who wasn’t as fit, but she was no stranger to escaping from dates through bar bathroom windows. She went out with her knees on the top of the toilet. She kicked her legs to get herself through; her wedge sandal heel caught the toilet paper, and it unspooled onto the ground below. She put one arm around Ruth outside, and I heard Ruth say, “Careful. Don’t get scraped up.” I had to give her a shove through, planting my hands on her tush to get her curves to pop out of the window frame. Finally, it was my turn. I followed Roxie’s form. With my purse in my hand, I got myself halfway out before I heard the ominous sound of heavy footsteps, crunching on the gravel and getting louder.
But I was stuck. With nobody to give me a push from behind, I’d managed to high-center myself. I tried to get a purchase on the toilet, but it was too smooth to be of any help against my worn-down Converse. My rubber soles squeaked against the porcelain, but I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Go,” I said as I tried to shimmy my curves out of the window. “Keys are in here.” I gave my purse a shake.
“We’re not leaving you, num-num,” Roxie said. “Live together, die alone!”
So I looked to Ruth. I was serious, and I needed her to know it. And I wasn’t about to let some old Lost reference make me all sentimental, even though it did make my heart ache. It was more important to me, far more important, to make sure they were out of harm’s way. “I’ll find you later. I’m parked in Mr. Bozeman’s driveway. No arguments.”
Without another word, she grabbed my keys from my bag and took Roxie’s hand, and together they scurried over the adobe wall, through a thicket of pampas grass, and to safety.
Like a rag doll, with my purse swinging like a pendulum, I awaited my fate. I kicked my legs, but it was useless. Every wiggle made the sill dig farther into me. I was stuck, utterly and completely stuck. It was unbelievable. I was going to get nabbed, and all because I had an undying devotion to caramel apples. And gummy worms. And gummy cherries. And Nerds. But I wasn’t that curvy, for God’s sake. I tried a good old shimmy-and-shake.
Fine. Yes. I was.
Fantastic.
But the footsteps got quieter, not louder. Farther away, not closer. Turning to the left, I could just see the entrance of the building next to ours. Cops clustered at the front door of unit 4A, and one of them boomed, “Albuquerque PD!”
I went slack in the window, limp with relief. They weren’t after me. They were after my neighbor, who—rumor had it—was the most unscrupulous city councilman anybody had ever heard of ever. “Mr. Dellacourt! Open up!” another officer boomed.
Thank God. Poor sketchy Mr. Dellacourt, but thank goodness for us. Once the initial wave of relief passed, I hooked my purse over my neck like a feed bag and dug around inside for my phone. Automatically, my thumbs went to the top conversation, which was always a group chat with Roxie and Ruth.
Who wants to give my ass a squeeze?
Except right as I was hitting send, I realized what I’d done. The top conversation was now with Nick, not Ruth and Roxie. With hurried and imprecise moves of my thumbs I typed out what was supposed to say OMG wrong person! Instead I said:
Lmg weinf owesin
Nick totally ignored my gibberish, replying with:
Fuck. Be right there.
There were no do-overs in iMessage. Though I hadn’t imagined it under these circumstances, I really wanted to see him again, very much. And I did need a hand. So I went all in and tried to prepare him for the situation. As best I could.
1196 Habanero Dr.
Apartment 3A. I’m . . . around back. Just . . . hanging out.
14
NICK
Her apartment complex was made up of a bunch of duplexes that looked like oversize Taco Bells—white stucco, red Spanish tiles, and plenty of decorative arches. When I rounded the corner to get to the back of unit 3A, I realized that she hadn’t been kidding. She was literally around back, hanging out. Her whole front end was dangling out of the window. Her purse swung from her hand, and her long hair was flipped over her head in a glossy curtain.
“Jesus,” I said, breaking into a jog. “How the hell did this happen?”
“Poor planning!” she said with a giggle, talking to the sidewalk below her. “Too many snacks!”
I crouched down to offer her some support. She hooked her arm around my shoulders, and I lifted her up. For a split second, it occurred to me that this might not be her apartment at all. She might have a diamond brooch in her back pocket or a purse full of pearls. If she needed my help, I was damned sure going to help her; becoming the new me was going to have to wait. So I dropped my voice to say, “We can be in Tucson by dinner.”
She let go of her purse, which landed with a heavy thud, then craned her neck to look up at me. “Tucson? For dinner? I’m totally fine with House of Chow on Menaul, but I’m game if you are!”
Well, there went that theory. First things first, anyway. I had to get her out of this jam she’d gotten herself into. “Should I even ask why this happened?” I tried to slip my hand between her ass and the window, but there was no clearance. At all.
“Definitely not,” she said, giggling again. Her whole body shook with laughter. “Just get me out of here!” She flailed her arms, and I heard faint thumping noises from wherever her legs were, like she’d knocked some stuff off a countertop maybe.
I patted my pocket to double-check I had my pick set, and I did. “Give me a sec. I’ll be in before you know it,” I said as I turned to head back to her front door.
“But you don’t have the key!” she said.
Aww fuck. I spun back around. This straight-and-narrow thing was going to take some practice. “Right. Definitely going to need that.”
But Stella shook her head in reply, making her long hair sway like a mermaid’s underwater. “I don’t have mine,” she said in an exasperated growl. “But if you look under the bushes, there’s a pile of dog poop . . .” She peeked out through her thick hair at me.
“Dog poop,” I repeated. I took her purse from her and hoisted it over my shoulder, somehow managing not to groan when I did.
She nodded, and her bangs fell into her eyes. She tried to blow them aside, but it didn’t work, so she clapped her eyes shut tight. “It’s plastic. Looks super real. You’ll find the key inside.”
It didn’t just look super real. It looked scary real. It looked so real, in fact, that it totally fooled me. I tentatively nudged it with my boot, fully expecting it to be actual dog shit, but lo and behold the thing lifted up, revealing a shiny brown underside. Genius. From the hidden compartment underneath, I got her key and let myself inside, still with her purse over my shoulder. I was man enough for it. I definitely was.
Her apartment was bright, messy, and chaotic. From the sheer quantity of purses hanging on the wall alone, I knew immediately that she didn’t live by herself. I sized up the different shoes on the ground, lined up under the purses. On the far left was a pile of different colored Chuck Taylors, like Stella had been wearing last night. Some had rhinestone stars on
the rubber toes and some didn’t, but I knew they were definitely hers. Next to those was a single pair of simple leather boots, flat bottomed with a zipper up the side, slightly larger than Stella’s sneakers. Next to those was a whole heap of high heels, every single pair about as useful for walking as tits on a salamander. I picked one up. Size seven, smaller than both the boots and Stella’s Chucks. Stella and two roommates.
The front hallway led me into a room with the television. On the wall was a vinyl decal that decorated the space above the couch and said, in girly, cursive letters:
EAT! DRINK! RAISE HELL!
I made my way through the kitchen. On the fridge was some of that magnetic poetry, and a quick scan over the words revealed it was the X-rated kind—dirty, wet, saucy, now. Next to the poetry was a magnetic re-creation of Michelangelo’s David, surrounded by an assortment of fluorescent Speedos. Next came the hallway, which had four doors—two on the right, one on the left, and one at the end. The first bedroom was neat, tidy, and bare, like an IKEA showroom. The second had a lot of clothes all over the place and a feather boa hanging from the bedpost. And the last one, nearest the bathroom, was definitely Stella’s. It was pretty, clean, and smelled very faintly like her. My eyes got stuck to her bed, with its fluffy pillows and fluffier white comforter. What I wouldn’t give to get in that bed with her. Right. Fucking. Now.
“Niiiiiiick!” came her voice, more of a growl than an actual word. “Get me out of here. My legs are going numb!”
To the bathroom I went, where I was met not only by Stella’s pinch-worthy ass in the window, but also an explosion of towels and makeup, shampoos and lotions, on every flat surface and all over the floor. Dozens of makeup brushes poked out of an old coffee can by the sink, which was encrusted with jewels like Stella’s phone.
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