by Sam Jones
“We’re going to Balducci’s to get this giant amount of cocaine that could land us in a federal penitentiary for the rest of our lives out of my car.” She wasn’t really sure when she’d decided that this was the new plan, maybe sometime between leaving the office and leaving the warehouse, but dumping the cocaine suddenly seemed like a bad idea. Like it could easily backfire if someone saw them, or caught them, trying to dispose of an entire suitcase. Not to mention what Big Dog might do if he had more information about them, the real them, than they thought.
“But then we’re going to have thousands of dollars in a bag or suitcase or whatever in the car, and a bloodthirsty gangster on our tail.”
“Not if we take him the money,” said Emily.
“Wait, but I thought you were the one who was all about taking these drugs out of circulation,” said Brandon.
“Yeah,” Ana chimed in. “What happened to being all Robin Hood and stuff?”
“Actually, Robin Hood robbed from the rich to give to the poor, so I’m not sure that analogy really makes much sense,” Emily said.
Ana just blinked with confusion.
Emily sighed. “All I’m saying is that we can’t keep a suitcase full of cocaine in the car. I mean, what else can we do? It’s not like we have a place to dump it along the way without just tossing it out the car, which could lead to a ton of other problems. And we can’t take it and dump it at the Steins’, because they would get in trouble and everyone would know what we did. And we don’t have anywhere else to sell it, right? And if we even try any of these things, Big Dog and his associates could come after us.
“We’re so dead,” Brandon moaned, thumping his head against the front seat. “So, so dead.”
“Brandon! Please!” Emily yelled. “I need you to pull it together. You were a rock star back there. You got Scarface to tell us the plan, even though we should’ve known it already. He even told us the restaurant. We’ve got everything we need because of you. You and Liz’s cell. So pull yourself together!”
Brandon stopped banging his head on the seat.
“Thank you. Now, like I said, it’s not like we’re going to sell the drugs ourselves. We don’t have anywhere to take them, and even if we did . . . we’re three kids from the suburbs. Big Dog might’ve believed that we’re running transport, but do you think anyone else would believe that we’re selling? And we don’t even know how to sell cocaine. What do you even package it in?”
“Bricks,” Ana said. “Or baggies. At least that’s what happens on CSI.”
“I’m not about to risk my life on a fact from a TV show,” Emily said. “We’re going to take the stuff to the restaurant, get the proper amount of money, bring that back to Big Dog at the warehouse, and then we can each walk away with about $325 in our pockets.”
“Wouldn’t it be more like $333?” Ana asked.
“You think I’m not deducting the gas fee for this?” Emily asked.
Brandon sighed loudly. “Okay, fine. I see your point.”
Emily nodded. “Thank you. Ana?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ana said. “We’ve started some kind of cartel. I’ve got it.”
“Look, I know this wasn’t the plan,” Emily said. “And I know I’m usually the one shouting about sticking to the plan . . . so I take full responsibility for this detour, and everything we’re going through. That’s why I want to fix it. I know it’s my fault.”
“Huh?” Ana glanced at her. “How is it your fault?”
Emily took a deep breath. “I just wanted to do something different. Something spontaneous. I wanted to stop being the stick-in-the-mud. The one always following the rules. You guys are always telling me “you only live once,” and I wanted to, I don’t know, take that to heart and do something I never would do on a normal day. I wanted to make today special.”
“Getting involved with three thugs and a suitcase of cocaine is your definition of ‘special’?” Brandon asked.
“Remind me not to hire you to set up my next party,” Ana muttered.
“You know what I mean,” Emily said with a sigh. “Anyway, the plan seemed to make a lot more sense before we actually met Big Dog and he served us tea.”
“He served tea?” Ana asked with disbelief.
“No scones, though,” Brandon put in.
“And don’t be fooled,” Emily said. “He might’ve been tiny, and he might’ve served us tea, but I feel like this guy was the real deal. It wasn’t anything he did specifically—he didn’t do much of anything really, but you could totally get the sense that this guy had been places, you know?”
Brandon nodded. “And he had the scar to prove it.”
“Sooo . . . what about Liz and Chestnut, then?” Ana asked after a moment.
“What about them?” Emily asked. “They’ll be able to take care of themselves, right?”
“Well, I was thinking . . . ,” she said slowly. “They’re going to get back to their car eventually, right? And then they’re going to make their way to the warehouse and have a little chat with Super Pup.”
“Big Dog,” Brandon said.
“Whatever. What are we going to do when they get to Big Dog before we get back with the money. Aren’t they all going to assume that we just stole a suitcase of cocaine from them?”
“Damn.” Brandon sank back against the seat. “She’s right. We can’t go back there. We’re not going to make it, and I doubt they’ll believe that this was all a big misunderstanding when we stroll up again.”
Emily took a deep breath, realizing that she’d severely miscalculated. “We’re totally screwed.”
chapter 16
Emily spent the next ten miles explaining to Brandon that their only hope was to get to the restaurant before Liz and Chestnut got to Big Dog’s warehouse and Big Dog called his contacts at Balducci’s. “That way we can maybe get the money back to them and even though we would’ve fooled them, they might not absolutely hate us since the job would’ve gotten done.”
Brandon wanted to call the police.
“We are not calling the police.” Emily was adamant. “How are we going to explain all of this cocaine?”
“We just tell them the truth,” Brandon said.
“And what?” asked Emily. “Just hope that they understand and let us go?”
“Well, yeah,” said Brandon.
“Oh my God.” Emily held her head in her hands. She felt like she was going to start crying. After a couple of deep breaths, she tried again. “If they find the cocaine in my car, they will impound it, no questions asked. And if they impound my car, we will—”
“Never make it to the party!” Ana shouted, only she said “party” like “par-TAAAY!” as if she were three shots in on a beach over spring break with MTV filming from the sidelines.
“Are you kidding me?” Brandon said. “This is still about the party? Oh my sweet Jesus, you have got to let it go.”
“This isn’t about the party!” Emily shouted.
“This is totally about the party,” Ana said, shaking her head. “This whole day is about the party. You know it, Emily. I know it. Brandon, even you know it, though right now you’re acting like Emily and being the goody-two-shoes, and I don’t even know why because we both know that you’re not.”
Emily and Brandon were both silent.
“Here’s the deal,” Ana said. “It doesn’t make sense, at this point, to go to the police. That’ll cause more trouble than it’s worth, and there’s no saying we would get out of it. We made the choice to go to the warehouse, and that puts us at fault. So no police. Not now.
“What makes this all about the party is that the party is what got us here. The idea of the party. The fun. The freedom. We’re in this situation because we wanted to get there, and if we don’t get there, if we don’t party, then what is any of this for? So we’re going to the party, no matter what.”
“And what about the drugs?” Brandon asked after a pause.
“We’re taking the suitcase to Balducci
’s.”
“And then taking the money back to the warehouse?” Emily asked to confirm.
“Nope.”
Both Emily and Brandon gaped.
“Look, our original plan was to throw the cocaine in a river, or a pond, or flush it down the toilet after, I don’t know, a thousand flushes. But then we don’t get anything, and we possibly get caught because of the amount of time it would take.”
“But what about taking the money back to the warehouse?” Brandon asked.
Ana shook her head. “Bad idea. We could only do that if we were sure we’d make it back before the real Liz and Chestnut made it there in the first place, and we can’t be sure about that. And while we could hope they’d be understanding and let us go because the job got done, we can’t be sure of that, either. So the only thing we can be sure of is that we can get the drugs to the restaurant, and then get out without anyone knowing who we are or where we came from. Then we’re in the wind, and richer for it.”
Brandon nodded. “Maybe even thirty grand richer. Each.”
Emily whirled around and looked at him. “You think there’s ninety thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine in there?”
Brandon shrugged. “Sure. It’s heavy as hell.”
“Dios mio, how would you know that?” Ana asked.
“You know, CSI,” Brandon said. “Law & Order.”
“Ay!” Ana shouted. “That’s not helpful. You have no idea how much is in there. But it doesn’t even matter. They’ll know how much to give us.”
“What if they rip us off?”
“Do we care? Whatever they give us is more than we had before.”
“I still don’t feel great about this,” Emily said. Though she’d set this whole thing in motion, and though she wanted to break out of her shell and do something crazy for once, the adrenaline was starting to run out and her usual careful self was starting to return.
“Here’s an option,” Ana said. “We can Robin Hood it.”
“Huh?” Brandon leaned forward. “Give the cocaine to the poor? I mean, I’ll admit that they might know what to do with it better than we do, but I don’t know if promoting drug use is really the way to go, Ana.”
“No,” Emily said, shaking her head. “She’s talking about the money.”
Ana grinned. “Exactamente. The money.”
“We can take the money we make from the cocaine and give it to charity,” Emily said. “We could do it anonymously. That’ll make the whole thing better. Sort of.”
Brandon shrugged. “I guess that’s not a terrible idea,” he said. “But what’s to guarantee that Big Dog won’t hunt us down and kill us?”
“There’s no guarantee that Ana’s not going to kill us on this road,” Emily said, watching as the street and other cars sped by. “Besides, I’m not really sure he’ll be able to track us down. And at least this way, if we give it to charity, this whole thing wouldn’t have been a waste. We’ll be doing good.”
“Kinda,” Brandon said.
Ana whooped. “For charity!”
Brandon nodded and looked at Ana. “Nice thinking, babe.” There was an awkward silence for a moment as the word “babe” floated down over them like a heavy woolen blanket.
“Babe?” Emily asked, smirking.
Ana kept her eyes straight ahead but made duck lips, and Emily saw her eyebrow twitch upward like she’d scored a point or something. Brandon immediately started coughing and sputtering and explaining it was just a habit and finally Emily turned up the music, turned around, and put a finger to her lips.
He got the hint and shut up.
As Brandon tried to recover from the “babe” moment, Emily tossed Liz’s phone into the cup holder and pulled out her own. When she checked her e-mail, she had twelve new messages, all from Kyle. The subject lines were all some variation on “I’m sorry,” or “I want you back,” or “I miss you.” The most recent one was just the word “PLEASE.”
As she scrolled down the list of unread messages with her thumb, a wave of something she could only identify as nostalgia washed over her. That was the thing about Kyle: As annoying as he could be, he was so freaking cute. At times when she was exhausted, like now, he had this way of snuggling up behind her on the couch or on her bed and wrapping his whole body around hers. That was all she wanted to feel at this moment. Nobody had ever held her like he did.
Or drove you quite as nuts as he did.
The thought ricocheted through her brain just as her thumb was about to tap open the first new e-mail from Kyle. She dropped her phone next to Pickles in her lap like a hot rock, and took a deep breath. This was always her internal struggle with Kyle: Her body would let down the guard when she was tired. Luckily, her brain would kick in and remind her not to do stupid things like read all of his e-mails when she was exhausted and stressed-out. While part of her ached to be held the way only Kyle had been able to, she knew that after five minutes, he’d start blowing in her ear or tickling her or asking her if she wanted to take a bong rip, and from that point it was all downhill.
Emily knew that she was in a fragile emotional state at the moment and that if she read all the apologies from Kyle, all she’d be able to see was his perfect lips and his bright blue eyes. Right at this moment if she read the sweet promises he’d made to change, she’d feel like saying yes—even though her brain was shouting Mayday! Mayday!
She’d been around and around with Kyle. He always promised to change things about himself that he’d never be able to, and always wanted her to change the things about herself that, well, made her . . . her. Yeah, so she was never going to want to get stoned and watch the X-Games all day on a Saturday. No, she was not going to cut AP chemistry so she could get drunk and play laser tag. In the end, it was bad that Kyle liked those things. It didn’t mean he was a bad guy. It just meant that he wasn’t her guy. It was a choice between good and better. There had to be somebody out there who was more suited to her. She deserved to be able to discuss the books she read with somebody. She deserved a guy who liked indie films and didn’t wrinkle his nose when she ate sushi, or who would suggest that they volunteer for a Saturday at Habitat for Humanity.
So, no, Emily decided. Right at this second, she would not read Kyle’s e-mails. She scratched under Pickles’s chin and he curled up in her lap, quickly sinking into a calm sleep. That’s when Emily realized Ana was laughing—at something Brandon had said to her. They’d been talking while Emily was checking her messages, and Emily realized that, shockingly, she hadn’t heard them arguing at all. In fact, they seemed to be cracking jokes about a movie they’d both seen recently. This was truly intriguing because during the year that they dated, Emily couldn’t remember a time when they had agreed upon a single movie they’d ever gone to together. In fact, they’d pretty much fought about everything from restaurants to reality shows. Now, as Emily watched, they actually seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. Actually, it was beyond enjoyment. They seemed to be genuinely fond of each other.
“What?” Ana’s voice broke into Emily’s thoughts.
“Huh?” she jumped, startled. “Oh, nothing.”
“You okay?” asked Brandon.
“I’ll be better when we get the suitcase of drugs out of the backseat,” she said.
“Well, you’re in luck, mamacita. This is the exit.” Ana eased the car up the ramp, and before Emily was truly ready, they were pulling into the parking lot of Balducci’s.
chapter 17
Balducci’s Pizzeria was in a strip mall, and as Emily opened the door, she half expected to see Tony Soprano and his entire family eating a slice and casually cursing at one another over beers and sodas. Instead, the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen was wiping down menus at the hostess stand. Her skin was the color of a vanilla latte and seemed to be lit from within. She had glossy black hair that hung in a short blunt cut right at her chin. And when she saw Emily, she smiled like a movie star.
“Welcome to Balducci’s. Table for three?”
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br /> Emily glanced around the room. It was deserted except for the hostess, a bartender refilling the ice wells with a giant bucket, and two men nursing beers at the bar. One of them was tall and thin and wearing a fedora, which, under the circumstances, seemed somehow ridiculous. “Actually . . .” Emily’s voice trailed off. She realized she wasn’t sure how to broach the topic now that they were standing at the drop-off point. What was she supposed to say? We’re here with your cocaine! She took a deep breath and smiled, then tried again. “We’re here to make a delivery.” She turned to where Brandon and Ana were standing behind her. Ana had Liz’s cell phone in her hand, and Brandon was pulling the black suitcase.
“I’m Nina,” the hostess said. She glanced down at the suitcase and took it in without even the slightest flicker of concern. “We’ve been expecting you. Follow me to your table.”
Nina led them to a booth in the back. Once they were seated, she brought each of them a glass of water. “I’ll be right back with Frank.”
As they watched Nina walk toward the men at the bar, Brandon leaned in and whispered, “These guys are total mafia.”
Emily rolled her eyes as she saw Nina indicate their table to the man in the hat, who appeared to be in no hurry to leave his beer. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t you think a fedora is a little . . . ?”
“What?” asked Brandon.
“I dunno,” Emily said. “On the nose? I mean, a pizza parlor, a fedora; what’s next? A production number from Guys & Dolls?”
Ana giggled at this, but Brandon just said, “Look, stereotypes exist for a reason.”
Emily guessed that he would’ve said more, except both of the men from the bar were walking toward them.
“Welcome to Balducci’s.” They guy in the fedora literally tipped his hat. Emily had to fight the urge to look around for a hidden camera. “I’m Frank. You must be Chestnut,” he said to Brandon, then looked back and forth between Emily and Ana.
“I’m Liz,” Emily said, raising a hand in a small wave.
“Ah, yes,” said Frank. “This is my brother, Vito.” Vito was about as wide as Frank was tall.