Deception

by Dan Lawton

  ---

  We’re back in the van, heading toward the old police station while Snake’s house slowly builds up enough toxicity to kill him. It’ll hit him like a ton of bricks when he returns home, and he’ll fall brutally ill shortly after he arrives. He’ll go to bed early thinking he ate some bad sushi or something, and he’ll die in his sleep.

  That’s what I’m hoping will happen anyway.

  George hasn’t made a peep from the back, as I’m sure his heart is still racing from our encounter with the newbie cop from Jefferson. How he didn’t pick up on the fact that I’m an officer of the law will surely baffle him, maybe even more so than the fact that Jefferson now thinks he’s one too. I chuckle to myself. I am truly enjoying watching him trying to catch up with me. I’m a step ahead and always will be. It’ll be too late by the time he does finally figure out what is happening to him.

  We pull into the garage shortly after 6:00 P.M. and Frank escorts George back to the holding area. I get out of the van and wander the halls looking for Alicia. I find her reading a paperback in one of the offices. She pops up from her chair when I enter the room.

  “There you are. How’d it go?” she asks, rather excitedly. It’s nice to see her enthusiasm has returned.

  “Everything went great, maybe even better than planned. I was able to get inside.”

  Her face lights up. “Did you see it?”

  “I saw the safe, yes. I have no doubt that’s where the money is being kept.”

  She lets out a passionate yelp and runs toward me. She jumps into my arms and kisses me on the cheek. After savoring it for a moment, I release her.

  “So, what does that mean for us then?”

  “It means we’re going back tonight. If all goes well, we could be sailing through the Gulf within a matter of days.” I smile at her, and she returns the gesture.

  “Are you hungry? You must be hungry. I got some food,” she says, changing the subject. She turns around and bends over next to the chair she was sitting in. I gawk at her silently as the denim wraps itself tightly around her hips and reveals the outline of her thong.

  My legs start to shake.

  She tosses a few plastic bags on the desk and turns back to me. She catches me fantasizing and reddens. She walks over to me and whispers in my ear, “Not tonight. Let’s wait until we’re alone, sailing across the ocean, our bodies bouncing to the tides of the waves.” She swings her hips slowly and provocatively to show me what she means. “I want it to be special.” She smiles at me and kisses me on the cheek again.

  Now she’s just torturing me.

  I twist my lower body to readjust my now bulging self as she backs away.

  “I bought a bunch of snacks from the store,” she says. “Help yourself.”

  I approach the table and look through the bags for something of substance. “When did you go to the store?”

  “A little while ago. I had some money in my pocket, so I grabbed something to eat and that book over there.” She motions to the paperback she was reading that now rests face down in the chair. “You guys were gone for a long time.”

  I nod in understanding, although I don’t like the fact that she went out without my permission. I can’t blame her though, I suppose, but I don’t have to like it. What if someone saw her come back here? What if she was followed? I want to ask her this, but I decide to let it go for now.

  It’s not long before Frank finds us and he and I scoff down the remainder of the contents in the bags of snacks. He tosses a few items he doesn’t want in to George, per Alicia’s request, and I spend the next twenty minutes describing to them what happened at Snake’s that neither one of them saw.

  Shortly thereafter, we call it an early night and go back to our normal sleeping quarters in the van. Frank falls asleep and starts snoring almost immediately. I grimace and can hardly stand it.

  I set an alarm on my phone for 2:00 A.M. so we can head over to Snake’s while the night is at its darkest. That gives the fumes almost eight hours to fester in the house and build up enough toxicity to kill Snake. I had originally thought that it was going to take a few days to get this done, but me being able to get in the house and jumpstart the process should make it go much quicker than that. We’re looking at less than a day now.

  ---

  The melodic chime wakes me at exactly 2:00 A.M., and I struggle to find the button to dismiss it. My eyelids are heavy and I’m still sleep deprived, but I force myself to get up. I reach over to shake Alicia awake, but my hand falls flat on the seat next to me.

  She’s gone.

  Lacking the energy to be concerned, I drag myself out of the van and walk into the station. The hallway is dark, but I find a light switch and flip it. The LEDs above my head brighten the path for me. As my eyes adjust, I see Alicia scurrying toward me, looking guilty.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I had to pee.”

  I nod, satisfied with her answer.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “It’s two o’clock, it’s time to go.”

  “Already?”

  I nod again. “The next time you see me we’ll be ten million dollars richer.”

  She smiles weakly. “I hope so.”

  She moves past me without saying another word and drags her feet into the same office I had found her in earlier. She’s not a morning person I guess. That’s just another thing we’ll learn about each other as we build our new life together.

  I flip the lights on inside the holding area, and I can hear George shuffling around as I open the door. He’s shielding his face from the light as I enter the room.

  “Get up, it’s go time,” I say.

  George slowly rises to his feet and staggers toward me. I put my hand on his shoulder and lead him out of the room.

  “Okay, so here’s the plan.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  GEORGE

  The sound of a rapid hammering from the basement wakes me. The sun is beginning to go down, which means I slept for most of the day. It could be a kind gesture from Billy, or it could just be that he was distracted. Either way, I’ll take it. I do my best to slide off the bed quietly so I don’t wake Alicia, who is still sleeping in the bed. The floor squeaks as I tiptoe into the hallway.

  The basement door is cracked open and I can see the light on downstairs. The hammering grows louder as I make my way down the steps. I hold onto the railing as I try to wake myself completely. In the middle of the floor is my toolbox, which Billy must have found in the closet in the hallway upstairs. Billy is on his knees with his back to me and his arms are busy, although I can’t tell what he’s doing from my angle. He doesn’t hear me come down the stairs, so I walk slowly and try not to make any noises that may startle him, as I don’t know where his gun is. I stop when I reach him. I’m sure he senses me next to him, but he doesn’t look up from his work.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He has one of the tiles that is directly in the center of the floor nearly displaced from its original position. The grout is chipped away and scattered across the adjacent tiles. He has the bag of cash next to him and he uses a small chisel and hammer to try to separate the ceramic tile from the adhesive that keeps it suctioned to the subfloor. A bowl full of water and a wooden spoon rest a few feet away. He stops what he’s doing and drops everything. He looks up at me from his knees.

  “I think I’ve figured out a way out of this,” he says.

  I nod, not really believing him. “What are you doing to the floor?”

  “We need a place to hide the money temporarily, and they won’t even think to look in the floor. No one ever hides anything in the floor. The ceiling, yes. But not the floor.”

  It does cross my mind that Snake had hidden the money in the ground, so someone has thought of it before, but I figure it’s best not to disagree.

  Billy grabs the tools again and continues working his way around the tile as he does his best not to crack it. I stand
in silence and watch the process for a few minutes until the tile successfully pops off, exposing the subfloor.

  “Will you hand me that?” Billy asks.

  I grab the shovel that leans against the wall across the room and hand it to him, now standing. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Stand back.”

  Billy straddles the exposed floor and raises the shovel above his head. He thrusts his arms toward the ground and jams the tip of the metal shovel into the wood. The tiles on the floor are good size, nine square feet each, so his target area is wide. He pulls the shovel back over his head and repeats. The rapid speed and downward force splits the wood quickly.

  The ground beneath is dry and cool, but it doesn’t take Billy much effort to break through it with the shovel. I hold a black industrial trash bag open while he piles the dirt inside as he digs. The bag is almost torn out of my hands by the weight of the dirt with every toss. He makes the hole in the earth shallow enough so the bag is still visible once dropped in, but deep enough so that the tile can lay back flat on top.

  When the bag is full and beginning to tear, I drag it across floor and leave it under the stairs. Billy walks to the corner of the room where a half-empty bag of grout rests from when the original floor installation happened. I hadn’t even looked at it since I bought the house a few years ago. He drops in on the floor next to the hole.

  “I saw this sitting over there, so I figured what the hell,” Billy says.

  He lifts the bag and pours a handful of the powder into the bowl of water. He uses the wooden spoon to mix it up while reading the directions on the bag. I just now realize he’s using the bowl that my grandmother had handed down to me from her grandmother before she died. It’s been in the family for over a hundred years. Of course that’s the one he chose.

  When the concoction in the antique bowl thickens, Billy uses the wooden spoon to rub material into the gaps around the tile.

  “How are we going to remember which tile it is?” I ask.

  Billy stops what he’s doing and knocks on the tile with his knuckle. An empty echo sounds from beneath the tile. “It’s hollow, but they won’t be able to tell by just walking over it. They wouldn’t know unless they were looking for it specifically, which they won’t be.”

  “You keep saying ‘they’. Who are they?”

  “I don’t know for sure who they are, but I know they’re Snake’s men. They’re members of the Zved’s.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I caught a glimpse of their faces when they were shooting at us. I recognized them, I think, but I can’t place their names right now.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Two, but the longer this goes on the more guys will be on our trail.”

  “When will it end?”

  Billy pauses for a moment before responding, “Never. Not until we’re dead.”

  I gulp. “What if we kill them first?”

  Billy shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter, they’ll just send more guys until they find us and kill us.”

  “What do we do then?”

  “There is only one thing to do. We get the money and we hide. Somewhere away from here, somewhere we can disappear.”

  “And that’s why you and Frank were going to go to Mexico?” Billy nods.

  Suddenly, I have a realization. “What about me?”

  Billy shrugs.

  “That’s why you were going to let me go,” I continue. “You knew that they’d find me and come after me. They’d kill me so you didn’t have to. You’d get away with the money and you wouldn’t have to worry about me going to the police.”

  Billy starts to spread the grout with the wooden spoon again, but he doesn’t react otherwise. He meticulously fills in the remaining gap near the corner of the tile then tosses the spoon to the side. He stands up and meets my eyes.

  “What about Alicia and the baby? Were you going to just let them get killed by these guys too? You’re a real son of a bitch,” I say.

  Billy’s mouth starts to widen into a smile, and then he begins to laugh. His chuckles gradually increase in intensity, and I’m taken aback a bit as he howls with hilarity.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Billy, now leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees to keep himself from falling over, spreads his arms wide. “Take a look around you,” he says. “Do you not see what’s going on here?”

  I fight the urge to physically look around me as I can see it’s not meant to be taken literally. “Answer my question.”

  Billy’s laughs settle and he wipes the tears from his eyes. “What question?”

  “Were you just going to let Alicia and my unborn baby be killed too?”

  He shakes his head. “You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s not pregnant. And she’s with me.”

  I take this in for a moment, but begin shaking my head almost immediately. “No, that’s not true. I don’t believe you. We have a real connection.”

  Billy starts to laugh again. “Connection? Is that what you call a connection? Do you actually think she’s pregnant? She’s not.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Billy points in the direction of the stairs without looking. “Go ask her yourself.”

  Without hesitation, I turn around and storm up the basement stairs. I don’t want to believe Billy, but my heart already aches. I need to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Once upstairs, I hurry down the hallway and whip the bedroom door open. Alicia is sitting on the edge of the bed as I enter.

  “There you are,” she says. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about it the whole night, and I could barely sleep. There is something I need to tell you.”

  “Are you really pregnant?”

  She’s surprised by my question and my sternness. “George-”

  “Don’t lie to me. Please. Are you pregnant?”

  Alicia puts her head down and takes a deep breath. I can see the tears pool in her eyes, and it gives me the answer that I already know in my heart. I ask again before she has a chance to speak.

  “Tell me the truth. Billy just told me everything.”

  She lifts her head up and looks at me, both eyes now completely filled with tears. “George, I’m so sorry. It was never supposed to-”

  “How could you? I thought we had a real connection?”

  She jumps to her feet and walks toward me. “We did have a real connection. We still do.”

  “What about Billy? He said you’re with him.”

  “That was before.”

  “So that is true?”

  She reaches for my hand with compassion, but I pull away. She sinks her glassy eyes into mine and I can’t tell if she’s being sincere or not. I don’t know what to believe anymore. She reaches for my hand again. This time I let her take it.

  “He doesn’t really care about you, you know,” I say. “He would leave you to die in a second, just like he was going to do to me.”

  Footsteps from the hallway are approaching. I must have been too distracted by Alicia’s gaze to have heard Billy coming up the stairs. He pops his head in and sees Alicia caressing my trembling hand.

  “You can stop the act now,” he says. “I told him everything.” He begins to laugh again as he disappears down the hallway. The laughing is really starting to piss me off.

  “Ignore him, Alicia says, “I have a plan.”

  I rip my hand from her grasp. “You have a plan? I’m tired of following everyone else’s plan. Where has that got me? Dead, that’s where. It’s about time I make my own fucking plan.” I spin around and rush toward the door.

  Alicia reaches for me, but I ignore her and leave through the doorway and head down the hallway. I brush past the open bathroom door and catch a glimpse of Billy leaning his head back and taking a leak. I rush into the kitchen and pull open the cabinet drawer that’s directly to the right of the dishwasher
. I yank the entire cabinet off its track and watch as the contents go crashing down onto the linoleum floor. I bend down and grab the longest and sharpest butcher’s knife I can find and make my way in to the living room. Billy and Alicia arrive in the opening just moments after I do.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Billy says, still zipping his pants.

  I stop once I get to the couch that Frank is still passed out on and stand over him, holding the knife above my head. Alicia’s eyes widen in shock and she gasps. Billy is suddenly calm.

  “Who’s laughing now?” I say.

  “What are you doing?” Billy asks calmly.

  “I’m turning the tables in my favor. It’s about time I have some leverage.”

  “There’s no need to do anything stupid now.”

  “Stupid? You don’t want me to do anything stupid? You said it yourself, I’m too stupid to see what’s going on around me, so I must be stupid! Just another stupid person doing a stupid thing!” I look down at Frank’s already bruised and battered body and I feel nothing.

  “Let’s talk about this,” Billy pleads.

  I look up and stare at Billy. “I think we’re past that point, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Nobody has to get hurt.”

  “Funny how things change when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it?” I look back down at Frank and raise the knife further above my head. I catch Billy feeling for his gun, but I can see it resting on the table beside me. My arm is quivering as I struggle to steady the blade. I take one final glance across the room and see Alicia covering her face in fear, much like she was in the van. I don’t trust her anymore, but I can’t stand to see her like this. I lean my head down and drop the knife to the floor.

  I can’t do it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  BILLY

  It’s a chilly summer night, which really isn’t even chilly at all, and Snake’s house is lifeless. I carry a black duffel bag which contains the three carbon monoxide masks, a crowbar, a rubber mallet, a thin steel rod, and two glass vials. I stand on my toes on the side of the house and peek inside the window. I use my hands to cup my eyes to try to help myself see through the darkness. There is evidence of some recent activity inside, as I’m able to faintly make out some figures on the kitchen counter, dishes perhaps, which were not there earlier. I drop to my feet and continue around the backside of the house and along to the western side, and I look in each of the windows like I did in the first.