Hurry, Alan, we’re out of time.
Another security guard showed up beside the first one. Young and thick-muscled, deep brown skin and bald. No way to deny it anymore, because the glances were obvious—it wasn’t like she could run or anything. They knew who she was.
When the New Orleans police cruiser pulled up to the curb outside, Lydia thought, We’re not going to Miami, sweetie.
*
Alan watched from above, the second-floor entrance from the parking garage, as the police surrounded Lydia and led her away. After finding a parking spot on the second level, Alan smoothed his hand across the trunk like he was in a commercial, trying to ignore the dented bumper and broken light. Stupid. It was goddamned Monte Carlo. He was on to better cars, a Lexus or a Benz. Still, it was a beautiful machine and he wouldn’t be coming back to it.
With all the traffic and noise in and out all day, the smell of the guy in the trunk could be covered up for a while, he hoped. Eventually, someone would notice the car or the smell. By then, Alan would call himself Trent or Richard and grow his hair longer, even wear a beard. Fuck diets, he’d get his fat sucked out, get one of those Bowflex machines and build the muscles.
He tossed the keys in a trashcan, thinking someone would be along to carry the bag away long before the car appeared suspicious. Let them pry open the trunk. No reason to make it easier. Then he found a pay phone and called the police, said, “I think that legless woman on the news is at the airport right now.”
It was a wild guess the story had already made the news. He decided to make the call when he saw the eyes of the security guard at the door as they lifted Lydia from the car to the wheelchair. Curiosity was one thing, but Alan knew suspicion when he saw it. Rather than risk both of them getting caught, he thought maybe they wouldn’t go as hard on Lydia alone. She was brainwashed, that’s the story she would use, and in her condition the cops would certainly cut her a break—not like she could help it if a guy Alan’s size wanted to take her anywhere.
One thing he hoped was that she wouldn’t roll over on him. He loved her enough to let her go back to her comfortable life next to the windows and the curtains at home. Life on the run wasn’t that easy. Besides, she’d never guess he was the one who called.
As the chair disappeared from sight down the corridor, he felt a hole inside suddenly, the magnetic force cutting him off. More cops were on the way, probably. And someone was waiting for Alan to return, too.
Back to the car? Cut his losses and drive out of here? Unless the cops were watching those exits.
No, better to keep going forward. Into the terminal and the mass of people where he could hide in plain sight if he was lucky.
Then why are you standing here about to throw up?
Because it was the last time he’d see her. Obsessive, too intense, deadly, but in the end, he really loved her.
Alan stepped over to the escalator and jogged down.
THIRTY-THREE
Lancaster was taking a piss and Megan was in line to buy yogurt when the cops rolled Lydia past Terry. She was downcast, walled-off, didn’t notice Terry at all. Then again, she’d never gotten a good look at him before. He thought about running into the bathroom and grabbing Lancaster, or maybe shouting at Megan, but after a few moments of staring after the cops and the wheelchair, Terry took another glance at Megan, then the men’s room door, before he took off after Lydia. Telling those two about her would cause some kind of riot, and the woman didn’t deserve it. If he kept up with Lydia, Crabtree would show soon enough.
Terry stepped into the wake of the chair, carefully at first, afraid his partners would notice him sneaking off and break his legs. No worries, though. Megan was typically self-absorbed, staring off into space at the pictures in her head.
He followed about twenty feet behind, hiding in the clumps of people dragging wheeled luggage and garment bags, some teen girls with worn backsacks hugging pillows, more people in suits on cell phones than should be allowed. Terry studied the cops, learning what type of credential he needed to get into the room where they were taking Lydia. He could take her some coffee. A Sky Cap could do that. He needed a vest, a large coffee, a straw, and the names of those cops. Yeah, back to the con. He felt confident, young. Jesus, the past few days had sucked so bad, he felt like this uncle of his, a guy who got religion in his forties and went from an old biker to a goddamn prude in about a week. Shaved his beard, tossed the old AC/DC albums out (didn’t even offer them to Terry), and became a guy who preached pretty much non-stop. His wife, who had wanted the guy to settle down some in the first place, upped and left him after a year of his new Southern Baptist “Head of my Household” routine. And Terry finally understood a little, being scared of something so much—be it hell, death, or your best friend—it could change a man into a straight arrow.
Terry glanced over his shoulder. The crowd was thick enough he couldn’t tell if Lancaster and Megan were after him or not. Fuck it. If they caught him, he’d make up something, try to get Lancaster preoccupied, tell him, I thought I saw Crabtree eating a taco.
The corridor angled left. The cops took Lydia through a side door, unmarked, equipped with a card-reader lock. All right, not a problem. Terry decided someone else would use the door soon enough. Look the guy over, his uniform, all that, then get a card off someone dressed like him. Usually, he needed Lancaster to help with parts like this, taking something by force. It wasn’t like Terry was a weakling—he was strong enough, and he had the element of surprise. The only thing to worry about was leading his mark to a security blind spot since airports were worse than prisons now regarding surveillance.
There was a bar nearby where he could watch and wait, even hide from Lancaster should he need to. He pulled a wad of bills from his pocket. Lancaster had threatened most of the money away from him before they left Biloxi, never did. Terry still had about thirty bucks. While walking to an open stool near the back, he wondered why he really wanted to talk to Lydia anyway. Terry wasn’t after revenge like Lancaster, wasn’t looking to fool her like Megan. It was more like he felt they had a lot in common. Lydia must’ve had a powerful pull to get Crabtree, a coward if he’d ever seen one, to kill for her. She was running a con, and he wanted to talk to her about, maybe learn a few things, always looking to better his game.
How long of a conversation could it be, though? Ten minutes in an airport holding room before the cops came back? Terry fought a grin and shook his head. If he was good enough to talk his way in (and he was, no doubt), he was damned sure good enough to talk his and Lydia’s way out.
*
Lancaster walked out of the men’s room, the cast torn off his forearm except for a ragged piece still around his bicep where the bullet had shredded muscle and bone. He found Megan wandering in a little circle, small cup of vanilla yogurt clenched in her upturned palm.
“Little M&M’s on it?” Lancaster said.
Megan blinked, kept looking around. “Terry’s gone.”
“Where’d he go?”
“No, that’s it. He didn’t tell me. I bought this and then he was gone, quick as that.”
Lancaster turned his head left, then right, a long time passing. He slid his hands together, still moist between the fingers from washing. The nerves in his hand were on the fritz, pinpricks and electric pops. “He’ll come back.”
“So we just stand here until he does?”
Megan was getting a little pissy. Because she was scared Terry would turn them in, or because she knew Lancaster would be angry, or because she wanted as much control over Terry as Lancaster seemed to have—whatever. Lancaster didn’t want to have a fucking conversation about it. Before too much longer, she’d want to know what he was doing going from one room to another. Why did you go in there? What did you get? He hadn’t been in a real relationship in years, not with a clingy woman who thought she was his equal and all. This one might be heaven-sent, but this was the dirty Earth and she needed to learn how things worked.
La
ncaster shrugged and said, “We need the Delta terminal. Come on.”
“What about Terry?”
“Delta terminal.” He walked off, figured this girl wasn’t ready to take a stand. Actually, Lancaster was a little lost without Terry, had a twisty feeling in his gut he didn’t want to name. Fear, no, not that. An image in his head of a pitcher getting ready to toss in a slider without a catcher behind the plate. Goddamn it, nobody signaling what to throw, no choices. That left one play—hit the batter. The high heat upside the head.
Megan trotted up beside him, slipped her arm into his. She was different from Terry, not calling the plays, rather waiting for Lancaster to act before saying, What was that about?
“Your arm better?” she said.
“Probably as good as it’ll ever get.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’ll be like Bob Dole, except I’ll hold a gun instead of a pencil.”
“But if you can’t squeeze the trigger—”
“Intimidate first, surprise later. My other hand, remember.”
They walked along the corridor slowly, oblivious to everyone else, who would come within inches before realizing these two weren’t moving, get out of their way. Like Sid and Nancy, Kurt and Courtney, Lancaster hearing the music in his head.
Megan was soft and her skin was cool. He liked feeling it against him in this heat, the soupy thick New Orleans air, no better inside than out. He wondered how the rest of her would feel later—if there was a later—when he would fuck her. He hoped she was hairy down there. The hairy girls were more animal, liked it rough. He wondered if she would howl or grunt. She’d better scratch, too, because sex wasn’t good without blood or bruises. Lancaster pulled her tighter, glanced down as she smiled wide. Those eyes were hard. Good.
Up ahead, the corridor opened into a large round hub, a Cajun cooking supplies store across from the Delta ticket counters, the middle filled in with blue vinyl benches and the arrivals/departures boards. Past that, a line formed at the metal detectors leading to the gates. Lancaster got a feel for the security, and he guided Megan towards the board, lazy and disinterested. The Miami flight was delayed, now leaving thirty minutes past schedule.
Megan said, “You know what? We ought to take the tickets when we find Crabtree. We can go to Miami.”
Lancaster shook his head. “You need I.D. for that. And I don’t want to fly.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a big shake-up. You’re here, suddenly two hours you’re a thousand miles away. It messes up your inside map, see? Driving, I can follow along and get a grip. You can adjust gradually.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Being in New Orleans feels different from, say, Houston. If you drive, you can process it all. You fly, it’s too quick a jump. I’m still on New Orleans time.”
They staggered a little walking to a bench, trying to walk all tangled up. A nasty bubble-assed woman in tight jeans sat on the other end, a toddler in her lap, an older kid buzzing around. The woman ignored all that.
Megan said, “That where you want to go? Houston?”
“Shit, I hate Houston. I don’t know where to go. We’ll ask Terry later.”
“If he doesn’t come back?”
Lancaster stared at the fat woman beside them and said, “Then we’ll follow him. Right before I kill him, I’ll ask him where I should go.”
THIRTY-FOUR
“It doesn’t compute, him dropping you here and then taking off. You don’t have a ticket or anything.” The detective sat next to Lydia on her side of the desk and talked low, reasonably.
Two others stood in the room, somebody’s office, it looked like. Papers in mid-read on the desk when they commandeered it for the interrogation. A uniformed guard manning a camcorder, a Fed, both quiet. Probably there to see the freak, Lydia thought. She had been here for an hour before the detective came in, Lydia not said a word unless they asked, You okay? and, Is this all right? when they moved her chair. She whispered, Fine, thanks, and went right on staring at her lap.
“Lydia,” the detective said. Using her first name like that, Lydia, like that would soften her. “I know it’s been tough for you, being held against your will, having to witness what happened in your home. I wish I could do something about it.”
So, the angle was to trick her into thinking they considered her the victim when all along they knew she was an accomplice. Or maybe they really didn’t know. Jesus, if that were true…
“Detective Broussard will recover quickly. However, Officer Lanier didn’t make it. He passed on.”
Lydia turned to him now, couldn’t read him. A good detective, played this game many times before. Lydia was a quick study and hid her panic. They had her and Alan pegged as cop killers.
“We need to find him before he hurts anyone else.” The detective took a peek at his papers, mostly blank, Lydia saw. “Crabtree. Alan. We’ve seen him pop up before, but something desperate must have happened for him to go this far. He’s usually as far away from the dangerous stuff as you can get.”
Lydia wondered if Alan was in the next room or one similar to this one. He probably walked right into the trap, not realizing she’d been made. How long would it take Alan to roll on her, save himself? Jesus, and he just might.
If she kept her mouth shut, they had no fuel at all. She knew the best attorneys, some of them friends. Keep it together. No expressions, no words.
“You know about Randy Tompkins, right?”
Lydia shook her head. Couldn’t help it, so she kept on, “No, that’s not anyone I know.”
“We think Crabtree killed him. He was with Tompkins’ partner in Hattiesburg in a car rented in your name. It hit a fire truck. After towing it, we checked out the trunk, found Tompkins dead inside. He’d been shot. Remember? That’s why the police came to your house.”
Lydia thought she should shrug or something. It worked better with arms. Without, it threw her off-balance, so she sat still and quiet.
The Fed’s cell phone chirped. He answered it, listened, then tried to lean and take notes with his free hand. The paper shifted, the notes more like wild scrawl.
He got to “All right,” and closed his phone. Then he spoke to the detective. “Tickets purchased earlier this evening through Delta, a flight to Miami, charged to the Discover card of Ronnie Whipps, Lydia’s late husband.”
The detective sat straighter, hands on his thighs. “Well, he even charged one of your cards, Lydia. I can’t imagine what it was like, this lunatic busting up your life. I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you? Would you like us to get some paramedics in here?”
Lydia shook her head. “I’m fine, really.”
“We can get you to a hospital.”
“No, please, thank you.”
“Why Miami?”
She almost answered, caught herself on the B in Because, then swallowed hard and lapsed back into silence.
The detective, a guy in ruffled clothes with a dark mustache and no-rim glasses, sighed like he was in a local play. He stood and walked to the door, stuck his head out and told someone, “Bring those in.”
Then he hung there, half-out and half-in, waiting while the camcorder light kept glowing and the cop running it watched Lydia in the viewscreen rather than ogle her in person.
Don’t be afraid to look, Lydia wanted to say. I don’t mind.
The detective pulled back inside, bringing the door open with him. Another man in a classier suit entered followed by another uniformed cop, a woman. They each carried a large plastic bag. Whatever was inside the bags pressed out hard, and the woman had to turn hers a couple times before she got it through the doorway. They set the bags on the table and stepped to the other side of the office.
The detective’s eyebrows were high like Spock’s before he reached into one of the bag pulled out a leg. A rubber leg. Lydia’s.
It was clean, in good condition. She could almost feel it, all goose-bumpy from the cold air in the office. It should really be un
der her skirt, in a nice blue thigh-high stocking.
The detective kept speaking as he brought out the other leg, then both arms. “As soon as we got the call it was you, I had these cleaned up and sent over. We had already gotten all the use out of them as evidence, prints and fibers. If you want, maybe the officer could help you reattach them before we continue?” He pointed to the woman who had brought one of the bags in, the young cop with her honey-brown hair braided past her shoulders. She tried to ignore Lydia, looked as if she thought amputation was contagious.
Lydia wanted those legs, those arms, wanted to feel less of a freak. Wheelchair bound, okay, like when Megan first thought Lydia was a quad. While people could empathize, even imagine themselves as quads or paraplegics, they could certainly never think of losing all their limbs at once.
Tell them it was all Alan, a brutal man. A murderer. Tell them I was helpless, him bringing death into the tranquil home I worked so hard on to bring me some sort of peace.
It was not a trap, she tried telling herself. Instead, the exit. All they needed was information, and it would be over, and she could go back home, maybe without Alan there to help. Somewhere along the way, eventually, there would be another.
Yes. I’ll tell them.
A knock on the door. A man opened the door, stuck his head in. The cop pulled it open full. The new man wore a blue shirt, black slacks, and a vest with SECURITY on the front. This was a blond guy, about thirty, several days of stubble, a bruise coloring one side of his face. He glanced at the others in the room, a little uncertain of himself.
“You need something?” the detective asked.
The security man nodded. “They told me, since I’ve had some experience.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The security guy leaned close to the detective’s ear. While whispering, he brought a plastic container from behind his back, showed the detective, who said, “Ah, yeah. I got you.”
The detective asked everyone to leave the room, lingering a moment to ask, “Shouldn’t we let a woman do this?”
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