She was what stood between me and living the rest of my life behind bars.
Darkness rose up and told me that in order to remain free, I’d have to kill her.
4
I opened my hostage’s glove compartment and found tissues.
It hurt, but I dabbed my bloodied nose and split lip. Abbey Rose twitched whenever I moved. My skin burned. I touched my damaged face with the tips of my fingers and cringed, then reached inside the glove compartment and searched for more tissues.
I said, “I need you to relax and look normal while you’re driving.”
She nodded. “I’m doing my best.”
“Do better.”
Then I turned, and in pain I reached to the backseat and snatched her purse off the floor. She jumped like her first instinct was to reach and stop me, to claw at me, but I gritted my teeth and shook my head. Her eyes and facial expression told me that she was praying for either LAPD or the L.A. county sheriff to come this way. My prayer was the opposite. Blade at my side, I went through her wallet.
I fumbled around and removed her driver’s license. The address on the insurance registration card matched the address on her license. She swallowed and shook her head, made a terrified sound when I took her driver’s license and stuffed it inside my coat pocket.
I said, “Abbey Rose.”
“Yes.”
“I know who you are. I know where you live.”
Lines gathered in her forehead as she pulled her lips in tighter.
Police helicopters continued circling the area we’d just left.
I said, “Abbey Rose.”
She didn’t say anything but her paranoid eyes were glued to the rearview mirror.
Something was back there. I looked in my side-view mirror and saw law enforcement.
“Abbey Rose, maintain your speed. If they turn their lights on . . .”
Tears ran down her face as if that was her last hope of surviving. When the police turned left at Don Lorenzo, I took a deep breath.
Abbey Rose cried a little harder.
A Maserati was parked in front of one of the homes we passed. The next-door neighbors had Toyotas and Nissans. After that I saw a garaged Lamborghini and a fleet of Mercedes.
I sighed. “Everybody up here has two imports per person in each household. For every one car we export, they import three hundred to our soil, and all the imports are up on this hill.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just drive.”
Drops of sweat dripped from my chin.
She asked, “What did you do? Why are the police after you?”
I licked my lips and felt pain. I said, “I can’t chance you calling the police.”
She whispered, “I won’t.”
“You will.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“If I let you go, you will.”
She wiped her eyes. “You said if. Not when. If.”
I took another frustrated breath. My heart beat faster.
I said, “You’re married.”
She paused. “Yes. And my husband is looking for me right now.”
“What day was your wedding? And where did you get married?”
She clenched her teeth.
I said, “You’re not a good liar.”
She snapped, “You’re not a good driver.”
Fear and frustration blistered my mind and I was about to detonate, but I put the switchblade down at my side, then I rubbed my temples and shook my head before I regarded the streets, my pained movements nothing more than controlled nervousness. I was distressed and angry, and that anger was almost explosive. I wanted to scream and pummel her German-made dashboard with my hands.
I motioned for her to stop driving.
I said, “You’ve seen my face.”
She wiped her dank hands on her pants, then she pulled her mountain of hair back as best she could, but her mane remained strong, rebelled and bounced back to its circular form.
I motioned for her to drive again. She didn’t hesitate to pull away from the curb.
That told me she felt safer with us moving. I felt the same way.
She said, “You were speeding.”
“You ran the red light. Is that how they teach people to drive in L.A.? My guess is you were on your cell. You were distracted. Am I wrong?”
She trembled. “I was reading a text message. I slowed in front of you because I was reading a text message. My fiancé was breaking up with me. Days before Christmas and he broke up with me with a text message. So, that’s why I slowed down. I was in the middle of breaking up with my fiancé.”
I said, “Makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?”
“Most people get out of their cars right after an accident. It’s a natural thing. You didn’t get out right away. You didn’t scream about your BMW being wrecked. Something else was on your mind. And now it makes sense.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
She had driven Hillcrest Drive to Don Milagro Drive to Don Felipe Drive to Don Miguel Drive. Right before Don Miguel touched Don Lorenzo, I instructed her again to do her best to look normal. We were in the section where the houses started to become smaller and old apartment buildings began to reappear.
I motioned for her to turn right and we came to La Brea. Again, I motioned to the right. Then she was stopped by the red light. It was a no-right-on-red light. I pointed that out and told her to obey the traffic laws. Some people crossed the street while others jogged up a dirt hill that led to hiking and jogging trails at the park. When the light turned green she turned right, drove down the pathway that cut between Baldwin Hills and Kenneth Hahn Park. We were heading north at close to fifty miles an hour, a little over the speed limit but a lot slower than the rest of the traffic. I motioned for her to turn left onto Coliseum Street and pointed up ahead. We were behind the Village Green, a seventy-acre wooded area that was a maze of tropical confines, a place I could vanish into and never be found again. First I looked beyond palm trees toward the village of condos. To the left were single-family homes rising into a different set of hills and more million-dollar residences that would never make the cover or centerfold in Architectural Digest.
Abbey Rose, my reluctant getaway driver, parked next to the curb, across the street from a single-family home. A van was parked along the curb too, one car-length away. I saw the driver look in the rearview mirror when we stopped. The engine on the van was running and the driver had a foot on the brakes.
My skin burned, salty perspiration dampening my face like blood from an open wound. Abbey Rose sweated the same way. I smelled her sweet perfume and looked at her diamond ring. She saw me staring at her ring and motioned like she was going to give it to me. I shook my head. I dug inside her glove compartment and found the last of her tissues, wiped my nose, dabbed my forehead. I closed the switchblade, then opened it again, repeated that over and over, the clicking sound making Abbey Rose shudder, take curt breaths, and blink a hundred times.
“Abbey Rose, close your eyes again.”
“No.”
“Don’t test me.”
“Please . . . I’m begging you.”
“Last time. Close your eyes.”
“I don’t want to die.”
Every part of her body trembled. She put her palms on her stained business suit, ran her hands across her globe of hair. Then she took another deep, trembling breath and closed her eyes.
I took a deep breath too. “Let your seat back, Abbey Rose. Recline like you’re sleeping.”
“If I don’t?”
“You said that you don’t want to die. Now’s the time to start acting like you want to live.”
5
The Wells Fargo job was supposed to be a two-minute job that ended with a four-way split. Sammy, Rick, and I were three of the crew. Sammy’s mistress was the fourth. She was in charge of the stage-two getaway van. This was where we would’ve dumped the first car. I had already closed my switchblad
e and dropped it back inside my pocket by the time I had made it to the passenger-side window and read Jackie’s face. She read my tense expression like it was a postcard from prison, the blood on my shirt the ink used to write a long letter, the injuries to my lips and nose the postmark and stamps. Her surprise magnified exponentially.
“Where is Sammy?”
“Dead.”
Her eyes widened, then she swallowed. “Dead?”
“Took one to the head. He was gone before he hit the ground.”
I expected a flicker of pain, maybe tears. The death of a lover made many people cry. She waited because she wouldn’t leave Sammy behind. Now there was nothing she could do for him.
She asked, “Rick?”
“Rick might be dead too.”
“You left them?”
“Had no choice.”
“Sammy’s dead. No way.”
“He’s dead, Jackie.”
“What about the money?”
With the blink of an eye she had moved from the death of her lover to the primary objective of this trip. I shook my head to let her know this job had garnered no cash, not one dollar.
We paused and listened to the cries from police vehicles.
“You were in the passenger seat.” She motioned behind her. “Who’s driving that black BMW?”
“Somebody cut in front of my damn car. Car crashed and totaled. I had to improvise and carjack.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Man or woman?”
“Woman.”
“Kids with her?”
“She’s alone.”
“We can’t leave any witnesses.”
Jackie was former military. Her husband had divorced her during her third deployment and her kid had been taken away from her while she was in Afghanistan. In the eyes of the court, serving her country and protecting these shores had made her an absentee and unfit parent. But Jackie said her husband was an unfit parent. If she hadn’t deployed and had stayed home to take care of her kid, then the military could’ve locked her up for two years and given her a dishonorable discharge. Jackie had abandoned all allegiances, except to her child, her soul blackened by the government’s betrayal.
Jackie’s lips curved downward. “Get in and be ready to drive. I’ll put her down.”
“You’re going to shoot her right here?”
“No, I’m going to take her on a date and buy her a drink first. I’ll do whatever needs to be done and you need to do the same. Look, get in the driver’s seat. When I signal, mash on the gas and let the sound of the engine revving cover the shots. Mash hard. Then be ready to roll out.”
I shook my head. “Go. The woman is my problem.”
“Your problems are our problems.”
“If anybody saw me at the bank, and I doubt it, but just in case, they didn’t see you. So think about your kid. I’ll handle it and you go and we’ll connect down the road. You know the drill.”
Without any more hesitation, she raised her hand and extended a disposable .22, handle first.
She frowned. “No witnesses.”
“Okay.”
I repeated what I had said, told Jackie to drive away from this heated area.
She shook her head, sweat forming on her brow. “I’m not leaving you behind. That’s not how this works. You do this and you do this now and then I’ll get you out of here. You do it or I do it.”
Her tone was filled with grief, anger, and angst. Her expression owned the same. It reminded me of my wife’s tone. It reminded me of a cold day in Detroit when choices were made. It reminded me of a day when my manhood was challenged, when my marriage had been threatened. I took the gun and eased it underneath my coat. Guns weren’t my way of life. I went back and stood outside the SUV and spied down on Abbey Rose. She remained reclined with her eyes closed. She had her hands folded across her midsection. Liquid anxiety drained down her face; that trickling had to feel like torture, but she didn’t move.
I took the gun out and held it in my hand.
All sins spiraled and escalated. All sins ended with murder, the crime of all crimes.
When I opened the passenger door to the SUV, Abbey Rose opened her eyes and saw me standing in the door holding a gun. I held the door open but didn’t climb back inside.
I said, “Keep your eyes closed.”
“Please . . . please . . . please . . .”
“Close your eyes.”
Abbey Rose trembled and closed her eyes tighter. I had never seen so much fear.
I wondered what it was like to know that you were about to die and have no control.
Then I looked at the getaway van, made contact with Jackie in the rearview.
I nodded and she mashed the gas, revved the engine hard, made smoke rise.
I raised the gun and fired twice. Those two rapid pops sent energy and regret up my arm.
It was hard to live but so easy to die.
Then I closed the door to the SUV, lowered my head, walked to the van, and got inside.
Jackie pulled away from the curb and drove past the Village Green, then entered an area filled with modest homes. She drove through an alley and came to La Cienega. That was where we were about to blend with what looked like a hundred thousand cars, not many manufactured on this soil. Gray skies covered us as she pulled out on La Cienega. Instead of going straight toward Hollywood and Koreatown, Jackie turned right on Rodeo Road, and that right was taking us back in the direction of the bank robbery.
I asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
“We’re going back.”
“Are you crazy? We’re not going back there.”
“Sammy’s not dead. He can’t be dead.”
“He’s dead, Jackie.”
“I need to see for myself.”
The horrid songs of traffic surrounded us as Jackie sped down the front side of the Village Green in the direction of KFC, then was caught at the light facing a strip mall that housed a shopworn Mc-Donald’s. A torrential downpour of fear came out of my pores like it was hurricane season. There were hundreds of sounds, maybe thousands, but there was only one sound I cared about. The sirens. And those sirens punctuated the crisp air the same way bullets had punctuated the life out of Sammy.
I put my hand up to my head, reached for my fedora. My fedora wasn’t on my head. Again my heart tried to break out of my chest. I had left the fedora inside Abbey Rose’s SUV.
More anger and trepidation manifested inside my gut, became a raging ball of fire that boiled my blood. That fedora held DNA that was better than the fingerprints I had left inside that SUV.
Jackie asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Drive. Slow down, keep to the speed limit, and drive.”
That black fedora had belonged to my father. That had been Henrick’s Sunday fedora.
I had imagined that my father’s most prized hat would one day belong to my unborn son. Now it would end up mutilated and stored inside a dusty evidence room.
Jackie drove back toward the bank, went up the back side of Santa Rosalia.
The closer we were to the bank, the stronger my heart thumped inside my chest. The parking lot had been taped and an officer directed traffic and blocked the southwest entrance to the mall. Two dozen policemen and firemen and medics were in the parking lot.
And at least three local stations were on the ground, one of them a Spanish channel.
One body was down on the parking lot, covered up and waiting on the coroner. That was Sammy. All that could be seen was that the body was facedown, his shoes showing.
There wasn’t a second body. Rick was gone. He had already been transported. Jackie paused and glimpsed the circus, her eyes wide with disbelief as she stared at what she never should have seen.
She said, “That wasn’t Sammy, that was Rick.”
“That was Sammy.”
“You got it wrong, Dmytryk. Rick might be dead, but not Sammy.”
“He’s dead, Jackie. I’m sorry, but Sammy is dead.”
Then she sped away, her lips trembling and tears falling. She made a hard right onto Stocker, then sped uphill doing thirty miles over the speed limit.
My face burned and I felt blood in my nostrils, but I asked, “Want me to drive?”
She mumbled, “You got it wrong. You had to get it wrong. An hour ago Sammy was laughing and joking and we were making plans.”
Hell was a mythical place where people suffered for eternity. But I knew hell was real because I’d been living with the devil’s breath on my neck for a long, long time.
I closed my eyes and went back to then.
6
Then.
I was one of the few men who had worked a white-collar job, then lost that cushy, salaried position and ended up on the assembly line at GM. Working in the offices and working on the line; those had been my jobs for fourteen years strong. My salaried job had topped out in the six figures. After that white-collar job had ended abruptly, I had worked the line, ended up shoulder-to-shoulder with people I’d gone to high school with. I was degreed and working with people who had GEDs. There was a joke in there somewhere. Sometimes my friends on the line teased me about my downfall and tried to help me find the humor in my situation, and many times they made me laugh. Working on the line wasn’t going to make me the next Donald Trump, but it kept me living an above-average lifestyle. But that came to an end. Being laid off twice within a decade, the second time felt like it was déjà vu. One day I was on the line making seventy-five a year and the next I was unemployed and trying to save my home.
The bubble had burst in Detroit; the middle class was being dismantled thousands of jobs at a time. And in a land far, far away, the Japanese smiled. Bailouts and bankruptcies and job losses and foreclosures and exporting one American vehicle for every three hundred that were imported had left Americans starving on the pothole-filled streets.
That was back when it all began, back when I had been susceptible to anything the devil offered. While Jackie sobbed and drove us through L.A. and Hollywood, while we passed tourists and Chinese theaters and dealt with never-ending traffic, my mind drifted.
My mind took me back to the night that I was near Ford Field and the MGM Grand Casino, ten minutes from the airport and less than two miles off I-96 at Michigan Avenue.
Tempted by Trouble Page 5