She asked me, “How far would you go for the person you loved?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you lose yourself to keep the person you loved?”
“You know my answer. Would you?”
“For you I would.”
After I removed my coat and fedora, we shared a lingering stare, one that spoke of her undying love for me. I went to the garage and pulled out the rake and I started raking up the fallen leaves, leaves that had been there for weeks, one of my many neglected chores in this home of divided labor.
Adam had eaten an apple. Samson had lost his hair. A man being a fool was nothing new.
Back in Trussville, Cora had run from me in fear, and in the end I had lowered the gun and walked away.
A while later, I’d gone inside a bathroom and washed as much blood off my hands as I could. Then I tended to my wounds, wrapped my shoulder and my left arm. Racked with pain, I had shaven, and when I was done I took out a fresh white shirt and a different suit. While Eddie Coyle lay dead on the dining room floor, while Bishop and Jackie began rotting in a stolen van hidden inside the garage, I put on a change of clothing and collected my things. When I was done, I walked back to the garage and sat inside my Buick. The pain I felt in my shoulder and left leg at that moment was overwhelming. I started my engine and prepared to leave. I was going to leave Cora. I was leaving the money behind. I wasn’t taking a dollar. But Cora had run out to the car and climbed inside. She had left the money behind too. She begged me to take her back.
She said, “You’re right, Dmytryk. Baby, you’re right.”
Her presence had startled me.
She said, “We’re supposed to fight together. We’re supposed to starve together. And in the end we are going to come out the winners. That’s what a marriage is about. Anybody can be married when things are easy. Anybody can be married when there’s plenty of money. Get me away from here. Get me away, baby. I’d live underneath a bridge with you if I had to. I just want to be your wife again.”
I’d stared at Cora’s face. She was crying. She was afraid. She needed me.
Weighed down with pain and guilt, it took me a moment to accept her back into my world.
I nodded.
I said, “Let me fix this.”
“You know how?”
“Stay here.”
I’d gone back inside the town home and walked past the scent of new deaths. I closed all of the windows and turned all the gas burners on the stove on high, let that rotting sulfur smell begin to fill the town home. Candles were all over the model home. I lit two tall ones and left one in the living room and the other in the dining room. Then I picked up the bag of money and stepped over the dead bodies and limped out the back door. I dropped the bag of stolen money fifty yards away from the town homes, far enough for the currency to not be damaged. That was what I had hoped. The money wasn’t federally insured. If it was destroyed, the government wouldn’t replenish the well.
The newspapers said that the town home exploded with a blast so vicious it totaled the three connecting units and sent debris over fifty yards, across the railroad tracks and out onto Highway 11. The buildings were demolished, but the money was recovered, for the most part, unscathed.
From Birmingham toward Nashville, from Louisville to Dayton, then back into Detroit, that journey was seven hundred and forty miles. I told Cora that she had eleven hours to give me a reason not to leave her on the side of the road, seven hundred and forty miles to change from being a woman named Trouble back into the woman I had married.
She whispered, “Trouble is gone, Dmytryk. It’s just me.”
“Cora.”
“It’s Cora. It’s the woman you married.”
Right before Nashville I asked Cora if she had any money. She had close to eight thousand dollars. She told me that it was money from the other bank jobs. I told her to take three hundred out. She did. Then I told her to throw the rest out of the window. She did. We had enough money to eat at McDonald’s and get us back home.
That was all we needed.
Cora sat next to me the entire ride back. She came home with me to Detroit.
But still. The guilt.
My left arm was sore, but I was able to move it without too much pain.
And the pain in my left leg had subsided and I could walk without limping.
As I raked up a few leaves and picked up dead branches that had fallen from trees, I heard the neighbor’s kids playing in the yard next door. The temperature began to drop at sunset. I paused and wondered what would have happened if Cora had exited the annex first, if she had come running to me smiling, needing me the way I had needed her, holding a half million dollars, telling me she had done it all for me, yelling that every wrong she had done had been for us. She would’ve jumped inside the van and Eddie Coyle, Jackie, and Bishop would’ve raced out behind her, chasing the money with a fury I’d never seen before. Maybe I would’ve realized that we could leave Jackie, Bishop, and Eddie Coyle behind. It would have been a split-second decision. As Eddie Coyle, Bishop, and Jackie reached the van, as their nine-millimeters rang out in chorus, I would’ve peeled away, cut through falling snow, and left them stranded in front of the annex. I’d regretted leaving Rick behind, even though he was mortally wounded. But Eddie Coyle, his brother, and Jackie would have deserved their fate.
Other times I wondered what it would have been like to leave Cora, Eddie Coyle, and Bishop in the bottom of that annex and flee with Jackie. I wondered what it would have been like to be with her and her kid, living the high life in South America as a family. We could’ve built that dream house right outside of Tegucigalpa for fifty thousand and had over four hundred thousand to spare. I could’ve been living inside a glorious mansion. I could’ve been her Sammy and she could’ve been my Cora. I could’ve been teaching Spanish to her and her kid and getting acclimated to living in Honduras. We could’ve been making love every night.
Jackie’s voice came to me. “I’ll never leave you, Dmytryk.”
I looked around the yard and expected to see Jackie. When she wasn’t there I looked for Rick and Sammy. I looked for Eddie Coyle and I looked for Bishop. No one was there.
When I was done bagging all the leaves and branches, I dragged the bags out front before I went to the garage and pulled out a ladder. Christmas lighting decorated the front of the house. I removed the lighting, put it inside a plastic container, carried that container to the garage, then went inside and showered. I put on cologne, dark suit pants, and a blue shirt. By then Cora had finished dinner. She had cooked venison tenderloin, pan seared and served with creamy mascarpone polenta and a blueberry thyme port wine reduction. It had been paired with a pinot noir. She had come home from one of her part-time jobs, showered, put on a nice dress, and cooked my favorite meal.
She was doing her best to fix what had been broken. I was doing my best to meet her halfway.
She asked, “Is this okay?”
“It’s fantastic.”
“I can’t cook as well as you cook.”
“You’re a great cook, Cora. How’s work going?”
“Same old. How is work going for you?”
“I picked up two more students. One for Italian and one for French.”
“That’s great. Autoworkers?”
“Two former executives.” I nodded. “Hopefully they will pay on time.”
She hesitated, then looked around the room before she looked at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Let’s move forward. The past is the past is the past.”
“I love you, Dmytryk.”
I nodded and whispered, “You’re in my blood.”
She whispered, “You’re my blood. Dmytryk, you’re my blood.”
“I know.”
“Those things that I said—all of those horrible things that I said that morning in East Point . . .”
“Let’s eat, Cora. Let’s eat this beautiful dinner you made.”
Tears fell from her eyes a
s she ate. My eyes watered as I did the same. I reached across the table with my right hand, palm turned upward. Cora reached across the table and put her hand inside mine.
My name is Dmytryk Knight. My wife’s name is Cora Knight. Right or wrong, she’s my wife.
She said, “Jackie.”
“What about her?”
Her hand went up to the healed scar on her forehead. “What she did in Trussville. When she went crazy. When she took her gun and shot me. When she tried to steal all of the money.”
“It was wrong.”
“But I was thinking the same thing. When I was with Jackie and Bishop and Eddie Coyle, I was thinking the same thing. It was so much money. I’d never had anything growing up. I thought of all the things that I didn’t have and all of the things that I could’ve bought. I thought about us, Dmytryk. I thought about us. We’d had it so hard for so long. I wanted to take it all from them. You’ve always loved me. Eddie Coyle had betrayed me to get the money. Jackie had betrayed my friendship and my trust, then she tried to kill me. Everyone I had trusted for six months betrayed me.”
“Let’s not talk about betrayal. And if you do, look in the mirror, not out the window.”
She backed down from that conversation, then said, “That was a lot of money.”
“It was.”
“You ever think about that money?”
“Every day, Cora. I think about that money every day. Every day I wish I had that money.”
“If that had been money from a bank and not from a church, would you have kept any of it?”
“I guess we’ll never know.”
She paused, then whispered, “Forgive me?”
I sipped my wine. “A little more each day.”
“When will we sleep in the same bed? When will you take me to bed?”
Though Cora and I had returned home together, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to be with her as man and wife. Not until the smell of other men was scrubbed from her body, not until she dyed her hair back to its natural color and cleaned her insides out, and not until we were both checked for diseases. Only then could we consummate the marriage once again, jump over these hurdles and get back what we lost, maybe renew our vows and have a second honeymoon whenever the money was in our favor. It would be in our favor once again.
She had led me down the path of wrong.
Now I needed to adjust my compass and lead her the other way.
I finished a glass of wine, thought of my promise, then poured another. “Tonight.”
“Yes?”
“Let’s sleep in the same bed tonight.”
“We haven’t been in the same bed for . . . a long time.”
“Let’s see how that feels. Let’s see if it feels right.”
She smiled. “I want to make love to you, Dmytryk.”
I smiled.
She whispered, “Did you love her?”
My response was, “Did you love him?”
No answers were given.
She whispered, “What do we do now?”
“We start over. We keep our heads high and make ends meet like everyone else.”
“Things will get better.”
I smiled. “Things will get better.”
“Would you do it all over again?”
“Which part?”
“Would you marry me again?”
I smiled, but I didn’t answer.
I said, “Let me do the dishes.”
“I’ll do them.”
“No, you cooked. I’ll do the dishes.”
“You just did all of the yard work.”
“We can do the dishes together.”
“I’d like that.”
In the background, the television was on. Twenty-four hours a day, the people who had jobs at CNN reminded me that the problem was debt. Like everyone else, I was going to ride this roller coaster until the ride was over. I wasn’t running. I wasn’t hiding. I was doing what Henrick would have done. At least that was what I liked to think. I was working hard and making do with what I had. I was an educated man and some company with a decent sign-on bonus, a 401(k), and health insurance would open up its corporate doors for me soon.
Cora said, “You leave some nights. I hear you when you walk out the door. I hear the car start.”
“I know.”
“You leave and don’t come home for two days.”
“But I come home.”
She paused and her lip trembled. “Where do you go?”
I didn’t answer.
She swallowed and asked, “Are you seeing someone?”
Another pause rested between us. Many pauses had rested between us since she returned.
“I love you, Cora. Despite everything, I love you. But I don’t love you as a fool loves.”
The wine moved through my veins. I filled another glass, drank it until the glass was empty, then I went to Cora and took her hand. I led her to the kitchen counter and turned her around. My lips touched Cora’s neck and the memories of when we had first met returned. We kissed and all was forgiven. She forgave me for my stubbornness and I forgave her for her indiscretion. All bitterness was gone and all I could taste was love. The kiss was filled with passion, and Cora shivered and moaned.
“Don’t stop, Dmytryk.”
I lifted her dress and pulled away her panties, pulled them hard until they tore away from her body. I undid my belt buckle and allowed my pants to fall to my ankles.
And while I kissed my wife, the doorbell rang three times.
I stopped and pulled my pants up, then went to the window and looked outside. A dark sedan was parked in front of my home.
I looked back toward the kitchen and Cora was smiling. She adjusted her dress, picked up her ripped panties, hid them inside a kitchen drawer, then winked at me before she turned around and started washing the dishes.
I called out, “Just a minute.”
I put on a suit coat in order to hide my erection. I went to the front door and opened it enough to look outside. I clicked on the porch light and saw two men dressed in black suits.
One of the men said, “Dmytryk Knight?”
“Yes. I’m Dmytryk Knight.”
Both men raised their badges and announced that they were with the FBI.
In a tone that had no room for compromise, they asked if they could come inside.
I had robbed banks. I had pulled the trigger and shot Eddie Coyle in the back of the head.
And now the FBI was standing outside my front door.
I looked back toward the kitchen and Cora was gone.
Then, palms sweating, I opened the front door and let the armed Feds inside my home.
One of them asked, “Is anyone else here with you?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m alone. I live alone.”
24
The moment I saw the FBI on my front porch, in my mind I relived what had happened back in Trussville. I thought about the tragedy. I saw the truth.
The woman whom I had married had remained ferocious, determined, and persuasive.
Cora wasn’t a weak woman, and she wouldn’t be turned into a docile housewife.
We were together inside that town home in Trussville. While sirens blared outside on Highway 11, with the police and sheriffs in Trussville searching for Eddie Coyle and friends, that town home had become our prison. No matter what the reason, I had stood behind Eddie Coyle and pulled the trigger on that nine-millimeter. Cora had watched me put a hole in the back of his head. She had witnessed his head exploding the same way I had seen Sammy’s head come apart. Cora had watched me murder Eddie Coyle in cold blood. She didn’t know why I had done it. She assumed it was because they were lovers. Maybe that was part of the reason. And she ran from me, stumbled over furniture, and fell down. I had raised the gun seeking vengeance, but I couldn’t kill her. I was where I was because of her. I had done what I had done because of her. I wouldn’t kill her. I couldn’t kill her. She knew that.
It was impossible to
kill Cora without killing part of myself.
As snow fell outside, I extended my hand and helped her up from the floor. Cora took my hand and I pulled her to her feet. She stood in silence for a long moment, her head wrapped in bloody gauze, inhaling the reality of Eddie Coyle’s death.
She whispered, “You killed him.”
I had become a CEO who was executing his business with a calmness that was terrifying. For a brief moment, she was scared of me. I had changed. She wanted to bolt out into the darkness and snow, but she knew that she wouldn’t get far. If she ran out the front door, she had no transportation, and with her dizziness she’d be lucky to make it to the railroad tracks.
She repeated, “You killed him.”
A surge of power ran through me. I didn’t care.
“You killed Jackie. Bishop is dead. Eddie Coyle is dead.”
Her eyes came to mine.
She whispered, “The money is all ours.”
Standing over the dead body of her lover, that wasn’t what I had expected from Cora.
I said, “I didn’t shoot Eddie Coyle for the money.”
“It’s ours now, Dmytryk.”
“The money stays.”
“The money stays? What does that mean?”
“The money stays here.”
“Leave the money?”
“We get our things and get out of here, but the money stays.”
“If we leave this money, then everything that I have done, everything I worked and sacrificed for, will be meaningless. I’d be right back where we started.”
“We’ll never be back where we started.”
“Are you afraid?”
I shook my head. “I’m not afraid.”
“You’re afraid. You’re still the coward you were six months ago.”
“Not me, Cora. You. You’re still the coward that walked out on me. You want everything easy.”
“I planned this for six months, and now you think I’m going to walk away? Now it’s down to the two of us, Dmytryk. It’s back to where it all started. You and me. It’s back to the way you wanted it. Only now we have the resources to live a better life. We can start over.”
Tempted by Trouble Page 26