Tempted by Trouble

by Eric Jerome Dickey

  “The money stays. Just you and me. We leave. We start over.”

  “Broke? We start over broke.”

  “We struggle like everyone else. We struggle and we overcome and we make this one of the greatest stories of survival and love that . . . we make it a great love story . . . that’s what we do.”

  “You’ve killed and robbed like everyone else, and now you want to take the high road?”

  “The money stays.”

  “If the money stays, how long do you think we’ll last? Until we get to Nashville? We wouldn’t last until Nashville, Dmytryk. We wouldn’t last three hours. I left Detroit because of friggin’ money issues and I’m not going to go back there as broke as I was when I left. I didn’t grow up like you, Dmytryk. I grew up broke. My father died broke and my mother struggled until she died. I’m not going to live that life. Maybe if there was some guarantee that this would end, but it’s only getting worse. There is no end in sight.”

  “The money stays.”

  “And if I did make it back to Detroit, if I left with you, if I made love to you every night, if we went back to that same routine, if I cooked for while you cut the yard, at some point, I’d hate myself for being so weak for you, I’d hate how much you love me, and I would poison you. I’d think about this moment, and I’d kill you and bury you with your other secret. The one that you and Eddie Coyle left by the Uniroyal tire. Dmytryk, it’s us and the money or there is no us.”

  “I’m in this because of you.”

  “You made your own choices, Dmytryk.”

  “You’re right. I have. I’ve robbed banks. I’ve watched men get shot and die. Sammy and Rick are dead. I’ve kidnapped. I killed Jackie. I killed Eddie Coyle. Don’t you see where this road is leading? Even if we were apart for the last six months, we’ve danced this dance together. We’ve been in this together from the start. You pushed me into this business and now I’m pulling you out. I’m not asking you to walk away. I’m telling you that this is done.”

  “You’re jealous of Eddie Coyle.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “You will always hate Eddie Coyle. You wish you were a man like Eddie Coyle.”

  “Is that what you think? Really? Eddie Coyle was living from bank job to bank job the way a man lives from paycheck to paycheck. How much longer before you would have left him? He tucked you away in a small town decorated with Confederate flags. But you’re not a small-town girl. You’re Brooklyn. You’re Detroit. How long was that going to last?”

  “The job would’ve been done. So I would’ve been done with him.”

  “Just like our marriage.”

  “Eddie Coyle would’ve been finished with me too.”

  “So he was good until you had your big score.”

  Cora said, “Clear your head. We don’t have to split the money six ways. It’s just us. Let’s take the money with us. Let’s talk about this somewhere else. But let’s take the money.”

  “The money stays.”

  “Fine. I’ll take what’s mine and you can leave your share. Better yet, you leave your one hundred thousand inside the bag and I’ll take everyone else’s cut and we can part ways.”

  “The money stays here in Trussville.”

  “Then everything I’ve done will be meaningless. I have sacrificed everything. I sacrificed my love for you. I have sacrificed my marriage to you. I left you. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I had to do it when you were gone. I had to do it and not look back. I had to fight wanting to call you every day and every night. I had to leave a man I loved and take up with a man who meant nothing to me. And I’m not going to pretend that it will ever be the same. I’ve been with Eddie. You were with Jackie. Six months apart. We’re new people now. I have risked everything, and it can’t be for nothing.”

  “I’ve risked everything. I’m standing inside this room with blood on my clothes and on my hands, my body battered, bruised, because I risked everything and I did it for you.”

  “What do you want from me, Dmytryk?”

  “I want the woman I married. I want my wife.”

  “She doesn’t exist anymore. That woman does not exist anymore.”

  She was right.

  What I’d been praying for the last six months no longer existed. My honest lifestyle wasn’t good enough for her. She had become a criminal, and that was who she was now.

  I nodded. “What are we going to do now?”

  Cora said, “There is only one way out of this.”

  She held her wounded head and stepped to the table and picked up Eddie Coyle’s nine-millimeter. Eddie Coyle’s gun had been reloaded. Cora was determined to win this fight.

  I said, “Don’t do it, Cora.”

  She stepped on the other side of the money, and for a moment, she paused. In the end she took a deep breath, licked her lips, and aimed the death end of her gun at my heart. She aimed at me with the intent to kill me. Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes watered.

  My gun was raised and pointing at her, only my finger wasn’t on the trigger.

  My insides were ablaze, a spreading wildfire. I asked, “Did you love me?”

  “I love you, Dmytryk Knight. But I can’t go back to poverty.”

  “We can fix this.”

  She shook her head. “Without the money, nothing changes.”

  She was delusional and suffering from a concussion and I was heartbroken and high on prescription drugs. With a bag of money and a dead body between us, Cora held her stance.

  She said, “Why would I go back to Detroit and bust my ass working at Starbucks or Walmart or at Home Depot? Why would I go back to seeing the bills come in faster than the money? Why would I go back to degrading myself and dancing? Why wouldn’t I take this money and go have a better life? We could live seven years with no problems. We could live three times that long if we take this money and go to the Dominican Republic.”

  I didn’t say anything. I took in the scent of Eddie Coyle’s death with each inhalation. I took in the scent of Sammy and Rick’s deaths. I took in the scent of Jackie and Bishop’s.

  She lowered her gun and looked at Eddie Coyle, the money, and then she looked back at me. I had lowered my gun too.

  She said, “You’ve always loved me the way I wanted to be loved. You loved me so much it scared me at times.”

  “I know that.”

  “I can go back, I want to go back, but I can’t go back the same way I left.”

  “I’m stopping you, Cora. I didn’t stop you in Detroit, but I’m stopping you here.”

  “This is six months of my life.”

  “And you are eight years of mine.”

  In that moment she softened. She was going to leave this all behind; I saw it in her eyes.

  She whispered, “Not many people have the chance to see this much money at one time. This is enough money to run away and start a new life. I could be whoever I wanted to be.”

  Then she shook head again, her breathing thickened, and her anger returned.

  She snapped, “I’ll tell the FBI, Dmytryk. I’ll go to them and list every crime you have committed. I will tell them about the murders. I’ll cut a deal with them. I know how to play my cards. I’ll tell them that you forced me to become a stripper. I’ll tell them about the bank jobs you did, every last one of them. And I’ll tell them about the dead bodies that you and Eddie Coyle left by the Uniroyal tire. I’ll tell them about you and Rick and Sammy in Los Angeles.”

  “I’ll tell them about your involvement, Cora. Our electric chair will be a love seat.”

  “I’ll tell them that you killed Jackie, then you killed Bishop and Eddie Coyle and I was too afraid not to help you because you had threatened to kill me too. Do you understand? I’m the victim in this. Not you. You can’t win. You forced me to do this. So ask yourself, how much is your life worth to you? Go get in your old car and drive away while you can.”

  Without warning, as we both stood wounded, drowsy, and covered in blood, Cora raised her gun a
gain. She was dizzy and nauseated, and maybe that ringing inside her head was driving her mad. She gritted her teeth and I knew that she was done talking. I saw it in her eyes.

  Until death do us part.

  My body was racked with pain, but I raised my gun as fast as she had raised hers.

  She released a blood-curdling scream and shot twice.

  As hot lead entered my flesh, I screamed and pulled the trigger three times.

  Then our marriage was over.

  25

  The FBI questioned me about my estranged wife.

  One of the men was younger, looked like he was fresh out of college. He wore a new wedding ring and he reminded me of myself six years ago. The second agent looked seasoned, like he had worked for decades and was on the verge of becoming burned out. He looked like a man who was twice divorced and was still paying alimony for both marriages. He looked like he hated his job and didn’t want to be in Detroit. He looked like he would rather have been somewhere drinking away the evening.

  We sat in the living room and I told them that my wife had left me last summer. They asked me why and I shrugged, took a deep breath, and told them that our situation was a long story. They nodded like they had time to hear my tale. So I told them that Cora and I had been laid off from the auto industry. Things had become hard on us. We’d gone two years without any real employment. We’d exhausted our savings and retirement money, lost two new cars and a town home. We’d both taken on a handful of part-time jobs. I’d even delivered pizzas. I told them that she had become a dancer, without my knowledge, and had protested when I told her to quit. She had promised that she would. She had met a man at the place where she was dancing, a man of apparent money and means, and her loyalties had shifted.

  They told me that my scenario wasn’t new to them. They said that women left their husbands to be with their boyfriends all the time, some abandoning their children in order to chase their dreams.

  I defended my wife.

  I emphasized that my wife was a good woman and pointed at pictures that were up around the house, pictures that showed us in a state of bliss. For four years she had been dutiful, reliable, trustworthy, and loving. She had been my Sistine Chapel. I defended her honor and said that even though she had stayed out all night, then come home drunk and wearing a brand-new fur coat, we were trying. Had tried. We’d argued about that fur coat and she left me the next summer.

  They told me that they already knew Cora had left me, and I asked them how. They had talked to the neighbors, who had seen her take seven suitcases and leave with two men in a Cadillac SUV. The FBI had their descriptions. One sounded like Eddie Coyle. The other fit the description of his brother. I shook my head and told them that Cora hadn’t contacted me since she’d left. She had left me.

  One of them asked me, “Are you okay, Mr. Knight?”

  “I’m fine. Considering the fact that the FBI is sitting inside my home, I’m fine.”

  “You keep looking toward the kitchen.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I asked him where Cora was. I asked for the details of what Cora had done. They told me that she had been involved in bank robberies. Then they told me that she was dead. When they told me that she was dead, I felt a thunderclap inside my heart. Suddenly the air in the room felt heavy, like I was in a room filled with smoke. For a moment it felt as if my head was going to explode. My hand shook and a few tears fell.

  “Why are you just getting here? If this happened weeks ago, what took you so long?”

  The married agent said, “We extend our apologies.”

  I extended my sarcasm and said, “Or maybe there were cases with higher priority.”

  The other agent said, “I can give you a number to call if you want to file a formal complaint.”

  I sat and shook my head over and over.

  I nodded, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and asked them to continue. They waited a moment. The pain inside my head subsided and I managed to put on my corporate face and repeat that I was okay. They told me that they had found her DNA at the scene of a crime, a church in the heart of Alabama. They had found her DNA there, but they had found her charred body a few miles away.

  I said, “Charred?”

  They both nodded.

  There had been an explosion where Cora and her friends were hiding out. Everyone inside the hideout was dead. He told me that they had robbed a church, but all of the money had been recovered. Cora’s personal belongings had been found in the city of Rome, Georgia, at the home of a man named Lew Hunter. That was Eddie Coyle’s real name.

  The neighbors in that small town had verified that Cora had been living there for a while. She was the mysterious girl in Rome, the woman who lived in a friendly town and never talked to anyone, but she dressed nicely, went shopping often, and drove a fire-engine-red convertible Mercedes.

  The younger agent looked across the room and saw stacks of books, most written in Neo-Latin languages. In a voice that was more personal than professional, or maybe it was just the intonation of a rookie who hadn’t learned all of the ropes, he asked me if I spoke all of those languages. I told him that I did. I was rusty, but I was still proficient and I was a tutor. He acknowledged that it might be a bad time to say so, but he informed me that the FBI was looking for contract linguists. U.S. citizens only. No benefits, but the job paid between thirty and forty dollars an hour.

  He said, “You can apply online.”

  I had been the wheelman, the unseen villain in a string of bank robberies that spread from L.A. to Texas, and now a representative of the government was showing me kindness and steering me toward gainful employment. As the winds began to pick up, I appreciated the moment of irony. His partner stared across the room, evaluating my modest lifestyle, his unimpressed eyes settling on my fedora. Then he looked down at my wingtip shoes. His attention rested on the same style of shoes that the Johnston & Murphy Bandits had worn. The look in his eyes told me he suspected something, but it was nothing that could be proven.

  I was a man who had an American flag waving in front of my home.

  I had an American-made 1969, green, four-door, hardtop Buick Wildcat parked out front.

  I was sure they had already probed my bank accounts, but the money in those accounts was modest. They probably knew every Web site I had surfed. They knew every job I had applied for online over the last two and a half years. Big Brother was always watching, but I didn’t appear to be a scapegrace.

  Maybe they thought that Cora and Eddie Coyle had had a shootout over the money, but I doubted that. They knew a person was missing. There was always a driver. Always a wheelman. And the older agent’s eyes told me that he suspected the missing somebody was a man who wore a fedora. But a hat wasn’t enough to convict a man.

  The older agent motioned at my hand and said, “You still have it on.”

  I raised my left hand and stared at it, gazed at that endless circle on my finger.

  He repeated what I had already told him. “Mrs. Knight has been gone since last summer.”

  I nodded. “She left then.”

  “You’re still wearing your wedding ring?”

  “It’s never been off my finger, not since I put it on.”

  Legally I was still Cora’s husband. Her life had been her own, her heart had been given to another man, but her remains, by law, belonged to me. There was a joke in there somewhere.

  I could hear God laughing as he slapped his knee and high-fived a few angels.

  I asked the agents, “What if I don’t claim her remains?”

  The man who looked twice-divorced said, “Up to you, sir.”

  “I’d rather remember her the way she was, before she left here.”

  They stood and stared at me in the awkwardness.

  Men being emotional around other men always generated awkwardness.

  They gave me their final condolences and the men in black headed toward their dark sedan.

  I left the porch light on.

/>   I stood in the window and watched them saunter down my driveway. When they made it to their car, I returned to the kitchen and searched for Cora. I called her name. I whispered her married name. No one was there. No one answered. I went to the back door and looked out into the yard. She wasn’t there either.

  I went inside the bathroom and pulled my shirt back. My left shoulder had a wound that was healing. Cora had shot me with her nine-millimeter. Maybe she had been dizzied by her concussion, and maybe that had spoiled her aim and saved my life.

  I inspected my body. My left leg was healing as well, the bullet having gone through my leg the way a slug had spiraled through Rick’s body.

  I could’ve had it all. Even after all had been said and done, even after the last words I’d said to Cora, the temptation to take that money was magnetic. But I’d made a choice. I left Cora’s dead body on the floor next to Eddie Coyle. Then I put the money on the ground beyond the garage and left Trussville alone and bleeding.

  But Cora’s soul had run and climbed inside the car with me. She had possessed the glow of an angel. She had been as beautiful as she had been on the day I had met her. It was as if my wife had returned to me. If not my wife, then the love she’d had for me had wanted to come back home.

  I shook my head, felt a wave of guilt coming, felt a panic attack.

  Cora was dead. My wife was dead.

  Cora and I had been in a standoff. I felt the weight of the nine-millimeter in my hand. I felt its kick when I pulled its trigger. It had been deafening. My finger squeezed the trigger as I screamed in pain. I saw the bullet hit Cora in the center of her chest. Then, as she staggered, the desire to stay alive made my finger tighten around the trigger and the gun kicked inside my hand again. Her head exploded the same way Sammy’s had exploded. I felt the untamable anger and wailed in madness.

  My fingers loosened and allowed the gun to fall from my hand. I ran to her. The boom from the guns left me deaf, unable to hear my own screams, pleading, crying that I wanted it undone. I had wanted to be the one to die so that Cora could go on living.