Life or Death

by Michael Robotham

  ‘Hello, you’ve reached Texas Crime Stoppers – all calls are confidential. My name is Eileen. How can I help you?’

  ‘Do you offer rewards?’

  ‘We provide financial remuneration for information leading to the arrest and charging of a felony suspect.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘That depends upon the seriousness of the offence.’

  ‘How much could it be?’

  ‘Five thousand dollars.’

  ‘What if I knew the whereabouts of an escaped convict?’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  Cassie hesitates. ‘I think he’s called Audie Spencer Palmer.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Cassie glances at the locked door, having second thoughts.

  ‘Would you like to give me your name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Audie Palmer has a federal warrant out for his arrest. Tell me where you are. I can get officers to come and get you.’

  ‘You said this call was confidential.’

  ‘How are we going to pay you the money, if we don’t know your name?’

  Cassie pauses.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Eileen.

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘You’re in danger.’

  ‘I’m gonna have to call you back.’

  ‘Don’t hang up!’

  23

  Moss drives all the way to Houston with the windows down and the radio turned up loud. Not country music. He prefers listening to classic southern blues about suffering and salvation and women who break your heart. Late afternoon he pulls up outside a white-painted Baptist church with a wooden cross on the front wall above a sign that reads, JESUS DOESN’T NEED TO TWEET.

  He parks in the shade of a crippled elm with a gnarled trunk and roots that are pushing up the cement sidewalk like the world’s slowest earthquake. The church doors are locked, but he follows a side path to a small wooden-framed cottage set on cinder blocks, shaded by more trees. Flowers are growing in neat beds with edges trimmed by the blade of a shovel.

  Moss knocks. A big woman appears behind the screen, leaning on a walking stick.

  ‘I’m not buying anything.’

  ‘Are you Mrs Palmer?’

  She searches for the spectacles on a cord around her neck. Looks at him. Moss steps backwards, so as not to frighten her.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a friend of Audie’s.’

  ‘Where’s that other one?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He knocked earlier. He said he knew Audie. I didn’t believe him and I don’t believe you.’

  ‘My name is Moss Webster. Audie might have mentioned me in his letters. I know he wrote you every week.’

  She hesitates. ‘How do I know that’s you?’

  ‘Audie said you hadn’t been well, ma’am. He said you needed a new kidney. You used to write to him on pink paper with flowers on the border. You have a lovely hand, ma’am.’

  ‘Now you’re just trying to flatter me,’ she says, telling Moss to go around the back of the cottage.

  Sheets are flapping on a line above his head as he turns the corner of the house. She calls from the kitchen and gets him to carry a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses to an outside table that is covered in pecan husks. She fusses over getting it clean and Moss notices an ugly bruise-coloured bulge on her forearm like bubbles of blood are trapped beneath her skin.

  ‘That’s a fistula,’ she says. ‘I’m on dialysis twice a week.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  She shrugs philosophically. ‘Bits have been falling off me since I had babies.’

  Moss sips the lemonade, which is sour enough to make his lips pucker.

  ‘Are you looking for the money?’ she asks.

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  She smiles wryly. ‘Do you know how many people I’ve had visiting me over the last eleven years? Some come with photographs, some have letters they say my Audie has signed. Others come with threats. Caught one of them digging up my yard right over yonder.’ She points to the base of the pecan tree.

  ‘I’m not here about the money.’

  ‘You a bounty hunter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why were you in prison?’

  ‘I did some things I’m not proud of.’

  ‘At least you admit it.’

  He pours himself another glass of lemonade. The condensation has left a ring of moisture on the wooden table. He makes a second circle and draws a wet line between them.

  Mrs Palmer grows misty-eyed talking about Audie winning a scholarship to college and how he was studying to be an engineer until Carl messed it up.

  ‘Where is Carl now?’ asks Moss.

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Are you speaking literally or figuratively?’

  ‘Don’t use fancy words with me,’ she scolds. ‘A mother knows if her boy is dead.’

  Moss raises his hands. ‘I know you’ve talked to the police, Mrs Palmer, but is there anything you didn’t tell them? Places Audie might have gone. Friends.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘What about his girlfriend?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He had a photograph he carried with him everywhere. She was a honey, but he never talked about her – except in his sleep. Belita, that was her name. The only time I ever saw Audie lose his temper was when someone stole that photograph.’

  Mrs Palmer concentrates. For a moment he thinks she might remember something, but the idea is lost.

  ‘I’ve only seen him twice in fourteen years – once when he was lying in a coma and they said he was going to die. Then they said he was going to be brain-damaged on account of the bullet in his head, but he proved them wrong. I saw him on the day he was sentenced. He told me not to worry. What mother isn’t going to worry?’

  ‘Do you know why Audie escaped?’

  ‘No, but I don’t believe he took that money.’

  ‘He confessed.’

  ‘Well if he did, he had a reason.’

  ‘A reason?’

  ‘Audie doesn’t do anything on the spur of the moment. He’s a thinker. Sharp as a tack. He didn’t need to rob someone to make a living.’

  Moss looks into the sky where the light is fading and three birds on the wing are etched clearly like ducks hanging on a white wall. Mrs Palmer is still speaking. ‘If you find my Audie, tell him I love him.’

  ‘I think he knows that, ma’am.’

  As he’s leaving the church grounds, Moss notices a man on the far side of the road. Wearing a black suit, one size too small, he has muddy brown hair that grows into sideburns and then into a beard that looks like a strap holding on a helmet. An old vinyl bag hangs from his shoulder, the zip broken, the inside a black hole.

  He is squatting on his haunches beneath a tree, one hand draped over a knee, the other flicking at the burning end of a cigarette. Moss crosses the road. The man glances up at him and then goes back to watching a line of ants marching past his shoes. Every so often he drops his finger, creating a furrow in the dust. The ants scatter and regroup. Puffing on his cigarette, he holds the burning tip close to the line of ants, watching the insects twist in the heat. Some rear up and want to fight. Others hobble and skitter trying to repair their ruined bodies.

  ‘Do I know you?’ asks Moss.

  The man looks up, letting smoke leak from the corners of his mouth, rising past eyes that have a bleak, almost vicious depth to them. ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Same as you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘We’re both looking for Audie Palmer. We should team up. Share information. Two heads are better than one, amigo.’

  ‘I’m not your amigo.’

  The man bites his thumbnail. Moss steps closer. The man stands. He’s taller than Moss expects and his right foot has pulled behind the left, set at an angle, the posture of someone who has martial
arts training. His pupils seem to dilate to take over the whole of his corneas and his nostrils flare.

  ‘Have you been bothering Mrs Palmer?’

  ‘No more ’n you.’

  ‘I want you to leave her alone.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

  Moss doesn’t try to outstare him. He knows he’ll lose. Instead he wants to get as far away as possible and never think about this man again. At the same time he senses it won’t happen. It’s like knowing that a page is about to turn and the news is going to get worse, but you’re forced to read on to the end.

  24

  Urban Covic was a generous boss who treated Audie with respect and paid him a fair wage. Wherever Urban went in southern California he seemed to be known. The best tables were reserved at restaurants, doors were opened at City Hall and nothing was too much trouble. Yet despite his obvious wealth and influence, Urban seemed to sense that people found him odious. He wasn’t a good-looking man. God had given him a dumpy body and a pigeon-toed walk and protruding eyes. ‘I could have been born handsome and stupid, but I got ugly and wise,’ he once told Audie. ‘I prefer it that way.’

  The bullies of Urban’s youth had been silenced or suitably punished. To this end, he had a few trusted lieutenants who did the heavy lifting, mostly nephews or cousins, who lacked his brains but knew how to physically intimidate.

  Urban had a fleet of different vehicles, all of them American because he saw it as his patriotic duty to support local jobs. Audie would pick him up every morning and Urban would tell him which car to wash and take from the garage. Urban sat in the back and when he wasn’t talking on the phone he liked to read books about Greek legends and to quote headlines from the newspapers – not the LA Times or the San Diego Tribune, but the supermarket rags with shoutlines about alien abductions, celebrity miscarriages and people adopting ape babies.

  ‘This country is so screwed up,’ he’d say, ‘and long may it continue.’

  He also told Audie stories about how he left Las Vegas because the Nevada Gaming Control Board had made it ‘too fucking hard’ and most of the mobsters were forced to the fringes, running girls and illegal crap games.

  ‘So I came here and carved out my niche.’

  Audie thought it was an interesting way of describing Urban’s various business interests, which took in farms, clubs, restaurants and motels.

  A month passed. Despite picking Urban up every morning and dropping him home, Audie hadn’t seen Belita. Urban got off the phone and asked, ‘You play poker?’

  ‘I know the rules.’

  ‘I got a game at the house tonight. There’s an empty chair.’

  ‘I’d be out of my league.’

  ‘If it gets too hot, pull out. Nobody is going to fleece you.’

  Audie thought about seeing Belita again and said yes. He wore a new shirt, polished his boots and put gel in his hair.

  The game had three other players. One of them was a San Diego city counsellor, another a businessman, and the last looked like an Italian mobster with teeth like broken tombstones, stained with red wine and crud.

  The table was set up in a dining room, which had a view over the valley but the light was so low and bright that Audie couldn’t see anything except his own reflection. He could smell food cooking in the kitchen and could hear someone moving around.

  Some time after nine, Urban suggested they take a break. He rang a bell on the sideboard. Belita arrived, carrying a tray of buffalo wings, spiced nuts and Texas caviar: corn chips and guacamole. She was wearing a dress and a long apron cinched tight at her waist. Her plaited hair fell so far down her back it would have touched the crack of her ass if she’d been naked.

  Audie had been fantasizing about this girl for a month and felt himself blush in her presence. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone. After she’d gone the mobster licked barbecue sauce from his fingers and asked Urban where he found her.

  ‘She was picking fruit at the farm.’

  ‘So she’s a wetback,’ said the businessman.

  ‘We’re not supposed to call ’em that any more,’ said the counsellor.

  ‘What should we call them?’ asked the businessman.

  ‘Piñatas,’ said the mobster. ‘Bang ’em hard enough and they cum all over you.’

  The others laughed. Audie said nothing. They played some more. Drank. Ate. He stayed sober. Belita bought more food. The mobster put his hand on her leg and ran it up between her thighs. She flinched and looked at Audie for the first time. Embarrassed. Ashamed.

  The mobster pulled her onto his lap. She raised her hand to slap him. He grabbed it and twisted her wrist until she cried out and he dumped her without ceremony onto the floor. Audie pushed back his chair, his fists bunched, ready to fight.

  Urban intervened and told Belita to go back to the kitchen. The mobster sniffed his fingers. ‘Can’t she take a joke?’

  ‘I think you should apologise,’ said Audie.

  ‘I think you should sit the fuck down and shut your mouth,’ replied the mobster. He looked at Urban. ‘You fucking her?’

  Urban didn’t reply.

  ‘If you’re not, you should be.’

  ‘Let’s just play,’ said Urban, who dealt another hand.

  By 2 a.m. the counsellor and businessman had gone home. Audie had a healthy pile of chips in front of him, but the mobster had the biggest haul. Urban was drunk. ‘I hate this game,’ he said, throwing down his cards.

  ‘How’s about I give you a chance to win it all back?’ the mobster said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘One hand, all in.’

  ‘I didn’t make my money doubling up on a losing streak.’

  ‘Bet the girl.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your housekeeper.’ He pinched a stack of chips and let them fall onto the pile. ‘If you win, you get it all back. I win, I get the girl for the night.’

  Audie glanced at the kitchen door. He could see Belita packing the dishwasher and polishing glasses. Urban looked at the table. He was down five, maybe six thousand.

  ‘Let’s just call it a night,’ Audie said.

  ‘I want to play another hand,’ replied the mobster. ‘You don’t have to play.’ His lips peeled back, showing all his crumbling teeth.

  ‘This is crazy,’ said Audie. ‘You don’t own her.’

  He was talking to Urban, who immediately bristled. ‘What did you say?’

  Audie tried to recover. ‘I’m just saying that she’s done nothing wrong. We’ve had a good night. Let’s go home.’

  The mobster pushed all his chips into the centre of the table. ‘One hand – winner takes all.’

  Urban began shuffling the cards. Audie wanted to upend the table and scatter the cards to the winds. Urban cut the deck. ‘Texas hold’em one hand.’ He glanced at Audie. ‘Are you going down Pussy Lane or Man-Up Road?’

  ‘I’m in.’

  Urban called to the kitchen. Belita appeared. She kept her eyes down, wiping her hands on her apron. Her hair shone in the low-hanging light, creating a halo around her head.

  ‘These gentleman want to bet everything on the table, but I’m out of chips,’ said Urban, looking strangely energised. ‘They’re suggesting I put you up as collateral.’

  She didn’t understand.

  ‘If I lose, one of them gets you for the night, but I’m sure that particular gentleman will be generous with the rest of his winnings.’ He repeated the sentence in Spanish.

  Her eyes went wide. Frightened.

  ‘Now, now, you know we have an agreement. I wouldn’t be too hasty in saying no.’

  She shook her head and pleaded with him. He replied in a voice that seemed to chill her to the bone.

  ‘Pensar en el niño!’

  Audie knew niño meant boy, but couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a statement. Belita wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, smearing a tear.

  ‘Why are we doing this?’ asked Audie.

  ‘I’
m just playing cards,’ said Urban. ‘You’re the ones who want to fuck her.’

  Audie couldn’t look at Belita. She pulled back her shoulders and tried to maintain some dignity, turning away from the table, but her legs were shaking as she walked to the kitchen.

  ‘I want her to watch,’ said the mobster.

  Urban summoned her back. Dealt the cards. Audie drew a seven and a king as his face cards. The flop brought nine, a queen and another seven. He was looking at a pair of sevens. The ‘turn’ and ‘river’ cards were flipped. Audie closed his eyes and opened them: an ace and another seven.

  Urban didn’t keep them waiting. He had two pair. They looked at Audie. Three sevens. The mobster crowed. ‘Don’t these ladies look pretty – especially when they come in threes?’

  Audie stared at the queens on the table and felt his stomach spasm and clench. It wasn’t losing the money that bothered him, it was the look on Belita’s face – not shock or surprise or anger, but resignation, as though this was just another degradation in a long series.

  Urban stood and stretched. His belly poked out of his unbuttoned shirt. He was philosophical about his loss. There would be other nights. Better hands.

  ‘I hope you’re not hung like a horse,’ he said, slipping on his jacket. ‘And I don’t want her bruised or otherwise mistreated. Am I clear?’

  The mobster nodded. ‘I’m staying at the Park Hyatt.’

  ‘Have her back here at noon.’

  ‘I’m too drunk to drive.’

  Urban glanced at Audie. ‘You drive them. Make sure you bring her home.’

  On the journey down the mountain, Belita sat close to the window as though trying to make herself smaller or to disappear completely. The mobster tried to make conversation, but she didn’t answer.

  ‘I know you speak English,’ he said, slurring.

  She kept her head down. Perhaps she was praying or crying. When Audie pulled up outside the hotel, he hopped out and opened the rear door like a proper chauffeur.

  ‘I need a minute with Belita,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ asked the mobster.

  ‘So I can arrange to pick her up.’

  Audie took her to the far side of the car. She looked at him uncertainly. The lights from the hotel lobby reflected in her eyes.