by McNay, Dan
“Jesus.”
It had been a while since she’d had an uncircumcised cock in her mouth. It wasn’t very big. His hand was gently on her hair. She looked up at him. They really liked that, the looking up, every one of them. He tried to smile.
She bit down on him as hard as she could muster and he screamed. He tried to get up. She grabbed the gun from his hand and bit until she could taste blood. He pounded her head with his fist. They both fell over sideways on the floor. Letting go, she jumped back. The other guy came through the door and she shot him in the leg and he fell. She scooted out of their way and pulled herself up by the doorknob and fired the gun at the floor between them.
“You fuckers move and I will shoot your fucking brains out! You understand?”
They were struggling, both in pain, but neither tried getting up.
“Ladies! I need your help!” she yelled.
Rosa looked in.
“Go to the kitchen and bring back a roll of tape that’s on the counter. Understand? And bring back your friend.”
The two she had cooked dinner with returned with the duct tape. They secured the second guy’s hands behind his back and his ankles together. And she told them to tape over the spot on his leg where she shot him, hoping that would stop the blood flow. They did the big guy the same way. His penis wasn’t looking good. She got a towel from the bathroom and tucked it around it. The guy seemed to be in shock. She needed to do something with him pretty quick.
She looked at the two women.
“What do we do with them?” she asked.
“They were taking us to work on a farm,” Rosa said. “I need to work. Like the rest of us.”
“Well, we’ll figure something out.” She shook her head. She motioned to the one she had shot. “Rosa, ask the guy to write down where they were taking you. The address. There’s paper and a pencil out in the kitchen too. Or you write it down for him.”
She came back in a second and the guy was cooperative. Daydee left them to go call the cops. A sleepy answering service girl answered. Small towns. She told the girl to find someone, not to just pass the message along. When she came back Rosa handed her the paper.
“Ok, come with me.”
She took them to garage door and opened it.
“Get the other women and come in here and hide at the far end and sit on the floor and don’t make a sound. I am your friend. You will get to where you need to go. You have to trust me.”
Rosa smiled.
“I trust animal que come pene.”
They ushered the other women into the garage and disappeared into the darkness. While she waited for the sheriff, she tried to give the two men some water, but only the one with the gunshot wound would take any. The one she had bit looked bad. He didn’t respond and looked clammy.
The Paris Police Department called her back. Daydee told the guy an ambulance was needed immediately. Both the cops and ambulance came at the same time. Another car arrived. Rob’s sheriff car.
Rob spent time with the two young Paris policemen the paramedic and the two coyotes, before he came out to talk to her. This was his case, he told her, his jurisdiction, but he was going to let the PPD officer interview her since he knew her personally. The young cop came with his notebook and they sat in the kitchen. She told it pretty much the way it happened, without mentioning the women. She showed them the broken window.
The paramedic loaded the coyotes into the ambulance and left with the second PPD officer.
“Sorry you had to go through this. Are you all right?” Rob asked.
She nodded.
“We have a lot of these people coming through here. The farmers want the illegals because they work for nothing.”
“They both acted like they had been here before,” she told him.
“That may be. We don’t have much of a budget for graveyard staffing. Your mother might have told them how to avoid us.”
“And the drug trafficking to Chicago?” Daydee looked at him. “My mother paid people to ignore things?”
“I thought we were friends, Deidra.”
“We are. I’m just trying to figure out what I’ve gotten myself into.”
“Bigger fish to fry?” he asked.
Damn this little town. Everyone knew everyone’s business. Or had Edward told him to back off?
“No. I’ll call you.”
“Uh-huh.”
Rob was not happy. She watched him out front with the young policeman, until they finally separated and drove away. Bringing her charges in from the garage, she made up beds for them in the living room and taped up a piece of cardboard over the broken window. She told Rosa that she would deliver them where they wanted to go the next day. And everyone tried to go to sleep, but Daydee didn’t think any of them did. She lay awake thinking about John. She owed him a letter, but didn’t know what to write about. He was further away than ever. She was having serious doubts about encouraging him. Their entire relationship had been based on drinking together. What could it possibly be with a child in the picture and both of them sober? What if he turned out to be the clingy kind? It had been years since she had actually slept all night in a bed with a man. It would be very strange. One of them had snored. Who was that? The boyfriend she had tried out – that college student that was slumming it. He had been cute and kind, but way out of her league. He had gone back to college.
She would have to write John and just tell him the truth.
It was getting warm. She turned to her other side. The day was bright outside. Her jaw still ached. Damn the son-of-a-bitch.
She needed to go to the doctor. She was afraid of going, of being told that there was a problem with her or that there was something seriously wrong with the baby. That had to change, she told herself. She could not know what was right if there were complications. She couldn’t deliver the baby by herself. She would go tomorrow after she got rid of these women.
Sarah probably knew a good one.
And what about that? A roll in the hay with a woman you’re attracted to? That was hot and so scary. A mother you never had? A wife? Women could be so mean to each other. She didn’t really want to be made to cry by anyone ever again. John was the one person she knew in the whole world that would never make her cry. How did she know that?
* * *
She awoke sweaty. It was hot in the bedroom. All the windows were closed. She must have slept a little bit.
The women were already up and had breakfast waiting for her. She sat with Rosa and figured out where the coyotes were supposed to take them. The women were piled into the back of the pickup and she gave them blankets to hide under. It would be hot, but she couldn’t think of any other way. If they stayed below the sides of the truck bed, they wouldn’t have to stay covered for the entire trip. She explained this to Rosa who told the others. They needed a van or something like that to get them up there. It was a farm near Champaign, about seventy miles north. She suddenly realized that the coyotes had to have a vehicle. She left them in the truck and went around the house to look, figuring they might have hidden it out back. Nothing. She came back to Rosa. They needed to get moving. She was afraid of neighbors driving by or the cops coming and getting suspicious.
“Rosa, how did you get here last night?”
“There was a van. They were supposed to come back and get us tonight.”
“Stay put. I have to get something from the house and we’ll get out of here.”
She went back and brought out two of the boxes of money. That was all she could carry and she didn’t want to waste more time trying to bring more. If she was robbed while she was gone, at least she would have saved part of it. One she put on the floorboards in the passenger side of the cab and the other just on the seat, because it wouldn’t fit anywhere else. She locked up and took off.
A stop for gas was at a self-serve and there wasn’t anyone around but the cashier at the window.
This was a disaster in the making. She was sure she would get pulle
d over at some place on the highway, probably in some small-town speed trap and they would find her truck bed filled with hiding illegals and two boxes of cash in her cab. Try to sweet talk your way out of that. Why was she so suddenly generous? She knew poverty. She knew about being a woman out in the world trying to survive in a very unsympathetic world. This was a sudden new way of looking at things. She owned land. She had money. If she didn’t get busted, she was empowered. Her whole life was almost getting busted or getting busted. It no longer meant anything serious. Unless it was for what she was doing now. No more needing anybody’s help. No more needing anybody to like her and give her things. She could be generous.
She turned the radio on and rolled the windows down. Her hair was going to be a disaster in the days to come. It was only seventy miles. All she needed was a beer in her crotch and a pack of cigarettes and life would be perfect. Maybe a little Dolly Parton on the radio. If she could sing, that’s who she’d be. A hand reached into her window, startling her. She swerved. One of the women had reached around to hand her a bandana for her hair. Grabbing the offering, she pulled off to get her breath. Jesus Christ! She smiled through the back window and put it on. She modeled it for the one that had handed it to her. The women nodded, smiling.
The drive went quickly. No speed traps. Nobody really out. She stopped on the highway near the entrance to the farm. There were some trees, for the women to run from the truck and hide behind. Daydee scooped some money from the box in the cab. She walked over and gave each woman five twenty dollar bills.
Their eyes were as wide as a doper’s.
“I trust animal que come pene,” Rosa said softly, smiling.
She hugged her and jumped in the truck.
Daydee spent a long time going home. Stopping in every little town on her way back, she found a bank, opened an account and rented a safe deposit box, and filled the box up with cash. This took most of the day and the boxes were empty by the time she reached Paris. There was her nest egg.
And she didn’t get busted. And she had a very nice lunch in an odd restaurant, The Amishland Buffet, a giant red barn out in the middle of nowhere. The waitress had been very sweet. The idea of driving a half hour each way to be a waitress in a cheesy giant Midwest restaurant out in the middle of God’s country seemed somehow a fate worse than death, but the girl was quite happy with her life.
* * *
The house was untouched when she got home. The next morning, she started out again with the rest of the money and drove to Terre Haute. All in safety deposit boxes scattered from here to there. The money locked away made her happy. There wouldn’t be any need to return to Paris if something happened. She stopped at a high-end department store in Terre Haute and bought a couple of nice maternity dresses as a present to herself. The first of the trees by where she was parked were starting to change color. They were maples, she thought. Today it felt like someone was giving her a bouquet. What would the rest of the autumn look like? She wondered what the tree where her father lived would look like soon. Then she thought of the winters. Surely he wasn’t out there last winter. It snowed here, sometimes heavily. She would have to get him out of there in the next month.
On the way home, she brought him a couple of meals. She even carried the bag with two dresses down with her. She was going to show him. But he wasn’t around.
* * *
At home, that evening, she tried to write John again, but it just wasn’t coming out right.
There was a knock on the door. It was the Chief of Police, the little guy with the goatee who had been out to the cemetery that day. He wanted a word with her. He wouldn’t sit. He seemed to be interested in who had taken the report when they came to take the coyotes away. She told him that it was one of his officers, with the sheriff’s blessing.
“The sheriff wasn’t in the room with you?”
“No, not that I remember.”
“And you didn’t know the Mexicans?”
“No. The sheriff seemed to think that it was something that my mother had arranged. That she was renting this house out as a stopover for illegal farm workers.”
“There were only the two men?”
“Just the two.”
“Did the sheriff know them or talk to them?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Is there anything else you know? Did the sheriff mention anything to you later on?”
“Nothing.”
He went away. It occurred to her that the van that had brought the women to the house had not come back. Or it came back after she had left with them. She went back to trying to write the letter, but now she was worried about what she had done with the women. Had someone seen her drive off with them? She wadded the sheet of paper and tried again. After five wadded up pieces of paper she gave up.
* * *
She put on the new maternity dress that she bought in Terre Haute. It suited her to a tee, she thought. It will scare the hell out of him. It made her look younger, sort of a Hindu hippie print. She worked on the hair and the make-up. She wanted him as turned on as she could get him. They drink too quickly then. They get confused. He was scary. She wanted him off guard.
Edward showed up at the door with flowers in hand. Lilies. He was quiet. Offered to help her put them in a vase. Even offered assistance in arranging them so they looked good in the center of the kitchen table. He immediately spotted the picture she had left out. It was one of her collected pictures from her imaginary life. It gave the johns something to talk about. It was a black and white instant print she had found in a thrift store in New Orleans. A woman in a big sun hat with a boy on her knee. It looked like the New Orleans Jazz Festival was going on behind her. You couldn’t see the woman’s face, but her boobs were as big as hers. And the boy looked blonde and about six or seven. The married ones with children liked it.
“The New Orleans Jazz Festival. He was six,” Daydee told him. Why the hell was she doing this?
He put it back gently. They went out to his fancy black car. He held the door for her.
“You’ve had a little excitement at your house,” he said.
“News gets around fast.”
“Just for us in the know.”
“The coyotes were the reason you hadn’t broken in yourself?” she asked him.
“Didn’t know when or how many. It’s not clear how many. We looked the other way for our cut. You were lucky this time.”
“I have to hand it to her. Hide the stash where the criminals and smugglers can guard it for you,” she said.
Edward looked at her with genuine surprise.
“It was there?” he asked.
“The money has flown away to safe little nests out there in the trees.”
“Some of it belonged to me.”
“Finders keepers. So sue me.”
“Deidre, I’m trying to be a friend here. Let’s relax. The money isn’t important to me now. You are welcome to it. Things change.”
“You have been nice for a change.”
“There may be more coming through,” he said. “I can help.”
“I am beyond relying on anyone for anything. I thought a big vicious dog and a good shotgun would work just fine. Maybe you could remind your buddy the sheriff that he’s supposed to be out there catching the bad guys.”
“He’s not happy right now. Let’s not talk about him.”
They arrived at probably the only good restaurant in Paris. It appeared that the town couldn’t really afford the country club thing, so this was the next best place available. A family-run restaurant that stayed open late and had good wine. He even motioned to the waiter to have her sample the wine before they served it. She could like this. There was a guy at the piano in the adjoining bar. The music and his voice drifted out to them.
“You know tongues will wag,” she told him.
“So, tell me about your life,” he said.
“You first.”
He was pleased.
“I went to Indiana o
n a football scholarship, stayed to go to law school. And then came back here.”
“You guys won all those games you were always playing?”
He laughed.
“We were hot stuff. Jack and I. Winston got offered an assistant coaching job at IU, but he didn’t take it.”
“That’s it? You’re a big-time lawyer in Paris for a lot of years?”
“I make money. Money is good. Most of the businessmen I know have done well by bending things a little so they work better. Atlas Shrugged… you ever read that book?”
“I think I’ve heard of it.”
“You don’t strike me as anyone who ever cried over spilt milk.”
“You have no idea what a pregnancy does to your tear ducts.”
“Well, I did it once. I’m sorry you are friends with my ex-wife. I’m sure she’s telling you horrible things.”
“Not yet.”
There was a small moment of what to say or ask next.
“I’m running for state senator in the spring; to try it out, to see if I like it.”
“All that limelight. To go to Washington?”
“The state senator job for the state assembly. In Springfield, not that glamorous.”
Their dinners were served. The food was good, though a little Midwest bland. She hadn’t eaten this well in a while. She smiled. But she was rich now. She could bring herself.
“What do you have planned?”
“The baby. Then I’m not sure, besides trying to be a good mom.”
“The father doesn’t want to be around?”
“He’s in prison.”
“I heard that from someone.”
“Me and my big mouth,” Daydee said.
“You don’t want him around maybe.”
“I really don’t know.”
“You have other family? To help, I mean. Your boy?”
Daydee shrugged at him. She knew all of this was loaded.
“You know you are still a gorgeous woman. You could have anything you want from anybody.”