Mostly, the escapees ran until they got tired and then just stood there until they were rounded up. Sometimes they’d steal a car or rob a convenience store, but there was no plan in their lives, no long-term goal. Three, four days, they’d start to get hungry, they’d start to miss that regular life they had in the cells, and they’d call it quits. Detective Rembek believed it was true almost without exception that once an escapee had thought about escape, he was finished thinking.
Were these three going to fit the pattern? Why not? On Rembek’s desk were photos and bios of the three, and there was little in them to make him believe they were going to beat the odds. The two local boys, anyway. Given their histories, their family ties, their dependency on this small area of the world, it was only a matter of time before they’d show up somewhere they’d been before, that they just couldn’t stay away from. A relative, a girlfriend, a bar, a fellow heister. And then the net would scoop them up, put them back where they belonged.
The out-of-towner was the wild card; Ronald Kasper, or whatever his name was. No one had ever escaped from Stoneveldt, but these three had, and neither Marcantoni nor Williams seemed to Rembek the kind of guy to break that cherry. So was Kasper the one who’d made it happen? Was he the one they had to find, the one they had to outthink and outguess, if they were going to collect all three?
Rembek studied the few pictures he had of Kasper. A hard face, bony, like outcroppings of stone. Hard eyes; if they were the windows of the soul, the shades were drawn.
Rembek didn’t pick up any of the pictures, but leaned closer and closer over them, his nose almost touching the surface of the desk. Had this bird gone through plastic surgery some time in the past? Did he have other histories, beyond the broken burglary at the warehouse and the escape from Stoneveldt? Rembek craved the opportunity to interrogate that face, see what was behind those eyes.
Well. There were other ways to come at them. The three escapees now on his desk had three contact points, being the people who had visited them during their time inside; one each. Ronald Kasper had been visited several times by his brother-in-law, named Ed Mackey. Thomas Marcantoni had been visited twice by his brother, Angelo. And Brandon Williams had been visited three times by his youngest sister, Maryenne.
The first of these was the most interesting. After Kasper broke out, police naturally went to the motel where Mackey was living, only to learn he’d checked out that morning, no forwarding address, no useful ID. Detective Rembek doubted very much it was a coincidence that Mackey checked out of his motel in the morning on the same day that Kasper checked out of prison in the afternoon.
The top report on Detective Rembek’s desk told him that no progress had been made in either finding Mackey or learning who he actually was. The next two folders were mostly the results of the wiretaps on Angelo Marcantoni and Maryenne Williams, wiretaps that had been granted by the judge at nine P.M. on Thursday, less than four hours after the escape, and had been in operation ever since. No police officer actually sat next to the recording machine twenty-four hours a day; it was a voice-activated tape, picked up at eight every morning, and four in the afternoon, and midnight.
Angelo Marcantoni, according to the transcript, did very little on the telephone, and then it seemed to be mostly about bowling; if that were a code, as far as Detective Rembek was concerned, Marcantoni was welcome to it. In any event, he appeared to be the law-abiding brother, married, three children, with absolutely no criminal record of any kind and an unblemished work record with a supermarket chain. Detective Rembek thought it unlikely he would risk all that to help a brother who’d been in increasingly serious trouble since he was ten.
As for Maryenne Williams, she appeared to be a young mother who spent all her waking hours on the phone with other young mothers, discussing their babies, discussing their babies’ (mostly absent) fathers, and discussing boys they thought of as “cute” as though they didn’t have trouble enough already. That’s what the MW transcripts had been up till now, and that’s what they looked like for last night, too, boring and tedious to read but necessary.
And then:
11:19 P.M.
MW: Hello?
C: Hi, it’s me.
MW: (audible gasp) Are you okay?
Detective Rembek sat straighter, holding in both hands the paper he was reading.
C: Yeah, I’m fine.
MW: What are you gonna do?
C: I think I gotta go away.
MW: Oh, yeah, you do. You need money?
C: I’m gonna get money in a couple days, I’m okay. I got a good place to stay, and next week I’ll take off.
MW: Listen, uh—
Almost said his name there, Detective Rembek thought.
MW:—you remember Goody?
C: Yeah, that one.
MW: Well, he come around, he said, any way he can help, buy you tickets or stuff, whatever, you should call him, because it wouldn’t be good for me to do anything.
C: No, no, you shouldn’t do anything. I’m just calling—I wanted to tell you I’m okay, and I’ll be going away, next week.
MW: That’s the best thing. If you need help—
C: Goody.
I wish I could hear how he said that name, Detective Rembek thought. Does he think Goody will help him, or does he think Goody isn’t any use? He won’t tell his sister, because she thinks this Goody is all right.
MW: I’m glad you called.
C: Well, yeah, I had to. Listen, kiss Vernon for me.
MW: I will, (crying) Bye, now.
C: Bye, now.
The call had been traced, after the event, to a pay-phone on Russell Street, a nondescript working-class neighborhood. Two police officers were at this moment searching the area, with no realistic expectation of finding anything.
Detective Rembek took notes. Goody; find this fellow Goody, squeeze him a little, see where he leads.
And there was one other thing. Detective Rembek looked back through the transcript and found it:
C: I’m gonna get money in a couple days, I’m okay.
Going to get money in a couple days. Where?
7
It took Buck two days to figure it out. He’d known from the get-go there was something funny going on with that little scumbag Goody, to make him all of a sudden up and leave his sales post early on a Thursday, but he just couldn’t see in his mind what Goody was up to. A family emergency; shit. What would a piece of garbage like Goody be doing with a family?
But if it was something else that took Goody away in the middle of the best sales period of the day, when the workingman wanted a little taste to bring home with him after another eight hours throwing his life away for pennies to the Man, what was it? I’m not stupid, Buck reminded himself. If there’s something there, and there’s got to be something there, what the hell is it?
Of course he saw all the stuff on the television Thursday night about the three boys broke out of Stoneveldt prison, and he even noticed that one of them was a brother, but he never made the connection. And he didn’t make that connection because he didn’t think about the police scanner in brother Goody’s car until Goody forgot and left it on that Saturday evening when he swung by the Land Rover to turn in the day’s cash and stash. With both windows open, Buck’s Land Rover and Goody’s Mercury, all of a sudden there was that harsh cop-radio voice, jabber-jabber-jabber, until Goody quickly reached down and switched it off. And even then Buck didn’t put two and two together, because he was distracted by business, there being three more salesmen to report in, and it wasn’t until he was dealing with the second of those that he suddenly saw the light.
The brother’s on the run. Big-time manhunt, all the cops excited because these three guys rubbed their nose in it, escaped from their im-preg-nable slammer, and Buck knew what that meant. And he knew that Goody would instantly know what that meant, too.
Reward.
He’s got a connection to the brother, Buck told himself. He’s looking to collect; turn th
e boy in and collect, without telling his best friend—and employer, don’t forget—Buck.
“Leon,” he said to the bodyguard in the passenger seat up front, “call my mama, tell her bring the Lincoln up, leave it out front. Raydiford,” he said to the bodyguard at the wheel, “as soon as Hector check in, you drop Leon and me at the Lincoln, then take Rover and all this shit to the store.”
Leon looked happy. “We goin somewhere?”
“We’re goin callin,” Buck told him.
One thing you could say for Goody; he didn’t put all his profits in his nose. A lot of them, they could only function at all because they were too scared of Buck to allow themselves to fuck up totally, but Goody had a brain and knew how to stay on plan.
Look at his house. An actual real house, not some rathole apartment in the very slums you’re dealing so you can get out of. Not as good a place, of course, as Buck’s horse ranch out in the country, but for a street dealer not bad; a big sprawling brick home with a wide porch on the front and sides, late nineteenth century, set on a wide lawn amid similar houses in a residential section that had been a suburb when the doctors and the college professors first built their places out here. That had been before cars, so some of these places still didn’t have garages, just driveways, including Goody’s, and there was his Mercury now, parked beside his house. Goody was home.
A telephone company truck was in front of the house, a lineman in a cherry picker doing something at the top of the pole, so Leon had to drive beyond it and pull the Lincoln in at the curb in front of the house next door. Buck, spread out in back, waited while Leon came trotting around to open his door, and then the two of them went up to Goody’s house, stepped up onto the wide wood-floored porch, and Leon rang the doorbell.
They had to wait a pretty long time, and Buck was just about to tell Leon to bust the door in, when it opened, and there stood a white girl, college girl, in blue jeans and white tank top, coked to the eyebrows. She frowned through her personal mist at Buck and Leon and said, “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“Not a thing,” Buck said, and brushed by her.
She tottered, very shaky, but didn’t fall down because she still had a good hold of the doorknob. “Hey!” she cried, but her outrage was unfocused, and she didn’t seem to notice when Leon copped a feel on the way by.
You can take the boy out of the pisshole, but you can’t take the pisshole out of the boy. There was barely any furniture at all in these big echoing rooms with the good old wood floors. In the front room, a television set with its other machines sat on an assemble-it-yourself bookcase from the home center, full of tapes and DVDs. Two big white wicker chairs with peacock-tail backs stood across the room, facing the TV, with a couple of mismatched shitty little tables, table lamps standing on the floor, telephone on the floor.
Pool table in the next room, what would have been the dining room, with two scruffy backless couches along one wall. And here came Goody, out of what must be the kitchen, a beer bottle in one hand, cigar in the other.
He came out of there full of swagger, a tough guy, wanting to know what the commotion was at his front door, but when he saw Buck he stumbled, next to the pool table, and got scared. He didn’t know yet what the problem was, but if Buck himself was all of a sudden in Goody’s house, Goody knew it was time to get scared.
“Hey, Buck,” he said. “You didn’t tell me you were comin over, man.”
“I was in the neighborhood,” Buck told him, but he didn’t bother to smile. He said, “You been in touch with Brandon Williams yet?”
Surprise, and being scared, made Goody stupid. He said, “Who?”
Now Buck did smile, in a not-friendly way. “Think of that, Leon,” he said. “This fool here’s the only man, woman, or child in this city never heard of Brandon Williams.”
“Oh, Brandon Williams!” Goody cried, acting out all kinds of sudden recognition. “I didn’t connect the name, you know, all of a sudden like that.”
“Leon,” Buck said, “go hit that fool, like he was a TV wouldn’t come into focus.”
“No, wait, Buck—Aa!”
Buck looked at him, leaning against the wall. In the front room, the college girl had sat in one of the peacock wicker chairs and was gazing at the television set, which was turned off. Buck said, “You in focus now, fool?”
“Just tell me, Buck,” Goody begged him. The beer bottle and cigar were both at his feet, but he paid them no attention. “All you gotta do is tell me,” he said. “You know I come through for you.”
Buck said, “Tell me about your family emergency, Thursday.”
A whole lot of lies hovered just inside Goody’s trembling lips, Buck could see their meaty wings in there, but finally Goody wasn’t that big a fool, and what he said was, “The police scanner. I heard it on the scanner.”
“Brandon Williams is outa the box.”
“His sister, his little sister, Maryenne, she’s an old friend of mine, Buck. A good girl, I like her, not like this white trash here, I thought, I gotta go be there when she finds out, I gotta tell her myself, so it won’t be that big of a, you know, a shock.”
“Reward money,” Buck said.
“Aw, no, Buck,” Goody said, because he was still to some extent a fool, “I wanna help that girl, old-friend like—”
“Leon,” Buck said, “He’s losin his focus.”
“No, Buck, I—Aaoww! Listen, don’t—Ohh! Owww!”
“Okay, Leon,” Buck said, “let’s see is he tuned in.”
“Jesus, Buck, he’s gonna break somethin on me, don’t do this, man.”
“Tell me your story, Goody.”
Goody looked at the beer bottle at his feet. Most of the beer had spilled onto the floor, but a little was left in the bottle, visible through the green glass. Goody licked his lips. “Uhh,” he said. He met Buck’s eyes, wincing, and nodded, and said, “I called her, on the cell. Her cell, from my cell. When I heard on the scanner. I went over there, you know, her place, told her, she can’t help her brother, cops be all over her, watchin, see what she—”
“Move it along, Goody,” Buck said.
Goody nodded, quickly. “She says okay,” he said. “We both know he’s gonna call her, she’s gonna tell him, call good old Goody, he’ll help out, get you airplane tickets, whatever.”
Buck said, “When did he call?”
“He didn’t yet,” Goody said, then looked wide-eyed at Leon, then back at Buck: “Honest to God! I figured, tomorrow morning, I’d go over there, see Maryenne again, after her and her family get outa church.”
“Churchgoing people,” Buck said.
“I told you,” Goody said, “she’s a good girl, she’s okay, I wanna help out, I really do, Buck.”
“You want that reward,” Buck said.
Goody spread his hands. “What reward? I didn’t see nothing about no reward. If you know about—”
“Leon.”
“Buck, no! Aii! Ow! Oh, no! All right, Buck, I—Ow! Gee-ziz! I said right! Ow! Stop! Ow!”
“All right, Leon,” Buck said. To Goody he said, “It’s when I say all right that Leon hears it.”
“Ohhh. I can’t stand up no more, Buck.”
“We could nail you to the wall, you like.”
“Buck, please.”
“This Brandon Williams,” Buck said, “he’s gonna call his sister. Then he’s gonna call you. Right?”
“That’s the plan. That’s the plan, Buck.”
“When he calls you,” Buck said, “the second thing you’re gonna do is call the police, start the negotiation. What’s the first thing you’re gonna do, Goody?”
“I’m gonna call you,” Goody said. He was very subdued now. He didn’t like the situation, but he knew he was defeated. He was also in pain.
“That’s right,” Buck said. ’You call me first, then you can go on and do the negotiation with the law, same as you planned. You’ll collect the reward, same as you already figured.”
Trying to look hope
ful, Goody said, “And we split it, right?”
“We’ll work that out, Goody,” Buck said. “Okay, Leon, we’re done here.”
They left Goody huddled against the wall. Going through the front room, Buck nodded at the college girl and said, “You oughta wring that out before you put it back where you found it.”
“That’s what I planned on, Buck,” Goody said. His voice was high, with a new tremble in it. “But now,” he said, “I think I just gotta rest awhile.”
Outside, the telephone company truck was gone. Some other emergency taken care of, working this late on a Saturday night.
8
Hold on, Brenda,” Ed Mackey said. He held tight to her hips, felt her knees press to both sides of his rib cage, and looked up at her grinning grimace as she concentrated on that inner rhythm, bore down, eyes staring at some point inside her own head. “Hold on, Brenda, hold on.”
“You know,” she muttered, “you know, you know, come along with me, you know, you know—”
“Hold on—”
“Come along with me!”
“Hold oonnn!”
He thrust endlessly upward, back arched, and she shivered all over like a bead curtain. “Oh!” she cried. “You know!”
The shower stall, when they got to it five minutes later, was big enough for them both. This was one of the most expensive top-floor rooms in one of the most expensive hotels in the city, and Brenda had been checked in here for five days now, ever since Parker had told Mackey when he and the other two would be coming out of Stoneveldt. Mackey had kept the old motel room for himself until Thursday, and was not registered in this hotel, was merely a visitor, because he’d known, once Parker was out, the law would want to have a word or two with the guy who’d been coming to see Parker inside.
So Brenda was here to give him somewhere else to wait out the jewelry job, and she was here because Mackey believed, when the cops were looking for somebody, they looked first in places at the same economic level where they’d known the guy to live before. So let them spend a week on cut-rate motels; by the time they thought to look at someplace like the Park Regal, Mackey and Brenda would be long gone from here.
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