In Your Arms

by Roy Glenn

  It might be his wife looking for him.

  The peephole revealed nothing, so Yvonne reluctantly said, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Yvonne, I forgot my key.”

  Yvonne opened the door and was shocked to see the two men that were waiting by her car in the parking lot the night before.

  “Good to see you again, Yvonne.” The first man said as he slapped her. Yvonne fell to the floor and tried to crawl away. The second man snatched her up from the floor.

  “Love what you’ve done to your hair.” He slapped her too, picked her up and threw her on the bed. “Where is it, Yvonne?” The first man said pointing his gun at her.

  “Where is what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her heart pounded. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Check the room. But don’t make a mess.”

  The other man searched the room and found nothing.

  “I’m not going to ask you again, Yvonne. Where is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screamed.

  The man grabbed Yvonne by her hair and punched her in the eye. He drew back and was about to punch her again.

  “It’s not here!” Yvonne yelled.

  “Where is it?”

  “I can’t get it until tomorrow.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to keep you company until then.”

  He grabbed Yvonne by the hair again and pulled her to the door.

  “Now, we’re going to walk through that lobby. If you scream or try to run, I’ll kill you. It don’t matter to me; I’ll still get paid.”

  At nine o'clock that night, Marcus returned to his room, armed with a new wardrobe and a bottle of Hennessy.

  “Yvonne. You here?”

  He put down his packages and looked around. He had thoughts all day about Yvonne and hoped that she would be there when he got there, but she was gone. He sat down on the couch. He could smell the scent of Yvonne’s perfume. It made him smile.

  Throughout the day, Marcus allowed himself to slip into the fantasy of Yvonne standing by and supporting him through his divorce from Randa, and then they would get married.

  “Maybe she’ll be back.”

  He poured himself a glass of Henny. He stayed up, waiting for Yvonne to come back until he fell asleep after two in the morning.

  The following morning, Marcus woke up and slowly came to the realization that he would never see Yvonne again. He tried to shrug it off as if it didn’t matter. But it did. The truth of the matter was that nine years ago he had fallen in love with Yvonne. He thought that her coming back into his life on the very day that he left his wife was some kind of sign. He put his dream down and prepared to go to the office.

  He arrived at his office after 1:00 to see his first client. After they left, Janice told him, “This package came addressed to Yvonne Haggler. I was wondering why you seemed so happy today.”

  Marcus took the package from Janice and carried it in his office, closing the door behind him. He was overjoyed. He jumped up and down and danced around like a kid on Christmas morning. This meant he would see Yvonne again. He put the package in his desk and locked it.

  At 4:00 Yvonne called.

  “Hello, Yvonne. How—”

  Yvonne had no time for pleasantries. “Did a package come for me?”

  “It came about an hour ago.”

  “Marcus, I need you to bring it to me right now.”

  “What’s wrong, Yvonne? Are you in trouble? Should I call the police?”

  “Marcus, everything is fine. I just need that box as soon as you can.” Yvonne said, trying to sound as calm as she could with someone listening on the other line and a gun pointed at her head. “I’m in the West End on Peters and Whitehall. There’s a warehouse on the corner. Just come inside, I’ll be waiting there for you. When do you think you can get here?”

  Marcus looked at his watch. “I should be there in about an hour.”

  “Good, I’ll see you then.”

  “Yvonne.”

  “Yes, Marcus.”

  “Maybe when you get finished with your business we can have dinner.”

  “Marcus.” She said frantically. Then she calmed down. “I’d like that.”

  “Then it’s a date. I’ll see you in an hour.” Marcus hung up the phone and called Janice. He told her to clear his calendar for the rest of the day. “For the rest of the week, Janice. I need some time off. Maybe I’ll take a trip.”

  “Marcus, I know you’re hurt. I know you want to get back at Randa for what she did. But give yourself a chance to heal.”

  “Thanks, Janice. Sometimes I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  Marcus finished up his paperwork as quick as he could in anticipation of seeing Yvonne. He drove downtown, stopping on the exit ramp to buy a red rose for Yvonne, wondering if she would like to go to Aruba with him.

  Won’t that piss Randa off? Marcus thought and smiled. Not that I care. She gets what she gets now.

  He arrived at the warehouse and went inside. When he came through the door, Yvonne came to meet him. Marcus saw her swollen eye.

  “Yvonne, are you all right?”

  “Thanks for bringing this to me, Marcus.” Yvonne said loud enough for her new friends to hear. She took the box from Marcus and whispered, “Wait for me outside. Have the car running.” She looked over her shoulder. “Sorry I can’t do dinner, but call me tomorrow and we’ll do lunch.” She took the rose and kissed him. “Please, Marcus, just go.” She whispered and turned away.

  Yvonne looked back as Marcus walked quickly to the door. Once Marcus made it safely out the building, she tried to hand the men the box. “Open it.”

  They watched closely as Yvonne put the box down on the table and opened it. She handed the bag to them. The bag was opened. While one busied himself with the papers, the other smiled at the money and Yvonne removed the nine from the box. She fired two shots, returned the papers to the envelope, put them back in the bag, picked up her rose and headed for the door.

  When Marcus heard the shots coming from the warehouse, it only served to increase his already heightened sense of anxiety, to say the least. He got out of the car and had just reached the door when Yvonne came out.

  “What happened in there?”

  “Not now, Marcus, we gotta get outta here. Get in the car and let’s go!” Yvonne shouted as she walked quickly behind Marcus.

  Marcus got in the car and drove away quickly.

  “What happened? Are you all right?” he said to Yvonne as he looked in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m fine, Marcus, just drive.”

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go. Just drive.”

  “Okay, we’ll go back to my hotel.”

  “No, they know about that. That’s where they found me.”

  “Who is they? What are you involved in?”

  “Not now, Marcus, please. I need to think. Go to a hotel near the airport.”

  “Did you kill those men?”

  “Yes, Marcus, I killed them. Now, please just let me think for a minute.”

  “Why, Yvonne? Why did you kill them?”

  “They would have killed me and you too!” Yvonne yelled. “Is that a good enough reason for you?”

  “It has something to do with that box, doesn’t it? What have you got me mixed up in?”

  “I don’t know, Marcus. I really just don’t know what this is all about.” Yvonne took a deep breath. “Please, Marcus, I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get settled.”

  Marcus looked in the rearview mirror again. “Well, it doesn’t look like the police or anybody is following us.” He said, not really sure if he said it to reassure Yvonne or himself.

  “This isn’t a movie, Marcus. The police aren’t on our tail.”

  He looked at the bag at Yvonne’s feet. She had just killed two men over that bag. Marcus said nothing else as he drove to the Hilton near the airport. As they entered the
hotel Yvonne stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Marcus asked.

  “Do you have cash?”

  “No. I was going to put it on my credit card.”

  “No. Let’s go to an ATM.”

  “There’s one.” Marcus said, pointing at the ATM in the lobby.

  “No. They can track your credit card transactions. Go to a bank; and not one close to here either.”

  They left the Hilton and got back in the car. Marcus drove past three bank ATM machines before stopping at a Bank of America. With cash in hand, they returned to the Hilton. Once they got in the room, Marcus went straight to the mini bar. He poured a drink and downed it. He poured another drink.

  “I’d like one too, if it’s not too much trouble.” Yvonne lay down on the bed and Marcus brought her a drink. “Thank you, Marcus. And thank you for my rose. It was sweet of you.”

  Marcus lit a cigarette and sat down on the bed. “You’re welcome. It’s not every day I give a woman a rose right before she kills somebody.” Marcus posted an uneasy smiled. Yvonne let out a little laugh. “What’s going on, Yvonne?”

  “Give me a drag of your cigarette.” Marcus handed Yvonne his cigarette and she inhaled deeply and blew out the smoke.

  “I’m a courier, Marcus. Those men were assassins sent to kill me and recover the contents of that bag. There’s a hundred thousand dollars and some papers in there. I don’t know what’s on the papers. It’s in some language, I don’t know which. I think that just about covers it.”

  “A courier?”

  “I travel to different places and pick up things from one person and deliver them to another.”

  “I know what a courier is, Yvonne. Why do you do it? Is it excitement?”

  “No, I do it for money.”

  “Money?”

  “Yes, Marcus, for money. Isn’t that why most people do things?”

  “I know that. But you’ve got money.”

  “I’m broke, Marcus.”

  “Broke? What do you mean broke? The way I had you set up; you should have been able to live comfortably.”

  “It’s a long story, Marcus.”

  “We seem to have plenty of time. We’re not going anywhere.”

  Yvonne and Marcus lay on the bed quietly for the next two hours, sharing cigarettes, drinking and thinking. Marcus thought about how the events of the day would affect him. He was now an accessory to murder. Not only was he going to jail, but also he would be disbarred. In two days, he had lost his wife, his career, and his freedom. He looked at Yvonne, eyes closed, smoking the cigarette he had just handed her.

  She opened her eyes and noticed him staring at her. She handed him the cigarette and closed her eyes. Marcus desperately wanted to know what was going on. Not only to satisfy his curiosity, but also to begin planning their defense. If those men were actually trying to kill her, then their deaths were, in reality, self-defense. But Yvonne had shut down.

  Yvonne, for her part, had just a bit more on her plate. Things were pretty cut and dry for Marcus, but her world was much more complicated. She felt badly for involving Marcus in her mess, but what’s done is done. There was no turning back now, but he was entitled to an explanation.

  “When I left here, Marcus, I was set. I was twenty-one, rolling a Benz, nice little condo in Northridge, and more money than I ever dreamed possible. And thanks to you, it just kept rolling in. I was getting dividend checks just about every week from companies I’d never heard of. I just knew it would never run out. I was spending money buying whatever I thought I wanted … clothes mostly. Bought a house for Mama and sent my whole family money. And traveling. I loved to travel. I had never been anywhere, never seen anything. My eyes had opened up to a whole new world, and it was mine to command. I went everywhere, did everything I wanted. Even took my newfound fake friends on a cruise. All expenses paid by me, of course. I was a fool, a foolish young girl with money. I remember my papa telling me that a fool and his money are soon parted. Well, that’s exactly what happened to me. I remember going to New York one day with this guy I met the night before. We had dinner at a French restaurant. After we left, we caught a cab to go back to the hotel and we were talking about how the food wasn’t that good and how the service was poor. He said, ‘Too bad we can’t have dinner in France.’ I told the cab driver to take us to the airport. Next day we were in France having late supper with a view of the tower.”

  “You were out the box, Yvonne.”

  “A fool. A damn fool. After awhile I found that I was running out of money. The checks were still coming, but that wasn’t enough.”

  “You could have changed your lifestyle.”

  “Marcus, that would have been too much like right. I had met this guy named Paris. He’s the type who’s into everything, knows everybody. You know the type. Anyway, we were hanging out and I was telling him about my money problems, and he asked me if I would do some work for him as a courier. I told him no, so he introduced me to Tom Mack.”

  “The lawyer you gave power of attorney to.”

  “The same. He told me that if I let him make some investments for me that I would be set for life. I would be able to quadruple my money in less than a month. So, I gave him fifty thousand dollars. Three weeks later he wrote me out a check for two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You want me to tell you what happened next?”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “Old Tom Mack tells you that you could have the check, or you could reinvest it, and since the market conditions are right, you could make half a million dollars.”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  Marcus smiled. “Old scam.”

  “Yeah, well the fool fell for it. Two weeks later he called me and said that we were close to flipping that money, but he was on to something else that had the potential to be far more lucrative. I told him that I was just about broke, and that fifty I gave him was really all I had to invest. When I told him that—” Yvonne laughed. “I’ll never forget that conversation, Marcus. It changed my life.”

  Tom Mack said, “Well, Yvonne, in another week you’ll have half a million dollars. But I hate for you to miss out on this.”

  “I do too, Tom, but there’s nothing I can do until I get some more money.”

  “Well maybe there is.”

  “What’s that?” Yvonne said greedily.

  “Paris mentioned to me that you had some investments that were providing you with a nice dividend income.”

  “Go on.”

  “If I had control of those investments I might be able to leverage those gains on this new deal and make it happen.”

  “What would you need?”

  “Who controls those accounts for you?”

  “My lawyer, Marcus Douglas in Atlanta.”

  “I would need you to fire him and give me power of attorney.”

  “I don’t know, Tom, that money is all I’m living off now.”

  “I understand, Yvonne. Maybe it will come around again, but I doubt it. Anyway, I’ll call you when I have some news for you.”

  “Wait a minute, Tom.”

  “Yes, Yvonne.”

  “Go ahead and draw up whatever you need. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  Three weeks later, Yvonne got a call from Tom Mack, letting her know that the market dropped, and she had lost everything. With nowhere to go, she turned to Paris once again for help. He put her to work the next day as a courier. Yvonne’s lifestyle was saved, and for the next five years Yvonne made the occasional trip, picking up and delivering whatever Paris asked her to.

  Yvonne never knew what she was carrying and had convinced herself that she didn’t care.

  “Better if I don’t know.” Yvonne would always tell Paris. “If I knew what I was carrying, I’d probably be scared shitless.”

  Her plan was simple. She would only do it until she turned thirty and then she could collect on her trust fund.

  “What went wrong, Yvonne?” Marcus asked.

  “I do
n’t know, Marcus.”

  “Well what happened?”

  “Paris sent me to Singapore. Everything was going fine. I picked up that bag and went back to my room. Then this man shows up at my door. He said that Paris sent him. That there was a change in plans and Paris wanted me to give him the bag and to meet him back in LA in a week. I told him that I needed to call Paris to confirm. Paris always said that if there was a change in plans, I would hear it from him. If it ever happened I should kill whoever told me any different before they killed me.

  “He stopped me from calling. Said that things were going on that I had no knowledge of, and my calling would put too many people at risk. I said I was calling Paris anyway. He grabbed me; we wrestled around for a while. I’m pretty strong for a Mississippi country girl. Anyway, I broke away from him and ran into the bedroom. I got to my gun and I shot him.”

  “You ever kill anyone before?”

  “No. That was the first time I ever had to use it. Since I had to carry a gun, Paris made me learn how to use it. I was great on the range, but never thought that I would have to use it.”

  “What happened then, Yvonne?”

  “I freaked out and I grabbed the bag and got out of there. I went straight to the airport and caught a plane to Hawaii and went to the drop-off point, but nobody showed up. I was really scared by then, so I called Paris. But I didn’t mention anything about the man I shot. He said he didn’t know what was going on and told me to come home and bring the bag to him. When I got back to my condo, there was somebody waiting for me.”

  “Did you shoot them too?”

  “No, I jumped off the balcony and ran to my car and took Interstate 10 out of town. I just kept driving until I was too tired to drive any further. I stopped for a few hours in Picacho, Arizona to get some sleep; then I was gone again. I drove to El Paso Texas. I was going to cross into Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, but I didn’t want to use the fake ID and passport I had gotten from Paris, and I was in too much of a hurry when I left to get mine. So I went to FedEx and sent that box to Tyisha. And then I drove here.”

  “How did I get involved in this?”

  “Those two men were waiting for me in the parking lot the night we met in the store. I didn’t mean to get you involved, but they were at my car. You were the only way I could get away from there. I made arrangements for a new passport to get out of the country then I sent that package to you. I figured that it was kind of an insurance policy. I was set, but I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye to you.”