"What would you rather do instead? I can think of something, but you're afraid I might be carrying the AIDS. What do you want me to do, get a blood test first? We're riding around with my wham bag in the trunk. It's got five sticks of dynamite, blasting caps and a loaded thirty-eight revolver in it and you're worrying about getting a social disease."
"I know why you're talking so much," Robin said, "you're nervous. Aren't you?"
"I'm up," Skip said. "I don't want to waste it, have to get back up again."
"What's the gun for?"
"Come on, what's any of it for? What're we doing?"
He saw her profile as she flicked her lighter, once, and held it to a cigarette, calm, showing him she had it together. She said, "I want to be sure I know what I'm going to say to him, that's all. I want to have it down."
"What you say, that's the easy part. You'll come up with the words. It's when you say it's gonna make the difference. The timing, that's what has to be on the button. I can set it for whenever you want up to twelve hours from now." Skip looked at the instrument panel. "It's now . . . which one's the clock? They got all that digital shit on there."
"It's ten forty," Robin said.
"They ever quit making clocks with hands on 'em I'm out of business."
"It's ten forty-one," Robin said.
He liked her tone. Drawing on her cigarette now and blowing it out slow.
"I can set it for ten tomorrow morning, any time around in there. Or how about this? I set it to go off like in eleven and a half hours from the time I place it down. See, then you figure to call ten or fifteen minutes before that."
Robin seemed to be thinking about it as she smoked. "If he stays up boozing all night. . . . You know what I mean? He probably sleeps late."
"I doubt he's gonna answer the phone anyway. That's what he's got the jig for, the Panther." Skip looked past Robin out the side window. They were going by the house again. "Guy likes animals, he's got the Panther, he's got lions out in front. . . . Listen, we can go buy gas, spend my last eighteen bucks and come back later. We have to stop by a gas station anyway, so I can use the men's room."
"You are nervous."
"My clock doesn't have a bell and hammer alarm on it, I have to rig something up. You want me to wire it in the car? Or a place I can turn a light on, lock the door?"
"I want you to be happy," Robin said. She stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray, once, and closed it. "After, why don't I spend the night at Mother's?"
"You mean it?"
He looked over. She was stroking her braid now as she said, "On one condition. . . ."
Mr. Woody finished the pound can of peanuts during his cocktail hour, so he wasn't hungry till near ten. He was in a pretty good mood, seemed almost alert and was talkative. Donnell fixed him up in the kitchen, dished out his warmed-up chicken lo mein, whole quart of it on a platter, opened two cans of Mexican beer and sat down with him at the opposite end of the long wooden table. Donnell didn't like to get too close to the man when he was eating; the man made noises out his nose, head down close to his food like he was trying to hide in there.
"Mr. Woody, there something bothering me." It was a way to get his attention, the man thinking he was being asked his advice. "What the police will do is talk to the people were here. Try to find one will tell 'em Ginger went upstairs and then you went up there after her. I'm saying if Ginger doesn't accept your generous offer."
The man stopped eating to think about that, frowned with his mouth open, the overhead light shining on him, and Donnell had to look away.
"I doubt your friends notice you were gone, the condition they was in, flying high on the blow. But there was one lady there wasn't of your regular group. The older one, had her hair in a braid?"
"Robin," Woody said. "You remember her?"
See? He could do that. Pick somebody out from a long time ago. Like he had put certain things in his mind in a safe place the booze couldn't touch. Especially things and people had to do with his brother. Donnell settled in, leaning over his arms on the edge of the table.
"Robin Abbott, huh? I thought to myself, Now who is that? I didn't recognize her 'cause it had been so long. Was at the party your lovely mother had to raise bail money, huh?"
"Mom didn't want to have it," Woody said. "Mark begged her, she said no. I had to talk her into it."
"Had a way with your mama, didn't you?"
"We got along. Mark took after Dad, so she didn't trust him."
"Your daddy went out on her, huh?"
"I guess so."
They hadn't talked about the dad much; the dad had moved away and passed on. No problem there to come up unexpected. Donnell let the man eat in peace a minute before starting in again.
"Yeah, was at that bail party I met Robin. I was introduced to her and all those people and then after while I ran into her in the bathroom. The little one out by the front hall? I walk in, she's in there."
The man was listening, because he said, "She was in the bathroom, uh?"
"Yeah, she was in there, you know, combing her hair, prettyin' up, looking at herself in the mirror. She seem like a nice lady. Without knowing much about her."
The man said, "Who, Robin?" Digging into his pile of food. "She was something else. You never knew. . . . Like when she was hiding out she'd come to the house. Never call first, she'd come at night and stay here a few days. Mom didn't like her. She'd spy on her and Mark."
"Catch 'em in the toidy?"
"When they were talking. Then Mom'd get Mark to tell her to leave."
"Undesirable influence, huh?"
"After she was arrested, then we didn't see her till, you know, the other night."
"What'd the police get after her for, demonstrating? Marching without a license?"
The man raised his head from the dish. "Was the FBI. For the time she and her boyfriend blew up that office in the Federal Building. You don't remember that?"
"I must've been gone then," Donnell said, easing up in the kitchen chair, looking at the man grinning at him, lo mein gravy shining on his chin.
"When we were at school, you know what she'd do any time she wanted something, like if she needed money? She'd unbutton her shirt, hold it open and let me look at her goodies."
Donnell said, "Let you look at 'em, huh?" He said, "Mr. Woody, you telling me this lady knows how to set bombs?"
The man was eating and then he wasn't eating. He chewed and stopped chewing and stared at Donnell, swallowed and kept staring at him.
Donnell said, "Wipe your chin, Mr. Woody."
Skip told Robin when she dropped him off to give him ten minutes. Robin came around in the Lincoln, crept past the house looking for him, drove on and there he was up the street, the headlights finding him in the dark. It didn't take as long as he'd thought. Robin said he looked like a burglar going home from work. Skip said, home being Bloomfield Hills. Let's go.
Straight up Woodward out of Detroit without knowing it, except now there were four lanes of traffic both ways, people in a hurry, Skip looking at the miles of lit-up used car lots and motels and neon words announcing places to eat, Skip relieved, enjoying the ride, telling Robin he'd walked all the way around Woody's house, looked in windows at empty rooms and came back to his original idea: set it in the bushes up close to one of the concrete lions. See, then she could say to Woody on the phone, "When you hear the lion roar you'll know we mean business." Robin didn't comment on his idea. She was edging over with cars whizzing by to get into the inside lane.
"What're you looking for?"
"A drugstore," Robin said. "Did you forget?"
Skip said, "Would you believe I've never purchased any of those things in my life?"
Once they found a drugstore open and Robin was angle-parked in front, he asked her what he was supposed to do for money. Robin gave him a ten and he went inside.
Skip was wearing his black satiny athletic jacket that had Speedball written across the back in red. He unzipped it and put his hands i
n his pockets as he looked at displays along the cigar counter. When he didn't see what he wanted he moved toward the back of the store, taking time to look at the shelves, more things to beautify you than make you feel better. There were two people at the counter in the pharmacy area: a woman in a peach-colored smock who looked like she sold cosmetics and had most of them on her, and a young skinny guy with a store name tag that said Kenny and a half-dozen pens in his shirt pocket. The young clerk asked Skip if he could help him. Skip said yeah, like he was trying to think of what it was he'd come in for, glanced at the cosmetics lady and told the young clerk he wanted a pack of rubbers.
The young clerk said, "What is it you want?"
"I want some rubbers," Skip said.
The young clerk said, "Oh, condoms." The cosmetics lady, about ten feet away writing in a notebook, didn't look up. "They're right here," the young clerk said, raising his hand to a display on the wall behind him. "What kind you want?"
"I don't care, any kind."
"You like the regular or the ribbed?"
Skip hesitated. "The regular."
"Natural finish or lubricated?"
"Just plain'll be fine."
"Any particular color?"
Skip was about to ask the guy if he was putting him on, but the cosmetics lady was coming over saying, "The new golden shade is very popular. Kenny, why don't you show him those?"
The young clerk turned from the display holding a box that had a picture on it of a guy and a girl walking along a beach at sunset, holding hands. Skip wondered if you were supposed to think the guy had a rubber in his wallet and they were looking for a place to do it on the beach. They were crazy if they did. Even a car was better than the beach. Anybody's car that was open.
Skip said, "That's fine," getting the ten-dollar bill out of his jacket. "How much is it?"
"This one's the economy pack," the young clerk said, looking at the price tag. "Three dozen for sixteen ninety-five."
Skip had the ten-dollar bill in his hand. He put it back in his pocket, took off his black satiny athletic jacket and said to the young clerk, "I'll tell you what," as he laid the jacket open on the counter. "Gimme about a dozen of those economy packs. Put 'em right here."
The young clerk and the cosmetics lady seemed to be trying to smile. Was he being funny or what?
No, he wasn't being funny. Skip reached behind him for the .38 stuck in his belt to show them he wasn't. He said to the cosmetics lady, "While he's doing that, you empty the cash drawer. Then you both lay down on the floor." He said to the young clerk, "Hey, Kenny? But none of those ribbed ones. Gimme all regular."
Robin pushed in the cigarette lighter, looked up and saw Skip coming out of the drugstore. He had his jacket off, bunched under his arm like he was carrying something in it. As soon as he was in the car he said, "Let's go." Robin held her hand on the lighter, waiting for it to pop.
"How many did you get?"
"Four hundred and something."
Robin said, "Well, we can always get more." She lit her cigarette. "You must've used a credit card."
"Let's go, okay?"
"My, but we're anxious."
"I can hardly wait," Skip said.
Chapter 17.
Greta lay in Chris's dad's king-size bed wondering, If somebody handed you twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, what would it be in? Would it be in like a briefcase all lined up in neat rows? Would you have to take the money out and put it in something and give them back the briefcase? Probably. She turned her head to look at the digital clock on the bedside table, green figures in the morning gloom: 7:49. She looked back at the ceiling and thought, Wait a minute. If ten one-hundred-dollar bills made a thousand, it wouldn't be much of a pile. Especially new ones. She held her thumb and one finger about an inch apart, closed one eye as she looked up and narrowed the space between them. Ten one-hundred-dollar bills wouldn't be any more than an eighth of an inch. Times twenty-five . . . the whole amount'd be only three or four inches high. You wouldn't need a briefcase for that, you could stick it in an envelope. Twenty-five thousand didn't seem so much looking at it that way. She had to buy a car . . .
She had to get up and brush her teeth and take a couple of Extra-Strength Excedrin. She'd had four drinks last night at Brownie's. Bourbon over crushed ice with a touch of sugar sprinkled on top. Chris had never had one. She told him it was her dad's Sunday afternoon drink he called a God's Own--in the summertime with fresh mint her mom grew in the backyard. Two at the bar shaped like a boat, Chris smacking his lips with that first one, two more at the table, the God's Owns going down easy, and then a bottle of wine with the pickerel. Starting out quietly to discuss a serious matter and before she knew it they were having fun.
It was the way Chris told it, calling the guy Mr. Woody, describing this weird scene, Mr. Woody naked on a rubber raft, a mound of lard floating in the pool. Mr. Woody's colored chauffeur doing everything but kiss the man's hind end while he thought up ways to hustle him, hoping to skim twenty grand off the top of Mr. Woody's offer and give Ginger five. Chris calling her Ginger at first because they did.
She told him it was "Ginjah" if he was going to say it the way she heard it all her life from her family, and not "Ginjurr" with his Detroit accent. Her dad gave her the name when she was little. Her sister Camille they called Lily, but they called her brother, Robert Taylor, always Robert Taylor. That was strange, wasn't it? Then she became Ginger Jones when she married Gary. She told Chris she'd planned to stay Greta Wyatt, but her mother had said, "You're not going to take your husband's name?" Like it was unheard of. (She didn't tell Chris Gary said it "Ginjurr" too and after a while it grated on her nerves--along with everything else about Gary, who had a wonderful singing voice but would never leave Dearborn, Michigan, because he was a mama's boy and she kept a tight hold on him. Mothers could mess up lives without even trying.) So to please her mother she became Greta Jones till the divorce and she had it changed back. Except she got more audition calls as Ginger Jones, so she was stuck with it professionally. What she should have done before marrying Gary was make up a stage name that ended with a smile when you say it, like Sweeney. Say it, Sweeney. Your mouth forms a smile. And Chris said, "So does Mankowski. Say it: Ginger Mankowski." She did, exaggerating the smile for him, but it didn't sound right. Ginger Mankowski. (Without telling him, she tried Greta Mankowski in her mind, heard the sound of it and saw herself fifty pounds heavier, a night cleaning woman at Ford World Headquarters.)
Chris said to her, "If you're good, it doesn't matter what name you go by. Are you any good?"
She felt herself sag a little. "I'm good. But do you know how many Ginger Joneses there are just in Detroit? Before you even begin to count New York or Los Angeles?"
He said to her, "There's only one Greta Wyatt that I know of."
He called her Greta after that, saying he had never known a Greta and liked the name a lot, coming on to her in sort of a little-boy way, which some guys pulled in order to sneak up on you. Chris did it pretty well, with a nice grin, like he didn't know he was a hunk and women looked at him coming back from the men's room.
He said Mr. Woody, "that poor, pathetic asshole," reminded him of Bingo Bear, a toy he'd given one of his nieces for her birthday. You squeezed Bingo's nose and he spoke, he'd say things like "Give me a hug. . . . Scratch my ear. . . . Play with me." Bingo knew four hundred words. Mr. Woody might know a few more than that, but you didn't squeeze his nose to get him to talk, you fed him peanuts.
Chris said to her, "Have you ever looked at a dog or some animal and wondered what it thought and what it would be like to look out through its eyes?" Greta said, "All the time." And Chris said, "Mr. Woody's a person, and yet looking out through his eyes is unimaginable. Between the booze and all the smoke Donnell blows at him the man is just . . . there. I look at him, a guy with all his money, and think, What good is he? Do you know what I mean? He doesn't serve any purpose." Greta said, "How many people do?" but knew what he meant.
It was strange, when she thought of Woody Ricks now as Mr. Woody, this pathetic creature, it changed the way she remembered being sexually assaulted by him: being thrown on the bed and flipped over with her heinie in the air. Was that funny? Maybe it was from certain angles, or how you might look at it a long time from now. She could still act indignant, easy, and say he wasn't just sort of there, he was there, because she was there too, underneath the fat slob. What she couldn't say was that he had actually done it to her. When Sergeant Maureen Downey visited her in the hospital, Maureen asked if there had been penetration and she told Maureen, Sort of. Maureen said he'd either put his penis in her or he hadn't. And she told Maureen, truthfully, because of the state she was in at the time she wasn't sure. Maureen said it didn't matter, it was still criminal sexual conduct of one degree or another. "If we can prove it."
Greta said to Chris last night, "He must know what he did." Chris said, Well, the man had been told, if he didn't remember. She said, "Then maybe he's making the offer because his conscience bothers him." When Chris said the man didn't have one, Mr. Woody ceased being pathetic and turned cold and mean and Greta got mad. She said, "Then he's adding insult to injury, treating me like I'm some kind of dinky legal matter he can settle out of court."
This morning, lying in Chris's dad's bed, looking at Woody's offer through a dull, semi-hangover headache, she began to think, Hell, even the amount was an insult. A stack of bills no more than three or four inches high.
Chris was on the phone when Greta came in the kitchen and walked past the table without looking at him, going to the range. She heard him say, "Just a second, Maureen." And then, "Oh, my goodness," before saying, "The coffee's right there."
Greta said, "I see it," standing with her back to him in a blue T-shirt that covered her rear end and stopped.
"There's coffee cake in the oven. There's juice. I'll fix you an egg, if you want."
"I'm fine," Greta said, pouring herself a mug of coffee.
"You sure are." Then heard him say, "Okay, Maureen, what's that address again?"