did. I hit her a few times, she still claims she never did, swears to it on her Bible. Okay, I’m thinking, maybe they didn’t. Couple of days later I come home, she’s gone, cleared out with all her stuff. What does that tell you?”
“We’re coming to the road where you turn, before you get to that little airport,” Armand said. “Sure, she’s scared you’re gonna find out the truth. She was betraying you.”
“And Kevin was fucking her, he musta been. I decide I’d get me a gun and settle the score with him.”
“So he was your first one,” Armand said, “as you like to see it.”
Richie didn’t say anything making the left turn onto a hard-packed gravel road, got the Daytona straightened out to head through country, past empty fields, and started to grin as he looked at Armand. “You aren’t gonna believe this. There was another one before Kevin. See, I quit my job, I didn’t want to have nothing to do with him till I got myself a gun and stuck it in his face. Man, it tore me up. Here I was working, I had a new name, I was James Dudley, I was clean. I think of it now, the only job I ever had in my life was in the repo business and what’s that but legal stealing. I said, shit, go on back to your trade, what’s the difference, you can’t trust nobody anyway. So I picked up a thirty-eight, not the one I got now, a cheap one—Detroit, you can get any kind of piece you want, buy it off a schoolkid. Okay, I’m ready to go see Kevin. I
Armand didn’t say anything.
This guy was crazy. Armand remembered his first one like it was yesterday, the Italian coming into the barbershop, offering them a job saying, “The Degas brothers, stick-up guys, ’ey? Think you’re tough . . .”
They came to an intersection, a stop sign showing in the Daytona’s headlights, the crossroad dark both ways. Richie went through it without slowing down.
Armand didn’t say anything.
He was watching now for the road ahead of them to begin curving to the left, remembering the last time they drove to the ironworker’s house and Richie wouldn’t do what he was told, drove past the house to take a look and when they made the U-turn and approached from this direction, Armand remembered, he’d had the same thoughts then as he did now. That he was going to end up shooting Richie before this was over or right after. Something would come up between them . . .
“The house is just around this curve.”
“I know it.”
He knew everything in that tone he thought was cool.
“Then slow down,” Armand said.
The headlights swept over a sod field and they were close now, the ironworker’s place coming up on the left, beyond that mass of trees. Armand looked for cars as Richie braked and let the Dodge coast toward the house, Richie saying it didn’t look like anybody was home, or else they were in the sack already. Armand sat hunched close to the smoked-glass windshield. There was something in the yard he didn’t remember from the other time. He hit Richie’s arm, telling him, “Pull over.”
“Where?”
“By the house. Aim the lights at it.”
Richie cut the wheel and came to a stop, headlights shining on dark windows, and there, in the front yard, a Nelson Davies for sale sign.
Armand sat back in the seat trying to think— telling himself it didn’t mean they were gone, you don’t move till you sell your house—but it was hard to think with Richie talking about the god-damn real estate man, saying there he was again, saying it was like starting all over, it was like this was where he came in, seeing that sign. Finally he shut up. It was quiet for a while in the car.
Till Richie said, “Well, shit, what do we do now, Bird?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, but they’re gone.”
“Listen to me,” Armand said. “You listening to me? Don’t worry about it.”
13
IN THE CAPE GIRARDEAU LITERATURE the Marshals Service gave them it said that “You can walk down a busy street with a smile on your face and people will speak to you, not necessarily because they know you; but, because you look like somebody they would like to know. And, if you give them the opportunity, they will take the time to know you.”
Carmen read that part and imagined a person stopping her on the street saying, “Hi, you look like a person I’d like to know. You’re new in town, aren’t you? Where are you from?” She answers, “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. We’re in the Federal Witness Security Program, hiding from some people who want to kill us.” And the person says, “Oh, uh-huh. Yeah, well, have a nice day.” She read the part to Wayne the night before they left home and he said, “Jesus Christ, you sure you want to go?”
Seven hundred miles later they had their first look at Cape Girardeau separately, Carmen in the Cutlass following Wayne’s pickup across the bridge from the Illinois side. It looked nice from this view, a picture-postcard town with church steeples, a courthouse on the hill, lots of trees. But what was that wall for, along the river? A concrete wall about twenty feet high. The wall fascinated Carmen, adding a touch of drama to the postcard look.
They came off the bridge and into the business district, Wayne looking for a street, Carmen following, getting a feel of the place. It seemed kept up, there were new buildings and blocks of old ones that had been gentrified. The chamber of commerce literature said it was a friendly town of sixty thousand with a university campus and a big new shopping center called West Park Mall. Procter & Gamble was here, Florsheim Shoes, Lone Star Industries with a cement plant, Cape Barge Line & Drydock ...The tallest building was the KFVS-TV Tower— there, Carmen saw it rising about twelve stories above the downtown area, a sight that might give Wayne hope. They drove past a long climb of steps leading to the courthouse and down the hill to the concrete wall that ran along Water Street.
Carmen parked at the curb behind Wayne’s pickup, the bed loaded with household stuff and covered with a tarp. She got out of the car stiff and tired. They had left Algonac at four in the morning, still dark, sneaked out with U.S. marshals escorting them to the interstate and maybe beyond, Carmen wasn’t sure. Now they were to contact a Deputy Marshal J. D. Mayer, who would show them to their new home and help them get settled. Carmen walked over to Wayne, standing with his hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans.
“What’re we doing now?”
“Did you happen to notice Broadway?”
“I think we passed it, one block over.”
“I must’ve been looking up at all the two-story high-rises and missed it,” Wayne said. “I’ll call him, but he’s probably gone home, it’s after five.”
Carmen took off her sweater. It was at least twenty degrees warmer here than in Michigan. Wayne hadn’t moved. He was looking up at the wall, just on the other side of railroad tracks and a line of young trees, the wall’s tan surface shaded by the storefronts across Water Street.
“You know what it’s for?”
Carmen said, “I guess to keep the river out.”
“Or keep people in. It looks like a prison.”
“Well, it’s different.”
“You get a good look at the river, coming over?”
“How could you miss it?”
“Did you notice a cape?”
“I’m not sure what one looks like.”
“I don’t see why they call it the mighty Mississippi. It’s muddy, yeah, but I wouldn’t call it mighty. The St. Clair River’s wider, and it’s blue. It’s a lot better-looking. I’m glad I didn’t bring the boat.”
