window. She didn't see anyone. There was a freshly lit cigarette-a Virginia Slim-her mother's brand, in an ashtray on the counter, smoke drifting up to the recessed lights in the ceiling. She moved across the back of the house and looked in the dining room. It was dark. Karen didn't see anyone or hear anything. She went around the side of the house, ducked behind an evergreen and scanned the street. She didn't see a red Mustang or a black Escalade or Ricky's Lexus, and moved back around the house and opened the door and went in the kitchen. The cigarette had burned down to ash and filter. She closed the door and heard someone behind her. Bobby came out of the pantry, a grin on his face, aiming the. 32 at her.
'I wondered if I'd get another chance,' Bobby said, 'and here you are.'
'Where are my mom and sister?' Karen said.
'Where's my money?'
'It's in a safe place,' Karen said.
'It better be.'
They went in the living room. Her mother and Virginia were on the floor, looking up at her. Their wrists and ankles were duct-taped together, and there were strips of tape over their mouths. A little blonde was sitting in one of the blue wingback chairs, holding a gun, a revolver that looked big in her tiny hand.
Bobby said, 'Look who's here.' And to the little blonde he said, 'I told you she'd come in.'
The blonde looked at him and yawned. 'Yeah, you really know what you're doing.' She said it sarcastic.
'Mom, I'm sorry about this,' Karen said.
'Isn't that precious,' Bobby said.
Karen could see tears in her mother's eyes, and she felt awful. She hadn't wanted to involve her family and now they were in the middle of it. Bobby slipped the. 32 in the front pocket of his khakis and picked up a roll of silver duct tape that was on the coffee table.
'Give me your hands,' Bobby said.
Karen put her hands together and moved her arms toward him. He ripped a twelve-inch strip off the roll and looped it twice around her wrists, taping them together.
'Where's the money?' Bobby said to her.
'At a friend's house,' Karen said.
'A friend's, huh? Must be somebody you trust a whole lot,' Bobby said. 'We're going to go get it, and we're going to leave Mom and Sis here with my associate.'
The blonde got up and stuck the revolver in the waist of her black capris and said, 'I've got an idea, why don't you stay here with Mom and the freak and I'll go with her and get the money.'
'What's the matter,' Bobby said, 'don't you trust me?'
The blonde said, 'Are you going to screw up like you did last time?'
'I guess you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?'
Chapter Twenty-eight
O'Clair opened his eyes. He was groggy, trying to focus, trying to figure out where he was. A voice said, 'It's about fucking time.' And now the biker appeared, standing in front of him. 'Hell, I was starting to wonder about you.'
O'Clair was sitting in a chair in a basement room, wrists held tight by leather restraints attached to chains that were bolted to the wall. His mind flashed back to the biker coming up behind him and hitting him, and then something heavy crashed into the back of his head. He couldn't believe these two amateurs had taken him. Jesus Christ, it was embarrassing. 'What'd she hit me with?'
'Cast iron skillet,' Fly said.
'You going to tell me what you want?' O'Clair pulled on the chains with his arms but couldn't budge them, the leather restraints strained but held his wrists tight.
'Give it a rest, ' Fly said. 'That's high tensile steel. You're not going to get out till I let you out. Now tell me what you're doing here?'
'Looking for Karen,' O'Clair said, and noticed he had a blue-green fly tattooed on his neck and barbed wire that wrapped around his biceps, the tat for idiots with no imagination
Fly said, 'What the hell you want her for?'
'She stole some money,' O'Clair said.
'It must've been a lot,' Fly said. 'You're a real high roller, aren't you? Got that '99 Caddy and twenty-eight bucks in your wallet. Man, I'm impressed.'
Fly wore a black leather vest with nothing under it, his fat gut hanging over his belt. 'Belongs to a guy I work for,' O'Clair said. 'She ripped him off for over a million.'
Fly rubbed his chest. He had a heavy beard but not much body hair, and he smelled.
'Help me,' O'Clair said. 'I'll cut you in.'
'You will, huh? Oh, boy.' Fly flashed a crazy grin. 'We gonna be partners?'
'You know where she is?' O'Clair pulled on the chain with his right hand.
'I might,' Fly said. 'Tell me, what the hell I need you for?'
'How're you going to open the safe?' That stopped him, got his brain in gear.
Fly said, 'How do I know there is a safe?'
'I work for a bookmaker,' O'Clair said. 'He had a million dollars in a safe stolen from his house. Karen lived with him. Karen was seen the night of the robbery in front of the house, positively identified by a neighbor. You think I'm making this up? Where is she?' If that didn't get through to him, he might have an easier time breaking the chains that were holding him.
Fly said, 'You got the combination?'
'That's what I'm saying,' O'Clair said.
'Let me see it,' Fly said.
O'Clair said, 'It's in my head.'
'Maybe I should just beat it out of you.' He held up the blackjack like he was going to use it and grinned. 'All right, I believe
He unlocked the restraints, first one then the other, dropping them on the floor. O'Clair rubbed his wrists, stood and stretched, glancing around the room now. 'What do you do in here?'
'All kinds of crazy shit,' Fly said. 'It's our dungeon.'
O'Clair shook his head. He didn't get it. 'So where is she?'
'Karen? Right now, at her mom's with Virginia, the girl you came to visit.'
So it was her after all. 'They were calling her Ariana at the store.'
Fly said, 'That's her pretend name, you know, when we go to the dress-up parties and such.'
'How'd you get involved in all that?' O'Clair said.
'Just lucky, I guess,' Fly said. 'Want a beer?'
O'Clair wanted a beer more than anything. They went upstairs to the kitchen and Fly pulled two bottles of Miller High Life out of the refrigerator, popped the tops and handed one to O'Clair. He stared at the cold bottle before he brought it to his mouth and guzzled half of it. He didn't know if a beer had ever tasted so good.
'Jesus,' Fly said, watching him, 'you're a beer drinker, aren't you?'
O'Clair was staring at a photograph of Fly with hair down to his shoulders on a motorcycle, Virginia standing next him with a joint in her mouth. 'What happened to your hair?'
'I was out at a farm one day buying weed and this dude was shearing a horse,' Fly said. 'It was ninety-seven degrees out and I had long hair as you see. When the dude finished the horse, I asked him if he'd clip me.'
O'Clair said, 'Shave it yourself?'
'Or Virginia does me in the shower,' Fly said.
O'Clair tried to picture Virginia naked and wet with her purple hair, shaving Fly, the image stirring his loins. He drank his beer.
'She said she was lookin' out for Karen, that's why she invited you over here,' Fly said. 'I just wanted to make sure.'
