'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 in 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
