'Bow your head and think of Mark.'
'Say you gonna kill him, blow him up?'
Before Robin could answer Donnell's voice said:
'All right, it's cool. I'll tell the man.'
The line went dead.
Robin eased back in the chair and didn't move. She wanted to believe she'd handled it okay--at least considering the way Donnell was all of a sudden into it, playing it back, and it threw her timing off. The idea had been to keep him on till she heard the explosion, tell him to have a nice day and hang up.
She might have to give Skip a different version. Otherwise he'd say she blew it, misjudged the guy. Try to explain that. Well, you see him in his chauffeur suit opening doors, Jesus Christ, you assume he's now a well- behaved brand-new house-nigger version of the old Donnell, right? And Skip would say, Hey, Robin? You decide this dude is born again and you haven't talked to him in like sixteen years?
Robin began to picture Donnell waiting by the limo, Donnell in his dark shades, the trim black suit. . . . She lit a cigarette, got more comfortable in the creaky chair and began to think, Yeah, but wait. What's wrong with the way it is? Dealing with the old Donnell. Jesus, and began to get excited about the idea. Seeing him as a Panther hiding in the chauffeur suit. Waiting for his chance to score, work some kind of game. The guy would have to be up to something.
She wondered why she hadn't realized it before. It seemed so obvious now. How could he resist? She thought about it another few moments and said, 'Jesus, far out.' Because if they were both looking to score and Donnell was inside, alone, and hadn't figured out a move yet . . .
Robin had an urge to call him back. 'Hi, it's me. I was just wondering, you want to get in on it?'
But then looked at her watch. Shit, it was bomb time. Any moment now, kaboom, and the lion goes flying, disappears, the door blows in, windows shatter. . . .
And who sees it? Back when blowing up the establishment was popular, they'd set the charge on a timer, come back to park about a block away, smoke joints and at least hear it go off. She realized she was not working much of a fun factor into this deal. Thinking too much about money. Bad. Becoming way too serious. What she needed was a release, an upper that wasn't dope. A guy who could lighten her mood. Not Skip, he was basically a downer. Someone more spontaneous--as her mind flashed that scene in the powder room--like Donnell. Perfect. Assuming that in the last thirty seconds or so he hadn't opened the front door. It would be just her luck to lose him before they even got started. She began to wonder what Skip would think. She liked Skip, but he always had b.o. Which used to be okay, but not now. Having b.o. was no longer in. She kind of liked the idea of approaching Donnell first. That seemed like the way to go. . . .
The phone rang.
Robin waited for two more rings before answering. It was the building manager. He said, 'Well, you're finally home. There's a couple police officers here want to talk to you.'
'What about?'
The manager didn't answer. Robin heard him talking to someone away from the phone. She waited. And now a woman's voice came on.
'Miss Abbott, I'm sorry to bother you. I'm Sergeant Downey, with the Detroit Police? I wonder if we could come up and talk to you for a minute.'
'It doesn't sound like a lot of fun,' Robin said. 'What's it about?'
'You may or may not have been a witness to a crime we're investigating. It'll only take about two minutes.'
'It's not something I did?' Robin said.
The lady cop sort of laughed. 'No, we're sure of that.'
'How many are you? I only have three chairs.'
'We won't even have to sit down,' the lady cop's voice said. 'Just myself and Sergeant Mankowski.'
Donnell made himself stand at the side of the pool. The bag was floating still, as it was before, when he'd come off the phone to take a look. The stuff from inside the bag was at the bottom of the deep end by the diving board, in nine feet of water. Dark objects down there. The wires still seemed attached to the objects.
Donnell walked through the house to its other end and into the kitchen, where the man was watching 'Leave It to Beaver' on the TV while he had his breakfast. It looked like Post Alpha-Bits this morning. The man liked a sweet cereal to start the day, then get all the sugar he needed in his booze. The horoscope page of the paper was folded open next to his bowl. The man glanced up, anxious.
'Listen to this. It says, 'You have a sense of inner and outer harmony. This would be a perfect day to start taking singing lessons; you may have talent.' What do you think?'
'Yeah, well, if we have time,' Donnell said. 'We got us a couple more pressing matters come up. First thing, we have to find somebody knows how to take a bomb out of the swimming pool.'
That got the man's dumb eyes focused on him.
'How did a bomb get in the swimming pool?'
'Let's come back to it,' Donnell said. 'We also have a matter, this lady called. Say she gonna blow you up if you don't give her some money.'
Donnell waited for the man's mind to work and put this and that together. Like he fooled with the Alpha-Bits floating in his milk sometimes, trying to make a word out of the letters.
'The lady that called put the bomb in the swimming pool?'
'I 'magine she's the one.'
'Is it gonna go off?'
'I don't know. That's why I say we have to get us a bomb man.'
'Call the police, they'll take care of it.'
'I'm afraid of what she'd do. You know, like she might be a crazy woman and it would set her off.'
Right then Beaver's mama on the TV, a cute woman, began fussing at Mr. Beaver, giving him some shit. Doing it just at the right time.
The man shook his head, didn't know what to think. Had an idea then and said, 'Was it Robin that called?'
'I suspect, but I don't know her voice.'
'How much does she want?'
Here we go.
'Say she like two million, cash money, no checks. Get it from the bank and have it ready.'
Look at the man blink his eyes.
'Yeah, she say to have it ready. You know, like in a box? See, then when she phones again, to tell us the time and place she wants it? You suppose to give it to me and I deliver it.'
Chapter 19
What happened: when Wendell didn't show up, Maureen called Homicide from the manager's ground-floor apartment. The manager, a sour old man, stood at a window watching for Robin, bifocals gleaming when he turned his head, more interested in Maureen. Chris was reading the Bureau report on Robin Abbott, times and places in it familiar. He heard Maureen say, irritated, 'Thanks for telling me. You know how long I've been waiting here?' She hung up, saying to Chris, 'Wendell's got a body in an alley: female, black.' Chris said, 'And you have me.' Maureen said, 'Oh, no. You're staying here.' Chris said to the manager, 'Try Miss Abbott again, okay?' The manager said, 'She isn't back yet. I'd have seen her.' Chris said, 'But will you try?' And said to Maureen, the manager busy now, 'You talk to her, I look around. You need me.' Maureen said, 'You don't have your badge or I.D. What do you show her?' As the manager was saying, 'Well, you're finally home. . . .'
Going up the stairs behind Maureen's nice firm athletic calves he said, 'Robin I see was at U of M the same time I was, before I went in the army. Right up from where I lived on State Street, by the Michigan Union, there was always something going on, some kind of demonstration. Nice little girls screaming at the cops, calling 'em pigs.' He shut up as they reached the second floor.
