They took her by the arm, helped her into a truck or something. She thought of a funeral parlor, a hearse, with the heavy odor of flowers. She had to lie on the hard floor, on cardboard, feeling the bumps and jolts go through her, feeling to see if Marshall was with her and trying to brace herself. They didn't tie her hands. They didn't bring Marshall.
The black voice had said, 'I couldn't make up my mind.'
About what? Before that, just before that, a door had closed, a lock turned. Which would have to be the closet. They didn't know what to do with Marshall, couldn't make up their minds; so they had left him there.
Marshall would get out--if he wasn't hurt. Just some blood on him, one of them said. He'd get out and call the police. Look for two men in a-- Marshall came after they did, so he would have seen the truck or whatever it was--
Going down a ramp now, into some kind of an enclosed place.
They opened the door. She was helped out and into another truck, feeling carpeting beneath her bare feet ... placed in a contoured, cushioned chair, music suddenly blaring out next to her. She didn't hear their voices during the ride, only the music. Instrumental jazz. It reminded her of WJZZ-FM and some of the music seemed familiar. They were on a busy street. Woodward? Unless they were going east and west, across one of the mile roads.
The police would be sending out a description--
She wasn't sure of time; maybe a half hour had passed since they left her house, until the truck turned off the busy street. In less than a minute it made another turn and came to a stop.
When she was taken out, a hand holding her arm firmly, the white voice said, 'There's a step. Then three more.'
She was in a house that smelled old, but not musty. It was a kitchen smell, old grease, and it reminded her of something from the past. She was in a small house. Through the kitchen, a short hall, to a stairway: fourteen steps to the top, a cold bare floor, a hall, then into a carpeted room. She bumped against a bed and put her hand out to feel it, a bedspread with a deep-pile border or design.
Others were in the room, close, bumping things. She smelled stale sweat she had not smelled before. Someone else besides the black one and the white one was in the room. She turned her head and smelled cologne; no, a softer scent, a sachet. She was in a woman's room and again a memory stirred, something from the past.
The white voice said, 'When you hear the door close, you can take off the mask.'
'Where am I?'
'No talking allowed,' the black voice said. 'When you have to go pee-pee knock on the door and put your mask on.'
She heard them moving again, the floor creaking beneath their weight. None of them touched her or said anything else. The door closed and there was silence.
After a moment Mickey raised the mask from her eyes.
Chapter 10
ORDELL HAD SAID, 'For sure, he's a creepy guy. Lives here by hisself; nobody bothers him, wants to come near him. Can you think of a better place?' No, Louis couldn't. But he wished they were some place else.
Richard was standing in the doorway to the hall, looking into the living room at them. He said, 'You want me to take the first watch?'
'Yeah, you take the first watch, Richard,' Ordell said. 'Hey, Richard--' He pulled the Frankenstein Monster mask out of the shopping bag on the floor by his chair and threw it over. 'Put that on, man, you go in there. Or she comes out to go to the toilet.' He said to Louis, when Richard left, 'I believe it's a good place. Can you think of a better one?'
'I told you, it's fine,' Louis said. 'What would he go in the room for?'
'It's his house,' Ordell said.
'He doesn't have anything to say to her. What would he go in there for?'
'I mean if he happen to be face to face with her,' Ordell said. 'That's all I meant. I'm not saying for him to go in there and do anything he wants. That what you thinking about?'
'We don't have any reason to hurt her,' Louis said, backing off a little.
Ordell seemed to grin--Louis wasn't sure-- looking over at Louis sitting on the couch with the parts of the newspaper spread out next to him. 'No, we don't have to hurt her none. She gonna be up there by herself prob'ly a few days. Maybe she get bored, want a little something to do. You see Richard making it with her?'
'I'd like to see his wife,' Louis said. 'I can't see Richard making it if he paid for it. No, what I'm saying, we get her upset--we got enough to handle without her going whacko on us. You don't know what a person, they get upset's liable to do. You keep the person reasonably scared, yeah, but you keep the person quiet, man, easy to manage.'
'You don't want nothing to happen to the lady,' Ordell said.
'Why should I? Do you? She's pretty cool about it so far, you know? You want to make problems we don't have?'
'I haven't said nothing. Man, I'm with you,' Ordell said. 'We're in this deal partners, man. Richard works for us. He does what we tell him.'
Louis was going to say, Yeah, but just before you said, It's his house. Like he can do whatever he wants. But he didn't say it. He kept quiet now, deciding to wait and see. Whatever you were into, it didn't always work the way it was supposed to or the way the other guy said it would. You could have an understanding, thinking you both saw it exactly the same, and later on the other guy would say, 'What're you talking about? I didn't say that. When did I say that?' Ordell said how it was going to work, what each of them, including Richard, was supposed to do; okay, he'd take Ordell's word for it. Otherwise he'd be worrying about things that might never happen. The way to play it, just don't be surprised if the other guy did something that wasn't in the agreement, because it wasn't a written contract or the kind of agreement you could point to and take the other guy to court and sue his ass over. You had to get along. It was good when two of the guys were close and there was a third guy they trusted but didn't give a shit about; it strengthened the closeness and lessened the chance of the two close guys fucking each other over; though it wasn't a guarantee. You did not want to be alone in something like this, naturally, it was too fucking scary. But if it meant saving your own ass-- as Ordell had said, 'If there's somebody standing between me and forty years in Jackson--' And Louis had said, 'I know. It's not a choice.'
That morning, Monday, Ordell had called his friend Cedric Walker in Freeport, Grand Bahama, and gave him Richard's phone number. Mr. Walker had called back collect: yes, the man had arrived on the early flight from Fort Lauderdale. He'd see what he could find out.
In the late afternoon, Mr. Walker called again. Yes, the man was on the island. No, a boy wasn't with him, he came alone. He hadn't gone to the bank, but Lisabeth Cooper was watching for him if he did. The man was at Fairway Manor where he had an apartment and always stayed and looked to be entertaining his lady friend who lived over in Lucaya. Ordell said what lady friend? He sat listening to Mr. Walker on the phone while Louis went out to the kitchen for a couple more bottles of O'Keefe Lager.
When Louis came back in, Ordell had hung up but was still sitting in the straight chair by the telephone table fooling with his beard. Louis handed him a bottle on his way to the couch. The end of the couch by the lamp with the cellophane-covered shade and the Little Bo-Peep base looked like it was going to be Louis' seat. It was the first place he had sat down in Richard's living room and, for some reason, he kept going back to it, looking at the lamp sometimes when they weren't talking and wondering what the Nazi was doing with Little Bo-Peep. There was something wrong with the guy. His wife or his mother probably had bought the lamp or won it across the street at the State Fair, throwing balls at wooden milk bottles, but there was still something wrong with the guy.
Ordell moved over to one of the deep maroon chairs, still thinking.
Louis said, 'You gonna tell me or keep it to yourself?'
'The man's there,' Ordell said, 'staying at this apartment he's got on a golf course.'
'Yeah, what else?'
'He got a lady with him. See, I knew he like the ladies, but I didn't know it was this same lady he's been
