said.
“Hey,” said Carpington, trying to show me his cuffed wrists. “What about a key?”
I shrugged, smiled. “It’ll just save the cops the trouble when they get here.” And I walked out, past Benedetto, Earl following me. We ran to his truck and got inside, backing out of the lot and heading up the street.
“What about Benedetto?” asked Earl. “Should we have used our last set of cuffs on him?”
I shrugged. “I think we’ve got what we need, regardless of whether he’s walking around free.”
I took a couple of deep breaths, and then, out of nowhere, started making whooping noises.
“Whoa! Jesus! Did you see us in there? Were we bad?”
“We were bad,” Earl said.
“We were baaad!”
“Sure,” he said, lighting up. “We were bad.”
“We were some bad motherfuckers, weren’t we?” I slapped the dashboard. I felt like we’d just walked out of a scene in
Earl nearly smiled. “Yeah, kicked ass. Nearly killed them, too, you dumb fuck.”
We drove along in silence for a moment. I realized we were heading out of the neighborhood, nowhere in particular, it seemed.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“Hey, you’re the navigator. I just wanted to get us away from there. I thought maybe we needed a drink or something.”
“No,” I said. “No. I gotta finish dealing with this. I think I’m ready to go to the cops. I’ve got what I need.”
Earl nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a couple of things,” he said.
“Okay.”
“First, I’d appreciate it if you could keep me out of this. I was happy to help you out tonight, but maybe you can find a way to keep from mentioning my presence to the authorities. I don’t want them coming by and asking a lot of questions. I’ve got a business to run.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do what I can. I guess it depends on how much Greenway and Carpington say. They’ll probably have enough to worry about without filing any sort of charges about our busting into their offices.”
“I expect. And there’s something else, that can’t come from me, since I’d like to keep a low profile.”
“What?”
“When you call the cops, you might want to suggest to them that they check those clowns’ cars. I noticed, when I was moving them, there’s a lot of shit in those cars, books and files and stuff. Might be just the thing they’re looking for.”
I nodded. “Sure, I’ll be happy to pass that along.”
“You want me to drop you at the police station?” he asked.
I thought. “No. There’s a street behind ours, where I parked Stefanie Knight’s Beetle. I’ll pick it up, drive it over to the police station, get them to give me a ride home later.”
“Sounds good.”
He turned around, headed back to our neighborhood, and pulled up alongside the Volkswagen. As I opened the door, I said, “Thanks, Earl. You didn’t have to do this.”
“S’okay. Just remember to do what I told you.”
I nodded, slammed the truck door shut, and, as Earl drove off into the night, reached into my jeans for the VW keys. I got into the car, fired it up, and decided to check that my cell phone was on.
I dug it out of my pocket and saw that Greenway had turned it off, not keen to have to take my messages, I guess. I watched the tiny screen as the phone became activated, searched for a signal. And then: “You have 4 new messages.”
I could guess who they were from. Before I went to the police station, I thought I’d better give Sarah a call at work. It was time to come clean. She was going to be pissed, I knew that, but there was going to be no way to keep all this from her once the police were involved.
Without bothering to check the messages, I called her extension at work.
A male voice answered. Not Dan. Thank God. “City.”
“Sarah Walker, please.”
“Not here. Can I take a message?”
“It’s her husband. She go home in the middle of her shift?”
“Some emergency. Had to go home.”
And I thought, What if that was her who phoned when I was hiding out in the construction site? And when a strange voice answered-Greenway’s-and said I was unavailable? What would she have thought? Especially when she was unable to raise me, or the kids, at home?
Shit.
“Thanks,” I said, and then, as soon as I’d ended the call, I realized the gravity of what Sarah’s colleague had just said to me. Sarah had gone home. To the one place where I’d felt, all night, it was unsafe to return.
I started to key in our home number when the phone rang shrilly. I nearly dropped it. I pressed the green button and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Zack?” Sarah.
“Yes, yes, it’s me!”
“Didn’t you get any of my messages? God, I’ve been trying to get you all night.”
“I just got my phone back and hadn’t had a second to check them yet. I’m so sorry, it’s been quite a night.”
“I phoned you, and this other man answered, and I tried to call back, and I called home, and you haven’t been here, I couldn’t get the kids. So I left work and-”
“Sarah.”
“-I’ve never been so worried in my entire life, especially when-”
“Sarah.”
“-only a few blocks from here, they found this woman with her head smashed in, I think I told you about that-”
“Sarah.”
“-drove home as fast as I could and-”
“Sarah!”
“What?”
I tried to stay calm. “Get out of the house.”
“What?”
“Just get out of the house. Walk out the door, get in the car, and, and just drive to the doughnut shop. I’ll find you there.”
“What do you mean, get out of the house?”
“Sarah, I’ll explain later, but right now it’s important that you-”
“Hang on,” she said.
“What?”
“Just hang on. There’s someone at the door.”
“Sarah, don’t answer the-”
And I heard her put the phone down. She must have been using the one in the kitchen, not a cordless, otherwise she would have kept talking as she went to the door.
“Sarah.”
Nothing.
“Sarah?”
Still nothing.
“Sarah!”
And then, a minute later, the sound of the receiver being picked up.
“Sarah?”
