Mrs. Gorkin turned her gun on me. “We kill him now then.”
“Whoa, hang on, wait a minute,” Merker said. “Let’s not get crazy.”
“Who’s that man in the truck?” Gavrilla asked.
“That’s Leo,” Merker said.
“Okay, so you leave Leo with us,” Gavrilla said, her mom watching her curiously, “and we let you take this guy to get your money, then you come back with the money, you give us our cut, Leo can go and you give us back this guy.”
“What, Leo’s, like, a hostage?”
“No, no. He just stays with us.” Gavrilla shrugged. “We’ll hang out.”
Ludmilla, on her feet now, said, “I could stay here.”
“There’s somebody else,” Merker said. “In the truck, with Leo. She’d have to stay too.”
“How much money?” Mrs. Gorkin asked.
“Like I said, a lot,” Merker said.
“Don’t give me this sheet, a lot,” she said. “We not letting you walk off with him we don’t know what’s in it for us.”
“The thing is,” Merker said, “I don’t know exactly how much she’s got. I know what she took, but she probably spent that, but she’s probably made some back. I’m betting she’s got it stashed away someplace and I want it back. With fucking interest too.”
“How much she take?”
Merker didn’t even hesitate. “A hundred thousand.” I couldn’t see any advantage, at the moment, in pointing out that he was underreporting potential income. I was not the tax man.
“Whoa,” said Mrs. Gorkin. “Okay then, we want thirty percent.”
“Thirty percent?” said Merker. “You fucking joking? What’s fucking thirty percent of a hundred thousand?”
Trixie hadn’t been kidding when she said Merker wasn’t very good at numbers. I said, “I think that would work out to about thirty thousand dollars.”
Merker shook his head disapprovingly. “That’s just ridiculous. I’ll give you five. Five thousand bucks.”
Mrs. Gorkin pointed her weapon at me again. “You must not need him very much.”
“Okay, okay, ten. Ten thousand. That’s as high as I’m willing to go.” Mrs. Gorkin’s gun was still trained at my head. “Fuck, all right, what about twenty-five thousand? That would work out to, that would be…”
“Twenty-five percent,” I said.
“Okay, how about that?”
Mrs. Gorkin lowered the gun. “Dat okay.”
Gavrilla was smiling proudly. This had been her strategy, after all. “That’s good. That’s great. So, you should call Leo in.”
Merker went to the open door, made a waving motion. I heard a pickup door slam, and then Leo Edgar was walking up the porch steps.
He was leading, by the hand, a child. A little girl, probably no more than five years old. Curly haired. Quiet, walking as if in a daze. Dried tears visible on her cheeks.
Katie Bennet. Trixie’s daughter.
34
I WAS BACK UP on my feet now, the residual effects of a punch to the gut and fifty thousand volts to my entire body momentarily forgotten as Katie Bennet stepped into the house. She looked at me with a glimmer of recognition, but no joy.
“Katie,” I said, moving toward her and going down on one knee. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
She half-nodded. I put my hands on her shoulders, and she tensed. I pulled them away. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her, but they were only words. If she was here, with Gary Merker and Leo Edgars, there was no way that things were okay.
I looked up at Merker. “What the hell’s going on?”
“You didn’t think her mother would just
“Are we almost done here, Gary?” Leo asked. “I could really use a bite.”
“Leo, fuck’s sake, I got a situation to deal with here,” Gary said.
Leo, somewhat dimly, took in everyone else present. His eyes bounced off Mrs. Gorkin and then her two daughters. Ludmilla stepped forward, extended a hand. “Hi,” she said, smiling. “I’m Ludmilla. Aren’t you a handsome one?”
Maybe, to someone like Ludmilla, Leo was a prize specimen. Gavrilla insinuated herself between Leo and her sister, extending her hand as well. “I’m Gavrilla, Ludmilla’s younger sister,” she said. By what? Fifteen seconds? Five minutes?
“Hi,” Leo said. “What’s going on, Gary?”
“I’m gonna need you and the kid to stay here with one of the girls while this guy”-he waved his stun gun in my direction-“helps me get that bitch’s money.”
“Why I got to stay here? I need to get something to eat.”
“Fuck, Leo, would you relax? I’ve worked out a deal with the ladies here. You stay here with-which one are you?”
“Ludmilla,” said Ludmilla.
“You stay here with Ludmilla.”
“I could stay,” Gavrilla said. “Why don’t you go back to the restaurant?” she said to her sister.
“I already said I would stay,” Ludmilla said. “Didn’t I, Mom?”
Mrs. Gorkin wasn’t going to tolerate this for a minute. “Gavrilla, you come with me. Ludmilla, you stay, make sure this man stay till
“Hey,” said Leo. “What’s she need a gun for?”
“To shoot you,” Gary said offhandedly. “If you try to leave before I get back with the money.”
“Oh,” said Leo.
Ludmilla took the gun and ran the barrel down the side of Leo’s arm. “Don’t worry, honey. It just keeps everyone honest.”
“I guess,” Leo said. “Why do I have to keep the kid?”
Katie had gone over to our couch, sat down. She looked ahead vacantly. I wondered whether she was in some sort of shock.
“Look at her,” Merker said. “How much trouble can she be?”
“Well, okay. How long you going to be?”
“I don’t know. That depends on shithead here,” he said, pointing at me. “You gotta get us into that jail to see what’s-her-face. You know her as Trixie, right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So start setting it up.”
“How on earth am I supposed to do that?”
Merker shrugged. “Maybe you should figure something out. If you can’t, we can always have some fun with the kid.”
I swallowed. “Let me think,” I said. Trixie had mentioned the name of her lawyer when she’d been arrested at the Bennet farmhouse. I closed my eyes, tried to think of it. It had something to do with a dog. Something dogs do. Not bite, not sniff, not-
Wag. Wagland. Niles Wagland.
“I have an idea,” I said. “I can call her lawyer. Maybe he can get me in. Let me go check on the computer, I can probably find an office number online-” I stopped myself. “No.”
“What?” asked Merker. “What do you mean, no?”
