the-”
Then he looked at me. He had the gun out, and while he was waving it around, it was pointed more or less in my direction.
“Where is it?” He’d become instantly maniacal. “The bag! Where is the bag?”
I made a motion with my thumb, like a hitchhiker, pointing out front. “Ludmilla,” I said. “I think she wanted to be sure Mom got her share.”
He ran straight into me, shoved me up against the wall, and opened the front door. He stepped out onto the porch, looked down the street in time to see his truck receding into the distance, and got off a shot.
I started running back through the house. I got as far as the kitchen, saw that the back door was still open from Sarah and Katie’s escape. Then there was another shot. Ahead of me, the kitchen window that looked out onto the backyard shattered.
“Hold it!” Merker shouted.
I froze. He ran, caught up to me, put the barrel of the gun to the back of my head.
“Where are they? The kid? Your wife?”
“They’re gone,” I said.
Merker pushed the barrel harder against my skull. “Jesus! Goddamn it!”
I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. This was it, I figured. He was finally going to blow my brains out. Part of me wished he’d just get it over with. I felt strangely at ease. The two people I most wanted to save were on their way to freedom.
They were safe.
“Fuck them,” Merker said. “I want the money. We’ve got to go after the money.” He took a couple more breaths. He was trying to pull himself together. “You know where they hang out? Where the twins and the mother are?”
“It’s a burger place.”
“Show me. Take me there.”
The cold steel against my head made the decision a bit easier. “Sure,” I said.
Leo, coming into the kitchen, was doing up the belt on his pants and walking like he’d just ridden in on a horse. He was white as a sheet. If he was surprised to see Merker and me alone in the kitchen, Ludmilla and Katie gone, and a gun to my head, he didn’t show it.
He asked me, “You got any, like, Alka-Seltzer or anything?”
I pointed to the pantry. “Bottom shelf,” I said.
Leo opened the pantry door, found the tablets, ran some water into a glass and dropped two of them in.
He squinted at the bubbles as they rose off the water’s surface, then drank it down in one gulp. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said to Merker, who was still holding the gun to my head, “Did you count the money yet?”
40
“LUDMILLA LEFT WITH THE MONEY?” Leo said. He seemed genuinely shocked. “Are you sure, Gary?”
“Am I sure?” Merker said. “You see a bag of money around anywhere? I left it at the bottom of the stairs, and not only did she take that, she stole my fucking truck.”
Leo was perplexed. “She seemed like such a nice person. We talked about all sorts of things while you were gone. Did you know that someday she wants to open her own beautician’s shop?”
Merker looked at Leo, dumfounded.
“I know she’s not what you’d call a beauty herself, she could stand to lose a few pounds, but she has a nice way about her,” Leo said. “I don’t see why she couldn’t make a go of it.”
Merker, who still had a gun at my head, said to me, “Keys.”
“What?” I said.
“Car keys.”
The only car left in the drive was Trixie’s, and if he wanted to take it and find his way to Burger Crisp on his own, that was fine with me.
“In my pocket,” I said, reaching in and dropping them onto the kitchen counter. Merker snatched them up.
Then he grabbed me by the back of my jacket and started leading me to the door. “Just take the car,” I said. “What do you need me for?”
“Navigator,” Merker said. “Leo, come on.”
Leo said, “I feel like I might have to go to the bathroom again.”
“Leo!” Merker said. “We’re going! We’re picking up three hundred fucking thousand dollars. If you shit your pants, you can buy a new pair.”
Leo still looked uneasy, but followed as Merker and I went out the front door. He hit the remote button on the key to open the doors of Trixie’s sedan. “You,” he said to me, “up front with me. Leo, you take the back.”
I got in the passenger side, Merker slid in behind the wheel, and Leo got into the back seat. He got in gingerly, favoring his ass.
“Take off your belt,” Merker said to Leo, who was just buckling up.
“You don’t want me to wear my seatbelt?”
“No, on your pants. Take off your belt and tie his head to the headrest.”
“Aw, come on,” I said.
Merker looked at me and pointed. “I don’t want you trying anything. I’m tired of getting fucked around. Letting your wife and the kid leave, letting that bitch run off with my money, that was wrong.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was working for you.”
“You see? That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. It’s your attitude. Leo, what are you doing?”
“I’m just trying to get my belt off, okay?” I glanced back, saw him slip it out of the last loop of his jeans. “How am I supposed to keep my pants from falling down, Gary?”
“I’ll buy you a new belt this afternoon,” Merker said. “I’ll buy you a hundred belts.”
The belt went over my head and down to my neck. Leo looped it around the two aluminum posts that supported the headrest.
“It’s kind of loose,” Leo said. “I got it on the last hole.”
That, thankfully, was true. While the belt prevented much mobility on my part, it didn’t keep me from breathing. As long as I didn’t lean forward suddenly, it wasn’t touching the front of my neck. I sat rigidly in the seat, pressing my head back against the cushioned headrest.
“All comfy?” Merker said. When I did not reply, he put the car into reverse and backed out of the drive. “Which way?” he asked me.
I pointed. Merker headed north. “Second stop sign, hang a right,” I said.
Merker put his foot to the floor, listened to the engine’s powerful surge. “Nice wheels. This is yours?”
“Trixie’s,” I said.
“No shit. Hey, Leo?”
“Yeah?”
“Like this car?”
“Yeah. It’s really nice. Nice upholstery.”
“We’re gonna keep this car. Make up for the fact that we got shortchanged on the safety-deposit box.”
“Okay,” Leo said without much enthusiasm.
“You don’t mind, right?” Merker asked me with mock consideration. “It’s not like it’s your car.”
“Be my guest,” I said, pushing my head back against the headrest.
Leo called to me. “Hey, mister, that burger? I think there was something bad about it.”
“You were warned,” I said.
“Huh?”
