Mrs. Million (12 page)

“Let me go. I’ll just walk out of here and you’ll be done with me. You hear what I’m saying?”

He needed time to think. André’s eyes darted wildly, landed on the roll of duct tape on the floor beside the furnace. He picked it up and unrolled a long strip.

Bobby said, “You better not—” André slapped the length of tape across the man’s mouth, wrapped it twice around his head. The rich smell of concentrated urine rose up around him. André fled up the steps.

Jayjay stood in the kitchen holding the phone to his ear. As André emerged from the stairwell, he hung up the phone and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I was checking on your guest,” said André. “How long do you plan to keep him here?”

Jayjay sat down. “I just tried to call again. They’re still not answering.”

“Oh? Tell me again. Who are you trying to call?” André felt his heart speed up, felt his fingernails digging into his palms.

“I got it written down.” Jayjay leaned forward and fingered a scuff mark on the toe of his right Doc Marten.

“I have spoken with him, Jonathan.” André’s voice rose in pitch.

The boy looked up, startled.

André reined himself in, took a calming breath. “I know who he is. Listen to me, Jonathan. Even if you should collect the reward money, you will be charged with kidnapping. You cannot just grab a man off the street that way.”

“How else was I gonna get him?”

André clenched his teeth. “In my house! You kidnapped a man and brought him to my house!”

“Where else was I gonna bring him?”

André restrained the urge to seize the boy and shake him. “You will simply land yourself in jail, Jayjay—and me with you! I insist that you let him go. He told me that if we let him go he will not press charges.”

“Uh-uh. No way, Perfesser. I caught him fair and square. I want my money.”

“Money?” André banged his fists on his hips. “You little ingrate! Money? A thousand dollars? You told me a thousand dollars! You lied to me you, you ingrate.” He moved closer to Jayjay and shook a finger in the boy’s smirking face. “I want that man out of my house now. Do you understand me?”

Jayjay leaned back away from the finger. “Hey, take it easy.”

André’s hand curled into a fist. “If you do not do as I ask, you will live to regret it!”

Jayjay raised his hands in front of his bare chest, palms forward, laughing nervously. “Hey! No prob. Whatever you say, man.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No!” Jayjay forced his features into an approximation of sobriety. “I hear you, man!”

Every muscle in André’s body was contracted. His mouth was a white pucker; short breaths whistled through his nostrils. He took a step back. Would the boy do as he asked? A small part of him was disappointed. He had been about to do something. Something physical. Throw the boy out on the street where he belonged! André lowered his fist, let his hand open. For a moment there he had almost forgotten he was standing in his own kitchen. He caught sight of the wall clock. Two-thirty! Anger suddenly became alarm. He was late for his meeting with Whitly. He stripped off his apron.

“I must leave immediately. Where are my car keys?”

Jayjay pointed at the key hook by the back door.

“Thank you.” André grabbed the keys, then went to the hall closet and put on his brown tweed sport coat. He checked his reflection in the hall mirror, ran his fingertips through his beard. “Mark my words, Jonathan. Unless you wish to end up in jail, you must set that poor man free. I will be home by four o’clock, and when I return I expect to hear no thumping coming from my cellar. I expect that man and all of that awful silver tape to be removed from my Windsor chair.” He draped his Stewart plaid scarf around his neck. “I will not tolerate your disobedience, Jonathan. The man must go, and that is my final word.”

André closed the door firmly behind him, thinking, There,
that
should put the boy in his place.

Driving somewhat more rapidly than was his usual practice, André maintained his tight-lipped indignation all the way to campus. The situation was really quite stimulating. He had actually threatened the boy with physical harm, and it seemed to have worked! The appearance of the duct-taped man in his cellar was both frightening and inconvenient, and unfortunate as far as his Windsor chair was concerned, but it did get a man’s juices flowing.

Jayjay did not move from the kitchen chair for several minutes after André left. The guy was a know-it-all faggot professor, but a few of the things he’d said made sense. Cashing in the cowboy might not be as easy as he’d hoped. He might collect the reward and land his ass back in prison with nothing to spend it on but cigarettes and jailhouse hooch. Getting his hands on this Robert Quinn might be the worst thing ever happened to him.

On the other hand, he’d never had anything worth a million bucks before. There was no way he was going to let the guy walk. There had to be a way to get the money. He stared at the burbling iron pot on the stove, awaiting inspiration. After a few seconds he felt a squirming in his belly, so he grabbed a fork and took the top off the pot and speared himself a chunk of meat. He waved it in the air until it had cooled, then put the whole thing in his mouth and chewed. The meat was tough and not very flavorful. Jayjay remained unimpressed by the professor’s weird gourmet cooking. Why couldn’t the guy just fry up some burgers? He noticed a jar of dried red peppers above the stove and added a generous handful to the stew. They might not make it taste any better, but it would damn sure make dinner more entertaining. He built himself a peanut butter sandwich and retired to his room to watch TV.

Some time later a shuffling sound followed by a muffled crash roused him. Jayjay ran down to the basement. The guy had tipped over the chair somehow. He had one hand loose and was clawing frantically at the tape around his chest.

“Fuck!” Jayjay rushed forward, kicked him in the face, jumped back. The man screeched—Jayjay could hear it right through the duct tape.

“Shut up or I do it again,” Jayjay shouted.

The squeal subsided.

“You try that again and I’m gonna kill you. She didn’t say nothin’ about you got to be alive.” Jayjay edged closer. “Man, you pissed yourself, didn’t you?”

The man lay on his side, staring at him, breathing loudly through flared nostrils.

“You lookin’ at me?” Jayjay stepped in and kicked him again, this time in the face. “That’ll teach you.” He picked up the roll of duct tape. “I’m gonna wrap you up a little more now, hear? Don’t you fucking move. Okay? I want to see you nod.”

The man’s head bobbed. His nose was bleeding.

“You just do like I say and nobody’s gonna get hurt, understand? Everybody’s gonna get what they want.”

With the light out and the basement door closed, the darkness was complete. Bobby Quinn focused on his breathing. Air in; air out. His left cheek pressed cold concrete. Cold Rock, sucking the heat right out of him. He knew he shouldn’t have come back, no matter how many millions Barbaraannette waved under his nose. One of his nostrils was swollen shut. Breathe in, listen to the air whistle through his nose, let it out. This was all Barbaraannette’s fault. He tried to visualize what he’d seen of the basement. The guy with the beard had left a knife on top of the furnace. It might as well be on top of the house. Was there anything sharp and pointed he could wriggle to, dragging the heavy chair—a nail or a sharp stick or something that would pierce the duct tape covering his mouth? Air in—it took him nearly ten seconds to get a lungful—air out. It occurred to him for the first time that he might not survive this.

Air in; air out. He wondered what had happened to Phlox.

W
HEN BARBARAANNETTE AND PHLOX
arrived at the cloverleaf the eastbound ramp was blocked by a Cold Rock PD squad car, lights flashing, and by Police Chief Dale Gordon’s unmarked Crown LTD. Two Cold Rock cops crouched behind the protection of their squad car, guns drawn. Chief Gordon, hatless and dressed for golf in yellow trousers and a green knit shirt, stood behind his car holding a bullhorn. Their attention was focused on a small black Porsche stopped halfway up the ramp, its engine revving.

“Get out of the vehicle and put your hands on the roof,” Gordon’s amplified voice crackled.

Barbaraannette, headache forgotten, jumped out of the pickup and ran past the policemen toward the sports car.

“Halt!” Gordon shouted.

Barbaraannette ignored the amplified warning, focusing on the blur of orange wig visible through the Porsche’s windshield. She opened the door, reached in, and pulled the keys from the ignition. Hilde, fingers white on the wheel, stared through the windshield and continued to pump the accelerator for a moment, but when the engine refused to respond her fingers relaxed and her face melted into apathy.

“You okay, Hilde?” Barbaraannette asked.

Hilde did not reply, but she appeared to be uninjured. Barbaraannette felt the fear drain away, making room for anger. She looked down the ramp at the Cold Rock cops holding their guns, and at Chief Dale Gordon in his yellow pants holding the bullhorn, all of them looking at her as though she had crashed their party.

Gordon raised the bullhorn to his mouth. “Step away from the vehicle, Barbaraannette.”

Barbaraannette’s eyes narrowed. She walked directly up to Gordon and grabbed the bullhorn. Surprised, he let her take it.

Dale Gordon was only a few years older than Barbaraannette, but he looked ten years older. The flesh beneath his chin jiggled when he spoke; wind cutting across the highway fluttered his thin hair. Tiny red veins brought a blotch of color to his tuberous nose.

Barbaraannette said, “Dale, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

Gordon, licking his lips, took a step back. “Just following standard procedure.”

“That is my seventy-three-year-old mother in that car!”

“Well, now, I
know
that’s your mama, Barbaraannette.”

Barbaraannette raised the bullhorn and pointed it directly into his face. “THEN WHAT ARE YOUR MEN DOING WITH THOSE GUNS?”

Gordon staggered back, clapping his hands to his ears.

Barbaraannette directed the bullhorn at the two officers hiding behind their squad car. “PUT THOSE GUNS BACK WHERE THEY BELONG!”

The cops lowered their guns, looking to their chief for confirmation. Gordon made an incomprehensible waving motion with his hands. The cops looked at each other in confusion.

Barbaraannette dropped the bullhorn on the road and strode back to the Porsche. She helped her mother out of the car and was walking her back to the pickup when she was intercepted by Gordon and his men.

Phlox said, “I thought he was going to put you in handcuffs for sure, honey.”

Barbaraannette helped Hilde into the truck. “So did I,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before he changes his mind.”

“You got it.” She backed down the ramp and pulled out onto the highway. “I about bust a gut when you put that horn in his face.”

“I get carried away sometimes.”

Hilde suddenly became restless. Barbaraannette leaned forward and looked into her mother’s face. “Hilde?”

Hilde perked up and took an interest in her surroundings. “Barbaraannette? Are we there yet?”

“Are we where?”

“Foreman’s! I hear they’re having a going-out-of-business sale!”

Barbaraannette sighed. “That was a long time ago, Hilde.” Foreman’s had closed its doors two years ago, and even if they hadn’t Hilde would not have been welcome. For every dollar she had spent there she’d stolen two. Hilde’s kleptomania had spun out of control around the time her mental faculties began to deteriorate. Barbaraannette sometimes wondered whether she had actually begun to steal more, or had simply gotten caught more often.

“Well then, let’s go to Harold’s.”

Barbaraannette was experiencing a core meltdown behind her right eye. Her headache had returned in a more intense, localized form. She touched her temples lightly with her fingertips. “Not today, Hilde. They’re still upset about that chinchilla coat you walked out with.”

Hilde grinned, remembering. “That was an accident.” She shot her left elbow into Phlox’s ribs. “You want to go shopping, don’t you? Let’s you and me get serious, fill up the back of this pickup truck.”

Phlox brought her arm down to protect her side. “Nothing I’d like better, doll, but I think we’d best get you home.”

“You’re not taking me back to that hotel, are you?”

“You’re staying with me tonight, Hilde,” Barbaraannette said. “And I don’t want to argue about it. It’s either that or you spend the night in jail.”

Hilde frowned and turned to Phlox. “You know, she acts just like my daughter.”

Barbaraannette closed her eyes. If her head didn’t hurt so bad she would either be laughing or crying.

The scene at the cloverleaf would make a good story to tell Toagie at some later date, but right now, Barbaraannette felt fortunate to have recovered her mother and to have avoided arrest herself. There had been a few tense moments, but Dale Gordon had not been unreasonable once the ringing in his ears had stopped. He was a patronizing, chauvinistic, self-important bureaucrat, but he had a thing for Barbaraannette and after several minutes of portentous scolding, he had agreed to release Hilde into her custody.

“On one condition,” he said. “I want you to promise me you’ll keep her off my streets,” he warned.

“I’ll do my best,” said Barbaraannette. She did feel bad about blasting the poor man’s eardrums. “I hope she didn’t make you miss your tee time.”

“I was on my way home. Your mama really had us going. You know how many times my boys chased her around this interchange?”

“She would’ve run out of gas eventually,” said Barbaraannette.

“If the owner decides he wants to press charges, it could go hard for your mama.”

“Dr. Cohen won’t press charges. He doesn’t want to lose a resident. In any case, he shouldn’t leave his keys in his car.”

“I’ll mention that to him.” Chief Gordon permitted himself a smile. “Fact is, your mama drives that little thing better than he does.”

“I’m sorry she caused so much trouble.”