Part 12 (2/2)

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that. The bank was packed and overheated, and I had to wait by the automated change-counter for a spot at the back of the line. Filling out the withdrawal slip, trying to guess just how much cash we'd need to finance an unspecified length of time at an undisclosed location, I told myself it was unlikely that Jordan Novick had already faxed my name and photograph to every bank in the chain. He was thinking of me only as the relative of a potential suspect, if he was thinking of me at all.

He'd been nice, though, I thought as I joined the throng of upstanding citizens. It figured that the first nice, non-crazy guy I'd meet would be investigating a crime, a crime in which I was now implicated. Even if Dan Swansea did turn up and clear Val's good name, Jordan probably wouldn't be interested in me. ”I'd like to make a withdrawal, please,” I said when the teller beckoned me forward, and I slid my slip and driver's license across the counter. An instant later, Valerie, with the fringed scarf wrapped burka-style over her head and most of her face, sidled up beside me and s.n.a.t.c.hed the withdrawal slip back.

”This is a robbery,” she told the teller.

”Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Val, it is not. It's not,” I said to the teller. She had a round face and red lipstick and a felt and fake-fur Santa hat on her head. She looked from my face to Val's and back again. ”I've got a gun,” Val whispered. ”Give me whatever's in the drawer.” She pulled a plastic shopping bag out of her purse and held it open in front of the teller's startled face. ”Put it in here. n.o.body moves, n.o.body gets hurt. Come with me if you want to live.” And then, apparently having run out of movie lines to quote, she waved the empty bag for emphasis.

”Ignore her,” I said to the teller, whose name tag read TIARA. I tried to give her my license and the withdrawal slip again. Val clamped her hand down over mine.

”We need ten Gs in unmarked, nonsequential bills,” she said through lips that barely moved. ”No dye packets. No alarms. Be cool, sister, and we'll all make it out of here just fine.”

Tiara finally opened her mouth, revealing a wad of grape-scented gum the size of a golf ball and a silver stud through the meat of her tongue. ”OhmyG.o.d.”

”Ignore her,” I repeated. ”She doesn't have a gun.”

”Do so.” Val reached into her purse and pulled out a slim rectangle of what looked like sterling silver. ”Now get busy livin' or get busy dyin'.”

”Valerie,” I said. ”That's a tampon case.”

”Yeah, well. I've got a gun. It's in here. Somewhere.” Val unloaded mints and makeup and leather luggage tags onto the narrow granite ledge of the counter. Meanwhile, Tiara had unlocked her drawer and was sliding banded stacks of money at me. I was pus.h.i.+ng them back at her as Val pulled something out of her handbag.

”Here!”

”That's an eyelash curler.”

”This?”

”iPod.”

”Listen.” Tiara was whispering to us. ”Just leave two stacks of fifties in the green Saturn parked in the corner out back, and we're all good. I won't pull the alarm until you leave.”

Val's eyes lit up. ”Seriously?” she asked in her normal newscastery voice. ”You are so cool!”

”Jesus,” I said. ”Listen. Tiara. We aren't doing this. We're not...”

”Here you go,” said Tiara. She'd gone pale, but her hands were working smoothly. Packets of bills tumbled into the bag. I looked around to see if anyone in the bustling bank was noticing the robbery in progress. It didn't look that way. At the station next to me, a small, bald man was arguing with the teller about when his out-of-state check would clear, and there was a commotion over by the change-counter that seemed to have resulted from someone's purse-dog p.o.o.ping on the floor.

”That's ten thousand dollars,” said Tiara. ”You're gonna take care of me, right?” With one long pink-glossed acrylic nail she pointed at a picture she had Scotch-taped to the side of her computer. A little boy in corduroys was sitting on Santa's knee. ”That's my baby.”

”We got you,” Val promised. She looped the bag's handles around her wrists. ”Thanks.”

I waited until Val was out the door, then took my withdrawal slip back, crossed out the $2,000 I'd planned on taking out, and wrote in $10,000. ”Just take it out of my account, okay?” I said to Tiara, who nodded, continuing to work at her gum, as placid as if she got robbed every day of the week. ”As long as you take care of me,” she said, and I nodded-what choice did I have?

”Merry Christmas!” she called, and I wished her the same.

Out in the parking lot behind the bank, we found Tiara's Saturn. The doors were locked, but the pa.s.senger's-side window was open wide enough for us to slip two of the wrapped money packets through. ”Ho ho ho,” said Val. She stared at the bank's backside for a minute. ”Wow. She was cool.”

”Okay, just for the record? You are insane. And we need to get out of here.”

”You don't want to rob the McDonald's?”

I thought about it. Strange as it seemed, part of me actually did. ”We should go,” I said again.

”How about you drive for a while?” she said, and tossed me the keys.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

He was in heaven. That explained everything. On his way along the road, he'd been hit by a car, and he'd died, or maybe he'd frozen to death on the road somewhere, and now he was in heaven, and heaven was a white bed with a white lace canopy on top and a cross made of scalloped white wood nailed to the wall above it, across from a doily-topped dresser covered with painted plaster dolls in elaborate gowns, the kinds of things he thought lonely women who lived alone with their cats bought late at night on QVC. ”A new... day... has... come,” a sweet soprano sang. In heaven, thought Dan, Celine Dion provided the sound track.

He sat up, groaning at the tsunami of pain that rolled through his head, as a woman came into the room. She carried a tray in her hands-there was a steaming mug of something, a bowl of what smelled like oatmeal, a small gla.s.s of orange juice so bright it looked almost psychedelic, and a larger gla.s.s of milk.

”You're awake,” she said as Dan hastily rearranged the blankets over his morning erection. He wasn't sure if the woman in the pink velour bathrobe was an angel-she looked kind of grumpy and also kind of familiar-but he wasn't taking any chances or risking causing any offense.

”Here,” she said, and set the tray on his lap. Not gently, either. Hot tea slopped over the edge of the mug and trickled through the blankets. Dan looked at her, really looked at her, and the pieces fell into place.

”Holy Mary?” he blurted. That wasn't really her name. Her real name was Meredith Armbruster, but to Dan and his friends, she'd been Holy Mary, who'd joined that weird culty church that convened in a renovated gas station in Pleasant Ridge's crummiest neighborhood; Holy Mary, who'd gotten herself excused from gym cla.s.s (her faith forbade her from letting the other girls see her underpants) and biology cla.s.s (no evolution) and health cla.s.s (no fornication). They'd called her Holy Mary, and Carrie, after the girl from the movie who'd gotten doused in pigs' blood and then burned down the prom.

She blinked, then frowned. ”Take your aspirin,” she said. ”Drink your milk.”

Dan lifted the cup. ”What happened?” He could remember how she'd found him on the side of the road and driven him to her house. She'd helped him into the bathroom, out of his trash bags, and then, when he was naked and s.h.i.+vering before her, dabbed the blood away from the wound on the side of his head. Then she'd shooed him into the shower and washed him, head to toe, kneeling to soap and rinse his feet as he huddled, s.h.i.+vering and sick and aching and still, he realized, very very drunk, against the pink-tiled walls.

”What happened?” he asked again, hearing the silence that surrounded them, guessing that the rest of the house was empty, that this was Merry's parents' house and that he was in what had been her high school bedroom. Where other girls might have had posters or pictures, she had that cross, draped with a set of rosary beads. Tucked into the edge of the mirror, where other girls might have kept a picture of their boyfriend or their best friend, was a ma.s.s card. Jesus had his hands clasped in prayer and his eyes tilted toward the heavens.

”What happened,” said Merry, ”is between you and Our Father.” She clasped her hands and looked heavenward, just like Jesus on her mirror.

”Last night,” Dan said. ”You found me...”

”You were walking along the road. You were wearing garbage bags. I helped you-that was just Christian charity; any decent person would have done the same thing. I brought you back here. I cleaned you up and I let you sleep.”

Dan gave a dry and rueful chuckle. ”I guess I was pretty wasted.”

Merry pursed her lips. ”'Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper.'”

He nodded, grimacing as his stomach roiled and the world wobbled in front of him. ”True that.”

She closed her mouth, looking at him sternly. ”You ruined those girls' lives,” she said after a moment.

Dan put the cup down. ”What are you talking about?”

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