“We’re not married,” he says.
“But you love me, right?” she says.
“It would appear so, yes.”
“There’s that tic again.”
“I love you, yes,” he says.
He’s beginning to believe it himself.
She tells him that she’s been working in a jewelry boutique out on Willard, which is how she happens to know Ronnie’s Lounge, but that she’s been thinking of maybe starting her own business, if she can get her wonderful ex to make his damn alimony payments when he’s supposed to…
“I’m supposed to get a thousand dollars a month, but he’s always late with his check,” she says.
“Yeah,” Rafe says.
He’s thinking the one thing he doesn’t need in his life is paying alimony to an ex-wife, no matter how much you love another woman, if in fact you do love her, now that Willie has shrunken back into his shell again. She does indeed have a splendid rack, though, and a lovely ass, and he can’t get over the blonde hair and black bush, which he still thinks is entirely trusting of her to expose herself that way. He is beginning to think he’s never been quite this intimate with another woman in his life, which is perhaps what he meant when he said he’d never felt this way about another woman, which maybe is being in love, after all. He is beginning to get a little confused.
“Did you ever go to bed with Alice?” she asks out of the blue.
This is now three o’clock in the morning. Around three in the morning, they all ask you out of the blue to start cataloging all the women you’ve ever slept with. He’s almost forgotten this about women. You have to know this about women if you ever hope to survive. He’s glad he’s remembering it now. Before it’s too late. Too late for what? he wonders. And feels confused again.
“No, hey,” he says, “what kind of a bounder do you take me for?”
“Bounder, huh?” she says, and giggles.
It pleases him that he can make a beautiful woman like this one giggle. Not that Carol isn’t beautiful. It’s just that she doesn’t giggle much, anymore. Well, two growing boys, who would giggle anymore?
“A bounder and a rounder, too,” he says, pressing his luck, and damn if she doesn’t giggle again. “But I would never hit on my own sister-in-law.”
“Then what was your truck doing parked outside her house?” she asks.
“I told you. I stopped by to see her. I do that all the time. She’s my sister-in-law!”
“Then why wouldn’t she let me in?”
“Because…”
“Because the two of you were alone in there. And if I know you…”
“No, no, we weren’t alone.”
“Then who was there?”
“The police.”
“The police? Why?”
So he has to explain that his little niece and nephew were kidnapped…
“Get out!”…and that the people who kidnapped them asked for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, which the police supplied for Alice to drop off Friday morning…
“That poor woman!” Jennifer says.
“Yeah, and she still hasn’t got the kids back,” Rafe says.
“What do you mean the police supplied it? Where’d they get that kind of money?”
So he has to explain that the Treasury Department supplied the bills for another kidnapping down here a couple of years ago, and that the bills were these counterfeits called super-bills…
“Get out!” she says again.…which are so good it’s impossible to tell them from the real thing.
“Which is what I tried to explain to these former business associates of mine,” Rafe says, “but they wouldn’t buy into it.”
“Wouldn’t buy into what?”
“Well, these people are criminals, am I right?” Rafe says. “The ones who kidnapped Alice’s kids?”
“So?”
“So what harm would it do if someone took that money from them? I mean, they’re criminals, am I right? Serve them right, am I right?”
“I’m still not following.”
“And also, the money is fake besides.”
She shakes her head, totally bewildered.
“What we’ve got,” he explains, “is a pair of chicks sitting out there on two hundred and fifty grand in fake money so good you can’t tell it from the real thing. So what if some enterprising souls relieved them of that money? It’s fake, anyway, am I right? And they’re criminals in the bargain. So where’s the harm?”
“Two chicks, huh?” Jennifer asks.
“It would appear so, yes.”
“All we have to do is find them,” she says.
“That’s all, baby,” he says.
For some reason, he’s getting hard again.
Alice’s phone rings at 8:45 A.M.
Charlie is still asleep on the living room sofa. She grabs for the receiver at once.
“Hello?”
“Alice, it’s Frank. How are you?”
Her boss at Lane Realty.
“Fine, Frank.”
“How’s your foot?”
“Okay.”
“Are you able to get around?”
“Pretty much so.”
“Do you think you’ll be coming in today?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Still in pain, are you?”
“No, Frank, it’s just… the foot’s in a cast, you know…”
“Yes, so I understand.”
“…and it’s a little clumsy driving. Maybe Aggie can handle any appointments I have for today…”
“Is that what you’d like me to do?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“Give these various listings to Aggie?”
“I’m sure she can handle them.”
“When do you think you’ll be coming back to work, Alice?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Sundays are big, too.”
“Yes, I know.”
“O-kay, Alice,” he says, and sighs heavily. “Let me know when you’re ready to come back, will you?”
“I’ll let you know, Frank.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Get better.”
And hangs up.
They know the blue Impala was followed yesterday, but they do not yet know that Avis has given up the license plate number. Even so, they are reluctant to drive the car again, or even to leave it where they’ve parked it on the mainland. They check the Yellow Pages under CAR RENTAL AGENCIES, find the nearest location for a Hertz place, and call to reserve a car for Clara Washington. It is Christine who arrives at the Henderson Grove outlet in a taxi that morning.
She shows the clerk behind the counter the same fake driver’s license, and charges the car rental to the same fake American Express card. The man from whom they purchased the credit card in New Orleans told them it was a “thirty-dayer,” his exact words, meaning it would be good for thirty days before Amex recognized it as a phony. He assured them that the driver’s license, however — which also cost them a sizable bundle — would never be challenged. Christine doesn’t know that the FBI has already flagged both the license and the credit card. But in any event, the Hertz people say nothing about her credentials, and she drives off in a sporty new red Ford Taurus.
There have been a lot of bank holdups in the state of Florida during the past year or so, and a big sign at the entrance to Southwest Federal cautions all customers to remove hats, sunglasses, or kerchiefs before approaching any of the tellers’ windows. Christine takes off her own sunglasses the moment she steps into the lobby. A uniformed guard at the door gives her the once-over, but she surmises he’s scrutinizing her boobs rather than her potential as a bank robber.
She chooses a black teller, a woman like herself. HENRIETTA LEWIS, her little name plaque announces in white letters on black. Sometimes choosing a sister backfires. You get a black with attitude, she’ll give another black more grief than any white person in the whole wide world. But this one greets Christine with a cheery smile.