Tom said, “I’m not going to tell you that.”
He said, “I’m on your side, but I’m not an idiot.”
Then, “That will work.”
Finally, “Tomorrow morning.”
He closed the phone, then opened it again long enough to stab the power. When it beeped off, he set it on the windowsill, then leaned back into the chair, a mod blue thing, boxy and too large. He put his arms on the armrests, then closed his eyes and rolled his head back. “He wants to meet for breakfast.”
“He’ll do it?”
“He was excited. I think he’d rather this than get his dope back.”
“And you think he’ll leave us alone afterwards?”
“I think so. He seems… professional. I’m sure he believes we don’t have the drugs – I mean, why would we lie about that? Not like we can sell them on the street corner. Plus, we’re white, educated, employed taxpayers. He kills us, it’s going to be investigated. Can’t see why he’d want that. Besides, after we help him…” He ran a tongue across his lips.
She finished his sentence in her head. Just to see. There was a twinge, definitely. A momentary regret. But most of the emotional turmoil she was swimming through had more to do with fear. Fear that it wouldn’t work, that something would go wrong, that Tom would end up hurt. Measured against that, the twinge of moralitywas a trickle against a tidal wave. Who wouldn’t put their loved ones ahead of everything else? “So what now?”
He rubbed at his forehead with his good hand. Shrugged. Said, “Want to see if there’s anything good on TV?”
THEY’D LEFT THE CURTAINS OPEN, and the faint reflection of city lights swam on the darkened ceiling. Tom had looked at the clock two minutes ago, knew that it was just after three, but felt a powerful urge to look again. Didn’t.
The pain in his hand synced to his heart, his fingers swelling and shrinking with every beat. He remembered one time talking to a doctor about stomach problems, the doc asking him to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten, which he’d found strange. How would you know what pain really was? Couldn’t it always get worse? That was the way of life. You thought you understood things, had a grip on what was good and what was bad, and then wham, something came along that redefined your spectrum.
“Are we greedy?” He spoke to the darkness.
After a moment, she said, “For taking the money?”
“No. Yes.” He stared upward. “Not just that. Are we greedy people?” A car horn sounded outside, muted by the glass into a faint and ghostly wail.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Not more than anybody else.”
“Six on a scale of ten.”
“What?”
He shook his head. Said nothing. They lay on the bed, the comforter piled at their feet, only the sheet stretched over them. From the angle, he couldn’t see the city outside the window, just an indigo glow creeping to midnight blue. Beneath that never-dark sky lay the depths of Lake Michigan, black ripples frosted white. He didn’t know how to sail, but had always wanted a sailboat. He imagined being on one now, skimming over inky currents like the edge of a dream, just him and Anna and a cold wind and the hollow lap of water and the city’s fevered light dwindling behind. Head east, sail all night, into a sunrise scrubbed clean by solitude.
“What are you thinking, baby?”
“Something Jack said.” He flashed back to the moment, the twitch of adrenaline, the pressure of the knife in his pocket. The way Jack had gestured with one hand to encompass their living room, their marriage, their life. “He asked why we took the money. What we wanted that we didn’t already have.”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t know what to say. I mean, we aren’t as well off as it must have looked to him. He didn’t know about mortgage payments and fertility treatments and how badly we wanted a baby and how you hated your job. But…” He held his hands in the air, then folded them behind his head. “I don’t know. Even with those things. He had a point.”
In the quiet of the room, he could hear her breathing. “You know what I think? Everything finds a balance. An equilibrium.” Her voice low. “I think rich people are fundamentally about as happy as poor people. It’s the way we’re wired. When things are good for any length of time, we take them for granted. When they’re bad, we get used to them. Our heads level everything out.”
“That’s kind of convenient.”
“What do you mean?”
“As an argument. It makes it easy not to worry about things or try to change them. It excuses us from concern.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true. Give somebody a million dollars, they’re going to live it up for a while. But eventually, the lifestyle will become normal. It won’t thrill. They’ll end up feeling more or less the same way they always did.”
“So what’s the point?”
“I don’t know. Live a good life. Be nice to people. Have a family, and love them well.”
He thought about it, staring at the liquid stir of light on the ceiling. “Maybe you’re right. I look back at the problems we used to have, and I wonder what the hell was wrong with us. I mean, were we really sweating all that nonsense? Everything that mattered at the time, now it seems…” He pursed his lips and blew air like he was scattering the pods off a dandelion.
“I know,” she said. “Worrying about advertising. House payments. Jesus. Even the baby thing.”
They fell silent for a long spell, time marked in steady intervals by the slow throb of his hand. Finally he said, “We were greedy.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess we were.”
AROUND SIX IN THE MORNING, he gave it up. His fingers ached, his head pounded, and it felt like someone had grabbed hold of his kidney and twisted. Tom rolled out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom. He closed the door and started the shower, put one of the disposable packs in the coffeemaker. Thought better of it, and stuffed the second pack in as well.
In the shower he stood and let the water drench him, pounding off the top of his head in a soaking spray that hid the world and soothed some of the pain. It felt lovely, a quiet moment lost behind a curtain of water. The only thing that ruined it was having to hold his bandaged left hand up and away.
He reluctantly got out of the shower and awkwardly toweled off. At least there was a plan. He felt better for that. Maybe they had been greedy. Maybe they were in over their heads. But they were working together, sharing their strength, and they had a plan. It was something. He poured the coffee into two mugs and stepped into the room.
Anna lay nude atop sheets twisted like whipped egg whites. She smiled when he set a mug on the table. Tom picked up his cell phone and turned it on. The message indicator blinked, and he dialed his voice mail. A computerized voice told him he had four messages.
“This is Detective Halden. Give me a call back as soon as you can. We’re ready to go ahead with setting up this man who threatened you.” The cop rattled off his phone numbers. Tom sipped the coffee. Strong but lousy, which he supposed was better than weak but lousy. He punched a button to save the message and hear the next.
“Mr. Reed, Detective Halden. Please call me – we need to move.”
The next. “This is Christopher Halden again. I need you to call me back ASAP. Day or night. I mean it, Tom – as soon as possible. I’ll try your home line as well.”
The next, from this morning. A hang-up.
Shit. Tom closed the phone, rubbed his jaw. They’d gotten so caught up in their plans last night he’d forgotten all about the cop. “I’ve got a couple of messages from Halden.”
“Don’t call him.” Anna wriggled to a sitting position, stuffed a pillow behind her back. “We can’t talk to him now. If you accidentally say something that tips him off about Jack or the mall…”