Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [103]
She would be eager to hear what had happened, ready to rejoice. What would he tell her? What could he say?
Addison
“Hey, Brady,” Big Mike said. “We close in about a minute, you know.”
“I know. Shake machine still running?”
“Nah. Shut down and cleaned up already.”
“Shoot.”
“You want something for your brother?”
“Yeah. Promised.”
“Pie?”
“It’ll be cold by the time I get it home. Got any cookies? He loves those.”
Mike tossed him a package. “No charge. I just closed the register too.”
“Thanks, man. So, Red’s got you on night deposit duty tonight, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Congrats, Mike. He must really be happy with you.”
“I guess.”
“They paying you pretty good now?”
“Nah.”
“Hey, you want to make forty bucks?”
“Sure. How?”
Brady pulled four tens from his pocket and spread them on the counter, as if the deal were already done. “Takes you a few days to make that much, huh, Mike?”
“What do I got to do?”
“Hardly anything. Mostly say only what I tell you to say and nothing more. Can you do that?”
“Depends.”
“Here’s the deal: you give me the deposit bag. How much is in there?”
Mike shrugged. “A few thousand.”
“Perfect. You just drive over to the bank and park near the night deposit drawer. Then call Red and tell him some guys—in fact, make it a man and a woman, and say one of ’em’s black. Anyway, they pulled up and held a gun on you and took the bag. You gotta sound all scared. Can you do that?”
“What? That’ll never work.”
“’Course it will! Red’ll call the cops, and you can tell them you were too scared to think about what kind of car it was and say they wore ski masks or something, but you could tell the guy was black. C’mon, man, forty bucks!”
“I do all the work, you get all the money, and I get forty? No way.”
“How much then?”
“Half.”
“But it was my idea!”
“You’re gonna skate, Brady.”
“I’ll give you a fourth, then.”
“Deal.”
“Really, Mike?”
“I can use the money.”
“Me too. Good man.”
They went to the back and counted the money, and Brady was thrilled to see that his part of the deal would give him more than forty-five hundred dollars.
“That’s more’n fifteen hundred for you, Mike.”
“Plus the forty.”
“What?”
“You’re gonna be rich, Brady. I’m taking all the risk. . . .”
“All right, fine.”
After a few more words of coaching for Mike, including a little acting advice, Brady headed back to the trailer park. Along the way he tossed the bank bag in a ditch and stuffed the wads of cash in his pockets. Then he went directly to the laborers’ shack and paid off both Manny and Pepe.
“And let me have a quarter kilo too,” Brady said.
“I still got work for you,” Pepe said, handing him a taped cellophane package. “As long as you keep up with your bills.”
“Or what? You’ll threaten my family again? I don’t need that, and I don’t need you.”
When he got home, Brady left the cookies on the kitchen table for Peter and a stack of cash for his mother with a note telling her he was paying his rent a month in advance. He stored the remaining booty deep in the closet with his sawed-off and ammo, smoked a joint, and dropped into bed.
But despite the grass, Brady was so wired he wondered if he would ever sleep again.
38
Adamsville
“I saw you on the news,” Grace said, padding out in her robe. It was one in the morning. “They showed you walking past the demonstrators. Something wrong with the car?”
Thomas shook his head. She helped him shed his hat and coat and scarf and led him to the couch. He buried his face in his hands.
“You don’t need to talk about it, Thomas. It’s written all over you.”
He leaned over on her and she enveloped him.
Thomas was so glad he didn’t have to go to work in the morning. He would request Thursday and Friday off too, meaning he wouldn’t have to return to the prison until Monday. If there was any getting over this despair, he ought to be able to manage it in five days. But