“Who’s Dick?” Debbie asked.

“Danny’s boss.”

He fished for a quarter and stabbed it in while she processed that, it coming on her in a rush. “Wait a second. You mean Tommy’s-”

“Yeah.” He started punching numbers.

“You aren’t going to call him from here, are you?”

“Why not? Something could go wrong?” Before she could reply he held up a finger for silence. “Dick. You know who this is?” His voice into the receiver was slow and menacing.

Jesus.

She looked around, fighting rising panic. The old man at the counter seemed to be reading his newspaper. The hostess faced the other way, slumping across the register with her arms folded. It looked like they were clear.

Evan continued. “That’s right. You have the money?” He paused. “Half the money, you get half your son. You want the top or the bottom?”

She hadn’t wanted to hear this part. It brought it all home, changed it from babysitting a kid to something a million times more awful. Falling for bad boys was one thing. This was something else entirely.

“By tomorrow. We’ll call later to tell you when and where.”

Putting on blinders and pretending it was an innocuous job was non sense. She knew that, always had. But sometimes you went along to get along. Now, she was wondering how big a mistake that had been.

“And Dick, you know what happens if we even suspect you’ve called the police? We shoot your little boy in the head.”

Beside them, the door to the men’s bathroom swung suddenly open. A chubby guy in a Bears jersey came out, not looking at Evan, his eyes on her for a second, just a second, but something weird in them, like he’d caught something he shouldn’t have. Then he was past them, taking a jacket from a booth near the door.

She looked at Evan, his eyes narrow as he watched the fat guy at the register, the hostess asking if everything was all right, the man nodding, reaching in his wallet.

“Good. Wait by the phone, Dick.” Evan hung up, gesturing her closer. “That guy heard.”

His tone scared her more than anything she could remember.

“No,” she said. Tried to smile. “I don’t think so.”

She could see him calculating, and suddenly realized that if she couldn’t convince Evan, then that guy was going to get hurt. Or worse. She remembered Danny telling her about the gun Evan had brought when they took Tommy.

Then the right answer came natural as anything. She knew just what to say. “Nah. He was too distracted.”

“By what?”

She smiled. “My tits.”

He looked at her, steady for a moment, then breaking into a laugh. “All right. Let’s go.”

Relief boiled sweet through her, leaving her skin hot and hands tingling like a thousand needles. She’d done it. Part of her wanted to hoot for joy, but she had to stay calm. So she just started for the door, putting an extra sway in her hips to cover the trembling.

“Bye now,” the hostess singsonged as they stepped through the glass door. The air was fresh and sharp, the cold welcome. They walked around the restaurant to the parking lot in the back, by the Dumpster and the big air conditioner. The lot was bare, only a couple of other cars. The chubby guy walked ahead of them, toward an SUV parked beside the Mustang. She wondered if he’d ever know that she had saved his life. Did that karmic debt tie them in some way? She didn’t exactly believe in reincarnation, but energy was energy, and you never knew.

“See?” Evan said, fishing in his jacket pocket for the car keys. “I told you there was no reason to worry.”

She smiled over her shoulder at him. “You’re the man, baby.”

“Maybe I’ll take you back to the trailer and fuck you up against the other side.”

Even after her earlier panic – or because of it – that sent a flush of heat through her, and as they reached the passenger side of the car she turned, her tongue flicking her lips, starting to lean back, ready to give him a kiss that would send lightning down his spine and back up the other side – only he kept going, pushed past her, and opened the driver’s side of the SUV, the engine already running, the fat guy yelling as Evan leaned in and grabbed him by his shirt front and yanked him right out of the truck, slamming him up against the side of the Mustang like a rag doll, the guy grunting, his arms raised, Evan holding him with his left hand and using his right to punch the guy in the throat, not like the movies where men hit each other on the chins and their heads and hands snap back, no, Evan’s fist continuing too far, and when it pulled back coming out bloody, the ring of keys still in his hand, two of them braced between knuckles dripping scarlet, and then winding up again, and again, three times, the guy not making a sound anymore, everything that fast, and Debbie still standing there, frozen in a vamp pose, her lips and her legs open, as Evan let the body drop to the cement, blood pouring from the neck.

He turned, his face a brutal mask. No longer the soap-opera bad boy of her imagination, but a wild-eyed beast kept too long in a cage. Then he thrust the bloody keys into her hand and ducked down to grab the man’s feet.

“Open the trunk,” he said.

She took one look at the brass keys shining and wet in her palm, turned sideways, and booted her burger all over the pavement.

30

Half of Detroit burned down every year on the night before Halloween. Or it used to, back in high school, when Karen had lived downriver. In Wyandotte the pranks had been more on the level of blowing up mailboxes than torching warehouses, but she’d always hated Devil’s Night anyway. Maybe because of her brothers; they’d always go out, prepared like commandos, dressed in black and packing duffel bags stuffed with eggs, toilet paper, M-80 firecrackers, spray paint, God knew what else. They always let her paint camouflage makeup from the drugstore on their faces, but when she would beg them to let her come along, David would laugh, and Brian would ruffle her hair and say that it was guy stuff. Then they’d leave on their adventures and she’d sit home stewing.

Now here she was, the day before Halloween. Thirty-two years old and still being excluded by the man in her life.

After storming out the night before, she’d come home, taken a bath, and gone to bed, waiting for the sound of the front door. Expecting Danny to come after her, ready to be honest abut what was going on and put her worst fears to rest.

She was still awake at one o’clock, when he crept in and tiptoed past their bedroom to the kitchen. She heard the answering machine beep, and then the sound of the message. Then heard it twice more.

By the time he finally came to bed, she’d fallen into sweaty dreams of her brothers setting their condo on fire and laughing as she leaned out the window and begged them to stop.

When she woke up, Danny was gone.

She went to the gym and attacked the elliptical for an hour, then hit set after set of crunches, trying to use the fire in her muscles to burn away the suspicions that had grown since she’d heard the detective’s call. She showered under blistering water, and treated herself to breakfast out. Sat in a booth and read the front page of the paper five times without absorbing a word.

Then she came home, replayed the answering machine message, and dialed the number, as she’d known she would since she woke up alone.

On TV, the cops sat at desks piled with papers. There were oscillating fans in steel cages, and the telephones were always old rotaries. Karen wondered if that was what it really looked like, and doubted it. They probably sat in cubicles like everybody else.

“Detective Nolan.” His voice sounded gruffer than on the machine.

“This is Karen Moss.” Her heart thumped against her ribs so loudly she was afraid he might hear. “You called Danny and me yesterday.”