Dirty Sex (14 page)

“Gosh, we’re just like spies now,” Reese mocked Ryan.

“Why do you have to kill my buzz?” Ryan threw up his arms and

turned away. “You ready to go to your parents’?” he tossed over his

shoulder. We followed him out the door.

❖

My parents and sister were all home when we got there. It was

impossible to act normal. I didn’t want to leave my mommy and daddy.

Okay, I was a child. Reese and Ryan waited downstairs while I ran up.

Ryan explained that we’d decided to go on a road trip, but we’d be back

soon. No, we didn’t know where we were going. Ryan was a way better

liar than me.

I tossed a bunch of clothes into a duffle bag. What did people

bring when they ran away? I grabbed another bag and added a couple

books, my laptop, my iPod. Toothbrush, that was important. Where

was my passport? I definitely needed it for Mexico. And whatever the

hell country Reese would pick after that. I found the file folder in my

desk with my important documents and riffled through until I got to the

passport. With everything packed, I grabbed my bags and headed out. I

lingered on the stairs debating.

It wasn’t like I was moving out. I couldn’t go back to visit my

parents. Not for a while at least. I could let Reese and Ryan go on their

own. They would be fine. Except I couldn’t do that. The twins won over

my parents. It still felt shitty though.

I told my parents I loved them. I might have hugged my mom

longer than necessary, but so did Reese. After my parents’ house, Ryan

drove to my bank.

“This shouldn’t take too long,” I said before getting out.

“We’ll be here,” Ryan said.

It was surprisingly easy to pull the majority of the cash in my

account out. All I had to do was ask for it. Ten minutes later, I was

climbing into the back of the SUV.

“How much was in there?” Ryan drummed his fingers on the

steering wheel and leaned back to look at me.

• 101 •

AShley BArtlett

I tossed a bank envelope onto his lap. “Three thousand. It won’t

get us far.”

“Far enough.” He handed the envelope back. “Until we can sell

a bar at least.” He assumed we’d be able to sell them. If not, we were

fucked. We didn’t know how to move gold bars. You didn’t just walk

into your bank and ask to have your gold bar turned into cash. Or maybe

you did. How the hell would I know?

“So I was thinking. If we want to cover our tracks we should get

some fake IDs.”

“Totally,” Ryan said.

“God, you two are hopeless,” Reese said. “Too many movies.”

“Whatever. Ideas?” Ryan was practically vibrating at the mention

of falsified documents. What a loser.

“Remember Paulie Montrose?” Paulie’d had a monopoly on fake

IDs in El Dorado County until he moved away. The kid had some

serious skill.

“Oh, yeah. He’s in San Francisco now, right?” Ryan asked.

“I seriously doubt Paulie is still making fake IDs,” Reese said.

“No, he totally is. And I heard he’s gotten better. I bet he’d hook

us up,” I said.

“So we’ll detour to San Francisco before we leave?” Ryan asked.

“Can’t hurt. You can head straight down to Vegas,” I told Reese.

“We’ll hit up Paulie.”

“What’s your name going to be?” Ryan wanted to know.

“Anything you want, babe.” All that earned me was a loud sigh

from Reese and rolling eyes from Ryan.

❖

“We didn’t buy cigarettes.” Ryan started whining after ten minutes

on the freeway.

“You don’t smoke,” I reminded him.

“You wouldn’t let me bring any weed. I need something to smoke.”

“Too bad. We just started driving. You’ll just have to deal.” I leaned

back in the seat and studied cars opposite us on the freeway. I wondered

where all of them were going. Home, probably, to their normal lives

with a failed marriage and two point five brats. How unappealing.

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Dirty Sex

“I’ll probably get withdrawal or something. I could die.” Ryan

was such a drama queen. That was probably why Reese had been okay

with driving alone. She didn’t want to deal with his shit.

“Fuckin’ come on, bro. We’re supposed to be under the radar now.

We can’t just keep going into gas stations and liquor stores.”

“We aren’t that far from home. Who cares if we go into a gas

station?” He was so annoying.

“Fine.” I said. “Pull off here. I’ll go in.”

“You rock.” Thanks, Ryan, I was aware of that.

Ryan pulled into a gas station. “Wait,” he said before I could get

out. He climbed into the backseat. “Wear this.” A baseball cap was

thrown over the seat. “You’ll be incognito.”

“Yes, I’m sure the hat will totally disguise my identity.” I pushed

my hair back and put the hat on anyway. “Too bad it’s dark or I could

wear sunglasses too.” A pair of aviators landed in my lap. I tossed them

back. “What kind do you want?”

“Camel Wides.”

“All right.” I hopped out of the 4Runner and went into the gas

station. “Can I get a pack of the Camel Wides?” I asked the kid behind

the counter.

“Wides?” He stood on his tiptoes to pull the pack down. “Anything

else?”

“Nope.”

I handed him some cash. When he gave me the change and handed

the packs over a, “Thank you, sir. Have a good night,” accompanied it.

I debated correcting him, but I didn’t care. Even though it wasn’t

a common occurrence, it still happened often enough. When I climbed

back into the SUV, I tossed Ryan his Wides.

“Did anybody recognize you?” Ryan played it up as if that were

even a possibility.

“Nope. The hat worked. Actually, he thought I was a guy.” He

started laughing. “Oh my God. I got it.” I realized how to fly under the

radar.

“Got what?” Ryan opened his pack and lit a cigarette.

“I know how to stay incognito.”

“Baseball hats?”

“Drag,” I answered.

• 103 •

• 104 •

Dirty Sex

Paulie’s loft in San Francisco was in the heart of what he called

SoMa. We just called it South of Market, but Paulie liked to

pretend he was in New York.

“Damn, Paulie, this place is amazing.” I hugged the guy I’d known

since childhood and stared openmouthed around his apartment.

“I know, right?” He grinned. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

Showing around mostly entailed looking out from the balcony off the

twenty-third floor. The sun was beginning to set and it glinted off the

glass buildings surrounding us.

“I thought your mom cut you off.” Delicacy in speech wasn’t one

of my attributes. It was better to just ask.

“Yeah. Fags don’t get college money.” Paulie managed to say it

without crying. I would have cried.

“So how the fuck did you get this place?” Ryan prescribed to the

same social functions I did.

“I upgraded.”

“In boyfriends?” I picked up a framed black-and-white photo from

the counter. It was Paulie in his scruffy, muscled glory with a gorgeous

model type who had softly curling hair. They had matching shirts on. I

was going to puke from the domesticity of it.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Paulie took the photo and gazed lovingly at

it. “He’s Canadian. And so fucking smart. I think I’ll have to marry him

to keep him here.”

“Good luck with that.”

• 105 •

AShley BArtlett

“Don’t worry; you guys will get to meet him. He should be home

soon. Anyway.” He sighed and put the photo down. “I mean, I upgraded

in illicit forms of identification.” What a geek. “You guys are going to

die. You said on the phone you wanted licenses, which are no problem.

We just need to take photos.” He waved a hand like it was nothing. “But

wait until you see what I’ve been working on. It’s an art form. I swear,

I wish I could put them in a gallery.”

“Paulie?” He looked up at Ryan. “What the hell are you talking

about?”

“Driver’s licenses, military IDs.” He ticked them off on his fingers.

“Those are easy. Birth certificates, passports, not so much.”

“Fuck, dude. You’re awesome,” I said.

“You guys want? I could cut you a deal.” He always was a

salesman.

“Are they any good?” Ryan should have known better. Paulie

wouldn’t sell them if they weren’t perfect.

“Good? Sweetie, no. Amazing, brilliant. Art, I’m telling you. I

do the birth certificates and my wonderful, sexy Marc—he works at

the embassy—he pushes the paperwork through for a passport. So it’s

fucking real.”

“You really are brilliant.” I congratulated him with only a hint of

surprise.

“I know.” He gloated. “I about had a heart attack when they

announced that they were going to do biometric passports.” Ryan

and I must have looked appropriately blank. “You know RFID?” Still

nothing. “Electronic ones.” That we could understand. “But as long

as we can fabricate the documentation, it’s no problem. That’s when I

started doing the birth certificates.”

“We didn’t really follow that, but it sounds cool.” I figured we

should give him some encouragement.

“How long does it take?” Why did Ryan have to kill the excitement?

“Depends on how much cash you have. I can get it done in two

weeks, but normally it takes about a month.”

“How much?” Ryan asked.

“For the two weeks,” I added.

He named an amount. We didn’t argue. “I’ll include any

manufactured documentation like the birth certificate. And that’s

fucking cheap so don’t tell anyone.” As if we would know who to tell.

• 106 •

Dirty Sex

“Done.” Ryan didn’t even ask me. “We need one for Reese too.”

“Great. You still want IDs?”

“Yep,” I said.

“So three Canadian passports and three California driver’s

licenses? Or you want Canadian licenses too?”

Ryan and I looked at each other. He raised an eyebrow.

“You want the British Columbia license,” Paulie said. “The

holograms are beautiful.”

“Paulie, are you as good as you say you are?” He always was a

cocky bastard. I just wanted to make sure.

He just laughed. “Come on. We need to take pictures. Do you have

the pictures of Reese?”

“Right here.” I gave him a flash drive with the pictures we took

before leaving.

“Did you use a plain background?”

“We did everything you said on the phone.”

“Perfect.” Paulie ran a finger down Ryan’s chest. “Just like you.”

He turned away smiling. “Follow me, boys and girls.”

❖

Five hours later, Ryan woke me up. It was just past midnight. The

pillow I had propped against the window fell between the seat and the

door.

“You want me to take over?” I asked all groggy.

“Yeah, I’m dead tired.”

We switched and Ryan was out in five minutes. We were somewhere

on I-5 between San Francisco and LA. The sporadic headlights on the

other side of the freeway lulled me into a half awake, half asleep state.

Periodically, I sipped from the Mountain Dew I’d pulled from the

cooler to keep myself alert.

When you’ve got a shitload of gold bars in the backseat, it tends

to slow you down so we were barely at the speed limit. I wondered how

long it took Reese to drive. We knew she was already there because

she’d called to tell us she checked into a hotel, but it was going to be

hours before we arrived.

• 107 •

AShley BArtlett

After I’d been on Highway 15 for a while, Ryan’s GPS said we

were about an hour outside the city. I pulled onto the shoulder.

“Ryan.” I shook him. “Hey, it’s time.”

“Shit.” He rubbed his face and shook his head. “All right. Let’s

do it.”

I took the 4Runner off the asphalt and drove straight out into the

desert for about ten minutes. Periodically, Ryan would consult the GPS

and tell me to go a little to the right or the left.

“How’s this?” I put on the emergency brake.

“Works for me.” Ryan hopped out and opened the back. I chugged

the rest of my Mountain Dew and joined him. Both shovels were

already on the ground. Ryan was strapping on his shoulder holster.

“What are you doing?”

He opened the side compartment and pulled out his Glock 21.

“Seventeen million,” he said as if that answered my question.

“You can’t dig a hole when you’re strapped.”

“Watch me.” He grinned his pretty boy grin and grabbed a shovel.

❖

My arms were going to fall off. Followed by my shoulders and

legs and neck, and then I was just going to die.

“I can’t dig anymore.” Both holes were about three feet deep and

four wide. They were separated by about six feet. “It’s three a.m. Why

is it so hot?”

Ryan tossed his shovel to the ground and sat with his feet in the

second hole. “It’s too hot to think.”

“Too hot to breathe.” I sat next to him

“To move.”

I dragged myself back to the 4Runner and pulled out two bottles

of water. “We haven’t been digging that long.”

“Thanks.” Ryan caught the bottle I tossed to him. “It’s the heat,

I’m telling you.” Or the fact that neither of us had slept more than a

couple hours since before the party.

“Should we get this shit over with?”