Eleven Hours (16 page)

“What?”

“A tissue? A Kleenex?”

Charlie brought out a roll of paper towels from the back. Scott ripped one off and wrapped the ring securely in it. Then he gave it to Rich to hold.

Then Scott gingerly picked up the phone and wrapped it in a paper towel also.

“About the phone,” Charlie said nervously. “I didn't really want it. I was just holding it here for him.”

“Why were you holding the phone for him?” Scott asked, glaring suspiciously at Charlie. “Did he say he was coming back?”

“No, no, nothing like that. He didn't say,” Charlie quickly replied.

He told Scott and Rich that when he tested the phone to see if it worked and pushed the redial button, 911 had come up. He asked the guy if everything was all right, and the young man shrugged and said yes, though they had just seen an accident on the highway and called to report it. That sounded good to Charlie, who now looked embarrassed. He added that the phone's battery had been nearly dead, so he hadn't been able to check out anything else.

“Did the guy say where he was going?” Scott asked.

“He said out west with his wife. He needed a better car, so I sold him the Toyota truck. It really wasn't much better, but it was all I had, and he didn't seem to know the difference.”

“You sold his car pretty quickly.”

“Yeah, I called a customer right away.” Charlie smiled. “They'd been waiting on a station wagon awhile.”

Charlie said when he went out to inspect the trade-in, the guy's pregnant wife had been standing near the car. When the guy saw her standing by the door, he ran to her and helped her back in. The young woman watched Charlie very carefully as he went around the station wagon. He had felt a little insulted, Charlie said, because she was acting as if he were going to steal the car with her in it.

“How did she look?” Rich asked as calmly as his breaking voice would allow.

“Pretty good. Long brown hair. You know, like a nice wife. Her dress was dirty, though,” he said. “Or I thought it was dirty. It didn't look clean. I thought—a pregnant woman should take care of herself better.”

Rich nodded heavily.

“You didn't ask why they wanted to trade the car?” asked Rich.

Scott placed a calming hand on Rich's back and shook his head.

Charlie said, laughing, “What, are you kidding me? If I was to ask every person who comes in here why they want to sell this or that, I'd have been out of business ten years ago.” He laughed again. “And this guy actually looked better than most of my customers. He had a cute wife. I don't ask questions.”

Scott said, “Okay, thanks. So that's everything?”

Rich noticed that Charlie cast Scott a furtive look, but said, yes, that's everything.

“What else?” said Rich.

“That's all.”

“That's all,” said Scott, pulling Rich's arm.

“No, there's something else,” Rich insisted. “What else?”

“There's nothing else,” said Charlie quickly, and this time Scott noticed it too, because he came back to the counter and said to Charlie, “I don't have a lot of time. He's close, and we have to find him. What else?”

“Nothing that's gonna help you find him,” said Charlie.

“Tell us anyway,” said Scott.

“I had to wipe down the inside of his station wagon before I sold it.”

“Why?”

Charlie became lost for words.

“Why?” said Scott, much louder.

Charlie jumped. “Don't yell, man,” he said quietly, leaning over to Scott. “I just don't want to upset him, you know?” He pointed at Rich.

“Upset me?” repeated Rich. “You're too late. I'm already there.”

Charlie said, “The passenger seat of the car had blood on it. Not a lot of blood, but blood, smeared, like, all over the seat.”

Rich wanted to break something.

“Also, he was supposed to switch the plates. He told me he was going to do it. But he didn't, the jerk. If it's helpful I can give you the plate number of the truck.”

Scott took the number, and they left the shop. In the car Scott immediately called in an APB on a blue 1984 Toyota pickup. “Armed and dangerous,” he repeated. “Approach with extreme caution.”

Rich asked Scott, “What did you need the phone for? It's just a cell phone.”

“Oh, I know. It's all evidence against him. Fingerprints. Skin particles. If we should go to trial and all.”

Rich thought about it. “What do you need the damn phone for as evidence? You'll have my wife to say she was abducted by him.”

Scott didn't reply and didn't look at Rich, who felt increasingly uneasy about Scott.

On the way back to Waco, when Scott wasn't looking, Rich opened up the paper towel and fingered Didi's ring. He brought it to his mouth and kissed it—the band, the diamond, and the inside where her skin had touched it.

6:30 P.M.

“Are you hungry?” Lyle asked Didi.

“No,” she replied in a whisper. “I'm thirsty.” She tried to keep her eyes closed, not wanting to look out of the window. The prairie swimming by her eyes was making her dizzy. She remembered that Irene had to be given Dramamine whenever the family went on long trips. She thought, if I die, I hope Rich buries me close to where we live so that Reenie won't get nauseated every time they go to visit me. Otherwise, she'd associate throwing up with coming to see me and then ask not to go. It made Didi unspeakably sad to think that her precious baby girl wouldn't come to the cemetery to visit her. Comfort, comfort, she prayed. Please, Lord, let me think of something.

There was little to comfort her. At home it would have been dinnertime, and Didi wondered if the girls had had their dinner, whether Amanda had let Rich make her the steak, whether they were giving Rich any trouble or were playing nicely. Tonight was big bath night. What was Rich going to do without Didi? He'd probably have to give them a fast bath, but then their hair wouldn't get washed—

Rich, what is he thinking now? What
could
he be thinking?

And now what? What's he doing now? He must be going crazy. He probably hasn't eaten since lunch.

Didi remembered lunch. Oh, no. There was no food at lunch. Unless he just went in and ordered himself a sandwich while waiting. But he wouldn't do that.

Poor Richie. Hungry, all alone with the girls. My parents are in Europe, his mother can't be much help. What's he thinking?

Didi prayed for Rich, prayed for Manda and Reenie, prayed for God to give them a little bit of comfort.

The sun was in front of them, so they couldn't be going south toward Mexico anymore. They were traveling west. What was west of Waco? Didi couldn't think. El Paso? Big Bend? A long way away. New Mexico? Arizona? California? Where are we going? she said again, but to herself, thinking about her babies, her hand on the Belly.

Closing her eyes, seeing Rich on the road, seeing Rich mow the lawn and afterward run through the sprinkler with naked Amanda. Manda-banda, he was screaming, and she was screaming back, Daddy-baddy. It wasn't Rich Didi had been thinking of, and it wasn't Amanda. It was the sprinkler. Didi had put on her bathing suit and joined them and the sprinkler wet her skin in the sun and it felt so—so—wet.

She licked her lips.

No solace in prayer. No solace in thought. A month ago, in June, Leslie, her oldest friend, had given birth by cesarean section, and when they were sewing her up, they must have nicked her colon, because she got a massive infection and nearly died. She was still in the hospital for the July Fourth weekend and couldn't come to Rich and Didi's bash. Didi had sent Leslie flowers and homemade chocolate-covered strawberries, and had prayed for her, hoping she would soon see her baby son, who was at home without his mother.

And then just yesterday—really yesterday? Yes, yesterday—Didi had called another girlfriend, Joan, who had been expecting a baby around the same time as Didi, and found out from Joan's husband that the baby had been stillborn.

Didi couldn't imagine anything worse. Joan was forty-three and pregnant for the first time. When Didi hung up, she cried for an hour. Even her girls couldn't cheer her up.

It was about Joan and Leslie that Didi had had her fight with Rich. It wasn't their fault. It was Didi's fault. Well, actually, it was Rich's fault for not being more sympathetic about her fears, because Didi had been right.

It was nobody's fault, but Didi had been right.

She opened her eyes, blinked, tried to concentrate on the road. She fixed her gaze straight ahead. The sun was in her eyes, and all she saw was white spots. She closed her eyes again and licked her lips. The lips stayed dry. The white spots wouldn't go away. She felt the Belly tightening, hurting. She tried to forget about where she was. She tried to think of Florida and her parents' winter home in St. Pete. She thought of the Gulf of Mexico and her own swimming pool. Water. She thought of Disney World, but again, the water parks. She thought of vacations they had had. The Hamptons—water. Canada—many lakes in Quebec. Hawaii—such a beautiful blue Pacific. Cancún—such a beautiful blue Atlantic. St. Croix—the dazzling Caribbean. The white spots in her eyes turned to blue water. She dived into them, headfirst, and didn't come up for air, dived and felt the water on her face. Water, water, water.

*   *   *

Yesterday, when Rich came home he had been upset because there was no dinner. But Didi was so miserable about her friend she couldn't cook. They had Oodles of Noodles and Kraft macaroni and cheese, and Cokes. The girls loved it. Rich grumbled. After they put the kids to bed, the fight started.

Didi told him about Joan, and Rich said he felt badly for her. But he was not getting it, wasn't getting the strident tone in Didi's voice.

“Rich,” Didi said, pacing around their bedroom, her hands on her heart. “Listen to how scared I am.”

“Scared of what?”

“That something horrible is going to happen to me.”

“Why would something horrible happen to you, Didi?”

“I mean, something either to me or the baby.”

He got mad then. “Why would something happen to the baby? I don't even like you saying that out loud.”

Didi tried to explain. “Leslie is still in the hospital. She hasn't seen her son, and she is so sick that it's taking her forever to get better. I mean, how often do you think these things happen? A raging infection the doctors can't cure?”

“It happens, Didi, it happens,” Rich said impatiently. “But what does it have to do with you?”

“Wait, listen. And now this thing with Joan. Have you ever heard of anything more awful?”

“No,” Rich said. “I haven't.”

“That's right. It's the worst thing in the world. I mean, just imagine if something awful like that happened to us.”

“I don't want you talking like that, Didi,” Rich shouted.

“No, but listen, omigod, this is exactly what I mean,” she said tearfully. “Do you remember last year, when I had all those car accidents? I plowed into a Nissan's rear end, not a mile from our house? It was fate. I stop at that light a thousand times a year, but that one time I couldn't stop. I mean, just fate. And then the next day, I'm driving the rental car through the parking lot of the supermarket and bam, I get too close to the illegally parked truck and swipe its bumper right off. I mean, yes, he was parked in a fire lane facing the wrong way, and yes, it was night and hard to see and the road was narrow, but we rent a car all the time when we go to Florida and that never happens.”

Rolling his eyes, Rich said, “That's what I love about you, Didi—you chalk off your auto—how shall I say?—mishaps to fate.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “As opposed to what?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he said quickly. “What are you getting at?”

“Richie, you know how bad things come in threes.”

“Who told you that?”

“Everybody knows that. All sorts of things come in threes. Like death around Christmastime. Have you noticed that it's always not one celebrity but three that die right around Christmastime? Remember how a few years ago Jill Ireland died, and then Sammy Davis, Jr., and then Jim Henson? That's the kind of thing I meant.”

“Didi, this is crazy. What the hell are you talking about?”

He went into the bathroom. She followed him. He said, “Look, this is silly. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Besides, with the car, it was only two bad things.”

“Wrong!” she exclaimed. “I was so paranoid, I was looking for that third thing, and do you remember what happened?”

“No,” he said tiredly, putting toothpaste on his brush and running it under the water. “What happened?”

“I pulled away from our house, and when I made a right at the light, my door swung open, and I almost fell out.”

He brushed his teeth, and she stood behind him listening to him gargle and rinse. Then he turned the water off and dried his face. “Didi, Didi, Didi. Where are you going with this?”

“Maybe I'm the third link in a chain of bad things that are going to happen in the universe at this time, and I'm next. Something bad is going to happen to me or the baby.”

“Oh my God.” Rich laughed. “Didi, so what are you saying, that something terrible is going to happen to the baby because you crashed the family car last year? Our insurance went up three times, isn't that punishment enough?”

“Be serious—”

“I am serious,” Rich interrupted her. “Listen to me,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and kissing her nose. “Listen. It makes me mad just to hear you talk like this. So your friends had some bad experiences. I'm sorry for that. But why do you think the cosmic universe is going to finish off with you? Maybe Leslie was the second link in the chain and Joan the third. I mean, what do you think, the universe revolves around you?”