Trust Me (24 page)

    "I don't need a bodyguard," Karen said.

    Schreiner said, "You're right, you need a platoon, a battalion."

    "If you're trying to make me feel worse," Karen said, "you're doing a good job."

    "Should I just shut up?" Schreiner said.

    Karen said, "That's not a bad idea."

    "I want to help you," Schreiner said.

    "You are," Karen said, "more than you know."

    Schreiner said, "Where's the money?"

    "In a safe place," Karen said.

    "I can hang on to it for you, if you want. Put it in the safe in my office, ease your mind while you're getting ready to leave town."

    "That's okay," Karen said.

    "You sure you don't want me to help you," Schreiner said, trying again.

    "I'm all set," Karen said, trying to convince herself, but knew she wasn't even close.

    Megan knew she shouldn't have taken him back so fast. He'd lied to her and cheated her out of her share of the money from the Greek, contrary to his bullshit story. He might even be lying now. But there was something about him. She couldn't help herself; she liked him.

    Megan thought about Bobby showing up at her door, quarter to six in the morning, looking like he'd been put through the wringer.

    "I'm in trouble," Bobby had said.

    Megan had said, "You sure are." She opened the door and he walked past her into the living room.

    He told her about stealing the safe, and about the guy coming to Lloyd's trailer. Then he said he was going to give Megan half his share.

    "Sweetie, I figured we'd each clear better than a hundred grand, I was going to take you to Hawaii, start our new life together."

    Megan had known some bullshitters in her life, but Bobby took it to a whole new level. Christ, he was Ninja. She said, "I don't want to ruin your day but the police are looking for you too. A Detective Conlin was here asking questions about you."

    Bobby looked like he was going to cry and Megan felt bad for him. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him. But first she had to make him pay a little more. She had some of the bitch gene in her. What her dad used to say to her mom. "There's even a reward-now up to $7,500 for information leading to your arrest and conviction," Megan said, making it up.

    "I've been such an asshole," Bobby said. "I wouldn't blame you if you turned me in."

    Megan put her arms around him. "Honey, I'm not going to do that."

    She hugged him and put her face against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. "I might worry about your friends at the apartment complex, though, if I were you." Megan took Bobby's face in her hands. She could feel the bristly stubble of his whiskers. He let out a breath that smelled sour and kind of stinky, and seemed to lose what remaining energy he had at the same time, leaning against her now, so tired he'd have fallen to the floor if she wasn't there to support him. "Everything's going to work out, you'll see." She guided Bobby into the bedroom and undressed him and put him in bed. He was so out of it she just took charge. "Lay back and relax, let me do the heavy lifting." She winked at him and now he smiled.

    Megan thought about the money while she was searing lamb shanks and peeling potatoes. Bobby was snoring so loud she could hear him all the way in the kitchen. Megan believed in intuition and believed she was one hundred percent intuitive. Her feelings about people and the inevitability of situations had been proven true over the course of many years. And her intuition told her—make no mistake about it—Karen Delaney was still in Detroit. Where exactly, Megan didn't know, but Bobby had said something that got her thinking, gave her a place to start.

    She browned the shanks and took them out of the pan and put them on a sheet of tinfoil, and covered them. She sliced potatoes with a mandolin and left them soaking in water to get the starch out. She grabbed her purse and walked out of the apartment. Bobby'd be asleep for hours.

    "Guess what I did while somebody was teepee house?" Megan said.

    "I give up," Bobby said, glancing at her with puffy eyes. He was still groggy from sleeping all day. He had his elbows on the table and it was a major fucking effort to sit up. Megan was across from him, pulling a piece of lamb off the shank with her knife and fork. Bobby hadn't touched his yet.

    "I went to the library and looked at yearbooks—Garden City High School—the Cougars. Their colors are blue and orange. I started with 1980 and went all the way to 2000."

    Megan cut a piece of potato and put it in her mouth. It was hot and she drank beer to put out the fire. "Be careful." She fanned her mouth.

    Bobby was staring down at his plate. God, he was tired, really out of it.

    "What's the matter," Megan said, "aren't you hungry?"

    Bobby didn't answer. He wished she'd stop talking. He wished she'd sit there and not say anything for a while. She was driving him crazy.

    Megan said, "How many twirlers named Karen do you think I found?"

    He looked up at her.

    "How about one? Karen Delaney-class of '88."

    She handed Bobby a folded piece of Xerox paper. He opened it and saw a shot of Karen in her majorette outfit, short-shorts, gauntlets and white go-go boots from the yearbook, page seventy-four, and a quote from the majorette herself. "Toughest thing was catching the baton at night games in November—you have no idea—it would be like freezing out, and my fingers were numb."

    "She was also voted biggest flirt."

    Bobby wished she'd just get to the fucking point.

    "Her mom still lives on Schaller Drive—thirty-eight years." Megan took a bite of lamb. "Mr. D. passed eighteen years ago, killed by a drunk driver." She said, "When Dad died, Frisky did too. Frisky, bless his heart, was Dad's buddy, a miniature schnauzer who couldn't live without his master. Isn't that so sad?"

    No what was sad was he had to listen to this schmaltz-o-rama. He tried the potatoes first. "What's this stuff on top?"

    "Nutmeg."

    "It's good."

    "How do I know all this," Megan said. "Is that what you're thinking? I went over and met Mrs. Delaney. Spent some quality time with her. She's a nice silver-haired old lady hopes Karen and her other daughter, Virginia, give her a lot of grandkids."

    "That's really interesting," Bobby said with a mouthful of lamb. Her words were like puffs of ether, zoning him out.

    "I told her I went to high school with Karen. A group of us was getting together for a reunion and I wanted to get in touch with Karen to invite her. She thought I was a friend of Virginia's. No, Mrs. D., I said, I'm Missy O'Hara, my hair used to be dark." Megan took a sip of beer. "You know what she said to me? 'Oh, dear, how have you been?' She thinks she remembers me. Isn't that something?"

    Bobby looked up from his plate. "Are you trying to make a fucking career out of telling this?"

    Megan gave him a dirty look. "If you're so bored and disinterested, I'll stop right there."

    They ate, not talking for a few minutes.

    Judy came in and jumped up in Megan's lap.

    Bobby said, "Can I eat one meal without a fucking cat staring at me?"

    "Please don't talk like that in front of Judy. Vans are very perceptive. She'll think you don't like her."

    Were all people who loved animals fucking loony?

    Megan said, "Do you want to know what I did today?"

    The cat purred.

    "See, Judy doesn't think I'm boring. Do you girl?"

    "I don't care what happened to their fucking dog, or how many grandchildren the old bag wants, has she seen Karen? That's all I want to know."

    "She's going to see her, okay? If you'd let me finish. They're planning to get together before Karen leaves town. Did you know she was a model? Oh yeah, and she's moving to Europe—has a big contract."

    Bobby was giving Megan his full attention now. "She say when?"

    "You sure you want me to tell you? You might get bored again, and I'd hate to see that."

    They made up after dinner, Bobby apologized and they had dessert, homemade key lime pie, on Megan's bed, watching a movie. Bobby couldn't think of a more uncomfortable way to eat, lying down with a plate on his chest, but she wanted to see
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
She'd seen it eight times and Bobby said, "Why do you want to watch it again?"

    "It's my favorite movie of all time."

    Bobby had watched part of it and thought it was about a girl who dated a guy and they had a big fight so she went to a special doctor, and had the memory of their relationship erased from her mind. That's what Bobby wanted to do, have his memory erased so he'd stop thinking about his apartment getting trashed, and losing the money, and Karen making a fool of him. He felt one of the cats rubbing against him.

    Megan sat up and said, "Snickers likes you, I can tell."

    She picked up the plates and said, "Pause it, will you? I'll be right back," and walked out of the room.

    Bobby punched the remote, turned off the DVD and put on the TV-
Wheel of Fortune,
watching Vanna reveal a letter. Snickers moved along the bottom of the bed, glancing at him with an expression that said, What do you think you're doing? This is my bed, asshole. Bobby sat up, reached out and grabbed the cat. He held the little guy up at arm's length, staring into his whiskered cat face. "Hey, Snickers, fuck you." Bobby threw the cat across the room, and watched him bend and twist in midair, somehow landing on his feet on top of an end table, sending picture frames and a terra-cotta planter crashing to the floor.

    Megan yelled from the kitchen. "What was that?" He could hear her coming back to the bedroom, shoes clicking on the hardwood floor. He was still watching Snickers, amazed by his moves. Bobby would've given him an 8.5 if he were judging a cat-throwing contest.

    Megan came in the room looking pissed off. "What happened?"

    "Your cat jumped on the table and knocked all that shit off," Bobby said.

    Megan went to Snickers, picked him up and stroked his back. "He's shaking. What did you do to him?"

    Bobby got up and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He wondered if maybe he'd done something in a previous life—thinking about his luck again—how everything had gone from bad to worse.

    Karen woke up in Schreiner's maize and blue University of Michigan themed extra bedroom, staring at a Lloyd Carr bobble head figure on the bedside table. The room had a dark blue Michigan Wolverine curtain valance, a maize and blue bedspread and pillows and a Michigan wallpaper border.

    Karen got dressed, put on her own clothes and brushed her teeth and went downstairs. Schreiner was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him, reading the
Free Press.
He looked up when she came in the room. He was wearing the same outfit he had on the night before.

    "There's coffee," Schreiner said. "Cups in cupboard in front of you, second shelf."

    Karen opened the cupboard door, reached up and took out a cup and filled it from the glass Krups pitcher that was in the coffeemaker on the counter. She took her cup and went over and sat across from him at the table.

    Schreiner said, "How'd you sleep?"

    "Not bad, considering," Karen said. "I woke up thinking I'd turned into a University of Michigan booster. The excessive use of maize and blue distracted me and took my mind off my problems. If you ever sell this place, it better be to a U of M fan."

    Schreiner laid the newspaper on the breakfast room table. He stretched and yawned. Karen picked up the pint container of half & half and poured some in her coffee, stirred it with her finger and licked it.

    Schreiner looked up from the newspaper and said, "In case you're wondering, I do have spoons."