What You Don't Know, page 11
He had to surrender. He closed his eyes, not believing what he was about to say.
“All right, Tree. First thing Monday morning. You and me. Right back here.”
Tree exploded with laughter. Malcolm knew he was savoring his victory. Reveling in it. That was okay. He’d retreat to the tunnel for now and reemerge with a new plan for the second half. He just needed to think.
Tree looked Malcolm up and down. “Looks like you got yourself some company for the weekend.”
12:55 p.m.
“Good job, Wifey. Glad I didn’t have to take you out,” Dio said as he yanked Blair up the stairs. She screwed her wrist around, yelping at the savagery of his fingers around her small bones. He yelled for Cookie as he forced Blair back to the master bedroom.
“Who was it?” Cookie asked as they plunked her back into her chair to tie her up again.
“Ol’ Girl was right,” Dio said as he re-taped Blair’s wrists together, cocking his head toward Farrah. “It was her friend.”
“Is Zoey okay?” Farrah asked Blair, her voice trembling.
“She’s fine. Everything’s fine,” she said.
Cookie headed back into the closet as Dio folded his arms across his chest. “Tree’ll be back soon then we can get up out of here.”
“Can I have this?”
Cookie had emerged from the closet, the Barbie doll box in her hand. She shook it in Blair’s direction. A momentary panic seized Blair. The one thing she actually wanted to keep, the one sentimental item from those days that gave her any kind of warm and fuzzy sensation. Someone had thought a little black girl from the Bronx was worthy of becoming a doll. A beautiful, plastic, perfect doll, forever encased behind the glossy cellophane. Forever beautiful.
She stopped herself. Her life was worth more than a doll. Farrah’s life was worth more than a doll. If that’s what Cookie wanted, then Cookie could have it.
“Yeah, sure, fine, if you really want it.”
The girl opened her mouth to say something when she was distracted by Tree’s voice racing up the stairs in search of her and their other cohort. The hot pink box fell from her hands and landed with a clunk as she and Dio ran out to the hallway. Blair and Farrah glanced at each other before her daughter scooted over to the door, her ear cocked toward the living room.
“Farrah, get away from the door. Don’t let them see—!”
“Shhh! I’m trying to hear what they’re talking about.”
Blair pursed her lips. “What are they saying?”
“Oh, God.” Farrah whipped around to Blair.
“What? What did they say? What’s wrong?”
“Something about the bank being closed and they’re going to be here until Monday, that they have to stay here all weekend—”
“What? Are they joking? They can’t do that.” She craned her neck. “Where’s your father? Can you see your father?”
Farrah peered around the doorjamb then shook her head. “The other two don’t want to do it. They want to leave.”
“What’s happening now? What are they saying?”
Where was Malcolm?
Farrah leaned back against the wall and smiled. “Daddy just said he has another idea.”
“What? What did he say?”
“He wants to call Garvin.”
Blair closed her eyes, relief flooding over her once again, another pinprick of light to claw their way toward. Garvin. Of course. He’d come quickly, discreetly, help free them. She was convinced he kept a million dollars stuffed in each of his many mattresses, so laying his hands on thirty thousand would take mere minutes.
It would be over soon.
“The guy, Tree, or whatever his name is, he’s pacing again,” Farrah murmured. “Like he’s trying to figure out what to do.”
And then Blair heard it herself.
“All right. Call him.”
1:17 p.m.
Garvin.
He should have thought of that from the jump, instead of messing with the bank. Monday Morning Quarterbacking.
The vein in his neck tightened and for a moment, he worried it would snap from the pressure. He held out his hand. No one but Blair would have seen the minor tremor. No one but Blair had seen the occasional massive quakes. No one but Blair knew just how tortured his days could be at times.
“I need my phone,” he said.
Tree paced across the room, chewing on his bottom lip. Cookie and Dio watched him, a seeming mixture of fear and weariness twisting their faces.
“Okay,” Tree said. “This how it’s gonna go down. You gonna call the guy and ask him to bring fifty—sixty—no seventy thousand. That’s it. Yeah. Tell him to bring seventy thousand.”
“Okay.” Malcolm nodded. “No problem.”
“Yeah. Tell him to bring seventy thousand and put it in a—a suitcase. No, a gym bag. Yeah. Put it in a gym bag and bring it to the front door, ring the doorbell three times, and leave. Don’t call no five-o, don’t call no other buddies for back up, don’t call nobody. Just come straight here, drop the G’s, ring the doorbell three times, then bounce.”
“Okay.” Malcolm nodded again. “I got it.”
“What’s the guy’s name?”
“Garvin. Garvin Fletcher.”
Without a word, Tree pulled the phone from his pocket and commanded Malcolm to unlock it before snatching it back and pulling up Garvin’s number himself, putting the ringing phone on speaker.
“You’ve reached—”
“Voicemail.” He frowned as his heart tickled against his chest and Tree disconnected the phone. Malcolm’s head flipped up. “Let me try again.”
Tree snarled, but hit redial.
Voicemail again.
Malcolm shook his head and whispered to himself as he kneaded his forehead and asked Tree to keep hitting redial, the outgoing voicemail message continuing to echo throughout the room.
“Man, what the hell?” Tree said as he threw the phone, sending it skittering across the marble before he rushed Malcolm, seizing the collar of his Polo. “You still trying to get me, aren’t you? Still think you can outsmart me, don’t you?”
Malcolm grabbed Tree by the wrists, ready to snap them. Like trained seals, Cookie and Dio immediately pointed their pistols at him. Malcolm let out a slow stream of air before he loosened his grip a little.
“Look, I don’t know why he’s not answering. He might be doing something where he can’t pick up.”
“I bet you that dude he’s trying to call is five-o,” Cookie said.
Malcolm glanced over at her, wanting to clamp his hand across the stupid girl’s mouth to shut her up.
“Tree, I promise you, he’s not. Far from it. Let me call him one more time and leave him a message, all right? He’ll call me back. He will.”
Tree didn’t say anything, just continued staring at Malcolm. He unclenched his hands from Malcolm’s collar.
“Just one more call,” Malcolm said, holding up the index finger from his good hand. “He doesn’t pick up, I’ll leave him a message.”
Tree let out a short burst of angry air. “One more call,” he said, resuming his pacing. “Wasting my motherfuckin’ time.”
Malcolm took a shaky inhale as Dio retrieved the phone and handed it to Tree, who hit redial.
Voicemail.
“G, hey man, it’s Mal. Trying to get you. Hit me back as soon as you get this. It’s important.”
He ended the call, the air sailing out of him, his shoulders deflating.
What now?
“I guess your boy ain’t gonna get you out of this one.” Tree shoved the phone back into his pocket.
Kim.
“Wait. Wait. Let me try his wife. Kim. She can track him down.”
Steam seemed to push out of Tree’s ears as he jerked backward, the infernal pacing that apparently soothed him seizing him once more.
They all watched him tramp around the room, muttering unintelligibly, another tic that appeared to quiet his frenzied train of thought. Cookie and Dio cut their eyes between Tree and Malcolm.
“All right.” He came to a sudden stop. “Call and find out where her old man is.”
Malcolm let out another breath.
Okay. Back in business.
“What’s her name again?”
“Kim.”
“Hmm. Kim.” Tree kept his gaze pinned on him as he had Malcolm unlock the phone again before going in search of her number, his eyes razor-blade slits. “You better not call her nothing different, Kimberly or nothing like that. No trying to give her clues, nothing.”
Malcolm nodded, his heart booming relentlessly against his chest. “Right.”
“Saw that in a movie once,” he said, chuckling as he looked over at Cookie and Dio. “See, you got to think about all the angles. Think ahead.”
“You so smart, baby,” Cookie cooed.
The phone trilled repeatedly.
“Hey, it’s Kim, just—”
Take the phone. Leave her a message. Try to hit the panic button.
Malcolm grabbed the phone, turning his back on a fuming Tree as he stepped slightly away from a confused Cookie, who inched closer to him.
He only had a few seconds. If that.
“Hey, Kim, it’s Malcolm.” Cookie was next to him now, trying to get in front of him. He kept turning his back, dodging her. He caught a glimpse of Tree from the corner of his eye rushing toward him.
One second.
Stall, stall, stall.
He quickly pulled down his home screen, his eyes searching for the panic button, his back still turned as he continued to evade both Tree and Cookie, Dio still standing dumbly to the side, furiously scratching his forearm. “Kim, I was calling because I’m trying to catch up with Garvin. I need to talk to him. Now.”
The button. Right there.
Got it.
He tapped the big red panic button, quickly, deftly, surreptitiously. The panic button would activate against the home alarm. The alarm company would call the police.
It would be over.
“Anyway, uh, like I said, trying to reach Garvin. It’s important. Have him call me as soon as you get this.”
He ended the call just as Tree came around to face him, menace smeared across his features, the gun, as always, pointed at him. “What the fuck you think you doing?” Tree asked, his voice low. Menacing.
“You want the money, Tree?”
The boy’s jaw cranked beneath his skin, his lip curled into a snarl of frustration. He said nothing.
“Right. Then we do it my way,” Malcolm said.
“You better be careful, Mally Mal,” Tree finally said, his voice that same quiet, steady rumble. “Don’t go thinking you running the show or nothing.”
Another lightbulb exploded over Malcolm’s head. A backup play if the other backups didn’t work. “Hold on. I’ve got one more idea. My accountant. I’ll call my accountant—”
Tree wrenched the phone out of Malcolm’s bad hand, shoving it in his back pocket. “No. We ain’t calling nobody else. I’m done with this shit. No more games.” The agitated pacing resumed. “Got me out here fucking around with all this shit, wasting my damn time.” Tree continued to mumble to himself, his stalking around the room growing more frantic with each step.
“Look, man, my accountant can have the money here—”
The gun came out again, pressing hard against his chest. Malcolm’s hands went up, the blood booming in his ears.
“I said,” Tree hissed, “I ain’t fucking with nobody else no more. You feel me?”
“Hey, baby,” Cookie said in a shaky voice.
“What?”
“I’m hungry.”
Tree cocked his head, the gun still aimed at Malcolm. “Huh. Yeah. Matter of fact, I’m getting pretty hungry, too. What you got to eat in there, Mally Mal?”
“Whatever you want.”
The prospect of food seemed to lift the boy out of his bad mood. Tree snapped his head in Dio’s direction. “Yo. Go upstairs and get Wifey and Ol’ Girl. Bring them down here to cook us up something.”
Malcolm took a sharp inhale as he snuck a glance at his watch.
Garvin would call him back.
The police would come.
Everything would be fine.
1:30 p.m.
So now they wanted to be fed.
Blair had watched warily as Cookie and Dio had returned to untie her and Farrah, shoving them down the stairs toward the kitchen. Tree had his gun pointed at Malcolm. Blair and Farrah clutched each other and headed into the kitchen. Her eyes swept the counter looking for her phone.
Right there where she left it.
She tensed as she tried to calculate how fast she could get to it without any of them seeing her. It was a few feet away, if that.
She loosened her grip on Farrah and took a tentative step in the direction of the phone. She looked up to see Dio’s eyes flick down at the counter before locking eyes with her. He shook his head before he walked calmly toward the phone and picked it up. She watched helplessly as he nudged Tree and handed it to him. Tree smiled and looked at it before dropping it to the floor and smashing it beneath his heel, causing them all to jump.
“Wow.” Cookie’s face lit up as she ran toward the glass refrigerator, designed as a walk-in unit, and flung the door open. “This is nice.”
“Take whatever you want,” Blair said in a dull voice. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up, her nerves pulled tight, Farrah’s queries about why them creeping back into her thoughts.
“What’s in there?” Tree asked.
Before she could respond, he marched across the room and pushed her out of the way, taking his own inventory of the wicker baskets brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables, blocks of cheese, loaves of bread sealed inside stiff cellophane bags, and the neatly labeled acrylic containers of condiments and premade meals. He pawed through the baskets, yanking lids off containers, his distress growing with each discovery.
“Man, what the hell is this shit?” he yelled as he tossed the containers to the floor, food splattering against the tile, the hard plastic smacking against the floor like bombs detonating. He grabbed the carefully wrapped packages of meats and vegetables and slamming those to the floor, too.
“What do you mean, what is it?” Blair asked, perturbed. “What does it look like?”
“This ain’t no motherfuckin’ food, I’ll tell you that. This ain’t nothing but some damn vegetables.” He looked at Malcolm. “Man, you eat this shit?”
Blair pressed her palms together and held them against her mouth. “Look, I can make you whatever you want.”
“You trying to poison me or something?” Tree demanded, seizing Blair’s arms.
Malcolm leapt across the room, but Dio was quicker. He pulled his gun and aimed it for Farrah’s head, stopping Malcolm’s advance.
“Don’t do it,” he said. “I’ll take her out with one shot.”
“Watch it, Tree,” Malcolm said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Please,” Blair whispered. She could hear her barely contained composure ripping apart at the seams, her normally fiery temper nothing but embers. “Please. Whatever you want. I’ll make you whatever you want.”
Tree pushed Blair back, her hip bone banging against the island. She resisted rubbing it as she watched him pace again. He came to a dead stop before he whirled around, his gaze focused on Dio.
“I want you and Wifey to go to the grocery store.” He resumed his pacing, as though it helped him to talk and think at the same time.
“Let me go to the store instead,” Malcolm said. “My wife and daughter can stay here.”
“I don’t want you to go to the store. I want you to stay here. Keep my eye on you,” Tree said.
“It’s okay, Malcolm, really.”
“BJ,” Malcolm hissed, his head wobbling on his spine in disbelief. “Bla—”
“Malcolm, please,” Blair whispered.
“Load that cart up with some real food. Get me some of them, uh frozen pizzas I like—”
“GeeGee’s,” Cookie said.
“Yeah, GeeGee’s frozen pizzas, some chips, some grape soda, some donuts. You clean that bitch out.” He flicked a glance over at Blair. “And get you whatever else you want.”
Blair pursed her lips in an attempt to keep the terror clawing at her organs from slipping out.
“You staying here?” Dio asked as he lowered his gun away from Farrah’s temple, and she breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“Me and Cookie gonna keep an eye on things. You text me when you get there, text me when you on the way back, you got it?”
“All right.”
Tree shoved Blair toward his accomplice, who reached out to catch her, gripping her elbows. She pulled away from him, trying once again to stay calm.
“I need money,” she whispered. “My credit card is in my wallet upstairs.”
“Go upstairs with Wifey,” Tree said.
Dio gripped Blair’s arm, shoving her in the direction of the living room. Tree jumped in front of them, all three of them colliding.
“You don’t try anything on my boy while you’re gone. No trying to signal to nobody, no trying to get the cops. Anything happens to him, something’s gonna happen to your girl and your old man. You got me?”
Blair nodded. “I understand.”
He grinned, continuing to stare at her. Finally, he stepped aside to let them pass and she and Dio headed upstairs. Blair retrieved her keys and purse seconds before Dio clamped his hand around her arm and hustled her out into the hallway and toward the staircase, his fingers digging into her skin.
“We have to go through the kitchen,” she said.
He shoved her in that direction, where Tree and Cookie were wrapping duct tape around Malcolm and Farrah’s wrists. Blair shot Malcolm a beseeching look and he flashed her a tight, small smile in return. Her heart plunged at the sight of her daughter, the corners of her mouth drooping, tears staining her cheeks. She could only mouth, “love” to them both before Dio seized her arm and pushed down on the handle of the door, which refused to open for him.
