Stand By Your Man

Chapter Nineteen

I woke up at five a.m. because I could feel him watching me. Tony Carlucci had played an elaborate shell game with my car and his motorcycle before putting me on the back of his bike and driving me in a zigzag pattern across Greensboro, south of town to the small village of Pleasant Garden. He stopped several times, waiting, watching, making sure no one followed us, and then proceeded to drive his Harley across a field and up onto the back of his property.

It was a long, narrow piece of land, rimmed on three sides by a tall, barbed-wire fence. Tony stopped the bike by a gate, unlocked it, and drove the Harley through before returning to lock it behind us.

"Do you live in a prison?" I asked. Floodlights spotted the backyard, which was filled with fruit trees.

"Nope, I'm the caretaker," he said. "It's a concrete factory. They let me live in the house that was here on the property. In return, I keep out the riffraff."

He drove across the yard, up to the deck that spanned the back of the tiny, brick ranch. The instant we pulled close, a Doberman lunged out at us, his neck bound by a heavy collar that was attached to a thick chain. The muscles corded and strained against the collar and the dog drooled in his attempt to get to us.

"Popeye," Carlucci called. "It's me, bud."

Popeye growled, unwilling to accept that I was a guest. I was equally unwilling to accept that Popeye could ever be considered a pet. It was a standoff that only got better once Tony took me inside.

His house was a monument to cleanliness and order, almost military in its precise attention to detail. Everything had a place and there was no sign of clutter or the dust bunnies that called my house a home.

Carlucci supplied me with a toothbrush, a comb, even pajamas. But Carlucci was lacking in one essential: There was no guest bed.

"I'll take the couch," he said.

"I'm fine with a couch."

"Be that as it may," he said, "I'm still sleeping on it."

I stood looking around his room, staring at the pale blue walls, the blue plaid sheets on the bed, the matching pillows, the curtains that hung just so at the windows, and the dresser that had no personal belongings upon it.

The couch in the living room looked more comfortable than the hard mattress of Carlucci's bed, but beggars couldn't be choosers. I closed the door behind him and was asleep within minutes. How I ever awakened from my coma would remain a mystery, but I did. I felt him watching me, even in my dreamless sleep, and I rose up through the mire of unconsciousness to find him in a chair at the other end of the bedroom, his smoky eyes staring into mine.

I sat up, still startled and in between sleep and wakefulness. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking."

I tugged at the covers, pulling them tighter around me, suddenly cold.

"What?"

Carlucci looked at me for a slow moment. "About you."

He still wore his black jeans, shirt and boots, but the jacket was gone. The way he said about you made my skin tingle as little hairs rose up on the back of my arms.

"Not like that," he said, reading me again. "Well, maybe some of that, but I told you, I don't do complicated. You're complicated." He stretched and stood, walking slowly toward me. "I was thinking about your situation. I'm thinking you and Bess King oughta talk."

"So you had to come in here and watch me sleep?"

His eyes followed the outline of my body under the covers, moving slowly, like I was a consideration and he was biding his time.

"Yeah, something like that. That and I thought I heard something a little while ago, so I just thought I'd sit here, just in case."

I looked at him and didn't believe him.

"The dog didn't bark."

Carlucci laughed. "How would you know? You were snoring too loud to hear much of anything."

"I was not!"

At that moment, Popeye went crazy. His deep, excited barking filled the air, lights flicked on in the backyard, and a gun materialized in Tony's hand.

"Get out of bed and down on the floor," he commanded.

I jumped, hitting the cold wooden floor next to the bed with a sharp slam.

Tony walked to the window, stood to one side and pushed the curtain away with the barrel of his gun.

"It's probably nothing," he said. "A cat maybe, or a raccoon." And for the second time in as many minutes, I knew he was lying.

Popeye was hysterical. Carlucci let the curtain slip back into place. "Stay right where you are." He tossed me the cordless phone. "If I don't come back in five minutes, call nine-one-one."

"Wait! Don't go out there! That's stupid."

Popeye screamed, a dog howl of anguish and pain, and Carlucci was gone.

I heard the front door open softly, then close. Popeye was silent. There was no sound from the outside at all for a moment, then gunfire. Two or three blasts close together, then the sound of a car starting up in the distance and pulling away.

I hit the buttons on the phone and heard someone say "Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?"

"Someone's shooting at us," I said.

"Okay, ma'am. Just tell me where you are," she said.

And mat's when I stopped. I didn't know where I was. I hesitated, looked up, and saw Tony step into the doorway. "It's all right," he said. "Tell them you're fine. Tell them never mind."

I looked at him, not believing that he was serious.

"It's fine. Tell them."

His voice was hard.

"I'm fine. I'm sorry. It was a mistake."

"Ma'am," the 911 operator said, "are you sure you're fine? All you have to do is say no and we can send a car."

I tried to calm my voice, to convince her. "I'm sorry," I said, "I guess I got a little frightened. It was just a car backfiring." I laughed apologetically. "It woke me up, and I guess I got carried away."

"All right then, ma'am," the woman said. "It's all right."

Tony walked into the bedroom and sank down on the floor beside the bed. His face was white and drawn, and when I looked I saw something that terrified me. His hands were covered with blood.

He stared at me, as if he were looking right through me. "They killed Popeye," he said. "They shot him with a high-powered bow. He's dead."

He looked down at his hands, as if they didn't belong to him, and then he stood up. "I'll be back."

He turned and walked away, his back stiff, his gait strangely uneven.

"Where are you going?"

He looked at me for a second then turned away. "To bury my dog."

I listened to his footsteps dying away, the sound of the back door deadbolt sliding as he unlocked it and stepped out onto the deck. The next sound I heard was that of a shovel ringing against the hardened ground as Tony dug a grave for Popeye.

When he came back inside, the sky was beginning to lighten. I could see it seeping through the edges of the curtains. Tony had walked past me, into the bathroom, and closed the door. I heard the sound of water running, then the broken sound of water hitting his hands and him washing, over and over. When he came out, he walked over to where I still sat on the floor. With one harsh movement he pulled the covers from the bed onto the floor, then reached for the pillows. Next he pulled his gun from his waistband and placed it on the floor next to the phone.

He started arranging the blankets, making a pallet, and as soon as I realized this, I began to help.

"We can't sleep on the bed," he said, his voice thick with fatigue. "It's not safe. And you're not sleeping alone."

He lay down on one side of the blanket and turned away from me, onto his side, his fingers inches from his gun. I watched him for a moment and then, finally, lay down beside him, wrapping myself in the blanket and turning away from him. Within moments, we slept.

Carlucci was up before I was, and the smell of coffee was what finally drove me out of the warm blanket and into his kitchen. Tony was standing by the window over the sink, staring out at the field behind his house, watching concrete trucks kick up clouds of white dust as they moved through the gate and into the plant. The look on his face frightened me. His eyes were hollow and rimmed with sleepless, dark circles. His hair was wiry and unkempt. But when he turned to face me, his expression took my breath away. He was more than angry; he was enraged.

"You should've called me when you found Vernell," he said. His voice escaped through clenched jaws, rasping at my sleep-drugged mind, forcing me into a sharp awakening.

"You had a million opportunities to let me know you'd found him, and you didn't. What's wrong with you? Didn't I tell you I had to know? Don't you think some of this could've been avoided if I'd had first crack at him and not your precious detective?"

He frightened me, but I wouldn't let him see it.

"What was I supposed to do, Tony, say "Excuse me," and step into a phone booth? I don't carry a cell phone. And what would I have said, huh? 'This P.I. is looking for you, he breaks into houses and waits, he drives your daughter home on his motorcycle without our permission, and he says he wants to get in touch with you before the other people looking for you kill him'?"

Tony's eyes narrowed. "Something like that."

I straightened my back, pushed the hair out of my face, and frowned. "First off, there wasn't time to call you. Second, Marshall Weathers found us, I didn't call him. And third, I don't really know a thing about you. What if you're looking to hurt Vernell, just like the others are looking to do?"

Tony folded his thick forearms and the frown on his face deepened. "So you're saying basically that you don't trust me."

"Something like that," I echoed.

"That's why you didn't tell me straight out when you got home?"

I walked past him to the coffeepot, grabbed a mug from the hooks that lined the underside of his cabinets, and poured myself a cup of steaming coffee.

"I didn't tell you because I wasn't ready to tell you. I wanted to talk to Vernell first, find out what's really going on. I have a history with him. I don't have one with you."

He'd talked to Bess. She'd told him. That much was easy to guess.

"You're playing it wrong, Maggie," he said. His eyes were narrow angry slits, and his face was set in cold, hard lines that sent a chill running through me.

"Take me home, please. Now."

"You can't go home."

That's when I lost my temper. "Yes, I can. Watch me, Mr. Carlucci. You can take me home, or I can call a cab or I can call a friend, or"-and I let the word dangle for a second-"I can call a cop. Somehow, I don't think you're exactly in favor of that idea, are you?"

He took a step toward me, and I braced myself, but I didn't move. I thought he was going to keep coming. I expected him to try and hurt me, but he didn't. He stopped himself, his fists clenched by his side, his face colored with a dusky red rage, and as I watched, he let it all go. He stared at me, never taking his eyes from my face. He inhaled, held it, and exhaled, visibly relaxing the muscles in his body.

"All right," he said at last, "I'll take you to your car. But it's not safe. I'm telling you they're looking for that money and they won't stop until they have it. Hurting you is just an amusement for them, Maggie."

I looked past him, out the window, staring at the barren fruit trees.

"They didn't have any trouble finding me here," I said. "You told me, the only way I can get out of this is to go see Vernell and get him to tell me where the money is. If they have their money, they'll leave me alone."

Tony reached for his jacket, pulling it off the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

"Then I'll take you," he said.

"I'll take myself."

Tony shook his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're a piece of work, Maggie Reid." He stepped closer to me, standing so close I could smell the leather and oil of his jacket. "Let me help you."

I wanted to tell him I didn't trust him, that I couldn't trust someone who carried that much excess anger around like spare luggage, but I couldn't say it.

"All right," I said finally. "Take me."