Freaky Deaky

Her phone-message voice said, "Chris? Hi. I'm going to see Woody and get that over with. Tell him I'm not going to marry him." There was a pause.

"That's a joke. You're supposed to laugh. Anyway, I should be back around five."

There was another pause before her voice said, "See you later. I hope."

Chris waited, heard the beep and kept waiting for her real voice to come on…

J% 11 afternoon Skip kept trying to place a call to Bedford, Indiana, to wish his mom a Happy Mother's Day. He'd dial the number and then the operator would come on to tell him the circuits were still busy everybody in the entire country calling their moms. He'd hang up the phone and there would be Robin waiting for him, practically tapping her toe with impatience.

"Have you found a place yet?" Meaning to wire a charge that would go off after they left Monday morning.

He'd tell her he was still looking.

"Oh, on the phone?" Using that pissy tone. At one point she said to him, "I'm doing all the goddamn work," and he told her it was about time she did some thing. It was fun to get her pulling on her braid, like she was going to tear it off. Then, out of bitchiness wouldn't let him have any blotter when a craving for acid took hold of him, telling him in that pissy tone, "Not till you do your work." Still anxious for him to wire the charge that would kill two people and leave him and her rich. So he promoted some weed off Donnell and started calling her Mom.

"Okay, Mom…

Anything you say, Mom." He believed if he squinted hard enough he'd see smoke coming out of her fucking ears. It was a weird situation.

Last night, Donnell had returned to the kitchen and laid a.38 revolver on the table, like the one Skip had stuck in his pants. Donnell waited for Robin to go upstairs, find a guest room, before he said, "That's the gun, but ain't nothing in it. Look at me. You think I just come off a cotton field? I'm gonna tell you how it is. Only first, you put that dynamite out in the garage." They had some scotch and Skip decided a white man and a colored man could have more in common than a white man and woman-easy, if the woman was Robin. A whiz at thinking up dirty tricks and getting you to do things her way, but otherwise a pain in the ass.

What Robin meant by "doing all the work" was having to act sweet and girlish with Woody.

The man didn't come downstairs till afternoon and was already half in the bag. Skip would never have recognized him on the street after all these years. Woody blinked, startled by this woman giving him a hug and a kiss and then acting hurt, curling her lower lip, saying, "You don't remember me?" Woody said, "Gimme a hint." Robin gave him more than that. She unbuttoned her shirt and his eyes opened to a picture from his past, though now hanging a bit lower.

"Robin!" Woody said.

"How much you need?"

He remembered that, how she used to get him to loan her money. And he remembered her being here last Saturday, now he did, but didn't recall agreeing to buy her books to turn into a musical. So Robin pouted again and seemed about to cry-Skip wondering if she ever actually had, at some time in her life. Robin said, "But we did, we talked about it," and showed Woody the contract, all the legal bullshit-"herein referred to as the Fire Series"-without mentioning the amount out loud, the $425,000 for each of the four books.

Donnell stepped over to say to Skip, "The man ain't buzzed enough. I could slip him a 'lude."

For that matter, Skip was thinking, he could put an arm lock on the man till he signed. The contracts were something to show the police, after, proof they'd made a deal with Woody before a mysterious explosion took his life. (And the life of his chauffeur.) Skip couldn't tell Donnell that, so he said, "Robin'll handle him."

And she did, by convincing Woody they'd lined up Gordon Macrae to star.

"Don't you remember talking about Gordon Macrae?" Sure he did. Woody said, "Boyoh-boy," taking the pen Robin offered. Skip made a face, watching the man sign the contracts: it seemed the next thing to robbing the dead.

Yet here was the man happy as could be, saying, Let's celebrate, have a party, telling Donnell to go pick up some Chinese for when they got hungry.

Robin said she'd go with him.

Skip had to wonder about that. He followed them out to the kitchen, where Robin was saying she wanted to see Woody's signed check. Anxious.

Donnell said, "The checkbook is in the desk and it stays there.

Nobody touches it till I write in this name and the numbers and hand it to you as you leave. After the man has called the bank. Understand?

Be cool, girl. You know how to be cool? Try."

Donnell took car keys off a hook by the door. Skip saw Robin getting her killer look and held on to her arm, letting Donnell walk out, down the back hall to the garage.

Close to her Skip said, "He's showing us who's boss, that's all. It doesn't hurt any. You took something away from him last night and now he's got it back."