“Maybe he made a mistake in my case,” Trimble said.
“You can still make this right,” I said. “Maybe you can’t undo all the mistakes you’ve made, but maybe you can keep any more big ones from happening.”
Trimble shook his head, bemused. He looked over at me. “Sometimes you just have to play the hand you’re dealt.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that.
We were heading down Wyndham, Bullock’s house half a block away. “What about it, Trimble?” I asked. “How’s this going to play out? I’d kind of like to have some idea before we go in there.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said. His gun appeared in his lap, gripped tightly in his right hand. “Park the car and get out.”
We opened the doors at the same time, and I was half out of the front seat as Trimble was coming around the back of the car.
“Shit,” I said. “I dropped my wallet.”
And I leaned back into the car, reached up by the accelerator, and slipped my hand around the cold metal of the gun grip. Quickly, before Trimble was around my side of the car, I slipped the gun into the pocket of my jacket. I’d already been patted down once. The odds were that I wouldn’t be again.
Together, we walked into the house.
35
ANGIE WAS STILL ON THE COUCH, but, I was relieved to see, more alert this time. As I entered the Hall of Barbies she jumped up and ran to me and I took her into my arms and hugged her, burying my face in her hair.
“Hey,” I said softly, patting her back. “You okay?”
She looked up at me, her eyes red, and nodded. “They haven’t hurt you?” I asked. She shook her head.
“What about you?” she asked, reaching up to touch the left side of my face, which I’d forgotten had a good-size lump on it from much earlier that evening. “Did they hit you?”
“No,” I said, not able to keep myself from smiling. “That was from someone else.”
Angie blinked, like maybe she had an inkling for an instant, then dismissed the idea.
“She’s been a perfect guest,” Bullock said, standing behind his desk as Blondie and Pockmark took up positions just inside the door. “Your Angie was telling me that one Christmas when she was a little girl you assembled her a Barbie house. With a little swing attached to one side, and a spiral staircase on the other?”
“I remember,” I said. “It took me hours.”
“I have that one,” Bullock said. “But not here. It’s a little too big for the shelves.”
I squeezed Angie into me. “We’re going to be okay,” I whispered to her. “I promise you.”
Bullock snorted, smiled. Trimble stepped around me and Angie so he could face Bullock head-on.
“Where’s Eddie?” Bullock asked. “You said on the phone that you didn’t have him with you. I specifically told you to bring him back here. I’m running this show now, so when I say jump, you’re supposed to jump. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right, boss,” said Pockmark. “You’re the man.”
Bullock looked at his underling with the bad complexion and said, “Why don’t you go outside, do a walk of the place, make sure there’s no one around.”
Pockmark, almost cheerful, said, “Yeah, sure, I could do that.”
“Eddie was unable to join us,” Trimble said. “He figured he’d get treated better taking a leap down ten stories, rather than come here and face you.”
Bullock was stone-faced. “What are you telling me?”
“He jumped. He’s dead.”
Bullock leaned forward. “Jesus Christ on a saltine, are you shitting me?”
“No.”
“But you got the stuff, right? Before he jumped? You got the stuff?”
“There is no stuff. He sold it.”
Bullock was starting to hyperventilate, which sent him into a coughing fit. He drank a few sips from the nearly empty water bottle.
“Then you got the money. Tell me you got the fucking money.”
Trimble said, “Not exactly. He sold the shipment for a handful of magic beans to the Jamaicans. A hundred and fifty thou.”
“A hundred fifty?” Bullock was stone-faced no more. He was stunned. “He sold that for a hundred fifty? That would have kept half the junkies in this city happy for a year. A hundred fifty?”
“Yeah.”
Bullock made a fist and slammed it so hard onto the table that we all jumped, even Blondie. A pink display box featuring Malibu Barbie slipped off the shelf and hit the floor.
“Fuck!” Bullock screamed. And that set off yet another coughing fit. When he was done, he finished off the water bottle and tossed it into the garbage. Another guy who didn’t know how to recycle.
Somewhat calmed now, he said to Trimble, “So, you came back with the hundred fifty?”
Trimble paused. “No. I came back with around seven thousand, maybe not even that. I haven’t had a chance to count it yet.” He dug the envelope out of his pocket and tossed it onto Bullock’s desk.
Bullock stared at Trimble, apparently unable to believe what he was hearing. “Where’s the rest of it?”