And there was what the police had told her. That the engineer, up in the cab of the diesel that took Eldon’s Toyota for its harrowing trip down the track, said he’d seen a pickup behind the car, that he could have sworn the truck rammed the car, shoved it right onto the tracks just before the impact.
The police already suspected Gary’d had something to do with that other gang member whose Super Bee got pushed into the side of a moving train. So they figured this for a retaliation, a tit-for-tat kind of thing. Give them a taste of their own medicine.
“That must be what happened, Candy,” Gary said, when Miranda told him the theory the cops were working on. “A revenge thing. Although, still, it might have been an accident. You never know, right? Crazy shit happens sometimes.”
“It’s just funny,” Miranda said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Eldon dying just like that other guy.”
“Yeah, well,” said Gary.
The thing was, if the other gang had killed Eldon, why didn’t Gary want to launch some sort of counterattack? Even Payne and the others were puzzling over that one. “It’s time to be reasonable,” Gary said. “We need to come to some sort of a whatchamacallit, an accommodation.”
Accommodation my ass, Miranda thought.
She could have gone to the cops with her suspicions. That detective, Cherry was his name, he’d been around asking questions, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. She could talk to him, tell him, Yeah, Gary did that other guy, but he did Eldon too, because he was getting too uppity, too big for his britches. Followed him around until he could do him the same way he did Grant Delmonico.
She could have done that. She could have gone to the cops.
But she decided not to. She decided on another course of action.
The tough part would be pretending to get over it. Pretending to believe Gary’s version of events. Pretending to accept Gary’s argument that retaliation was not the wisest course of action.
Pretending to go along.
But you did what you had to do.
So she kept on working at the Kickstart. Managing the money. The legit and the not so legit. Moving it here, moving it there.
Moving it to a few new places.
It wasn’t even all that difficult. Phony invoices worked best. You drew up a fake bill, you paid it. Except the fake company didn’t exactly have a bank account. But you did.
Once she had enough, she’d be gone. Just wouldn’t come to work one day. She’d take Katie and off they’d go, with more than enough cash to start new lives, with new names, in a new location.
She was doing it for Katie.
This was no kind of world in which to raise a little girl. In a world full of drugs and strippers and hookers and bikers who shoved people into the front of trains. She was going to get out.
And when she did, she was going to rip off this miserable fucker for everything she could.
Except one night, before she had all that she needed, there was a problem. A situation that made it very difficult to go on pretending.
It was after hours at the Kickstart. Katie was with the sitter. Miranda was counting receipts from the night, doing what she always did. And working some new financial magic, shaving off a bit of money into this account here, that account there. Gary, he couldn’t count his own fingers and toes if his life depended on it.
They’re all in the upstairs office, Miranda at her computer, the guys sitting around drinking. The girls—not just the strippers and waitresses from downstairs, but the ones giving blowjobs upstairs as well—have all gone home.
Eldridge and Zane, they’re drunk. Payne’s catching up. Gary’s there too, and his dimwitted friend Leo, the one he treats like a little brother. All a bit giddy. Made a lot of money tonight. There’s piles of cash on the tables. Some obscure Doobie Brothers song, “I Cheat the Hangman,” playing on the radio.
Payne comes over and grabs her by the arm, pulls her out of the chair, starts dancing with her. She says, “No thanks, really,” but then he’s got her pushed up against the wall, his mouth pressed up against her ear, saying, “It must be tough, huh, Candy? Eldon gone, no one to meet your needs,” and then everyone’s hootin’ and hollerin’ and turning up the music and then she’s on the floor and she can’t stop them and they’re holding her down and someone says, “Whoa, remember these? Haven’t seen these since you were onstage, what the fuck we got you up here doing the books for?” And they go one after the other, all except Leo, who’s off in the corner, sounds like maybe he’s whimpering, until finally Gary tells him to go downstairs, have a piece of pie or something. The Doobie Brothers sing, “The rain that fell upon my stone, Like tears you cry I shared alone.”
Afterwards, they’re very quiet. Someone says maybe they should get Candy a cab.
The next day, she doesn’t come to work. She hurts.