A few minutes later, Marjorie found Ronnie lounging at the food court. He was sucking down an Orange Julius and trying to make time with the slutty teenage girl behind the counter. She cast a baleful glance at her son and crooked a finger.
Ronnie saw her watching him, gave a resentful look, and sauntered over. “What?”
Marjorie jerked her chin. “That one. Follow her.” She pointed to the back of Susan’s blond head as she drifted toward the exit. “Find out where she lives, then get your ass back here. I’ll get this shit packed up.”
Ronnie stared at her for a long moment, his faded blue eyes taking on a crazy gleam.
“Will you move it!” Marjorie put some real venom into her voice to finally get Ronnie moving. Then she went back to her doll display and got busy. Wrapping her dolls in tissue paper, she hummed as she worked. She decided that things often had a funny way of working out. She didn’t think it was going to happen today. And then, praise the Lord, Susan Darden had come strolling along like an entitled little princess. Almost like she’d been dropped into her lap by the hand of God. And wasn’t that something?
2
THAT’S the house,” Ronnie said. They were hunkered in their rumbling, rust-spotted Chevy Malibu on Kenwood Parkway, one of the fanciest addresses in Minneapolis. Enormous homes of red brick and yellow sandstone, most of which dated back to the days of the timber and lumber barons, sprawled out around them. Bright lights glowed in lead pane windows and afforded them small peeks at wood-paneled libraries, lush living rooms, and dining rooms lit by crystal chandeliers.
“Shit,” Marjorie said, clearly impressed. “This is big time.” By big time, she meant big money. She wasn’t easily roused from her normally angry, turgid state, but this kind of wealth was a whole new ballgame. Gave her a little tingle right there in the pit of her stomach.
Compared to these people, the rich assholes who actually lived in these mansions, Marjorie knew that she and Ronnie looked like refugees. Just like those poor, sad people you saw in old black-and-white newsreels clumping down the gangplank from some tramp steamer. People who were at the back of the line, who would always be kept at the back of the line.
“You want me to go take a closer look?” Ronnie asked. He was slumped in the passenger side, eating cold French fries and dripping ketchup on his yellow sweatshirt.
“Don’t be a dummy,” Marjorie snarled. “We gotta wait.” Her eyes squinted greedily at the twinkling lights that filtered through the panes of glass like some kind of picture-perfect postcard. Marjorie could imagine sterling flatware being laid out just so on pristine white linen. A cook, or a housekeeper at the very least, puttering around a warm kitchen, where pots steamed and bubbled. A sophisticated, elegant couple sitting down at their dining room table. Maybe being served soup from a tureen. Whatever the hell a tureen was.
An hour later, the numbing cold was getting to them. Marjorie shifted uncomfortably, pulled her thumb out of her mitten’s thumb spot, and nestled it with the rest of her fingers. Their breath had created a thin skim of ice on the inside of the car windows.
“Maybe they ain’t going out,” Ronnie said. He was starting to get bored and his voice had taken on a whiny tone.
“It’s Saturday night,” Marjorie said. “Rich people go out Saturday night. That’s what they do.”
Periscoping her head up, Marjorie scratched off a small patch of ice with a ragged fingernail and pressed a watchful eye to the cold glass. Upstairs, on the second floor of the Dardens’ grand home, a light winked off.
“Say now,” she said to Ronnie.
Ten minutes later, Susan Darden and her husband came waltzing out the front door. Susan was bundled in a sleek black mink coat that was so long, it grazed the sidewalk as she walked. Her long blond hair was pulled snugly into a low chignon, the better to show off the size and sparkle of her diamond earrings. Her husband, tall, and radiating businessman confidence, had his arm circled protectively around Susan’s waist. Halfway down the walk, he leaned down and whispered something to her, causing her to throw back her head and laugh. Marjorie imagined she could hear Susan’s high, tinkling notes hanging like icicles in the frozen night. Then Mr. and Mrs. Darden climbed into a sleek jet-black Volvo and slowly pulled away from the curb.
Marjorie sat there for a few minutes. She just knew they were off to someplace fancy, an expensive restaurant or a party where people would eat crab puffs and drink French wine. Then she pulled her thoughts away from the Dardens and turned inward, thinking, mulling over their next move. As she mumbled to herself, neon dollars signs seemed to glow with an urgent, bright intensity right before her eyes. Then a wolfish smile crept across her face and she cranked her head toward Ronnie. “Let’s go,” she whispered.