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“Since you’ve never filed your taxes, from what I’ve heard, then no, you don’t pay his wages. What is it you want, Dave? I’m having a good day, and spending any part of it with you is taking away from my happiness just being in the same general area as you are.” He eyed the woman standing there. “I’m Maddy, you fucking idiot. If you can’t recognize me, why the hell did you tell them that you wanted to talk to me? As I said, I’m busy.”
“You sure have gotten mouthy, haven’t you? I guess I’ll have to beat that out of you when I get out of here. Again.” He noticed that a man was hanging around by her. “You go on back to your job, bozo. I’m talking to my sister right now. Go away. We have business to discuss. I won’t have you interrupting us when I tell her what she’s going to be doing for me.”
“Good luck with telling her what to do. And she’s my wife, so no, I’m not going anywhere until you’ve told her or asked her, so be done with it so we can go out to lunch.” He didn’t know why he asked, but he wanted to know where they were going and what they were going to have. “I don’t know. There is a seafood place not far from here. The two of us might end up there. Maddy, they have the best crab cakes I’ve ever eaten. How about that for lunch?”
“Oh yes. I’ve not had a good crab sandwich in a long time. You might not know this, but the kids all love seafood.” He told her that he’d keep that in mind. “Right. Friday night. The kids will be so—”
“Shut the fuck up, the two of you. Christ. Who the fuck cares what your brats want? I don’t. But speaking of them, I want you to have them find me a bit of cash. Well, a lot of it, actually. I have a few palms to grease to get myself out of here.” She asked him what he was talking about. “Them damned brats of yours. They know what to do. And so you know, don’t get all cozy with them being around either. I’m going to make it so that you’re accused of being unfit so that they’ll come to me. See that they don’t. You’re about as dumb as a post for not getting as much out of them as you can. I’m not going to waste their God-given talent like you’ve been doing. Does this so-called husband of yours know what they can do? I bet you kept that little bit to yourself, didn’t you? Maddy don’t want her little ones to be abused. Dumb ass.”
“He knows and has already told them that he doesn’t need them to play tricks for him. Also, they won’t come to you at all now, Dave. I have a husband that they love as much as they do me. Besides, I don’t know how you think that you’d be any less unfit than you’re claiming that I am. I’m not the one up on forty murder charges currently sitting in a jail cell, ready to be transported to a federal prison. Not to mention all the other things that they have against you.” He said that was why he wanted her to use the kids to get him some money. “Are you actually telling me to use my children to get you money so that you can get out of jail and take them from me? Is that your plan, Dave?”
“Of course it is. Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you all along? You no more deserve those brats than you do trying to make Barney pay you child support. He’s not going to do it just so you know. And I know where you live now, Maddy, so when he gets out, he’s going to come gunning for you. I plan on being there, too, when he comes around. You know that he doesn’t care for you making trouble for either of us. He’ll make you pay.” She asked him where she lived if he knew so much. “On some mountain top with a bunch of hillbillies.”
He eyed the man who was with his sister. Dave knew quality clothing when he saw it, and this manandhis sister were wearing top of the line. What the other officers were saying about the Cross people might be true. They might have more money than they needed. They’d not said that exactly, but he knew it to be a fact. He looked at Maddy while she and that man were talking again about lunch again. What the fuck was a crab sandwich anyway?
There was something different about Maddy he was only just noticing. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew that she’d had some work done on her or something. She was…well, he didn’t know that what he was thinking was right or not, but she looked brighter. Like the sun only shown on her. Knowing that sounded hokey, he shook that notion out of his head. He asked her what she was going to do to help him get out of there.
“Nothing. I love that you’re not roaming the streets causing any trouble.” He told her that she wasn’t being right. “Right or not, Dave, I’m glad that I don’t have to be constantly looking over my shoulder to see where you are. Knowing that you’re in here, our kids sleep better, too. They’re also doing very well since you didn’t ask. Sleeping better. Eating well. It’s amazing what having trust in someone can do for your total well-being.”
“That’s what somebody said to me before. Like I had anything to do with them having sleepless nights. I made sure they were fed and watered when they were with me.” She asked him if he really did put a bowl of water and food out for them on a sheet of newspaper. “Yes. They don’t need to have a fancy meal all the time. Besides, I had to make sure they knew who was in charge, didn’t I? If you turn them over to me, Maddy, I’ll make sure that I murder you fast. I mean, I’ll murder you fast.” He started cursing. “Damn, woman. I can’t lie, no matter who I’m talking to. I’m going to find her, too, and make her take this shit away from me. I can’t do any kind of business with me having to tell the truth all the time.”
“I kind of like it now that you mention it.” She sat down in a chair that he knew hadn’t been there before. “In fact, I have a few questions of my own to ask you. Did you kill Mom and Dad?”
“Yes.” He eyed the guard standing there and then remembered he’d answered that question a few days ago with the Feds. It wasn’t like they could charge him twice for admitting that he’d murdered them. “They were holding me back in getting things done the way that I wanted them. Did you know that Grandpa and Grandma left you a bunch of money? They wouldn’t let me have it. So I killed Mom and Dad when they wouldn’t tell me where it was. Well, that’s actually how I found out about you getting it all. Hell, I didn’t even know the idiot old buzzards had two cents between them. They were sure stingy about money, that’s for sure. Mom and Dad were a waste of space anyway. Always harping on me to get a good job and stop robbing people. I sure showed them what sort of job I was fit for, didn’t I?”
“Did you kill them, too, grandpa and grandma?” He said he’d only killed Grandpa. He’d caught him in the middle of killing the mailman. “What reason did you have to kill the mailman? He more than likely didn’t know who you were from anyone else.”
“You’d be wrong about that. Everyone knew who I was and what I wanted. They knew better than to cross me.” He thought of how the people of their town would run and hide when he came into town. “They knew how to respect someone of higher intelligence than them. They worshiped me. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. They were afraid of me, and I damn well deserved it too. Christ, when I think of being able to get a seat at any restaurant I wanted, no matter how busy it was. You’ve no idea how much I loved that kind of service. I’d still have it, too, if not for you making things difficult for me.”
“You must really think that, or you couldn’t say it.” He didn’t understand what the man meant by that but let it go. “Tell me something, Dave. When the kids were with you, did you ever think that they might miss their mom? That they might need a hug from you?”
“Hell no. I didn’t care that they missed their mom. I didn’t understand it, so I didn’t care. As for hugging them? Well, that’s another hell no. I would rather have a snake curled up beside me than a kid’s dirty hands touching me. Kids are nothing but germ factories, and you know that too.” He laughed a little. “I’m guessing that you live for their hugs. That you even kiss them goodnight when you put them to bed. Just like I thought you were. You’re a sap.”
“I do, actually. And since I’ve adopted them, they call me Dad. Best feeling in the world if you ask me.” He told him that nobody had. “All the same, I love them. And will love them forever, too.”
“Like I said, you’re a sap.” Standing up, the guard did his usual thing. Turned with his gun pointed right at his head. “I can’t get to her. Just slow your roll, why don’t you? Christ, you’d think that I was armed and dangerous.”
Of course, he continued to hold his gun pointed at him. It wasn’t until he sat back down that the moron finally turned his back on him and put his gun back at his chest. Shaking his head, he pointed out that he was no more dangerous to his sister than he was. At least while he was locked up.
“Yes, because that will make him feel better.” He told Maddy to shut up. “Thank you. I think I will. The next time you get it into your head to call for me to tell me you want my children, forget it. I’m not coming back.”
“What about the money?” She asked him what money. “Damn it, Maddy. The money that you’re going to have the kids get me. That money. It’s a wonder that you even know how to feed yourself. You’re as dumb as a post. Get them to use their whatever it is they used that one time I had them and get me money. I’m going to need a lot of it, too. It’s not as cheap as it was, paying off the dimwits in my town. These men are expensive.”
“I’m thinking that you couldn’t get enough money to pay them off. Or grease their palms, as you’ve been saying.” Dave told the other man that he’d not asked him. “No, but you’re referring to a federal officer to which I’m one. We swore to uphold the law against people like you.”
“Well, la-de-da for you. They have their price. Just like you will when I come for the kids. You be thinking on it real hard on what you want.” Dave just then thought of something. “Hey, we’re related, you and me. You should do it for me for that reason alone. Since we’re family and all.”
“You’re nothing to me. Nor are you to my kids.” He asked if his kids had any special talents. “In that they love their mother and I, no, they’re just normal kids.”
“You’re talking about Maddy’s kids then. They’re not yours, dumb ass. They’re hers and Barney’s.” It hit him like it had been staring him in the face all this time. “And I just had me an epiphany. He’s their daddy. I can just have him sign them over to me. It won’t cost me as much as I’m betting you’ll want. Christ, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”
He was still talking about how Barney would help him out with this for a few bucks when he noticed that his sister and that man were gone. Asking the guard when they’d left was a waste of time, so he didn’t bother. But this Barney thing? Well, that was worth thinking about. He’d just have to get a message to him as soon as he could. Christ, oh mighty, this was working out much better than he could have hoped.
His lunch came and went. Dave didn’t want to bother with another sandwich, so he left it on the tray. By this time tomorrow, he’d have all the money in the world. Yes, sir-e-Bob, he’d be rolling in the dough. The first thing he was going to do after having the kids do what he wanted he was going to treat himself to a porterhouse steak. The fattest baked potato that was ever grown, as well as slices of fried bacon that he could chop up all over it. Mushrooms too. He did love him a good mushroom sauce over his steak. His mouth was watering just thinking about it.
The rest of the afternoon into the evening, he barely paid attention to what was going on around him. There was a guard change that he missed, as well as dinner coming. Picking at it, disappointed that it wasn’t the steak that he’d been drooling about all day, he ended up eating the French fries and part of the burger. They’d not given him any cheese on it or no catsup either. Sorry excuse for a dinner if he ever seen one.
Tomorrow, he kept telling himself. Tomorrow, he’d be sitting pretty. And he’d have the brats, too. Christ, he wished that he’d thought of Barney before now. It would have saved him a lot of heartache chasing after Maddy all the time, that was for sure.
