Hard News

her.”
    “Did what you had to though.”
    “I understand that. Couldn’t’ve stayed Inside for any longer, Jack. I gave it my best. But I had to get out. Somebody was moving on me.”
    “Spades?”
    “Nope. Was an asshole from, I don’t know, Colombia or someplace. Venezuela. For some reason he didn’t take to me. Got cut.”
    “Cut, huh?”
    “Two weeks ago. Hardly hurts anymore.”
    “Yeah, I was cut once. I didn’t like it. Better to get shot. Kind of more numb.”
    “Prefer to avoid either.”
    “That’s a good way to think,” Nestor offered. He was in a good mood. He was talking about restaurants down in Florida and fishing for tarpon and the quality of the pot they had down there and this Cuban woman with big tits and a tattoo somebody’d given her with his teeth and a Parker pen. Talking about the heat. About a house he was buying and how he had to live in a fucking hotel until the place was ready.
    “How long to Atlanta?” Boggs asked.
    “Tomorrow. Then I’m going on to Florida. You interested in coming with me, you’d be welcome. You like spic women?”
    “Never had me one.”
    “Don’t know what you’re missing.”
    “That a fact?”
    “Yessir. One I’s telling you ‘bout? Man, she could probably do both of us at once.”
    Boggs thought he’d pass on that. “I don’t know.”
    “Well, just keep ‘er in mind. So you gonna pick up that money?”
    “Yessir.”
    “You got the passbook with you?”
    “Got her good and safe.”
    Nestor said, “Funny about how that works. You just let some money sit in the bank and there she be, earning interest every day. They just throw a few more dollars into the till. And you don’t do nothing.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Bet you made yourself another ten thousand dollars.”
    “You think, no foolin’?”
    “For sure. I think that account earns maybe five, six percent.”
    Boggs felt a warm feeling. He hadn’t remembered about interest. He’d never had a savings account to speak of.
    “You know, there’s something you ought to think about. You hear about all those bank failures?”
    “What’s that?”
    “A lot of savings and loans went under. People lost money.”
    “Hell you say.”
    “Happens a lot. Last couple of years. Didn’t you watch the news Inside?”
    “Usually was cartoons and the game we were watching.” Boggs was tired. He put the seat way back. The last car he’d owned was a big ‘76 Pontiac with a bench seat that didn’t recline. He liked this car. He thought he was going to buy himself a car, a new one. He lay back, closed his eyes and tried not to think about Rune.
    “So,” Nestor said, “you might want to think about investing that money.”
    “I’ll do that.”
    “You have any idea what?”
    “Nope. Not yet. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for the right thing. You got money, people listen to you.”
    “Money talks, shit walks,” Nestor said.
    “That’s the truth,” Randy Boggs said.
    THREE HOURS LATER COURTNEY WOKE UP AND WANTED some juice.
    The little girl sat up slowly and unwound herself from the cocoon of a blanket that had twisted around her as she slept. She eased forward and climbed over the edge of the rolled-up futon like Edmund Hillary taking the last step down from Everest and then sat on the floor to put her shoes on. Laces were too much of a challenge but the shoes didn’t look right with the white dangling strings, so after staring at them for five minutes she bent down and stuffed the plastic ends into her shoes.
    She climbed carefully down the stairs, sideways, crablike, then walked up to Rune, who was tied into the butterfly chair. She looked at the cords, at Rune’s red face. She heard hoarse, wordless sounds coming from behind the scarf.
    “You’re funny, Rune,” Courtney said then went into the galley.
    The refrigerator was pretty easy to open and she found a cardboard carton of apple juice on the second shelf. The problem was that she couldn’t figure out how to open it. She looked at Rune, who was staring into the kitchen and still making those funny noises, and held up the carton in both hands then she turned it upside down to look for the spout.
    The carton, which, it turned out, had been open after all, emptied itself onto the floor in a sticky surf. “Oh-oh.” She looked at Rune guiltily then set the empty container on top of the stove and went back to the refrigerator.
    No more juice. A lot of cold pizza, which she was tired of, but there were dozens of