Forty

Stuart Betz couldn't stop thinking about the box of chicken wings he'd left behind. That was pretty damn stupid.

Not just because it was a terrible thing to waste good food that way. Paulie's made good wings. Stuart had actually considered going back for them, although not so much because he was hungry. He had, to be honest, kind of lost his appetite there for a while. The reason he thought about going back was because the box of wings was a clue.

When the police found it sitting on the roof of the Camaro, they'd figure no one leaves food behind unless something happened, something that scared a person shitless. What you'd have then was a potential witness. And then their next stop would be the wing joint, and pretty soon they'd have a description of him, maybe even a description of his pickup truck. At least he'd paid in cash, so they wouldn't have a credit card to track. That was smart. The other thing that gave Stuart hope was that the guy making the wings barely looked at him. He was running the place on his own and didn't even want to make small talk when Stuart said, "Busy night, huh?"

So he'd been going to the window of his motel room every few minutes to see whether there were any cop cars in the parking lot. It had been nearly twenty-four hours, and if they hadn't figured out yet that he'd been there, maybe they were never going to.

Of course, it wasn't just cops that had Stuart worried.

When there had been a knock at his door early that morning, before the sun was even up, he figured it was game over. Wasn't that when police conducted raids? When you were still asleep in your PJs or wearing nothing at all?

He'd sat up in bed suddenly, his heart jackhammering in his chest.

"Who is it?" he'd shouted.

He was expecting to hear: Open up! It's the police!

But instead, it was a woman's voice. Whispering loudly, "It's me!"

Who the fuck was me?

Stuart got out of bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, and padded over on the threadbare wall-to-wall carpet in his bare feet. He peered through the peephole. The motel manager hadn't been very attentive to the number of lights that had burned out, but there was enough illumination to make out who was out there.

Lucy.

"Shit," Stuart said under his breath. He unlocked the door, undid the chain, and opened the door six inches. "Lucy?"

While he was not expecting her, he wasn't surprised she knew where he lived. She'd come by more than once to scoop up Billy when he'd been too drunk to drive himself home.

She looked bad. Her eye makeup was smeared under her cheek like she'd been crying or hadn't had any sleep and she was hunched over, like she was trying to make herself invisible.

"Let me in," she whispered. Stuart widened the gap, pulled her inside, and quickly closed the door. "He's dead," she said. "Billy's dead."

Stuart's jaw dropped. He figured that's what you were supposed to do when you wanted people to think you were shocked by something they said.

"What?" he said. "What do you mean, Billy's dead? The car finally fall on him?" He wanted to pat himself on the back for that one. Coming up with something he knew wasn't true but was entirely plausible.

"No!" she said, dropping her butt onto the end of the unmade bed. "They killed him! There was blood everywhere!"

"God, no," he said. He was about to sit beside her, but was starting to feel a little self-conscious about being in nothing but a pair of boxers. He was afraid that if he sat down next to her, put his arm around her shoulders to console her, he might, in spite of everything, get a woody, and that would definitely be wrong in these circumstances. So he grabbed his jeans off the floor and pulled them on as Lucy kept talking.

"The dealers," she said. "Those people he's been dealing with. It had to be them." She started to cry. "It's all my fault. All of it. I got him killed."

"How? What do you mean?"

She shot him a look. "You already know. Billy thought it was you at first. But it was me, skimming off the shipment."

Jeans now on, it was safe to sit next to her and offer some comfort. He slipped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She seemed to resist a bit, but it felt good to him.

"Oh, Lucy, I don't know what to say."

"It was such a dumb thing to do. If I'd ever thought they'd notice, I never would have done it. But... but they did some kind of count, knew they'd been ripped off. I've been driving around all night. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. And you're the only other one who knew what Billy was involved in. So... I came to see you."

"Sure, okay. You can always count on good ol' Stuart, you know that." He gave her a warm smile, then thought about his morning breath, how he should go brush his teeth. "You don't know how happy I am you came here, that you trust me. Because I want you to know I'm here for you one hundred percent."

"I can't go to the police. I'd have to tell them what Billy was doing, that I stole some of the stuff and sold it. And those people, they've got to be looking for me. If they'd kill Billy over what happened, what do you think they'll do to me?"

"Okay, I hear ya. We need to think about this. You got any money?"

She shook her head. "I've got like forty bucks, cash. I can't use my cards. They trace ATM withdrawals, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, they can do that for sure. Where's your car?"

Lucy told him she had parked her Kia around the back of the motel, hidden mostly by a Dumpster.

"They might find it," Stuart said. "I can try to get rid of it later, leave it at the mall or something. What about your phone?"

"I turned it right off," she said. "They can trace those, too, right?"

"Oh yeah, big-time. That was smart." He gave her another smile. "You're a smart girl."

Stuart suggested she stay there with him until they could come up with a plan. He went out for take-out through the day and brought it back for her. Burgers for lunch, some Chinese food for dinner.

"I'm gonna need clothes," Lucy said to him after they'd finished off the Chinese. "All I have is what's on me. I can't go home for more. The cops, or the dealers, they're probably watching the house, waiting for me to turn up."

"I saw something on the news," Stuart said, waving his phone in the air. "They're looking for you. You're like, a person of interest." He smiled. "You are that."

"I didn't kill him," she said. "How could they think I killed him?"

"You're not listening. That's not what they said."

"Can you get me some clothes?" she asked.

"I don't know anything about getting women's clothes."

"I can write it all out for you. The sizes and stuff. You could go to Walmart. Get everything there."

"Okay, you write it out. But we're a little short on cash right now and I'm kind of maxed out on my cards. But that's all gonna change soon."

"What do you mean?"

"All in good time, sweetheart," he said.

He didn't like the look on her face when he called her that. And here he was, trying to help her.

"But before I get into explaining all that, there's something else I got to do tonight."

"What?"

"A business thing."

Lucy was pacing the room, and given how small it was, she was going back and forth pretty furiously. She happened to glance, at one point, at something that was poking out from under the corner of one of the take-out boxes. She picked it up. It was a phone, with a photo of a Camaro on the protective case.

She looked at Stuart accusingly. "This is Billy's phone."

"Uh, yeah, it is."

"Why do you have Billy's phone?"

"I grabbed it when I was there. But don't worry, it's turned off, too, just like yours. Can't be traced right now."

"When were you there?"

"Okay, you need to sit down for this."

"Why do you have his phone?"

"Just sit the fuck down and let me tell you." She sat in one of the chairs at the small dining nook table. "So, I already knew Billy was dead when you came here."

"How did you know? Jesus, Stuart, did you—"

He was already shaking his head. "Went to get some food and they must have shown up and done it then, because he was dead when I got back. I went to check, like, to see if there was any chance he was alive, and I felt his phone in his pocket and I took it."

Her face said, Why?

"I was formulating a plan."

"What kind of plan?"

"Something that could help us both out. I know the code to get into his phone. If he got a text or something and the phone was closer to me, he'd ask me to check it. He told me the password. So I can see what his calls are, all his history. Turned it on for a bit, saw all your texts to him that you wanted to come home and be forgiven and shit. Guess you guys had a fight?"

Lucy just looked at him.

"Anyway, so I got a number for the people he was dealing with. Who killed him."

"Stuart, why would you want to get in touch with them?"

He sighed. "Go have a look in the shower."

She was frozen for a second, then got up out of the chair and went into the bathroom. Stuart waited, heard her slide back the shower curtain.

Lucy let out a short scream, then said, "Holy mother of fuck."

She came out of the bathroom with a carry-on bag in her hand.

"So you want to get us both killed."