I looked at my bed. Tempting. No. I’d fooled around long enough. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Everything else could go to hell. I toweled off, climbed into a dark gray suit, and strapped my guns back on. I grabbed my suitcase.

Adios, fuckers.

I put my hand on the doorknob.

The phone rang.

The little guy in my head who tries to keep me out of trouble shouted don’t pick it up, dumbass.

I picked it up.

“Yeah?”

A brief pause, then: “Charlie?”

“Marcie?”

“Oh, Charlie. For God’s sake where have you been?” She sounded frazzled. “I’ve been calling and calling.”

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“No, I mean, I am now. But I need you.”

“Slow down. What is it?”

“Not on the phone. Come over.”

I glanced at my suitcase. “I’m right in the middle of something here, hon.”

“CHARLIE, COME OVER RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy. Just calm down. I’m on my way.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Just please come over.”

“Okay. It’ll be okay. I’ll fix it.” I didn’t know what it was yet, but I’d fix it.

I hung up after promising about twenty more times that I was on my way. I checked my guns, and everything was go. I got back in my Buick and headed for Marcie’s house at top speed.

Halfway there I realized I hadn’t brought the suitcase.

Marcie was waiting for me on the front porch, sitting on the top step, her elbows resting on her knees, a gin and tonic the size of a fireman’s bucket cupped in her little pink hands. On first glance she looked like she was just enjoying a well-deserved drink after a tough day’s work.

As I walked closer I saw a different story. Her hair was messed up. The top two buttons of her blouse had been torn off. Her bottom lip was swollen and purple.

I looked down at her, touched her lip gently with two fingers. I was shaking, not with fear this time but with anger. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know his name.” Her voice was a little loose. Probably not her first gin and tonic. Probably not her last.

“What did he look like? What did he want?” I’d find him. I’d find whoever did this and plant him in the ground six feet under.

Marcie raised an eyebrow. “You want to know what he looked like?” She curled a finger at me. “Follow me.”

I followed. She led me through the kitchen and out to the garage where she kept her giant, dead polar bear.

She pointed at the dead body on the floor. “That’s what he looks like. Familiar?”

“What the fuck happened?”

“I-” Her voice caught. When she started talking again, she didn’t sound so casual. “He came in looking for you, came to the door and- he pushed me in, it was so f-fast-” She began crying, moved forward into my arms. I hugged. She hugged back tight, burying her face into my chest. I stroked her hair.

I recognized the guy bleeding on the floor. Vincent, one of the goons who worked for Beggar. He’d been there when I’d passed off Sanchez’s body as Rollo Kramer. I didn’t think it would help Marcie to know his name, so I just kept hugging.

Abruptly, she pushed back from me, wiped the tears from her eyes. She frowned then laughed. “I hate you seeing me like this.” She sniffed. “Damn it, I feel like such a little idiot.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. I’m too old to act like some little crybaby bitch.” She squared her shoulders, took a long pull at her gin and tonic. And just like that she was a rock, totally in control of herself, confident. At least that’s the show she was putting on. I’d seen past that to the fragile woman behind the tough shell. I’d seen it, if only for a few seconds.

I put on a pot of coffee, and we sat at the kitchen table. When it was ready, I poured myself a cup. I offered her some, but she shook her head and fixed herself another gin and tonic. I thought about telling her to ease up, but then I figured she probably knew what she was doing.

“Let’s hear about it,” I said.

“Sure.” She took one more big gulp before starting.

“I was just sitting around watching television,” said Marcie. “I was hoping you’d call, actually. There was a knock on the door, and I saw him through the peephole. I’d never seen him before, so I asked who he was through the door. He said he was a friend of yours and he had a message for me. I was so eager to get the message I didn’t even stop to think it was a trick.”

She slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead. “Stupid. I can’t believe I was so dumb.”

“It’s okay.”

“Will you stop saying it’s okay? It’s not fucking okay. It was stupid. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I know how things work.”

Right.

She jumped back into her story. Once the guy had gotten inside, he grabbed her. She tried to get away, but he convinced her to cooperate by getting rough. That’s where the torn buttons and purple lip came in. She’d had too much experience with tough guys from her marriage to Rollo, so she knew she’d have to play along or get another knuckle job. But she was still thinking, her mind always working.

The tough guy came straight out and said he was looking for a set of accounting books, and he had a pretty good idea that Marcie’s boyfriend had hidden them with her someplace.

I cringed inwardly. That’s almost what had happened. I’d almost left the books parked under a raccoon in Marcie’s freezer.

The guy asked Marcie if she’d heard of Beggar Johnson.

She’d said she had.

Then he asked her if she knew what Beggar would have him do to her if she jerked us around.

Marcie said she knew.

“Okay, then,” the guy had said. “Now be a good girl and take me to those books, and I can let you get back to your life.”

“But I knew it didn’t work that way,” said Marcie. “These kind of guys use you up until there’s nothing left you can do for them. Then they get rid of you. So I kept thinking how was I going to get myself out of this mess. I told him the books were in the garage. I figured I could get ahold of a rake or a hammer or something, maybe hit him in the head or… I don’t know what I was thinking really, but I had to try something.”

She was right, of course. Vincent almost certainly had instructions to get rid of Marcie after he’d found the books. I sipped my coffee.

“So we go into the garage.” Marcie finished her drink, started chewing the ice. “But the guy must’ve sensed I was getting ready to try something, or maybe he was just the suspicious type. He grabbed me and pulled me behind him, said he wanted to go in first- except the garage is dark. He felt along the wall for the light switch, and when he didn’t find it, I told him there was a string hanging down from the ceiling to turn on the lights.”

Suddenly I knew how this story was going to end, and I couldn’t help smiling to myself.

Marcie saw me, and her lips curled into a smile too. She was trying to be serious about telling me what happened, but her knowing that I knew what was coming made it morbidly funny, and we were both grinning big as she told me what happened.

“So he takes these careful steps forward into the dark garage so he doesn’t walk into something,” said Marcie. “And he’s swinging his hand back and forth trying to catch the string. When he finally gets it, he says ‘got it’ like he’s so proud of himself.” Marcie giggled, but tears rimmed her eye. “And then he jerked that string.” She laughed hard now, had to catch her breath before she could continue. “And then- and then he saw the bear, and he screamed-” Big laughs now, her whole body shaking. “I mean, like a little girl, he’s screaming. He backs right into me, our feet tangle up, and we both go down in a pile. But he drops the gun.” Her laughter trailed off. “I scrambled after it. He tried to grab at my legs, hold me back, but I’d already grabbed the gun. It was heavy.”