To Kerns, she said, “I’m willing to pay you the money—but you’ve got to swear, right here, that you’ll take the blame for all these crazy killings if you do get caught. And the money, too. You won’t try to spread the blame around. You’ll get a half million dollars from us, and you’ll get a chance . . . but you can’t turn on us, if you get caught.”
“If I get caught, there’s no profit in trying to spread the blame,” Kerns said. “You get me the cash, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
They argued about that some more, and Vike said he had twenty thousand stashed at his house, but he couldn’t get more for quite a while—“I put all the money in Tucson real estate after the bust.”
Jennifer Houser said, “From what Randy says, this roof isn’t likely to fall in for at least a few days. That gives us some time. Let’s just stay calm, but prepare.”
Kerns said that he would be in touch with all of them, in a week, to set up a meeting. “Your lives are hanging by my thread,” Kerns said. “If you get me that money, I’ve got a real good chance of getting away. If not, that cuts my chances way down. You don’t get it to me, and I get caught, I’ll drag every one of you motherfuckers into the shit with me.”
They all swore they would.
—
JENNIFER HOUSER LOOKED UP at the sky as she walked out to her car, a clear night, lots of stars, a good night for driving. A thrill ran through her, raising goose bumps down her arms. The whole scheme was coming down around their ears. It had worked well, for a long time—longer than she had originally expected it to. But she had always known this day would come, and she was ready for it.
Like Kerns, she had an alternative identity, one that had once belonged to her late sister-in-law. She could be in Chicago by early morning, in Belize City by midday.
Belize was a good place for an American to hang out, because English was the official language, and for people with money, Belize was extremely slow to extradite. A logical place for her to go, if anyone managed to trace her that far.
But the best thing was, it was a great red herring. Getting across the Mexican border from Belize was not a huge problem. She knew that, because she’d done it, on a practice run.
After several tiring bus rides, Jennifer 2, in less than a week, would be settling into her apartment in Gringo Gulch in Puerto Vallarta, where everybody knew her as that nice middle-aged Lucy lady, from Virginia, who wore wide-brimmed straw hats and liked to sail and bicycle and get giddy on daiquiris and fuck younger Mexican men.
Houser had some other ideas. Uneaten toast in a toaster, uneaten egg in a skillet, undrunk milk in a glass, a smear of her blood on the kitchen floor . . .
Kerns wouldn’t see a dime from her. She was gone.
—
KERNS LEFT. He looked up at the sky and the stars as he walked down the driveway and got in his truck. He had to take it slow going up to the Cities, he thought. Hide the truck in a parking ramp in St. Paul, get some sleep, get up in the morning, go to the bank, never look back. He had a bag in the back of the truck with everything he needed to travel: he was leaving behind a house with a mortgage and some decent equity that he’d never see, but he wouldn’t see it in Stillwater Prison, either.
Vike walked out behind him, shook his hand. “You got enough cash?”
“I got some, as long as I can get to the bank box tomorrow. Most of it’s up in Canada. If I can just get up there, get out to my island, I’m okay.”
“I could give you a few thousand right now, if that would help.”
“That would help. If they put me on TV tonight, I’ll just have to keep going north.”