Criminal by Terra Elan McVoy Page B

calm he was. “I need you to be cool. I need you to help me do this. Just this one thing. Don’t ask me any more questions, all right? Just do what I tell you. When I say, drive past the stop sign, and turn into the cul-de-sac, and wait for me there. That’s all you have to do.”
    I asked him was he robbing somebody. Was this for his gang. Heput his hand over my mouth, and I could see his eyes, wide and deep. For a minute I couldn’t see anything else.
    â€œI need you, baby,” he said.
    My pulse was pounding in my neck, but his hand on my mouth, the pressure of his eyes on me, made everything less crazy. A car came down the road behind us. I saw it in the rearview, and I guess I was still freaked out a little bit because for a minute I thought it was going to ram us from behind. I wanted to get out of there, get me and Dee away, and I started the car, which made Dee start cussing again, but then the car behind us started slowly backing into the driveway. In front of the yellow house.
    Dee told me to get ready and gripped the guns tight up against his chest.
    He wouldn’t look at me anymore. He put his hand on the door handle. Through the window I could see the car in the driveway come to a stop.
    Dee said, “Go now. Go, go, drive,” and at the same time he was somehow out, slamming the door shut. This all happened in about two seconds. I watched him cross the street. Four strides, five, and then up the driveway, aiming the guns out straight. I heard the shots, loud and fast, and my foot just automatically went down hard on the gas pedal because I didn’t want to see what was happening. Bird’s Mustang lunged down the road, pulling me with it. For a minute I didn’t know what to do with the wheel and was afraid I was goingto crash. The shots kept coming. It was like they were following me. I could barely stay on the road.
    The turn for the cul-de-sac came up quick, and I almost missed it. I thought I might’ve hit a mailbox. I was blinking, blinking so hard. Like I couldn’t see. The second I stopped where Dee told me, he came running from between the houses, just like he said. His long red wig-hair was flying, and I remember thinking, “He looks like a god.” Like he was some kind of angry majestic Mexican god of fire or war. And then the driver’s side door yanked open and he was pushing me across the seat, bruising me, banging my knee on the shift, shoving me into the passenger’s side. The car jolted forward again as he started driving, and he threw the guns in my lap, told me to put them in the glove compartment. He was breathing hard and I knew not to ask him what had happened. I knew what happened. And I didn’t want to know at all.
    We hauled out of the subdivision, and were back on the interstate in no time. I was shaking, breathing ragged, so stunned I couldn’t scream or cry or say anything. His bag was at my feet, a gaping hole of black. I felt the heat of the guns in my lap, and I had to get them off me. I knew enough, though, even in all of it, to hold them with the edge of the smelly flannel shirt so I wouldn’t leave any print behind. I slammed the compartment door shut, but it felt like they were sitting there, steaming, watching me.
    Finally I could talk. I asked Dee what the hell just happened.
    I barely told them any of this. Definitely not about Dee’s guns. Only that a car came up behind us, Dee got out, I heard gunshots, freaked out, and drove away. I told them Dee caught up with me around the corner, out of breath, and we left. I told them he didn’t say much to me and that we just drove. Because in reality I’d screamed, “What did you just do?” and he answered me in a crazy, too-guilty sounding way. Right now for them, and Bird, I just needed to get the record straight. But I didn’t have to tell them exact.
    He didn’t answer right off. And for that minute, I thought he was going to blow