Read Online 12 Bliss Street by Martha Conway - Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t program their way out of a speed-dial menu. Meanwhile, Nicola thought, where were the women like me? Tied up in a minivan no doubt, or roped to a desk chair.
    But at last they got to wherever it was they were trying to go, and Davette cut the engine. It was windy and dark out and they were only a block or two from the water. The Daves took Nicola out of the van. Just like before they removed her blindfold and took up their places behind her and like before they pulled down their cut-up watch caps even though there wasn’t a body in sight. But when Nicola saw that they were walking her to another ATM machine, she just could not believe it.
    “This is it?” she said. “This is your big crime?” She didn’t mean to say anything, but she was so hungry and annoyed and she so didn’t think the Daves could do anything meaningfully bad to her that she just couldn’t keep caring.
    “What do you mean?” Dave asked.
    “I mean, you’re doing all this for my daily limit? You’re going to starve me before you can get very much out,” Nicola told him.
    “Starve you how?”
    “The way you usually starve someone—lack of food.”
    She could not believe how insanely stupid they were, what a huge risk they were taking for this petty amount. Her fingers were cold. She blew on them, then punched in her code furiously.
    “I don’t know why you need me out here anyway,” she said. “You could have come alone; you have my code.”
    “Oh, yeah, I forgot; we were going to do that,” Dave said.
    Nicola gave him the money and curled her fingers into her closed hands. She was beginning to feel as though nothing would surprise her. “Here you are, go wild,” she told them.
    Dave became peevish. “You know, you’re really testing our limits,” he said in his high, raspy voice.
    “Oh, just take me back to the van. Let me guess, you’re supposed to keep me for another day, get out another wad, then tie me up somewhere on the beach just before dawn.”
    Dave and Dave looked at each other through their cut-up watch caps. This is absurd, Nicola thought.
    “So you do know the script,” Davette said. But her voice sounded a little uncertain.
    “I don’t know any script, Dave,” Nicola said. “I haven’t been playing any kind of game with anyone. Whoever told you that was lying in order to get you to…” Nicola paused for effect.
    “To get us to what?”
    “Commit a serious felony.”
    The Daves looked at each other again. Dave said, “Is she like improvising?”
    Davette laughed a short laugh in relief. “That’s it.”
    “Where’s the guy behind all this?” Nicola asked.
    “You mean the guy you work with?” Dave asked.
    “He told you I work with him?” A sudden gust whipped her hair into her face.
    “Come on. You all play this game together. Your company. Building trust or whatever.” He squinted his eyes at her now, but he was looking a little uncertain. It was really cold out, and he put his hands under his armpits.
    Nicola said, “This is what he told you?”
    “It … isn’t it true?”
    “No, it isn’t true. But let me guess: you’re giving him the money you get from me. Then he’s supposed to pay you, right? Well, I guarantee it he’ll disappear before you see a cent. Listen, use your heads; he’s using you to steal from me. You have kidnapped me and you have stolen my money and I will go to the police. But I’m guessing he plans to be gone before then. If anyone gets caught it will be you two.”
    “But he can’t run away, he’s like a cripple,” Davette said.
    Dave looked at her. “What?”
    “Yeah, remember he told us he had only one liver?”
    Nicola stared at her. She could hear a foghorn somewhere over the water. Her hands were even colder now and she wanted to get out of the wind. But she stayed where she was.
    “Only one liver? He told you that?”
    “He’s on dialysis, he said.”
    “Are you sure he didn’t say kidney?”
    “He said liver; he said it was from