The Night Always Comes Read online

  Gloria moved her face in front of the mirror and did her eyes.

  “I just got back from Newport Beach,” she said. “Did I tell you?”

  “I don’t think so. Where is that?”

  “In Southern California. You never go anywhere, do you?”

  “No, not really,” said Lynette.

  “I love it there. Terry had business in Corona del Mar. I flew down a couple days after him, but he didn’t even put me in first class. He used to always put me in first class. I hope he just made a mistake, but I don’t think so. He never makes mistakes like that. Anyway, we got two rooms at the Hyatt. The weather was perfect. I saw him for a total of eight hours in three days. That’s the kind of trip I like.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Sat by the pool, had a massage, went shopping. I bought a Chloé Marcie bag, a couple dresses, and some lingerie. It was a three-thousand-dollar bill, but he didn’t bat an eye. So that’s a good sign. But the hotel was lame. Terry says he’ll never stay at another Hyatt. He doesn’t like their beds. I don’t like them either, and if you ask me, the whole place is tacky.”

  Lynette laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You grew up sleeping on a couch and now you’re complaining about a fancy bed at the Hyatt.”

  Gloria glared at her in the reflection of the mirror. “I’ve told you a million times not to bring up my past, but you never fucking listen. So watch it or I won’t want to be around you anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Lynette. “It just slipped out.”

  Gloria finished her eyes and began putting on lipstick. “Back then just makes me think about my dad eating Safeway fried chicken and drinking grape soda and watching TV all day. We had one bathroom for six people, imagine that. My mom always smelled like bar food and she’d get so depressed she’d just sit at the kitchen table and drink beer on ice. Thinking about it just for a second gets me in a bad mood and you somehow always make me think about it.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” said Lynette. “I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t.”

  Gloria finished her makeup. “Does my makeup look alright?”

  Lynette went to her and looked at her face. “You did good.”

  Gloria stepped back and opened her robe to show black lingerie. “Look at these, Simone Perele. It’s like wearing happiness.”

  “Where are you going so late?”

  “Terry got a room at the Sentinel downtown. He was in Lake Oswego seeing his brother and their dinner ran late, so he decided he didn’t want to drive back to Seattle tonight. I had other plans, but I had to cancel them when he called. I’ve been sitting around waiting for his text and finally he sent it. We’re gonna have a drink in the bar and then I’m spending the night. But I’m scared he’s getting tired of me. He didn’t want to have sex the last two times we were together. But he told me in California that he loved me. That he was in love with me. He’d had a couple drinks, but he’d never said that before. So I don’t know what to think. If he gets me a condo he can have me forever. I mean it, too. I don’t care. It’s not that much work. I like him enough. But he always shuts down when I bring it up. At least I’m getting money off him, he pays the rent here, and usually gives me whatever I ask for. But I want a condo.”

  Gloria went to the bedroom and Lynette followed her. It was a large room with the same white shag carpet, a white dresser and white bedside table, and a king-sized bed with a white down comforter. A closet ran the length of the room where dresses and blouses and coats hung. On the floor sat rows of shoes and in the far corner of the closet, half-hidden under a blanket, Lynette saw a safe.

  Gloria took off her robe and put on a black cocktail dress. “So what happened to you?”

  “Nothing I really want to talk about right now,” said Lynette and sat on the edge of the bed. “And I know you’re in a hurry, but I was hoping I could get back the money I loaned you.”

  “The money?”

  “The eight thousand dollars I gave you.”

  Gloria looked at her.

  “For the DUI? You told me you were gonna give me the money back within a week no problem. But it’s been seven months.”

  “When do you need it?” said Gloria and zipped up the back of her dress. She dropped to her knees and began looking for the shoes she wanted but had trouble seeing them in the dim light of the room. One by one she picked up a shoe and brought it to just inches from her eyes.

  “Can you give it to me tonight?”

  “Tonight?” cried Gloria. She found a pair of black high heels and put them on.

  “I know it’s not much notice,” said Lynette and fell back on the bed. “I guess things have just kind of fallen apart for me.”

  Gloria turned on the overhead lights and stood in front of a mirror on the back wall. “I wish I could give it to you, but I don’t have it. I’m broke.”

  “You’re broke?”

  “Flat broke.”

  Lynette sat back up on the bed. “I thought Terry gave you a thousand a week spending money.”

  “Sometimes he does. Not all the time. Not lately.”

  “What about those two other guys you’re seeing?”

  “What the fuck?” said Gloria and again glared at her through the reflection in the mirror. “I’m not seeing them anymore. And don’t tell anyone I am. I don’t like how you always bring up stuff I don’t want you to bring up.”

  “Sorry,” said Lynette. “I just know last week you said you were seeing two other guys, that’s all. Now you’re not?”

  “What are you, the fucking police? I’ll get you the money. I just don’t have it and now you’re making me late. And if Terry breaks up with me you’ll never get it.”

  “Alright,” said Lynette. “Like I said, I’m just in a fix and I’m having a hard time and I might need to find a new place to live. So I have to ask. . . . When do you think you could get it?”

  “Honestly I don’t know. You can’t just throw things like this at me when I’m trying to not be late.”

  “You don’t have even a rough idea?”

  “If I don’t have it, I don’t have it. You should have called and warned me about all this.” Gloria left the room and Lynette got off the bed and followed her to the kitchen. “An Uber is going to be here in five minutes.” She poured more champagne into a glass. “Look, I didn’t mean to get pissed off. I got a lot going on, too. I’ll get Terry to give me some money tonight. I could probably get you five hundred.”

  Lynette nodded. She sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. “Is it alright if I stay here?” she asked. “I just can’t go home right now.”

  “Sure,” said Gloria and put on a coat and grabbed her purse. “I won’t be here until tomorrow anyway.”

  “I really appreciate it. And do you have an extra key? I’m going to get some food and then come back.”

  Gloria looked in a kitchen drawer, found a spare key, and gave it to her. “I have to get downstairs. Can you check my face one more time?”

  Lynette looked over her makeup and told her it was fine, and Gloria left. Lynette waited five minutes then went back to the bedroom and to the small safe in the corner of the closet. She tried to move it and could. It wasn’t bolted down, but it was too heavy to pick up. She sat on the bed, tried to think, and then took a half-dozen pictures of it and left.

  10

  There was an unmarked door in the back of the Dutchman’s restaurant that led to the kitchen. Lynette knocked on it until the night cleaner opened it.

  “What do you want?” said a tall man standing in the doorway.

  “I don’t know if you recognize me, but I’m Lynette. I’ve worked in the bar the last few years. We’ve met a couple times.”

  “I know who you are,” he said. “Why don’t you go in through the bar entrance?”

  “Because I want to talk to you.”

  “Me?” he said. “Why would you want to talk to me?”

  “Your name is Cody, right?”<
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  He nodded. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just wanted to make sure I was talking to the right guy. Will you let me in? It’s freezing out here and I’m getting soaked.”

  He stepped back and let her in.

  Cody was six feet three inches tall and weighed less than a hundred and forty pounds. He was so thin and gaunt that he looked ill. He had a straggly beard and his brown hair was curly and long. There were holes in his earlobes where he’d once had piercings. His nose was narrow and long and drooped at the end, and his arms were bony and covered in new, brightly colored tattoos. He moved back into the kitchen and Lynette shut the door behind her. Fluorescent lights shone down from the ceiling and a radio played. The kitchen smelled of bacon grease, bleach, and cigarette smoke.

  Cody leaned against the prep table. “What do you want with me?”

  “I heard you’ve been in prison.”

  “What’s it to you?” he said and took a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket and lit one.

  “You’re not supposed to smoke in here.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Lynette shrugged. “Sorry, you’re right. I have something to ask, but I need to know a few things first. What were you in prison for?”

  “Burglary.”

  “That’s what I heard,” said Lynette. “What did you steal?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just want to know.”

  A half-full pot of coffee sat on a warmer. He went to it and poured some into a metal travel mug. He added five packets of sugar and stirred it with a fork. “I’ve stole a lot of things, but right now I just want to get out of here and you’re getting in the way of that. So what do you want?”

  “I need help doing something illegal and I didn’t know who else to ask. Shirley told me you’d been in prison so I thought of you and I knew you were working tonight.”

  He shook his head. “The last thing I’m gonna do is anything illegal. Anyway, I don’t even know you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, I understand,” said Lynette. “I don’t know that much about things like this and it’s probably a bad idea, so I’ll just leave you alone. But please don’t tell anyone I came to you.”

  She headed for the door and was nearly to it when Cody said, “I ain’t gonna do whatever you’re thinking, but what is it?”

  She went back to him, stood less than a foot away, and whispered, “There’s a safe I want, but I’m not strong enough to carry it out and I don’t know how to open it.”

  “You want me to help you steal a safe?” His breath smelled of coffee and cigarettes and teeth that he didn’t brush. He picked up a mop that was leaning against the sink, put it in the bucket, and rinsed it out. He took a drink of coffee and began mopping. “No way.”

  “We could take it somewhere and you could figure out how to open it. I can move it around, so it’s not bolted down and it’s not that heavy either. I’m just not strong enough to carry it alone.”

  He kept mopping.

  “I have the key to the place and the owner is gone all night.”

  Cody stopped and looked at her. “Where is it?”

  “An apartment ten minutes from here.”

  “What kind of safe?”

  “It’s a SentrySafe. I don’t know what that means, but that’s what it said on it. When I looked it up, it said you could buy them at Home Depot.” She took the phone from her purse and showed him three pictures of it.

  “What’s inside it?”

  “I’m not sure, that’s the problem. But I’ll give you a third of what’s mine if there’s money in it. Someone owes me and I don’t think they’ll ever pay me back.”

  “How much do they owe you?”

  “Eight thousand dollars.”

  “Shit,” he said. “Where did you get eight grand?”

  She shrugged.

  He scratched his beard with his left hand. He took a phone from his back pocket and punched in numbers. When he was done, he looked at her. “Thirty percent of eight grand is twenty-four hundred. That’s a lot of money. The problem is everybody’s got cameras now. They’ll know we took it.”

  “She doesn’t have cameras inside her place. I don’t know about the building. But she won’t report it anyway. She won’t call the cops if I take just what’s mine. I know she won’t. And if you can’t open it there, we’ll have to take the safe and the stuff in it back when we’re done.”

  “Shit, I won’t be able to open it at her place. I ain’t a safecracker. If it’s not bolted down like you say, we’ll just take it. We’ll borrow the hand truck here. You have a car?”

  Lynette nodded.

  “And you have to do this tonight?”

  “I’ll lose my nerve if it’s not tonight. Plus I have the key to the apartment and I’ve never had the key before.”

  Cody smoked his cigarette and looked at her. “Well, I’m not going back to a place I just robbed. And we’ll probably have to destroy the safe to get it open. . . . I know a mechanic who has a lot of tools. I haven’t talked to him in a while, but I bet he could do it. I just don’t know if he’d want to. Either way the safe will be fucked. When we get it open, you can take the stuff inside back if you want. But I’m not gonna get involved in that. Once I leave there I’m never going back.”

  “Fair enough,” she said.

  “And you’re serious?” he said.

  “Yeah. Will you do it?”

  “Maybe. Let me call the mechanic and see if he’s around.” Cody leaned the mop against the prep table and walked out to the restaurant. He made the call and came back five minutes later.

  “The mechanic says he’ll do it. He’s not that far from here, around 82nd and Johnson Creek. He’s a tweaker, but he’s got a shop and a ton of tools. He said he’ll open it for five hundred. You have five hundred in cash?”

  Lynette nodded.

  “And if there’s nothing in there I want five hundred, too.”

  “Alright,” she said.

  “That’s a thousand cash total. You have that?”

  “Yes.”

  “On you?”

  Again she nodded.

  He rubbed his face with his hands so hard that she thought he might be on something and then he blew his nose into a rag that was sitting on the edge of the sink. “I’m gonna help you ’cause I’ve been riding the bus for a year and I’m tired of it. It takes me an hour and fifteen minutes just to get here. I need to get a car.”

  “Can you go now?”

  “I have to finish cleaning first. I can’t lose this job. I have to keep this job.”

  “I can help you if you want. We can get out of here sooner then,” said Lynette.

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Alright then,” he said. “You finish mopping the kitchen and I’ll clean both sinks and toilets, then you mop the bathroom floors while I vacuum the restaurant.”

  Lynette took the mop from him. The bucket was full of cold brown and greasy water. She went to the utility sink, emptied it, cleaned it out, and filled it with hot water and soap and began mopping the kitchen floor.

  They put the hand truck in the back of the Nissan and Cody sat crammed into the passenger seat, his knees hitting the glove box, his hair touching the roof. His coat was a faded black hoodie. The rain continued to fall and the clock on the dashboard said twelve thirty-five a.m.

  “You should have the mechanic look at your car after he opens the safe,” said Cody. “It’s missing. Can you hear it making that tapping sound?”

  “I think so.”

  “Does it have less power than it usually does?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “And trouble starting?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s not running on all four cylinders.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “The engine is probably fucked. You mind if I smoke?”

  “Go ahead.”
<
br />   Cody took a pack of Marlboro Reds from his hoodie pocket and lit one. He wiped the window glass with his sleeve. “It’s cold as fuck in here. Doesn’t your heater work?”

  “When I turn the heat on it smells like antifreeze. It makes you sick to your stomach if you leave it on.”

  He cracked the window and blew the cigarette smoke out.

  “It’s your heater core. It’s probably busted.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a little radiator that heats your car. It’s probably leaking.”

  “Is that expensive to fix?”

  “On most cars you have to pull out the dash to do it. The part ain’t expensive, but putting it in is.”

  Lynette sighed and leaned against the driver’s-side door.

  “So you freeze your ass off all the time?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I wear long underwear from November on. It’s not so bad. Can I ask you something?”

  “Maybe?”

  “What did you steal to get thrown in prison?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  She shrugged. “I figured since we’re doing this I should know.”

  Cody let out a plume of smoke and said, “My girlfriend at the time worked at an old folks’ home in Sherwood. She planned it and me and this guy robbed it.”

  “You guys robbed an old folks’ home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you got caught?”

  “They set me up and I didn’t see it coming.” He again wiped the passenger-side window glass with his arm. “The other guy was a friend of hers. I only met him a couple times and he seemed alright. We wore masks and locked this old night nurse in a closet. This was before everybody had cameras everywhere. We took all the meds. That was the main thing. But since we were there, we also took the TVs and stole the old people’s personal shit. We had a van and his car. The car had all the personal shit from the residents, the meds, and the smaller things. The van had the bigger stuff, like the TVs and anything we couldn’t fit in the car. It went off no problem and we left. I drove the van, he drove the car. The plan was to keep the TVs in a barn until he could sell them. We had maybe thirty of them. He said he knew how to get rid of stuff like that where we’d actually make some money. Outside of St. Helens his grandmother had a place with an old dairy barn. The plan was he was gonna drop the stuff from the car at my girlfriend’s place and then meet me at the barn and we’d unload the van. I got out there and waited for a while then just started unloading the shit when a cop car pulled up, and that was it. The police had been tipped off and they took me in. After a while I told them about the guy I did the job with. They tracked him down and he told the cops he didn’t know anything about the robbery. He said he had no idea why I would put the stuff into his grandmother’s barn or how I even knew where his grandmother lived. He said he barely knew me, just heard about me from his girlfriend. He said his girlfriend used to go out with me and that I was jealous and had spent a lot of time in juvie. And then I figured it out. He was seeing my girlfriend. That’s who he was talking about. They were engaged. They had wedding plans. I had no fucking idea. He told the cops they were together the night of the robbery and she verified it. A friend of hers who I didn’t know also verified it. I told the cops he had all the drugs and the residents’ personal shit, but nothing came of that. I don’t know if they even checked. All I know is I spent four years in Pendleton. I could have gone away for ten, but my mom got me a good lawyer.”