That same weekend, Suzanne floated through her bedroom in Santa Cruz, gliding like a ghost across the thick, red carpet. She was dressed for a big night on the town. But Frank, lost in thought in front of his laptop at the edge of the bed, didn’t notice her dress or her hair, or even the perfume she’d put on to please him.
Glasses halfway down his nose, he was lost in the same old spreadsheets, moving the same substantial number in and out of different columns, looking for a place to hide the millions of dollars he’d stolen in the elaborate shell game he’d been playing with Raley’s money.
“Frank?” Suzanne said, softly at first. Then she said, “Frank?”
It was no use when he was like this. Lost in thought, quick to erupt in anger. There was a side to the man, it turned out, that Suzanne hadn’t expected to see.
Now that she had seen it, she didn’t like it. But before she could say anything else, Frank’s cell phone started to ring. Without a doubt, it was Nancy again with some kind of “crisis.” With that woman it was always one thing or another.
This time, she was calling to tell Frank that the neighborhood kids had knocked over their mailbox. Did Nancy honestly think there was something Frank could do about that while he was away on “business”? There was nothing to do now but listen while Nancy talked and talked, moving from the mailbox to a litany of complaints about other things Frank couldn’t fix from afar. The woman was lonely for him, Frank supposed. But there was nothing he could do about that either. Not when he wanted to be with Suzanne and couldn’t stand his wife.
“Sorry, babe,” Frank said in a whisper, cupping the phone in his hand. But Suzanne had already grown impatient. She whispered back, “End the call!”
“Nothing, sweetie,” Frank said into the receiver. “That’s just the TV in the background.”
Now Suzanne was truly incensed.
“You’re never going to leave her, are you!” she said when Frank finally got off the phone. As far as Suzanne was concerned, Frank and Nancy had that much in common: With Frank, it was always one thing or another. If it wasn’t work, it was Nancy’s fibromyalgia. If it wasn’t Nancy’s illness, it was Ashley’s graduation. It was always something with Frank, and for the first time, Suzanne was feeling close to the end of her rope.
“Maybe I should tell Nancy myself,” she said. “Tell her what’s going on with her loving husband. I bet your precious children would be thrilled to hear all about it.”
“Baby,” Frank told her. “What I’m sitting here doing is sorting things out. For you. For us. So that we can be together, truly.”
Suzanne shrugged, even as part of her softened. She had to give Frank that much credit: The man could sweet-talk like nobody’s business. But as she sat down on his lap, Frank suddenly started and jerked away from her. Maybe he’d put a hit out on the wrong woman after all.
That evening, after they’d gotten back from the restaurant, Frank turned on the shower, sat down on the toilet, and used his burner phone to call Billie Earl Johnson in Ben Wheeler, Texas.
“Man,” he said, “you’ve got to get rid of her. Yes, yes. I sent you a wire last week.”
Frank paused for a moment. The bathroom had filled up with steam and he took his glasses off to wipe them down as he listened to what Billie Earl had to say.
“Aw, Jesus,” he said when the hit man had finished. “Okay, okay. You’ll have more by the end of the day. But I need your word, man, ’cause this has got to get done already.”