The chill in LuAnn’s eyes compelled him to move on. He waited until the waitress had set the coffee and cream down and asked if they wanted anything else. After she left, he leaned across the table, his eyes bare inches from LuAnn’s. “I was at your trailer, LuAnn. I saw the bodies.”
She flinched for an instant. “What were you doing there?”
He sat back. “Just happened by.”
“You’re full of crap and you know it.”
“Maybe. The point is, I saw you drive up to the trailer in that car, the same one in the newspaper photo. I saw you pull a wad of cash out of your kid’s baby seat at the train station. I saw you make a number of phone calls.”
“So what? I’m not allowed to make phone calls?”
“The trailer had two dead bodies and a shitload of drugs in it, LuAnn. That was your trailer.”
LuAnn’s eyes narrowed. Was Rainbow a policeman sent to get her to confess? She fidgeted in her seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never seen no bodies. You musta seen somebody else get out of that car. And who says I can’t keep my money wherever the hell I want to keep it.” She dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out the newspaper article. “Here, why don’t you take this back and go try scaring somebody else.”
Romanello picked up the piece of paper, glanced at it, and put it in his pocket. When his hand returned to view, LuAnn could barely keep from trembling as she saw the torn piece of bloody shirt.
“Recognize this, LuAnn?”
She struggled to maintain her composure. “Looks like a shirt with some stains on it. So what?”
He smiled at her. “You know, I didn’t expect you to remain this calm about it. You’re a dumb chick from Hooterville. I pictured you dropping to your knees pleading for mercy.”
“Sorry I ain’t what you imagined. And if you call me a dumb anything again, I’ll knock you flat on your ass.”
His face suddenly became hard and he slid down the zipper of his jacket until the butt of his 9-mm was revealed. “The last thing you want to do, LuAnn, is make me upset,” he said quietly. “When I get upset, I can be very unpleasant. In fact I can be downright violent.”
LuAnn barely glanced at the weapon. “What do you want from me?”
He zipped the jacket back up. “Like I said, you’re my pot of gold.”
“I ain’t got any money,” she said quickly.
He almost laughed. “Why are you in New York, LuAnn? I bet you’ve never been out of that godforsaken county before. Why of all places did you take off for the Big Apple?” He cocked his head at her, waiting for an answer.
LuAnn rubbed her hands nervously across the uneven surface of the table. She didn’t look at him when she finally spoke. “Okay, maybe I knew what happened in that trailer. But I didn’t do nothing wrong. I had to get out, though, because I knew it might look real bad for me. New York seemed as good as anyplace.” She looked up to test his reaction to her explanation. The mirth was still there.
“What are you going to do with all the money, LuAnn?”
She nearly crossed her eyes. “What are you talking about? What money? In the baby seat?”
“I would hope you weren’t going to try and stuff one hundred million dollars in a baby seat.” He eyed her chest. “Or, despite its obvious capacity, your bra.” She just stared at him, her mouth open a notch. “Let’s see,” he continued, “what’s the going price for blackmail these days? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Fifty percent? I mean, even at half, you’re still talking millions in your bank account. That’ll keep you and the kid in jeans and sneakers for life, right?” He took a sip of his coffee and sat back, idly fingering the edges of his napkin while he watched her.
LuAnn clamped a fist around the fork in front of her. For a moment she thought about attacking him, but that impulse subsided.