spent the hours before our deadline arrived putting the pieces in place for Plan B.
Just in case.
Oh, how I hoped we would use it.
We spent some time searching for an outfit Ruby could wear, only to discover the cancer had sucked so much life from her body that nothing she owned fit anymore. She sat on the floor of the closet, clothes tossed all about in a pile, crying, sobbing, really.
“You take care of this,” she said, but only when the tears allowed her to speak. “It’s so repulsive I can’t even think about it. Get me something I can wear. Just get this fucking over with!”
I went to the Gap down the street and bought her a steel-gray satin sheath dress for about eighty bucks. In fact, I bought two, and for good reason. We would need two dresses for Plan B to work. Ruby put the dress on, looked at herself in the mirror, and said, “I’m going to burn it after this is done.”
“We’ll make a pile,” I said, in reference to the clothes from the robbery that we had yet to dispose of.
She gave me a forlorn look. We left the house and went to the bar.
Though her body was full of sickness, and her heart filled with dread, Ruby still managed to turn every head in the Red Bell Lounge, Uretsky’s chosen watering hole for this crime. I walked close by, keeping a protective and vigilant watch over my wife, even though we had agreed to act like strangers. Ruby shot me a look that forced me to back away.
“Don’t blow this,” her eyes were saying.
Every surface of the lounge, including the front of the bar, was draped in rich red velvet, the color of blood. The lounge was crowded with an eclectic clientele, which made it easy to discreetly work the room.
Ruby saw a lonely-looking guy sitting at the bar. She broke away from me and approached him with a surprising confidence. She got maybe five feet from him, stopped, and turned to look at me. Her mascara painted several black lines down her cheeks because her tears wouldn’t stop flowing.
While Ruby raced off to the bathroom to reapply her makeup, I searched the bar for anyone who might be paying extra close attention to us. Perhaps that person would be Uretsky, watching. Maybe that was why he insisted we find our “john” at the Red Bell, or maybe it was for our convenience, because this place was so close to the hotel. Then again, I had already figured out how Uretsky would verify that Ruby had gone through with it. I had figured out his plan and crafted a plan of my own.
Plan B.
Ruby came back from the bathroom, looking poised and ready to try again. Twice more she attempted to solicit a man for sex, but with each attempt she broke down. Ruby’s body simply wouldn’t allow her to betray her heart. Consensual or not, what Uretsky demanded of her made it rape by proxy. It was a knife wound to both our souls.
Instead of attracting prospects, Ruby’s tears became the ultimate repellant, an uncontrollable act of self-preservation. After the second prospect dashed out of the bar, she said, “We’ve got to go through with your plan.”
I said a silent prayer of thanks.
CHAPTER 32
An hour later we were ready to try again. Our new mark was in his late thirties, but I put his body age a good ten years older than that. In this dimly lit watering hole everything about him looked dark, from his short hair, groomed in a Clooney way, to the rings around his sunken eyes, to the stubble dotting his “I’m the man” face. He looked like a guy who enjoyed taking whatever he wanted. Perfect.
Take my bait, you jackass.
He wore a pin-striped blue suit, the kind that graced many a corner office.
Our plan required a modestly impaired individual, but this guy exceeded our needs by at least three cocktails. I picked him after he swallowed down a Dewar’s and soda like he was doing a Jell-O shot. We waited long enough to make sure he’d come alone, and it was obvious to us both that he was a regular. I checked his finger for a wedding band. I didn’t want to be responsible for any marital disharmony. After all, he was going to pay for sex tonight, just not with my wife.
Ruby, who had been sitting at the far end of the bar, got up and