Nina, the Bandit Queen. Joey Slinger
Merly had started calling Lady a prick when she got mad at her. Partly this was because she always kind of had the feeling that Lady should be her brother. It wasn’t that she necessarily went around acting like a boy, but there was definitely something about her — for instance, the times when Merlina was interested in having an argument and Lady was only interested in punching her. Sometimes Lady would even punch her for no reason. Another good example was the ice cream truck. When it came by and called out their names and told them they couldn’t have any of the wonderful things it had for them because their mother was a mean, ugly bitch who wanted to make their lives shitty, Lady didn’t seem to care about the ice cream or why she couldn’t have any. What interested her was the truck: how it was specially built to carry ice cream and keep it from melting. The way Lady looked at it, that was awesome.
The question of keeping some of the money they raised for themselves came up because Merlina imagined they might be able to wait around the corner, out of sight of Nina, and when the truck came by it wouldn’t know they were her daughters. They would probably have to use fake names.
Gwinny wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the scheme, because she had her own ideas about her life and where it was heading and how she would get there, and she didn’t want Merly prying into her fuckin’ business about anything, any time. Lady went along with Merly, but Merly knew that if anything got too weird she would make a big fuss and cause trouble. Maybe even bloodshed. Sometimes when she wasn’t interested in punching Merly, she bit her.
“How much do you think they’d give us?” Lady said, after Merly outlined her idea.
“Hundreds,” Merly said. She had no idea, but considering how Lady’s mind worked, it made sense to sound like they’d be getting big money. Lady liked things when she knew how they would come out exactly. That was why she spent so long reading the instructions that came with stuff. Most people who bought things paid no attention to the manuals, but Lady would memorize them. In fact, because nothing new ever came into their house, no manuals did either, so she would memorize other peoples’, or even manuals that she found in the trash. Going over how things worked could keep her occupied for hours.
She thought about the hundreds Merlina had mentioned. Then she wrote the number five on the concrete step as if her finger was a piece of chalk. “Five hundreds?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“Five hundreds would make Mom really happy.”
“But if we wanted to, we could just give her four.”
Lady stiffened. She stared at the invisible number she’d written on the step. Merlina had hoped she could kind of sneak that part of the idea in. “Four hundred and fifty?” Merlina said.
“Why not all five?”
“In case we wanted to keep some for ourselves.” Lady snapped her head around and looked at her sister, and Merlina knew she was going to have to work hard to sell this angle.
“To buy ice cream with?” Merly suggested.
“That’s stealing.”
“It is so not stealing! It’s just a little bit extra for us. For the work we’ve done to raise it.”
“Why don’t we just steal some money and buy ice cream with that?” Lady said. Not only was ice cream not at the top of Lady’s priority list, there was no logic behind her thinking.
“Okay, okay, okay.” The important thing was agreeing on the main goal.
“You’re always like that, Merly,” Lady said. “You’re always thinking about what you can get out of something. That’s all you care about.” She stamped up the steps and into the house.
This didn’t especially bother Merly. As long as Lady was busy being upset about the ice cream part of the plan, she wouldn’t pay close attention to the other parts, which started happening more quickly than Merly was completely prepared for.
It was because Lady heard her sister talking to a stranger that she came back out on the porch. And when Merlina whizzed past holding a bunch of money, she tore into the house after her.
“Mom! Mom!” Merly hollered. “Look! For your pool!”
Nina was sitting at the kitchen table looking quite confused, as if she didn’t know what to do about the hole where the back door used to be. With the door gone, the kitchen felt a whole lot bigger and a lot emptier. When Merlina pushed the money into her hands, it took a considerable effort to change from thinking about the missing door. “What’s —”
“How much is it, Mom,” Lady yelled. “How much did she give you?”
“What’s this?” Nina looked at the money as if it was a snake that was about to sink its fangs into her chin.
“How much is it?” Lady wanted the exact details, and wanted them right then.
Nina spread the bills and held them up, all four of them. “What’s going on?”
“You liar! Liar!” Lady balled her fists. Her yelling got even louder. “You lying fuckin’ liar!”
There was no way Merly was going to let her get away with calling her that. She had worked out the plan, she’d gotten the payoff. “It’s all —”
But there was no stopping Lady. “She’s like, ‘We’ll get five hundred!’ Five hundred, Mom! The lying cunt-face!”
Five hundred is actually what Merlina asked for. She was sitting on the steps going over the details when a man walked by and said, “If you go for drive with me, I’ll give you something nice.” Men did this now and then. Merly and Lady called them “kidnappers” and warned each other to be careful of them. But even though one coming by was essential this time, it was unbelievable. It had hardly been a minute since she’d discussed the plan with Lady, and here it was happening. “Hold on,” she told him, nodding as hard as she could. “Don’t go away.” She ran into the house.
And when the time came to talk money, five hundred is what she told him. Cash in advance.
“Except this is all … it’s all he had.” She said this to Lady very carefully, because it was important that she understand, having been in on the idea from the beginning.
“Why didn’t you just tell him no?” Now, though, Lady was screaming. Bits of spit were coming out of her mouth.
“All he had for what?” Nina said. She let the four five dollar bills fall on the floor. Her face had gone white. She held Lady by the shoulder, but she looked right at Merly.
“Tell him no?” Merly said. “Mom needs money, and this is at least something.”
“Fabreece?” Nina said. Instinct told her it had to do with Fabreece.
“It was all he had!” Merlina screamed. “I’m telling you!”
“Where is Fabreece?” Nina screamed.
“Up the street!” Lady screamed, giving her sister a look that made Merlina feel like she was some kind of a shit. “Getting put in a man’s car!”
When everything cooled down and she got a chance to go over it all, Merlina had to agree that twenty dollars wasn’t very much help when it came to fixing the pool. She’d only accepted it because she was a person who just naturally got enthusiastic about things. For a minute there, she was so excited about making a deal that she kind of lost sight of the actual amount the man was offering.
Later on she did ask Lady if she personally would pay twenty dollars if, for example, Fabreece got kidnapped on her own, without any of her sisters’ assistance, and that was how much the kidnappers wanted for ransom. Lady said she’d never had twenty dollars, so she wouldn’t be in a position to do it. If the kidnappers knew anything about their family and all they asked for was five dollars, they’d be lucky to get that.
Merly told her she’d be happy to pay them five dollars if she