“But I wanna go home.” She didn’t want to spend another night in Chicago. “The last bus to Bridell doesn’t leave for another forty minutes. I have my bus fare.” She looked in herpurse for the first time to make sure. But it wasn’t there. And they didn’t hand her any money either. She looked at William in anguish.
“Your money’s gone?”
She nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Why don’t you come to my house tonight and--”
“No.” She was shaking her head. “I wanna go home. If you can lend me enough to catch the bus, I think it’s like fifty-five dollars, then I’ll mail it back to you as soon as I get back to working at Maylene’s.”
When he said nothing, she felt that her asking him to lend her money had crossed a line. “Or you can drop me anywhere and I’ll figure it out.”
William’s heart dropped. “Edwin?”
His driver looked through the rearview mirror. “Yes sir?”
“Drive us to Bridell, Indiana.”
Ed was shocked. The bodyguard too. But they knew who buttered their bread. “Yes sir,” he said and quickly made a U-turn.
But Joy didn’t understand. “You don’t have to drive me. I can catch the Greyhound. You don’t have to--”
William could hear the surge of panic in her voice. He quickly took her by the hand. “It’s okay, Joynetta. It’s okay. Driving you home is the least I can do.”
She stared at him. This was the man she remembered. This was the man she would have loved to work for.
But it didn’t work out.
William held onto her nervous hand for the entire three-hour drive to Bridell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Mercedes drove into the parking lot of Joy’s apartment complex. It was in the hood, William recognized. There was no doubt about that. But in his view the hood in a small town gave off a different vibe than the hood in a big city like Chicago. The people were no doubt just as poor as those ghetto-dwellers in Chicago, but in Bridell they weren’t packed on top of each other like a can of sardines. They had breathing room.
“My apartment is all the way in the back,” Joy said to the driver. He began driving slowly in that direction.
“You were able to keep your apartment while you were incarcerated?” William found that curious. Did she have a roommate living with her? Or aboyfriend? Why did he suddenly become worried that she might have a boyfriend?
“I paid my rent a couple days before I was arrested,” she responded. “I’m only a week behind. I’ll get slapped with a late fee for sure, but around here they don’t evict you for just being a week late or most people would be evicted.”
“That’s what I love about small towns,” William said. “They have higher moral standards than those of us in the city.”
“Now that’s just bullshit,” Joy said bluntly.
William looked at her. Ed glanced through the rearview mirror at her.
“You disagree?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t know how you can. Go to almost any small town in America and you will find very low crime. Only a handfulof murders in a year, or even just one of two murders a year. Last year alone we had four-hundred-and-twenty murders in Chicago.”
“But how can you compare a small town to Chicago? There are very few murders in small towns because there are very few people. You put the people here, and you’ll get the murders here.”
William smiled. He noticed Joy seemed much more relaxed now that she was back home. “You have a point there.”
“Think about it though: Bridell has four thousand people living here. Last year we had five murders. Chicago has how many people?”
“Nearly three million,” said William, “if you don’t include the wider metropolitan areas.”
