Harold's eyes widen. "Meet him? You know him?"
Courtney uncrosses her legs and fixes her hair. "Yes, I have the...pleasure of knowing him, you could say that," she says.
"Are you part of the crew? I didn't read about you in the papers," Harold says, pushing up his glasses.
Courtney presses her lips together and checks her makeup in the rear view mirror. "I'm a fairly new addition."
Harold beams. "I knew there was something I liked about you!"
Her hair and makeup are unsalvageable. Courtney smiles at him anyway. "Would you like to come in?"
"Would I?!"
Harold parks the car and dashes out, opening Courtney's door for her.
Courtney disembarks from the car and pulls a spare key from under a potted plant.
"What should I say to him?" he says as Courtney unlocks the front door.
"Don't say a thing," Courtney simpers. "Wait here."
She leaves the door partially ajar, closed enough to hide her guest. Scowling, she marches into the house, finding Al and Heather playing cards in the kitchen and Duncan poring over maps of Louisiana on the coffee table in the parlor.
"'Golly, Bonnie, we're so happy you survived your walk in boiling hot temperatures'," Courtney says loudly.
"Glad to see you made it back safely," Al says, looking up from his hand of cards. "I knew you'd be all right."
Heather plucks a card from the deck. "I was hoping you'd get run over."
"Ain't that the truth," Duncan adds. He shuffles two of his maps around. "Since yer up, get me some water."
Courtney doesn't move, just glares at the side of his head waiting for him to look up.
"I'm not getting any younger, doll!" he snaps, blindly gesturing at the kitchen.
Biting her tongue, Courtney fetches him a glass of water. Then, on a whim, she struts back into the living room and throws the water in Duncan's face.
Behind her, Al and Heather stop playing. The house is completely silent for a moment as Duncan slowly wipes the water from his face and raises his glare to Courtney.
"Bitch...these maps were pricey," he says.
Courtney throws the cup on the couch and puts her hands on her hips. "Everyone, there's someone I want you to meet. Harold, you can come in now."
The lanky boy all but rushes in, cap in his hands and grinning from ear to ear, staring at the gang.
Duncan, Heather and Al bolt to their feet, drawing weapons. Harold jumps back, his smile vanished. Courtney doesn't flinch.
"What the actual fuck?!" Duncan shouts. "Who is this skeeze?"
Courtney links her arms with Harold. "I would like to introduce you to Harold Hamilton," she says pleasantly. "He's going to be our new driver."
The four of them gape at her, the gang in indignant shock and Harold in elated surprise.
"Bonnie, you can't just add complete strangers to the crew," Al chastises, looking the least irked out of all of them, and still fairly mad.
Courtney pushes her hip out. She indicates a livid Duncan with a jut of her chin. "Of course I can. It's what he did."
"Chica, this isn't the same, and you know it."
"We don't know the first thing about him!" Heather adds. "He could turn us into the coppers in the blink of an eye!"
"He's a desperate, pretty face, Heather," Courtney says. "And aren't you all suckers for desperate, pretty faces?"
"It would be my honor to—" Harold starts to say, but Duncan cuts him off.
"Just what the hell are ya tryin' to prove?" he snarls.
Courtney holds her head high and her gaze steady. "That I'm not just scenery to you people," she says. "That I'm vital and useful for the right things and that you're lucky to have me. So here," she nudges Harold in Al's direction, "I got you a driver. Take him out for a spin if you don't believe me that he's the best Ford driver south of the Mason-Dixon. I'm making myself a drink."
And with that, Courtney exits to the kitchen. She takes a whiskey bottle from the counter by the stove and takes a long drink straight from it, waiting. The conversation from the living room carries over clearly.
"...Best driver south of the Mason-Dixon, huh?" Al's voice says after a pause.
"Oh, no no no, your girl flatters me," Harold answers nervously. "I'm just—"
"I'm his girl," Heather corrects.
There's the click of a hammer being pulled back. "Courtney's mine," Duncan says.
Courtney grins around her next swig of whiskey. She hears the rustling of maps, then Duncan's voice continues, low and deadly, "Now find me the fasted way to get from here to here, and ya best hope I like yer answer."
The gunpoint interview in the kitchen goes on until the sun hangs low in the horizon. Courtney stays invisible, lazily drinking straight from the whiskey bottle in the kitchen. She stopped paying attention to Al and Duncan's questions and Harold's responses quite a few swigs ago. At long last, she hears the front door slam and an engine start. Duncan walks into the kitchen, looking sour.
"Al and Heath are taking him for a spin," he explains. "What the goddamn hell were ya thinking bringing him here?"
Swirling the remainder of whiskey around in the bottle, Courtney says, "It was practice."
"Practice," Duncan repeats without inflection.
"Yes, I got you a driver," she says, pointing at herself. "Me. By myself. Which means I don't have to stay sitting in a sweaty gross car while you and your in-laws do all the work and have all the fun. I'm coming down with your on your next heist."
"No way in hell," he says. "Yer too green, Courtney."
"You saw Harold! I had him eating out of my hand!" Courtney says, gesturing at the parlor. "If I can get the likes of big bad criminal Duncan Clyde and the likes of small town Harold Hamilton wrapped around my little finger, I can get any middle class bank teller or gas station owner to hand over their money without—hic!—raising a gun. It's what you hired me for, isn't it?"
She turns to the sunset and takes another drink. When Duncan doesn't answer her right away, Courtney glances back at him. He looks amused.
"Ain't you just something else."
He walks to her, takes the bottle out of her hand, and gulps a quarter of it down.
"Yer all out of screw-ups, Courtney," he warns. "Next time ya get left on the side of the road, I ain't gonna be able to convince Al and Heath to wait for ya to show up before we disappear again."
Courtney snatches the bottle back from him. "No, yer out of screw-ups," she says, her Southern accent growing more pronounced. "Next time yer mean to me for no good reason, I'm leaving ya and starting my own gang!"
She drinks again and wipes the excess off on the shoulder of her ripped dress. Duncan smirks.
"Yer learnin' to drive tomorrow," he says.
"Good. And yer learning to take advantage of what you got."
Courtney shoves the whiskey bottle back at him and walks around him to go change for a night sleeping on the parlor sofa.
The front door opens and wakes Courtney enough to hear Heather's voice saying, "This has gotten way out of hand."
Between the heat, the running, and the whiskey, sleep is fighting to claim her. But Heather's voice keeps her intrigued. Courtney peeks an eye open; she can see only darkness.
Al says something in Spanish, his tone appeasing, but Heather snaps, "Don't start with that garbage at this hour. You know I'm right."
"Heather, love, the kid's a good driver. Besides, it's Clyde's call," Al says. Courtney hears him cross the parlor.
"It's not though, is it? It's Bonnie's call," Heather spits. "She waltzed him in through the front door. If we don't take him on, he'll go straight to the first clubhouse he finds and turn us in to the coppers."
Courtney keeps her breathing steady. The whiskey helps her not jump when someone kicks a bottle on the floor.
"The kid's a hell of a driver," Al says, "and Bonnie is doing her best."
"Her 'best' is going to land us all behind bars!" Heather hisses. "And neither of those things takes away from the fact that Clyde has been seriously off his game since he met her. For God's sake, Alejandro, he got himself caught and sent to Eastham!"
The color drains from Courtney's face. Eastham was the worst prison farm in Texas. Those who went to Eastham hardly ever came out, and if they did, hardly ever in one piece.
"That didn't have anything to do with Bonnie."
"Didn't it?"
Courtney cringes.
"Listen," Al says, sounding serious, "your brother-in-law is the sharpest cat I know. It takes more than an extra pair of gams and an over-eager driver to throw Clyde off his game for long."
Heather doesn't answer. It's quiet enough that Courtney can hear them breathing.
"She's going to get us killed," Heather says. "I'm telling you right now. If any of us takes a bullet because of her, the next bullet is coming out of my gun and it's going between her eyes."
Al sighs. He mutters something in Spanish that sounds like a curse.
"Talk to him," Heather says firmly.
"You talk to him. You're the one with the problem."
"He's your brother. And when have you ever know me and Clyde to have a civil conversation?" she says. "He always thinks I'm fighting with him."
"You usually are fighting with him." A kiss rings out in the dark. "It's incredibly attractive."
"You'd find anything I did incredibly attractive," Heather answers.
"What can I say?" Al murmurs. "The men in my family like them feisty."
They begin to kiss in earnest. A body thuds against the wall. Clothes rustles. A belt buckle clinks and pants unzip. Al groans. Courtney holds her breath and stays perfectly still.
Finally, she hears clothes shuffling again and Heather's footsteps start to walk.
"Talk to Clyde," Heather says again. "I'll be in the bedroom when you're ready for round two."
A door shuts and Al's footsteps shuffle to the kitchen. Courtney hears a lighter click and a bottle uncork but she falls back asleep before she hears the drinking.