The Interloper

by Dave Zeltserman

  Willis soon found he was only going through the motions and couldn’t work up the proper enthusiasm, and the Russian woman, Svetlana, shot him a disgusted look.

  “Maybe I should leave,” she said.

  Willis didn’t try to persuade her otherwise. He watched as she dressed and then left without saying another word.

  The moment Hanley had contacted him about a possible job in New York, Willis’s libido had ceased to exist. He didn’t realize it at the time, and even when he did notice it it wasn’t something that he thought much about. At a subconscious level, he accepted that it was a self-preservation instinct; he needed to focus all his thoughts and energies on the job and not on chasing tail. After leaving the Long Island City apartment with his share of the take, he found himself distracted with all this pent-up energy inside. Maybe if those two ragged-looking guys hanging near the trail in Forest Park had tried jumping him he would’ve been able to release it on them, but they hadn’t so he thought that he needed another outlet for it. When Svetlana came over to his table, it seemed like a good bet that she’d be able to provide the outlet he needed, but that turned out not to be the case. It wasn’t her overly sweet perfume smell that distracted him. Once her clothes were off that smell was mostly replaced by a dank muskiness which he didn’t mind, and besides, with her slender hips and toned body he found her attractive enough where he should’ve been able to ignore any smell. It was something else, some vague and troubling thought nagging at him that he couldn’t quite dredge out from his mind.

  He had a restless night, getting at most two hours of sleep, none of which was satisfying. By five in the morning, he accepted that there was no real chance of any additional sleep, so he got out of bed and took Bowser for a long three-hour walk, hoping the cool morning air would help clear his head. It didn’t. There was too much nervous energy inside with some unknown thought pestering him. He almost left New York, but he didn’t. A possible share in a seven-figure heist kept him from leaving. At ten, he called Lowenstein and was told that things were still up in the air and for him to call back the next day.

  Willis moved to a new flat in the College Point neighborhood of Queens. He didn’t want to stay in any one place too long, and he’d already been in that flat in Forest Hills for five days. That afternoon, he went to a boxing gym three blocks from where he was staying and hit a heavy bag for an hour. At the end of it, his arms felt like lead pipes and a good amount of his nervous energy had dissipated. He still felt a sense of disquiet, and he still couldn’t quite figure out the source of it. Outside of the time in the gym, taking Bowser for walks, and picking up takeout food, he kept to his rented room. Bowser naturally attracted women, as did his own rough good looks, but he accepted that until the latest job was done and he was out of New York, that part of himself was going to be shut down. The women who tried approaching him, quickly veered off once they caught sight of the deadness that had settled in his eyes.

  That night, he slept poorly again, and at ten in the morning he called Lowenstein and was told things were still unsettled. As with the previous day, he spent an hour hitting a heavy bag until his arms felt dead, and spent the rest of the day in his room except when he needed to take Bowser outside or needed food or coffee. That sense of disquiet was still with him, but he had given up trying to figure out the cause of it, hoping that if he left it alone the answer would pop up by itself. As with the other two nights, he slept poorly and had decided that it was the last time he was calling Lowenstein. If the job was still up in the air, he’d be heading back to Ohio. When he called Lowenstein, the large man gave him an address in Brooklyn where they were going to be meeting later that afternoon.

  “The job’s on,” Lowenstein told Willis. “And it’s a beauty. We’re all very soon going to be making a shitload of money.”

  Chapter 4

  Willis arrived at the Brooklyn address forty minutes early so he could settle in half a block away and observe the people coming and leaving, as well as anyone else who might’ve been watching the address. He wasn’t as concerned about any member of the crew trying something as he was about the police being tipped off, and he wanted to make sure the place wasn’t under surveillance. He watched as Hack, Lowenstein, and Pruitt all arrived separately and within fifteen minutes of when they were supposed to meet. None of them looked overly concerned that they might’ve been followed, with Pruitt striding down the sidewalk with his chest puffed out like a strutting rooster, Lowenstein chuckling over something and Hack taking short shuffling steps as other pedestrians passed him without paying any attention. They were going to be meeting in a private room inside a bar, and during the time Willis had the address under surveillance, roughly two dozen other people entered the same bar, with none of them seeming like law enforcement, or any of them appearing more likely than any of the others as being the brains behind the new heist. No vans were parked on the block either, nor anything else suspicious. Willis waited ten more minutes past their scheduled meeting time before convincing himself that no one else was watching the place.

  Willis entered the bar and approached the bartender to give him the agreed upon password. The bartender, who at no time acknowledged Willis’s presence, used his eyes to indicate where Willis was supposed to go, which led Willis down a narrow and rickety staircase and then to a poorly lit hallway. At the end of the hallway was a single room. Willis knocked once and entered.

  Along with Pruitt, Hack, and Lowenstein, a strikingly beautiful woman sat in the room. She was in her mid-thirties and had large dark eyes, high cheek bones, shoulder-length brown hair, and a sultry mouth even though it was set in a frown. From what Willis could tell with her sitting, she was on the small side, probably no taller than five feet two inches, slender build, and dressed conservatively in a tailored gray suit. There was an iciness about her, and nothing but darkness in her eyes as she glanced at Willis, her frown deepening slightly. Still, if Willis had picked her up instead of Svetlana three nights ago, he would’ve had no problem mustering up the necessary enthusiasm no matter how distracted he might’ve been. He hadn’t seen her enter the bar, and he certainly would’ve noticed her if she had.

  Pruitt, Hack, and Lowenstein were all drinking beers, the woman had a scotch on the rocks, or at least that’s what it had been before most of the ice had melted. A snorting noise exploded from Pruitt, and given the way his head was tilted he looked down his thin, sharply angled nose at Willis, his jaw muscles clenching. “You’re late,” he complained, his voice an angry nasal whine.

  “Traffic,” Willis said.

  “The rest of us had no problem with traffic.”

  Willis ignored him and took a seat across from Pruitt and Lowenstein. It infuriated Pruitt, his lean, narrow face quickly reddening, and his eyes taking on a beady look, almost like a rat’s. He started to rise from his chair, but Lowenstein moved quickly to place a thick, beefy hand on Pruitt’s shoulder to keep him from standing. “I’m sure Burke’s tardiness was only because he decided to take it upon himself to stake out the place,” Lowenstein said. Then to Willis, “So don’t keep us in suspense. Did you see anything suspicious?”

  “Nothing,” Willis said.

  The explanation of Willis’s lateness appeased Pruitt enough to let himself be guided back down to his seat by Lowenstein’s heavy hand, but he continued to glower at Willis as if he’d like nothing more than to get a chance to take Willis on.

  Lowenstein smiled thinly at Willis as he shook his head. “Your initiative was admirable in a way, I guess. But Burke, as I told you before, we’re not amateurs. If the police were camped outside with a parabolic microphone they wouldn’t be able to pick up what was being said in this room. We chose this location for a reason. Because we’re professionals. And to further put your mind at ease that this room isn’t bugged or none of us are wired, this is a state-of-the-art bug detector. How about you doing the honors?”

  Lowenstein had pulled a small device about the size of an iPhone out of his pocket and slid
it to Willis. Willis examined it briefly. The bug detector would pick up any wireless transmitter in the room, but wouldn’t be of any help if any of them had a recording device attached to them. Still, it was better than nothing. He first waved the device over his own body to show he wasn’t wired, then each of the others in turn, and finally he covered the room. No beeps. There was nothing being transmitted from the room. He took his seat and slid the bug detector back to Lowenstein.

  “Have we wasted enough time yet?” the woman asked, both bored and annoyed, maybe bristling a bit over how much time Willis had spent using the device on her.

  “I don’t think so. I’m guessing this joker wants to waste more time,” Pruitt said while glaring at Willis.

  “No, I’m good,” Willis said.

  The woman continued without any introductions. She told them that they were going to be stealing a painting. “This is a seventeenth-century oil painting from the Dutch master Pieter de Berge, who has become very much in vogue lately,” she said as if that was supposed to mean anything to them. Like her appearance, her voice had both a smoothness and an iciness to it. “The painting is titled The Dame, and I have a buyer lined up who’ll be paying seven million for it. After my thirty percent cut, that will leave four point nine million for the rest of you. More than enough for all of us to profit nicely from this.”

  Hack let out a soft whistle. Even Pruitt looked impressed as his jaw dropped slightly and he absently began rubbing his chin. Willis asked, “When do we get paid?”

  “A few days to possibly a week after the job’s done, but you’ll be holding the painting until I deliver your share of the money to offshore accounts for each of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “This is a once in a lifetime score,” Lowenstein told Willis, his voice quick and excited.

  “And a perfect setup,” the woman said. Her lips twisted into a thin and icy smile. “Almost as if they’ll be handing us the painting.”

  Willis settled back to hear how the robbery was going to take place, and he had to agree with the stunningly beautiful mystery woman. If things were as she said, it was going to be easier than he would’ve imagined to steal a painting worth seven million dollars. They weren’t going to be stealing it from a museum or a gallery, but from a private home in Short Hills, New Jersey. A wealthy businessman named Jonah Landistone had recently acquired The Dame, and Friday, which was three days away, the painting was going to be delivered to his home by armored car, and then unveiled later at a party that night. The next morning, the painting was to be picked up by an armored vehicle and donated to New York’s Museum of Modern Art to great fanfare. What made the robbery such a piece of cake was that the woman, who Willis had begun to think of as the Ice Princess, had the list of security personnel who were scheduled to guard the painting while it was in Landistone’s residence. There were four employees assigned, and each of the crew was going to intercept one of them so they could be kept on ice until after the robbery. Each member of the crew would have a uniform, a counterfeit badge, and would show up at the Short Hills residence as expected. After the painting was brought over, the four of them would take control of the house and leave Landistone and anyone else there tied up while they left with The Dame. Once they had the painting in their possession, the Ice Princess would arrange payment, and once their share was paid over, they’d transfer the painting to her.

  “This is such a sweet deal,” Lowenstein added after the Ice Princess had finished. “The holdup was getting the list of security personnel and knowing how many of them were going to be assigned. If there were only three of them, you would’ve been left out, Burke. And if there were more than four names, we would’ve been scrambling to add more crew members. But it worked out perfectly.”

  Lowenstein’s smile had turned brittle, a sheen of excitement covering his face. The deal had him nervous. A once in a lifetime score falling in their laps. Pruitt had that same nervous excitement on his face, even Hack showed a little of it. Willis asked the Ice Princess how she got the list of personnel assigned to protect the painting.

  “Does it matter?” she asked flatly.

  “Yeah, I’d say so. What if the personnel assignments change between now and the robbery?”

  “If it does, I’ll know about it, and so will all of you. Does that satisfy you?”

  Willis thought about it and nodded. She had someone on the inside. There was other information he would’ve liked to have had, such as a better count of how many people were going to be at the residence at the time of the robbery, but she had already given them a rundown of what she knew. Landistone was working on marriage number three to a twenty-three-year-old blonde trophy wife who was three years younger than Landistone’s youngest child. Of Landistone’s four children, there was no reason for any of them to be there, but that didn’t mean anything. There would, of course, be household staff which the Ice Princess had an estimate of four members, not including any added staff that might be there for the party later that night. Landistone’s private secretary would most likely be on hand, and maybe some members of the museum’s board. But as the Ice Princess reasoned, the exact number didn’t matter since the crew would be there an hour before the delivery of The Dame, which would give them plenty of time to account for everyone in the house and figure out how to handle things. Willis couldn’t see any reason to disagree with her.

  The Ice Princess took envelopes out of a briefcase and distributed an envelope to each of them. In Willis’s was a photo, name, and address of the security personnel he was to intercept, one Craig Gunder, as well as some other information. Willis didn’t much resemble Gunder, who from his photo was in his late twenties and had the large fleshy face of someone who had once played offensive line in high school. But that didn’t matter since he’d have a counterfeit ID with Gunder’s name and his own photo on it, and according to the Ice Princess, they were only going to be checking names at Landistone’s residence. If they also had copies of the real IDs, then things were going to get messy, but the robbery would still be a possibility. They’d have to take control of the house earlier, and then sweat things out with the armored car personnel when they arrived.

  The Ice Princess impatiently raised her right arm and pulled her suit jacket sleeve back enough so she could glance at her watch. She had a delicate wrist to go with the rest of her delicate features. Abruptly, she announced that she needed to leave, and then quickly zipped up her briefcase and pushed her chair back from the table. Standing, her body looked even better in her immaculately tailored suit than when she’d been sitting. Slender, petite, but with just the right amount of curves. Willis could see the hunger in each of the men’s faces as she walked towards the door. After she closed the door behind her, Pruitt elbowed Lowenstein, a smart-alecky grin stretching his lips.

  “You’ve been getting a piece of that?” Pruitt asked.

  “Only in my dreams,” Lowenstein said with a sigh.

  “I’d do her in a second,” Hack said more to himself than any of the rest of them. None of the others bothered to act as if they’d heard him.

  “How do you know her?” Willis asked Lowenstein.

  Lowenstein raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Why?”

  “I want to know if we can trust her and the information she’s giving us.”

  “We can trust her,” Lowenstein said. “I’ve worked with her before. She’s solid. This deal is solid.”

  “I don’t like that she knows our names and other than you we don’t know hers.”

  “What do you need to know her name for? You planning to call her up for a date? I hate to tell you this, Burke, but you’re not her type.” Lowenstein couldn’t help smiling over his own joke while Pruitt let out a loud laugh. Lowenstein added, “And besides, she doesn’t know any of our names except mine. That’s done for a reason. Any of you get picked up, she doesn’t have to worry about it. And if she gets picked up, same deal.”

  Willis didn’t argue the point. Lowenstein was
right. It didn’t matter, and it wouldn’t help any if he pushed Lowenstein for her name since he wasn’t going to give it. Still, it bugged him that he didn’t have it, and he wasn’t sure why that was. It certainly wasn’t so he could ask her for a date, although he wouldn’t have minded ending up in the sack with her, even if she’d end up giving him a touch of frostbite. But there was a reason he wanted to know it, something he couldn’t quite dredge from his subconscious. It was going to be yet another nagging whisper floating around in his head to add to the one that had been present ever since that poker game heist.

  Lowenstein handed Pruitt and Hack a white bedsheet so that they could attach it to one of the walls. He had brought a photographer’s light with him, and while they got the sheet ready, he set up the light. Once that was done, he took pictures of each of them for their fake security badges and then Pruitt took Lowenstein’s photo. Willis hesitated only briefly before letting his picture get taken. It didn’t matter. The Factory had his picture on file, and the few cosmetic things he had done to alter his appearance wouldn’t fool them or any facial recognition system that he might run across. At some point soon he was going to have to see a plastic surgeon and do something more drastic. The money he got from this job would help with that.