The Interloper

by Dave Zeltserman

  Chapter 9

  At least Willis understood what that nagging voice had been trying to warn him about ever since the poker game heist. That Lowenstein had been trying too hard to play the goofball, and that his reason for doing it had been so that it would be easier to catch him off guard. Even the crack Lowenstein had made about how thieves like him don’t double-cross one another was part of the setup. While Lowenstein had probably been telling the truth about that, he conveniently left out the caveat being that if it was a heist of a lifetime—the type that you could retire from—then all bets were off.

  Lowenstein was still out cold from when Willis cracked him on the back of the head with the butt end of his .40-caliber pistol. Willis had suffered three cracked ribs when he was shot, and it felt like a knife jabbing into his chest every time he breathed, but he forced himself to ignore the pain so he could concentrate on what his best options were. He had looked through Lowenstein’s call logs and text messages, and he now knew the identity of the Ice Princess. He also saw the photos that Lowenstein had sent to her, and because of Lowenstein doing that, Willis kept coming back to the idea that his best play involved keeping Lowenstein alive. He thought about it for several more minutes and accepted that that was the way it needed to be. Moving slowly to where Lowenstein lay on the ground, Willis pushed the large man over onto his back with his foot, then poured a bottle of water onto Lowenstein’s face until the man sputtered awake. If the water hadn’t worked, Willis would’ve poured gasoline next. At first, Lowenstein’s eyes held a glazed, dull look, but after a ten count he seemed to make sense of who he was seeing. He nodded grimly at Willis.

  “You were wearing a Kevlar vest,” Lowenstein croaked out, his voice hoarse. Willis didn’t bother answering the obvious. Lowenstein smiled glumly and added in that same gravelly voice, “I should’ve expected that you’d attach a tracking device to the Buick.”

  Willis ignored the comment. “Why’d you email the Ice Princess those photos?” he asked.

  Lowenstein stared dumbly at Willis for a long moment. “So you’ve gone through my cell phone,” he said with a defeated sigh, his voice beginning to sound more normal. “Ice Princess, huh? Not a bad nickname for Tania Martin. I sent her those photos as an insurance policy.”

  “Why? Those photos won’t help you prove that the painting was a forgery, and they do nothing to hurt their insurance scam.”

  Lowenstein winced for a moment and touched the back of his head where he’d been hit. He looked at his fingers, saw that he wasn’t bleeding, and let out another tired sigh. “That’s true. But there’s nothing I could do to prove that a forgery was stolen in the first place.” He shrugged, then added, “If I brought back what we stole, they’d claim I was bringing back a forgery that I had commissioned to be painted and not what we had taken from Landistone originally. But here’s how sending those photos are going to help me. Tania can’t give them to the police now. If she did, she’d have to explain why someone would be sending her those photos a half hour after the painting was stolen. Also it would all but convince the insurance company involved that the painting was a forgery and worthless. So if she and Landistone try reneging on what they owe me, and it gets out that I sent these photos to her when I did—which won’t be hard since I’d be able to get a record from my phone company of when they were sent—she’ll have to explain why she didn’t report those photos when she first got them. Tania might not realize it right now—she might think I sent them only to show that I did what we agreed I’d do—but down the road they’ll eliminate any possibility of a double-cross. As I said, my insurance policy.”

  Willis didn’t think those photos would help Lowenstein collect a dime. He was pretty sure that once Jonah Landistone had gotten his millions from the insurance company he’d disappear. Maybe with that ice princess, Tania Martin, maybe not, but in any case Lowenstein would’ve been left with a bunch of photos that wouldn’t have helped him do squat. Willis didn’t bother mentioning any of that to Lowenstein.

  “What’s Tania’s connection with Landistone?” Willis asked.

  Lowenstein smiled apologetically and shook his head gingerly. “At this point, we need to do some bargaining if I’m going to tell you anything further,” he said.

  Willis smiled thinly, “We do, huh?”

  “I’m afraid so. You’re a smart man, Burke. A careful man, also. You’ve kept me alive so far because you feel it’s to your advantage to do so. If you want to be able to trust the information you get from me, then we’re going to need a deal.”

  Willis stared at Lowenstein, and after a minute the large man began to sweat. That was enough, Willis didn’t need to play it out any further. He had anticipated Lowenstein trying a bluff of some kind, and while he knew that with enough persuasion he could’ve gotten whatever information he wanted out of him, he had already decided it would be easier to play along. In the end, it wasn’t going to help Lowenstein, unless Willis had badly misjudged the situation. He nodded quickly, decisively, as if he had just come to a decision.

  “You’re either going to cooperate with me,” Willis said. “Or I put a bullet in your head and leave you here dead. Make up your mind which it’s going to be.”

  “If I cooperate, what happens when you’re done with me?”

  “Nothing. I’m after the four point nine million that your dame claimed would be our cut, and once I get it I have no reason to care about you. I’m guessing the cut you worked out with her is a lot more than the number that she fed us. That’s your business. If you can squeeze money out of her later, I don’t care. I only want my piece of it, and then I’m gone.”

  Lowenstein chewed on his bottom lip as he considered what Willis had told him and made whatever mental calculations he felt he needed to, all the while his eyes having a faraway look to them. He stopped his lip chewing and his eyes slid sideways to lock onto Willis’s.

  “Tania Martin is Landistone’s lawyer,” Lowenstein said.

  “Did Big Ed Hanley know you were setting me up to be killed?”

  “No. All he knew was about the poker game heist, and he thought that was legit.”

  “What’s the real payoff for this painting? Yours and Landistone’s?”

  Lowenstein only hesitated briefly before telling Willis that The Dame was insured for a hundred and twenty million. “My cut is twenty million. I’m sure Tania is getting a nice cut also. Also the joker from the museum who verified the painting as legit, and I’m sure there are others needing to be paid off. Figure Landistone is walking away from this with at least sixty million.”

  “When were you going to meet up with that dame next?”

  Lowenstein’s eyes lowered from Willis’s. “Tonight.”

  “What’s she giving you?”

  Somewhat dispirited, Lowenstein said, “Papers, new passport, half a million cash.”

  Willis tossed Lowenstein back his cell phone. “Call her up,” Willis said. “We’ve got a change in plans.”

  Chapter 10

  Willis had changed the time of their meeting to seven o’clock that evening and the location to a remote part of Forest Park in Queens that he had taken Bowser to a week earlier. He had Lowenstein sitting alone on a bench, and it didn’t surprise him any when Tania Martin—the same dame he had earlier thought of as the Ice Princess—emerged from some dense shrubs and shot Lowenstein in the back of the head. She was supposed to sit down next to Lowenstein and deliver the half million in cash as a down payment and the necessary papers so that Lowenstein could start a new life with a different identity, but Willis had expected her to do what she did. Lowenstein should’ve expected it also. At least she used a silencer, so the gunfire wouldn’t be attracting company.

  Tania Martin had been holding a briefcase. She put it down after she shot Lowenstein and moved quickly over to him and started searching his pockets. If there had been others in the area, she would’ve lured him someplace else before killing him, but she would’ve needed to show him the briefcase so that she
could convince him that she had what she promised him. Willis waited until she removed Lowenstein’s cell phone from his body before he stepped out from where he was hiding and took both her gun and cell phone away from her. Her body stiffened for a second, then relaxed.

  “That’s what this job has turned into,” he growled to her. “Trapping one murderous double-crossing rat after the next.”

  Almost as if she cared, she asked, “Was he already dead?”

  “Nah. He was knocked out by a dose of ketamine, but otherwise he was fine.”

  “At least he didn’t feel anything then,” she said.

  “Yeah, at least there’s that. Go pick up your briefcase.”

  He walked her over to it, all the while keeping her gun pressed hard into the small of her back. After she picked it up, he took her to where he had left Lowenstein’s stolen Buick, and after binding her hands behind her back, he opened the trunk for her to get into it.

  “Is this really necessary?” she asked.

  He answered her by lifting her and dumping her into it, then slamming the trunk shut. Earlier, he had taken pain killers for his cracked ribs, but it still hurt like hell, and when he lifted her it felt like something ripped inside of him. He had to stand for several minutes for the pain to subside before he could get into the driver’s seat.

  *

  Willis drove to a nearby boarded up elementary school that was slated to be converted to senior housing. The area was deserted and it was easy to break into the building and bring Tania Martin with him. He dragged her to the basement and tied her to a chair, then dumped the contents of her briefcase by her feet.

  “In case you had any of your close blood relatives hidden away in the bag. You know, deadly vipers or other poisonous snakes,” Willis said.

  There were no snakes or anything else poisonous in the briefcase, but there wasn’t much money either. Just bundles of paper cut to the size of money. Some of the packets were sandwiched between fifty dollar bills to make it look at first glance as if they were legit, but most of the packets were completely bogus. Willis rifled through them picking out the genuine fifty dollar bills, and tossed the rest of it to the floor.

  “You didn’t think much of Lowenstein, did you?” he asked with a bitter smile.

  Her icy demeanor from before was gone, as was the coolness she had exhibited earlier after shooting Lowenstein. Now she was only scared. Badly. At least he thought so until a single tear rolled down her cheek. That caused him to laugh even though it hurt like hell for him to do so. He had to hand it to her. She had done a damn good job of transforming herself into the damsel in distress, especially given that only minutes earlier she had shown that she was little more than a cold-blooded killer.

  “What do you want?” she demanded angrily. In the blink of an eye, her façade of playing the scared, helpless girl was gone, replaced by her earlier coolness.

  “The money that was promised. Four point nine million.”

  She smirked at that. “That was supposed to be divided four ways. Your share would’ve been one million two hundred and twenty-five thousand.”

  “The other members of the crew are no longer among us, thanks in no small part to yourself. So I’ll take their share. I could instead be asking for the twenty million that you promised Lowenstein, but I’ll be content with the amount you sold us on.”

  “You’ll get your money,” she insisted. “After the insurance money is paid, you’ll get your cut.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Most likely six months. They’ll first want to wait for a ransom demand, and after they don’t get one, they’ll want to try to recover the painting on their own before paying up.”

  “Uh uh,” Willis said. “I want my money tonight.”

  “That was never the deal! The deal was for each of you to get your money wired to offshore accounts after I sold the painting!”

  “Yeah, well, that deal was bogus from the start since your plan was for all of us to end up dead. So excuse me for no longer wishing to honor it.”

  “That’s not true. That was Phil’s idea, not mine.”

  Willis looked at her blankly.

  “Phil Lowenstein,” she explained.

  “Right. And just a coincidence that you ambushed him tonight.”

  “I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t sent me those photos. Once I saw them I knew I had to get that camera away from him. Why else would he take those photos if he wasn’t planning to use them to force a bigger cut for himself?”

  She said it all innocently as if there was a chance of it being true. Willis was quickly getting tired of her act. “Sorry, lady, I’m not buying. And since only a damn fool would trust you, I want to be paid tonight.”

  She kept up her wide-eyed innocent look as she frowned severely. “I can’t pay you that type of money until the insurance pays off.”

  “What can you get for me tonight?”

  Her frown deepened. “There’s the thousand dollars you just took,” she said. “And I might be able to gather up another five thousand, but that would be it.”

  She could’ve been lying, she could’ve been on the level. Willis had a hard time reading her. He had taken her cell phone from her earlier and he found Landistone’s cell phone number in her list of contacts. He told her what she was going to say after he called Landistone, and she agreed without any argument. Willis put the cell phone on speaker, then dialed Landistone’s number and held the phone close to her mouth. When Landistone answered, he swore in a whisper that she should’ve known better than to have called him then. “Dammit, Tania, I still have Feds and local police all over the house. This better be important.”

  “Oh, it is.”

  “Then I’ll call you back when I can.”

  Seven minutes later Jonah Landistone called back. “So what’s so damn important?” he demanded.

  “One of them is still alive—”

  “Dammit! How did that happen?”

  “It’s not important. He wants to see you tonight. If he doesn’t get what he wants he promises to make this blow up on all of us. And I believe him.”

  It got very quiet from Landistone’s end. Then, “Send him to my home midnight tonight.”

  “That won’t work. He has specific demands and he’s not willing to budge from them.” She gave Landistone the time and place that Willis had given her, and the amount of money Willis wanted Landistone to bring.

  “I’m not doing that,” Landistone said. “None of it.”

  “Then we’ll be going to jail. If you meet with him and arrange to give him what he’s owed, we’ll still be splitting millions later.”

  There was more silence from Landistone, then he told her that he’d handle things and hung up. Willis pocketed her cell phone.

  “And the plan wasn’t to kill all of us,” Willis said.

  She shrugged. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  She was a piece of work, no question about that. A murderous piece of work. Willis had to admire how blatantly she had lied to him and the way she worded what he had her tell Landistone. Give him what he’s owed. Code for just kill the sonofabitch. Also, how she was careful not to mention the amount of money they would be collecting themselves for the insurance scam; simply leaving it at millions.

  It was time for him to leave. He considered gagging her, but it wouldn’t matter whether he did or not. She could scream her head off in that basement and nobody would hear her. As he turned from her, her voice snapped at him, demanding that he untie her. He didn’t bother responding to that. If Landistone delivered the money he was owed, then it wouldn’t matter whether she was alive or dead. If Landistone didn’t deliver, Willis would figure out which scenario would be more to his advantage and act accordingly. For the time being, he’d keep her on ice. When he reached the door, her voice had a pleading quality as she asked him to set her free.

  “I did what you asked,” she implored. “What’s the point of leaving me like this? You can’t squeeze
blood from a stone!”

  Now she was genuinely scared. She’d have to be. If Landistone killed him, she’d be left there to starve to death. Willis smiled inwardly as he thought about what she’d said. While you might not be able to squeeze blood from a stone, you should be able to get a few drops from a reptile, but he kept the thought to himself and walked out of there without saying a word to her.

  Chapter 11

  Landistone arrived twenty minutes early. It was at the same burnt out warehouse in East Orange where the security guards were being kept tied up in a back room. Willis had checked earlier, and the guards were all still alive. Even the one that Pruitt had roughed up pretty bad had woken up. Willis was going to have to get the police there soon before any of them expired from dehydration or other problems. He watched as Landistone parked his car behind the warehouse, and then as Landistone crept in the shadows by the side of the warehouse before dropping into a crouch and holding a gun in front of him. Landistone never knew Willis was there and when Willis took the gun from his hand, all Landistone could do was look over his shoulder and stare dumbly at him, too startled to speak.

  “That’s all I’ve been doing today,” Willis growled at him. “Dealing with one bigger double-crossing rat after the next.”

  Landistone’s complexion had grayed badly, but he found his voice. “I was just being cautious,” he got out in a false bravado. “You can’t blame me. How was I supposed to know what I was walking into?”

  “That’s right. You were just being cautious. Hiding in the shadows with a gun drawn.” Willis made a disgusted face. “Get moving.”

  Willis brought Landistone to the front of the warehouse and to the door he had jimmied open earlier. Once inside, he turned on the overhead lights, and was glad to see they still worked. Landistone squinted against the light. While the clothes he was wearing were expensive, he no longer looked like the carefully manicured captain of industry as he did earlier that day, but instead had a shabbier look about him. It was partly the dark circles that were beginning to show under his eyes, partly his grayer complexion and partly the fear flooding his face.