A Heist Story

by Ellen Simpson

  Marcey didn’t want anything to do with this. “I don’t think—”

  Shelly cut Marcey off. “That’s fine, Tony. Marcey can play.”

  Marcey stared at Shelly, open mouthed. “I don’t have any more cash.”

  “You’ll play,” Shelly snapped. Her eyes were narrowed, a warning.

  “What are you afraid of, girly?” Tony held out his hand. “I’m sure you’re good for it.”

  Marcey swallowed and glanced at her cards. There was no way she could afford to stay in this game. She had to get out—had to leave. This wasn’t what she wanted.

  Shelly called Tony’s bet, her expression steely. Marcey rummaged in her pocket and found the rental’s keys. It was the only thing she had. Those stones were probably worth as much as a Hyundai. Fuck, fear was coiling like a snake preparing to strike in her belly. She had no choice. Her fingers shook, gripping the keys. She looked to Shelly, but Shelly wasn’t looking at her. This was the only way to stay in that she had. Marcey swallowed, tossed the keys onto the pile, and sat back. “That’s collateral,” she said.

  Tony scowled, drunkenly picking up the keys and squinting at the tag on them before throwing them back down in the pot. “That’s a rental.”

  “As I said, collateral. I’m good for it.” Though she’d always been a proficient liar, this didn’t sit right. It was probably all over her face. Feeling sick to her stomach, Marcey checked her cards. Her two pair was not going to cut it. No way. Shelly or Tony was sitting on something big. She wondered if this would empty her savings account.

  “Shelly, where did you dig this bumpkin up? Who the fuck bets a car they don’t even own?” Tony got to his feet, drunkenly swaying as he walked. Marcey pressed her cards flat to the table. Tony poured himself another two fingers of whiskey. “You’re up to something, I know you are. She’s here because you’re afraid I’ll see what you’re doing.”

  “Add some ice to that, Tony. You’ve had a few too many.” Shelly’s answer was curt. “Marcey’s an old friend’s kid. She’s good for the money, even if she is a bit stupid for betting her rental car.”

  “You caught me off-guard.” Marcey held up her hands. Her heart hammered away, somewhere around her throat. She could scarcely hear the music of the bar over the rush of her blood, coloring her face and making her terrified she would give whatever game Shelly was playing away in her ignorance. “I thought this was a friendly game between old-timers. I brought cash, didn’t I? Didn’t think this was some high-stakes bet-your-uncut-diamonds bullshit.” She stuck her chin out defiantly. It too was a gamble.

  Shelly inhaled sharply. Tony squinted at Marcey through eyes heavy with drink.

  “You have balls,” he said. “For a shrimp.”

  The room seemed to relax. The tension in Shelly’s forearms subsided.

  “I’m good for it,” Marcey insisted again. Tony sat back down, throwing a few ice cubes into his glass before he knocked the whole thing back.

  Marcey showed her hand, indicating her two pair with the river. Shelly hummed politely and tutted quietly, looking to Tony. He, perhaps smugly, turned over triple nines. A good hand, for sure, but not with all the fuss over high-stakes betting.

  “Sorry, kid,” Tony said. He reached for the keys once more. “Hope you’re good for it.”

  Shelly paused and flying out to grab his wrist. “We’re not done.” She turned over her carts. “Full house, threes and sevens.”

  Tony’s eyes bugged out wide, and he got to his feet so quickly the chair tipped over. Marcey pushed away as well, her back hitting the storage rack of cheap beer. “You—you cheated!” he shouted.

  “I don’t think she did,” Marcey said. “Tony, it’s all right, everyone loses sometimes.” It was too late. He lunged for the table, gathering his tiny precious stones and trying to shove them back into their little bag. Shelly took a step back, allowing the guy with the muscles, who’d appeared when the chair fell to the floor, to grab Tony and wrench the winnings from his hands. Muscles tossed them back on the pile and hauled Tony, cursing up a storm at Shelly, out of the room.

  Shelly leaned forward and collected the stones, sitting back and exhaling. “Take your money and your keys back,” she said. She picked up Tony’s bottle and took a long swig directly from it. Marcey took her six twenties and her keys and put them into her pocket. Candy, Earl, and Latoya came back into the room and collected their money as well. They split the remainder between themselves, leaving a small pile on the table. Shelly gave each of them one of the three little stones. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  Candy blew Shelly an air kiss and Shelly smiled prettily at her. Marcey just watched, dumbfounded.

  “What just happened?”

  “You won yourself a couple hundred bucks.” Shelly ducked out of the room, leaving Marcey alone with the small pile of additional cash before her. She gathered it up, another two hundred bucks, and shoved it into her back pocket. Shelly returned with both their jackets and gestured toward a door half-hidden behind a pyramid of kegs. “We’re going out this way.”

  Marcey put her coat on and followed Shelly up a narrow flight of service steps and out onto the avenue above. Shelly looked around nervously, her breath fogging and the new-fallen snow making her look even more exhilarated than before.

  “Those were trick cards,” Marcey said.

  “Maybe.”

  Shelly hailed a cab. It slowed to a crawl, the driver leaning over to open the door. Marcey settled in beside Shelly. “That was…amazing,” she said. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

  “You almost ruined it, with the stunt you pulled with your keys. It’s a goddamn rental! You can’t just give that shit away.”

  Marcey bit her lip, feeling petulant. “I would’a stopped at an ATM if you’d told me that was where you were going or what you were doing.”

  “The whole point was that you didn’t know.” Shelly reached into her pocket and produced the deck. “These are Charlie’s. Put them back in the locker next time you’re in there, if you don’t mind.”

  Marcey stared at the backs of the cards for a long time, trying to figure out how they were rigged. “What was he like?”

  “Who?”

  “Charlie. What was he like?” Marcey sat back, tucking the cards into her jacket pocket. She wouldn’t put them back until she figured out their trick. “I never met him…not really.”

  “Not really?” Shelly frowned. “How do you mean?”

  “Do you know Devon Austin Jackson?”

  “Charlie’s lawyer, sure.” Shelly gave Marcey a searching look. “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “He showed me a picture. Of you. Of Charlie. And this other girl.”

  “Kat.”

  “Yeah.” Marcey nodded. “Is she his girlfriend?”

  Shelly laughed. “That would be me, Marcey.”

  “Oh.” Marcey faltered. Maybe there was more to Charlie than just a petty criminal. She didn’t think just any guy would date a woman like Shelly. She shook her head, catching herself before her mind raced too far away from the current subject. “Well, when he showed me that picture, I realized that I’d seen Charlie before. When I was in high school, he’d come and play chess in the park with me.”

  “So that’s why you said you’d never met him in any official capacity.” Shelly frowned. “That was smart, to hedge it like that.”

  Marcey tilted her head to one side. Snow was still falling outside the cab window. “How do you mean?”

  “Charlie was a good man, a kind man—”

  “He was in prison.” Marcey tried to keep her tone flat.

  “Well, yes, but I think you know that there are good people who are put away all the time.” Shelly inclined her chin to the side of a bus they passed, Marcey and Darius’s cartoonish mugshots there as clear as day for the world to see with the scripted “Johnson for DA—Taking Gangs Out of Our Schools” written beside them. “That’s some mess. Johnson’s always been a piece of work, but th
at’s somethin’ else right there.”

  “She tried to do Charlie, right before we fucked up.” Marcey sighed. “You read the papers back then at all?”

  “Sure did. They were calling for her to be fired, maybe disbarred, for how poorly she handled that case. He certainly made her look like an ass, on top of walking free as a bird outta that courtroom when he was guilty as sin. Kat was in stitches.”

  There it was, that name again. Marcey frowned. She reached into her bag and pulled out Charlie Mock’s book. Shelly’s eyes went wide, but Marcey pretended not to notice. She flipped through the pages until she found the photograph Devon had given her. “This Kat?” Marcey held out the photograph. Kathryn wasn’t an uncommon name, after all; it could be just a coincidence. She had to be sure.

  Shelly turned on the flashlight in her phone to see the picture just as the cab slowed to a halt. The rental was still parked outside the storage facility, the sole car in the small parking lot. “Wait a sec,” Shelly told the driver. She got out of the car, Marcey following her. “That Kat, yes. But you should stay away from her. She’s bad news.”

  “I hadn’t—”

  “Well, don’t. You’re too green to be messing with Kat Barber.” Shelly handed Marcey the photograph back. “What were you expecting to find in there, anyway?” She jerked her thumb toward the storage unit.

  Marcey sighed. “Charlie’s last job. Devon told me about it, and he mentioned it in the letter he wrote to me explaining everything. He wants to steal some ugly painting. I was…” Marcey looked down at her hands, grasping for the words. “I was hoping maybe I could find something to use to get back at Johnson for her public smear campaign.”

  “Why does she hate you so much?” Shelly’s expression was steely. “Is it because she knows about your connection to Charlie? Because it if is, you should stay far, far away from this. Your friend’s been locked up for what? Eight, nine years now? Isn’t he eligible for release soon?”

  Marcey looked down at her hands. “Yes, in May.”

  “Then why you gonna mess with his chances of getting out?” Shelly scowled. “That should be the most important thing for you, not some sort of revenge.”

  “It isn’t revenge—how can it be? She’s the one who went after me first.” She sounded petulant. She didn’t care. “I dated her daughter when her daughter was struggling with a pretty bad pill problem. Linda blames me for Becca’s spiral. She couldn’t get me. My mom basically bankrupted herself to ensure that I had the best lawyer I could get. Darius wasn’t so lucky.”

  Shelly grabbed Marcey’s arm. “He did time for you. Don’t do him like this.”

  “He can’t fight her in there. I can.” Marcey scowled.

  “That’s fucked up.” Shelly said. “You need to let the system do its job. Devon’s a good lawyer—”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course I do. He’s Charlie’s lawyer.” She still hadn’t let go of Marcey’s arm. The moment dragged on. Snow fell. Shelly looked pensive. “You could always bring a lawsuit against her.”

  “Can’t. Devon says it won’t work. He’s already worried that Darius won’t get past the parole board because of this.”

  “It would be less messy than whatever Charlie was planning.”

  Nodding, Marcey put the photograph away and tucked the book into her messenger bag. “It could. Devon told me a bit about Charlie’s case with Johnson, and then when I heard he had this job in the works I wondered…”

  “Wondered what?”

  “If there was maybe a way to salvage my reputation and catch Johnson with her pants around her ankles in the process.” Marcey smiled up at Shelly. “Would you be interested in getting involved with something like that?”

  Shelly reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Cupping her hand against the wind, she lit it. There was snow in her hair now. The cabbie tapped on the window. Shelly glared at him, rubbing her forefinger and thumb together—there was money in it for him, if he waited.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Shelly shook her head. “And I don’t think you should get involved with this either. Revenge is a lonely road, Marcey, and you’re already playing with more lives than just your own. You’ll have to walk it alone if you want to be beat Johnson at her own game.” She exhaled smoke. “Do you want that?”

  The answer did not come immediately. Marcey unlocked the Hyundai and relocked it, hands anxious for something to do. “I’m not sure,” she said honestly. “I’m not sure I want to sink to her level. But what she’s done to me…what she’s doing to Darius. She tried to do that to Charlie as well. She’s using my best friend as a political punch line, calling him a thug and a dangerous drug dealer, making it so that no matter what happens, when he gets out, he can’t have a future. I want to right that wrong.”

  The warm glow of the lit end of the cigarette stood out against the inky blackness of the snowy night. Shelly exhaled smoke; it curled fog-like around her head. “You shouldn’t do something like this for a man. Your friend. Charlie. Don’t do it for them. If you’re going to do it at all, do it for yourself. That’s the only way these things work out.”

  She turned and got back into the cab, leaving Marcey alone in the gently falling snow.

  CHAPTER 5

  Wei, Looking for the Missing Pieces

  It did not occur to Wei until the Monday morning she was summoned into Linda Johnson’s office that the girl she’d seen in Charlie Mock’s lawyer’s office was the same girl whose face featured so prominently in all of Johnson’s campaign ads. Was it a sign she was slipping? Or that the girl had a face so unremarkable that Wei hadn’t paid her much mind, too busy sparring with Devon Austin Jackson over Charlie Mock’s missing estate? Either way, Wei was tired. She’d barely managed to get any sleep on the red eye from London. Now, sitting across from the woman herself, framed as she was by the campaign ad behind her, Wei saw the connection effortlessly. Why did Johnson hate that girl? How had that girl allowed her face to be used in an ad when she clearly was not in prison like the other guy?

  The phone rang. Johnson, a diminutive old white woman, answered with her lips pursed in annoyance. “I’m in a meeting, Gladys.” A pause, and then, “Oh, all right, give me a second to go into the other room.” She got up and put the call on hold. “I have to take this. Shouldn’t be long.”

  Wei nodded. “Of course.”

  Johnson ducked out of the room.

  LePage sat beside Wei, his fingers twitching. There was dirt under his nails and his suit was wrinkled. He looked bedraggled, like he’d slept in his clothes. Wei squinted at his fashionable haircut and exhaled. When would Macklemore hair go out of fashion? LePage was pushing forty, as was she. It wasn’t exactly a good look for a man his age to be sporting a hairstyle better suited for a twenty-something. Still, somehow, with his square jaw and olive skin, it worked.

  “So, how’ve you been?” LePage asked. He started to pick at the lint on his suit pants.

  “Fine,” Wei answered.

  “How’d it go with the lawyer?” LePage knew the answer. He was filling the silence with small talk because he was a nervous talker. Wei hated that about him. She opened the folder in her lap and passed him her notes on the meeting with Devon Austin Jackson. He scanned them and passed them back. “So you met her?” He jerked his thumb toward the campaign poster behind Johnson’s desk.

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she have the book?”

  Wei shrugged. “I was hoping that Linda might have had that detail for us. Can’t see any other reason why she’d smear some kid’s good name like this otherwise.”

  LePage tilted his head, contemplating the poster. “Maybe she isn’t a good kid. Maybe she’s just one of those ones who looks clean on the outside, but is rotten to the core once you crack the surface.” He tapped his fingers on the desk, picked up one of Johnson’s paperweights, and fiddled with it. Wei wanted to slap his nervousness out of him. “She’s got a record, you know. Sold drugs at a hig
h school.”

  Of course LePage had thought to look her up. Wei closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see that girl’s face anymore. “Did Johnson choose to prosecute?”

  “She got off. Devon Austin Jackson got served, though. He defended her friend. Think after the Mock debacle, Johnson was itching to destroy someone’s reputation to make herself feel better about how her own was beyond jacked.”

  Ah, Wei thought darkly. There’s the Linda Johnson I know. Johnson was vindictive to the core. Wei should have guessed that there was some past involvement between the two of them; otherwise it was just a poor political move. Johnson did not like to lose. Her failure to convict Charles Mock—a defeat so improbable there had to have been external help (or at least jury tampering)—was the reason they were both here after all.

  LePage leaned back in his chair, looking just a little smug and just a little smarmy. Wei wanted to scoot away from him. The clock on the wall ticked loudly. “Heard you’ve been running back to London whenever your masters allow you to come and go.”

  “Did you?” Wei kept her tone mild, wishing Johnson would hurry up. “What makes you think I have any business in London?”

  “Oh, a little bird may have mentioned that you’re still seeing her.”

  Wei’s eyes narrowed. “Does this bird have a name?”

  “It’s slipped my mind,” LePage answered airily.

  The door banged open. Johnson returned, dumping a stack of folders on her desk. Wei shifted back to avoid one that fell off the front end of the desk. LePage reached out and caught it, setting it back on the top of the tilting stack.

  “Who would like to explain to me why Charlie Mock’s book is not currently in my hand?” Johnson stood behind her desk, leaning on the stack of folders. The light from the window cast her face in harsh shadows, sinking into her wrinkles and making her look skeletal. “I completed all that paperwork to have you on permanent loan, Agent Topeté, for what? You had the inside track to where that book would end up, and it’s not in London where you said it would be.”