by Rob Byrnes
Chase got out of the car, not bothering to lock it for any number of reasons, starting with the fact that it’d probably be disassembled by the end of the day. As he closed the door he heard Grant say, “C’mon, Chops, this is bullshit.”
“Sorry, Lambert,” said Chops. “But I only need one Lexus, and Farraday got here first.”
Chase looked across the parking lot littered with cars and pieces thereof, spotted the considerable bulk of Paul Farraday scowling on the periphery, and figured out the situation pretty quickly.
“So what do I do with this?” Grant asked, gesturing toward the dark green Lexus.
Chops nodded a silent hello to Chase before returning his attention to Chase’s partner. “Take it back where you stole it, I guess.”
“How ’bout,” said Grant, “I come back tonight after you’ve closed and park it at your curb. I know this is New York, so the cops wouldn’t usually notice for a while, but maybe they get a call. So they come to investigate, and when they do, this Lexus…it’ll be sitting right in front of this chop shop. Kind of awkward, right?” He waited until Chops offered the tiniest frown on his weathered, seen-it-all face. “Now, are we gonna negotiate?”
Chops rubbed his eyes and thought for a moment. “Eight hundred.”
“Make it a grand, and figure it’s a bargain ’cause you’ll already have late-nineties Lexus parts on hand the next time someone needs late-nineties Lexus parts in a hurry.”
The older man rubbed his eyes again before looking into Grant’s own watery eyes. “Okay, a thousand. Just to get you out of here, Lambert.”
“Whatever it takes.”
But Charlie Chops wasn’t done. As he started peeling grimy fifties out of the wad he always kept in his front pocket—because this aspect of his business was conducted exclusively on a cash basis—he said, “You know, Lambert, it’s hard enough running a small business these days without dealing with unreasonable suppliers.”
Grant ran a hand through his bristling, rapidly graying hair. “C’mon, Chops, I ain’t unreasonable. I just want what’s mine.”
“One of these days, you and people like you are gonna put me out of business. And then where will you be? Oh, you can probably find another chop shop, but no one who’ll treat you like I do, Lambert.”
“And that will be a sad day in my life,” Grant said, taking the bills when Charlie Chops finally offered them up. “A very sad day.”
Chops looked at the blue Lexus delivered to him by Paul Farraday, then at the dark green Lexus deposited at the curb by Chase, and finally at the late-model Ford Taurus Grant had arrived in.
“This hot, too?” Chops asked, indicating the Taurus.
“What do you think?”
“It a local car?”
“Nah. We had to go to Philly for a job, so we grabbed a car in Manhattan last night. But we dumped it in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.”
“So this is from…Bala whatever?”
“No, we left the Bala Cynwyd car in Philly.” Chops began to speak, but Grant stopped him. “The Philly car, we left in New Hope…”
“New Hope?”
Grant shrugged. “Heard a lot about it. Always wanted to see it.”
Chops shook his head. “So this is the New Hope car?”
“No, this is the car we got from the Ikea parking lot in Elizabeth.”
Chops chuckled. “You sure get around, Grant Lambert.”
“I try,” said Grant, not smiling as he shoved the cash deep into his front pocket without counting it. He trusted no one except Chase—and sometimes he didn’t even trust Chase one hundred percent—but knew that Chops would be square with him. “You want the Taurus?”
Chops laughed. “I wouldn’t have minded adding those parts to my inventory, but…” His head took in the parking lot. “Got no room now. Gotta get both these Lexuses into the bays before they start attracting the wrong kind of attention.”
Grant took another look at the Taurus. “I’ve been driving it since Ikea, and I really don’t want to press my luck.”
Chops put a hand on his shoulder. “When you leave the parking lot, make a left and drive four blocks. Leave it outside that high school with the key in the ignition and I can guarantee you’ll never see that Taurus again.” He leaned a bit closer to make sure the conversation was just between the two of them. “Best watch your boyfriend, though. That hairstyle, well, he’s lookin’ sorta…” He wobbled his wrist. “You know I don’t care, Lambert, but I can’t say the same for everyone in this neighborhood.”
“He can take care of himself.” Grant made a half turn until he could see Chase. “Ready to hit the road?”
Chase was, and was about to say so when Farraday was suddenly standing between them. Chops backed away, disappearing into his garage.
“You guys got a minute?”
“Ordinarily,” said Grant, “I’d say ‘maybe.’ But I figure you just cost me a thou or so by beating me to Chops with your Lexus, so now I’m not so sure.”
“What, now you don’t believe in the free enterprise system?”
Grant shook his head. “I got you lecturing me on free enterprise, and Chops lecturing me on the problems of being a small businessman. Did I miss something and accidentally enroll in an economics course?” When Farraday didn’t answer—which he knew he wouldn’t—Grant crossed his arms and impatiently said, “Okay, you’ve got one minute. Make it good.”
Farraday straightened his frame. “I got a cousin who got himself into some trouble.”
“That’s what cousins do. Get in trouble. Cousins and brothers-in-law.”
“Believe me,” said Farraday, without a trace of a smile, “if this was my brother-in-law in trouble, I wouldn’t be coming to you—or anyone—for help.”
Grant figured that Farraday’s long-ago ugly divorce was still an open wound, so he stayed quiet and let him continue.
“Anyway, my cousin Leonard was working for this big church—one of them mega-churches, I think they’re called—and got fired because they thought he was gay.”
Grant raised an eyebrow. “And is he gay?”
“Well…yeah. That’s why I wanted to discuss it with you and Chase.”
Grant didn’t really like being the go-to guy whenever one of his acquaintances had a gay-related problem, and it came out in his voice.
“Sounds like he needs a lawyer. And we’re not lawyers, Farraday. Remember? We’re criminals. Which is not the same thing, at least mostly. So how could we help?”
“Grant,” Chase whispered in his partner’s ear, just loud enough for Farraday—but no one else—to hear. “He said his cousin got fired from a mega-church. Which means a big, big church, like the ones on Sunday-morning TV. A lot of those places have money.”
“Yeah,” Grant agreed. “But we’re not lawyers.”
“You’re not getting what I’m saying.”
Farraday stepped forward. “Chase is right, Lambert. This ain’t about the law. It’s about the money.”
Grant considered that. “I think I’m beginning to follow.”
“Figured you would eventually. Anyway, he’s talked to lawyers, and they can’t do a damn thing. Or maybe they don’t want to. So now Cousin Leonard wants to get back at the church, and since he can’t do it legally, he’s willing to do it illegally.”
“He knows how to get his hands on their money?” asked Chase.
“Some of it,” Farraday confirmed. “Enough to make this worth our while.”
“You’re sure?”
“He’s sure. Or at least he says he is. And he was the bookkeeper before they fired him, so I figure he knows what he’s talking about.”
Grant was silent for a few minutes while he pondered the situation. Finally he said, “Okay, Farraday, let’s talk.”
2
After Farraday’s divorce—the details of which were unknown to anyone but Farraday, not that anyone wanted to know the details because even the generalities were ugly—he’d been forced to abandon his modest apartm
ent for an even more modest furnished basement studio in a part of Brooklyn that would probably never gentrify. In short order, the man and the apartment had become a good fit, equally gloomy and rough around the edges.
It hadn’t always been that way. In the increasingly distant past, Paul Farraday had been a legend—and an anomaly—among New York City cab drivers: honest, courteous, and seemingly born with a sixth sense that guided him effortlessly through even the worst traffic tie-ups. But he’d also had a weakness for hard liquor, a problem that grew more severe in the wake of his divorce, and soon the time came to hand in the keys to his cab. It was that or quit the bottle…and Farraday was not a quitter.
But he still had to make a living, which was how, in time, he found himself doing odd jobs like boosting cars for Charlie Chops and occasionally working with people like Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca when they needed a wheel man. He liked the flexibility—he could pretty much set a work schedule around his handful of non-drinking hours in the day—and he also liked the fact that the income was entirely off the books. Meaning there was no way his bitch of an ex-wife could get her greedy claws on it.
That was why, a few days after encountering Grant at Charlie Chops’s garage, he was gruffly welcoming him at the door of the basement studio, blinking at the daylight in a way that made Grant think he hadn’t been aboveground for several days.
“Where’s Chase?” Farraday asked.
“At the Gross.”
Farraday shook his head. “I don’t know how he does that.”
The Gross was officially known as Groc-O-Rama, a small supermarket chain that earned its nickname honestly, but everyone—except Chase—just called it the Gross. Chase had worked as an assistant manager at The Gross in Elmhurst for the better part of two decades, which Grant figured meant he started about five years after the last time anyone bothered to clean the place, but when times were lean it was nice to have a regular paycheck coming in. And the Gross did have some sentimental significance. It was, after all, where Grant and Chase first met, on the night they both separately tried to break into the safe.
“Your cousin here?” asked Grant as he followed Farraday down the narrow, musty stairway.
“Yup.”
That cousin, Leonard Platt, was sitting on a threadbare couch in Farraday’s tiny apartment, distractedly bouncing one leg and playing with the knot in his tie. Grant wondered why he’d bothered wearing a tie at all, let alone on a hot day in an apartment without air-conditioning, but let it slide. It wasn’t the quirkiest thing he’d ever seen on this side of the law. Or on the other side, for that matter.
Farraday introduced Grant to Leonard and asked if anyone wanted a drink.
“It’s not even noon,” said Grant.
The ex-cabbie looked up from where he was pouring amber liquid into a rocks glass that—true to Farraday’s norm—contained no rocks. “What’s your point?”
“Okay, then give me a beer.”
Leonard Platt was, Grant noted, a nervous man, although that could have been due to his discomfort sitting in a room where every other person was a professional criminal. He sized him up: late thirties, thinning hair, pale, and looking like he wanted to change his mind and flee. The springs Grant could see poking just beneath the surface of the couch fabric probably didn’t do anything to improve his comfort level.
While Farraday poured, Grant got down to business. “So what’s this job you’re suggesting?”
Leonard seemed to jump a bit at Grant’s no-nonsense tone, but quickly settled back on the couch and cleared his throat. “Up until last week, I was the bookkeeper for the Virginia Cathedral of Love. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”
“Don’t be.”
Leonard laughed nervously, which annoyed Grant. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope.”
“It’s a huge church, about an hour west of Washington, and—”
“Which Washington?”
Leonard started at him. “Huh?”
“The state? Or DC?”
“DC, of course,” said Leonard. “If it was an hour west of Washington state, it’d…well, it’d be in the Pacific Ocean.”
“Could be on an island.”
“Well, I suppose, but…” Leonard paused, thought, and then said, “I mentioned this is the Virginia Cathedral of Love, right? Virginia? As in the state next to Washington, DC?”
“Just checking,” said Grant. “In this line of work, you can’t take things for granted.” He took a swig from the beer bottle. “Why don’t you continue with your story. Let’s not get bogged down with the details just yet.”
“Yes, but…” Confusion clouded Leonard’s face, but he managed to shake it away. “The Virginia Cathedral of Love is huge. There are almost twenty thousand members and the church holds twelve services each week. The Sunday service alone brings in an average of eight thousand worshippers. People have to park in a lot a mile away and get shuttled in.” He swallowed. “And I was the chief bookkeeper for seven years until, well…until they fired me.”
“Farraday told us they fired you because you’re gay,” said Grant. “That true?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately what? That you’re gay?”
“No. Unfortunately, I got caught. You see, one of the associate pastors was driving through DC a few weeks ago. Spotted me walking into one of the gay bars in the Dupont Circle area. The church launched an investigation and followed me for a few days, until they caught me doing it again. I was called into the chief operating officer’s office, and…that was it. Fired on the spot.”
“Hope you at least found what you were looking for at the bars,” said Grant, forcing a slight grin.
Leonard pursed his lips and held his silence.
“Let me ask you a question. Why us?”
“Because you and your partner are criminals. Gay criminals. Right?” He looked to Farraday for confirmation and received it in the form of a slight nod. “I figured as gay criminals, you’d want to help me get justice.”
“A lawyer can help you get justice. We’re not lawyers. We’re the other kind of crooks…the kind who aren’t especially interested in justice.”
“Forget lawyers,” said Leonard. “Half an hour after the Cathedral fired me, I was on the phone to a lawyer and spent the next few days talking to a dozen more. And not one was interested in the case.”
Grant shook his head. “You’d think a discrimination case would interest them.”
“We’re talking about Virginia,” said Leonard with a rueful laugh. “It’s not like the rest of the world. Also, we’re talking about the Virginia Cathedral of Love. They’re huge and have everyone running scared. I couldn’t even get the Gay Republican Club to support me.”
“There are gay Republicans?” asked Grant.
“Sure.”
“Huh. Guess I’m even less political than I thought I was.”
Leonard adjusted his tie. Again. “For what it’s worth, I’ve given up on the legal route. When I use the word ‘justice’…”
“You mean revenge.”
Leonard said, “Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Good. Revenge I understand. Justice…I’m not so crazy about justice. How much you figure they have in assets?”
“Billions,” said Leonard, his hands having moved from the knot in his tie to absentmindedly fiddle with the tip of his collar. “But forget their assets. It’s impossible to touch most of their money. Those bank accounts are iron-clad, and their books are clean enough to eat off. I should know, I kept them. However, I do know where they keep the petty cash.”
“Petty cash?” Grant was unhappy.
“Petty cash.”
Upon confirmation that he’d heard what he’d heard, Grant was beyond unhappy. This was shaping up to be a waste of time; time that could have been better spent swiping laptops from coffeehouses. “I haven’t been desperate enough to steal petty cash in twenty years or so, and I’m not gonna start again now.”
“Cash is very good. Petty cash is not good. Petty cash is…petty.”
“How does petty cash to the tune of seven million dollars sound?”
Grant didn’t think he heard him correctly, which he made clear to Leonard. So Leonard repeated himself.
“Seven million—give or take—is sitting in a safe in the Cathedral.”
“Seven million? In cash?”
“Seven million. In cash.”
“Dollars?”
“Dollars.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Grant thought about that for a moment. “So let me ask you a couple of questions, like…how do you know about this cash?”
“Remember, I was their bookkeeper for seven years. I know a lot of things they’d prefer I didn’t know.” He began playing with his shirt cuff. “In this case, I know that almost every piece of United States currency that’s donated to the Cathedral goes straight into that safe and never appears on the books. And let me tell you, a lot of true believers walk in with their fists full of cash, just begging for the church to take it from them.”
Grant wasn’t sure he was buying it. “Here’s another question: If you were the bookkeeper, but the cash wasn’t on the books, how do you know how much cash is in the safe?”
Leonard leaned forward. “I always knew there was cash in the safe, but I had no idea how much. I figured maybe twenty thousand dollars or so. Then one day a few months ago I happened to overhear Hurley and Merribaugh…”
“Who?”
“Dr. Oscar Hurley and his chief operating officer, the Reverend Mr. Dennis Merribaugh. Hurley founded the Cathedral, and Merribaugh came along a few years later and together they started the Moral Families Coalition. Anyway, I heard them talking, and that’s how I got the seven-million-dollar figure. It’s their number, not mine.”