The restaurant was packed with the morning rush, and there were some people orbiting the hostess station, which was probably why Brad kept bothering them about ordering. The place had an interesting mix for a Denny’s. El Segundo had a blend of high-end technology companies, aircraft manufacturers and government contractors, think tanks, and blue-collar workers. It was also just down the street from a small Air Force base, which apparently didn’t have any airplanes. A steady crush of traffic rolled down El Segundo Boulevard in both directions.
There was a lot of ambient noise, and the conversations happening on either side of their booth were fairly loud, but when Jack spoke he kept his voice low. “Rusty, this isn’t something you have to do. If you don’t feel one hundred percent, Enzo and I can manage the job today.”
Doing this with a crew of three was already stretching it to the limit of what Jack thought was feasible, let alone wise. Jack needed Rusty to make the con work. It was probably thanks to TV, but when people saw federal agents they expected to see them in pairs. Seeing a solo agent might just make someone subconsciously pause long enough to ask the question, Is this real? Still, it was better to go a man down than roll with someone who wasn’t fully prepared, who was not solely focused.
“I’m good,” Rusty said quietly. “This is just new.”
There was a psychology at play that, in other circumstances, Jack might have found interesting to explore. Rusty spent the last fifteen years or so acquiring stolen vehicles and guns, forging passports, laundering money, and arranging transport for the people who did what he was going to do today. It wasn’t breaking the law, Rusty did that by waking up in the morning, it was the way he’d be doing it today that was different for him.
“My first time on a crew, I mean inside, not driving, I screwed up really bad. Place was downtown, maybe a block from WorldSecure. Was an armored car depot at the time. We had a guy on the inside, he’s the one who brought the job to Reginald. Safety inspector, found out he was going to get canned, so he decided to take out a new pension plan. Anyway, we go in on a Friday night. They’re about to start loading up all the ATM cash for the weekend. Subdue the guards. There was one guy on shift who wasn’t supposed to be there, regular guy called in sick. We think he was in on it and chickened out at the last minute. The guard who replaced him was, of all things, a Marine from Desert Storm and an MP.”
Rusty issued out a short laugh.
“We got him down, though, bound his legs and wrists with duct tape. Reginald told me to get his weapon, so I did. Grabbed his pistol and put it in the bag. What I didn’t do was check him, which is what Reginald meant. Turned out he had an ankle piece, little snub nose. The guard pretended to be unconscious, and because I didn’t think to bind his hands behind his back, when we weren’t looking, he was able to grab his ankle piece.” Jack paused to take a drink of the burnt, bitter coffee. He was convinced that Brad was holding this one special for the assholes of the world who didn’t order a greasy plate of whatever and a side of pancakes.
“Shot one of our guys in the back of the head. Everything kind of fell apart after that. It wasn’t just that. We’d taken longer in the vault than we’d planned. Once they heard the shot, the other guards were coming to, made an effort to rally. Reginald took a round. I made it out okay, helped him get to the van. Inside guy, the one who planned it, took off with his money.” Jack shook his head. “He didn’t even stick around to make sure anyone else got out of there. He was arrested about two weeks later. Anyway, Reginald and me and a third guy, Lenkowitz was his name, made it to the van. Guard shot Lenk in the head.” Jack looked out at the cars slowly creeping by on El Segundo Boulevard. “Got him right through the van’s back window. One-in-a-million shot. Reginald and I got away, took the van to a chop shop I knew in Long Beach that would dispose of the van and whatever was in it, no questions asked.” Jack brought his eyes back to the table, to Rusty. “The reason I’m telling you this is that one small mistake on a job can send things out of control really fast. When a job goes south, it tends to do so like a car crash at high speed. There comes a point when you lose control and you cannot get it back. After that, it’s up to forces that you do not control.”
“Gravity and inertia?” Rusty asked. His voice wobbled on the line between sarcasm and flat bitterness. Maybe he didn’t appreciate the lesson for what it was, a way out.
“We have a good plan, at least as good of a plan as we’re able to put together given the situation we’re in. If we’re going to pull this off, we’ve got to be able to call audibles in the moment and go with it, do so as though that were ‘the plan.’”
“Jack, I got it.”
“All I’m saying is that if you’re not one hundred percent sure, you can walk. I would rather you do that than you live with knowing you got a man killed.”
An expression passed over Rusty’s face, as fleeting as clouds moving quickly across the sky, but it was there. Concern, consternation, pain? It was hard to read exactly what it was, but the evidence of emotion was there. There was something buried deep, and it was clearly troubling him. Rusty refocused himself, narrowed his eyes once, and took a drink of his coffee. When the mug touched down on the table, his face was blank. “Jack, I used to run counterintel operations against the successor to the KGB. I can handle a couple rent-a-cops in a van.”
Jack thought about calling the job right there, because Rusty wasn’t ready.
Jack knew from his own experience that he’d once made the mistake of believing that because he was an expert at one kind of hard thing, he could do all hard things. It turned out that just because he was one of the world’s most skilled jewelry thieves, he didn’t know shit about running a business and damn near ran Kingfisher into the ground. He would have if it weren’t for a hard intervention by Megan and Hugh Coughlin.
Rusty was making the same mistake that Jack had.
There was a certain element to most of the heists Jack pulled that required some sort of con. Perhaps it was the setup, maybe it was the recon, maybe it was the getaway, there was typically an element of deception. Not since the Carlton job had he relied so heavily on a con, and even that one ultimately amounted to a hundred-and-forty-five-million-dollar stickup. Jack knew Rusty’s mindset. From what little Rusty told him, counterintelligence was a lot like running a long con. But this was different in ways that the ex-FBI man didn’t yet appreciate or even know about. That was dangerous ignorance.
Jack could walk away now. He’d sunk everything he had into the winery and there was very little left for a safety net. Still, he was in the clear now. Apart from driving a stolen car and passing himself off as a customs agent, Jack hadn’t done anything yet that he couldn’t back out of. Losing this money would definitely hurt, and there was no guarantee that his winery would survive. It was a hard business, but he was free and clear as far as the law was concerned. Before he’d run into Nico and Constantino Fiore in Reginald’s apartment, Jack’s partners convinced him to walk away for all of those reasons. He stayed because he believed that win or lose, this wasn’t over until all his enemies were dead.
But what if he called Danzig right now?
He could give her Reginald, Vito, and Bartolo. That would knot up Cannizzaro too. She’d also be able to claim credit for solving a nearly twenty-year-old unsolved crime, the Antwerp Diamond Centre heist. A job that…
A crime that she’d already technically closed.
When they’d stolen the diamonds out of Cannizzaro’s bank, they left about twenty million worth behind, because that’s what Bartolo claimed he’d stolen while he was in prison in an attempt to disguise the actual amount. Jack had told her that’s what the Pink Panthers were after when they tried to force him to break into that bank. Danzig and the FBI got credit for closing that one, and to the world’s eyes, it was solved.
Vito and Bartolo could both positively identify Jack as being here in Los Angeles, as being involved. Bartolo could confirm Jack committed a B&E (which he’d forgotten about in t
he list of minor crimes committed so far).
That old Turin toast rang in his ears.
When all my enemies are dead.
Jack’s phone buzzed. It was Enzo.
Rusty was not ready for this. Rusty also wouldn’t give up. Thanks to his partnership with Jack, the FBI was actively hunting for him, as was the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service for his passport forgery. Jack had a sense that the Russian government might be as well. Rusty needed this money to disappear for good. Something he wouldn’t have needed to have done but for his association with Gentleman Jack Burdette.
Jack could walk away, but he couldn’t do it clean.
He picked up the phone.
“They’re moving,” Enzo said.
Jack looked at his watch. It was 10:37.
Jack put a five on the table and stood. “It’s go time,” he said. Whatever Rusty did now was on him.
Jack walked out to the sidewalk, pulled the squared-off aviators from his inside pocket, and put them on. Rusty fell in step beside him. The parking lot was on the far side of the restaurant. The sky remained overcast, and it kept the heat lower than the previous few days, which would make it easier to sit in a car for a while. But the air was still thick with the smell of smoke, a very visceral reminder that he had problems ahead of him that diamonds couldn’t solve. Not to mention real people who needed him more than a pair of thieves did.
They drove the last mile in silence.
Jack parked the X6 in a spot that was in a row of spaces in front of the third building, facing the traffic circle and the other two. From here, they would be able to see the armored car entering the complex and follow its path down the palm-lined road all the way to its ultimate destination. It was a short walk from the parking spot to the rear of the center building, if Jack needed to execute the backup plan.
Jack dialed Enzo, asking for an update.
“Reginald has been with the armored car ever since they left WorldSecure,” Enzo said.
“Thanks,” Jack said and closed the phone. He looked over at Rusty. “On to Plan B.”
It was an obvious point, but Reginald would feel a whole lot better when he had seventy million in his bank account.
Lucio drove, following the WorldSecure car. Tommaso was in the front seat next to him. They both wore black suits, white shirts, sunglasses, and had earpieces in their left ears. They weren’t attached to any radios, but an observer wouldn’t know that. Both were armed and knew to identify themselves as private security contractors who’d followed the diamonds here from Italy, should anyone ask. Reginald had called Carter LeMothe when they’d left WorldSecure and given him their ETA according to the navigation system. The idiot actually said, “Roger that” like he was in the fucking army.
Reginald sat in the Range Rover’s expansive back and tried to relax with his coffee. Lucio was a pretty good driver, as it turned out. Reginald had only been nervous about him doing it because he wouldn’t know the signage, and God knows most Americans couldn’t decipher the parking/no-parking calculus on most city streets. “I’d like to get there a little ahead of the armored car,” Reginald said, leaning forward in his seat.
He saw Lucio’s eyes flick from the road ahead to him in the rearview. “You want me to pass them?”
“Yeah,” Reginald said.
Vito looked over, a questioning expression on his face.
“Optics,” was all Reginald said.
The Range Rover accelerated past the armored car. Reginald called WorldSecure’s dispatch to tell them he planned to arrive just a little ahead of the car. They confirmed the change in plan.
Reginald and Vito planned to split up as soon as the money was divided. Reginald and Vito agreed that whatever they were going to cut Lucio and Tommaso, they’d do jointly. Reginald wanted to get away for a bit, let things cool down around here, but also to just have a goddamn break. He wasn’t sure exactly what he could get away with if his parole officer was going to be a prick about it, but maybe Miami or the Virgin Islands. One of the first things he was going to do with that money was hire a better lawyer. Reginald had been thinking about leaving California anyway, but had made his mind up in the last few days. Traffic had somehow gotten worse while he was in prison, and he just didn’t want to deal with it. That, and he just couldn’t recognize the place anymore. Or maybe it was that everything was too familiar. Every time they’d gone to WorldSecure, he was reminded of that armored car depot job he and Jack did in ’95. You always puckered a little walking past a place you hit once. Twenty-five years later and there, on the street, was the one person in this whole world who got a clean look at you that night and somehow they knew it was you. Because that’s how this fucked-up world worked.
And Reginald had a dozen places like that throughout LA.
So, yeah, it was time to leave.
He couldn’t leave the country, not legally at least, ever again. He’d been convicted of passport forgery, and now he didn’t have the network to have a new one made. Reginald also wasn’t willing to take that risk. This morning, as he was finishing his breakfast there on that porch in Westlake, Reginald realized that he was done taking risks at all. He was going to make this last sale, he’d leave Los Angeles and not look back. His attorney could deal with the goddamn parole officer.
What about Jack, though?
Revenge wasn’t a time machine. He’d never get back those years he spent in prison on Jack’s account. But if Burdette was willing to let it go, then maybe Reginald was too. Which is to say, if Jack decided not to be an asshole, take his loss, and go live his life, Reginald wouldn’t press. He’d just disappear like he wanted to. If Jack couldn’t do that, well, Reginald would have the kind of money that he could hire the kind of people to make that problem go away quietly and forever.
They left the 105 by way of a serpentine off-ramp that reminded him of a child’s maze and onto La Cienega. Lucio was turning right into the complex when he jammed on the brakes suddenly, throwing everyone forward.
“What the hell?” Reginald belted out.
“This fucking guy!” Lucio shouted, holding up his right hand. A car whipped around them at the light, cutting them and several others off, in order to make the light first. The car was a silver blur. By the time Reginald twisted his head around to follow the car’s path, it was already down the long, palm-lined entry road and pulling into the traffic circle that was their destination. Reginald had a good idea who that was.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Let’s just get there.”
Lucio cursed again, this time in Italian. Reginald didn’t know what he said but recognized the word for “mother.” They completed their turn and drove down that long, landscaped entry road. Reginald could see the 105 above and behind the cluster of buildings they were driving toward and above that, a plane on final approach to LAX.
Reginald opened his phone and pulled up the app WorldSecure had given him. The armored car was about three minutes behind them. Lucio pulled up to the traffic circle and stopped before the middle building, behind the silver Aston Martin that cut them off at the light. Carter LeMothe was getting out of the car. He was dressed in an azure blue jacket, white shirt, gray tie, and light gray pants.
“You can pull into that spot there,” Reginald said, pointing at an open space in front of the building, just offset from the traffic circle.
They all got out when Lucio parked and walked over to where Carter was standing. Lucio and Tommaso made a show of buttoning their jackets in an official-looking way and taking up position around their “principals.” Lucio touched his earpiece and softly said that they were moving.
Reginald silently admonished him not to overdo it, but this was probably a lot of fun for those two, pretending they were high-end bodyguards.
“Are we ready?” Carter LeMothe said, his voice a little too fast. “Let’s do this!” He went to shake everyone’s hand, shooting the cuffs so they could see how big his watch was. “Guess you can’t shake hands,
” he said to Lucio and Tommaso, who thankfully just ignored him. Carter was speaking in an excited tone, everything a declaration. Reginald had done his share of coke in the eighties, and this felt a lot like that.
“How about we get this underway,” Reginald said.
“Looking good, Mr. De Angeles,” Carter said. “De Angeles in Los Angeles. Ready to kill it!”
Reginald closed the distance between himself and Carter.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a low but hard tone. “Are you on something?”
“I’m fine,” Carter said, seemingly pulling himself out of orbit.
“Then get it to-fucking-gether,” Reginald said. Carter blinked a few times but said nothing else. Reginald asked Lucio and Tommaso to wait for the WorldSecure car and then join them inside. He didn’t think the guys at Pan Pacific would try anything, but there was nothing wrong in rolling heavy.
Carter LeMothe led Reginald and Vito inside the building. The lobby was stark white and chrome. Reginald looked over at Vito and smiled. “We’ve come a long way since Knightsbridge,” he said.
Vito smiled, uneasily at first. Reginald guessed that Vito was surprised that he would bring that up in mixed company, but Carter was probably so high he wouldn’t remember, anyway. Not that he’d know the reference.
The elevator arrived, and they rode it to the second floor. Carter stepped out first and immediately looked in both directions, trying to orient himself to the hallway. Reginald knew immediately that he’d never been here before. This guy might do million-dollar deals for breakfast, but he was still an amateur. By some miracle, “Cocaine” Carter LeMothe figured out the hallway’s numbering system and led them down the hallway and around a corner to a door with a gray plate displaying “208” in white letters. The door was the typical office-park solid wood, but it had a logo on it of a stack of bars over an outline of the Pacific Ocean with the words PAN PACIFIC METALLURGY AND MINERALS beneath it.
Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3) Page 23