Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3)

by Dale M. Nelson

  So, that left Rusty.

  Rusty’s deal, at least as far as he’d told Jack, was that he gave the FBI Gentleman Jack Burdette and the diamonds. That was probably icing, though. Rusty’s real value to them was whatever he knew about the operation that burned him as a counterintelligence officer. Rusty would still have to explain to his handlers why he didn’t have Burdette, and that’s where the problem lay. Rusty knew Jack’s alias and, though he’d never been there, knew the name and the location of the winery. Jack also had to assume that his FBI file had Katrina Danzig’s name all over it. That’s where everything would fall apart for him.

  If it wasn’t for goddamned Rusty, this would have been perfect.

  Jack was getting really tired of people double-crossing him.

  “The only option that I see is for us to sell these to Cannizzaro and at least get him off our backs. Since he already controls a bank, we don’t have the challenge of laundering it. We’ve got enough to run on that.”

  “Are you really going to do that?” Enzo asked sourly.

  “Everybody runs,” Jack said.

  They continued driving in silence.

  “We need to get new phones,” Jack said. “And get you transportation. Do you still have that credit card I got for you?” Jack had set Enzo up with his own shell corporation a while back so that he could transfer the proceeds from their heists. There was a corporate credit card attached to that account, which Enzo should be able to use to get himself home.

  “Olive Branch Global Services?” Enzo said, cracking a dry smile.

  “We need to split up. I’m going to drop you here. You need to fly out of the country as soon as you can, before Rusty has a chance to give these passport names over to the FBI and they can get them to Customs and Border Protection.”

  “You’re assuming he hasn’t done that already.”

  “No, I’m assuming that the US government is a big, inefficient bureaucracy and that they just can’t move that fast. You get out now. We can get new phones here in Bakersfield.” Jack gestured at the low, dust-filled skyline ahead of them. “You can rent a car and drive to Las Vegas. It’ll be really easy to get a flight out from there. You’ll take half the diamonds with you.”

  “Hey.” Enzo put both of his hands up. “I don’t want to be caught with that shit,” he said, and it was clear that his mouth was talking before his brain thought it through.

  “Enzo, you’re probably the only person on Earth that I trust anymore, but that only goes so far. I’m not taking any chances, and neither should you. We split the take here. At least this way, if something happens to one of us, the other one isn’t out too.”

  “You better not be using me to test that passport theory of yours.”

  He said it in a way that Jack couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  Bakersfield was a long, low, dirty break on the horizon and didn’t improve much as they neared it. They each bought a disposable phone and agreed to get new smartphones so they could communicate via a secure app. Jack said he’d find a new one to use since the FBI would know about the one they had been using. He knew that these apps had been built by people obsessed with privacy with the intent of having a form of communication that the government couldn’t listen in on, but Jack was also not putting it to chance. Jack dropped him at a car rental place downtown. Enzo took his camera case with half of the diamonds hidden in it.

  “This place has one of the highest crime rates in the country,” Jack said. “Most of that is petty theft and property crime. I wouldn’t hang around here too long.”

  “As soon as I have the car,” Enzo said.

  Jack said his goodbyes and told Enzo he’d be in touch with their next move. Enzo’s assignment was to get Don Salvatore Cannizzaro’s direct phone number however he could.

  Jack hoped they’d both last long enough to make that phone call.

  Jack had to backtrack across some desolate state roads to get back to Interstate 5, cutting across blasted farmland. By the time he’d made it to the Bay Area, they were already in the crippling height of San Francisco traffic. Even cutting across back roads, it was close to nine when Jack arrived in Sonoma. He dropped the car at the airport and took a cab to his house. Jack lived on a ridge with a west-facing view of the valley. He’d smelled the fire when he got to the airport, but it was so much more pronounced in the hills. Jack let himself into his house, locking the door behind him and walking straight through to the patio that faced the valley. Even in the dark, he could see that the air was thick with smoke, and Jack could see the glow of fire on the left ridge line as it slowly shifted between red, orange, and yellow.

  Sleep didn’t come easily that night.

  Everything smelled like ashes.

  Jack was the first to arrive at Kingfisher the next day. He’d called Megan in the morning to let her know he was back. She seemed upset that he didn’t call when he’d gotten in, but Jack deflected, saying it was later than he thought. He couldn’t face her and say that he’d come so far, only to have it all fall apart. Now, as he walked the grounds with his coffee, he felt like this would fall apart too. He’d slept poorly. It seemed that every time he closed his eyes, Jack sensed someone creeping up on him. He spent most of the night on the verge of sleep.

  He gave up on rest early and started checking reports from CalFire.

  Kingfisher was located at the northern end of Sonoma County, near the city of Healdsburg, which had been devastated two years before in the region’s most destructive fire to date. Today, there was a large blaze between Chalk Hill Road and the Russian River, which at least was serving as a natural barrier. Jack could see that one burning when he looked west from his property, across CA 128. But a lightning strike had ignited a patch of dry underbrush in the mountains behind the winery, not far from Robert Lewis Stevenson State Park. Even in daylight, Jack could see the flames. There was black haze over the ridge lines in front of and behind the winery, and the sky looked like a yellow bruise.

  Jack asked Megan to have the staff there by nine that morning, if they could. Megan was there about a half hour before the rest of the team. Jack found her waiting in the parking lot, leaning against her white Wrangler. She was in faded blue jeans and a light blue Kingfisher T-shirt, her auburn hair tied in a ponytail. She had a line of freckles across the tops of her cheeks, which bloomed like wildflowers whenever she was in the sun for long. Megan turned her head as Jack approached, and he could tell that she’d been crying.

  The guilt he felt at that moment could not easily be put into words.

  They needed him, she needed him, and Jack was nowhere to be found. Instead, he was pursuing a selfish fortune in stolen goods. He’d done it as much because Vito double-crossed them and Jack wanted revenge as because Jack wanted to show Niccoló Bartolo that he was the best. And he’d done it, just to find that his one and only choice now was to take those diamonds and run.

  Special Agent Danzig had bailed him out once, but she’d been very clear that was a onetime deal.

  The federal judge had said much the same.

  Jack could turn himself and the diamonds in now, half of them, anyway, and could perhaps get some leniency, but that would be it.

  He walked forward and took Megan in his arms. Jack held her for a long time, and he lied when he said everything was going to be all right.

  Most of the staff arrived at nine. A few people lived in areas that were under evacuation and hadn’t shown. They had about thirty or so here. Jack surveyed the faces. Some were scared and some were angry and had every right to be both. They met on the patio, because that was the only place where they could seat everyone. Megan had brought a couple of large to-go carafes from a local coffee shop and some pastries. People drank, but no one was terribly hungry and the food went mostly ignored. Jack held a coffee in two hands and searched for words. The air smelled very much of smoke.

  “I spent most of the morning looking at the latest CalFire reports and with county emergency services. So far, we
are not under an evacuation order. That said, we can’t predict which way the fires will go. For those of you that were here last time, fires made it onto the property.” Jack shifted his coffee to his right hand and motioned with his left to the east. “These are a little farther out, yet, but anything can happen. Megan and I discussed it and agree that for the time being, we should stay open.” There were a few murmurs in the crowd. “I want to give everyone the opportunity to work as long as they feel comfortable and safe, plus the county is going to need the additional revenue. Of course, if you are under a voluntary evacuation, you should feel free to go. I’ve also offered to help out any of the local wineries that have had to shut down already. If any of their people are looking for work, we can float them here as long as we stay open. That’s what I know right now. What questions can I answer?”

  “Where were you?” Corky said, and there was an angry note to his voice. “We needed you here, man.”

  A couple of people around the hospitality manager tried to hush him, but a few others nodded agreement.

  Over the years, Jack had to find creative ways of covering for his trips overseas. For a long time, he’d been able to invent international wine conferences or meetings with other winemakers. As an up-and-coming winemaker and someone new to the trade, that wasn’t a hard notion to sell. Then someone embezzled ten million from them and within a few months, an FBI agent fatally shot a Serbian criminal in their tasting room. Jack spun it all as an elaborate blackmail scheme, someone trying to take advantage of a businessman they thought was an easy target. It worked, but he knew there were doubts. The old where-there’s-smoke logic. Jack winced at the thought and cursed himself for the analogy. His records with the FBI were sealed, that was one condition for his cooperation that his attorney had been able to secure. The idea being that if any of the international criminal networks he’d dealt with as a thief found out he’d ratted on them to the US government, Jack probably wouldn’t last long. So, apart from Megan, his life as Gentleman Jack Burdette was a secret from his employees. Still, he knew that people here wondered where he was when something important was going on. Like, why he would leave for a few days right after they’d finished harvest and were starting the grape crush—and then wildfires.

  Because I had to steal back a fortune in diamonds that I’d already stolen once before.

  I won, only to lose everything else.

  “Hey, he’s right. It’s a fair question,” Jack said. “I had personal business, and I’m sorry.” He wasn’t going to lie, not to them. But he couldn’t exactly tell them the truth. This was the only family Jack would likely ever have, and he honestly wondered if this was the last time that he was going to see them. He could also see in their faces that his one statement of dismissal wasn’t going to mollify all of them. Corky had been with him almost since they opened, and if he was angry enough to say something, what could the others feel? But there was nothing else that he could tell them about where he was or what he’d been doing.

  “Frank takes care of us,” said a loud voice in the back. Lincoln. “He always has.” Lincoln, whose title was vineyard manager, was in charge of keeping the grapes alive and, during harvest, managing the teams of seasonal pickers they used. Lincoln was the son of migrant workers and grew up mostly in California’s agricultural central basin, the blasted near–dust bowl Jack had driven through the day before. Lincoln, who’d also been with Jack for close to ten years, was a good friend. Jack would go to his kid’s little league games, though that was a long time ago. Kid was in college now. Later, he’d had his friend and attorney, Hugh Coughlin, help Lincoln’s parents get their citizenship. “Whatever he has to do is his business.” Jack could see the warmth and admiration in Lincoln’s eyes. “Besides,” Lincoln said, those same eyes lighting up with mischief. “Ms. Megan was here, and she’s the boss anyway.” There were some much needed ripples of laughter at that.

  “He’s not wrong,” Jack said and looked over at her. The tone started to change. They spent another half an hour or so taking questions, and it was mostly about the logistics of whether the winery would close and what that meant. A newer employee, one who hadn’t been through this before, asked if they would still get paid, and Jack reassured them that they would. “If we shut down because of the fire, everyone, everyone, will continue to get paid as though we were open. We’ll keep that up as long as we can. We will supplement whatever you’re getting from unemployment, so it’s like you came to work.” He paused another moment to let that sink in. “Corky, how are we doing on the weather?” Corky had come to him not long after Kingfisher opened, looking for something to do. He’d just retired from the Air Force as a weather officer and wanted something fun to fill the hours that had nothing to do with fighter pilots or Afghanistan. But with Corky’s twenty-five or so years as a meteorologist, Jack tapped his experience every year starting in the late summer to help predict when they should start to harvest. Winemaking was a gamble every year. You wanted to push the harvest as late into September as you could to maximize the ripening, but there was always a danger that the autumn rains would catch you off guard. Anything left on the vine at that point was lost. Since he had a meteorologist on staff, Jack made good use of the expertise, and Corky was happy to help. He remained fascinated by the science of that job and was eager to apply that knowledge in a different environment.

  “I think any day now,” he said, somewhat sheepish after his outburst at the start of the meeting. “Obviously, we’re really late for the year already, but there have been some isolated showers in the mountains.” When most of the state was on fire, there was only so much humans could do to impact it. California’s firefighters and those who traveled here from other states or even countries to battle the blazes risked everything to contain them and prevent loss of life, but so often it came down to when would the rains start?

  Corky spent a few minutes giving an impromptu lecture on the meteorological mechanics of climate change’s impact on the delayed start of the rainy season. It was over the heads of most of the people in attendance, but Jack felt it was important. And that’s just what Corky did.

  “Thanks, Cork.”

  Jack ended the meeting but reiterated to everyone that he would only keep the winery open as long as he felt it was safe. If anyone had to or wanted to evacuate, they should do it, and their job would be here when they got back.

  As long as we are, Jack thought.

  Jack realized that it was a Saturday about halfway through the day and was surprised to see as many people visit the winery as they had. It was still about half of what they would usually see on a weekend this time of year. Jack spent most of his day in the barn and the other two outbuildings, near the fermentation tank, the soon-to-be-filled holding tanks—where their wines were aged—and among the barrels that held the vintages from the two years before. This was Jack’s legacy. It was the one good thing he’d done in this world. Now, he stood to lose it for reasons that were arbitrary and capricious, completely outside of his control. Jack, who had benefitted from enough luck to last three lifetimes, would never make an argument about whether this was “fair” or not, but it sure as hell seemed “wrong.” He’d stand out here with a garden hose and keep the fires back himself if he had to.

  Jack and Megan closed up so that people could get back to their homes and families.

  “Follow you home?” she asked when it was all done. “I’ll cook.”

  Jack put his arm around her. “Let’s just order in. It’s been a long day.”

  “Nothing hot has made it to the top of that damned mountain,” she quipped. Jack relented, as he always did. They stopped by the market on the way home and picked up supplies for dinner. There was a lot of winery business they had to go over, but Jack hoped that could wait until tomorrow.

  When he’d started Kingfisher, Jack established it as a corporation rather than it being listed in his name. The original purpose was to put as much legal distance between Kingfisher and Jack Burdette. His Fran
k Fischer identity was as good as they come, but it was still a fake, and though it would easily pass a state or a bank background check, if the federal government looked too deeply, they’d be able to figure out that the social security number had originally been assigned to a child who died in 1973. As the years went on and Jack became more attached to Kingfisher and the people who worked here, that corporation became a way of leaving something he loved to the people who mattered to him, should something bad happen. Hugh helped him set it up. Megan would get control of the corporation, and all of the employees would become partial owners. Obviously, that fell apart if there was ever a connection made between Frank Fischer and Jack Burdette and the money laundering he did, but if that happened, there wasn’t much Jack could do but run.

  Jack parked in the driveway and Megan parked on the street. He drove an Audi S6 most days but had a mid-90s Land Rover Defender, which he parked next to, that he was steadily restoring for the times when he needed to haul more than the Audi allowed. Jack’s house was on a tight cul-de-sac, with each house getting a commanding view of the valley below. The logistics of it could be a pain, but Jack had never found a better spot on earth to watch the sunset. They made small talk as they approached the house. Megan had a bottle of a reserve Cab that a friend of hers just released, called “Implausible Deniability.” The day she’d gotten that bottle, a week or so ago, Megan and Jack argued for a solid half hour on whether that label made any sense. Though they named their signature wines, they were all named for predatory birds, keeping with the “Kingfisher” theme. Jack wasn’t sold on the increasing trend over the last ten years or so of coming up with clever names for releases. Beers did that. Jack always believed that the wine was its own marketing.