Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3)

by Dale M. Nelson

  The cop still hadn’t moved.

  Maybe it was instinct, but he didn’t want to touch his car until she moved. He was in the country illegally and, just two years ago, subject of an INTERPOL Red Notice. While it seemed unlikely, there was always the chance that a police officer would recognize him. It went up markedly for a detective. On the French Riviera, where Gentleman Jack Burdette was known to haunt…

  Well, since he had time to kill, Jack decided he needed to work on his alibi.

  And settle some old business.

  He pulled the Jack Burdette phone out of his pocket and dialed Danzig’s number.

  Then he watched the woman across the street, the Monaco cop, pick up her phone.

  41

  “What do you want, Burdette? Now isn’t the best time.”

  “Well, I have information that I thought you might want.”

  “What I wanted from you was diamonds, Jack.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I didn’t think I could locate them, steal them, and fly to Europe without every cop between here and there busting me in a flat second.”

  “We could’ve worked that latter part out,” Danzig said flatly. She wasn’t in the mood for this. Danzig turned away from the Porsche and moved toward the steps. “What do you want?”

  “I know who made the handoff in Monaco.”

  Danzig stopped. “Wait, how do you know?”

  There’s an instinct you develop as an investigator, sixth sense, intuition, call it whatever you like, but there is a sense you get, a feeling when something seems out of place. It’s the thing that you can’t put a finger on but you know is wrong, makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, your skin tingle.

  “Because he called me to gloat.”

  “Who?” He was drawing it out now, and that was starting to annoy her.

  “Niccoló Bartolo.”

  “Bartolo called you? To gloat.”

  “He wanted me to know that he’d won in the end. He stole the diamonds the first time and now he just stole them back.”

  “How’d he get your phone number?”

  “Come on, Danzig. He broke into a vault, I think he can figure out number tracing. I’m not exactly out of sight these days.”

  Danzig opened her mouth to speak but paused. Something about that phrase he used struck her as odd.

  Why would Burdette call her right now? Of all times.

  So, if Burdette said that Bartolo called him, then the deal must just have happened. That gunshot may well have been part of it. Maybe they decided to take out Sturdevant after all. Or maybe that theory about the diversion wasn’t as crazy as it sounded.

  But Danzig also couldn’t shake that feeling that something was off. She’d seen a guy loitering on the corner, looking at her. She hadn’t thought much of it. There were a lot of people on the street and all of them wondering what in the hell was going on.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you,” Jack said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Bartolo isn’t going back.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “His cousin sent him to Monaco to get the diamonds. Bartolo isn’t bringing them back. He said they’re his and this time they were staying that way.”

  “Did he say what he was going to do with them?”

  Burdette had the nerve to laugh into the phone. “No. He’d never tell me that, but if I had to guess, he was going home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Turin. Good luck. I hope you get him.”

  “Jack, wait—”

  But Burdette had hung up.

  Danzig still had that uneasy feeling. Something was wrong about this whole thing, but she couldn’t put a finger on it.

  She looked across the street to where she’d seen the man watching her.

  He was gone.

  42

  Jack left the car where it was, walked several blocks, and called for a taxi.

  Twenty minutes later, he was pulling up to the resort’s main building.

  Jack entered his room and opened a bottle of scotch from the minibar. He poured about four fingers’ worth into a glass and drank half of that in a gulp. Then he pulled his jacket off and removed the tie. The shirt was sweat stained, and his feet ached from the run in dress shoes. Jack pulled his laptop out of his bag and sat at the room’s small desk, then he activated the portable Wi-Fi puck and logged on to the Seychelles bank website. Jack used an application to randomize his computer’s MAC address, and while it wouldn’t make him completely undetectable, it would make him much harder to find, especially if he limited his usage.

  The Republic of the Seychelles is a small island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of East Africa. The island was batted like a tennis ball between competing interests of British and French imperialists until eventually becoming part of the British Empire in the eighteenth century, where they remained until declaring their independence in 1976. As an island nation with limited resources, as the country modernized they turned to international banking as a business. Ironically, though they ranked lowest among African nations on a “corruption index,” due to their encouragement of foreign investment, generous rate of return, and identity protection, the Seychelles has become a haven for anonymous banking. In fact, it was one of the chief locations outside of Panama and the Caribbean that was implicated in the infamous Panama Papers.

  While there would always be methods to move money below the watchful eyes of the world’s governments and most of them perfectly legal, it was becoming increasingly difficult to move money as fluidly as he had in the past. Switzerland had been closed off for years, thanks to America’s singular pursuit of terrorism and its funding schemes. After the disclosures of the Panama Papers, the US government, particularly the IRS, was again stepping up its efforts to close offshore tax shelters for its citizens.

  Jack had been banking in the Seychelles for years.

  Most of Jack’s assets were in Vanuatu, but he maintained accounts in numerous banks throughout the world. Given their history with European colonialism, the Seychelles was an easy place to transact business with European banks. For a time, they wouldn’t allow private citizens to open bank accounts, but for a corporation chartered there (and coming with cash) the rules were a little more malleable. So it was that the Indian Ocean Development Corporation opened an account with LCB Bank of Seychelles Limited and was able to accept a ten-million-dollar electronic transfer from the Commerce Bank of Rome.

  One of the reasons Jack used LCB Bank was their disregard of traditional banking hours for their high net worth accounts. As a self-proclaimed “global bank,” they operated around the clock. While Cannizzaro shouldn’t be able to pull the money back once it had been dispatched from the escrow account, Jack also wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He spoke with a man with a precise English accent named Victor, (who was probably more like Vikram and based in a Bangalore call center). Jack informed him of the situation, how his firm, the Indian Ocean Development Corporation, was entering into a joint venture with Amalgamated Services, LTD. Indian Ocean Development was partially funding this with an investment from a silent partner, and that was being transferred from Commerce Bank of Rome, hopefully now, and needed to be immediately transferred to ASC’s holding account in the Maldives. Victor/Vikram understood completely and was only too happy to oblige.

  Because the money was in escrow, the transfer was immediate, but Victor informed him that the Commerce Bank of Rome was attempting to pull the money back. Jack (speaking as Richard Hayes Montrose III) assured him that he had no idea what that was about but the purpose for using the escrow account was so the transaction could proceed unimpeded. Victor understood this completely as well and said it was more common than one thought. Board members disagreeing and such. Without an injunction, the transaction would proceed as planned. The money was already in Indian Ocean Development’s account and would be available for use in the morning. Victor was only too happy to process the transfer to
ASC’s account with Mauritius Maritime Bank (Maldives) Private Limited. Jack thanked him for his time and hung up.

  Jack then logged in to his account at Mauritius Maritime Back and set up a transfer for Enzo’s portion as soon as funds were available.

  Jack called Enzo. “Money will be in your account tomorrow. Cannizzaro fucked us. But five million each is better than dead.”

  After a short while, Enzo said, “I can live with that, but I don’t think he can.”

  “That’s not something we need to worry about,” Jack said. “Thanks for your help. I’ll see you around.”

  “I hope not,” Enzo said, and Jack could tell in his voice that he was smiling. Jack wasn’t sure when he’d see his friend again. This was probably the last time Jack would ever see Europe.

  Jack picked up the hotel phone and dialed the concierge. He said he was embarrassed to explain that he’d been forced to leave the car they’d hired for him parked, possibly (he gasped) unlawfully in front of an apartment building. There was, if they could believe it, a shooting, and the police had turned that location into quite a scene. The roads were cordoned off, so he wasn’t able to drive it out. Jack gave the concierge the address, who assured him the rental agency would pick it up right away. They were just glad he wasn’t hurt and assured him this sort of thing never happened here.

  Finally, Jack dialed Cannizzaro.

  “I made the exchange. Your man has the diamonds.”

  “And you have been paid,” Cannizzaro said in an irritated voice.

  “You gave me a down payment. You owe me twenty-five million dollars.”

  “You’ll get the rest once the diamonds are in my possession.”

  “That wasn’t what we discussed.”

  “But it’s what I decided.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t believe you. I just checked with the bank and they said you tried to reverse the transaction.”

  There was a pause. Jack drained the scotch and reached for the bottle, then he set it back down. If he had to drive tonight, he’d need his faculties.

  Cannizzaro still wasn’t speaking.

  “You had no intention of paying me, did you?”

  “Not much,” he said.

  “You may want to rethink that.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’m benevolent. For now. For example, the two thugs you sent after me will only require a hospital instead of a morgue. I’m in Europe now, and that’s not good news for you. If the rest of that money isn’t in my account in two days, I’m coming for you.”

  Cannizzaro laughed. “I don’t think so. You are only one man, and you have no leverage. I have the diamonds.”

  “Do you?” Jack said. “Think on that. You have two days to pay me what you owe me or I’m coming for you.”

  Jack hung up the phone and then he destroyed it.

  He broke it open so he could access the SIM chip, which he flushed down the toilet. He then removed the plastic trash bag from one of the small waste bins and put the rest of the phone in that, which he filled with just enough water to cover the phone. Jack tied the bag off and dropped it in the trash can. He took a nervous shower, every drop of water felt like it was falling on borrowed time.

  Jack didn’t want to stay in Monaco tonight, but there wasn’t anywhere else he could go. There would be no flights out or trains until morning.

  If Danzig bought his story, then there wouldn’t be police all over Nice airport and he could fly to Paris as scheduled. If not, there was either a train ticket or hiring another car and driving to Paris. He didn’t like either of those options because of the time, but they would have to do.

  Jack thought about checking out of his hotel now and heading to Nice. It was a thirty-minute drive, but being closer to the airport wasn’t the issue, it was about breaking links in the chain. Unfortunately, this was Europe, and the things you could do at midnight were limited. He was in a fifth-floor room, so leaving via the window wasn’t an option either. Much like the street he’d parked on, Jack was in a dead end. If they figured out he was here, there wasn’t much to do about it.

  He shut the lights off and checked messages. There were several voicemails and texts on his Jack Burdette phone. The one Jack listened to was from Megan, and it was three words:

  Jack, it rained.

  43

  Nico wasn’t coming back.

  It had been three days, and Cannizzaro had heard nothing from his cousin. The sale to Sokolov was supposed to have been yesterday. Cannizzaro delayed that as long as he’d been able but he’d run out of excuses.

  He’d put Fabrizio in charge. Make sure Nico gets where he’s supposed to be and watch him. Then, as soon as the sale is done, fucking shoot that American bastard in the head for my troubles. Don Cannizzaro had been very specific on that point. But all Cannizzaro heard back were excuses. Sturdevant picked some old castle for the exchange, a place where he could see them coming. It made it hard to plan an ambush. They’d tried to take him on the road, but apparently he’d outdriven them. More fucking excuses. Then Fabrizio let one of his men get arrested by the Monaco police. They still had him in custody, and God only knew what the fuck he was saying.

  Somehow, in all that confusion, Nico slipped away.

  The one thing that Fabrizio hadn’t counted on was that Nico would take his own side. When the American, Sturdevant, fled and they chased him, Fabrizio assumed Nico would call for a pickup, as agreed, so they could drive him back to Rome with the diamonds. That call never came. Fabrizio called him, several times, but by then everything had gone to shit. They’d chased Sturdevant all over the city, Antonio, the stupid fuck, shot at him on a crowded street, and now that moron was in jail himself.

  The don was surrounded by fools.

  Then Mazza was telling him that he couldn’t get Cannizzaro’s money out of the escrow account. He’d put that idiot on a plane with a couple of his lawyers and sent him to the Seychelles to sort it out.

  The don barked orders at someone, demanding to know if the car was ready. Was it loaded and why was he still waiting around here? Cannizzaro decided to leave Rome for a bit. He was going to spend a few weeks at his place in Lago Como until it cooled off a little here. Maybe longer, he didn’t know yet. The idea was to move. The place in Como might just be a jumping-off point. It sort of depended on how pissed off the Russian was going to be that Cannizzaro couldn’t produce the diamonds on time. That, and what Antonio spilled to the Monaco police. Antonio was a soldier and he didn’t know much, but he would know that they’d gone up there to take possession of diamonds from an American. It wasn’t like the old days when people just shut their fucking mouths. Now, they’d gossip like village women on the way up and he’d say whatever got him out of trouble up there.

  “Vaffanculo a chi t'è morto,” Cannizzaro muttered under his breath, to no one in particular. Maybe everyone.

  Perhaps Sokolov would be a reasonable man. If anyone understood how deals such as this could fall apart, it would be him. Cannizzaro would just have to leave out the part that it was his cousin that double-crossed them.

  Cannizzaro was escorted out of his house, somewhat competently, to the black Range Rover waiting at the door. Two men would be in an Alfa Romeo in front of him and another four behind him. That should be enough for the lake house. Someone would close up this place later today. Cannizzaro walked across the large, circular carport, gravel crunching under his feet. He wore blue linen pants, an off-white shirt, and had a white linen jacket tucked under one arm. One of his men was just finishing loading his bags into the back of the Range Rover, another thing that wasn’t quite done yet. Cannizzaro was going to have to make some personnel changes. Things had gotten far too loose lately.

  Climbing into the back of the SUV, Cannizzaro checked his phone to see if there was any news on either Antonio or Nico, but there was nothing. He’d decided against sending one of his lawyers to Monaco. Instead, they would just deny they knew Antonio. After all, why would a prominent busi
nessman, banker, and importer-exporter employ a semi-literate thug? He wouldn’t. How did said thug get his name? It was common knowledge that Salvatore Cannizzaro, a respected legitimate businessman, was smeared in the paper by rivals as being “mafiosi.” Of course, these allegations were ridiculous and untrue.

  Nico was another matter, and he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do about that. Cannizzaro had waited as long as he could for Nico to surface with some bullshit excuse. Now, the hunt would begin. He would put the word out as soon as he got to his place in Como. Cannizzaro would send people to Turin, and he also had people watching Giulia in case Nico decided to rekindle that. Cannizzaro called Nico’s ex-wife to see if she’d heard from him, and she was surprised to learn Nico was out of prison.

  The small convoy began to roll and went through the massive iron gate.

  Where they promptly stopped.

  “What the fuck now?” Cannizzaro muttered.

  He leaned to the side so he could look through the front window and saw that there was a large delivery truck blocking the street. It was at a diagonal and looked like they were trying, quite unsuccessfully, to turn it around. What were they even doing here? Cannizzaro’s property was on the outskirts of Rome, the small village was a mile from here, and no one else lived on this road.

  Even the delivery men around here were idiots.

  It was like Cannizzaro was in the middle of an epidemic of stupidity.

  He cocked his head to the side when he heard a high-pitched whine of a motorcycle. This was a long, flat road, and sometimes the little shits would race their crotch rockets down it, but normally only at night. Well, he hoped they had good brakes.

  Cannizzaro leaned forward to his driver. “Get that fucking thing out of the way.”

  Idiots. Everywhere.