The Professionals

by Owen Laukkanen

  Tiffany had made her pitch somewhere around the Georgia border, though Pender was sure she’d been saving it for days. “You guys need money, right?” she’d said. “A lot of money? My dad is loaded. Why don’t you kidnap me?”

  Pender had nearly crashed the car, twisting back to search her face for the joke, but she’d only stared at him, serious, until he gave up and turned back to the wheel.

  “I have a better idea,” Sawyer said. “Why don’t you just get your dad to give us the cash?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “My dad doesn’t just give money. He’s a banker. He’s gotta know there’s a return on his investment. If you guys hold me for ransom, he’ll pay without a fight because he’ll know he’s getting a great return.”

  “Hell, yes, he is,” said Mouse, pulling her down to kiss him. Tiffany giggled like a new bride.

  Sawyer sighed in the front seat, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “No offense, but that’s the worst idea I ever heard,” he said.

  Pender found Tiffany in the rearview mirror. “You’re sure your dad won’t just ship you some money?”

  “Not if I just call him straight up and ask,” she said. “He’s a stingy bastard for such a rich guy.”

  “I thought he had a private jet,” said Mouse.

  “The divorce lawyer made him sell it. Anyway, he needed that for work.”

  “How much could your dad get us?” said Pender.

  “I don’t know.” Tiffany shrugged. “Maybe a million. How does that sound?”

  A million dollars. Pender sat awake in the Macon hotel room, listening to trucks growl past outside and trying to work out a strategy.

  Every instinct told him not to trust the girl’s scheme. So far, Tiffany had given no indication that her father even knew she was alive. Could be he’d just hang up the phone. Worse, he could be one of those people who took a kidnapping personally. Parents could be dangerous and irrational.

  They had pulled their most successful scores after days of hard-core preparation and intelligence work. Now they were considering taking a monster gamble on a guy nobody knew, based on the testimony of some superrich girl who’d given up all her toys to be a professional kidnapper. Pender didn’t like it at all.

  Still, they needed the money. A million bucks would go a long way toward fixing Mouse and springing Marie.

  Someone knocked on the door. Pender stood, stretched, and peered through the peephole. Sawyer. Pender opened the door. “What’s up?”

  Sawyer walked past him and into the room. “You should turn on the news,” he said. He picked up the remote and switched on the TV to the local news station. Pender looked up and saw his own face on the screen.

  It was a picture of him and Marie, taken in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle the summer before they graduated. If he closed his eyes, Pender could see the picture where he’d stuck it on their fridge in Queen Anne, and he reeled, wanting to be sick.

  This is not a surprise, he told himself. You knew the FBI was in your apartment, and you knew they would search the place. This is all part of being a criminal. Suck it up and deal with it.

  The news anchor was talking, and Pender turned up the volume as the pictures changed to a shot of Sawyer and another of Ben “Mouse” Stirzaker, both pictures Marie had taken and stored on her laptop.

  “While FBI agents have captured one of the alleged kidnappers,” the anchor was saying, “three others, including ringleader Arthur Pender, twenty-eight, of Port Angeles, Washington, remain at large. Federal agents say the suspects were last seen in the Jacksonville area but are highly nomadic by nature, and are advising anyone along the I-95, I-10, and I-75 corridors to keep a lookout for these dangerous men. The suspects are believed to be driving a dark blue, late-model Dodge Durango and may be in the company of Tiffany Prentice, twenty, who vanished from a South Beach resort earlier in the week. The suspects are considered armed and dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.”

  The anchor switched stories, and Pender turned down the volume. He took a deep breath and glanced at Sawyer, who was staring at the floor between his feet. “We gotta ditch that truck,” he said.

  “Armed and dangerous,” said Sawyer. “What a crock.”

  Pender stared at the TV. “You think we can get a million for her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sawyer. “How much money do we have right now?”

  “Enough for a piece-of-shit car, not much more.”

  Sawyer scratched his head. “We could do a lot with a million bucks.”

  “We’d have to move fast. Get out of here tonight.” Pender tried to think fast. Fuck it, he thought. A million bucks and we’re golden.

  “We’re doing it,” he said. “Tell Tiffany to get in touch with her father. A million cash, unmarked bills, forty-eight hours. You know the drill. Then get those guys ready to travel. We leave tonight. Drive as far as we can and swap the Durango in the morning. We can make Philadelphia tomorrow, and with any luck we get the money tomorrow night.”

  “Done,” said Sawyer. He was on his way to the door when a couple of harsh knocks outside made them both go cold. Sawyer glanced back at Pender, who put his finger to his lips. He gestured one minute, and watched as Sawyer took out the Glock he’d stolen from the dead assassin in Miami.

  Sawyer stood beside the door, holding the gun pointed to the ceiling, and Pender peered through the peephole. He let out a sigh, gestured to Sawyer to relax, and opened the door. Tiffany walked in, glanced at Sawyer and the Glock and then back at Pender. “You’re famous,” she said. She was smiling.

  “We’re all famous,” he said. “Bona fide household names.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to phone your dad,” he told her. “You’ve just been officially kidnapped.”

  fifty-five

  D’Antonio sat in the parking lot of the Everglades Resort, watching jets make their final approach into Miami International. Zeke had hooked him up with his girlfriend’s Ford Explorer and a couple of big, dumb bundles of muscle who sat in the backseats, staring out the window and breathing through their mouths. They were quiet, though, and they were armed; both men carried TEC-9 machine pistols in their waistbands. For D’Antonio, Zeke had found a clean .45 caliber Glock and a couple magazines of hollow-point bullets, more than enough firepower to scare a teenaged girl into submission.

  The Everglades was a single-story block of drive-up units with a lobby on one end and a dumpster on the other. All of the units faced the road, and behind the motel was a chain-link fence and a railroad siding behind. Out front of the fourth door from the lobby stood a lazy-looking uniform, posted up against the wall with his eyes half closed and his mouth wrapped around a cigarette. A pile of butts lay at his feet. The parking lot was deserted except for the uniform’s radio car.

  D’Antonio parked behind the cop. He climbed out of the Explorer and gestured for one of the goons, Paolo, to follow. The other guy, Leon, made himself comfortable in the driver’s seat as D’Antonio walked toward the officer.

  The cop—his badge said Bramley—opened his eyes, giving D’Antonio and Paolo the lazy once-over as they passed him. D’Antonio put on a smile and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Howdy,” he said. “I’m Detective Carl and this is Michaels. You heard we were coming?”

  Bramley squinted at D’Antonio. “Carl,” he said, scratching his head. “What division?”

  Paolo was working his way around to flank Bramley again, scoping out the parking lot from the corner of his eye and waiting for D’Antonio’s signal.

  D’Antonio grinned wider. “CID. Here to talk to the girl.”

  Bramley glanced at Paolo and then back to D’Antonio. “Nobody tells me shit around here,” he said at last. He took out a room key on a plastic key ring. D’Antonio waited until Bramley had unlocked the door and then gave Paolo a nod. The goon brought the butt of his gun down on Bramley’s skull, and the man let out a soft grunt before he crumpled to the ground, his body pushing open t
he door as he fell.

  D’Antonio stepped over the cop and into the room, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. Double bed, old TV, flimsy furniture. Bathroom toward the back and no apparent escape routes. He relaxed a little.

  The girl was lying sprawled on her stomach on the bed, propped up on her elbows, watching a cartoon hamster fight a frog on the TV set. She was attractive in a sitcom-starlet kind of way, and she stared at D’Antonio and Paolo with more curiosity than fear.

  D’Antonio examined her for a minute, waiting for the cracks to show. “Haley Whittaker?” he said.

  She frowned. “Who are you?”

  “Your new best friend.” D’Antonio gestured back to Paolo, who stepped over Bramley and walked to the bed. The girl let Paolo pick her up in a fireman’s carry and take her back toward the door.

  D’Antonio caught her eye as Paolo carried her past him. “Where are you taking me?” she asked him, disarmingly calm.

  D’Antonio ignored her. He walked deeper into the room and examined the girl’s belongings. She had a novel on the nightstand and a laptop computer on the dresser. He took the laptop and, after a moment’s thought, the novel as well. The kid was going to get bored.

  They were in and out in ten minutes total. Paolo put the girl in the backseat, and D’Antonio sat beside her as Leon drove slow and steady out of the parking lot. The girl still hadn’t struggled, still hadn’t screamed. She stared straight ahead through the front seats, watching the road while D’Antonio watched her.

  After maybe five minutes, she looked up at D’Antonio. “So what is this, like a kidnapping or something?”

  D’Antonio smiled at her. “It’s something like that.”

  “You’re going to hold me for ransom?”

  He shook his head. “Not exactly.”

  “Kidnapping.” She looked him up and down. “That’s really cute. You’re supposed to be some kind of bad guy?”

  She was prettier like this, D’Antonio thought. She was ballsy.

  “Is this what you do? You kidnap girls? Is that how you get your kicks?”

  He laughed. She was staring him down, a smirk on her face. “I’m no kidnapper,” he told her. “From what I’ve been told, that’s Tiffany’s job.”

  The girl barely blinked. “Where is she?”

  “You tell me.”

  “The hell should I know? She ditched me like days ago.”

  “We’re looking for her,” said D’Antonio. “I think you’ll see her again soon.”

  The girl stared at him, her eyes hard. “She’s no kidnapper,” she said. “We came down from Jersey for a week on the beach, fella. The only one doing any kidnapping is you.”

  D’Antonio laughed. “Then I guess I’m a kidnapper after all. What does that make you?”

  “Fucking unlucky,” she said. “How much is my ransom?”

  “No ransom,” he told her.

  She frowned. “Oh, you’re just going to rape me and then cut me up into pieces, are you? You’re one of those kinds of perverts. I understand.”

  “I’m no pervert,” he said. “We’re going to use you as bait.”

  “Bait,” she said. “Like for fishing?”

  He smiled. Shook his head, leaned in close to the girl. “You’re going to help us get Tiffany. You understand now?”

  She stared at him a second, real close. Then she sat back in her seat and stared out the window again. Frowned deeper. “You want Tiffany,” she said. Then she sighed. “They always want Tiffany.”

  fifty-six

  So listen,” the female agent—Windermere—called over her shoulder. “It’s probably going to be about fifteen hours to Detroit. You might as well get comfortable.”

  Marie glanced through the iron bars of the U.S. Marshals Service van at the agent, who sat up front riding shotgun—literally. There was a big Mossberg 12 gauge at the ready between Windermere and the driver, a big black marshal who hadn’t said a word as he wrapped Marie in handcuffs and leg irons and locked her into the back of the van.

  “Comfortable.” Marie looked at the chains around her wrists and ankles, the hard steel bench she sat on, the iron bars on the windows. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Windermere shrugged. “Sorry,” she said. “Tried to get you on JPATS—that’s Con Air—but the scheduling wouldn’t work. But hey, at least you get some privacy.”

  Windermere, being the federal agent, had drawn the task of traveling with the prisoner on the nine-hundred-mile drive north from Jacksonville to Detroit. Stevens, meanwhile, got his state policeman’s ass on a plane and was flying up to Minneapolis right now to spend an evening with his wife and kids. He’d fly back to Detroit in the morning, and they would meet up with the prosecutor to prepare for the arraignment.

  Stevens, the lucky bastard, thought Windermere. The guy had a wife who understood, while she had Mark. Lately, going home had become more like work than work itself, and Windermere dreaded the close of the case for the return it would mean to their life of long silences and sudden, explosive confrontations.

  Windermere turned back to face the McAllister girl, who sat staring at her feet in the middle of the van, her eyes open but her body so still it was almost scary. “Let me ask you something,” Windermere said. The girl didn’t look up. “You and your boyfriend. How did you make it work?”

  The girl finally moved—barely. She lifted her head an inch or so in Windermere’s direction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “How did you keep it fresh? You were together for what, like five years? On the road, too. How did you not get sick of each other?”

  Marie looked back down at her feet. “I’m not saying anything without my lawyer present.”

  “Come on,” said Windermere. “I’m not interrogating you. None of this is admissible unless you sign away your rights.”

  The girl said nothing, did nothing. Windermere watched her for a minute. “All right,” she said, shrugging. “Suit yourself.” She leaned forward and fiddled with the radio dial until they picked up a jazz station. Somebody was giving it on the saxophone, and Windermere settled in to enjoy the solo.

  In the back of the van, Marie stared down at her feet. Maybe that’s what happened to Pender, she thought. Maybe he just wasn’t interested anymore.

  Stevens climbed out of a taxicab and crunched through the fresh snow that lined the walk outside his house in St. Paul. I’ll have to shovel this tonight, he thought, surveying the blanket of white that covered the sidewalk and the driveway. He shivered as he paused on the steps, enjoying the sensation of cold on his skin after the suffocating Florida heat. Nancy complained about the weather all winter long, but to Stevens there was nothing like the bitter Minnesota chill to remind a man what it felt like to be alive.

  Of course, half the joy of winter was the warmth when you came in from the cold. Stevens pushed open his front door and stood in the landing, peeling off his coat and basking in the bright, welcome familiarity of his home.

  “Daddy!” It was J.J., running down the front stairs, nearly toppling over his feet in his hurry to reach the bottom.

  “Hey, fella.” Stevens wrapped his son up in a bear hug. “How’s it going? Where’s your mother?”

  “Mom’s in the living room. Daddy, I made a dinosaur picture at school.”

  “Wow,” said Stevens, setting him down. “You’re going to be an artist, hey?”

  “No,” said J.J. “A dinosaur hunter!”

  Stevens kicked off his shoes and walked into the living room, where his wife sat semiconscious in her favorite chair, dozing with a mountain of papers spread out before her. J.J. followed him into the room. “We’re getting a dog, Daddy!”

  Nancy opened her eyes slowly. She smiled up at her husband, sheepish. “Is this true?” Stevens asked her.

  “Yes, Daddy, a German shepherd!”

  “I told them they could have a dog for Christmas,” said Nancy. “But only if they’re really good.”

  J.J. nodded. “We’re cal
ling him Triceratops!” He ran from the room, and Stevens heard him dashing up the stairs, feet pounding a rhythm into the hardwood. He realized he’d missed the sound.

  “Are you upset?” said Nancy. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

  “What, the dog?”

  “I just thought it would be nice to have a pet,” she said. “The kids get scared without you.” She smiled. “Sometimes I get scared, too. This big, empty house.”

  He stared down at her. “Honey, I’m sorry. I’ve been gone too long.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. You’re doing your job.”

  “I’m done with this job.” He lifted her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “Another week, tops, I’ll be home.”

  Nancy kissed him. “Home, you say.”

  “Nothing you can do about it.”

  “No more running around with Agent Windermere.”

  “You’ll wish I was gone.”

  “One week,” she said, snuggling into his arms. “Then I’m going to lock you away for my personal use, and I’m going to keep you locked up for a very long time.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, and he kissed her back, both of them listening like a couple of teenagers for the telltale creak of the floorboards. He pulled her down onto the easy chair on top of him, kissing her deeply and letting his hands slide under her sweater. He felt her breathing start to quicken, her skin warm on his hands, and then the front door flew open, sending a shock of cold air through the house and filling the landing with the sound of happy teenagers, the laughter and teasing and stomping feet as his daughter and her friends came in from the cold.

  Later, lying in bed with Nancy curled up beside him, Stevens stared at the glowing numbers on the alarm clock, listening to his wife’s light snoring and wondering how Windermere was doing on the road.

  She had been right, what she’d said about cracking the case. It was pleasant to come home every night, it was a wonderful luxury. But working suicides out in the hinterlands couldn’t compare to a case like this, to the glamour of kidnapping schemes and interstate prisoner transport, bargaining chips, and, Stevens realized, a partner like Windermere. He knew if things went well they had maybe a week left on the case, and though he ached for the satisfaction of locking up his suspects, Stevens knew that once the case was closed, so, too, was his relationship, professional and otherwise, with Windermere.