The Big Wheel

by Scott Archer Jones

  “The first time?”

  She had pitched her voice noncommittal, neutral. He admired her control, after most of a bottle of wine.

  “Mirko had an aptitude for jail. He prospered in there, but jail scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t imagine going in.”

  “Of course. Then what?”

  “I had time to kill while he did his time. I moved to New York—Chicago was too hot—and met a fence, so I switched to B and E.”

  “B and E?”

  “Breaking and entering. Again, luck was with me. My fence paid much better for high-end stuff, so I raised my sights from TVs and microwaves to jewels, antiques, collector shotguns, that type of thing. That’s when I taught myself to read.”

  “You—taught—yourself—to—read.”

  “Yeah, I dropped out of school as a junior, and I had been able to fake my way through to that point. But to be a good thief, I had to read and understand all those manuals on alarm systems, locks, vaults—all the stuff they use to keep you out. Of course, that means I can spell magnetic induction, but I can’t spell philosophical.”

  “Still, to teach yourself to read—”

  “I had some motivation the second time around. I enjoyed the challenge of finessing all those lockouts, and I liked working alone. After a while, I found out climbing came natural to me, so I took some of the money and went off to mountaineering school to get real about it. Some of that turned out useful.”

  “I don’t see you on a mountain.” She polished off the last inch of wine.

  “Well, no. You know, they expect you to get up at six in the morning? I preferred six in the evening. All those slick young mountain dicks drank like fish; at that time, I toked more than a four-man rock band. I had just started down the no-win slope into pills.”

  “The slope that led to your present sorry state?” She forked some of his cheesecake into her mouth. “Unique skill set.”

  “My biggest skill is the ability to wiggle through a mouse hole and not get the screaming meemies. Comes easy for me, but I worked once with a blaster—a guy who blows safes—who went utter gaga in some ducting. I left him in there, the sparky, begging for the authorities to jerk him out and arrest him.”

  “So how did you learn about moving money around, and about new identities and bearer bonds?”

  “My fence. He agreed to educate me on the roll, as long as a steady stream of merchandise showed up. After a while, they copped him for receiving stolen goods. I visited him up at Riker’s Island, and he connected me in with the next level, the serious crews. I liked the work—I didn’t have to do the planning, just show up and do as I was told. Well, it was nice until the O’Brien job.”

  “Hmm. We don’t travel tomorrow, so I’m up for more wine.” She ambled off to the bar refrigerator and sauntered back with two small bottles. “One for me, and one for me.”

  “You could have brought me something.”

  “Okay. Red, blue, yellow, shitty brown?”

  “The klonos, I think.”

  She sashayed into the bathroom, trailing the ties of her robe on the floor, and wandered back with two pills and some water. “What about my five hundred?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: You Are My Constant Pride

  The rough, raised weave smelled like soap and wool—dry and dusty. Robko eased open an eye and stared across the carpet towards, what? The rug hung over him like his ceiling; the drapery in front of him hung upside down. He twitched and blinked that one exposed eye; the world flipped over. He found himself huddled on the carpet in a bedroom in a bungalow on a golf course in Dallas. Of course. The buzz had receded. Time to amp it up. He rose onto his hands and knees to discover the bed ruffle. His hand levered him up—Sibyl lay in front of him on her side, naked, asleep. She snored through her mouth, gentle rasping in and out. He lurched to his feet and ambled into the bathroom. Party drugs lay loose across the counter. Spotting her wine glass, he filled it with water. He picked up a designer barb and perched it waiting on his tongue. A pause. He added a vallie. Vicodin, why not?

  ***

  Her voice bullied him from a vast, empty space, far away. He couldn’t quite focus his eyes. “Robert, what did you take? Pay attention.” She slapped his face, and he felt the shaking she gave him, but at arm’s length. She could have been shaking anybody. “What did you take?”

  He fought for a breath. Things colored up blue-black around the edges. “One of each. A Chinese buffet.” His tongue moved in his mouth like paste; the words oozed out like glue.

  “Oh shit, oh shit. You gozo. Here,” she tugged him, jerking him across a slick white surface.

  He squinted up his eyes. She heard his tongue flog around in his mouth, but nothing made sense.

  “I can’t understand you—you’re so screwed up you can’t even talk. Here’s the toilet. Puke.”

  “Wha?”

  “Here. I can help.” She thrust her finger down his throat and, sure enough, his body quaked, and his throat gagged. A life-restoring vomit. When he had finished, she mopped his face and mouth and threw the towel into the corner. “C’mon, stand up.” She struggled to get him to his feet. They staggered forward into the bedroom.

  He spotted the bed and fell forward onto it. She tugged at his shoulders, thrust her hands under his arms, and jerked. She couldn’t heave him up; he had gone limp, his eyes closed. She threw on her bathrobe and ran to the bungalow door.

  A gardener strolled by, a coil of hose over his shoulder, a bucket in his hand. She demanded, “Hey, you! Come here.” He approached her, sidling a bit, an expression on his face like he would rather run. “I need your help.”

  “Sí, como no.” He glanced back over his shoulder, searching for a way out.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Constantine.”

  “Okay, Connie, I need your help to walk a man around the room. Come on in. Two hundred dollars.”

  He understood the money. Constantine shuffled into the bungalow and allowed her to close the door.

  “Back here in the bedroom. Get him up; get his arm over your shoulder. Now walk him… back and forth.”

  “Sí, pero, he barely breathe.”

  “I’ll help with that. Robert, hang on.” She ran into the bathroom, found his kit, dumped out the naloxone and a syringe. She ran back into the bedroom. Constantine toiled across the room as he carried a limp, half-naked man. She stabbed the needle into his upper buttock and pressed the plunger. “Walk him, walk him. Robert, snap out of it. You have to help.” His feet dragged along with floppy uncontrolled twitches. “Come on, Connie, we have to sweat it out of his system.”

  “Qué ha tenido?”

  “Shut up. None of your business.”

  “Qué lo malo.” For a half hour, the brown man carried a sagging pallid Anglo back and forth, urged on by a strident, diminutive woman.

  Robko’s head swung up, his mouth sucked for air, and he wheezed. “Water.”

  “Keep him moving. I’ll bring water.” She brought a glass from the bathroom. They paused, poured it into his mouth, and watched his convulsive swallow. Robko threw it back up along with some yellow slime onto Constantine’s pants.

  “Ah, señor,” Connie said.

  She said, “Three hundred dollars. It’s okay.”

  “He wakes up. Mire, he breathes better.” Robko wrenched his arm back from around the gardener’s neck and tried a couple of stumbling steps.

  “I got it, Sibyl. I can walk.” Robko lurched around the room, bumped into the dresser, and turned. “G-g-gangway,” he stuttered. He waved his hands and faltered across the room. Constantine backed out of the way.

  Sibyl said to the gardener, “We’re done here. I’ll get your money.” She fished in the dresser and brought out a roll of bills.

  Constantine said to her back, “Four hundred. Tambien, I keep quiet.”

  She marched over to him, handed him money with her left hand, and seized his index finger with her right. Constantine’s knees bent, and he let out a sh
arp hiss. She told him, “It’s three hundred.”

  He dropped the money and swung at her, punched her hard in the eye.

  She bent the finger back within an inch of his wrist. He dropped to his knees with a cry. “Hit me again, why don’t you? You don’t punch worth a damn. Three hundred, and you’ll keep your mouth shut, bien. If you don’t, I’ll burn your house, kill your children, and then I’ll shoot you. Muerto, sí?”

  “Sí.”

  “Pick up the money.” He fished for the money with his free hand. She glared down into his face. “Just so you remember what I promised.” With a pop, she dislocated his finger.

  ***

  The gray-haired old butler brought Thomas down to the den and said, “Wait here. Governor O’Brien will be with you shortly.” The door closed with a whisper.

  He could smell the sticky, sweet fragrance of lilies that erupted up out of a massive vase on a side table. A wall of French doors stretched behind the flowers. They opened onto a swath of Long Island grass. He moved past the flowers to the glass. Out there on the green, a group of Adirondack chairs scattered, chalk white against the manicured browning grass. A big man in black loomed halfway between the chairs and the house, hands clasped behind him. Above the back of a chair, Thomas made out a head, recognized dark hair, and contemplated a woman who gazed out over the water. A fog lay thick offshore. He opened the door and strode across the grass, past the bruiser in the suit.

  Intuition paid off—Isobel Dupont curled up in her chair, shoulders hunched, knees up, feet on the seat. He dropped into the chair beside her. She glanced over, sharp, irritated. “Do I know you?”

  “You’ve seen me before. In O’Brien’s office.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re Carl Dupont’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Changed sides, did you?”

  She didn’t answer. Time stretched out.

  “Right. None of my business.” He turned away towards the Sound, stuck out his legs, and scooted down into the seat in a slump. They both pretended to watch the fog.

  Her voice was low, muffled. “I made some compromises.”

  “Compromises?”

  “Yes.” She snapped her head around and snarled at him. “Like screwing LeFarge so he wouldn’t kill me.”

  “Tough trade-off.”

  “Happens to women all over the world. I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last.”

  “This is Long Island, not the Sudan.”

  “Might as well be Africa.”

  “They kill women in the Sudan, after they finish with the rape.”

  Her chin swung up, and she gazed calmly into the fog. “He’s not done yet.”

  He let silence fill a count or two. “How’s O’Brien fit in?”

  She threw a sardonic glance at him. “I got promoted. Wife Number Three flew off to Paris a couple of months ago and doesn’t look to be coming back. Egan handed me over, and O’Brien installed me here.”

  The fog sidled in over the next few minutes. He cleared his throat. “Anything I can do?”

  “You work for O’Brien, right?” Her voice sounded brittle and ugly. She could crack.

  “Yes.” That hurt to admit.

  With a glare like death, she said, “So what’s the offer? You getting in line with the other two?”

  “No. Just wanted to help.”

  “Right. Piss off.” She unfolded her knees, straightened out of her chair, and stalked across the lawn to the house. The guard followed her in.

  ***

  “It’s been two days, gozo.”

  “Yeah, feels more like a year.” Robko lay in the giant bed, sunk into the mattress, splayed in a cross shape. He had pillows stuffed against the left and right sides of his head. “Did you know there’s a faint portrait of the devil in the ceiling, like someone had painted him in black and then buried him in white?”

  Sibyl flicked a quick glance up. “You’re hallucinating.”

  “I wish. He’s wearing a top hat and a long coat, and his tail snakes out clear to the bathroom. It’s an omen.”

  Sibyl wrinkled her nose at the Mephitic atmosphere. “Jeez, two days without a shower and a dozen vomitations. I’m not moving back in here until you do something about it.”

  “Yeah.” His hand dug at his hair. “My scalp feels kind of crusty.”

  “And don’t think a shower gets you off the hook. You stink in so many ways. I’m definitely not over being mad at you.”

  “I’m entitled to the little slip now and then. We’re all human. The Church says ‘Fallibility is the state of man.’”

  “Screw the Church, you asshole. You goddamn OD’d! Suicide is a sin, you know.”

  “If I go stand in the shower, will you stop shouting?”

  She snorted. “I’m going shopping. Want anything?”

  “Khaki. My disguise requires khaki.”

  “Okay, you got it. But first, prove to me you’re not going back to sleep.”

  He lurched up and shuffled five feet towards her headed for the bathroom door. “Are the yellows in there? I could do with a smoother about now.”

  She delivered the punch from her waist clear up into his jaw. It knocked him over the corner of the dresser and onto the floor. Pale as parchment, she stood over him, shaking. The cords in her neck stood out like wire. “You’re unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.” She spun on her heel and marched out.

  When she returned, loaded up with bags and boxes, she found him back in bed. She leaned against the doorjamb and stared at him, suspicious. “Sober?”

  “God yes. Feels unnatural. And my jaw hurts.”

  “Good. Don’t forget I’m the one with the black eye, not you. Should have been your black eye.” She cocked her head towards the living room. “Let’s move to the couch. It’s time you shifted your lazy ass back to work.”

  She led the way and sprawled out with her foot on the coffee table. “You asked me three days ago if I had been thinking about the job.”

  “I don’t recall it, but if you say I did, I did. Let’s talk about it.”

  “You’re a skank as well as a skanker.”

  He waited.

  “These Artifacts, they require something to run them—they have to plug into something.”

  “Yes, and those weird-ass connections mean it’s specialized. Plus you have to load them up somehow. Together that means sensor gear on the human being and a huge computer.”

  She tilted her head. “Not something you’d tote around in a messenger bag or a briefcase.”

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking.”

  She nodded. “To load an Artifact or to use an Artifact requires a lab.”

  “Right. The lab in Georgia, which is what I’m saying.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  He smirked. “What if I’m right? So much easier that way.”

  “But once Artifacts are loaded, they could be stored anywhere?”

  “Yes, even a penthouse office in lower Manhattan.”

  She twitched like she had been shocked. “Sarcasm won’t win me back to your side.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Wouldn’t it make sense then if your office had been robbed—I mean, keep your empty spares where you load them? Where you have a high level of security?”

  “I think so.”

  “Now I believe in Georgia. What’s this place like?” She curled her feet up under her and leaned towards him.

  He grinned—she was hooked. “Well, first, it’s out in the fields. A paved county road runs down one side, and there’s a long fenced driveway that leads to the front guard shack.” He picked up their stolen desktab. “Here, let me show you. See, they have the usual two ring fences with the dog run in between. There could be some advantage to break in from the woods but a lot of work to slip past the fences and the dogs. These doo-dads symbolize robotic cameras in the corners and halfway down the fence line. Could be they work on motion detectors.”
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  “I’m not keen on barbed wire.”

  He flapped a hand. “If we broke in that way, we’d go through or under, not over.”

  “So the fence sucks. You’ll find another way in.”

  He stretched out his arms, his fingers laced and his knuckles cracking. “I need to go see. Can’t do much here.”

  She nodded her head. “Let’s swing down to Georgia and pick us up an Artifact or two.”

  “Just like take-out, phone the order in?”

  “I wish. You ready to travel?”

  “I’d like a couple of days of gym time first, to build some edge back.”

  “Don’t take too long. They could eventually figure it out and be waiting for us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Lab Rats

  When Thomas got back from Long Island, Angie was sitting at his desk in his little cubicle off the electronic boards. She had his middle drawer open and her feet propped up on it, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands. She said, “Any luck with O’Brien?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “More of the same. But I did get to talk to Isobel Dupont. Young woman needs some help.”

  Angie raised an eyebrow. “Collecting strays?”

  He said, “That was remarkably cold.” He waved his hand at the desk drawers. “Did you find anything of interest in there?

  “What are the white ones?”

  “They’re sodies, or Sodium amylobarbitone. Hypno-sedative. Try one.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No thank you, sir. I’ve got something serious to talk to you about.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You may not like that verb when I’m done.” She waved him to a chair, then rolled forward a foot until they were knee to knee.

  “This sounds ominous.”

  She fished out a piece of paper from off the desk. “Do you know Allen?”

  “Who?”

  “O’Brien’s PA.”