Cool Heat

by Richter Watkins

  They were ushered at gunpoint into the vastness of the great room. She feared the killer wanted his revenge, and might take it at any moment, but was forced to delay until he had what they came for. At least it might buy them some time.

  They paused under the vaulted ceilings, moon shadows spilling across the tiled floor, a cut of light on the grand piano. The rooms of the house had low nightlights. Statues from Asia and some Italian stuff. Paintings looked like they belonged in a museum. Stuffed animals in the adjoining room.

  “Here’s how this works,” the smothered voice from the mask said. “Kora here has convinced me of a new plan. See, the thing is, I’m not all that fond of my clients. Right, Kora?”

  “That’s right, baby. Leon doesn’t like Thorp or his lawyer much at all.”

  “So,” Leon said with muffled exuberance that resembled a cartoon character, “we’re going to work something out. I wanted to kill the two of you for breaking my face, but Kora came up with a way you can pay me back. And pay me big time, right Kora?”

  “That’s right,” Kora affirmed. “That’s exactly right.”

  Aren’t they the cutest couple outside of a fucking asylum? Sydney thought.

  “Turns out,” Leon said, “we’re all on the same side of this.”

  A strung-out killer and whacked-out hooker taking over the world. Gonna pull off the robbery of the century.

  Sydney said, “How is it we come out ahead?”

  Kora said, “Relax. We get the money and enough dirt on these guys to protect us, and you get enough to destroy them. That’s your end. Everybody gets what they want. Everyone goes home happy. So let’s quit wasting time and get in that office and see what we have.”

  Kora North was definitely running the show, Sydney decided.

  Marco answered Leon’s garbled questions as he went along. How he used the density meter, and then methodically studied the framing. Leon kept back so Marco would have no chance if he decided to try something.

  At the safe, it was quickly clear that the door, covered in a fine mahogany veneer, had beneath it high-grade plated steels with “engineer only” removable fixings. The locking mechanism had a punch-code lock. That was definitely the way to go.

  “The lawyer isn’t big on trust,” Marco said.

  He went into his bag, showed Leon the sequencer and the black light. “This code sequencer should give the numbers up pretty quick. Runs a thousand a second.”

  “I’ve seen that in a movie,” Kora said. “He doesn’t have the iris reader or a fingerprint thingy.”

  “Not on this door,” Marco said. “You said this was just the outside door, right?”

  “Yeah, there’s a big metal door to the main office door.”

  Marco studied the keys with the light and then went about fixing the box over the keypad.

  “Here we go.” He pushed the ON button on the sequencer.

  Leon, showing student-like curiosity, fired questions at him the whole time he worked. Like he was learning for future reference. Sydney appreciated how Marco entertained the guy, getting him involved, telling him all about the design, how they got ahold of it through a contact in the high-tech security world, keeping him focused and distracted. She wondered if he had a plan or if he was just trying to keep the guy interested.

  “It’s designed to fit the universal punch codes. It could be set to any three, four, or five keys. It should find the unlocking sequence in about one to three minutes.”

  “You got that from Dutch?” Kora asked.

  “He’s a man with resources. If Rouse had a retina or fingerprint scan, we’d have no choice but to do a hot caesarian.”

  “Which is?” Kora asked.

  “Torch cut.”

  The outer door opened with no problem. But that was just the veneer. The real door was next, down a short hall. Marco grabbed his bag and Leon moved back. They reset their physical relationship, but Marco kept right on talking.

  “Acetylene torches only reach six thousand degrees, and when you were working steel-reinforced concrete and solid-steel fixtures, you need thermic power in the eight-thousand-degree range. You need to handle different consistencies in the pour matter.”

  “Why would they be so different?” the killer asked. “It’s cement.”

  “Cement mixture is vibrated to get rid of air pockets to create a zero slump,” Marco said. “The only effective and fast way to get around dual-control and time locks is with a combination of torch and blast. But this locking mechanism doesn’t need a blast. It’s not that heavy. You’re always dealing with the endless escalation of technology. A thief has to be on the cutting edge. Crime is an arms race.”

  Leon emitted a chuckle.

  Marco, working intently, talked nonstop, telling Leon that it started during the Gold Rush days, all that robbing going on. Banks started using safes and then the robbers brought in the pickaxe and hammer to break in at night and steal the safes, taking them somewhere in the hills to break them open.

  “So the banks built bigger and heavier safes with heavy doors that had to be blasted open. That proved easy enough to do, so the combination lock was invented to thwart blasting. So the robbers developed the technique of drilling and using a mirror shoved inside to see the slots on the combination wheel.”

  “It’s nice to see you boys enjoying your work,” Kora said, “but let’s get this done.”

  “He’s doing his job,” Leon said. “Let the man work. He can talk while he works, can’t he?”

  “He can, but not if it slows him down. Which he might do purposely.”

  “I can only go as fast as the technology allows,” Marco said. Then he added, “The next escalation of defense was time locks.” He drew cut lines on the wall. “That led to kidnapping bank employees. They always tried to keep a step ahead. Now it’s all about using the Internet. The only people going directly after banks are bankers getting rich off toxic assets.”

  Sydney tried to catch Marco’s eye, to see if he had something else behind all the chatter, but he didn’t look her way.

  “There,” Marco said. “The cut line is prepped.”

  Marco donned welding glasses, still talking nonstop about the changes while he prepared the torch.

  “Got to hit this hard with the gas-axe,” Marco said. “Best stand back a little.”

  Sydney noticed how Leon seemed to like Marco’s knowledge, his attitude, which is what Marco appeared to be after. A little bonding between criminals. At some point Sydney figured she’d have to find a way to do with same with Kora.

  He fired the torch and they all took another step back.

  Marco directed it at the surface of the cut. “Got to get the iron oxide moving, knock slag aside, and get the heat through the cherry red to the white heat.”

  He quickly burned his way through, and it wasn’t long before he had the door open and they were inside Tricky Dick’s inner sanctum.

  “You’re good,” the killer said. “Damn good. You ever find any box you couldn’t open?”

  Marco removed the welding glasses. “Well, there was this really cute little lesbian…”

  Leon broke out in a stammered, bizarre laugh so abrupt and hard it appeared to hurt him, and he stopped as fast as it had come.

  Sydney now saw how Marco was going to work this guy. Become his friend. Bond. Wait until the moment was right.

  58

  Sydney, excited, followed the men through the door. The lawyer had a massive executive teak desk behind which sat this cushy, red-leather chair. He had some really expensive-looking artwork on the walls. Plants, exotic fish in a massive tank. File cabinets, computers, a wall of TV screens displaying every inch of the house inside and out. And a five-foot-high safe taking up most of the far wall.

  “Man’s got himself a plush bunker and war room,” Marco said.

  “You really can open the safe?” Kora asked.

  Marco went to the safe embedded in the wall. He checked the locking mechanism and shook his head. “This i
s a big damn problem. This baby has serious defenses and a bank-style time lock.”

  Kora came over. “Dutch didn’t give you the combination?”

  “Not for this baby. This isn’t the safe he thought was in here.”

  Sydney liked this play. It was, in fact, the safe that Dutch had put in, but Kora and the killer didn’t know that.

  “You can’t crack that?” Leon asked in a hiss of a voice. “‘Cause if you can’t crack that, you got nothing to trade your life for.”

  “This is state of the art,” Marco said. “You want inside this thing before tomorrow afternoon, the only thing you can do is get the lawyer over here. Let him open the thing for us.”

  Leon turned to Kora as if she had the answer.

  She said, “If that’s what we need to do, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll call Oggie and have him send Rouse over. Tell him we broke something. He’ll come on the run.”

  Leon said, “You sure they won’t send a bunch of goons over here?”

  “Hell, no,” Kora said. “Everything in here stinks of some kind of fraud or another. Most of those guys are cops.”

  Kora turned to Marco. “Can you bring the cameras back up so we can see who’s coming?”

  Marco said he could. Within a minute, he had the cameras back online so they could get pictures on Rouse’s smartphone and on the cameras in the office.

  Kora then took out the smartphone. “Thorp is gonna be a little pissed, but he’ll do the right thing.”

  “You aren’t calling Rouse?” Sydney said.

  “Can’t. This is his phone. Oggie will send him over.”

  ***

  Thorp was already in a highly agitated state, his imagination all over the place about what was going on with Kora and the pro, when his cell buzzed. It was Kora.

  “About time, Kora. We’re waiting for the fountain scene. Where the hell—”

  “Get Rouse over to his house right now,” Kora said. “We broke something that might be important. Have him come through the tunnel so he doesn’t set off a bunch of alarms.”

  “Kora, damnit, what are you—”

  “Right now. It’s kinda a big problem and he’s gonna be pissed. But he needs to deal with it right now,” she said, and then the bitch promptly hung up on him and wouldn’t answer when he called back.

  Thorp pulled Rouse out of the game again. He was getting killed anyway.

  “What, goddamnit? I need to get back in there. There’s only a couple hours left.”

  “They broke something. Kora and Leon. Something valuable.”

  Rouse, stared at him, a drink in his hand, and said, “I knew it. Jesus!”

  “Just get your ass over there. I want Kora back here now. Everybody’s waiting for her to get naked and jump into the goddamn fountain with her girls.”

  “Fuck that, Oggie, I’m not going over there. You need to send some security guys over there. No way I’m going—”

  “It’s your house and you gave them your phone. You let them do it without telling me. You damn fool, you really want me to send security? Most of them are moonlighting sheriff’s deputies. You want them to arrest Kora and Leon, or whatever the hell his name is? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “Why is she with him, anyway?”

  “Women love killers,” Thorp said. “C’mon. Faster you deal with this, the faster you can get back to losing your ass.”

  “I’m not going over there alone. No way. You’re coming with me.”

  “Take this,” Thorp said. He took out the Derringer.

  “I’m not shooting anybody. That thing would probably blow up and kill me. You want me to go over there, you’re coming with me.”

  Thorp swore under his breath. He looked out over the crowd gathered around the fountain.

  “Alright, let’s get moving,” Thorp said, shaking his head. He put the gun away and led his reluctant friend through the office and down into the tunnel.

  Thorp stopped at George’s cage. “He hasn’t been fed in a while. Go on. I’ll take care of George. You go see what’s going on. What they broke. I want all of you back here in about five minutes.”

  “I don’t like this. This guy—”

  “I don’t care if you like it. Go. Tell Kora I want to see her now. If there’s a mess, you clean it up. It’s your fucking house.”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “I’m feeding George.” Thorp pulled out the Derringer. “I’ll shoot you. Don’t think I won’t. You’re such a pussy.”

  The big old lion grumbled.

  Rouse went off, mumbling incoherently.

  The old lion, lying on a flat rock across the pool, made another deep-throated growl. Thorp liked to believe he had a special bond with George. That he and the old lion had an instinctual connection on some primal level. “We’re going to have us a little party for you one of these days, old sport. How would you like that?”

  The big cat stared at him. “You and me, my friend, are the kings. We’re the ones nature made to rule.”

  The big cat again responded with a stunted growl.

  Thorp, when he was drunk, liked to come down and talk with George, and he thought George talked back to him in some special way. They had an understanding, like Willett had possessed with his lion.

  He stared at the old lion lying on the rock, the lion staring back, the dim light on the ceiling of the cage casting a shadow on the lion’s face, heightening the golden hue of his eyes, and the ragged state of his thick, dark mane. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Thorp remembered some animal guy telling him that the mane was what females looked at to see if the guy was healthy and strong. As did the lion’s would-be male opponents. But, the animal guy had said, big manes were going to go away because of global warming. In places where it was really hot, the manes were shorter and less attractive to females, as well as less intimidating.

  “You still got that big mane,” Thorp said to George. “Scare the hell out of anybody.”

  Thorp laughed. He assumed the big cat agreed.

  59

  Looking at the large-screen monitor, using the gun as a pointer, Kora said, “There they are in the tunnel. Mutt and Jeff. But looks like Mutt is the only one coming. Old sport is talking to his lion.”

  She turned to Leon, handing him the smartphone. “You two go intercept our boy. Me and Sydney are gonna talk, look at files, and see what old Tricky Dick has on the world.”

  Sydney wasn’t sure how to interpret this, but she did appreciate the time alone to deal with Kora, find out what the girl was really thinking.

  As the men started to leave, Kora said, “Careful, Leon, alcohol and pain pills—”

  “I’m good,” Leon said.

  When the men were gone, Sydney said, “I gotta hand it to you, you got that boy wrapped around your little finger.”

  Kora sat behind Rouse’s desk, gun on the lap of her white Daisy dress. “He’s a sweetheart once you get to know him. We girls both got our Dobermans. Now we just need to get into that damn safe and get the hell out of here. Let’s take a look at what we have in all these files and maybe you can get into the computer.

  “So, what are you and your stud thief gonna do once this plays out? If you get what you came for, bring them down.”

  “We’re thinking of Rio,” Sydney said.

  Kora studied her for a moment. “I guess it’s true what they say about cops, that if you scratch the surface, you’ll find a criminal waiting to get out.”

  Sydney smiled. “I guess so. Where are you going once you leave here with all that money?”

  “Around the world in style, for sure.”

  “With Leon?”

  Kora smiled. “We’ll see.”

  “When you leave,” Sydney said, “just remember the mistake the turtle made giving the scorpion a ride across the river.”

  Kora chuckled. “The river of no return. Don’t worry about me. I got a hard shell, but I’m no turtle.”

  Sydney smiled and nodded. On some level, she
had no doubt that beneath all that sex kitten stuff, there lay a very dangerous woman.

  ***

  Leon and Marco went into a room that had a huge bar. The only light came from a wine cabinet and two dim lights from somewhere behind the bar below a massive, etched mirror. The bar itself was made of leather and wood with ivory railings. Marco figured it had to cost a fortune.

  Leon put the smartphone down on the bar. “Puttin’ a lion in an underground cage. That’s a crime against nature.”

  “You’re right about that,” Marco said, looking to agree with this guy as much as possible. Find some way to get at this crazy killer, get him to relax and get careless.

  “Take a load off,” Leon said pointing to one of the small tables. “What can I get you?”

  “Beer’s fine,” Marco said. “If he has beer?”

  Leon reached under the bar yet never took his eyes off Marco for more than a second. “The lawyer’s got three different little refrigerators under here. Here we go—door number two. Man’s stocked up for all types. Let me choose for you.”

  Leon put a beer bottle down on the table. He went back behind the bar and rooted around for a time, broke the glass of a locked cabinet, and then came up with a bottle. “Glenfiddich.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Me either. But it looks like expensive whisky. Must be if he has to keep it locked up in his own house.”

  He opened the bottle, then took out a bottle of pills and got one in his mouth. He poured some of the amber liquid into a glass and then found a straw. He took a swallow and got the pill down. Then he said, “Better.”

  He laid his gun on the counter, eyes behind his mask watching Marco. Unfortunately, it was too dark for them to reveal anything about what the killer was thinking or planning.

  He said, “You and your girl messed me up bad.”

  “We didn’t have a lot of choice; we didn’t want to end up like Corbin. We thought you died up there in the woods. That a couple bullets got you.”

  “I’m not that easy to kill.” Leon made a sound something like a wry chuckle, the light from the wine cabinet behind the bar reflecting on his black plastic face mask.