Deception

by Dan Lawton

  Barbara pounds some keys into her computer, and before I know it, the three of us are in the vault searching for a safety deposit box that contains a fictional explosive device. It all happens so fast and I’m not totally sure how we did it, but I like where this is headed. We’re in business.

  We’re in aisle twenty-three and Barbara is holding a steel box with the number 282 engraved on the front. The brass key from the safe is in my hand, and I look at it with uncertainty. The key that Barbara is using looks nothing like the one that I’m holding, as hers is much smaller and is a glossy silver. Mine is brass and appears to be much too large. This isn’t good.

  She inserts her key into the designated hole on the box facing her, and the lock disengages with a click. She looks up and waits for me to do the same on my end. I slide the head of the key toward the hole on the box and try not to look concerned as the brass comes nowhere close to fitting. Now frustrated, I flip the key and try it again, but the results are the same.

  Fuck. It’s another dead end.

  Barbara opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something, but I don’t want to hear it. Not knowing what else to do, I rip the box from her hands and smash it on the concrete floor below. I reach behind my back, pull out my gun, and begin emptying an entire clip into the box.

  My accuracy has always been excellent, and today is no different. Each one of the six bullets hit the target and the clasp with the key hole is nearly blown off. My ears are ringing and the powder residue forms a small cloud in front of me. The smoke tickles the hair in my nose, but I refuse to wipe my face. I wait a moment for the heat to cool before crouching down to the level of the now shredded box. George creeps around the corner from where he and Barbara had hid away to during my rampage, and I can sense him watching me meticulously as I pry open the remainder of the box and sort through the contents.

  Unless Snake knows some Chinese guy named Li Yong and has made a currency exchange from dollars to yuan, this is not what we’re looking for. There is a small wad of Chinese yuan tied together with an elastic band in which I pick up and quickly count. I stop counting after I reach the one thousand mark, which is about halfway through the stack. The contents are minimal and the cash can’t be valued at much more than three or four hundred US dollars. I toss Li Yong’s passport and wad of yuan next to the severed lid of the safety deposit box and push myself to my feet.

  Barbara tries to stop me on the way out, but I stay in character and offer an explanation of a false alarm before brushing past her. I look straight ahead and fight with my peripheral vision to avoid observing my surroundings as George and I walk toward the front doors of the bank. I’m not sure if the room is sound proof or not, but I doubt it would matter if it was. From the reflection on the windows, I can see the bank manager in an animated discussion with Barbara back near the vault. She’s clearly trying to convince him to call the police.

  It will only be a matter of minutes before the police are dispatched and are arriving at the scene to interrogate Barbara and any other witnesses who may have stuck around in the line to discuss what happened. Mr. Yong will be notified that his belongings may have been compromised, and he’ll probably file a lawsuit against the bank for their lack of security after he’s questioned about any possible terrorism connection. He’ll never bank with Shawnee again.

  The bank manager will be forced to terminate Barbara after her carelessness, but he may fight for her to at least get a severance package. The surveillance footage will be scrutinized but the police will find no clear images of our faces as we kept our heads down and away from the lenses of the cameras. It’s going to be a big hassle for the institution and some policy changes will probably be enforced within a matter of weeks, and it’s all for not. The key didn’t fit and the money wasn’t there, and we’re no closer to being out of Kansas.

  “Don’t look back,” I say to George as he’s about to do just that as we approach the front doors. We slip down the stairs and onto the sidewalk and blend into the crowd. Police sirens are rapidly approaching from the other side of 53rd Street and George is getting tense. “Stay cool.” We walk at a rapid pace, but we do not run. I find a shortcut through an alley that attaches to the rear of a grocery store that is across the street from the parking garage.

  Frank is sitting in the driver’s seat as we approach the van. I walk around and open the rear doors and George hops inside. Frank shuffles across the seat and into the passenger’s side as I open the front door. He looks between George and me before speaking.

  “Did you get the cash, boss?”

  I slowly turn to face him as I try to figure out how he became to be so stupid. If we had the cash we would have arrived to the van at different times and there would be a little bit more enthusiasm involved. We would have had the box with us and we’d already be back on the interstate. This is usually my time to tear into Frank and his lack of intelligence, but I decide to spare him the humiliation this one time.

  “No, no cash,” I say. ”That wasn’t it.”

  I start the ignition and head toward the exit of the parking garage. I take a left out of the garage and head back in the same direction we came from on 53rd Street.

  Five police cars with their lights flashing line the street just outside of the bank as we drive by. The lane closest to the bank is barricaded by the squad cars and an officer is forcing people away from the entrance of the bank. I recognize his face from a distance, but his name slips past me. I met him only once in passing as he was hired for the graveyard shift during my first leave of absence. It’s after 9:00 A.M. now, so his shift should have ended an hour ago. You’re welcome for the overtime, Mr. Nameless.

  “What do we do now?” George asks from the back.

  “We’re going back to Snake’s place. We must have missed something.”

  “What are we looking for this time?”

  “We’re going to search every square inch of that property until we find something we can use. I’m all ears if you have another idea.”

  I can’t go back to Alicia with nothing. She’s getting concerned and I’m afraid she may crack under the mounting pressure if I bring her more bad news. I won’t tell her about what happened in the bank, as she’ll become paranoid that we’ll be tracked and found. She won’t understand that we avoided the cameras. Even if we didn’t, Sheriff Hearns thinks I’m at the hospital in Hays with Frank, so it’d be a clear case of mistaken identity. It happens all the time. Plus, nothing even happened inside the bank besides a little damage to the one safety deposit box. Nothing was taken and nobody was hurt, and the cops are not on to us. Alicia won’t understand any of this.

  She already thinks the Zved’s have found us, and she might be right, so that’s why we need to find the cash before they do. Time is running out. Every phone call that goes unanswered to Snake will just raise more suspicion that something is wrong. I figure we have less than twenty-four hours before someone heads over to his house and finds him dead, and less than eight more before they find out who’s responsible. The thought of this raises the hair on the back of my neck and I begin to sweat. I’m suddenly chilled by this reality and goose bumps explode from the flesh on my forearms. I shake myself when no one is watching to make the goose bumps disappear.

  Fear is a powerful emotion, but it’s not as strong as the pure hatred and yearning for revenge that I have for Snake and the rest of the Zved’s. They’ve won one too many times before, and I’m determined not to let them beat me again. Snake is out of the picture finally, but I won’t be satisfied until I take from him what was the most important thing in his life, much like he did to me.

  I’m getting out of this alive, and I’m taking his money with me. I will find that cash.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  GEORGE

  I hope this isn’t Billy’s idea of getting away for the night. I know he said he had a place in mind that was close, but I’m not so sure of this strategy. The three of us spent the night in the van in the driveway. I h
ave mentioned this fact, that we’re still in the driveway, a few times throughout the course of the night to him, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to talk about much of anything. None of us get any sleep: Billy from mourning, Alicia from crying, and me because I’m scared to death that if I close my eyes I’ll never wake up again.

  When morning finally does come, the sun shines through the front windshield and warms my face. My eyes are heavy and sore from straining all night. By body is exhausted and I could really use some actual sleep, but I have a feeling that’s not in the cards for me today.

  The echoes of the chirping birds trickle in through Billy’s open window as he smokes a cigarette. Aside from his occasional puffs and exhales, silence fills the van. No one has spoken for a few hours since I last mentioned to Billy that we should at least park somewhere else. All he did at the time was grunt back to me in response to my recommendations, but the van stayed stationary. He blows out the last of his cigarette and flicks it out the window before cranking it back up by hand. He finally turns to Alicia and me and speaks for the first time since Frank was killed.

  “This ends today,” he says. My ears perk up and I look to Alicia, who reacts similarly. “This has gone on for too long, they’re going down tonight.”

  I nod, trying not to look too excited. “How?”

  “We’ll bait them, well, you’ll bait them, then I’ll finish them.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “This is how it has to be. Someone has to bait them, it’s either you or her.” He points to Alicia. I look to her and see her face overwhelmed with fear.

  She couldn’t do it.

  “What about you? Why can’t you bait them?” I ask.

  “What, are you going to kill them? You wouldn’t kill Frank when he was just sitting there and putting up no resistance. What makes you think you have the balls to pull the trigger with these guys staring you in the face?”

  He’s right.

  “You’re not cut out for it and I’m not risking the chance that you’ll freeze up,” he continues. “I’m not putting my life in your hands.”

  I want to ask him, “What about my life?”, but I stop myself. I should know better by now than to even consider saying something like that to him. Billy doesn’t care about anyone but himself, he never has and never will. He doesn’t care about Alicia and he certainly doesn’t care about me. Despite his reaction to what happened to Frank, he would have sacrificed him to save himself in a second. I have no doubt in my mind about that.

  “Fine,” I say. “How do we do it?”

  Speaking like an expert, Billy lays out exactly how it’s going to go down tonight, “A couple guys from the Zved’s will drive by the house exactly twenty-four hours after the murder, or damn close to it. They always do. It’s a habit that I’ve been tracking for years but have never been able to prove in court.”

  “Why would they come back to the scene of the crime so quickly?”

  “To check their work. They always double check their work to make sure that they’re covered. No witnesses. It’s how so many of them stay out of prison. It’s difficult to prove a crime with no eyewitnesses and no DNA evidence. Testimony from a surviving victim would ruin them. It would all be traced back to the roots, and the entire operation would be brought down.”

  “But Snake’s dead. You said he was the guy in charge. How do you know they’ll stick to…procedure?”

  Procedure: What an ugly word to describe organized crime. I cringe a bit as I say it.

  “They still came after us didn’t they? There is always a backup plan, a second in charge, a Vice President I guess you could say.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but I stop myself.

  Billy notices my apprehension. “Just trust me, okay?” he continues. “I’ve been studying their patterns for years.”

  I nod, wondering why he doesn’t just take them down legally, as a cop, instead of doing it this way. It’s a little late for that now I suppose.

  “It will be the same two guys as last night since their work isn’t done and they know we’re still at large. They’ll be in a different vehicle from last night, something the total opposite of the van.”

  “Okay, then what?”

  “Then we bait them.”

  He makes it sound so simple, and I almost believe him.

  “But the first thing we have to do is clean up their mess from last night.”

  “Why bother?”

  “If someone sees a dead body or a pile of blood in your driveway, don’t you think they’d call the police and report it?”

  I shrug. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “We don’t want the police to come just yet. If they come, they make it a crime scene and block off the entire street. No one enters and no one leaves, so our guys won’t be able to drive by and we won’t be able to bait them into the house.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing? Why can’t we just take the money and get the hell out of here?”

  Billy is becoming frustrated with me. “You don’t get it. If we run, they’ll find us. We’ll always have to have one eye over our shoulder for the rest of our lives. Once they spread the word that three witnesses are on the loose, they’ll set a bounty on our asses and we’ll be hunted like fucking animals.”

  I don’t know what to say, but then I remember something Billy had said a day or two back. “Yeah, but you said that they just keep multiplying and adding more men. You said they would just keep sending guys after us.”

  Billy just stares, obviously not following me.

  “What changes if we kill these guys? Won’t they just send more men after that? You said it yourself, everyone will be looking for us.”

  Billy objects by shaking his head. “Not this time. This time is different. I’m taking out the whole operation tonight.”

  I’m not sure whether he’s delusional or if he has some master plan that I can’t connect the dots to, but I don’t question him further. I look down at my wrist for my watch, but I realize that I’m not wearing one. All I see is dry crusted blood from the calluses. I think I’m starting to lose my mind. I’m able to squint and make out the time on the small digital clock on the radio in the front of the van.

  “It’s nine o’clock,” I say. “They killed Frank at what, 8:15 or 8:30? That leaves us with eleven hours until they come back, so you say. What do we do until then?”

  Billy turns his attention back to the front and slides out the door. Moments later, the back doors open and the sun blinds me. I shield my eyes.

  “The first thing we have to do is move the body and clean up the blood.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  BILLY

  Through the morning heat, the strap of the gas mask is rubbing obnoxiously against the back of my neck as I work to remove more of the siding from Snake’s house. The temperature has been slowly rising with each passing hour, and I can feel the sun beginning to crisp a thin layer of my exposed skin. Removing the vinyl siding from the outside of the house is meticulous work, but I’ve managed to remove all but a few of the horizontal panels with the crowbar. The remaining panels will stay where they are, as they’re above the melted safe and out of my reach.

  Snake was taller than I am, but I’m taking a calculated risk that he didn’t hide the money high above his reach either. Doing so would seriously hinder his ability to get it down if needed to in a rush. Each of the wooden studs that frame the house are spaced out evenly, and I’ve torn out most of the insulation while searching for the cash. Upon finding nothing, I toss the crowbar to the ground and walk around to the front of the house to find Frank.

  I enter the house through the busted doorframe and I’m careful to step around the mess. While I was tearing the exterior of the house apart, Frank has been inside doing the same. He has opened up all of the windows and kicked out the screens in an effort to air out the poisonous levels of carbon monoxide. We don’t have a meter to test the levels in the hou
se, so we’re wearing our protective masks just in case. It would be too late by the time we figured out the levels were too high if we went without masks, so we’ll just have to deal with the lack of comfort of them while we work.

  The mud stained carpet in the living room has been torn up, the ripped vintage wallpaper covers numerous fist sized holes over the drywall, and the cushions on the couch have all been shredded. Frank used his pocketknife to do most of the damage it appears. The rubber mallet that I threw last time we were here still rests implanted in the wall. I scramble toward the kitchen to wash the fiberglass from the insulation off of my hands and forearms, as the rosy blemishes are already spreading like the plague up my arms. Through the open window above the sink, I see George pacing the perimeter of the lawn in precise squares with his head looking down at the ground beneath. He continues to obey me, like a good boy.

  I poke my head in the bathroom and bedroom before heading down to the basement. I don’t feel the need to check Frank’s work, as I already did an exhaustive destruction of Snake’s property previously, so I don’t expect that Frank has found anything. The basement door is cracked open and I can see a faint glow from the light creep through the doorframe. I push the door open and march down the stairs.

  Snake is definitely dead. The color has completely left his body and he’s as pale as an albino. His head is below his torso as it rests on the bottom stair, so gravity is holding his eyes open. Even for me, it’s disturbing to look at. I climb over him and his pool of soupy blood without checking his pulse, and I find Frank looking in and around the washer and dryer under the stairs.

  “Having any luck?” I ask, which startles Frank. He jumps and nearly hits his head on the low hanging ceiling.

  “You scared me, boss.”

  “Sorry. Did you find anything?”

  “No, nothin’. I didn’t find no money or no safe or nothin’.”

  I’m not surprised. “Me either.” I sigh, feeling a little discouraged and defeated.