Rocks Beat Paper

by Mike Knowles

  She decelerated without squealing the tires and got out. I couldn’t see it under the helmet, but I knew that there was a smile there.

  “You’re in.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I spent the next morning watching the outside of the jewellery store. At eleven, I drove out of the city to Greenburgh. I followed the directions Jake had given me and pulled into the lot of T&C Builder’s Supply at one in the afternoon. There were three trucks parked close to the lot’s entrance; two of them sported company names on their doors. I pulled in next to a black Ford belonging to a contractor and checked the lot. The squat square building ahead of me fronted a huge fenced-in yard that contained a dozen neatly lined yellow flatbed trucks sporting the letters T and C on the side. The rest of the yard contained stacks of bricks arranged in neat uniform columns.

  I walked inside and asked for Ron. A middle-aged woman listening to light hits of the late eighties pointed to the back door with the invoice she was holding in her right hand. I wandered the aisles of stacked bricks and concrete forms, following the sound of a forklift somewhere near the back of the yard. I found Ron off-loading a shipment of bricks. He moved the forklift quickly from truck to pallet, pausing only to spit out of the opening to his right. He caught my eye and finished moving the bricks he had in the air. He wheeled the forklift around so that he could look at me from the opening to his left, killed the engine, and spoke to me from the driver’s seat.

  “Something you need?”

  “You Ron?”

  The guy behind the wheel was in his fifties with the red-veined face of a drinker. The wad of tobacco in his cheek strained the flesh of his face, forming the only taught spot his body possessed; the rest of him was flabby. “I’m Ron. What can I help you with?”

  “I’m looking for iron,” I said, using the words Jake had told me to say. He also told me what would come next.

  “We don’t sell iron here. All we have is brick and stone.”

  He moved to start the forklift. I could tell he was moving slow enough to offer me time to respond.

  “How about lead?”

  Ron nodded and spat before getting out of the forklift. “Follow me.”

  We walked through the stacks until the columns became piles. In the far corner of the lot, surrounded by broken company vehicles and far away from the legitimate side of the business, was a rusted shipping container. Ron opened the door and stepped inside. He had vanished in the darkness only to reappear in the light of an old camping lantern. I stepped to the door frame and saw the gun in Ron’s hand.

  “Shirt up.”

  I didn’t fight it. I was told there would be a search and that I needed to let it happen if I wanted to do business. I pulled up my shirt and turned in a circle to show Ron that I wasn’t wired.

  “Who sent you here?”

  “A fun guy.”

  The answer was the right one. He put the gun into the pocket of his jacket. “What do you need?”

  “Three guns. Two need to be police issue. The third can be anything reliable.”

  Ron rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Police means 9 mm. You have a choice of Sig, Glock, or Smith & Wesson. I can get you the Glock or the Sig right away. S&Ws can be done, but it will take a little time.”

  “Can you do two of both?”

  “I only have one Sig.”

  “I’ll take all three.”

  “You want to test them?”

  I nodded.

  “Alright. Wait here.”

  Ron walked out of the container, and a minute later I heard the forklift start up. The sound of the moving machine made me curious enough to step outside. I followed the sound two rows over and found Ron standing next to a column of bricks. The forklift was still running and its tongs were busy keeping a couple thousand pounds of bricks from falling on Ron’s head. From a space inside the stack of bricks, Ron pulled out a case. He walked the case back to the forklift and lowered the bricks back down to the column. I walked back to the container before Ron noticed me and waited for him to repeat his actions on another pallet of bricks elsewhere in the yard. Five minutes later, Ron walked back to the shipping container carrying two cases.

  Inside the cases were two Glocks, a Sig, and two revolvers.

  “The revolvers are S&Ws, but they won’t pass for police issue.”

  I looked over the revolvers. “The four inch is a .38. The smaller —”

  “That’s a .22,” Ron said.

  “Where can I test them?”

  “You can shoot them right here.” He walked to the other side of the container and turned on another camping light; the burst of illumination revealed rows of sandbags against the far wall of the container. He pulled two sets of earmuffs from an empty milk crate and walked a pair back to me.

  “These will take care of the noise for you and me, and this is for everyone else.” He stepped outside the container, and a few seconds later a gas generator started. Ron came back in and closed the door behind him. “No one is going to hear anything over that. You want the Glock first?”

  I nodded and Ron put on his earmuffs before handing me the weapon and a box of 9 mm bullets. I took my time loading both weapons. They were well maintained and without a lot of wear and tear. “They clean?”

  “They didn’t come that way, but the serial numbers are gone and I changed the barrels on both of them.”

  I worked the slide and lifted the gun to shoulder height. The earmuffs didn’t work as well as I had hoped they would.

  “Nice, right?”

  I ignored Ron and the ringing in my ears and picked up the second Glock. The trigger pulled easier on the second gun, but it did the job just as well.

  I picked up the .38 and loaded a bullet into the cylinder. I closed the gun with my palm and aimed down the length of the container. The .38 had more of a kick than the Glock, but it shot straight.

  “Twenty-five for the two Glocks and the .38.”

  Ron rubbed at his chin and it moved three inches. “Three.”

  “Twenty-eight with the ammunition and something to carry them in.”

  Ron thought about it for a few seconds before he said, “Deal.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I met Miles and Monica back at the motel room. One of the great things about New York is the seemingly endless number of cash motels. It doesn’t matter where you are, you’re never far from a place that will accept cash for a bed. I had been selective about the room and had opted for a place that offered monthly rates and had rooms with kitchens and living rooms that would seem cramped in Barbie’s dream house. The space was tight for one, but it somehow managed to accommodate several large families in the complex.

  I had the guns on the kitchen table next to the IDs Miles had picked up. The work was good.

  “Your guy knows his stuff.”

  “For what we’re paying him, he should. They’ll hold up to an inspection by anyone, even a cop, but if they check the information it’ll come up bunko.”

  “I know,” I said. “It won’t come to that.”

  Miles nodded at Monica. “You tell him?”

  “About the car? Yeah, he knows I’m going to pick up the Crown Vic tonight.”

  “You really think she should bring it back here?” Miles asked.

  I got up and pulled a magnetic sign from a drawer. I had picked it up after I met with Ron. I handed the flimsy magnet to Miles and sat back down.

  “What the hell is Donovan Security?”

  “An excuse for a car that looks like a police car. In the lot, people will just take it for a private security car. When we want people to think differently, we’ll take it off.”

  Miles looked around the room. “So I guess we’re working tomorrow.”

  “Morning and night. We leave here at four.”

  “Four?”

  “I
want him to see us get out of the car. For that to happen, we need to be early enough to get a parking space on his route.”

  Miles didn’t argue. He understood that if Saul was going to buy our story, his brain would need to be our accomplice. We had to feed his mind everything it needed to create its own idea. If his brain took in badges, guns, and a police car on its own, it would have less trouble ingesting our story.

  “Is there a hydrant on the street? Or some kind of no parking sign?” Miles asked.

  “There’s a hydrant.”

  “We should park in front of that. Cops don’t follow traffic laws. It’s one of the things people hate most about them.”

  “It’s true,” Monica said. “You ever see one of them stop before they pull right on a red?”

  I grinned. Miles was right.

  “We’ll get a spot to be safe, but we should pull in front of the hydrant when Saul shows. We can brace him right there,” Miles said.

  I shook my head. “We get him into the car and drive him around while we talk to him.”

  It was Miles’s turn to smile. “I like it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The morning was a bust. Firing that last guard had made the other two as punctual as the tall hats outside Buckingham Palace. The two guards were on the stairs and in view of the fire hydrant a minute before Saul had even parked his car. The night was more accommodating.

  Through binoculars, I watched the jewellery store clear out. Just like clockwork, the receptionist and jewellers cleared out first, followed by Saul and the security guards ten minutes later. The guards followed the same route they used every other time I had watched them. There were curt nods all around, and then Saul and his security parted ways. It was just after eight when the jeweller started down the street towards us. There was a slight breeze, and the wind opened the old man’s coat. I leaned in and tried to train the binoculars on the jeweller, but there were too many people between us for me to get a look at what the old man was carrying on his hip.

  “You worried he’ll shoot us?”

  “Us?”

  “Fine,” Miles said. “Are you at all worried that he’ll shoot me?”

  “A little.”

  “Wait. What?”

  I pulled out of the parking spot and drove up the street. I got ahead of Saul, but that didn’t matter — I knew where he was going.

  I pulled up in front of a fire hydrant and watched the rear-view; Miles used the side mirror. We saw the jeweller emerge from behind a couple holding hands who stopped to look at a window display. We let Saul get a little closer, and then we opened the doors.

  “Badges,” I said.

  I held up my badge and waited a second for Miles to catch up.

  “Mr. Mendelson, my name is Detective Lock and this is Detective Croft. We’d like you to come with us.”

  Saul paused and looked at me while the rest of the street ran at regular speed.

  I put the badge in an inner pocket as I rounded the rear bumper so that Saul could get a look at the gun in the shoulder holster.

  “Sir, you need to come with us.”

  Saul picked up on the emphasis I put on the word need and came out of his trance.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  Miles tucked his badge into his coat and gave Saul a view of the identical Glock that he was carrying in a matching shoulder holster. “Nothing like that, sir.” He looked up and down the street and then rechecked the sidewalk. “We would just rather have this conversation in private.”

  “What kind of conversation?”

  “We have reason to believe that someone is planning to rob your jewellery store, and we would like you to help us stop it.”

  Everything that I had learned about Saul came secondhand from his protegé. So far it seemed a lot of what David had told me about his boss and his place of employment was true. The store functioned the way David said it did and Saul kept to the schedule David told us about in his basement. Watching the jeweller’s comings and goings told me that David was right about something else — the old man was paranoid. Paranoia was a second shadow that followed Saul wherever he went. Mentioning a threat to the store uprooted the jeweller’s feet and brought him to us. He gave our badges a once-over and then looked over his shoulder for some unseen threat. The momentary glance gave me a chance to look at the gun Saul was carrying. The hip holster was an ornate custom leather job that left only the golden butt of the small custom gun visible.

  “You want me to help you? I don’t understand.”

  “It would be better if we talked about this in the car, sir.”

  Saul took a step towards the car but apprehension pulled him back. “Let me see your identification again.”

  Miles looked at me, and I shrugged. I pulled my badge out of my pocket and opened it for Saul. Miles followed suit, and we spent a long minute waiting for Saul to review our credentials. Saul nodded and we put away our badges. The old man waited until my hand was out of my coat before he said, “What’s your badge number?”

  I recited the number on my way back to the car. Without waiting to be asked, Miles did the same on his way to the rear door. He opened it and motioned for Saul to get inside.

  “Unless you want to ask me when my birthday is first.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “What is going on?”

  I turned onto 48th and spoke over my shoulder without taking my eyes off the road. “We have reason to believe that there is a plan to rob your store. We think it’s already in motion.”

  “What?”

  Miles turned and fit his head through the space between the seats, “We have reason to believe —”

  “I heard you. I was just shocked.”

  The car filled with silence for thirty seconds; I didn’t try to let it out. The quiet gave Saul’s mind all the room it needed to start running.

  “Who is going to rob the store?”

  Miles sighed. “We don’t know.”

  “When are they going to do it?”

  “We don’t know that, either,” Miles said.

  “You pull me off the street, tell me my business is going to be robbed, and now I find out you don’t know who or when. This is insane.”

  I lifted my eyes from the road and looked at Saul in the rear-view mirror. “Sir,” I said.

  “No, this is insane. Take me back.”

  “Sir.”

  “I said take me back. You can’t tell me a single thing about this so-called robbery.”

  “We didn’t say that,” I said.

  “What?”

  “We didn’t say we couldn’t tell you a single thing. We just don’t know those details,” I said.

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “For one thing,” Miles said. “We know it’s an inside job.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “What the hell are you talking about? You’re saying one of my employees is trying to steal from me?” Saul laughed. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I know this must be a shock, Mr. Mendelson, but it’s the truth,” I said.

  “Tell me how this can be the truth. Tell me how you can be so sure that one of my employees is planning on robbing my store.”

  “We were recently contacted by an employee of your store. Now, when I say we, I don’t mean us. A call was logged and the details were taken down by one of the people working our phones. Now, you have to understand —” I took my eyes off the road long enough to look at Saul, “we get calls like this all the time. All the time. The information gets logged and the information gets passed on. Not to us. The information gets passed on to our supervisors and they hand it out to us if they think it is pertinent.”

  “Who called you? It sure as hell wasn’t me.”

  I ignored the question. “A second call was placed about a potential robbery, and when the
tip was logged, the computer linked it to the first call we received a few weeks before. The information was forwarded up the chain again. Let me say again, we get calls like this all the time. We have a stack of them on our desk as we speak.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. You’re very busy. Just cut to the chase. Which one of my people called you?”

  I turned my head and looked at Saul again before I spoke. “The call came from David Phillips.”

  Saul sat back in his seat and let his neck go slack. “David,” he said slowly, as though the noun had a physical weight.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was Mr. Phillips who left us the messages.”

  “He never told me about any of this.”

  “His messages indicated that the persons involved were dangerous. We’ve come to believe that he didn’t want to endanger you by getting you involved.”