by Mike Knowles
Monica climbed the custom ramp ahead of Miles and myself. On foot, she was the exact opposite of what existed when she was behind the wheel. She moved slowly and without grace, but she got there. Miles and I began to loosen straps while Monica got behind the wheel. The last strap fell away just as she turned the key. The bed had been designed to hold tons of salt; the small forklift fit just fine. I hustled down the ramp behind Miles and just a second ahead of Monica.
The second all four wheels touched the pavement, Miles and I lifted the ramp away from the tailgate and carried it to the stairs. The ramp covered the length of the stairs as though it had been made for the job — which it had. The forklift backed up the conveniently plowed street while Miles and I pulled a smaller ramp from the snowplow and placed it over the curb. It wasn’t luck that the curb was empty; on the way to the meet, I had left a no-parking sign on the sidewalk. If anyone official took an interest in the sign, it wouldn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t kosher, but I was betting any unfortunate soul who found themselves on the street in a snowstorm wouldn’t be looking too closely.
With the second ramp down, I backed up and signalled Monica. There was a hydraulic hiss as the forks lifted to a height of four feet. The engine revved and the wheels spun on the pavement before they found purchase. The forklift that we had stolen from a warehouse in Tonawanda accelerated quickly, and I wondered if Monica had spent some time under the hood. The forklift bucked when it hit the first ramp, but it stayed on course as Monica drove the machine up the second ramp and into the lacquered black door of Mendelson’s Jewellery.
The forklift burst through the door and accelerated through the waiting room and into the door leading to the showroom. Miles and I entered seconds behind the forklift to see that it had gotten enough momentum to take the second door on the first try. In the small waiting room, the alarm was deafening. As we entered the showroom, the wail of the security system had some competition from the forklift that was busy smashing into display cases on its way to the final door. Monica approached the last door with more caution. If she went at it full bore, she risked hitting the rear wall; that one was all brick. Monica put the forks to the door and then slowly stepped on the accelerator; the tires didn’t slide on the expensive hardwood. The door broke away from the frame and Monica proceeded forward, creating a forklift-shaped hole in the wall. By the time we caught up to the machine, Monica had lowered the forks and was in the process of narrowing their span. When she felt she had it right, I guided the metal prongs under the first safe. Monica hoisted the heavy metal box and spun it in a tight one-eighty and headed back the way it came. Miles ran ahead of the forklift and guided Monica as she lifted the safe and placed it into the bed of the snowplow.
I looked up and down the street and was happy with what I saw. The alarm had been going strong for a minute and a half, but the only sign that anyone had taken notice came from a few lights in windows that had previously been dark. I didn’t worry about lights in windows; I only cared about red and blue lights on the street.
Monica whirled the forklift around and kept her foot on the break. I checked the street one more time and then spun my finger in a tight rotation — one more time.
This time, Monica went in alone. I stood on the steps and watched for any sign of a response to the alarm, but the only witness to the crime in progress was the snow. I walked down the ramp ahead of the returning forklift and let Monica handle getting the second safe into the bed. I was back with a gas can just in time to see Monica force the second safe against the first. There was a horrible screech as the heavy metal boxes scraped against the plow’s bed. When the safes were in the plow, Monica turned and barrelled up the ramp again while I lifted the tailgate. I jogged up the ramp with the gas can and passed Monica on her way down. I splashed the floor of Mendelson’s and the forklift and left the rest of the gas can open on the seat. I lit the fuel and waited just long enough to make sure the fire was moving in the right direction. When the flames began to climb into the driver’s seat, I ran for the plow.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Doesn’t this thing go any faster?”
“No.”
Miles looked across the seat at the side mirror. “This is a terrible getaway car.”
“This ain’t even a car.”
“So you agree with me.”
Monica checked her mirrors. “We’ve been over this. The only thing that isn’t suspicious in this weather is a snowplow.”
“We won’t be on the road long,” I said.
The secondary location had been a tall order. After any job, you need to go somewhere where you can lay low with whatever has been stolen. Most times it’s money; this time, it was two safes stowed in the back of a snowplow, which made things considerably harder. Compounding the problem was the location. Manhattan in a snowstorm isn’t teeming with places to hide a hot snowplow. It had taken a month, but I had managed to find a location close to the river. The garage had been on the market for a few months. Judging by the state of the inside of the garage, I guessed the reason it hadn’t sold was due to the half-finished renovations. I broke in a few weeks back, making sure to be loud and sloppy. I was inside for less than five minutes and then spent four hours waiting for someone to respond — no one ever did. The security stickers I saw on display had been just window dressing. The next day, I swapped all of the locks for my own. I waited a week and then checked back. No one else had been inside. I had been to the garage before the meeting, and, as usual, nothing had changed. I changed that.
Miles looked at me. “What if they don’t show?”
“This again?”
Miles turned his head. “It’s a valid question, Monica. If the Diegos say adios, we’re left with a plow and two safes we can’t open.”
“They’ll be there,” I said.
“And if they’re not?”
“They will,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
I checked my watch. “I can’t be sure, but in a few minutes, we’ll know.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The garage was exactly how I had left it except for the snowplow in the centre of the floor dripping water onto the concrete.
Miles was in the bed of the truck, giving the safes a closer look. “Do we have everything we need?”
I nodded. “I’ve been talking to some people — the right kind of people — gave me a shopping list with similar tools. I picked up what they’ll need. Plus, when I had Jake reach out to them about the meeting, I made sure he relayed word that they should bring their gear.”
“If they come,” Miles said.
I ignored him. I wasn’t having the conversation again. Miles didn’t seem to have the heart for it, either. There was nothing left to do but wait, and it was easier to do that in silence.
My phone rang at four o’clock.
“That’s them,” Miles said. “Unless you got a girlfriend we don’t know about.”
I picked up. “You got my message.”
“Uh hunh.”
“I’m glad you decided to come in with us.”
Diego #1’s voice was flat. “That makes one of us.”
“One? Did your brother walk away?”
“No, he came. So did Elliot.”
I heard a rustle as the phone was roughly passed to someone else.
“For a good time call Diego,” Elliot said. There was more gravel in his voice than before and I could hear him wheeze when he paused to take a breath. “Clever. You never stop being clever, do you? It’s so goddamn annoying.”
I had given Diego directions to a stop sign. Written on the sign were those words Elliot seemed to have to work to get out and a phone number. The dive out the window had taken a toll on his body; the problem was, he seemed able to pay it.
Miles and Monica stood near me with their heads tilted towards the phone in my hand.
I
pulled the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker. “Put Diego back on, Elliot.”
Monica and Miles exchanged a look but kept silent.
“You’re not in charge, clever boy. I’m in charge. I know what you did tonight. We had the radio on while we waited. You made the news. It seems some people recorded you on their phones from their bedroom windows. The footage is already on the internet. You’re celebrities. Did you know that?”
“No,” I said. “The radio in the truck was broken.”
Miles already had his phone out. He was on the internet looking for a report about what we had done.
“So you have the safes, but I have your safecracker.”
“Cracker?” I said.
“I’m sorry to say, Diego’s brother didn’t make it.”
“He shot him in the fucking head,” Diego #1 yelled. “He just fucking shot him.”
“And I’ll shoot Diego here as well. Unless —”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you cut me in. I want my share.”
I looked at Monica. She was looking at my face, but I could tell she wasn’t seeing me. She was lost in a hate that had invaded her alongside the knife that had violated her body.
“You want the safes? You need to bring me in. I want you to lock down your partner and that bloodthirsty bitch, and then I want you to walk over here. I know —” he grunted in pain. “I know you’re somewhere close. You have to be. No point setting a meeting point across town if you need someone right away. No —” he grunted again. “You’re nearby. Come alone and get in the front seat. We’ll drive back to wherever you are together. Try something funny, and I’ll shoot Diego —”
“No,” I said.
“No?” Elliot coughed. “You don’t think I’ll kill him? I’ll do it, and then I’ll call the cops and give them a tip about a suspicious snowplow in the area. They’ll check with the city and it will take them about a minute to know that it’s the plow they’re looking for. They’ll find you, Wilson. See? I’m clever, too. Just like you. But you need me because without me, you get nothing.”
I hung up the phone.
Miles and Monica stared at me.
“That wasn’t your call to make,” Miles said.
“It was the only call to make.”
“Without Diego, we have nothing.”
The phone rang again. I ignored it.
“Pick it up,” Monica said.
“Do it, Wilson.”
I answered. It was Elliot.
“I’ll do it. I will. Tell him.”
Diego #1 spoke slowly and carefully. “He’s got a gun to my head. He’s not bluffing.”
I looked at Miles and Monica and said, “Pull the trigger.”
Miles yelled no, but Elliot didn’t hear him. I had already hung up the phone.
A second later, we heard the shot fired at the stop sign just up the street.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“What the hell was that?” Miles screamed. “You just let him kill Diego.”
Monica went for the door. She had a gun in her hand.
“No,” I said.
She whirled around to face me; the sudden movement caused her to grab her side, but it didn’t take the fire out of her. “He’s out there.”
“And he’s counting on you to go looking for him. You do that, and he knows where we are. More importantly, he knows where the safes are.”
Miles got into my face and shoved me with the palms of his hands. “And what good are they now, Wilson? Without the Diegos, they might as well be paperweights. No, they can’t even be those because we can’t even move them without a forklift. And we can’t afford a forklift because we can’t get into those fucking safes.”
I stepped in close to Miles and spoke softly. “You keep screaming like that and he’ll find us on his own.”
Monica was still close to the door.
I spoke up so that she could hear me, too. “Listen, this guy is good. Really goddamn good. He walked out of an ambush tonight and got himself within feet of the finish line. You need to get past the glasses and the gut and see Elliot for what he really is. That guy is a shark dressed like Steve Wozniak. Sharks don’t share and neither does Elliot. He doesn’t want his piece; he wants the whole score. He wanted me to secure you two and then meet him alone. Why?”
Monica turned from the door. “To kill you.”
I nodded.
“But if he did that, he’d have no idea where we were. How would that help him?”
I shook my head. “You’re thinking like a person. Think like a shark. If I showed up, it would confirm that he was right and that we were close. As soon as I was dead, he’d use the snow against us and follow my tracks straight back to you.”
Miles nodded to himself. “He was right. He is as clever as you are.”
Monica looked at me; then at Miles. “What am I missing?”
Miles took a step towards Monica. “He was never going to let Diego live.”
“Why not?”
“He knew Wilson wouldn’t walk out to him, and he knew we’d never agree to letting him tie us up. He knew all of this, but he still put it out there.”
“Why?”
“So Wilson would say no,” Miles said. “Then he called back so that we could hear him shoot Diego. We’d blame Wilson. It was an impossible situation, but we’d blame him all the same. That would be enough.”
“For what?”
“To drive a wedge between us. Maybe thin our numbers if he’s lucky.” Miles stepped closer to Monica. “He saw you back there. He saw that look in your eye. The one you have right now. He knows that you want nothing more than to kill him. He’s counting on that.”
Monica’s chin dropped to her chest. “He’s using me again. Goddamnit, he’s using me again!”
“And now you’ve figured him out, and you want to go out that door even more,” I said.
Miles took another step closer to Monica. “Like I said, Elliot is clever. He was sure killing Diego would drive a wedge between us. He saw us talking. He knows there is something between us.”
Monica laughed without any humour. “One time almost a year ago doesn’t put something between us.”
It was Miles’s turn to laugh. “That’s where you’re wrong. One time leaves a trace that a clever guy like Elliot can spot. He was betting that I would blame Wilson for letting Diego die and I’d side with you. It was a smart play. After all, Wilson let one of our crew die. Who could stand with a man after he did something like that?”
“So why are you?”
Miles smiled. “Because I know something Elliot doesn’t know.”
“What’s that?”
Miles looked at me. “I already knew exactly what kind of bastard Wilson is.”
“So what’s he doing now?” Monica said.
“He’s not calling the cops,” Miles said.
“You don’t think so?”
“He’s looking for us,” I said.
“Good luck. Those tire tracks are long gone.”
“He won’t need them,” I said. “He knows he’s close. There are only so many places around here to hide a truck and provide the necessary space to open two safes without raising any alarms. With enough time, he’ll find us.”
“So do we wait for him to show up? Or do we go after him?”
“Good question,” Miles said.
“Neither,” I said. “He’s pushing us, and that means he has an agenda. We can’t be sure if he’s banking on us to stay put, or go after him.”
Monica looked confused. “So we do nothing?”
“We’ll move,” I said, “but not when he wants, or where he wants.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Something bothered me about the death of the Diegos. It wasn’t their actual dying that bothered me.
They had been in this line of work long enough to know the risks. What bothered me was how willing Elliot had been to kill the two men capable of opening the safes. I looked at the huge boxes. They were designed to thwart any type of unwanted entry. To get inside without the combination, you needed the hands of a surgeon and the knowledge of an engineer. So why was Elliot so quick to knock off the two people with the right mix of fingers and lobes? The answer: he didn’t need them. I smiled. He didn’t need them, and I knew why.
I had been keeping tabs on Saul. He had added security since the job went south. The additional security wasn’t a new system for the store; it was a personal bodyguard for himself. A goon who shopped at the big-and-tall shop now picked up Saul at his door and remained in his shadow for the entire day. The message was clear: he wasn’t worried about the business; Saul was worried about Saul. His fears were easy for me to spot; now I wondered if anyone else had been watching.
Saul hadn’t changed his phone number; there was no point. We knew where he worked and where he lived; an angry phone call was the least of his worries.
He picked up right away. “Yeah?”
“He called you, didn’t he?”
There was a short pause. “Detective Lock. That was your name, wasn’t it?”
“It was. And that wasn’t an answer, Saul. He made you an offer, didn’t he?”
Saul was quiet for a few seconds. I understood. There were a lot of ways things could go tonight, and he wanted to make sure all ways pointed towards him. “You don’t mean the police, do you? Because they called me.”