The Thieves of Heaven

by Richard Doetsch

  “Mr. St. Pierre?” His accent was Italian.

  Michael instantly recognized the voice. “Get out,” he ordered.

  The man sat there.

  Michael reached for the phone. “You’ve got thirty seconds,” he said and started dialing.

  “And what would you tell your policeman friend?”

  Michael slowed his dialing.

  “That the man whom you robbed is sitting in your apartment?” The foreigner didn’t appear to even breathe.

  Michael hung up the phone.

  “You didn’t think I’d let you get away?”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Simon,” the man answered.

  Tension crackled in the air between them like lightning. Michael could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he tried to focus on what to do, how to react.

  “I would like my keys back,” Simon said.

  Michael knew that no job was ever really over. The specter of being found, of being arrested, perpetually lingered. “I’m not sure what you are talking about,” he evaded.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Michael crossed the room toward the seated stranger and quietly called out, “Hawk?” His voice filled with frustration and anger. Hawk woke and, looking at his master, rolled onto his back looking for a rub. Michael crouched down and scratched his belly. “Some watchdog,” Michael whispered to the air as much as Hawk, all the while assessing the mettle of the man still seated before him.

  “Let me see if I can refresh your memory,” Simon said. “A little short on cash, wife gravely ill, you running around the Vatican setting off smoke bombs.” He made a gesture with his hands. “Stealing a couple of decoy keys, hopping a plane to Jerusalem, climbing Mount Kephas, stealing two more keys from a church.” He paused for emphasis. “My bullets missing your head by inches,” he added.

  “You’re full of shit.”

  Simon didn’t break his stare as he pulled a pistol from his jacket, resting it on his leg. He slowly inched it over, coming to rest on the head of the sleeping cat. His eyes betrayed nothing. “I believe this is your wife’s pet.”

  Michael was beyond furious: this guy was flat-out threatening him and there was nothing Michael could do about it.

  “Tell me where the keys are.” Simon looked at the cat, at Hawk, and then back at Michael. “The three of you can live if…” Chillingly, he let the ultimatum hang. “Maybe I could visit Mary; it would be a shame—all that effort, and she ends up dead because of your ineptitude.”

  Michael’s work never had put Mary in peril; never would he have allowed that to happen on any job.

  “The keys are gone,” he said curtly. “I sold them.”

  “To?”

  “A man.”

  Simon exhaled. “Name?” he asked softly.

  Finster’s guards numbered twenty, that was Michael’s count. And the stolen keys were underground in what Michael knew was an impenetrable room. No one was going to get to them. Not Simon, not anyone. “A German industrialist. August Finster,” Michael replied. The words rolled off his tongue; he felt no remorse at betraying his employer. August Finster understood when you played with the big boys sometimes the big boys hit back—sometimes the jaw, sometimes the heart.

  With the grace of an animal, Simon stood. CJ leaped off his lap. The man was tall; at least six-two. “You have no comprehension of what you have done,” he said.

  “I saved my wife’s life—”

  “—And damned the world.”

  The statement hung in the air, leaving Michael speechless.

  “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Do you believe in God, Mr. St. Pierre?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “So, you once did? Well, you better start believing again.”

  “I’ll say a prayer of thanks when you leave.”

  Simon stood his ground. “In the year of Our Lord thirty-two, Jesus said to one of His disciples, ‘Thou art Petros and upon this rock, I shall build My Church….And what thou bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven.’ And he gave Peter two keys to symbolize his power to absolve or condemn. The power to control the Gates of Heaven.”

  There was a coldness to this man like Michael had never seen before. He wouldn’t stop at Michael’s death or Mary’s; he was acting on a deeper belief, one usually reserved for terrorists and fanatics.

  “I think it’s time for you to go,” Michael insisted.

  “You still don’t understand, do you?”

  “Understand what?”

  “You have stolen the keys to Heaven.”

  This guy was insane. Whatever credibility he had just flew out the window as far as Michael was concerned. Michael’s faith had waned and this only proved to amplify his resolve. He had assumed it was a money issue for this guy’s boss, but no, it was one of those Blues-Brothers-mission-from-God routines.

  “Now, I’m really calling—”

  “Heaven is closed, Michael—”

  “Get out now.” Gun be damned, he was going to hit the lunatic if he didn’t shut up.

  “You don’t even realize who you sold those keys to, do you?”

  Michael grabbed the guy’s arm but Simon was bottled lightning. He spun Michael around so fast, Michael didn’t know what day it was and then slammed him down into the chair. CJ yowled and fled. Simon leaned in and in a clear, even voice, declared, “We are going to get those keys back.”

  He turned and left the room.

  Michael got to his feet and fell in step close behind: no one violated his home and no one ever told him what he was going to do.

  “We aren’t doing anything.” Michael struggled to control his voice, the adrenaline making it tremble. “I have a wife to care for.”

  “Do you value her soul?” Simon didn’t wait for an answer. “If you do, then you’ll help me. Otherwise, Mary, like all of us, is damned.” He opened the front door. “We leave in two days.” Then, turning back, he demanded, “How stupid could you be? You really have no idea who Finster is?”

  Michael was silent, still in shock; he had never seen anyone move so fast in his entire life.

  “Look it up,” Simon said as he slammed the door.

  Chapter 15

  Dean McGregor was a three-time loser who was doing everything in his power to go straight. Paul Busch met with Dean the third Wednesday of every month. Dean was the kind of happy-go-lucky guy who would always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong friends and all the wrong intentions. His first robbery was a small liquor store, not a lot of cash in a liquor store—certainly not enough to give up five years of your life over. So, weren’t Dean and his pals surprised when they pulled their guns and the clerk handed over twenty thousand dollars. Of course that twenty thousand was narc money, the place was under surveillance for the distribution of marijuana, and that twenty grand was being closely monitored by three DEA agents sitting in a Ford across the street. When they busted Dean and his hoodlum friends, their six-month operation went up in smoke; the DEA made sure the DA threw the book at the boys.

  Dean was only out five months when he tried to knock over a gas station. His wife was pregnant and he wanted to buy her some nice things because she was awfully depressed over her escalating weight. Using his usual plastic toy gun he hit up the gas attendant, finding the register half full, with maybe four hundred bucks in it. What he didn’t know was that the gas attendant’s wife was also pregnant and the guy was a moonlighting cop trying to provide a nest egg for their unborn child. The attendant’s service revolver was sitting under the counter due to the fact he came straight from work, his third double-shift in a week. Officer Paul Busch pulled out the revolver; Dean wet himself right on the spot. Busch read him his Miranda warnings. While they waited for a patrol car to pick up Dean, they got to talking about their unborn children. For the first time, Busch could see that while committing a crime is always wrong, what motivates a criminal can sometimes have a certain degree of nob
ility to it. Of course that wasn’t an excuse—the law was still the law—and Dean went right back to prison, sentenced to a fifteen-year stretch.

  So it came to be that Busch and Thal were sitting in a coffee shop six years later running down the usual questions with the recently released Dean McGregor; he’d got out for good behavior after serving a third of his sentence. Busch shook Dean’s hand warmly, greeting him with a smile. The man paid his dues, served his time as the court had seen fit, and that was fine with Busch. His job was not to pass judgment—just to enforce the law.

  Dean extended his hand to Thal, who just stared at it without moving. The younger cop’s glare sent Dean into a nervous twitch that lasted throughout the entire interview.

  They spent the next thirty minutes running over the usual questions: How you doing? How’s the family? Is the job we got you working out? Are you showing up for work on time? The usual adjustments-to-life-on-the-outside questions. Busch took the lead, guiding the conversation in the direction he wanted. He didn’t like his charges feeling anxious or nervous around him. Being comfortable at your parole meeting was important because when the ex-con was relaxed he would open up, be honest about his acclimation back to society. It was when an ex-con got scared or desperate, feeling that he couldn’t cope with the outside world, that a parolee reverted back to crime. Busch’s job was to keep them on the straight and narrow. It was his failure as much as theirs if they fell back into their criminal ways.

  Busch’s cell phone rang and he excused himself from the table. He allowed Thal a little leeway to ask some questions but told him to wrap up and set Dean on his way. Thal’s first question about Dean’s dreams and nightmares seemed innocuous enough, but it went downhill from there: antagonistic, browbeating, confrontational statements.

  “You dream about the money, don’t you, McGregor? Tell me the truth. When you lie in bed at night, you can’t help but think of the easy way to put food on the table.” Thal smiled. “How many years before we pick up your kids following in Daddy’s footsteps?”

  Dean sat there in shock, sweat beginning to pour down his face.

  “I used to believe in reform,” Thal continued relentlessly. “I used to believe in forgiveness. But you know what, Dean? I don’t think you’re reformed and you certainly shouldn’t be forgiven.”

  Dean’s nerves were fried in the two minutes he spent with Thal. He was more afraid of this guy than anyone he’d ever met in prison. And it wasn’t the young cop’s words: it was his tone and the way his eyes glittered when he spoke.

  Thal placed his hand on Dean’s shoulder as if he was a child. “You disgust me, McGregor. You’re a waste of space in this world. You better pray that I don’t catch your ass in my gun sight committing a crime. Because if I do, I’ll splatter your brain all over the pavement, scrape it up, and deliver it to your wife.”

  Busch’s return abruptly ended the inquisition.

  “Dean? I’ll see you in three weeks,” Busch said. The emphasis was on I’ll. He walked the shaken Dean McGregor to the door, calming him with an arm around the other man’s shoulders.

  Busch returned to the booth. Sat down. Sipped his lukewarm coffee. Added more sugar. He let the minutes tick by and as they did Thal started to squirm. The anticipation of the ass-chewing was making the younger man nervous.

  Finally, Busch leaned in and, raising one finger, quietly said: “I’m going to tell you once—one time only—that if you ever conduct yourself that way again with a parolee, a suspect, a human being, I will not only personally make it my mission that you are removed from this profession, but I will have you brought up on charges. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t even hold a candle to that man.” Busch paused, struggling to regain his composure. “I will work with you, guide you, for one more month. But from then on out I will see to it that we never cross paths again.”

  “Hey, I was shaking him up, maybe he’d let slip some job he was planning—”

  “We don’t shake ’em up. Ever.”

  “How do we know that man isn’t scheming to bust his parole?”

  “Believe me, if he did, I’d know it.” Busch gathered up his papers on Dean McGregor, dropping them into his briefcase.

  “So, if you knew that someone broke their parole, you’d bust them right away?”

  “Without question.”

  “And how strict are we? The letter of the law on each?”

  Busch looked up. “What are you talking about? This is the law. We enforce the law.”

  “Remember, I’m new at the parole thing. I’m just trying to model myself after you.”

  This pissed Busch off no end; there was nothing he despised more than being condescended to. “Ignorance is not an excuse when it comes to breaking the law, no fucking way around it.”

  “So what do we do if someone violates their parole?” Thal asked again.

  “Bring ’em in.”

  “Send ’em back to prison?”

  “That’s up to the judge.”

  Thal pondered this a moment. “Without exception?”

  “No exceptions,” Busch said.

  “So we should bust that guy St. Pierre. He left the country. According to you, we gotta bust him.” Thal was gleeful in his ratty sort of way.

  Busch was caught totally off-guard. Realizing he had been trapped by this little shit, he snapped, “How do you know this?”

  “Reliable source.”

  “Reliable source—bullshit! That’s not going to fly with the judge. You better come clean.” Busch knew full well Michael left the country. He’d seen him vanish into the International Departures terminal, but he thought maybe there was an explanation and he’d be able to deal with it in his own way. But now…

  Now it was Thal who leaned in and, raising one finger, calmly said: “I’ll get you proof.”

  “Don’t talk to me about this again until you do.” Busch grabbed his briefcase and stood. “Anything else I can teach you today?” he demanded with utter contempt.

  Thal sat there a moment; although it may not have seemed so on the outside, he felt he had won the conversation and he was dying to place the icing on the cake. “Why do they call you Peaches?”

  Busch lunged across the table into Dennis’s face and made his point real clear. “You——never——call——me——Peaches.”

  The hospital library was tiny but it had a book collection that covered at least the basics that a patient might be looking for. The atmosphere was collegiate and quiet as could be expected but that disinfected hospital smell still prevailed, always reminding you where you really were. Beyond the selection of medical books, periodicals, and theses, there was a good selection of both current fiction and nonfiction. The encyclopedias and reference manuals had been donated by a benefactor who’d lost his mother to heart disease.

  Michael was thankful for the man’s generosity as he found the latest edition of Who’s Who in International Business. Most of the players had a blurb that lasted maybe a couple of paragraphs; August Engel Finster had his own page.

  Michael had looked into Finster before he accepted the assignment; there was nothing that gave him pause then. Now it was Simon who was giving him pause. Michael wasn’t sure who to be afraid of: Finster or Simon. And he wasn’t sure what he was looking for now as he stared at the same page he had read almost three weeks earlier.

  August Engel Finster had emerged from the Eastern bloc after the fall of the Wall. His buying sprees were legendary. He’d spent over three hundred million deutsche marks a month in the building of his empire. The origin of his financing was a mystery, though, as was that of many of the financial titans who’d emerged from East Germany. Many, if not all, Michael knew, had been involved with the Communist government in one way, shape, or form in their prior lives. While unsavory ties were suspected of these elite, how could they be criminals in a land where the law was at the whim of their bureaucratic brethren?

  Finster had amassed an empire of textile mills, mining companies, and muniti
ons firms—most acquired through the privatization of the former government’s businesses. These corporations had gone on to great success, which was credited solely to Finster’s business acumen. He was an extremely private man, few knew his strategy for success, and those who worked for him were tight-lipped and invisible. Universities and his competition tried to crack his formula but no one ever succeeded in re-creating the Finster business model. Finster had never failed. Yet. And that was the mantra: everyone crashes and burns at some point. One day, it would be Finster. People always cheered, reveled in, and rallied to the side of someone on the ascendance, the underdog reaching for the top, for the golden prize. But when a man attains it, the tide turns and people begin to look for faults. A winner was no longer like them, struggling against the odds, fighting the masses. A winner was successful where they were not and this didn’t sit well. It was human nature really. You couldn’t rule the world for too long, if at all. It happened to everyone. Bill Gates, the computer nerd who took on IBM, came out of nowhere to create the computer industry. Then watched as the states and governments tried to tear apart his empire. Michael Jackson, the king of pop, the little kid who conquered music and remade the entertainment business. The feeding frenzy for his songs shifted to the feeding frenzy for his blood. Even the real King had been torn down by his fans. Elvis was done in by first the Beatles, then Woodstock, and later drugs, and everyone said, you see, I told you so. Soon, everyone said, it would be Finster’s turn.

  No information existed on him prior to 1990, and to race to a net worth of over thirteen billion U.S. dollars in ten years’ time from nowhere boggled Michael’s mind. The lengthy article told of all of Finster’s business conquests but of his personal past there was nothing: no father, no mother, sisters, or brothers. No wife, children, or dogs. Or maybe there was information and Finster was able to hide it in an expert fashion, the way he hid his business strategies. For the past three years he had lived the high life in the public eye, chronicled like a movie star’s dossier. Racing from meetings to dance clubs to gala social functions. The pictures were exactly as Michael had seen him. His long white hair pulled back in a ponytail, dark eyebrows accenting the brown eyes of this white-maned lion. Finster was rarely without a beautiful woman on each arm, none of whom were above the ripe old age of twenty-two. His charisma was evident even in photographs, Michael could feel it flowing from the page.