“Okay . . .”
“An alarm controller. Any idea how those boards work?”
“Sure. They’re simplistic—continuous-circuit signaling conduits, expandable zones, PGM outlets . . .”
“I have no idea what you’re saying, and it’s exactly what I wanted to hear. And how hard would it be to circumvent a system like that? I want no sound—no alert sent to the alarm company.”
David thought for a moment. He responded succinctly. “Not.”
“Good. You help me, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do for ya.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” David asked.
“I did. But I saved your life, David. Remember Abe? You think you weren’t going to the hospital that night if it weren’t for me? I did that for free. Maybe now you help me, but for money. You still get the better side of the trade. You won’t get in trouble. You’re never inside the building. You don’t even need to know what the target is. It ain’t important. But I’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars. That’s gotta help a bit, right?”
“You might think I should know this already, but, yeah . . . I really did think you helped me out of the kindness of your heart . . .” David trailed off.
“Hey. The heart palpitates. Change is constant.” Vlad held up his fist in a slightly threatening gesture. He pounded the bag next to David’s head. “Wouldn’t want to be in the way when it does.”
David stepped away and stared at Vlad. “If I’m gonna do this, I want to know,” David announced.
“Know what?” Vlad asked.
“The target. What is it?” David inquired.
“I tell you? Then you’re in.”
David said nothing.
“A money-transfer business,” Vlad said. “Cash & Loan Xpress. Down by the boardwalk.”
TWENTY-THREE
MARINA PACED DOWN THE empty boardwalk aside the Coney Island’s amusement park. She glanced up at the familiar sign for the defunct “Surf Ave. Ice Cream Parlor” as she hurried through the night. She continued past the glowing yellow letters of Cash & Loan Xpress and various shuttered boutiques before turning down a dark alley. It was very late, way past twelve. There was no legitimate reason to be there unless one was a fifteen-year-old kid looking to make out with his girlfriend, or a forty-five-year-old drug addict with nowhere else to go. Marina was definitely neither of those. But she was determined to keep her family together, and that required talking some sense into her husband.
That’s why she had done exactly as David had suggested and crept out the back gate of her house, into their next-door neighbor’s garage, and “borrowed” their car for a few hours. She presumed that she knew David better than anyone, but she was starting to have doubts. Or maybe they weren’t doubts. Maybe she had created a version of her husband in her own mind that was simply a lovely veneer strung atop reality. Everyone was guilty of doing that at some point. Either way, she was going to get to the bottom of it—tonight.
She turned a corner and found the lowered fire escape. As she climbed up, the memories piled on. Once she was standing on the roof of the old ice cream parlor, Marina gazed over the expansive view—the Ferris Wheel, the Cyclone, the old Parachute Jump tower. Tacky neon fluorescents accented the edges of the place. Thirties glitz mixed with nineties malaise rendered the beach city a sad spectacle. The playground of their childhood was no longer exciting, but it wasn’t boring either. As Marina took in the panorama, she heard the clanging of the fire escape being pulled up, and then footsteps. It was David.
“I’m so sorry this happened. But, please, whatever you do, don’t forget how much I love you.” David immediately wrapped his arms around her. “Is Mikey okay?”
“He’s eating. I’m trying to keep him to his diet. But everything has too much starch. And there’s sodium in all the meat at the stores, and the doctors told me that he shouldn’t have more than five hundred milligrams, and . . . That’s the first question you’re going to ask me?”
“Honey, you need to relax,” David said.
“Relax?” Marina pulled away from David. “I’m scared for my life, and for my son. When I close my eyes at night, what I feel is . . . fear. And all you can say is to relax?”
“That was the wrong word. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry. Mikey thinks he has to defend the house because his Daddy is nowhere to be seen,” Marina said as she gazed out over Coney Island, suddenly unable to look her husband in the eyes for the fear that she would completely burst into tears. “But the sad thing is . . . maybe he’s right.”
“Darling . . .”
“Because what the hell are you doing for us? I want to know. Tell me,” she exhorted.
“I’ve figured most of it out,” David replied. He reached into his pocket and handed Marina a note he’d written earlier. “I need you to do something for me—one favor. Give this to the detective—Rivett. It’s a location of a storage container in Port Newark. Okay? Make sure the police go there and bust it. They’ll find physical evidence. Tell them to track the owner of the box. Tell them to check out all the video footage, and figure out who picked the gold up. The gold was there, and the container’s full of evidence.”
Marina glanced at the note. She thought about it. “What evidence?” she asked.
“If the detective follows my directions, he’s going to be able to crack this wide open. That’s what matters,” David half answered.
Marina glanced back down at the note David had just handed her. “I know that whatever you found, you didn’t do it by yourself. You’re with him—Vlad. Aren’t you?”
David said nothing.
“You think I’m dumb? If you won’t tell me, Cat will.”
“He’s all I have,” David said after a long pause.
“No. You don’t get it. You have me. You have Mikey. That’s the point. That’s the only important thing. We spent our whole life knowing that. Now it seems like you forgot. Look.” Marina pointed to the yellow fluorescent lights of the Cash & Loan Xpress storefront across the street. “Even though I was nineteen years old, I remember every detail of that day. Don’t you? Mikey was coming in six months. We were so scared. I had to quit school. You took me out to ice cream. I thought it was the cutest thing—made me feel better. We climbed up here to our favorite spot. Then you told me why we were really here. We were looking directly at that yellow logo across the street, and you told me what Vlad was planning. You told me there was a couple hundred thousand dollars in there—that Vlad needed you to break the alarms. And you didn’t want to. You wanted out, but you were scared of him. Remember?”
David nodded.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? The reason I love you all comes down to that moment—because of what you chose. You bailed and the police got Vlad. And I got you. The man who made the right choice, a long time ago . . . That’s the man that I love. That’s who you need to be now.”
“I figured it out,” David said.
“I know,” she said.
“That’s what I do. Why don’t you think I will this time?”
Suddenly there was a faint whooping noise in the distance.
“Did you hear that?” David asked.
“No. Do you hear me?”
David pulled Marina in for an embrace. “You have to trust me. I know what I’m doing . . .”
“He’s a scorpion.”
“What?” David asked as he scanned the horizon, searching for the source of the mystery vibration.
“Your mom’s favorite story. I’m sure you remember. A frog needs to get across a river, and there’s a scorpion sitting there at the riverbank. The scorpion helpfully offers to carry the frog on his back. So the frog says to him, ‘Well you’re a scorpion. Why should I trust you? How do I know you won’t just sting me?’ And the scorpion answers, ‘Because you have my word. I promise that I won’t bite you.’ So the frog takes the ride. And just as the two of them are about to reach the safety of the other shore, the sc
orpion suddenly stings the frog. As poison runs through his body and he lays there dying, the frog asks the scorpion one final question: ‘Why’d you do it?’ And the scorpion says, ‘Because I’m a scorpion.’ Vlad’s stung you before. And he’ll sting you again.”
All of a sudden, a huge spotlight ignited the night sky. A helicopter ripped off the water’s horizon and was approaching their position on the roof. David pulled Marina away from the edge of the building and towards the back wall. He peered over. A SWAT team advanced down the alley, tossing a grappling hook to the bottom rung of the fire escape in an attempt to lower it. David hustled Marina along the roofs of the buildings, all built flush with one another, as the heavily armed SWAT team piled out onto the top of the building. SWAT was screaming, “Drop to your knees!” David and Marina reached the last roof. Tears ran down Marina’s face.
“Cooperate with them. Okay? Give him the letter,” David said. Marina nodded. David kissed her. “I love you,” he said as he took off running towards the edge.
■
Jake Rivett stood in the alley. He did a double take as he saw a black shape silhouetted against the dark sky above him. It was David, jumping from the second story of the building and over a fence.
David landed on the raised subway tracks on the other side. A train approached. He sprinted down the tracks. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted Jake climbing the fence behind him. David locked eyes with Jake, who pulled his pistol. David lay down, and the train peacefully glided over his prone body, kicking up a small spray of debris. Squinting to prevent the dust and small pebbles from entering his eyes, David turned his head to the side, attempting to time the train’s wheels. He established a rhythm and rolled out. He found himself inside Gravesend, in Coney Island’s overhaul yard, home to the gargantuan machine shop that serviced all of the MTA’s trains.
Helicopter lights splashed over David as he raced across the large gravel surface that lay between the iron tracks in the overhaul yard. He reached a small control station and tried the handle. It was unlocked. He pulled himself inside and then ducked down. The helicopter lights searched above the glass, reflecting all around but missing him—then moving on.
Still in pursuit, Jake waited for the train to pass. He finally crossed the commuter tracks and followed David into Gravesend. The lone control station stood in the middle of the tracks. Jake approached cautiously. “David?” Jake screamed.
David huddled in the control station, observing the fifty levers in front of him. Each was tied to a track ahead. David pulled down all of the levers, one by one.
Jake approached the booth, which was about a hundred feet away. He tried to see what was inside but couldn’t make David out. He slowly moved forward. He lifted his gun, the sights taking the entire booth into frame. Jake was about to squeeze the trigger and let off a warning shot, when a series of linked subway cars glided in front of Jake and stymied him yet again.
David had released the entire overhaul yard, causing many of the cars to roll with the force of gravity down the hill between Jake and David. David sprinted out of the booth. He ran with a passing car, then jumped onto the connector between two cars. He rode it for a brief moment before jumping off. He navigated the moving cars like salmon up a river. David finally reached the other side of the tracks and sprinted into a mechanic’s office.
Unable to work up the nerve to attempt David’s technique, Jake waited while Markle and the SWAT team caught up with him in the overhaul yard. The group finally reached the mechanic’s shop. All was silent.
Farther down the blacktop outside the garages, a large roll-up door opened and two headlights shined out from within. SWAT formed a semicircle around the garage door as an MTA bus accelerated out of the shop. Jake and SWAT unloaded their weapons into the bus. Windshields shattered. Tires turned to goo. But the bus didn’t stop. Jake dove out of the way as the bus slammed into a cement wall across the street. He pulled himself up and boarded the pockmarked bus warily. But David wasn’t inside. Jake found only a large cinderblock placed on the bus’s accelerator pad.
■
A half mile away, David splashed through a drainage pipe. He emerged adjacent to the Marlboro Housing Projects. He turned to the sky and watched the police helicopter circling a mile behind him, casting long lines of light down upon Gravesend. David took a few deep breaths. He dusted himself off and walked out of the project’s main courtyard and onto the street. He padded down the sidewalk, moving farther away from the authorities. He headed back through his neighborhood. He walked past the park and New Utrecht. He crossed in front of his childhood home, where he saw the amber light shining from the TV room. Veronika was sure to be watching her stories late into the night. A few blocks later, he bit his tongue as he passed by his own street. He tilted his head to the right, spotting the omnipresent unmarked car and cable installation van parked in front of his house. He only allowed himself a few seconds of gaze before he kept going.
TWENTY-FOUR
AS THE SUN BROKE from the east over the low-slung borough, David returned to Vlad’s gym. He walked in the door and five sets of menacing eyes stared at him. Vlad snickered, his mouth wide as a Cheshire cat’s. He stood up and walked towards David.
“I’m in,” David said, somewhat unexpectedly.
“You walk out on me?” Vlad asked.
“I needed to be alone—to think.”
“That’s not your prerogative any more, my peach,” Vlad said. He stood up and stretched his hulking body. Then in one sudden and brutal step forward, Vlad whipped his arm down and brutally smacked David in the face.
David doubled over. Trying to regain composure, he felt blood dripping from the inside of his mouth as Vlad continued to yell at him.
“Ya see, you can’t unwind the knot you’ve tied. Life doesn’t work like that. Whether you like it or not, we’re all in on this together now—you and me. Partners. Just like the old days,” Vlad said.
■
Jake Rivett led a column of police cars through the storage terminals and towards the warehouse that David had identified. He ground to a stop in front of the red container. With a nod from a manager, a warehouse employee lifted up a diamond-tipped circular saw to the heavy padlock securing the red container’s door. Jake tore the padlock off and peered into the container.
But there was nothing there. It was completely spotless.
“The quant’s leading us on a wild-goose chase,” Jake opined.
“What do you think this was all about?” Tony Villalon asked.
“Hell if I know . . .” Jake started looking around.
“Logistics company that rents these bays out said it’s been inactive for two months—all five of ’em,” Tony nodded to the other four containers down the line. They had all been opened and were just as empty as the first. “They’re registered to a Greek shipping company domiciled in the Seychelles.”
“That’s weird, right?”
“Not really.” Tony shrugged. “International shipping becomes very murky at the operational level. More important is the fact that there’s nothing in here.”
“It’s a big problem,” Jake said as he nodded. “He’s chumped us a couple times now.” What Jake didn’t say was that people who tried to play him usually ended up in a state of severe hurt. He was beginning to imagine the creative ways in which he could pay David back for the injustice.
Jake slowly paced around the outside of the warehouse itself, inspecting the location for clues. He motioned to the warehouse supervisor on scene.
“Tell me about your process here,” Jake said.
“Well, these here are open-access twenty-four-seven bays. We give our account holders passcards. There’s a slide at the main gate and another against the garage door itself.” The manager nodded towards a small card slider installed next to a nearby door. “So the card will give access to the lot and open our door. Beyond those two levels of security, the client is welcome to use their own padlocks for a third measure of protection.”
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“And you have cameras?”
“Yes, sir,” the manager answered.
“Where?”
“There’s a two-hundred-forty-degree rotating camera above each loading bay, plus a number of moveable cameras on our perimeter and at each gate.”
“I need to see them,” Jake ordered.
“No problem. But I should mention something. Last night, most of them were aimed at the fire.”
“The fire?” Jake’s eyebrow raised.
■
Inside the office, Jake stood with the manager as they played through the tapes.
“So your gate cameras were rotated away from the gate itself?” Jake asked incredulously as he observed footage of a Ford Bronco burning by the side of the complex, with the entry gate only visible as a fragment at the bottom of the screen.
“Yes—unfortunately.”
“And the loading bay camera?”
“Coming right up,” the manager said as he loaded up the feed from the camera above the door. It slowly rotated over the top of each bay, but the image was pixelated and lacked any contrast in the dark.
“No infrared, huh?” Jake asked. Besides the general shadows of shapes of trucks moving in and out, this footage would give him nothing. He couldn’t make out vehicle models, license plates or faces at all.
“Not in this section. The more the client wants to pay, the more we provide. You have to understand—it’s a step up from your average storage facility, but these are considered low-security bays. If you have something that could get stolen, you wouldn’t put it in here.”
“But if you wanted less cameras, not more, and the ability to get in and out any time of the day . . .” Jake thought out loud.
“Right,” the manager agreed nervously.
Jake turned and beat it out of the office, slamming a door angrily behind him. He happened upon Tony standing outside.
“Not good?”
“Worse. This place is a joke,” Jake replied. “Figure out who owns those things.”
Flash Crash Page 17