“Fifty thousand.”
“Too much. Offer them twenty-five in return for a third of the take, and have a representative there when they divide the money. That’s about it, except for details peculiar to the location, like distance from the police station and state police.”
“Only a third?”
“It’s always a bad idea to get greedy. If there’s a lot of cash in the bank, a third of the take will recompense you nicely.”
“You want into this one?”
“I’m good for half the twenty-five, if you like their boss.”
“I think he’s okay, but I’d like you to meet him.”
“Okay, when?”
“He’s in my office now.”
Frank stood up. “Okay, let’s go.” He followed Jimmy down the hall and into the corner office. A man sat in a chair next to the desk, facing the windows.
“I’d like you to meet my partner,” Jimmy said.
The man turned and rose.
Frank sagged a little. “Hello, Charlie,” he said.
Charlie’s face lit up. “Hi, Frank, fancy meeting you here.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you about my plans, but you’ll have to forget about this when you leave here,” Frank replied.
“I got it,” Charlie said. “I don’t want to know your new last name.”
“How do the two of you happen to be acquainted?” Jimmy asked.
“We did some things together in New York. Charlie’s a good man, Jimmy. Let me take him down to my office and go over the details with him.”
“Okay, go do that, and come see me when you’re done.”
Frank led Charlie down the hall, sat him down in his office, and closed the door. “How’d you find me?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” Charlie replied. “I found your partner. About you, I had no idea.”
Frank sat down and took a legal pad from a drawer and shoved it across the desk. “All right, draw the bank for me.”
Charlie did so and handed the pad back.
“When did you last see it?”
“Yesterday. I went in and got change for a hundred.”
“And it’s as simple as this?”
“It is.”
Frank ran through his rules, though he didn’t really feel it was necessary.
“Got it.”
“Is there a back way out?”
“Yep, and an alley, too.”
“What are you using for vehicles?”
“One old van will do it—there’s just three of us and a driver. I’ll go into the vault alone with the manager; the other two will stand guard until we’re ready to leave the premises.”
“Go to a design shop and get business names made for the van, then peel them off when you’re done. Carpet cleaning is good.”
“Good idea.”
“Any questions, Charlie?”
“Nope.”
“Where are you going to divide the money?”
Charlie wrote down an address. “It’s a restaurant that went bust. One of my guys has a key to the back door.”
“I’ll be there for the divvy. Any arguments, my decision is final—make sure your guys understand that.”
“Done.”
“Wait here, and I’ll get your money.”
“Will do.”
Charlie went back to Jimmy’s office. “We’re done. It looks good.”
“You’re sure about Charlie?”
“All he needs is instructions, and he has those.”
Jimmy handed him a thick envelope. “Here’s twelve-five.”
“Right.” Frank went back to his office, opened his safe, counted out the other half, and handed it to Charlie, along with a couple of throwaway cell phones.
“Call me when you’re out of the bank, then when you’re on your way to the location. And Charlie . . .”
“Yeah, Frank?”
“Don’t fuck it up.”
Stone got a call Thursday morning:
“Dino on line one.”
“Hey, there.”
“Hey, yourself. Are you still in one piece?”
“Let me check.” Pause. “No missing pieces.”
“Let’s try and keep it that way. Get out of town.”
“How come?”
“Gene Ryan is out there somewhere. We lost track of him.”
“You were tracking him?”
“He was being watched. The watchers are now officially on my shit list.”
“Poor guys.”
“You better believe it. Now go away, please.”
“If you think I should.”
“I’ve said it twice.”
“You want to go with me?”
“It may surprise you to learn that, occasionally, I’m busy.”
“Bye-bye.”
“I hope so.” Dino hung up.
Stone worked for another hour, then Joan buzzed. “Pat Frank on line one for you.”
Stone picked up. “Hello, there, how are things in Kansas?”
“I wouldn’t know. I got in last night, and your new airplane is in your hangar at Teterboro.”
“You’re early.”
“There were only a few cosmetic squawks, and they corrected those quickly.”
“Let’s go fly somewhere.”
“You need to do that—your insurer wants you to have five hours with a mentor pilot—i.e., yours truly—before you go single-pilot. I talked them down from thirty hours, since the old airplane and the new have identical cockpits.”
“Why don’t we run down to Key West for the weekend?”
“What a good idea!”
“I’ll pick you up at nine AM tomorrow. We’ll come back Monday morning.”
“That works for me. See you then.”
Stone hung up. A blah day had just turned sunny. He buzzed Joan. “Book me into the Marquesa, in Key West, for three nights, starting tomorrow. Best available cottage.”
“Will do.”
—
The following day, Charlie Carney’s driver pulled up a few feet from the bank’s front door at ten sharp, opening time. “Okay, you go around to the alley and wait for us there.” He and his two men got out of the van, each carrying a large duffel bag. As they approached the front door they pulled down their masks from under their baseball caps, produced riot guns from the duffels, then walked into the bank. Charlie made straight for the single uniformed guard, who was talking with a customer. He took the gun from the man’s belt. “On the floor.” The man complied. Charlie racked the shotgun and fired a round straight up. Bits of ceiling tiles rained down around him.
“Everybody on the floor! No alarms and nobody gets hurt!”
“Fifteen seconds,” one of his men said, and the two men handed Charlie their duffels.
Charlie went straight for the manager and his desk and put the shotgun barrel under his chin. “You and me in the vault, now.” The manager complied.
Inside the vault, Charlie dropped the duffels on the floor. “Start packing,” he said to the man, and both of them started raking stacks of bills off shelves into the bags.
“Forty-five seconds to go!” came the shout from inside the bank.
Charlie raked faster. The third bag was nearly full when fifteen seconds was called. There were a few stacks left, and he filled the last bag. “You,” he said to the manager, “grab two bags and lead me to the rear door. Ten seconds,” he yelled, when they reached the door. “Open it,” he said.
The man produced a key and unlocked the door.
“Toss all three bags out the door. You stay inside. Time!” he yelled. His two cohorts joined him. “Lock the door when we’re gone,” Charlie said to the manager. “That way, we can’t come back.” He stepped out the door and listened as the lock
turned. “We’re done!” he yelled. The duffels were already in the rear of the van. The three men hopped in. “Drive normal,” Charlie said. “Don’t attract attention.” All the men began getting out of their coveralls and tossing them into the back on top of the money. The driver was already wearing his own clothes.
Charlie took a small GPS unit from his pocket and switched it on. Their destination was already programmed in.
“Take your next left,” the recorded voice said. “We change cars in ten minutes,” Charlie said. “A block short, stop, and we’ll take the carpet cleaning signs off the van.”
—
Frank was waiting at the end of the alley when he saw the black Toyota turn in and stop behind the closed restaurant. He waited until the four men were inside before he drove in, parked behind the Toyota, and hammered on the rear door. Charlie opened it. “Come on in,” he said.
The three duffel bags were sitting on a dusty pool table. “How much?” Frank asked quietly.
“A lot,” Charlie replied. “Okay, guys, I promised you twenty-five grand each. You’re going to get fifty.” He opened the bag that contained the hundreds and counted out five piles of five stacks of hundreds each. “There you go,” he said. “Take it, and remember, don’t spend it for three months, even if your mortgage gets foreclosed.”
“Listen,” one of the men said, “there’s a lot more than we counted on. We should get more.”
Charlie put a .45 against the man’s cheek. “You’re getting double what I promised,” he said. “Be happy or be dead.”
“Right,” the man said, and picked up his money. So did the others.
“Now, take the Toyota and scatter,” Charlie said, and the three men went out the back door.
“Give ’em five minutes,” Frank said, “then check and be sure they went. We don’t want to be bushwhacked.”
“There’s at least three million here,” Charlie said. “You want to divvy it now?”
“No, let’s get it into my car.”
They checked the alley carefully, then put the three duffels into the trunk and closed it.
“Where do you want to do this?” Frank asked.
“Drop me off near the beach,” Charlie said. “I’ll trust you to take the money and count it. I’ll come for my share later today, when I’m sure there’s no tail.
—
Frank and Jimmy sat at the conference table in the law office and completed their tally. The money was stacked in three roughly equal piles. Frank hit the last button on the calculator. “We net a million two, plus our twenty-five grand,” he said. “Charlie gets the rest.”
“Unless we remove Charlie from the equation,” Jimmy said.
“That would be a bad decision—word gets around if Charlie disappears. It would come back to bite us in the ass, so let’s don’t get greedy.”
Jimmy shrugged. “I guess you’re right.” He started dividing their stack into two, while Frank packed Charlie’s share into two duffels. Jimmy went and got a catalog case and raked his half of the third of the take into it, then left. Frank put his half into his safe, then took the two duffels down to his car. He called Charlie on his throwaway cell.
“Yeah?”
“I’m ready to deliver. I want to get this off my hands, so you tell me where.”
“There’s a Walmart on the western edge of town.”
“I know where it is.”
“I’ll park in their lot, as far as possible from the store. Half an hour.”
“Go.”
Frank drove into the lot and picked his spot; Charlie pulled up five minutes later and put his car alongside Frank’s. Frank rolled down the window and pressed the trunk button.
“There you go,” he said. “Your two-thirds is a little over two million. Nice day’s work.”
Charlie moved the two duffels to his car, gave Frank a wave, and drove away.
Frank drove back to his office, relieved to have the money off his hands and the event behind him. It was very clean, he thought—nobody got hurt, everybody got paid.
And he had six hundred grand in the safe; he was set for at least a year.
Forty thousand feet above Frank and Charlie in the Walmart parking lot, Stone got the first clearance for his long descent into Key West. Half an hour later, he greased his landing into Key West International.
“Nicely done,” Pat said. She had been sitting in the rear of the airplane, working, for the last hour of their flight. “How do you like your new airplane?”
“It’s wonderful. Look at all the fuel we’ve got left!” He pointed at the gauges.
“And now you can fly the Atlantic from Newfoundland, nonstop.”
“And I will.” Stone taxied into Island City Air Services and went through his shut-down checklist. Half an hour later they pulled up at the Marquesa’s loading zone, and someone came for the luggage. Another twenty minutes, and they were sipping piña coladas on the front porch of their comfortable cottage. “I love general aviation,” Stone said.
“Me too, since it’s how I’m making my living,” Pat replied.
“You know that your old boyfriend—what’s his name?”
“You know his name.”
“Oh, yeah. He goes on trial next week.”
“I guess he does.”
“Has he been harassing you?”
“I get a call from him about once a week, demanding money.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“I did not.”
“So you’re finally done with him?”
“Completely.”
“I’m glad.”
“So am I.”
“Are you feeling like a New Yorker yet?”
“A little. I’ve been working so hard that I haven’t gotten around much—just to the grocery and back, mostly.”
“You need to hire more help.”
“I’ve got a new woman starting next week.”
“How many does that make?”
“Three, plus me, and we’re all pilots.”
“That would make a good ad.”
“We’ve already booked a page in Flying and AOPA Monthly.”
“I’ll look for it.”
Stone’s cell rang. “Hello?”
“It’s Dino. Where are you?”
“Key West.”
“At the Marquesa?”
“Yep.”
“You bastard.”
“I invited you, but you were busy.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
“I like rubbing it in.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Dino hung up.
“That was Dino.”
“I figured,” she said. “How is he?”
“Busy.”
—
Gene Ryan tossed his bags onto the bed in his new place. He looked around: seedy, but adequate. He had abandoned the house; everything he now owned was in the car. The motorcycle had been at the bottom of the East River since the day of the shooting.
This was all Barrington’s fault, he remembered. He was unemployed and had run through most of the five grand he’d been given by Jerry Brubeck. He had a few grand more saved up, but he needed to get some cash flowing before he got around to killing Barrington. He would plan it well next time, take no chances, give him two in the head, the way he’d been taught. But right now, he needed to get laid.
He left the apartment and went in search of a good neighborhood bar.
Stone was lying by the pool on Saturday morning, sunning himself after a good breakfast, when his cell rang.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Stone, it’s Pepe Perado. How are you?”
“I’m very well, Pepe, and you?”
“Excited about coming back to New York. Are you in town?”
“No, I’m
in Key West for the weekend. I’ll be back in New York Monday afternoon. When are you coming?”
“I’m arriving Monday at midday, and I need your advice: the Waldorf Towers are booked up next week. Can you recommend a good hotel convenient to the Upper East Side, where I’ll be apartment hunting?”
“Yes. Try the Lowell, on East Sixty-third Street, between Park and Madison. It’s small, elegant, and very comfortable. If they’re booked, try the Carlyle, on Madison at Seventy-sixth Street.”
“Got it. Can I buy you dinner Monday evening?”
“Of course. Come to my house for dinner, and I’ll book something, unless you have a favorite.”
“No, I’ll let you choose.”
“I’ll send my car for you at six-thirty. Let me know if you’re staying somewhere other than the Lowell.”
“Will do. See you Monday evening.” Pepe hung up.
So did Stone. “That was my newest client,” he said to Pat, who reposed next to him, her breasts bared. No one was complaining.
“What does he do?”
“He’s a brewer from San Antonio, and he’s expanding his business to New York. He recently bought a beverage distributor in Queens, and he’ll eventually open a brewery.”
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