Uptown Thief

by Aya De León

  “We can be pretty patient if we have a quarter million waiting for us.” Jody turned to Kim. “Can’t we, baby?”

  “Yup,” said Kim. “We have the patience of Job, like if Job was a sexy young hoe.”

  Tyesha laughed. “I think I missed that Bible verse.”

  * * *

  Marisol hadn’t officially agreed to go out with Jeremy VanDyke, but she was reading everything she could about his dating habits. It was frightening how much information she found online. There was a whole website dedicated to “bagging the billionaire bachelor,” that gave women advice about how to make themselves over to attract rich guys. One of the billionaire bachelor profiles was VanDyke. He liked brunettes and the color turquoise. He preferred pearls to diamonds.

  Another website boasted “virtual cribs,” and showed floor plans and 3-D projections of celebrity houses. It was unclear how accurate they were, but Marisol printed out VanDyke’s posted floor plans.

  No wonder he was tight with his security, given the invasion of privacy and fascination with the mundane details of his life. VanDyke wasn’t paranoid. People actually went through his garbage for story ideas.

  * * *

  The following Monday morning, she woke up in her usual Harlem hotel, hung over. She hailed a cab downtown. When she went to pay, she was shocked to find her wallet empty.

  All her cards were there, except the MetroCard. Had the handsome, sandy-haired Colombian taken her cash? She dumped the change purse out in her lap and sorted through it. Where was the locket? She couldn’t find the gold chain anywhere, but she found the round locket, hidden among the coins. She kissed the photo of Cristina and put it back in the wallet.

  That motherfucker. What a hustler with his fresh-off-the-boat-naïveté act. She handed a credit card to the cab driver.

  When she reached for her briefcase, it hit her. He could have taken her account books. Her ledger for the escort service and the heists.

  She shuddered. It was one thing putting her own life at risk, but the whole team? The clients who trusted them? She’d risked the clinic for some lousy uptown dick.

  “Miss,” the cab driver said, “are you getting out here or what?”

  Marisol blinked at the receipt in her hand. “Yes,” she said. “Sorry.”

  She hustled up to her office and sat down at her desk. She was supposed to be the thief, not the mark. Plus Central Robbery was hiring consultants to investigate her heists? This Jeremy VanDyke thing was a bad idea.

  * * *

  That night, Marisol called a meeting of the team.

  “We had a good week financially, thanks to Kim and Tyesha, who did a double for a new client who tips big.”

  “What about the VanDyke job?” Jody asked.

  “About that,” Marisol said. “The VanDyke job’s off. We’ve got this other—”

  “What do you mean ‘off’?” Jody asked.

  “As in not happening,” Marisol said, her voice sharper than she had intended. “We’re out of our league.”

  “But this job could set us up,” Jody said.

  “I been looking at co-op apartments in Brooklyn,” Tyesha said.

  “The job is dead,” Marisol said. “End of story.”

  Jody’s jaw was set. Tyesha had a strong frown line between her eyebrows, and she tapped one stiletto heel on the floor with a high clicking sound. Kim’s eyes were wide, like a kid afraid she was in trouble.

  “Look,” Marisol said. “It’s been stressful in the past few months with the heists—”

  “It’s not the heists, Marisol,” Tyesha said. “It’s your attitude.”

  Kim and Jody murmured agreement.

  “My attitude?” Marisol asked. “Well, Tyesha, my attitude wasn’t the problem when you were getting your jaw broken by a bad trick because you didn’t have anyone to look out for you. And, Jody, my attitude wasn’t the problem when I got you under-the-table chiropractic care because your dominatrix madam didn’t give a fuck about your health and practically wrecked your shoulder. And, Kim, my attitude wasn’t the issue when I got your juvenile records sealed so you could get off with probation on that arrest last year.”

  She stood and paced.

  “There’s a reason I’m the boss,” she said. “I know when to push and when to back off. And I’m saying we back off on this.”

  “Fine,” Tyesha said, her voice tight.

  “I do realize . . .” Marisol said. “I’ve been stressed lately. I’m trying not to let it affect me. But I’m calling the job off because if I’m not at the top of my game, we’re fucked. I don’t want us to go down like that.”

  She saw their faces settle into lines of resignation. “Let’s focus on the jobs we have coming up, okay? Some high-end escort dates and the last Ivy Alpha heist.”

  “But how close are we to the edge, financially?” Tyesha asked.

  “That’s for me to worry about,” Marisol said.

  “No,” Tyesha said. “You acted like the clinic wouldn’t survive without the big score. So if we let VanDyke go, I wanna know where the clinic stands.”

  Marisol sighed. “The government cutbacks threw off our cash flow,” she said. “We made a late mortgage payment last August.”

  “I remember,” Jody said. “But you told us not to worry. We’d have to miss four in a year to be in any kind of trouble.”

  “Right,” Marisol said. “But it’s a fiscal year—July to June. Last October the big foundation check was late. And in November we got fined by the fire marshal for having too many women in the temporary shelter.”

  “Three late payments?” Kim asked.

  “One more before June thirtieth and the credit union starts foreclosure proceedings?” Tyesha asked.

  “Exactly,” Marisol said. “If that happened, the entire mortgage would be due within ninety days. But it’s almost March when we get the big foundation check. If we stick to the plan, we’ll be fine, okay?” Marisol looked around. “Are we good?”

  The women mumbled grudging assent.

  “People get caught when they get greedy,” Marisol said. “Remember, we’re in this to save the clinic.”

  Tyesha sucked her teeth.

  “You think I don’t want the big payoff?” Marisol asked. “Believe me. I do. I’m trying to run a multimillion-dollar organization off a five-year-old laptop where the spreadsheet program keeps crashing. I couldn’t fucking work for most of the day, because Serena’s trying to fix it. We all got a hundred goddamn problems money could cure. But stealing money won’t help if we can’t get away with it. We stick with simple jobs. And we’ve got one set up. Kim’s favorite client took her to another party over the weekend.”

  “And she was gone all night,” Jody said. “I hate sleeping alone.”

  “At first I couldn’t find the safe,” Kim said. “But the host was loaded, so he had to have one. Then I got the client so drunk he had to spend the night. The safe was in the study, and I cracked it with everyone sleeping. I didn’t take anything, but I got the combination.”

  Marisol high-fived Kim and said, “I learned from the wife’s Facebook page that the couple will be seeing an avant-garde concert at the Royal Flush Theater. We’ll heist them Saturday. I’ll be at the Valentine’s Day ball for sexual health. Tyesha, you’ll keep an eye on the couple. Jody, you’ll hit the safe.”

  “Are you sure I’m the best person?” Jody asked.

  “It’s an easy hit,” Marisol said. “I’d do it myself, but at the ball I’ll be accepting an award for the clinic’s HIV prevention work.”

  “Can Kim do the hit and I’ll be lookout?” Jody asked.

  “I spent the night at their house,” Kim said. “Someone might recognize me.”

  “What about Tyesha?” Jody asked.

  “Robbing while black?” Tyesha asked. “Anyone sees me in the building and they’ll call the police on general principle.”

  Chapter 16

  New York City had its own army of soldiers—the service professionals who b
ussed tables of half-eaten steaks, ironed and starched shirts, mixed the perfect martini, or offered an expert lap dance.

  One branch of this army simply answered the phone. Some sat in bright lobbies with inviting décor and flirted with delivery guys. Others were the invisible army—answering service operators—many in Delhi, Singapore, and women’s correctional facilities.

  Marisol refused to outsource her answering service. She paid a monthly rate for the local number, plus a per-call fee, which had been zero since she’d started the service several years before.

  On Saturday night, the answering service for the María de la Vega Health Clinic got their first call.

  “Doctor’s office, how can I help you?” They had been coached not to give the clinic’s name.

  “There’s a girl here named Tammy who’s lost,” a male voice said.

  “One moment,” the operator said. “I’ll page the nurse.”

  Marisol was sitting in her office, putting the final touches on her award acceptance speech, when her private cell phone rang.

  Marisol answered it and scrambled for her purse. “I’ll be right there to pick her up. I just need to get a cab.”

  Marisol hung up and pulled a nurse’s uniform out of her cabinet and put it on. She grabbed a big pair of coke-bottle glasses and a fake hospital ID and ran out the door. Halfway down the stairs she did a 180-degree turn and ran back. She kicked off her invincibility heels and put on flat, rubber-soled shoes.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, she was at a luxury building on the Upper East Side where Kim had gone to a party with her client the weekend before.

  Marisol was on the ground floor, shaking the hand of the security guard.

  “Thank you,” she said. “We looked everywhere.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and showed Marisol into a small office.

  Jody sat on a couch wearing pigtails and a dazed expression.

  “Tammy,” Marisol said. “How did you get here?”

  Jody shrugged and picked at her fingernails.

  “Good thing she had that bracelet,” the guard said. “Or I woulda called the cops.” He turned the bracelet on Jody’s wrist with the in-case-of-emergency call number.

  Marisol pulled Jody up off the couch and guided her out of the office.

  “Glad to help,” he said, following them into the hallway, as Marisol walked Jody out the front door.

  The two women walked down the block. The traffic crawled along beside them. As they turned the corner, Jody straightened up out of her slouch and met Marisol’s eye.

  “Dammit!” Jody said. “I was too fucking slow with the lockpicks and this guy saw me.” Her jaw was set, and she wiped a tear away with the back of her hand.

  Marisol raised her arm to hail a taxi.

  “It’s okay,” Marisol said, putting her free arm around Jody. “We’ll work it out.”

  “I made you miss getting the award,” Jody said.

  “No worries,” Marisol said. “Kim’s going.”

  “It’s good we cancelled VanDyke,” Jody said. “I can’t even handle a basic heist.”

  “Don’t waste your time hailing a taxi,” a woman walking by said. “Subway’s closed for repairs after seven. Trains don’t stop on the Upper East Side. Cabs are impossible.”

  Marisol nodded, and looked down the street. The buses were full and barely moving. She began walking toward Fifth Avenue, where they could cross Central Park at East Eighty-sixth Street to get a West Side train.

  Meanwhile, her inner hard drive had begun running calendar and bookkeeping programs. This month’s mortgage payment was overdue, and the late deadline was in three days, on the fifteenth. She had already written payroll checks, so she couldn’t fudge there. She and Eva hadn’t taken a salary for a few months. They were $7,500 short, and this was the job that was supposed to cover it. Her credit cards were maxed out. She had already gotten emergency loans from a dozen donors. Where was she going to get $7,500 in two days?

  Jody pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of a pocket in her skirt. She lit up with a shaking hand. “First I fuck up the job. Now I’m here crying like a little bitch.”

  “The only failure is getting arrested,” Marisol said. “You did great for your first time. I’m proud of you. Now we just try again.”

  * * *

  “Cristina, stop crying,” Marisol said. “Or I swear to God I’ll hit you myself.”

  Marisol had woken up from an afternoon nap in her uncle’s apartment. She and Cristina slept after school while he was still at work. In his house, night was not for sleeping.

  Marisol’s head was killing her, and she felt muddled. She’d padded into the living room to find her sister hunched over beside the radiator.

  “I’m sorry, Marisol,” Cristina wailed. “I’m so sorry.” On the floor in front of her were the feather duster, a bottle of white glue, and their uncle’s old baseball trophy. The aged plastic was brittle, and the little man and the top of the bat had both broken off.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Marisol asked.

  “He beat you up yesterday because he found some dust!” Cristina shrieked. “I had to clean the dust!”

  It all came back to Marisol.

  He had rammed her head into the refrigerator three times. She couldn’t remember the feeling of impact, just the burning in her scalp where he’d gripped the fistfuls of her hair. And the terror that he might actually kill her this time.

  She woke up in the hospital. Concussion. Today was the twenty-ninth day she’d missed from eighth grade.

  “The glue’s not working,” Cristina wailed. “He’s gonna kill me for breaking the little baseball man.”

  Marisol looked at the broken edges of the figure. White glue didn’t stick well to plastic. Marisol peeled it off.

  “See?” Cristina said, her voice increasingly hysterical. “He’s gonna know. He’s gonna kill us.”

  Marisol’s heart began to race, but she willed herself to stay calm and looked at the clock. 5:23. He was almost never home before 5:45, but they might not get to the dollar store and back in time.

  “No, he’s not. I can fix it,” Marisol said. She turned Cristina’s head so their eyes met. “Always come to me. I can always fix it.”

  Cristina turned and reached out her arms to Marisol, her face puckering. Marisol gathered her little sister into her arms and let Cristina sob.

  “It’ll all be oooohhhh-kaaay,” Marisol crooned. “We’ll get some Krazy Glue and stick it together. We’ll trick him. He’ll never know. But always tell me when something happens. Don’t try to fix it yourself because you’re too little.”

  Cristina choked out words between sobs. “I—tried—to—wake—you—up—but—you—didn’t—wake—up.”

  “I’ll always wake up,” Marisol said. “Even if it takes a little while. Now lemme fix this.”

  Marisol got a piece of chewing gum. She chewed it up and used two tiny pieces as temporary adhesive. It held. She put the trophy back.

  Marisol looked at the clock. 5:47.

  “Stop crying,” Marisol said. “He’ll be home any minute.”

  Cristina sat in Marisol’s lap, shaking. “You—can—still—see—where—it—broke!” she hiccuped. “He’s—gonna—know!” At seven, Cristina still perceived her uncle as omniscient and omnipotent.

  “No, he’s not,” Marisol snapped. “Only if he looks closely, which he won’t.” Marisol took a deep breath. Her head was pounding. “He’s only gonna know if we tip him off by doing something stupid like crying. Don’t be fucking stupid. Fucking stop it right now. Stop it or it’ll be your fault when he beats us.”

  Marisol could see Cristina clench her body to push down the spasms.

  “Good girl,” Marisol said.

  Carefully, she set up the table with the appearance of homework. But the two girls sat holding hands, peering out the window at the front stoop below. Marisol’s head throbbed.

  “It’ll be your fault when he beat
s us.” The words rang in Marisol’s pounding head. But what had the social worker said?

  “It’s not anything you do. He beats you because he’s a violent man who takes out his rage on the girls he’s supposed to be caring for.”

  Marisol hadn’t said shit to that lady. Had insisted she’d been jumped by some girls in the neighborhood.

  “No, sweetie,” the black woman with the salt-and-pepper dreadlocks had said. “Then you’d have abrasions from the sidewalk. Says here you live with your uncle.”

  Marisol sat silent.

  “I get it,” the social worker said. She managed to look concerned and cool at the same time. “You have to live there and he’s probably threatened your life.” She looked down at the file. “Or your sister’s life. He probably blames you for whatever he does. But it’s not your fault. It’s never your fault.”

  The social worker had given her a number to call. “I know how it is, so I won’t bother trying to give you my card. But here’s a number you can remember. Ask for Rochelle.” It was a toll-free prefix and the acronym GET FREE. Marisol had never forgotten it.

  “He’s coming!” Cristina said. The two girls watched through the blinds as he entered the building.

  After the front door closed, Marisol was overcome with nausea. She stumbled to the bathroom. Her stomach convulsed, and she threw up into the toilet.

  “Cristina!” she croaked between waves. “Get in here.”

  Her whole body shook, but she tucked her little sister behind her, in the space between the toilet and the shower. Hot tears burned her eyes as wave after wave of vomit spilled out of her.

  “What the fuck is going on?” her uncle demanded, filling the bathroom doorway, towering over the two girls.

  “She’s . . . sick,” Cristina said, barely above a whisper.

  “Asquerosa,” he growled. “I better not find a fucking mess in here when I get back.” He stalked into his bedroom to change out of his work clothes.

  In her mind, Marisol begged her body to stop heaving but it wouldn’t. Her head felt like it was on fire. She continued to dry-heave, and gripped the sides of the bowl with shaking hands.