Uptown Thief

by Aya De León

  “You are a delectable woman, Marisol Rivera,” he said, smiling up at her.

  She leaned in and kissed him.

  He reached to pull her toward him when the door flew open and two masked gunmen entered. Marisol screamed and scrambled to cover herself with the comforter.

  “What the—” VanDyke said.

  “Hands where I can see them!” Jody yelled. “One move, one more noise, and you’re dead.” The intruders had on shades over ski masks and were dressed in black sweat suits. They had on thick black gloves that made their hands look much bigger.

  Marisol and VanDyke raised their hands. The comforter slipped down, revealing Marisol’s breasts.

  “Nice,” Tyesha said, and moved toward her, poking her breast with the gun. Marisol wore a terrified expression on her face.

  “No time for that shit,” Jody growled, and pulled out a roll of duct tape.

  She tossed it to Tyesha, who caught it and proceeded to bind the billionaire’s hands and feet. Tyesha sat him and Marisol on the floor at the edge of the bed and bound them together, back to back, while Jody held them at gunpoint. Then the gunmen taped their mouths, and bound them to the leg of the bed.

  “Anybody comes in before we get what we came for, you’re dead, you hear me?” Jody asked. Neither Marisol nor VanDyke moved. “Nod your head if you hear me.”

  The two of them nodded, their heads bumping by mistake.

  “Grab that purse,” Jody ordered.

  “He’s the one with the money,” Tyesha said.

  “You never know,” Jody said, and Tyesha obeyed.

  The gunmen stepped out of the room, leaving them taped and helpless on the floor.

  * * *

  Tyesha and Jody walked into VanDyke’s study to find Kim kneeling on a chair in front of the safe. The apartment was true to the blueprints Marisol had gotten from the celebrity bachelor site. The safe wasn’t indicated on the plans, but Marisol had accurately guessed its location, because the wall was slightly thicker.

  Kim was surrounded by neat stacks of paper and wood paneling. The safe was the height of a regular door, but narrower, with the dial above doorknob height. It was nestled next to the solid oak desk, in an alcove just wide enough for the billionaire to stand in front of it. Kim pulled on the fingerprint gloves and pressed the right index finger to the sensor of the Superlative safe. All three women held their breath.

  ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN, the red digital display read. Next she tried the right thumb.

  ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

  “Well?” Jody murmured.

  “Two tries and it won’t open,” Kim said, an edge of panic in her voice. “Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Or are the gloves fucked up?”

  “My friend said she confirmed the match with a microscope,” Tyesha said.

  “Then why isn’t it working?” Jody asked.

  “Try the right middle finger,” Tyesha said.

  “Why?” Jody asked.

  “I saw this photo in the tabloids of VanDyke giving the paparazzi the finger,” Tyesha said. “The safe is set up so that it would be really awkward to use the left hand. So let’s assume that Kim did the first two correctly. He wouldn’t do the ring or the pinkie finger. I think it would be VanDyke’s big ‘fuck you’ to the world.”

  “Okay,” Jody said. “But if it doesn’t work, we get the hell out. We cut the video lines, but there could still be a separate alarm system from the safe.”

  “Fine,” Tyesha said. “Go, Kim.”

  “Don’t rush me!”

  Slowly, Kim wiped off the print sensor, then placed her gloved middle finger on the small square of glass.

  “Well?” Tyesha asked.

  “It takes a minute,” Kim said.

  They kept their gazes on the small display rectangle, which was now blank.

  An internal sound whirred. An alarm? A go-ahead? Finally, after what seemed like forever, the combination dial lit up.

  “Well, fuck you, too, Jeremy VanDyke,” Tyesha said, and Kim went to work on the safe.

  * * *

  Two hours later, the driver came into VanDyke’s bedroom.

  “What the hell?” he asked, mouth open at the sight of his boss bound with a woman to the leg of the bed, both naked.

  He ran over to VanDyke, who gestured with his head for the driver to ungag him first.

  “Mr. VanDyke, I came back an hour ago,” the driver said as he carefully pulled the tape off the billionaire’s mouth. “I didn’t wanna interrupt, but after a while I came to the door, and saw it was open, and the cut wires—”

  “Get my cell phone!” VanDyke yelled when he could finally speak. “Bedside table! Now!”

  The driver scrambled to comply. Marisol watched him run around her, as if she were a piece of furniture.

  “Undo my hands!” VanDyke ordered. Marisol heard the ripping of tape behind her, then the beeping of cell phone buttons.

  “This is VanDyke,” he shouted into the phone. “Now my feet,” he barked at the driver. “Get my feet.”

  Marisol heard more tape ripping a few feet behind her.

  “Send the security detail over immediately. We’ve had a break-in. Don’t alert the police just yet. I want an internal response first.”

  As VanDyke pulled on his boxers, Marisol made muffled sounds behind the gag.

  The driver carefully unbound her mouth.

  “Oh, thank God!” she said.

  “Is the front door still open?” VanDyke asked the driver. “Did they break the lock?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go look. If it’s not secure, stay there until the team shows up. Call me on my cell if anything happens.”

  “What about me?” Marisol said. “Can he at least untie me first?”

  The driver hesitated, looked from Marisol to VanDyke.

  “No time,” VanDyke said.

  VanDyke undid her wrists and rushed to dress himself.

  Marisol undid her own feet and rummaged around in the bedclothes for her underwear. As she pulled the bra out of the tangle of sheets, she heard a pair of security guards storming up the stairs.

  VanDyke stepped into the hall, his shirt open. “Don’t move anything,” he yelled. “Just give the place an initial once-over.”

  “Got it!” the guy yelled from the hallway, as she crawled beside the bed looking for her left shoe.

  “You need to go,” VanDyke said to her as he scanned the floor and picked up her dress.

  The driver appeared in the doorway.

  VanDyke took Marisol by the arm and thrust her toward the driver.

  She stood naked between the two men, underclothes in one hand and a single platform stiletto in the other.

  “Take her home,” VanDyke said.

  “What about my—” Marisol began. She was about to say “dress?”

  “Money?” He pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her. “Hurry.”

  Marisol took the envelope. “Can I get my clothes on?”

  “No time,” VanDyke said. “You can’t be here when the police arrive. Things always leak to the press. For the moment, I’m assuming that you had nothing to do with this. If my team finds any evidence to the contrary, I will prosecute.”

  “What?” Marisol said. “I wouldn’t—”

  VanDyke cut her off. “She can get dressed in the limo.” He handed her dress, her coat, and her other shoe to the driver. “Get her out of here now.” He turned to Marisol.

  “Jeremy,” Marisol said. “Just lemme put my—”

  VanDyke turned and spoke to her as if to a dense and disobedient child. “I said, there’s no time for that.”

  “I’m supposed to walk out of here naked?” she asked, all Lower East Side attitude.

  “Spare me the false modesty,” VanDyke said. “I’ve certainly paid enough that a few of my staff can see you. We’re done here.” He turned his eyes to his phone and began dialing.

  Marisol’s fist clenched around the crumpled bra and panties.
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  “What are you waiting for?” VanDyke snapped at the driver.

  The driver took Marisol’s arm and marched her out the door. Several of the security guards did a double-take.

  Marisol stood naked in front of five men in uniform. She didn’t meet any of their eyes. She could feel blood rushing to her neck, her face.

  “I’m sorry VanDyke is such an asshole,” the driver murmured to her in Spanish, and tried to pull the dress up in front of her body.

  She snatched the dress and flung it over her shoulder, strutting down the hallway, with one breast out, like an Amazon, pulling him along. The humiliation burned beneath her surface.

  Her grandmother used to cook lechon like that—she would slay the pig, then bury it in the ground with hot coals.

  * * *

  At the bottom of the stairs, Marisol put her dress on. When she got back into the limo, the driver was so flustered, he shut the door on her stiletto heel and broke it. He began to apologize, but she raised a hand to silence him.

  She sent a text to her team that said: leaving now, and leaned back in the seat, jaw tight.

  She was still fuming silently when the limo pulled up in front of the same Central Park East apartment building the driver had picked her up from. Neither of them had spoken throughout the ride. She kept her phone face-up in her lap, looking for the all-clear signal from her team.

  “Keep going uptown,” she told him.

  He nodded and pulled away from the curb, letting her direct him to a bar in Washington Heights.

  Marisol limped out of the limo and into the bar.

  The clock on the wall with the faded Dominican flag read 1:47 a.m.

  “ID, miss?” the bouncer asked.

  “My purse got stolen,” she said.

  “Sorry, miss, we need ID.”

  The place had a low ceiling and was smoky, despite the ordinance against smoking in bars. It was more than half empty, and they still had Christmas lights and a little neon “¡Feliz Navidad!” It looked pathetic this late after the holidays.

  Marisol couldn’t believe they were carding her in this dump. “Do I look underage?”

  “Do I look like this is optional?”

  “Fuck you!” she spat and left.

  She hobbled down the street to the second place. It was her least favorite in Washington Heights. Seedier spot, watered-down drinks, sleazier guys. She saw a couple of girls who were definitely working. They looked her up and down and grimaced.

  Marisol went straight to the bathroom, which was dark and smelled like piss. There was more toilet paper on the floor than in the dispenser. She looked at herself in the mirror through the scratched-on graffiti. Her hair was a mess, and her eyeliner had seeped down to make hollows beneath her eyes. She ran her fingers through her hair to shape it, and wiped off the excess eye makeup. The top of the dress was okay, had pressed itself with the heat of her body. Just the skirt was irredeemably wrinkled. She could wear the coat down off her shoulders. Which also worked to cover the broken shoe. She still looked hot.

  She sat down on a stool at the bar. The place had begun to clear out. No one came over to buy her a drink. She ordered a glass of rum.

  “Hola, mami.” She noticed that the guy had on way too many gold chains, as he slid onto the bar stool next to her. “What’s your name?”

  “Can you fuck?” she asked him in Spanish. “I don’t have time for bullshit.”

  “Yeah, I can fuck.” He looked more startled than excited.

  “In a condom? Can you fuck with a condom on?”

  “I think I can manage,” he said.

  “Lemme pay for my drink and I’ll meet you in the bathroom.” She downed the rum and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.

  On her way to the bathroom, she heard a phone ring across the bar. Was her phone on?

  She fished it out of her pocket, and there was the text, a winking face from Tyesha that had been sent fifteen minutes before—the “all clear” sign.

  She laughed out loud with relief and did an about-face, limping out of the bar.

  * * *

  Marisol came in through the clinic’s alley door, carrying her broken invincibility shoes in her hand. Her bare feet thudded gently on the wooden steps as she ascended. She pulled up the hem of the rumpled dress as she climbed past the community room, clinic offices, and exam rooms.

  In the lobby of her fourth-floor office, everything was quiet. Yet when she opened the office door, she faced off with Jody and Tyesha, guns drawn.

  “What the fuck?” Marisol asked, her heart banging in her throat.

  “Thank God it’s you,” Kim gasped, as the two other women lowered their guns.

  “You didn’t get my text?” Marisol asked, collapsing on the couch.

  “An hour ago,” Tyesha said, laying the automatic on the table. “VanDyke’s place is only fifteen minutes away.”

  “We came straight here after we left his apartment,” Kim said.

  “We thought something happened,” Jody said.

  “I’m fine,” Marisol said. “Let’s see what we got.”

  She picked up the two heavy duffels of cash and heaved them onto the desk. Her heart began to race again. “Are the bricks hundreds or twenties?” Marisol asked.

  “We just grabbed everything in there,” Tyesha said. “And you said not to open it until you got here.”

  As Marisol unzipped the duffels, Tyesha locked the door behind them, and Kim pulled the shades. All four women peered into the bags.

  Benjamin Franklin stared up at them from a hundred different angles. Apparently, the cash was in ten-thousand-dollar bricks. Each compact packet held one hundred, crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  “Holy shit,” Jody said.

  “There’s at least four million here,” Marisol breathed.

  They counted the bricks. Marisol had underestimated by half.

  * * *

  An hour later, they’d emptied a bottle of rum, and Tyesha’s impressions of VanDyke had everyone in hysterics.

  “I demand to see the manager,” Tyesha sputtered. “I did not order a tie-up by two men. I ordered a woman to fuck me and listen to my long, narcissistic monologue afterward.”

  The women’s laughter filled the office. Marisol howled until tears ran down her cheeks. Jody sat on one of the armchairs with Kim on her lap. The two women laughed against each other, unable to sit up straight. Tyesha nearly spit out her last drink of rum. It took over ten minutes for the hysteria to subside.

  When they could all breathe again, they felt spent from the buildup and release of tension. But still high from the sight of the money. Eight million. Cash. All theirs.

  “You all,” Marisol said, heaving herself off the couch, “are the best fucking team any woman could hope for.”

  * * *

  After she sent them home, she carried the duffels up to her apartment.

  She closed all the blinds, and crept across to the kitchenette island. Moving aside the two tall stools, she pried off the plywood front of the island counter.

  When she’d redone the apartment, she had a shallow false back built. Empty until now. She put the panel aside and stacked the bricks of cash into tall columns.

  She looked up at the graduation picture of Cristina. “Not bad, huh?”

  She replaced the plywood. The exterior of the island looked the same. But now, she would drink her coffee inches away from a fortune.

  “The team knows how much we got,” she told Cristina’s photo. “But you’re the only one I’m showing where I put it.”

  Chapter 21

  On Friday, two days after the heist, the team met in the deli across from the clinic. As they ate, they scanned the papers and the Internet for any news of the heist. Not a word.

  “I paid off the clinic mortgage today,” Marisol said. “After a certain donation check went through.”

  “We’re free and clear?” Tyesha asked.

  “The clinic building at least,” Marisol said, as Jody’s phone rang.
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  Jody stepped outside.

  “What the fuck?!” they heard Jody yell into the phone.

  “What’s that about?” Tyesha asked.

  “If it’s who I think it is,” Kim said, “that girl is toast.”

  Through the plate-glass window, Kim, Marisol, and Tyesha could hear Jody screaming into the phone: “Whitman, you’ve been a VERY bad boy! You’re in big trouble, do you hear me? . . . Now you are NOT going to do anything like that. You’re going to do EXACTLY as I say. When I hang up this phone, you’re going to call the doctor. And tell him what you just told me . . . NO EXCUSES! DO IT NOW!”

  Jody returned. “Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly.

  “I can’t believe you,” Kim said. “After giving me shit about Mr. Potato Head wanting free time, but you just gave Whitman a free domme session.”

  “On the phone,” Jody said. “Less than a minute.”

  “Lotta people charge by the minute,” Tyesha said. “You’re undervaluing your services.”

  “And setting a serious double standard,” Kim said.

  “Look,” Jody said. “Every six months or so, the guy goes off his meds, and he gets all suicidal and calls me. So I yell at him a little and make him call his doctor. Then he’s fine. It’s like a public service.”

  “That rich guy doesn’t need your charity,” Kim said. “Doesn’t he have his own foundation?”

  “He calls every six months,” Jody said. “I’m not setting up a phone sex operation for two calls a year.”

  “Not cost-effective,” Marisol said.

  “Not fair,” Kim said. “The next time MPH calls, I don’t want to hear shit from you. Not one fucking word.”

  “That’s different—” Jody began.

  “Not really—” Marisol broke off as she saw something through the front window. “Gotta go.” She dropped fifteen dollars on the table.

  As Marisol crossed the street, Eva stepped out of the clinic with an arm around Dulce.

  “I told Dr. Feldman not to interrupt you,” Dulce said.

  “I would never let you go without saying good-bye,” Marisol said as she embraced the girl. She had texted something encouraging to Dulce every day since she’d arrived at the clinic. After letting go from the hug, she smoothed Dulce’s hair back from her forehead where the cut had nearly healed. “Tú eres preciosa,” she said. “Do you hear me? More valuable than money or diamonds or anything.”