The Downside

by Mike Cooper

  Wes ran investments, mostly commodities. They’d cooperated on two occasions, after a chain of unlikely intermediaries had brought them together. Finn had highly specialized, even unique, skills, but to exercise them fully, he needed setup money. His kind of jobs couldn’t be run on the cheap. Wes, in turn, had the money, over in the legitimate world—at least, as legitimate as superrich Wall Street investors could be—and he was always looking for what he called “exotics.” Unusual investment opportunities. High-risk/high-return ventures. Lots of alpha and zero beta, whatever that meant.

  A match made in heaven.

  “You can’t believe anything they write in the newspapers,” Finn said.

  “Court transcripts.” Emily had an amused look again, mouth quirked up on one side. “Investigative records, including some private detective’s backgrounder.”

  “Ah.”

  “Let’s see. An autorack of Mercedes S-Coupes. An entire industrial machine line, just after it was installed, before they even started using it. Five containers of copper scrap on its way to China.” She shook her head slightly. “Did you ever steal something that weighed less than twenty tons?”

  “I’ve never done a day of time for anything except the molybdenite.”

  “A truckload of rocks.”

  It was all public information after the trial. But those green eyes watched him steadily, observing, measuring … judging.

  “Two trucks,” he said. “Seventy tons of ore. At the time, molybdenite was going for six fifty, seven a pound. The roaster wouldn’t have paid full price, of course—not for a delivery at the back gate in the middle of the night.”

  “Roaster?”

  “Only three plants in the United States take the raw ore and cook it down into molybdenum. We had—” He cut himself off.

  Emily raised an eyebrow.

  “Hypothetically,” Finn said. “Some other ore thief might have negotiated all that ahead of time. Maybe a forty-percent discount. You can do the arithmetic.”

  She barely paused. “Six hundred thousand dollars.”

  Finn nodded.

  Wes had funded the job, and he would have taken one-third right off the top. Maybe Emily knew that, maybe she didn’t.

  The waitress arrived with food, setting down the plates and dropping silverware rolled in napkins and two straws with the iced tea.

  “Anything else I can get you?” she said cheerfully, stepping back.

  Emily looked over, but Finn was still reacquainting himself with being politely asked his opinion on things. “Um …”

  “We’re fine, thanks.”

  The sandwich was unbelievably good. Even if it wasn’t, Finn would still have eaten it as fast as he could. Prison habits.

  “Wes has a problem,” Emily said. Her hamburger sat untouched.

  “I told you—”

  “You could help.” She paused. “You’re probably the only person in the world who could help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Wes is doing quite well.”

  “Good for him.”

  “But if this … problem … isn’t solved … then his business becomes very, very difficult.”

  “Not interested.”

  “What I’m saying,” she plowed on, “is that Wes is extremely motivated to have you on board. No messing around.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s desperate.”

  “Uh-huh.” Finn spoke through a mouthful of sandwich. “In my experience, desperate people make the absolutely worst partners.”

  “Fair point. ‘Desperate’ might be overstating the case.”

  Sunshine glared through the window beside them.

  “Before, I always talked to Wes directly.” Finn raised one hand as Emily started to speak. “That’s not the point. I’m retired. Tell him I’m sorry.”

  “Retired.” Flat.

  “Seven years I was in there.” He paused long enough to drain his iced tea. “The world’s different now. Bernie Madoff, you remember him? Goldman Sachs? All those fucking banks? The guys stealing a million dollars today, all they have to do is hit a few keys on a computer. Change a couple of decimal places. Done. And it’s probably legal, too, the way the game is rigged. The only people actually stealing things anymore are junkie bank robbers and celebrity shoplifters.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “I’m a dinosaur,” Finn said. “I’m not looking for one last glorious raid, then off to Bolivia. I’m going to sit on a lawn chair somewhere, listen to baseball. Thanks but no thanks.”

  Emily finally took a bite of hamburger. After a while, she said, “I told you, I read the court transcripts. From your case.”

  “The whole thing?”

  “All three hundred pages.”

  “Huh.”

  She looked up at him. “The prosecution called nine law enforcement officers. County police, state troopers, the New Mexico Mounted Patrol—whatever that is—and the FBI.”

  Finn didn’t say anything.

  “The DEA was never mentioned. The drugs, yes. The drug smugglers, the stateside gang—guilt by association, I suppose. But actual drug enforcement agencies? Not a single reference.”

  “They didn’t have to explain how they knew to ambush us,” Finn said. “Not in the trial. Or at least not in my trial. I don’t know what they said at the others.”

  “There wasn’t a trial for the drug gang. They all pled out.”

  For seven years, Finn had been thinking about this question.

  “We weren’t bycatch,” he said.

  “No.” She nodded. “They were.”

  “The FBI knew. They knew exactly when and where we were going to hit the train. So the obvious question is …” He let it hang.

  “Well.” Emily put her hands together on the table. “There are only a few possibilities. Did you tell them?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  “Nothing in the transcripts even hinted at a prior investigation.”

  “My lawyer tried to bring it up, and the judge shut him down. Immaterial.”

  “True enough. But the question remains, and the likeliest possibility—well, you’ve no doubt thought it through.”

  “Yes.” Seven years.

  “So.” She studied his face. “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your three partners. One of them dimed you out.”

  Finn waited, wondering if she would—

  “Or Wes,” she added.

  She would.

  “He didn’t know,” Finn said. “I mean, he knew what we were doing—hell, he funded it. But I never told him where or when.”

  “The other three had no reason, either,” Emily said.

  The waitress dropped the check on her way past. The old guy at the counter started a conversation with her—grazing rights, politics, something. He did most of the talking.

  “Thanks for lunch,” Finn said.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  He shrugged. “Look up some old friends, maybe. You know. Catch up.”

  “Yeah.” Emily gave him a knowing look as they stood from the booth. “One thing.”

  “What?”

  She recited a phone number starting with 917. “Don’t write it down, please.”

  “What if I forget?”

  “I read your file, Finn. You don’t forget anything.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Mine.” She held out her hand again. This time Finn was quicker on the draw. They held on a few seconds longer, and when she let go, the sensation of warmth and pressure stayed in his hand.

  “Have a safe trip back.”

  “I was wondering …” Emily said.

  “Yes?”

  “You could have given Wes up. Any time before sentencing, it prob
ably would have cut those seven years back some.”

  “They asked.”

  When Finn didn’t say anything more, Emily nodded. “Call me sometime if you want to talk.”

  “To Wes?”

  “Whoever.” Her crooked smile flashed again, and she was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two days later, Finn stepped from an almost-empty GCT bus into a humid Georgia morning. The bus spewed exhaust and ground away, disappearing into Gwinnett County suburbia. Finn yawned and rubbed grit from his eyes, squinting in the bright sunshine.

  And frowned.

  To the extent he had a plan, it wasn’t complicated. He was going to talk to Jake. Then talk to Asher. Then Corman. And then he figured he’d know.

  After that, there were options, but first, he had to know.

  Of course, to travel around the country looking up his old pals, he needed money. Driver’s license long since expired, no relatives still talking to him, the eight hundred bucks evaporating faster than he could keep track. When did everything get so damned expensive? Five dollars for a cup of coffee?

  Fortunately, he had a safe-deposit box here at Gwinnett Trust Bank. It was the only one the prosecutors didn’t find—even his lawyer didn’t know about it, thank God, or Finn would truly be down to nothing. But here, in the anonymous Atlanta suburbs, he’d hidden away sixty thousand dollars. Once, it hadn’t seemed like so much, not when he was knocking down three or four times that on every job. But now—a fortune.

  The problem was that Gwinnett Trust Bank no longer seemed to exist.

  Finn frowned.

  The building was as he remembered, faux-Federal brick with a drive-through. The sign on the facade, however, read norcross national credit union. A recent change; lighter patches in the brickwork’s pointing revealed where the earlier, larger sign had been attached.

  He hesitated another moment, then brushed his hands on his pants and went inside.

  “You’ll have to contact the state’s abandoned property office.”

  The bank officer was a woman about Finn’s age. She smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

  “But—what do you mean? They just shut my bank down?”

  “Almost five years ago. The FDIC came in Friday afternoon, and it was under federal receivership by Monday.”

  “I don’t understand.” He looked around, out the glass walls of the woman’s tiny office. “It all looks the same. Same counters, same teller row—”

  “We didn’t acquire Gwinnett Trust.” She made a serious face. “No one did. Too small and too bankrupt. So the regulators had to act. Of course, no one lost any money. You should have received a notification—did you have an account with them?”

  “Just the safe-deposit box.” Finn was still stunned.

  “Even so. They would have contacted you. If you didn’t respond, the box’s contents would have been turned over to the state.”

  Of course they wouldn’t have been able to contact him, since he’d used a false ID. He started to put his face in his hands, stopped.

  “Georgia’s had more bank closures than any other state.” The woman sounded sorry. “But I have to say it’s been good for credit unions. We opened this branch after Gwinnett Trust folded.”

  “You think Georgia will give me my money back?”

  “Oh, certainly. There’s a whole appeals process. Of course, they’re backed up some, I hear. But you should be able to recover everything in about eighteen months.”

  Finn stared at her. “A year and a half?”

  “More or less. As I say, they’re kind of overwhelmed now.”

  “But I need my money now!”

  “I’m sorry.” She appeared unfazed. Probably, she had to announce bad news to penniless, homeless, former members of the American middle class all day long. “It’s just how things work.”

  Outside, he stood in the humidity, headache thrumming.

  Thinking.

  It took half an hour to find a pay phone, a battered relic outside a dry cleaner’s in a fading strip mall. The handset, black and in the sun, was almost too hot to hold. It demanded three quarters before grudgingly providing a dial tone.

  Finn had no trouble remembering the number, but he paused, hand hovering above the hook for a moment. Desperate people make bad partners, he’d said to Emily.

  Actually, they tended to make bad decisions, period. But an image of her face rose in his mind.

  He dialed and listened for the ring.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kayo drifted to work at his usual time, around two p.m., breakfast in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The take-out French toast was folded around syrup, powdered sugar, and slices of orange, which he knew Millz would give him shit about, but fuck him anyway. Millz usually had a churro, and what was that, fried dough, right? Same thing.

  “Yo.” Millz was already inside Port Authority. It was a typical day for early November—damp, cold, sleeting—and they certainly weren’t going to stand around outside. Kayo didn’t care much one way or the other, and he had a good coat. Blue and black, some kind of mountain climber waterproof shit; he ever got tired of hustling bridge-and-tunnel farmboys, he could go be a K2 sherpa. But the point was, only the desperately fucked up were willing to transact in thirty-seven-degree rain, not to mention the goods got all wet. Better to be inside and dry.

  “Nico get you the new cards yet?” Kayo asked.

  Millz shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “Guess it don’t matter.” The place to sell fake Metrocards was outside the station, naturally, not inside. Not business for today.

  Kayo finished his French toast and dropped its foil wrapper into a massive, bombproof trashcan. They meandered down the corridor. Humanity flowed along with them: students carrying instrument cases, working men in damp canvas jackets, businessmen in shined shoes. Almost no one wore a suit anymore. Country going to hell.

  On the main concourse, they split up. Kayo found an eddy in the stream of people, where the crowd slowed to maneuver a corner. He planted himself there and began the low, monotonous pitch, just loud enough to catch someone’s attention if they wanted it to be caught: “Oxy, silver star, hydro. Weed? Got oxy …”

  Not that he really had any of that. Anyone dumb enough to hand over a twenty, he’d nod to Millz across the concourse all secret agent–like, and Millz would be more than happy to pass them a little bag of catnip or twenty fake Adderall pills. Not a lot of money to lose, and though it wasn’t a lot to earn, either, you mostly didn’t go to Rikers.

  Business was slow. The afternoon wore on.

  Millz wandered over, parting the crowd. He was tall and wide and slow-looking, and people tended to get out of his way.

  “Fuck it,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Kayo nodded. “Maybe we go check out the buses, huh?”

  They went down and watched the gates. Luck must have turned. Five minutes, and they both saw the guy at the same time.

  “Washington just got in,” Millz said.

  “He didn’t have to get on there.”

  The man was average height, stubbly, in an obviously new pair of plain tan pants and a short-sleeved white shirt. Underdressed for the city in November. He carried a small plastic handle bag and a bottle of water. He looked around, eyeing the platform, the advertising, the masses of people and the bustle, hesitated, then moved away.

  They followed.

  He stopped at a souvenir shop, deep in the subterranean Port Authority warren, and bought a Giants windbreaker and cheap ball cap. Loose cash from his left pocket—Kayo taking mental notes. A few words with the vendor, who gestured down the hall.

  But not toward the exit. Deeper, and down one more level.

  “This gonna be too easy,” Millz said.

  The man went into a bathroom fifty feet ahead of them. Millz and Kayo linge
red near the door for a minute, not exactly blocking it, but casually discouraging anyone who might suddenly be inclined to take a piss. Not that this bathroom saw much traffic. Tourist restrooms were upstairs, clean and shiny.

  This one was more of a … business center for the informal economy.

  Inside the man was brushing his teeth at the sink. Brushing his teeth! Kayo stifled a laugh. He glanced sideways. The stalls all had their doors removed. In one, a guy slept clutching a dirty suitcase tied with plastic twine.

  Millz went left, Kayo right, and they stopped six feet from the man’s back. He saw them in the metal mirror, spat, rinsed the brush, and turned around. He left the plastic carry bag on the sink’s edge.

  “How you doing?” Kayo put up a big grin.

  “No.”

  “Got a cigarette?”

  The man looked at him, and Kayo frowned slightly. The guy showed absolutely no sign of fear, just stood there all relaxed.

  “Then how about a dollar.” He didn’t make it a question.

  “No.”

  A long moment stretched out. The sleeper stirred, scraping his suitcase on the stall partition. No one looked his way.

  “Okay,” Millz said, and stepped forward—

  But Kayo put a hand in the air. “Hold up.”

  Millz caught his tone and stopped. “What?”

  “Look at his hand.”

  The man still held his toothbrush, but reversed: handle out, thumb along the edge, the end poking from his fist. He flicked his eyes between them, started to smile. Kayo checked his feet, saw one forward, one a little back and turned out, knees bent just enough.

  Close up he didn’t look so runty, either. Rangy. Some muscle there.

  Kayo nodded. “Toothbrush,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Used one like that before, have you?”

  Millz grunted. “The fuck you talking about?”

  The man glanced his way, then back to Kayo. “Not exactly,” he said. “Didn’t have a chance to sharpen this one.”

  Someone walked in behind them, turned, and left immediately. Footsteps and rumbling from the corridor outside echoed off the ancient ceramic tiles. Kayo crossed his arms.

  “Where?” he said.

  The man shrugged. “New Mexico.”