Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  “Huh?” said Grant.

  “You heard me! Kevin Wunder does not bend over for bullies. You…you…you bullies! Now it’s a five-thousand-dollar job!” He thumped a fist against his chest. “Take it or leave it!”

  The bluff didn’t work.

  “Okay, then.”

  Grant and Chase turned and began walking back to the sidewalk.

  “Wait!” Wunder scrambled after them. He hadn’t really expected them to take a fifteen-thousand-dollar pay cut, but he was surprised they’d just walk away from the job without trying to negotiate. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” said Grant. “And you’d better find yourself a couple more criminals if you want to get those pictures back.”

  “But—”

  “Cheap criminals,” added Chase. “Just remember: You get what you pay for.”

  They were half a block away when Chase asked, “How soon?”

  “Any second now. In fact,” Grant cocked his head slightly, “I think I hear the pitter-patter of Kevin Wunder’s little size-seven feet coming up behind us right now.”

  “I was thinking size eight.”

  “Nah, definitely seven. Listen.”

  Sure enough, Wunder caught up with them, looking slightly disheveled for the short trot. Sweat and motion didn’t do his thinning hair any favors. It stuck out at a half dozen angles, all unfortunate.

  “Okay, okay.” He was out of breath, so the words came in short gasps.

  “Okay what?” asked Grant.

  “Okay, I’ll find thirty thousand dollars. Somehow.”

  Grant nodded graciously, and once again they shook hands. It was a deal.

  On his cab ride to Smith and Wollensky, Wunder decided he’d better not only tap the real estate developer for support, but make him the chairman of a new fund-raising committee: Real Estate for Peebles.

  Because it was becoming increasingly apparent there was going to be a new need for some significant campaign cash.

  Speaking of which…

  He dialed Penelope from the cab and went straight to voice mail, which he told, “I think we have a problem with these jokers. Now they want thirty instead of twenty. This doesn’t feel good to me, but I’ll monitor the situation closely.”

  He was smiling when he disconnected.

  They sat on a bench in the plaza—technically the city called it a park, but it was really a plaza—next to the Roosevelt Island tram. Chase was half looking at the pedestrians strolling up and down Second Avenue, while Grant, still in his UPS uniform, idly watched traffic pour off the Queensboro Bridge. Neither was really focused on what was in front of them, though. They were too busy thinking things through.

  Finally Grant spoke. “It’s those people that bother me.”

  Chase stretched his arms, working out a few kinks. The bench wasn’t as comfortable as it looked, and it didn’t look all that comfortable to begin with. “Which people? The ones who work for June Forteene?”

  “Those are the ones. If this was a one-woman operation it’d make things much simpler.” He focused on his visit to her office that morning, trying to recall every detail. “It’s an old building, so getting inside ain’t gonna be a problem. So long as those people aren’t around.”

  “I’m sure they go home at the end of the workday. It’s a job, not a dormitory.”

  Grant played with a thread that had come loose on the uniform pants. “You’re probably right, but something feels wrong about the setup. Take the elevator, for example. It opens right into her office.”

  “She’s got a private elevator?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, it’s the regular building elevator. Except she rents the entire floor, and when you step off there’s this desk right out in the hall. That tells me the building staff either locks the elevator and stairwells at night, or—more likely, ’cause I can’t imagine a crappy building like that locking up so tight—they’ve got at least one person in that office pretty much around the clock.”

  “Hmm.” Behind his fake Versace sunglasses, Chase thought that over. “I see what you’re saying.”

  They fell into silence again.

  “What we’ll need to do,” said Grant, after several quiet minutes, “is be prepared in case my gut is right about this.”

  Chase didn’t like the way that sounded. “We’re not talking about physical violence, are we?”

  “That’s not my plan.” Chase began to exhale with relief, but stopped when Grant added, “But—”

  “Aw, c’mon. We’re both too old for that stuff. And weren’t very good at it when we were younger.”

  Grant let the comment hang in the air. “I also think we’re gonna need to spread around some of the extra ten grand we just squeezed out of Wunder to bring in another person.”

  “Jamie?”

  “Hell no. We’ll need someone who’s competent.” He thought it out a bit more. “I figure we go one of two ways. Someone big who can take care of business in case things get tricky; or someone small and wiry who can move through tight spaces.”

  “Tight spaces?” Chase wrinkled his nose. “What tight spaces?”

  Grant stared off at the bridge traffic. “I’m just preparing for contingencies, is all. If someone is standing guard at June Forteene’s office when we break in, a big guy should be able to take care of it. But a big guy won’t be much help if we need dexterity instead of muscle.”

  “Why not get one of each?” asked Chase. “One big goon; one small wiry guy. Then we’re covered, no matter what.”

  “Maybe.” Grant did some quick math in his head. “It depends who’s free tonight, and how much they charge.”

  Chase sat up straight on the bench. “Tonight? Did I hear you say tonight?”

  “Yeah, tonight. When we pull the jobs.” He was briefly tempted to laugh at the expression of surprise on Chase’s face. “The clock is ticking, lover. If we don’t get that picture before she makes it public, we’re out thirty grand. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to risk waiting until it’s too late.”

  Chase sat back against the bench. “Thanks for giving me a lot of warning.”

  Grant shrugged. “That’s the nature of the business. You should be used to it by now.”

  The decision was made for them by availability. All the big guys they knew were either unavailable or they were locked up, which made them very unavailable.

  So, for that matter, were most of the small, wiry guys. With one exception.

  Chase closed his cell phone and looked at Grant. “Nick Donovan can do it.”

  “Oh, jeez…” muttered Grant, accompanying the mutter with an abbreviated eye roll.

  “I thought you liked Nick.”

  “He’s all right. For a kid. But…”

  “But what?”

  Grant returned his gaze toward the traffic coming off the Queensboro Bridge. “Ever since his mother went legit she’s wanted nothing to do with the business. And she doesn’t want Nick to have anything to do with it, either. He’s probably out of practice.”

  “How out of practice can you be if you’re small, thin, and limber?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Chase set his phone on his lap. “I don’t know what to tell you. If you want me to keep trying to find a big, intimidating accomplice, I’ll call Paul Farraday again, but he sounded pretty adamant the second time he hung up on me. Otherwise, we can either try to pull two jobs in one night by ourselves or bring Nick Donovan in on the job. Those are our only options.”

  A pigeon wandered near them until Grant stared at the bird and sent it flying away in a flurry of feathers.

  “Okay,” he said, after mulling over the equally unattractive options. “Just make sure the kid doesn’t tell his mother. I don’t want to deal with that.”

  While Chase rang Nick back, Grant glanced at his watch. It was still early afternoon, but they had business to attend to. When the call was over he decided they should head off to scope out June Forteene’s home address a f
ew miles south on Second Avenue.

  Because if they were going to pull off two jobs that night, they’d better know what they were getting themselves into.

  While the criminals were walking at a brisk pace down Second Avenue, intent on casing her apartment building, June Forteene was across town in her Eighth Avenue office and staring with disgust at an erect penis.

  It wasn’t that erect penises disgusted her—far from it, although it had almost been too long since she’d seen one to remember clearly—but the one on her computer screen was a different story. Because, of course, it was attached to Austin Peebles.

  She zoomed out. First his taut, slim body appeared; then his face. There was a trace of a smug smile on his thin pink lips, and she almost punched the monitor.

  A woman of great certainty about everything from her breakfast cereal to her political beliefs, June was not quite certain what it was about Austin Peebles that set her off. It wasn’t for a lack of reasons; it was because there were so many.

  He was the son of Neil Peebles, the soft Mainline WASP who, having inherited a fortune, was now at work in Washington betraying his class by taxing and spending everyone else’s money.

  He was the son-in-law of Catherine Cooper Concannon, the wealthy patrician who’d just assumed she deserved her husband’s seat in Congress when he died, and whom no one had been willing to turn down.

  He was the husband of Penelope Concannon Peebles, a filthy-rich money manager who was quickly amassing a fortune by playing on her family connections.

  And then there was Austin Peebles himself.

  At twenty-seven years of age he had never held a real job. He was too good-looking; not in a Ronald Reagan kind of way, but in that way which made everyone want to take care of him. Hooded eyes, pouty lips…Everyone wanted to take Austin Peebles home and mother him.

  Which would have been enough, but now, as a final insult, he had been anointed as a congressional candidate.

  June Forteene took a deep breath to clear her head and reminded herself he was also undisciplined and irresponsible and promiscuous, as witnessed by the erection on her monitor.

  Austin Peebles embodied everything that disgusted June Forteene.

  An immoral, immature child of privilege who married into more privilege was expected to be elected to high public office with no attributes or accomplishments to speak of except connections, looks, and charm. It was infuriating, and she knew he had to be stopped.

  It was true that Austin Peebles had a lot in his favor. Ordinarily, it would be almost impossible to stop the Peebles-Concannon juggernaut before his coronation.

  But June Forteene now had that photo of his penis.

  And that was a game changer.

  She zoomed back in until she could see every vein. Then she zoomed out again to look at that smug smile attached to that face attached to that head attached to that slim body attached to that penis, before zooming back in on the money shot.

  “Oh, my!”

  She turned and saw Edward—her most junior assistant, who was in only his fourth day at June Forteene Enterprises—avert his eyes from the giant erection on her monitor. June was fairly certain he had seen his fair share of them—she got that impression when she interviewed him, and today’s outfit of hipster frames and a red sweater vest didn’t do much in her eyes to burnish his masculinity—and so made no effort to diminish the image.

  “What is it, Edward?” There was boredom in her voice.

  Overcompensating by making a point to avoid looking at the image on the screen, he handed her a small package. “UPS just dropped this off.”

  She took it from his hands. “Thanks.”

  “By the way,” he said, still looking away, “the Cuban guy is the regular UPS deliveryman for this building, right?”

  “Raul? Yes, why?”

  Edward continued to speak away from the monitor. “It’s nothing, really. Just…this morning there was a different guy—an older white guy—who showed up in a UPS uniform. He said he was looking for a dental office.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “There aren’t any dentists in this building.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  After a slight moment of suspicion—June was suspicious about a lot of things, and usually for good reason—she shook her head, and it went away. “He probably just had the wrong address.”

  Edward nodded his agreement. “That’s what I figured. And frankly I’m surprised UPS would send a driver out in such a shabby uniform. It doesn’t reflect well on the company. Now take Raul; his uniform is always crisp and…”

  She stopped him. “What was that?”

  “The first UPS man. The white guy. His uniform didn’t fit and it was fraying. He looked very shabby.”

  She tried to tell herself she was paranoid…but paranoia was part of her nature. It was a dangerous world, and if people let down their guard they’d soon be living at the business end of a rifle held by the Muslims, Russians, Chinese, radical homosexuals, Washington power elite, Wall Street bankers, labor leaders, ACORN, Mormons, illegal Mexicans, and Indian telemarketers. Or maybe all of them, joined together in a vast conspiracy she had not yet been able to draw together.

  Then again, maybe it was nothing.

  “Thank you, Edward,” she said, dismissing him. “And please let me know if he shows up again.”

  Edward said he would and then, when her back was to him, took a nice long look at Austin Peebles’s erection.

  The building June Forteene called home was on Second Avenue near East Forty-second Street, not too far from the United Nations. And that, Grant soon realized as he surveyed the area, could present him with a problem.

  The timing of this job was full of trouble, but all of the timing had been out of their hands.

  First, Wunder had called them in at the last possible moment, giving Grant and Chase just a few days to pull off the job. If June Forteene got a bug to publish the photo before they had a chance to pull things off, they’d be out thirty grand.

  Then, because the job was so rushed, they hadn’t had time to put together a team that Grant could feel comfortable working with. Nick Donovan was okay…but just okay. He wasn’t Grant’s idea of the sort of support that would put his mind at ease.

  And now, well…Once again, the timing sucked on this job. Because there were a hell of a lot of cops in the general vicinity. He could only hope there’d been some awful accident.

  The situation needed to be checked out. First, though, Grant had to pay a visit to the lobby of June’s apartment building to size things up. While he was there he managed to have a little talk with the super, mostly because he couldn’t find June Forteene’s name on a mailbox and couldn’t remember her real name. The super—far too friendly, meaning he was bored—directed him to the box labeled H. Morris.

  “Got a package for Hillary?” the super asked as he stood next to Grant at the mailbox. “I can sign for it.”

  “I’m not sure.” Grant tried to appear conscientious, figuring the average UPS driver wouldn’t let just anyone sign for anything. Also, he needed her apartment number, and it wasn’t on the mailbox, so…

  “Can you confirm her apartment number?”

  The super smiled broadly. “Seven-F!”

  Grant decided to press his luck, since the poor schmuck seemed to want to talk more than he seemed to want to filter out what he shouldn’t talk about. “Seventh floor? Is that the top floor in the building?”

  “No, that would be eight.”

  “Of course.” Grant mumbled something about grabbing a package and returning at some vague point in the future.

  When he walked back outside, there were no fewer cops.

  “You figure out why there are all these blue uniforms?” he asked Chase.

  “Nope. But more seem to be coming.”

  Somewhere nearby, a patrol car’s siren let out a loud whoop. Instead of standing, watching, and guessing, Grant figured he’d try to figure out what was going on.

&n
bsp; The building super was still in the lobby, and still eager to help.

  A few minutes later Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca stood at the corner of Forty-second and Second, a half block from the apartment building, and looked on as dozens of uniformed police officers stood guard or tried unsuccessfully to move traffic in every direction of the intersection.

  Grant sighed. “So this is what the United Nations area looks like when the General Assembly’s in session.” He watched a half dozen NYPD motorcycles roar up. “This is gonna make things interesting.”

  Chase frowned. “Great timing.”

  “Just what I’ve been thinking.” Grant took another look over the sea of blue uniforms. “Maybe we should call Wunder and tell him we can’t—”

  “Hey, you!”

  They pivoted toward the shout and found themselves looking at a police lieutenant, who in turn pointed unhappily—and directly—at Grant. In their line of work having a cop point at you was never good, but since they hadn’t done anything—yet—they figured the guy was trying to get someone else’s attention.

  He wasn’t and shouted, “Hey!” again.

  Grant finally jabbed a finger at his chest and mouthed, “Me?”

  “Yeah, you! Move your damn truck before we tow it! We’ve gotta clear the streets for the Secretary-General’s motorcade!”

  Grant was confused until he saw a brown UPS truck double-parked at mid-block…and remembered he was still wearing the uniform.

  “Well,” Chase said as they approached the truck. “At least we don’t have to take the subway back to Jackson Heights. That’s one good thing that’s happened today.”

  Grant grunted as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  The key wasn’t in the ignition but Grant Lambert knew a half dozen ways to get around that. It was part of the business.

  Chapter Seven

  Ordinarily, Chase LaMarca’s instincts would have been on the money when he told Grant that the office was likely a workplace, not a dormitory. With the exception of national emergencies—say, a terrorist attack, or Barack Obama caught in a lie, or news that a Muslim or Mexican had been caught committing a crime, no matter how petty—June Forteene and her staff treated that office on Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen as a workplace, and nothing more. By 6:00 p.m.—maybe 6:30 p.m. on a busier news day—they locked it up, set the alarm, and went home.