The Amateurs

by Marcus Sakey

  He put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Made coffee. Sipped it slowly. The clock read 10:37. If he left now, he’d be right on time. He poured a second cup, picked up a novel.

  It was funny. When the four of them had started hanging out, they’d all had other people they thought of as their “real” friends. But time kept passing, and those people got married or moved away or just got lazy in that late-twenties way, never leaving the house, always saying they’d love to get together but never doing it. And so Thursday nights went from optional to mandatory, and before long, they started adding more occasions. Dinners at Ian’s condo in the sky. Cubs games in the summer. And lately, Saturday brunch.

  That seemed to be the way with life. The things you were now, today, were the things you really were. Maybe you used to play guitar; maybe in the future you’d take up bowling. But what you did now, the people you saw, the books you read, the dreams that woke you, they were the real you. Not some construct of what you wanted to be or once were.

  At 11:02, he stopped pretending to read and went for a cab.

  Though named like a convenience store, Kuma’s Corner was a cross between a heavy-metal bar and a café, with tasteful lighting and tattooed waitstaff, eggs Benedict and burgers named after bands. Mitch had timed it right, strolling out on the small patio to find the three of them already there. Jenn flashed white teeth, motioned to the empty chair beside her. No sundress, but a strappy shirt that showed off her shoulders.

  He sat, smiled, then saw Ian. “Whoa!” The guy’s left eye was swollen nearly shut, thick flesh ringed in bright purple and dark black. “Jesus,” Mitch said. “What happened to you?”

  “He won’t tell us,” Jenn said. “But I think it was a woman.”

  “I did tell you. I tripped. I was out late, came home buzzed, caught my foot on the mat.”

  “And hit the doorknob with your eyeball?”

  “Yeah.” Ian reached for his beer, drained half in a pull. “Nice shot, huh? Doorknob, one; Ian, zero. But I’ve got plans for revenge.” He smiled. “Anyway. You’re missing a hell of a story. Alex is beginning a life of crime.”

  “It’s not funny, man.” Alex had dark circles of his own.

  “Hold on. Let me order.”

  “I did it for you,” Jenn said. “Chilaquiles, right?”

  Mitch looked over and smiled, suddenly ten feet tall and lighter than air and very glad he’d come. “Yeah. Thanks.” He held the look a moment, then turned to Alex. “So?”

  “His boss is using him as muscle,” Ian said. “He’s gonna get medieval on some tough guys.”

  “Would you quit it? This is serious. My boss is—”

  “An asshole?”

  “Well, yeah. Yesterday he was fiddling with the safe when I walked into his office, and he freaked like I caught him jerking off.” Alex shook his head. “I calm him down, very polite, use his last name and everything. And he says he wants me to come to a meeting. Like, an after-hours kind of meeting. A side deal, he wants me to be his bodyguard.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. And I say no, still very polite. He says I don’t do this, I’m fired, and he’ll tell everybody I’ve been stealing.”

  “Hmm.” Mitch could picture it, the skeezy guy condescending and threatening at once, big tough Alex having to stand there and take it. The thought almost made him smile. Payback’s a bitch. Then he saw the look in his friend’s eyes and immediately felt bad for feeling good.

  “You got that far before,” Ian said. “So? Are you going to do it?”

  “He signs the checks, right? But then—” Alex stopped at the arrival of a ferret-faced blonde balancing plates down the length of a tattooed arm. Ian ordered another beer. After she walked away, Alex said, “But then it got worse.” He pushed his plate forward and leaned on his elbows. “I got to wondering what Johnny was doing in the safe, right? I mean, he was so concerned with it.”

  Mitch cut into his breakfast, scooping up corn tortillas and salsa verde and pulled chicken.

  “So after he took off, I went back into the office, and I opened the safe.”

  “I’m surprised ‘Johnny Love’ gave you the combination,” Jenn said.

  “He didn’t. A couple of months ago he was after some information in there, something about a real-estate deal. Manager wasn’t working, didn’t want to come in, so he called and gave me the combo. It’s Johnny’s birthday. He makes a point of showing up every year on his birthday to see who remembers.”

  Jenn gave a sharp, high laugh. “This guy gets better and better.”

  “Worse and worse.” Alex’s features went dark in a way that reminded Mitch of his fluttering curtains, blinding sunlight to deep gloom. “You know what was there?” He paused, then looked over his shoulder. Pitched his voice low. “Cash. A lot of it. Like, stacks of hundred-dollar bills.”

  Mitch stopped chewing. Next to him, Jenn leaned forward the barest amount, more an intake of breath than a calculated motion. For a second, the crowded patio seemed to fall silent, and he could hear the rustling of leaves above them, the sound of traffic on Belmont.

  “Nice.” Ian picked up his water glass and held it against his bad eye, the ice cubes tinkling. “You had me going.”

  Jenn looked around the table, at Ian, at Alex, at Mitch, at Alex again, back at Ian again. “Is he kidding?”

  “Of course he’s kidding.”

  “I’m not.” Alex said it simple and quiet and firm. “I wish I were.”

  “You’re serious?” Mitch set his fork down.

  Alex nodded. “On my mother.”

  The silence fell again.

  “What did you do?”

  “I packed my pockets and snuck out the back. Brunch is on me.” Alex stabbed at his eggs. “What do you think? I locked up, went back to the bar, and quietly shit myself.”

  “You didn’t touch it?”

  “No.”

  “Come on.” Ian set down the water glass. No less puffy, his bad eye was now just slick with condensation. “Not even a little?”

  “No.”

  “How much was there?” Mitch asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said around a mouthful. “A lot. Thing is, I got to thinking. What if it’s got something to do with the meeting? I had figured, you know, he was having trouble with his vegetable suppliers, wanted me there so he could look like the old tough Johnny Love. But there had to be a couple hundred grand. What if he’s going back into the drug business? Meeting with Colombians?”

  “Or Outfit guys,” Mitch said. “Or undercover cops.”

  “Jesus. If he got busted and I was there . . .”

  “You have to find a new job.” Jenn’s voice was sharper than normal.

  “Ya think?”

  “You’re missing the worst part,” Ian said. “Insult to the injury. The money.”

  Alex’s jaw fell open, then he gave a sound that wasn’t much like a laugh. “Three hundred bucks. I’m a bodyguard at a six-figure drug deal, and the cheap bastard is offering me three hundred bucks.” He made the sound again.

  “You know what you should do?” Ian held a beat. “Clean out that safe before you quit.”

  “Tempting,” Alex said. “But I think even Johnny Love could figure that one out.”

  “Well, all you need to do,” Mitch said, “is not quit. Do it on a night you aren’t working, and don’t quit.”

  “Right. Right.” Ian nodded, cracked his knuckles. “Keep a straight face.”

  “Better yet,” Jenn said, “we should take it.”

  “Yes!” Ian gave her gun fingers. “That’s it. In fact, do it on a night you are working. You stand at the bar all night, meanwhile, we’re emptying the safe.”

  “We could cut through the roof with a torch,” Jenn said, “and then rappel from a helicopter.”

  “Or tunnel in from the building across the street,” Mitch said, getting in the spirit.

  “Meanwhile, I distract Johnny,” Jenn said. “I’ll wear one of those Bond-girl dr
esses from the Connery years. The short, mod ones that the villains’ girlfriends had. I’ve always wanted to.”

  “I love it when a plan comes together,” Ian said, and raised his glass. “To screwing Johnny Love.”

  “Screwing Johnny Love.” They clinked. Mitch leaned back in his chair, glad he’d come. A flawless blue sky and good friends. A sudden scrap of music began, Brandon Flowers urging smi-ile like you mean it, from the cell phone beside Alex’s napkin. He picked it up, shook his head, then hit a button to silence the notes.

  “Work?”

  “My ex.”

  It seemed like maybe a look passed between Jenn and Alex, but it was just a flickering thing. Mitch dug into his neglected breakfast.

  Ian said, “You guys know what the Prisoner’s Dilemma is?”

  Alex groaned. “Not again.”

  “What?”

  “Let me guess. It’s another game.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Ian deadpanned. “In fact, yes.”

  “You do anything besides play games?”

  “So,” Ian said, “two criminals are arrested. The cops know they did it, but they don’t have enough evidence. So they put them in separate cells and offer each a deal. If one rats on the other, he goes free. His partner, though, gets ten years. If they both keep quiet, the cops can only hit them with something minor, say, six months. But if both of them betray the other, bam, the cops can nail both, and they each get five years.”

  There was something elegant in the situation. Mitch could see the whole game, almost see the equation behind it. He’d always been decent at math. “They both stay quiet.”

  “You’d think, right? But the thing is, they can’t talk to each other. If one trusts the other and is betrayed, he gets twice the sentence he would have if they both ratted.”

  “How well do they know each other?” Jenn asked.

  “Not the point.”

  “Sure it is. If they’re good friends, then they’ll trust that the other guy will do the right thing.”

  “Ahh, but that’s a big assumption. I mean, imagine you make that leap, and find out your buddy screwed you? He walks free, you get ten years. That’s such a huge consequence that it becomes less important what you can gain, and more important what you could lose. Which means it’s not about trust.”

  “What is it about, then?”

  “Iteration. If you play only once, the best thing to do is to betray before you’re betrayed. Even if the other guy is a friend. Because he’s thinking the same thing.”

  Jenn shook her head. “Did your mother not hug you or something?”

  Ian gave her the finger. “But see, if you’re going to be playing again and again, then you keep the faith. Because six months in prison beats the consequences of mutual betrayal. So over time, the best result is to play square. But only over time.”

  “Where do you get this shit?” Alex asked.

  “Game theory, baby. So how about tomorrow night?”

  “For what?”

  “Screwing Johnny Love.”

  “Yeah, fine,” Alex said. “I can’t believe I have to find a new job. And you know what? Johnny is enough of a dick, he probably will tell everybody I stole from him.”

  “He won’t know it was you.”

  “No, I mean from the registers . . .” Alex paused. Set his glass down, turned with a bemused expression. “Are you serious?”

  Ian gave a shrug that was more eyebrows than shoulders. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s stealing?”

  “So what? You said this guy made his money selling drugs. You know how many people probably died because of that?”

  “So?”

  “Robbing a drug dealer, that doesn’t seem wrong to me. Plus, there’s no way we would get caught,” Ian said. “I mean, who would ever suspect us? None of us with a record, none of us ever having done anything like this, and you with an alibi. Big payoff for low risk. Betray and win.”

  “This isn’t one of your games.”

  “Everything is a game. This one is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If you’re only playing once, your best bet is to screw the other guy. Because you know he will screw you.” He leaned forward. “Look at us. The four of us are all nice people, employed, call our mothers, do the things we’re supposed to, right? But guys like Johnny don’t play that way. He just takes what he wants, and since we’re playing nice, he wins. Same with Ken Lay and James Cayne and all the others, the criminals in the expensive suits. You were the one who said they should be lined up and shot, right?”

  “I didn’t mean I’d be pulling the trigger.”

  “But why not? This guy is blackmailing you. He’s breaking the rules and he’s winning, and the question is, are you just going to take it? Or are you going to beat him at his own game?”

  The mood around the table had changed. There was a strange tension, the joke running further than anyone had intended. Something Mitch had read that morning came into his mind. “You know what Raymond Chandler said?”

  “No, Mitch,” Alex humoring him, “what did Raymond Chandler say?”

  “He said there’s no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.”

  “There you go,” Ian said. “There you go.”

  Alex looked around the table, his expression incredulous. “You serious?”

  Not really, Mitch thought. It did sound doable, and the money, well, that would change his life. But was he actually serious? Not when it came down to it.

  Which is maybe why you stand holding a door for people who don’t know you exist, the voice in his head whispered.

  “We’re not robbing my boss.”

  Ian shrugged, leaned back. “Your loss.” He put on that smile, his caustic armor.

  There didn’t seem to be much to say to follow that, and they picked at their breakfasts. Mitch could almost hear the thoughts, read them like they were printed on everyone’s cheeks. He was a good watcher. People mistook not wanting to be the center of attention for not paying attention. Ian was easy, the narrow hunger on his face, the way he held himself straight. Alex had the tense stillness and wide eyes of a courtroom defendant, and Mitch could see him thinking of his daughter and whatever white-picket house she lived in. Jenn had a furtive glow to her. She looked, frankly, turned on.

  The scrape of silverware was loud. Finally, Alex looked at Ian, said, “You are making me wonder, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’d you get that black eye again?”

  CHAPTER 5

  IT WAS AMAZING, Bennett thought, how much of the world looked really boring. The office park where K&S Laboratories was located, for example. A series of two-story shoeboxes centered around what had to be the lamest fountain he’d ever seen, water rolling in a piss trickle down an angled slab. How people got up every day and commuted an hour in traffic just to work in a place like this, he’d never understand.

  Of course, on the inside, the lab probably looked more exciting. According to the research he’d done, about twenty percent of pharmaceuticals used some form of fluorine, which acted as a stabilizer, improving efficiency by delaying absorption. It was pretty nasty stuff; as a subcontractor developing compounds for drug companies, K&S probably had clean rooms, positive airflow suits, three kinds of safety precautions. Maybe on the inside it looked like something out of a Bruckheimer flick.

  Bennett still liked his office better. With one hand on the wheel of the Benz, he dialed his cell. “Doc. You know who this is?”

  “Y-Yes.”

  “Good. You do what I asked?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “Easy. Take a breath.” He waited for a beat, then said, “Better?”

  The man’s voice came through hollow and miserable. “I made what you wanted.”

  “Good. I knew you were a smart guy. Now, you haven’t told anyone about our chat, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Your wife, the police?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not lyin
g to me? Because those pictures”—he sucked air through his teeth—“I mean, that kind of thing, you wouldn’t want anyone to see that.”

  “I haven’t. I swear.” The voice was quick and panicky.

  “Then relax, brother. This will all be over soon. Here’s how it’s going to go.” Bennett gave him an address. “Let’s see you there in twenty minutes.” He hung up before the guy could respond, then slouched in his seat and watched the front door.

  Two minutes later, the doctor hurried out, one hand pulling keys from his pocket. The other held a duffel bag in fingers clenched bloodless. Bennett let the doc get in his Town Car and spin out of the lot. Didn’t follow, just waited and watched. No squad cars followed, no unmarkeds roared to life.

  When the clock on his dashboard said that ten minutes had passed, he dialed the phone again. “Where you at, Doc?”

  “I’m on the way. You said—”

  “Changed my mind. Why don’t we meet at your office in”—he pretended he was looking at a watch—“five.”

  “But I’m ten minutes—”

  “Drive fast.” Bennett hung up.

  It took more like seven, but when the Town Car hit the lot, the tires were squealing and the engine was roaring. Again, no sign of anybody following.

  Bennett let the doctor park, then slid out of his car and started over. He had that hyperalertness that always came with a deal, the feeling he could see in seven directions at once, breathe jet fuel instead of air. He knocked on the passenger-side window and enjoyed seeing the man jump.

  After the guy collected himself enough to unlock the door, Bennett slid in. “Hey, Doc. How was your day?”

  The man just looked at him. His nose had gauze packed in the nostrils and tape across the bridge. His fingers gripped and released the steering wheel.

  “Rough one, huh?” Bennett smiled. “We’re almost done.”

  The man nodded, started to reach for the bag.

  “Not so fast. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where?”

  “Take a ride. First, though, do me a quick favor.” Bennett jerked his head. “Hike up that shirt, would you?”