by Susan Fleet
He paused at the one object in the museum that interested him, a Christ-like figure carved from rosewood, arms outstretched. Nails pierced its palms and feet, which were decorated with painted blood drops. It reminded him of the statue he'd seen in the church where he'd hidden after his escape from juvenile prison.
His radio bleeped, shattering the silence. Not Stefan's radio, the one the security guards carried.
He took the handset off his belt and flicked a switch. “Yes.”
“What are you doing, napping? Tony’s waiting for you in the Special Exhibit. You should have been there at midnight.” Charles Lawson, the head guard, was in the watch room, eyes glued to the monitors. Hidden video cameras were everywhere. Lawson had worked here for ages and was a stickler about patrols. It would be a pleasure to kill him.
Before their shift tonight the security director had given them a stern warning. “Be extra vigilant tonight. The Robbery happened on a weekend. Those guards violated protocol and let the thieves into the museum. Never allow anyone inside, not even for an emergency!”
The fool was in for a surprise. Other than Scorpio, no one was coming into the museum tonight, but four paintings were leaving it.
“Be right there. I heard a noise in the Titian Room on the third floor, but it was nothing.”
He descended the stairs to the second floor. Three strides took him into the Dutch Room. Drawn by the bright red surplice over the dark judicial robe, he studied the painting opposite the door. A Doctor of Law by Francisco de Zurbaran, a judge with cruel eyes, staring at him, like the judge who’d sent him to juvenile prison when he was twelve. The memory infuriated him. Older boys had forced him to do unspeakable things. Never again would he return to jail. Never again would he submit to such degradation.
A small wooden frame stood on a nearby table beside a window. Ten years ago the frame had held Vermeer's masterpiece, The Concert. Now brown velvet filled the frame. On an adjacent wall, another frame held green fabric, not Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee. The two most famous stolen paintings, worth millions.
Now the thieves were living in luxury somewhere. Soon he would, too. Nicholas smiled. Maybe he’d go to Thailand. There he could live in luxury, hire servants, buy any car he wanted. He could hardly wait.
He checked the luminous dial on his wristwatch. 12:10. His pulse quickened. Soon it would be time to kill Lawson and Falcone. He reached inside his uniform jacket and touched the leather sheath that held his Nakura hunting knife. The seven-inch stainless-steel blade had a sharp point and the upper half of the blade was serrated.
His insurance, in case the garrote failed him.
But first he had to radio Jamilla and tell her to take out the cops. Would she do it? The question set his teeth on edge. He would tell her exactly what he would do to her little monkey if she didn’t.
He stopped near the door to study the Rembrandt Self-Portrait: a bulbous nose, curly hair down to his shoulders, a fancy uniform with brass buttons, a hat with a feather. The first painting on Stefan’s list. Too bad he couldn't rip it off the wall now to save time.
But the security cameras were on.
He stepped into the corridor. Tonight it was darker than usual. Clouds obscured the moon, and rain drummed the glass roof above the interior courtyard. The darkness would come in handy later.
Recalling Stefan’s insulting radio test, he ground his teeth. Stefan treated him like a lackey. Stefan thought he was desperate because the San Francisco cops were after him. Wrong.
Trust me, Stefan said. But he trusted no one, least of all Stefan.
The bastard was in for a surprise. Once he secured his bargaining chip, Stefan would be the desperate one. Then the bastard would come crawling to him.
_____
Jittery with nerves, Natalie paced the hotel room, unable to sit still, every muscle in her body tense, her heart thumping her chest. For the umpteenth time, she checked her wristwatch.
Five minutes to midnight. For two weeks she'd been desperate to know when the heist was. Now she knew, and she was terrified.
If only Gregor hadn't kept her prisoner in this hotel, never letting her out of his sight. Her only respite came when she went in her bathroom and locked the door. Earlier she had fended off his disgusting sexual advances. This infuriated him, though he tried to hide it, talking about innocuous topics during dinner. She'd forced down a chicken Caesar salad and two cups of coffee. Later, he'd left her alone, though he left the door between their rooms open. At 9:45 he had come in her room and said he had to take care of some details. He would be back at midnight to drive her to the Gardner.
But at 11:25 he'd called and told her a taxi would pick her up at 12:15. I am near the target now.
A statement that set off red flags in her mind. According to the texts to her iPhone, the Saab had gone to the storage facility in Revere at 10:25 PM. Nothing since, which meant it was still there. If the Saab was in Revere, how could Gregor be near the Gardner?
There was only one explanation. He had another car.
She massaged her temples but the dull ache didn't go away.
The red digits on the bedside clock clicked over to midnight. In fifteen minutes a taxi would arrive to take her to the job. Compulsively, she checked her duffel bag to make sure the black trash bags and the tin snips were there. Took out her wallet and counted the money. Seventy dollars. She'd have to use most of it to pay the cab driver.
If she had a gun she'd feel a lot safer. But the Beretta was in her bedroom closet at her apartment.
Maybe she should call the Mountain Man. But what would she say?
My boss wants me to steal two paintings from the Gardner Museum and I'm afraid he's going to kill me?
After Gregor called she had pulled her hair into a ponytail and put on the outfit she used for the heists. Black running pants and a black turtleneck. Not her black pumps, unfortunately, her gym shoes.
She studied herself in the mirror above the dresser and decided the ponytail was too conspicuous. She went in the bathroom and used hairpins to fasten the ends of the ponytail to her head.
She returned to the bedroom, put on her dark glasses and studied herself in the mirror. She looked like a thug, dressed in black, wearing dark glasses. What would the cab driver think? She took off the glasses, put them in the duffel and took the iPhone off the bedside table.
No new texts. The Saab was still in Revere. But Gregor wasn't.
Dress for the weather. It is raining. See you soon.
Like they were going out on a date. And rain was the least of her problems. First she had to deal with Nicolas. She didn't trust him. Then she had to steal the Vermeers from the Special Exhibit and deliver them to Gregor, who would be waiting on Palace Road in a car. But how would she know which car? Why didn't he tell her when he called?
A sick feeling gnawed at her stomach. The answer was obvious.
Yesterday he'd said he would give her a new passport when she gave him the paintings. She didn't believe it. As soon as Gregor had the Vermeers he would kill her.
She hid her iPhone under the trash bags in the duffel bag. That made her feel better. She didn't feel so alone.
There had been many times in her life when she had badly wanted something. With all her heart and soul, she wanted to be somewhere else tonight. Someplace where she didn't have to worry about Gregor killing her.
She glanced at the bedside clock. 12:10.
The cab would be here soon. Time to go.
A perilous journey begins with a single step.
CHAPTER 24
Saturday July 10, 2010 – 12:20 AM
Wrinkling her nose at the sour stench, Jamilla pulled up her jeans and flushed the toilet. Her nerves were so frazzled she had the trots. She was desperate for a hit, anything to calm her down. “No,” she said to her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. “No drugs.”
She went in the living room and sank onto the lumpy sofa where she slept. Jaylen used the cot in the bedroom. She pus
hed aside a crumpled Frito bag on the TV tray, picked up the phone and stared at her alarm clock. 12:17. Jaylen was at Lateesha’s apartment.
Lateesha smoked pot sometimes, but what choice did she have? Jaylen loved playing with Lateesha's little boy. Jaylen would be fine.
She had to stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong. She dialed a number and waited. Zipper didn't answer right away. Her stomach clenched. After the eighth ring, an eternity, a voice said, “Yo.”
“Wha’s up, Zip? You set?”
“Bet your ass we set. Tell me ‘bout the bucks. When’s the payoff?”
“Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock.”
“Fuck that! Gotta be tonight. My troops wanna party.”
“Dammit, Zip, I told you! I don’t get the money till after the rumble.”
“We do the hoot ‘n holler at one, plenty of time to hook up after.”
She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans. Zipper had made his name, and tons of money, selling guns on the street, zip guns first, then deadlier models. When Zip got a bug up his ass, he didn’t quit till he got what he wanted.
“Okay, but I can’t meet you till—” She bit her lip. How the hell did she know what time she could meet him? She didn’t know how long the cop deal would take, didn’t even know where they were. Damn Nicholas to hell! She took a deep breath. “Meet me at the 7-Eleven on Harrison Avenue at three.”
“No way. Two o’clock, no later.”
“Dammit, Zip, I gotta deal with The Man first! Two-thirty.”
“Awright. Two-thirty. You better be there with the bucks.”
“And you better make sure the rumble happens on time. Five before one. No sooner, no later.”
Her T-shirt clung to her back, damp with sweat. She put down the phone, went to the window and raised the tattered green shade. Rain pelted the glass and a flash of lightning slashed the dark sky. Three stories below her, headlights from passing cars flashed over puddles and rain-filled gutters. A shitty night to be out, but it was time to leave.
Sick with dread, she went in the bedroom. Her uniform lay on the bed beside a black plastic shopping bag with rope handles. Inside were the items Nicolas had given her: the 2-way radio, the stun gun and the drug applicators. A wave of dizziness hit her and her stomach cramped.
Clutching her belly, she ran to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. When there was nothing left, she struggled to her feet, ran cold water in the sink, and brushed her teeth to get rid of the rotten taste. She hadn’t been this scared since the night she held off a knife-wielding drug dealer in a dark alley, hearing faraway sirens, hoping her backup would get there in time. They had, but after the collar went down she’d puked her guts out.
She opened the medicine cabinet and took out a plastic baggie. She’d copped half a dozen Valium on the street last week to ward off the panicky feeling she got when she thought about what Nicholas might do to Jaylen. Two pills left.
She shook them into her hand. But Valium made her drowsy. She had to keep her wits about her tonight. She flushed the pills down the toilet.
In the bedroom she stripped to her underwear and put on the uniform, recalling the bastard's words. Go to the Dunkin' Donuts on Huntington near Ruggles Street. Be there at twelve-thirty sharp.
But he didn't tell her where the cops were, just said he'd call her 2-way radio when she got there.
She opened the shopping bag and looked at the stun gun and the four drug syringes. Her hands shook with tremors and her legs felt weak, too weak to walk to the damn Dunkin' Donuts.
I wouldn’t want anything to happen to your boy.
With a low moan, she picked up the shopping bag and carried it into the living room. Two suitcases stood by the door, packed and ready. Twelve hours from now, Lord willing, she and Jaylen would be on a bus bound for Georgia.
She set her jaw and left the apartment.
_____
Nicolas opened the watch room door and yelled to the senior guard in the Special Exhibit. “Mr. Lawson! I see something on the monitors!”
He heard pounding feet. Seconds later, an older man, his eyes wide behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, burst into the watch room.
“Look.” Nicholas pointed to a monitor. Lawson planted his palms on the desk and bent forward, eyes fixed on the monitor. An angry red pimple stood out on the back of his neck. Nicholas crept up behind him, flipped the garrote over his head and yanked hard.
“Aaah!” Lawson screamed, flailing his arms wildly.
He twisted the wooden handles of the garrote, pulling the wire tighter and tighter. Lawson clawed at the wire and strangled noises came from his mouth. Lawson was stronger than he looked, wiry muscles standing out in his arms. Suddenly he threw back his head. Lawson's head cracked against his cheekbone. The bastard! Trying to head-butt him! Nicholas kicked his leg and Lawson fell to his knees, clawing at the wire. But the wire was buried deep in his neck, digging into his throat.
Nicholas yanked the handles of the garrote. Lawson's face turned crimson, mouth open, seeking the precious air that would keep him alive, his tongue protruding. He kneed Lawson's back, forcing him face down on the floor.
A minute later Lawson's struggles ceased and his body went limp.
Winded and sweaty, Nicholas rose and studied the monitors. Tony Falcone was in the Veronese room on the third floor. The timing would be tricky. Now it was 1:04. At 1:15 Falcone would go downstairs to patrol the second floor. Eleven minutes. But he couldn't kill Falcone until Jamilla called to tell him the cops in the cruisers were in dreamland. Despite his threats, he was not certain she would do this.
A sudden stench hit his nostrils. Lawson's bowels had let go.
Grasping his arms, Nicholas hauled the body out of the watch room so Scorpio wouldn't see it when he let her inside. He dragged the body down the hall past the Special Exhibit. A closet with cleaning supplies was beside the elevator.
Panting, he dropped Lawson's body, unlocked the closet door, shoved the body inside and shut the door. His uniform shirt was damp with sweat and beads of moisture dripped from his nose.
He ran back to the watch room and checked the time. 1:12.
The ex-cop was screwing up his timetable. What the hell was the stupid bitch doing?
He mopped sweat off his face with his shirtsleeve, alternately watching the monitors to track Falcone and checking his watch.
The minutes crept by, second by agonizing second.
_____
Huddled in the doorway of a four-story apartment building opposite the Gardner Museum, Jamilla squinted at the cruiser parked at the corner of Evans Way. At least the cop was dry. She was soaked to the skin. Even her feet were wet, rainwater seeping into her loafers.
When she got to Dunkin' Donuts, Nicolas had called her 2-way radio and told her the two cops were outside the Gardner Museum.
Synchronize your watch. It is exactly twelve-forty-two. She didn’t dare tell him she didn't have one. She’d hocked it weeks ago.
Buy coffee and donuts for the cops. At two minutes past one, go to the first police car and take out the cop. I have a very sharp knife. If you fuck up, I will slit your boy’s throat.
Jamilla shuddered. A cardboard tray with two coffee containers and a pink-and-white Dunkin' Donuts bag sat beside her feet. She'd bought two large coffees and two donuts for the cops, a small coffee for herself, had sat at a table to drink it, watching the clock on the wall. The kid behind the counter probably thought she was a cop goofing off on the job, but she didn’t care. She had needed the break to muster her courage, had needed the damn clock even more.
Now she was counting the seconds in her mind. Thousand forty, forty-one, forty-two …
A sudden gust of wind drove sheets of rain into the doorway, drenching her trousers. Drinking the coffee was a mistake. Her bladder was ready to burst. She shifted her feet. Fifty-nine. Sixty.
It had to be one o’clock by now and it would take her a minute to reach the cruiser. She picked up the cardboard tray, cross
ed the street and trudged down the sidewalk, hearing the bastard's warning: Make sure the cop sees your uniform. And the coffee and donuts.
Her bowels turned to liquid. Jesus, she needed a bathroom!
She went to the driver’s side door, and the cop rolled down the window. “Hey, Jamilla! I didn’t know you were back on the job.”
Panic hit her like a fist. Johnny Perkins, his wide ivory smile stark against his black-as-coal skin, not a buddy exactly, but she knew him. And he knew her. Her heart spun out of control like a car broadsided by a truck.
How could she do this to Johnny? But she had to, had to do it fast, before he suspected.
Balancing the cardboard Dunkin Donuts tray in one hand, she set the stun gun against his neck and zapped him.
Johnny's face registered an instant of surprise. He recoiled as if hit by a punch. His eyes rolled up in his head, and his chin sagged onto his chest.
Tears stung her eyes. Hit him with the drug, please God don’t let him remember.
She set the tray on the sidewalk and pulled an applicator out of her pocket. Her hands trembled violently. The tube slipped from her fingers, fell in the gutter and rolled under the car. Frantic, she groped the bag for another applicator. A trickle of urine dribbled into her underpants.
She pulled out the applicator and turned to Johnny. Sweet Jesus! His face was contorted and white foam dribbled out of his mouth.
She heard a moan. Jerked away. Realized the moan was hers.
_____
Inside the cruiser at the corner of Palace Road, Officer David Sweeney held his handset to his mouth. “All clear, Louise. Haven’t seen a soul since midnight. What fool would go out in this weather?”
“Roger that,” chirped the dispatcher. “I checked off your one o’clock, Dave. Gotta go, the 911-lines are lit up. Talk to you at two.”
He clicked off and squirmed in his seat to get comfortable. Six hours to go. Overnight duty sucked, but he needed the extra bucks. He and his wife had just put a down payment on an oversized Cape in Dedham. It was no palace, but it had four bedrooms, which they desperately needed now that they had two sets of twins. Rachel was a peach, but she wanted lots of kids, and kids were expensive, especially two at a time. Her family had a history of twins and …