DOUBLE MINT

by Gretchen Archer

  At the expense of so many.

  The activity beyond the ambulance was more action than Horn Hill had seen in a long time and the town (of four) had gathered to watch. Bradley, standing with Front Man, raised his arms above his head and tapped his watch. I nodded.

  “Holder,” I said, “after you’re released from the hospital, you’ll return to Biloxi.”

  She heard me.

  “Does he know?” she asked.

  “Does who know what?”

  “Does Miles Davenport know?”

  “What?” I asked. “Does he know what?”

  “That you caught him.”

  “I haven’t caught him.” Voices from outside the ambulance filtered in. “Does he know what’s happened here?”

  “I’m sure he does,” she said. “He let it happen. He never showed. He never intended to. This whole time. There was never a liver.” She stopped. “What day is it?”

  “It’s Friday. Night.”

  “He was supposed to be here Wednesday. Or another day. I don’t remember.” She blocked the ambulance’s interior lights from her eyes with a shaking hand; she couldn’t piece it together and she didn’t want to. “Is Conner Hughes still alive?”

  “Yes. We have him.”

  “Is his cat still alive?”

  “I think so.” I hope so.

  “What will they do with Christopher? Where is he now? Where will they take him?”

  “He’ll be with you.” Which wasn’t a lie; his body was being transported to Andalusia Medical, the closest hospital, and where she was headed. The news gave her some relief and me a window. A window I needed to jump through quickly. “Holder, did Christopher tell you where the money is in my house?”

  “Money?”

  “Yes. I think there’s money hidden in my house.”

  “There is.” Her head rocked against the pillow. “But Christopher didn’t know where. There’s platinum in there somewhere too.”

  “I found it.”

  “Ty hid the money and the platinum years ago. Before he lost his mind. I told Magnolia about it just to lure her in, and from that moment on, she’s done nothing but try to get it out of him. And he’s gone,” her voice shook, “everyone’s gone.” She stared straight through me. “Good luck.”

  “You too, Holder.”

  She turned back to the defibrillator.

  I ran into Dr. Ingram, as in full body slam, when I rounded the corner of the ambulance. “Put her on suicide watch.” He gave me a two-finger salute.

  On my way across the parking lot to my husband, I called Lady Man Helen Baldwin. I woke her up.

  “Are you calling about that damn cat again?”

  “Your sister is in the hospital in Andalusia, Alabama, Helen. Maybe you could get there.”

  * * *

  Front Man flipped his head bar and siren; Bradley and I were back at the Sikorsky in four minutes. It was eight twenty. Bradley read messages on his phone while I stared at mine, willing my father to call. Fantasy and crew had to be in a hurry. Miles Davenport would want the robberies to take place on the hour, every two hours, and the thieves had to cover more than two hundred miles between Pine Apple and Pumpkin Center between robberies one and two. They’d had enough time to get in and out of Pine Apple. Daddy should have called.

  “Hey-ho!” So many teeth on Dewey the Whirlybird pilot, or, so many teeth on He of Jolly Countenance in the Face of Death, Destruction, and Mayhem. “Who’s ready for a night ride?”

  Bradley made good use of the headrest. His lips were pressed together, his hands clenched in fists. He opened his eyes when I buckled up beside him. We talked and we didn’t. It would take time for us to shake off Horn Hill, Alabama.

  I dialed No Hair as we shot straight up from the ground.

  “Whee!” (Dewey.)

  “Davis,” No Hair said. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be at the Bellissimo in thirty-five minutes.”

  Thank God. I could handle Fantasy and the Alabama banks while No Hair took care of Miles Davenport and the Bellissimo. I told Bradley No Hair was on the way.

  “Did you fill him in?”

  “Go ahead.” Then I closed my eyes.

  The silence woke me up. That and our tour guide.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he twisted in his seat, “I’d like to welcome you to Absolutely Nowhere, Alabama.” I woke to see (my husband) (unbelievable) we were hiding a nine-million-dollar helicopter behind a Walmart in Susan Moore, Alabama, a half mile south of First Bank. To my right, four sets of Alabama State Trooper headlights flashed a welcome.

  I grabbed for my phone to see I’d missed the call from my father.

  “I talked to him, Davis. He’s fine.”

  “Why’d you let me fall asleep?”

  He tugged a lock of my hair.

  * * *

  The Walmart was of the Neighborhood Market variety: no tires, fine jewelry, or above-ground swimming pools filled to the brim with ninety-nine cent DVDs. One of the troopers called the manager, who walked over—the man lived two doors away from a Walmart—and let us in. We set up camp in canned goods. I stepped over to produce and called my father.

  “Did I wake you, Daddy?”

  “No, Sweet Pea.” I was looking at sweet peas. “I’m still at the bank. We’ve got a mess here.”

  “How did she get in?”

  “She popped the back door like she was cracking an egg. She blew the vault door with C-four, then she dripped nitroglycerin on the drawer holding the platinum.”

  “Damn.”

  “She’s good,” Daddy said.

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Four. Fantasy and three men. One kept a gun on her, the other two carried the platinum. They’re in a black Chevrolet van. It’s all on your phone. Photos, tag numbers, and a short clip of her I pulled off the bank video.”

  “How long were they there?”

  “In and out in seven minutes.”

  “Did you get a message to her?”

  “I left one in the vault drawer.”

  My heart stopped beating. “Daddy, if they saw a message you left for Fantasy, they’ll kill her.”

  “Davis. Have a little faith. I put a strawberry in the vault drawer.”

  I was looking at strawberries.

  The video on my phone showed a spherical interpretation of my best friend and partner, nose first, as she walked up to the black dot of the small vault’s security camera and whispered, “There’ll be a new millionaire at midnight,” before she sprayed the lens black. The video ended with Fantasy being advised to shut up. I didn’t see it and no one said it, but I know what it sounds like when someone takes a gut punch.

  “What does that mean?” Bradley asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  The radio beeped twice signaling Bellissimo air traffic chatter, confirming Mrs. Sanders was scheduled to depart from Million Air at midnight. Destination, BHM East, Atlantic Aviation, a private airstrip in Birmingham, Alabama. No additional flight plans had been filed.

  “That’s not right,” Bradley said.

  No, it’s not. Bianca isn’t going anywhere at midnight, and that’s when I understood Fantasy’s message. Miles Davenport would be the millionaire at midnight; he planned on leaving from Million Air airport at midnight. It was his exit strategy. His escape route was one of our airplanes. I had Dewey radio in and ask who’d booked the flight. The answer came back ambiguous: a man who identified himself as one of Mrs. Sanders’s many butlers.

  Surely to God Miles Davenport didn’t plan on leaving the Bellissimo with Bianca Sanders.

  I dialed the Bellissimo switchboard and asked the operator to connect me with the drunk tank supervisor, who put me through to Conner Hughes. “Does his plan inc
lude Bianca Sanders, Conner?”

  “Who?” he asked. “The owner’s wife? No. Her name hasn’t come up once since the eyelashes.”

  Good Lord, Bianca’s eyelashes.

  Bradley was on his phone. He looked at me. “Found her.”

  I nodded. Bianca was safe. For now. “Where’s the one place in the Bellissimo someone would be safe from him, Conner, other than where you are?”

  “Where you live,” he said. “The New Orleans place. He’s superstitious. He hates where you live.”

  I texted No Hair: The second you get there, find Bianca and get her to my place. Make her stay there.

  Right back: 10-4.

  * * *

  While I’d napped across central Alabama, at ten on the nose, the Mint Condition slot machine tournament ended with three top-prize winners. McKenzie Martel from Susan Moore, Alabama, won $100,000 in cash and platinum. Cooter Platt from Pine Apple, Alabama, won $100,000 in cash and platinum. And Glendora Strand from Pumpkin Center, Alabama, won $100,000 in cash and platinum just as her bank, Third Bank of Bama in Pumpkin Center, was robbed. No cash was taken, just a slab of raw platinum. Badges from Five Points, Neel, Basham, and Speake (yes, all Alabama towns, humiliating) stood down as the black van cut through the night traveling east, and the only variation from the Pine Apple leg of the sting was this time one of the guns stayed with the van. In and out in sixteen minutes, with eighty miles of Alabama back roads to get to Susan Moore for the third and final heist.

  After successfully knocking off the second bank, Miles Davenport, from his Bellissimo command center in room 2631, took a breath and called room service. Exactly the break we needed. He ordered a club sandwich on whole wheat, no bacon no mayo, two bottles of mineral water, and a seasonal fruit plate, hold the banana bread, and four bottles of Cristal Brut champagne. Chilled.

  Counting his chickens.

  No Hair, pushing a room service delivery cart, knuckled the door. “Room service.”

  “Leave it.”

  Ten minutes later, Miles Davenport pulled in the cart, checking the hall, right and left. The dime-sized camera, nestled between cut flowers in a square glass vase behind the club sandwich, gave us a perfect right-angle view of a wall and a slice of the closet door, but least we had audio.

  No Hair heard him speak to the driver of the black getaway van, just as the van containing three men, two slabs of platinum, and one Fantasy, passed us on State Highway 75 on their way to Susan Moore. No Hair listened and relayed the Miles end of the conversation confirming the van’s approach to First Bank, going over the exact timing of it all again and again.

  Miles Davenport wanted the Chevy van driven onto the tarmac of Atlantic Aviation in Birmingham, the platinum transferred to his airplane, then the van was to be stashed in long-term parking. On his timeline. Drive to the airplane at exactly twelve forty-five. Exactly. Twelve forty-five or your head on a stick. Twelve forty-five. Have the van parked by one. One o’clock. Exactly. Wait with the van. Be with the van in the parking lot at one o’clock. When he’d repeated the instructions three hundred times, he briefly went over the First Bank exit strategy again, which is where we came in.

  Two troopers stayed out of sight, but within a stone’s throw of the bank. At the stroke of midnight, Fantasy breezed through the back door at First Bank of Susan Moore, like kicking open a gate, and twelve minutes later, the dozens of radios around me, five miles south, crackled. “Coming your way.”

  If we hadn’t known they were carrying explosives, we’d have set up a simple road block. Since we knew they were, and none of us were in the mood to blow up, we set me up in a curve across both lanes of Alabama 75. I stood in front of a ’97 gunmetal gray Subaru Outback Sport with a very flat tire. No shoulder and a reflective guardrail on one side of the curve, with a sharp drop-off on the other. Help thy neighbor aside, they couldn’t get around me. I was ready to jump over the guardrail if they chose to knock the Subaru out of the way and keep going, but it was doubtful, as they probably weren’t in much of a mood to blow up either. If, by some chance, they did get past me, we were waiting around the next curve with plan B. B is for Barricade.

  My husband, standing back with the officers behind the cover of silver maple trees, didn’t like the plan at all. I knew exactly how he felt. “This will be over in five minutes, Bradley.”

  He held my face in his hands. “I don’t want this to be over in five minutes. I don’t ever want this to be over.”

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  As the van’s headlights approached, I began waving and flailing. Help! My flip-flops slapped the pavement that still held the summer day’s heat. The van slowed to a stop, and Fantasy’s head popped out of the passenger window.

  “What’s the problem, lady?”

  The driver said something.

  Her arm shot out and she coldcocked him as troopers swarmed the back of the van.

  Bradley came running.

  Fantasy sat in the middle of the road with her head between her knees. I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She turned her face to me and asked where her husband and sons were.

  “I don’t know, Fantasy.”

  “Where is he?”

  “We were waiting for him at Million Air when he tried to leave.”

  She collapsed. We piled her in the Sikorsky.

  “Hidey ho and welcome aboard!” (Dewey.)

  I covered Fantasy with a blanket and poured her a shot of tequila, the only thing I could find. I texted Reggie. We have her. She’s safe. He texted back. Tell her I have a phone full of pictures of her. Tell her to get a lawyer.

  The platinum was removed from the Chevrolet van and when we took off, I could see it being escorted to a police station in Snead. (Around the corner.) Fantasy’s three partners went the other way to be processed in Altoona. (At the fork, go left, then up the hill.) The Chevy van was towed to the Oneneta police station (just past Jimmy Irvine’s mother’s second husband’s place), the only station around with a secure impound lot. At one o’clock, on the dot, when it was to have been in the airport long-term lot and full of Fantasy and platinum thieves, it blew sky high.

  Twenty-Five

  The Bellissimo roof caught us by surprise, which is to say we dropped through the sky like a brick and slammed into a thirty-story building. Thud.

  “Whoops.” (Dewey.)

  No Hair met us on the roof. He put his big arms around Fantasy and she stayed there a beat. She asked him if she could have a minute to (decide what to do with the rest of her life) shower and change before we sat down to talk. “We can wait until tomorrow, Fantasy.” No Hair’s tie was a bottle of Heinz ketchup. He wears distracting neckties so no one will notice he’s bald. It doesn’t work.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you need to know, then I’m going—” she stumbled, not at all sure of where to go from here.

  “I’ve got her.” I led her into the building.

  We rode three different elevators down to 3B. By the time I swiped us in, it was so far into Saturday, if we kept it up much longer, we could catch the sunrise. And we weren’t finished yet. We stumbled down the hall to the shower and she peeled off her burglar clothes along the way.

  “Have you talked to Reggie?”

  “Bradley has.”

  “So he knows?”

  “Yes.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “Knows what?”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  “Does he know I’m okay?”

  I pushed her into the shower. “Yes.”

  Thirty minutes later, we met in Event Hall B, where a Bellissimo drop crew was relieving the Mint Condition machines of cash and platinum, transferring it to a rolling cage. Two representatives from the Gaming Commission were there—this might get ugly—along
with several Bellissimo attorneys who’d been dragged from their warm beds, plus two auditors from Hammond Stevenson Morris & Chase, also rudely awakened.

  We found a corner conversation pit in Event Hall B with sofas and easy chairs, we found liquor, and we stared at one another. Fantasy was downright shell-shocked. I would have tucked her in and let her sleep it off, but I was too afraid to leave her alone and she was too afraid to be left alone. I activated a phone for her while she was in the shower, and after repeated attempts, her husband still wouldn’t take her calls. Conner Hughes looked like someone had kicked him across the state of Mississippi and back. No Hair had been away so long he looked out of place, and Bradley looked like, well, Bradley looked like a man who’d dropped everything to be with his wife, bobbed around the entire state of Alabama for four hours, witnessed a gruesome death scene, and a multi-jurisdictional takedown with a six-foot-tall black woman having a meltdown in the middle of a two-lane Alabama highway. He hadn’t given me the gun back.

  In our loose circle, all the attention focused on Bradley. I’d have been looking at him anyway. Everyone else was looking to him for permission to go home, to bed, anywhere but here.

  “Where is Dionne Warwick?” Bradley asked.

  “She and her band loaded up two hours ago,” No Hair said, “headed for New Orleans.”

  “Where is Josh Groban?”

  “Gone,” No Hair said, “on his way to California.”

  “Where’s Baylor?” Bradley asked.

  “Who’s Baylor?” Conner Hughes asked.

  “He’s with us.” I pointed. “He fell out of the ceiling.”

  Conner Hughes nodded.

  “That boy took one in the face,” No Hair said. “He’s with Bianca’s lady doctor.”

  “What happened to Baylor?” Fantasy asked.

  I patted her leg. “Long story.”

  “It couldn’t be too long if he’s with Bianca’s gynecologist.”

  “Where is Bianca?” Bradley took control of the conversation before it ran away.