by Penny McCall
“I just got out of Professor MacArthur’s lecture,” Bobby said. “I asked her to tutor me at her house.”
“You what?!”
“It’s okay. She blew me off, like, completely. Jeez, she barely even looked at me. That guy was sitting in the back of the room and she was hot to get out of there.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“Nope. I broke into the house last night just like you told me to, Dad.”
“Don’t call me Dad.”
There was a short, hurt silence.
“Someone could overhear.” And there was no way this kid could be his son, but he stayed mum on that subject, too. He needed Bobby. For the moment.
“Oh, right, I forgot.”
“So, you broke in.”
“Yeah.”
He rolled his eyes. “And?”
“That guy was there. That guy you said is an FBI agent. He woke up, so did Professor MacArthur, but he didn’t, like, pull a gun on me or anything. I could’ve taken him if not for her. She hit him with a book, and I ran away. Are you sure he’s a cop, ’cuz he didn’t even chase me.”
He didn’t say anything but his blood pressure rose so fast he was afraid the top of his head might blow off. You were out of the picture for a little while and some guy moved in on your turf. It was damned inconvenient. But not exactly unexpected. Norah was a woman who deliberated, who made decisions based on reason and logic. She didn’t jump into things. Lucius MacArthur, the last living member of the Gold Coast Robbery, was about to be released from prison, and that would bring out all kinds of treasure hunters, and Norah might feel safer with a Fed squatting in her house. “You were disguised, weren’t you?”
“Yep,” Bobby said proudly. “I wore my Halloween costume. Robin.”
“You went as a bird?”
“Robin. You know, ‘Holy breaking and entering, Batman.’ ” The kid was laughing. It took him a minute to realize he was the only one. “The TV show,” he said. “Batman and Robin.”
The caller lifted his eyes heavenward, wondering what he’d done to be saddled with this doofus of a kid. “I’m familiar with it,” he said. “It was a little before your time, though.”
“They play it on TV Land all the time. It’s really cool, how they walk up walls and stuff. I wonder how they did it.”
Another eye roll. He would have explained it, but what was the point? “Maybe you should actually attempt to learn something in those college courses you’re taking.”
“What for? I’m gonna be rich, right?”
“Only if you do your part.”
“You want me to break in again?”
“No.” They’d be prepared for it now. “Go keep an eye on the house, let me know what they’re up to.”
“But . . . the neighbors all know each other. If I park on the street, they’ll notice my car. And I can’t lurk in the bushes for two days.”
Hallelujah, he wasn’t so stupid after all. “Go in disguise.”
“But you said—”
“Not Robin,” he said with another eye roll. “Try being a meter reader or the cable guy. Nobody ever notices the cable guy.”
“Then I must be the cable guy all the time.”
Okay, now he felt bad. But only a little. “I’ll call you in a couple days, see how it’s going. And stay away from Norah.” No point in pressing their luck. She was too observant—when the FBI wasn’t around to distract her. And apparently Hell had frozen over; it was the only way he’d be thanking the federal government for putting a man in Norah’s house.
THE UNITED STATES PENITENTIARY AT MARION, Illinois, sat nine miles outside its namesake city and over three hundred miles from Chicago. From 1906 to 1963, the worst of the worst criminals were sent to Alcatraz. After The Rock closed, they were relocated to Marion, USP. Two guards were killed in 1983, sending Marion into permanent lockdown, meaning the inmates, including the likes of John Gotti and Pete Rose, spent twenty-three hours a day confined to their cells. It was the perfect place for an aging bank robber whose true identity would earn him a one-way ticket to the afterlife his particular religious beliefs threatened him with.
The prison had converted to medium security a few years before, but by then nobody would guess they were sharing close quarters with an infamous criminal who was keeping a multimillion dollar secret.
Norah and Trip were shown to a tiny, depressing private interview cubicle, industrial gray walls, furniture bolted to the floor, and Lucius MacArthur, the single bright spot—not for his orange jumpsuit, for his attitude. Lucius lounged in a cracked plastic chair at the dented metal table, looking for all the world as if he wore a velvet smoking jacket and puffed on a twenty-dollar stogie. As a bank robber he’d proven to be a complete failure. Paying his debt to society didn’t seem to have dampened his enthusiasm for life.
“Still think you’re lord of the manor?”
He looked up from his newspaper and unleashed the wide, open, I’m-you’re-best-friend-I’d-never-do-anything-to-harm-you smile he was famous for. The smile that put anyone on the receiving end instantly at ease. Heck, it took Norah a minute or two to fight off its effects and remember what was going on, and even then she crossed the room and hugged him, hard and long. Whatever else, he was her father, and she hadn’t seen him for nearly fifteen years.
“Let me take a look at you,” he said, holding her at arms’ length, nothing in the way he studied her making her feel self-conscious. She chose not to take it as a con; it was just part of his charm that he could make anyone feel like they were absolutely perfect just the way they were. “You’re all grown up, but you’re still my little girl.”
And just a few words to make her heart ache. “I hate seeing you in here.”
“Darlin’ Norah,” he said with the slight Irish accent he got so much mileage out of, “I am, as you know, a veritable Houdini when it comes to locking mechanisms. Were I so inclined, I would leave this wretched island behind. Federal prison, however, is not completely without merit. I have gleaned all manner of interesting tidbits from my unfortunate incarcerated brethren, innocents all.”
Trip nudged her. “Now I see why you talk like that.”
Norah ignored him. “You’re supposed to be rehabilitating yourself, not expanding your criminal knowledge.”
“A day you learn nothing is twenty-four hours wasted,” he said piously, his eyes sparkling as he added, “I don’t need rehabilitating.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
Lucius’s eyes flicked over Norah’s head, but his reaction surprised her. He seemed to take an instant dislike to Trip, which was really unlike him . . . “You’ve met before?”
Her father’s smile turned brittle, his eyes taking on a warning glint. “The boy has come to see me a few times. I didn’t know he’d made your acquaintance as well.”
“Acquaintance is too mild a word. He moved into my house.” Lucius’s expression notched down to threatening, with a contemplative edge that made Norah think he might be canvassing his new store of criminal knowledge and deciding how it might apply to Trip. She wanted Trip to go away, but not in a manner that would earn her father more jail time.
“If you hear me out,” Trip said, “I think you’ll agree—”
“And how will you be getting me to agree, boy?”
“Because I assume you want her safe. Puff.”
“I object to that scurrilous nickname.”
“Then don’t call me boy.”
Norah rolled her eyes, but they were too intent on one another to notice her disgust.
“Take yourself off, and I can call you gone,” Lucius said to Trip.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where the stolen goods are hidden.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else Norah will be targeted again, and this time they may not miss.”
Lucius straightened, losing the studied nonchalance in his posture and most of his Irish accent. “What happened?”
Norah t
ook the seat across from him and, keeping her voice low, recounted the scare tactic hit and run, their late-night visitor, and Trip’s theory that she might be kidnapped to use as leverage to gain the loot.
“You’re going to be dead,” Trip said to Lucius when she’d finished, “and so is Norah if you don’t cooperate.”
“It won’t come to that,” Lucius said. “As soon as I’m released from this country club, I intend to return everything to its rightful owner or their heirs. They’re entitled to their own personal items without the government playing middleman.”
“And what about the money?”
“Well, now, money isn’t exactly a personal item, if you take my meaning.”
Trip snorted softly. “Meaning you get to change the rules whenever it suits you.”
“I’m not changing the rules. There wasn’t all that much money to begin with, and the rest of the boys used up most of it in hiding. Not that it did them much good,” Lucius said, launching into his own narrative, none the less dramatic for being softly spoken. “By the time I arrived at the meeting place, the Hanes brothers had killed Noel Black, squabbling like beggars over the split. The cops arrived not long after me, and they made little pretense at negotiating. When the shooting was over Rickey Hanes was dead, and Mickey was well on his way to joining his brother. He whispered the hiding place to me with his dying breath.”
Lucius stopped to reminisce, shaking his head after a moment. “I was arrested, of course, and tossed into this den of iniquity, but by then I’d already promised the Almighty that if he got me through that cowardly hail of bullets and let me live long enough to walk from this veritable Hell on earth, that I would right the wrongs I’d committed.”
“The FBI can help you with that.”
“The FBI help me? Balderdash. The FBI wants to get their hands on the contents of those boxes. A city like Chicago, there’s always a lot of shenanigans going on, and chances are some of it landed in those boxes. The boys in Washington want to get a look. They’ll use whoever they can to that end, and give little thought to repercussions.”
“That was fifteen years ago,” Trip pointed out. “Unless there’s proof of a murder in one of those boxes, any information we find is likely past its expiration date.”
“There’s no statute of limitations in the game of politics. And our new, young president, wouldn’t he be from the grand state of Illinois, now?”
“Don’t let your love of drama lead you to creating a story where there isn’t one.”
“Don’t let your naïveté lead you to judging a book by its cover.”
“My job is to follow orders.”
“I believe you, more’s the pity. You’re a tool, boy.”
Trip’s jaw clenched once before he replied. Lucius might have missed it. Norah did not.
“Is that supposed to piss me off, Puff?” he said his voice low and cool, “because I’ve always been a tool, from the day I joined the Marines to the moment I finish this case and move on to the next one.”
“And you’re all right with that?”
“I’m a damn good tool, and the way I see it, there’s no shame in what I do.”
“How about the way you do it?” Lucius shot back, his glance flicking to Norah.
Trip slammed his hands on the table, practically went nose to nose with Lucius. “If I’m using her, I’m not the only one. And at least I care what happens to her.”
“Be careful, boy, one word from me and she’ll send you packing.”
“Wait a minute, both of you,” Norah snapped out. She’d been willing to sit there and listen—listen and learn while they bandied words and sniped at each other. But they’d overstepped. “I’m not a tool, and I’m not going to be a pawn, either. You,” she said, pointing a finger at her father, “stop acting like you’re the only one involved in this. And you”—her focus swiveled to Trip—“stop making decisions for everyone else. We’re in this mess together,” and she couldn’t quite believe she was saying it after resisting Trip so inflexibly. But seeing them play tug-of-war with her life made her realize that if she didn’t play an active role in this lunacy, decisions would be made for her. That was unacceptable.
“Unless we start to cooperate,” she finished, getting to her feet, “it’s going to end badly. And then who are you going to blame?”
“Well, I guess she told us,” Lucius said, his gaze switching to Trip. “Any more questions, boy?”
Trip smiled slightly, easing back. “Have you read her book?”
“I have.”
“You don’t happen to know what’s in chapter four, do you?”
“GOING OUT IS JUST AS HARD AS GOING IN,” TRIP observed as they waited at the last checkpoint before exiting the prison. But at least they’d gotten Lucius to promise to include them. Once he got out. Now all he had to do was keep Norah safe for three weeks, retrieve the loot, and get his ass back to D.C. with another successful op under his belt. Simple, right? He slid a glance Norah’s way and lowered his expectations. Simple was not a descriptor that applied to her. And three weeks seemed like an eternity.
“It’s difficult to see him in there,” Norah said, “and it’s difficult to leave him in there.”
“Not much longer now, and he’ll be out for good.”
“But he won’t be safe.”
“He would if he’d reveal the hiding place. We could recover the loot, and he’d truly be a free man when he walked out of here.” He looked at her expectantly.
“Once his mind is made up there’s no changing it.”
Trip heaved a sigh. “I figured as much when he found out you weren’t safe, and he still wouldn’t come clean.”
“He has an unshakable optimism. And you’re protecting me.”
“Yeah, but who’s protecting me?”
Norah gave him a look, not amused. “Suppose we said we found the loot? Everyone would back off then, right?”
“Except the press, and they’d want proof.”
And when they couldn’t provide proof, it would be open season on anyone by the name of MacArthur.
The gate clicked open and Norah stepped through and collected her purse from the guard. Trip followed her out. Or tried to. She stopped dead halfway out the door; he clapped his hands around her waist and stopped just short of full frontal contact, looking over her head.
“Hold it together,” he said, stepping up beside her and coming face-to-face with Hollie Roget.
Hollie was flanked by a cameraman who looked like he spent his off-hours in a cardboard box under I-94, greasy black hair, clothes that could have been culled from Dumpsters, and mismatched shoes. Trip was thankful they stood upwind. The guy kept his eyes downcast, and his expression was set to Lurch, like any minute he’d let out a groan and shuffle off to fetch some bubbling, smoking potion for Morticia Addams. But he looked well-fed and strong, just the kind of man Hollie would prefer, tall, muscular, and stupid.
She gave him a little shove, and he put the camera up to his face. Trip assumed he’d turned it on. Hollie didn’t.
“Get this or you’re fired, Loomis,” she said, then shoved her microphone in Norah’s face. “Ms. MacArthur,” she continued, looking and sounding the part of a reporter on location—as long as the camera didn’t pick up the nasty glint in her eye. “You’ve just come from visiting your father, Lucius MacArthur, the last living member of the gang responsible for the Gold Coast Robbery.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Neither did the guards I spoke with, but I have my sources.”
“Jesus,” Trip said, laying his hands on Norah’s shoulders, “did you tell the guards?”
Hollie’s smile started to fade off, but he left her with one last hard look as Norah said, “Trip,” and turned blindly into his arms.
She didn’t stay there long, trying to claw her way free and go after Hollie. Trip held her back.
“You better pray nothing happens to my father,” she shouted over her shoulder as
Trip towed her back toward the prison entrance.
“Is that a threat?”
“Do you want me to repeat it for the camera?”
“You’ve already destroyed my career,” Hollie yelled back, “what more do you think you can do to me?”
“I have a very good imagination. I’ll come up with something.”
“Okay, now you’re scaring me,” Trip said.
She wasn’t, unfortunately, having much of an effect on Hollie. Hollie crowded close, still asking questions.
“Did your father tell you where the loot is hidden?”
Norah tried to climb over Trip to get to Hollie, red hazing her vision. Trip wrapped an arm around her waist, lifted her feet off the ground, and toted her back inside the jail, putting her down once the door closed behind them.
“We need to see the warden,” Trip said to the guard.
“That’s convenient,” the guard said as he buzzed them back in, “because the warden wants to see you.”
NORAH STOOD BY HER FATHER’S BED IN THE infirmary, looking down at his bruised face and battered body and trying not to cry. She had nothing against sorrow, but her tears weren’t for her father—at least not completely. There was a lot of anger and frustration mixed in. Tears would be cathartic. She intended to hang on to all that hot emotion for the next time she came face-to-face with Hollie Roget.
“He’s going to be fine,” Trip said from the other side of the bed.
“He was lucky.”
Trip chose not to respond to that observation, and really, what could he say? The both knew the only reason Lucius was still alive was because whoever had attacked him wanted the location of the loot, and Lucius couldn’t give it up if he was dead.
“Where the hell were the guards?” she wanted to know, letting just a little of her frustration out.
“There’ll be an investigation.”
“Which will go nowhere.”
“You have no faith in the system.”
“After this you want me to have faith in a government institution?” Not to mention she was enough of her father’s daughter to be wary of law enforcement agencies, from the local deputy sheriff all the way up to the director of the FBI. There might be people who couldn’t be corrupted, but everyone had an agenda, and she was pretty sure the Bureau would pursue its goals even at the expense of her life.