Forty Thieves (38 page)

“I keep looking at them because I still can’t believe we did it. If we got this many, just think how many there must have been,” he said. “And these are good ones, the big kind, the best.”

“Right,” said Nicole. “We’re really, really rich. Before, we were just rich.”

“It’s not like I’m having one made into a diamond pinky ring.”

“No,” she said. “We’re going to put them all in safe-deposit boxes for the next few years, remember?”

“Right,” he said.

“Maybe the next hundred years.”

“Nice to know we have them, though.”

She nodded. “And I’m done.”

“What?” He looked at her in the mirror.

“I’m giving you notice, Ed. I quit.”

“Quit what? Me?”

Nicole stared into the mirror at him. “No, dumbhead. I want to have babies, and I need you for that. We’ve pushed our luck way beyond the limit. I don’t want to do this stuff anymore. From now on if I hear a sound in the night, I want to be pretty sure it’s not somebody coming to kill me because of something I did. It’ll take me years, but I’ll wait it out.”

Ed’s brow furrowed. He stared into the bathroom mirror into her eyes, but he didn’t speak. She waited, thinking of
all of the possible things that could happen in another second, feeling the time going by, bringing something hurtling toward her that was now beyond her control.

“Spit it out,” she said.

“Where do you think we should live?”

“Anyplace where I’ll never run into Ronnie Abel again.”

Todor stood beside Anica and Dragan at the rail of the cruise ship
Empress of the Waves
while crew members in crisp white uniforms scurried along the walkways preparing the ship to dock at the port of Cartagena. He looked past them at the other passengers along the railing staring down at the dock or gazing out at the city. He could see Marija, Anton, Sonja, and at least twenty members of their circle without even trying. He said in Serbian, “Well, now we’ll have another try in a new country. It’s amazing that so many made it out of that place. I’m never going back there. The whole country is inhabited by criminals.” Anica and Dragan looked at each other for a second, but said nothing to contradict him.