Kings of Midnight (2 page)

“With that motherfucker, it'll be too soon.”

Rorey was pushing open one of the big doors. Hollis braked, waited. When the opening was wide enough, he drove through onto a concrete floor. Rorey began to push the door shut behind them.

“Pull up farther,” she said. “We need room to work.”

There was a single drop lamp hanging over a workbench, a pool of light on the floor beneath it. Moths fluttered around the bulb. Her rented Ford was parked on one side of the barn, out of the way, nose out. Next to it was Rorey's battered white van. Rorey had found this place, sat on it for three days to make sure it was out of use.

Hollis shut the engine off. From outside, another rumble of thunder.

“Remember what I told you,” she said.

“About what?”

“Everything.”

She got out. The barn smelled of oil and straw, the air heavy with humidity. Rorey came toward her. He wore a white T-shirt, his thick forearms covered with fading blue tattoos.

He played the flashlight beam into the truck bed. “How'd we do?”

“Good enough.” She opened the gate, let it clank down. “Let's see what we've got.”

“I heard sirens.”

“Alarm went off soon as we hit the machine. But they were pretty far off. We never saw them.”

Hollis got out. Rorey hopped up into the bed, pulled the tarp back to expose the smashed screen. “Let's get it out on the floor.”

She climbed up beside him, went to the top of the machine, and pushed, putting her weight into it. It barely moved. Rorey jumped down, found a handhold on the bottom of the machine, and began to pull. He looked at Hollis. “You crippled?”

“Say what?”

“You heard me.” Rorey let go of the machine.

“Hollis,” she said. “Give me a hand up here.” He looked at her, then back at Rorey. He climbed up onto the truck bed.

“Equal shares, equal work,” Rorey said.

“Do not start that shit,” Hollis said, not looking at him. He bent beside Crissa, and together they braced themselves against the top of the ATM.

“What shit is that?” Rorey said.

“Quit it,” she said. “Let's get this thing down.”

They began to push, the ATM sliding across the bed. Hollis grunted with the effort. Rorey pulled until they got the machine onto the open gate.

“Hold it there,” she said. She was breathing hard. Beneath the windbreaker, her T-shirt clung in patches to her skin.

She hopped down, found a grip on the base of the machine.

“Easy now,” she said to Rorey. “Let's tilt it so it lands right. Watch your feet. On my count.” She looked at Hollis. “You ready?”

He nodded, bent against the machine.

“Here we go,” she said. “One, two, three.”

Hollis groaned, pushed, as she and Rorey pulled. The machine hung there on the gate for a moment, resisting, and then suddenly it was sliding toward them, tipping.

“Watch it!” Hollis said. They moved back fast, out of the way. The ATM crashed facedown onto the concrete, dust rising high around it.

“Jesus Christ,” Rorey said. “What the hell's your problem?”

“I said ‘watch it.'”

“Almost broke my Goddamn foot.”

“Maybe you need to move quicker.”

“I move quick enough. You want to find out?”

“Enough,” she said. “If you two can stop measuring dicks for a little while, I'd like to get this done and get out of here. Rorey, get your torch.”

He glared at Hollis for a moment, then turned away and went to the workbench. An acetylene tank was mounted on a handcart, hose wound around the gauges, the silver torch nozzle hanging. It was the only piece of equipment they'd taken from job to job. Everything else had been stolen as needed.

“Come on,” she said to Hollis. “Take a walk with me.”

He jumped down from the bed as Rorey wheeled the tanks over, a pair of heavy gloves under his arm. They met each other's eyes, but Hollis kept moving. Crissa opened the barn's side door, looked out into the night. The air was thick and still. Lightning flashed on the horizon.

Behind her, gas hissed as Rorey opened the valves. He pulled a crumpled pack of Marlboros from the pocket of his T-shirt, shook one out. Studying the ATM, he speared his lips with the cigarette, then pulled on the gloves, triggered the igniter. Flame leaped from the torch nozzle. He adjusted it to a thin dagger of blue and yellow, then pulled on a pair of safety goggles. He used the torch to light his cigarette, blew smoke out.

Hollis looked at him, shook his head, and turned away. Rorey walked around the ATM, picking his spot. Then he leaned over, and brought the torch to bear. Sparks began to arc past his shoulder.

When Hollis joined her, she shut the door behind them to keep the light in. They stood in the night air.

“That fucking guy,” Hollis said.

“Half an hour and we're out of here.”

Beyond the tobacco field, a hill sloped down into the unbroken darkness of woods. Far in the distance, they could see a cluster of flashing red, yellow, and blue lights surrounding the bank.

“There they are,” Hollis said. “Looking for their money machine.”

“They're too late,” she said. “It's gone.”

TWO

When they went back in, the air was filled with the acrid smell of burning metal. Rorey was making a horizontal cut across the back of the ATM, the flame reflected in his goggles. Smoke rose around him.

She took the fire extinguisher from the workbench, brought it over. The steel plate of the ATM was molten red where the flame had stroked it.

Rorey straightened, and took the torch away, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Careful,” he said.

She triggered the extinguisher and gave the ATM a burst of Halon. White foam hissed and bubbled when it met hot steel. She fired another burst, then stepped back. The red glow of the metal faded. Vapor drifted across the floor like fog.

Rorey's forehead was shiny with sweat. He circled the ATM like a pool player. Ash fluttered from his cigarette.

“How's it look?” she said.

“Getting there.”

He leaned over, began to make a vertical cut with the torch. Sparks leaped up, died on the concrete floor. It was a job that needed a sure touch. Hollis had told her the first time his old crew cracked an ATM, the torch man had cut too deep, set the cash alight. They'd lost half of it before getting the fire out.

When Rorey took the flame away, she hit the back plate with another Halon blast. Hollis had come over and stood near the pickup, watching them.

Rorey waited for the metal to cool, then began to make a horizontal cut across the base. She stepped back as sparks angled toward her. When the cut was finished, he straightened, said, “There you go,” and shut off the torch.

Two more bursts from the extinguisher, the foam sizzling. She squeezed the trigger again, swept the spray along the back of the ATM until it was covered in white. “That should do it.” She set the extinguisher down.

“Give it a couple minutes,” Rorey said. He pulled the gloves and goggles off, swept a wrist across his eyes.

Hollis got two pry bars from the truck bed, handed her one. He pulled the tarp down, spread it out a few feet from the ATM.

Rorey shut off the valves, wound the hose and torch around the tank. He hung the goggles on the valve wheel, the gloves atop it, flipped his cigarette away, then stood with his hands on his hips. All three of them looking down at the cooling machine.

“Good enough,” she said. She wanted to be out of there.

She drove the wedge end of the pry bar into the vertical cut, pushed down, leaning into it. The steel plate began to buckle. Hollis drove his bar in beside hers. They pulled in different directions, peeling back the two halves of the plate, the metal squealing. She could see the innards of the machine now: circuit boards, wires, and long silver racks full of cash.

“That's the shit,” Hollis said.

She gave a final pull on the bar, widening the hole. Faint smoke drifted out. Hollis stepped back.

“There it is, boy,” Rorey said. “Go get it.”

Hollis looked at him. He was still holding the pry bar. Rorey met his eyes.

“Knock it off, both of you,” she said. “Hollis, pull that tarp closer.”

He set the bar down, tugged the tarp toward her. Kneeling, she wedged her bar into the aluminum cash rack, snapped it with one hard jerk. Cash slid out of the rack and down into the machine. A good haul, she thought. Maybe the best yet.

She put the bar down and began to pull stacks of bills from the machine, lining them up on the tarp.

“Get your bags,” she said. “Let's do this, and get out of here.”

Rorey went to his van. To Hollis, she said, “Yours is in the trunk. Car's unlocked. Get mine, too.” She'd driven him to get the pickup, would drop him at his motel before heading back to Columbia.

She took more money from the machine, pulled apart two twenties that had stuck together, looked at the serial numbers. Different series, different years. The bills were mostly new, all twenties and tens, none of them sequenced. They'd gotten lucky. ATMs were unpredictable. You never knew what was in them until you cracked them. And then it was too late.

She retrieved the last of the bills from inside the mechanism. None of them was singed.

“Good work,” she said to Rorey. He set an olive drab duffel bag down, undid the drawstring. Hollis came over with two suitcases, one of them hers.

Sitting cross-legged on the tarp, she began to count the money, setting the stacks aside as she was done with them. Hollis picked up the piles she'd counted, counted them again. It was their system.

When she was done, the money was spread in a fan around her, each stack about three inches high.

“One hundred and forty thousand,” she said. “Four hundred and eighty.”

“
Got
damn,” Rorey said.

“Hollis, you get the same?”

“Oh, yeah.” He was smiling. At almost forty-seven grand a share, it was their second biggest take.

She began to divide the money into three piles. Hollis was right. It was a good gig. Easy work, minimal risk, with substantial reward. No weapons, no witnesses, no one getting hurt. But it was time to move on.

Rorey began to load his money into the duffel.

“I already told Hollis,” she said. “This is it for me.”

Rorey looked at her as he packed the last of his money in the bag. “What do you mean?”

“I'm done with this. You should be, too. We've been to the well too many times.”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “This is sweet.”

“Maybe. But I'm gone anyway.” She opened her suitcase, stacked cash inside. She would band the bills later, at the hotel.

Hollis had his money loaded, was latching the case.

“Maybe I'm
not
done,” Rorey said. “Why do you get to decide?”

“Because I do,” she said. She closed and locked her suitcase, and stood. “You get to decide, too. Like I told Hollis, you two can keep working this if you like. But I don't think it's worth it.”

He looked at Hollis. “Well, isn't that just fine? You take off and leave me to work with a nigger?”

Hollis straightened and turned to face Rorey, the suitcase forgotten. “You mother
fucker.
”

“Back off,” she said. “Both of you.”

“What'd you call me?” Rorey said.

“You heard me, bitch.”

She tried to get between them, and then Rorey‘s hand was coming out of the duffel and there was a gun in it, a blued .45 automatic. She stepped back instinctively. He pointed it at Hollis's chest.

“Come on, nigger. You're so tough? I'm right here.”

“Put that away,” she said, but Rorey was ignoring her, staring at Hollis, the gun steady.

Hollis smiled, took a step back, hands on his hips. They looked at each other. There was a low echo of thunder outside.

“Don't be stupid,” she said to Rorey. “Let's take our money and get away from here.”

“I want to hear what else this nigger has to say first.”

“Leave it. Let's go.”

“Okay,” Hollis said. “If that's the way it is.”

She never saw him pull the gun. One second his hand was empty, the next it wasn't. It was a snub-nosed .38. He pointed it at Rorey. “There you go, cracker. That's what I've got to say.”

She took another step back. The two were facing each other, less than six feet between them.

“Take a breath,” she said. “We've got almost fifty grand each in front of us. All we have to do is walk out of here. Don't fuck things up. Put those guns down.”

“Him first,” Hollis said. He wasn't smiling anymore.

She looked from one to the other. If she could defuse the moment, it would pass.

“What are you, a couple of punk kids?” she said. “‘Him first'? You're supposed to be pros. Knock this shit off. We're losing time.”

Rorey nodded, but his gun didn't waver. Hollis raised the snubnose so it was pointed at Rorey's face.

“Okay,” she said. “Now let's—”

She couldn't tell who fired first. The big .45 kicked up, Rorey already spinning away. Hollis kept firing, falling back himself. He landed hard on his side on the concrete. Rorey fell across the duffel. The echo of the shots chased itself around the barn.

“Son of a
bitch,
” Hollis said.

She went to Rorey first, kicked the .45 away. He lay on his stomach, not moving. She turned him over and saw the black hole beneath his right cheekbone, just starting to ooze blood. His eyes were half open. He was gone.

Hollis coughed wetly. She crossed over to him. He was on his back now, looking up at the ceiling with wet eyes.

“Did I get him?” He coughed again.

Gently, she took the .38 from his hand. “Yeah. You got him.”

“Good.”