The Chase (6 page)

“I don’t want to ruin the moment for you,” Kate said, flicking bear claw crumbs from her shirt, “but have you given any thought to our rooster dilemma?”

“I have it all figured out. I was inspired by Montoya when he showed up for the open house.”

“So you know how we’re going to break into Carter Grove’s fortress?”

“We aren’t going to break in. He’s going to invite us in.”

“Really? And will he give us the grand tour?”

“As a matter of fact,” Nick said, “he will.”

Kate drank half the pot of coffee and had two more bear claws in the time it took Nick to tell her the broad strokes of his plan to run a con as a television show producer. Kate didn’t know what astonished her more, the audacity of his scheme or that she ended up believing it could actually work.

There were still a lot of logistical and technical details to figure out, and a million ways that everything could go horribly wrong, but the outrageous, imaginative nature of the hustle was trademark Nick Fox, which was its biggest plus.

“So what’s our first move?” she asked.

“We call the Geek Squad,” he replied.

When Joe Morey was six years old, a ramshackle traveling circus came to Northridge and erected its tattered big-top tent in a vacant parking lot next to Levitz Furniture. Joe’s mother took him to see the show, which opened with a parade of elephants trailed
by a clown driving a yellow Volkswagen Beetle with an enormous red bow tied on top. The clown stepped out of the Beetle and immediately slipped in a pile of elephant poop. The crowd roared with laughter. It wasn’t part of the act, but it was by far the funniest thing the clown did and something Joe thought about now every day, almost thirty years later. It was hard not to, since Joe had basically become the clown himself, Dumbo dung and all.

His big top was the San Fernando Valley, and his clown car was a Beetle painted black-and-white to look like an LAPD cruiser with the orange-and-black Geek Squad logo on the doors. Joe was a Geek Squad “Double Agent,” one of the computer repair technicians dispatched to homes and businesses from the Canoga Park Best Buy store. His clown costume was a short-sleeved white dress shirt with black clip-on tie, black trousers, white socks, and black shoes. His elephant poop was the chrome police-style Geek Squad badge he was required to clip to his belt and which doubled as guaranteed repellent to any attractive woman within a hundred yards.

Joe might have been able to live with all this if he was more like his co-workers, who saw the $18-an-hour job as a stepping-stone to something bigger, like becoming the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. But Joe was a paunchy guy in his thirties who through no fault of his own was a victim of an economy in the toilet. Joe used to make six figures a year in a corporate position commanding a crew that installed high-end security systems in Malibu mansions much like the one he was visiting right now. Joe’s Geek Squad job was a step down with no chance of stepping up. He had a monstrous mortgage on a house that was worth half of what he’d originally paid for it. His wife had left him and taken the dog. And his Lexus had been repossessed. He sometimes thought he’d like to become an alcoholic, but he couldn’t afford the liquor.

Joe parked his Geek Squad car next to a sweet Aston Martin, hiked up his black trousers, and trudged up to the front door prepared to face yet another frustrated customer who couldn’t keep up with the ever-changing technology. He rang the bell, and Nick Fox answered.

“Welcome,” Nick Fox said. “It’s so good to see you, Joe. Please come in.”

“How do you know my name?” Joe asked, stepping into the entry hall, nearly tripping over a bulging gym bag.

“I asked for you personally.”

“Have we met before?”

“No, but I’m a big admirer of your work.”

Nick closed the door and led Joe into the kitchen, where Kate sat at the counter. A bottle of Cristal was chilling in a silver ice bucket. Beside it were three fluted glasses.

Joe had been on Nick’s watch list for some time. Nick always kept his eye out for talented people with special skills, mostly civilians in a bind he could use as leverage to recruit them.

Joe pulled the Geek Squad work order from his pocket and checked it. “Says here you’re having problems with your network. Point me to the router and modem, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Actually, your repair skills aren’t what we’re interested in,” Nick said. “It’s your work with Gant Security Systems that impressed us.”

Joe felt a twinge of anxiety grip his bowels. The one benefit of working for the Geek Squad was that it had given him complete anonymity. Nobody knew who he was or what he had done. He’d been able to leave his brief moment of infamy behind him.

“Three years ago, you discovered that Gant Security, the company you worked for as an installation supervisor, was running a scam,” Kate said. “Gant sold celebrities high-end ultraexpensive home
security systems, then used those systems’ surveillance devices to spy on them, selling the dirt they discovered to gossip magazines and private detectives. You figured it out and blew the whistle to the LAPD. It was the honest and honorable thing to do. I admire that. Thanks to you, your boss and the installers who were getting kickbacks from him all went to jail.

“But instead of being congratulated for what you did, you were fired, sued for violating the confidentiality clause in your contract, and blackballed in the corporate world,” Kate said. “Even your motives were impugned. The news media implied that the only reason you went to the authorities was resentment over being the one guy in the office not getting a piece of the action. Now you’re buried in debt and wearing a Geek Squad badge. How would you like to get back at the people who wronged you and earn a hundred fifty thousand dollars at the same time?”

It would take Joe five years to earn that much money in his current job, and it was close to his annual paycheck at Gant before he’d let his conscience get him into trouble.

Joe narrowed his eyes and wondered if he was being set up in some way. “What’s the catch?”

“You’ll be committing a felony,” Kate said. If she and Nick were going to use civilians in their schemes, she wanted to be sure they knew exactly what they were getting into. “You could end up spending ten years in a federal prison.”

“Who
are
you people?” Joe asked.

“We’re with a private security company called Intertect,” Nick said. “We’ve been hired by a major museum to recover a stolen artifact that is in the possession of Carter Grove, CEO of BlackRhino, the parent company of Gant Security Systems.”

“By ‘recover,’ ” Joe said, “you mean steal it back.”

“Yes,” Kate said.

“Will I be in any physical jeopardy?”

Nick shook his head. “You won’t be part of the actual recovery effort. You will be a safe distance away, handling the technical side of things.”

“What happens to Carter Grove if you pull this off?”

“Legally? Nothing.” Nick said. “However, since the item in question was stolen to begin with, he can’t report the theft to the police or collect any insurance on it. So in a cosmic sense, he’s getting royally screwed.”

Joe liked that idea. What he liked even more was that he’d be paid a lot of money to see it happen. He yanked the Geek Squad badge off his belt, pulled the clip-on tie from his collar, and tossed both onto the floor.

“Pop the cork on that Cristal, and let’s get to it,” Joe said.

Artificial sunshine created by movie lights bathed the cheery kitchen of a Santa Clarita tract house that was serving as the location for a TV commercial. Two freckle-faced children, nine-year-old Missy and eleven-year-old Tommy, sat at the cottage table eating cereal from colorful bowls that perfectly complemented the placemats, the walls, the cupboards, and even the flowered apron their youthful mother was wearing.

“Bran flakes for breakfast
again
?” whined Missy, listlessly poking at her cereal with her spoon.

Tommy pushed his bowl away. “Why can’t we have something fun to eat?”

“Because that usually means a bowl of sugar,” their mother said.

“But it tastes good,” Missy said.

Mom wagged a finger at her daughter. “That doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

That’s when an enormous jovial-looking pancake with arms
and legs and a pat of melting butter on its head bounded into the kitchen carrying two platters stacked high with hotcakes.

“A healthy breakfast doesn’t have to be bland and boring anymore. Not if you’re serving Percy Pancakes,” the pancake said.

“We love pancakes!” Missy exclaimed.

The giant pancake set the platters down and shook his head. “I’m sorry, everyone, but this just isn’t working for me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said the mother.

“CUT!” yelled the director.

A bell rang, and the fifty members of the film crew relaxed. The soundman lowered the boom mike he’d been holding up over the giant pancake’s head, and a makeup woman came out to touch up the mother’s face.

Boyd Capwell was the actor in the pancake costume, and he knew that the commercial was his shot at joining the pantheon of legendary food characters such as the Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Peanut, the Kool-Aid Man, Mayor McCheese, Charlie the Tuna, Mrs. Butterworth, and the California Raisins. It could lead to a steady, lucrative gig, something Boyd had been chasing for twenty years as an itinerant, unknown actor. But he was an artist above all else and had to be true to his muse. And his muse had issues with the scene.

The director was Stan Deakins, a fifty-two-year-old veteran of the commercial business who preferred working with inanimate objects, like cars and cheeseburgers, specifically to avoid aggravation like this. He rose from his chair behind the camera and approached Boyd. “What’s the problem?”

“A complete stranger—a giant pancake, no less—has just appeared in their home,” Boyd said. “Why isn’t anyone reacting to this? Wouldn’t they be screaming in terror?”

“They love pancakes,” Stan said.

“What would they do if a fried chicken leg walked in?”

“I’m not sure a chicken leg could walk in,” said the script supervisor, a lady who wore three layers of shirts and sucked on a pencil as if it were a pacifier. “I suppose it could hop.”

Stan looked over his shoulder at her. “Let me handle this.” He turned back to Boyd. “The family knows you. You’re not just another pancake off the street. You’re a celebrity pancake, the Jay Leno of breakfast foods. Would anyone throw Leno out of their house?”

“Okay, assuming you’re right, I’m a pancake asking this family to eat me. Am I suicidal or simply filled with self-loathing?”

“Take your pick,” Stan said. “Whatever will get you through the scene.”

Boyd thought for a moment. “Got it. I’m ready to go.”

“Glad to hear it.” Stan settled back into his seat. “Okay, let’s do a pickup from Missy’s line.”

Boyd went back to his mark at the table. The actress playing the mother got back into her position. The makeup lady returned to her spot. The soundman positioned the boom microphone over the actors. An assistant director stood in front of the camera and held the electronic clapboard in front of the lens.

“Scene one, take fifteen,” the AD said, clapping the sticks.

“Action!” Stan yelled.

“We love pancakes!” Missy said.

The mother turned to Boyd. “But growing children need vitamins and minerals.”

“I’m loaded with fiber and eight essential vitamins,” Boyd said. “With our six great flavors, you get incredible taste and no more problems with regularity.”

“You’re a pancake for the whole family,” the mother said.

Boyd dropped to his knees and took the mother’s hands, startling the actress. “Please, you’ve got to serve me to the kids. Being eaten is the only thing that gives my life any meaning. Without it, I’m nothing, just flour and buttermilk without a soul.”

Stan whispered to the script supervisor, “What the hell is he saying? Is that in the script?”

The script supervisor shook her head. Stan groaned.

“And once I’m gone, be sure to try our new gluten-free recipe,” Boyd said to the now visibly confused actress. “It’s every bit as good as our classic mix.”

Stan closed his eyes and massaged his brow. “CUT!”

Boyd got to his feet and turned to the director. “That felt good to me. It resonated with emotional legitimacy.”

Stan looked up at Boyd with a pained expression. “You’re a pancake.”

“Thank you,” Boyd said, giving Stan a slight bow of gratitude. “If you believe that, then I have succeeded. Shall we do it again?”

“No way in hell,” Stan said. “You’re history. Turn in your butter patty and pancake suit. I’m shooting the scene with a computer-generated pancake in postproduction.”

Boyd was on his way to the wardrobe truck when he saw Kate O’Hare leaning against the side of a storage locker. He hadn’t seen Kate in months, not since he’d helped her, Nick, and the mysterious private security agency they worked for find a fugitive and recover half a billion dollars in stolen money. Boyd didn’t know who Kate and Nick
really
were, but they’d given him a juicy role to play and paid in cash, and that’s what mattered to him.