The Heist (20 page)

“That’s what I’m smelling? A corpse flower?”

“No, this scent comes from the mass grave about a hundred yards away from here, midway between this compound and the village. That is the smell of people who’ve dared oppose me. That, Mr. Burnside, is the scent of power. My corpse flower. And it is
always
in bloom.”

Kate made a gagging gesture at the screen, where Boyd was staring directly into the hidden camera. “I didn’t think it could get any worse, but Boyd just managed to take his performance to a whole new level of overacting. Is there actually a corpse flower? Who would believe something like that?”

“That man is a natural!” Nick leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, a smile on his face. “And that was sheer
brilliance. Boyd took the reeking Salton Sea and used it as a prop. Look at Burnside. He’s gone pale.”

“Look at Tom,” Kate said. “He’s choking back laughter.”

That was true. Luckily, Burnside’s back was to him.

“Tom will control himself,” Nick said. It was more of a strongly expressed hope than a fact.

“It’s not Tom I’m worried about,” Kate said. “Boyd should stop hamming it up for the camera and start squeezing Burnside for information.”

“He’s already begun,” Nick said. “It’s subtle.”

“Subtle? He just said that he fills mass graves with his enemies and that he enjoys the fragrance of their rot.”

“That was setting the stage, creating an environment of terror. Now he’ll make it personal.”

Diego motioned to Burnside to take a seat on one of the plush couches, and Diego sat on a facing couch. Char remained standing.

“All of the surviving inhabitants of the nearest village, recently rechristened ‘Boriga,’ work in some aspect of my business. I pay them very well. But they are a simple people. They don’t know how to handle money. So they’ve entrusted their savings to me to protect and to invest. I take the responsibility very seriously. I invested their money and my own with Derek Griffin, which brings us to why you are here.”

“I had nothing to do with Mr. Griffin’s business.”

“You merely tipped him off to his impending arrest and helped him escape with five hundred million dollars.”

Burnside leaned back on the couch and crossed his legs, trying
to project the image that he was a man at ease, not someone whose chest felt like it was being crushed in a vise. He hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack.

“You’re mistaken,” Burnside said. “I had nothing to do with his disappearance. I don’t have any idea where to find him or the money he invested for his clients.”

“That’s a shame,” Diego sighed wearily. “I apologize for inconveniencing you for nothing. Char, take him outside and execute him.”

Char took a step forward. Burnside sat up straight and held his palms out in a halting gesture. “Wait, wait, wait. You don’t have to kill me.”

“You expect me to fly you home?”

“I can be an asset to you,” Burnside said.

“I don’t see how.”

“I could be your legal counsel in Los Angeles.”

“Do I strike you as someone who gives a damn about laws? I lost two men bringing you here. I must now support their families. At least I will have the satisfaction of ridding the world of another lawyer. Put him up against the wall, Char, and be sure to hose off the mess right away.”

Char took another step forward.

“Wait,” Burnside said again, more emphatically this time. “The only reason I am alive right now is because you think I have information that you want. Assuming I do, if I were to reveal what I know then there would be nothing stopping you from killing me.”

“There is nothing stopping me now.”

“What assurance do I have that you’ll let me live if I tell you what you want to know?”

“None at all.”

“Okay, then fuck you and your money.” Burnside suddenly felt the pressure in his chest ease and he waved Char over. “C’mon, get your ass over here and shoot me.”

“That’s it, game over,” Kate said.

Nick slid a sideways look at her. “I have to say, conning people was a lot more fun before I had to listen to your running commentary. Have some faith.”

“Boyd overplayed his hand and Burnside nailed him. There’s no coming back from this.”

“You have a lot to learn about swindles. Boyd is giving Burnside a little slack, that’s all. Burnside doesn’t want to die. He knows he’s going to have to put himself entirely at Boyd’s mercy and is looking for a way to do it that salvages some shred of his dignity, even if it’s an illusion. Boyd just gave it to him. It’s a shrewd move.”

“You’re giving Boyd too much credit. He’s an actor, not a con man.”

“All actors are con men. They get you to believe they are somebody they aren’t and to suspend your disbelief about everything else.”

Diego shook his head at Char, who stayed put.

Good sign, Burnside thought. As long as they were still talking, and he wasn’t getting shot or tortured, he was making progress.

“Do not delude yourself, Mr. Burnside. You will talk, but since you have no loved ones I can torture and kill in front of your eyes, it just comes down to how much agony you can stand and the number of body parts you are willing to sacrifice before you do.”

“If I am going to die either way, why would I want to give you the satisfaction of getting your money?”

“To enjoy the sweet release that only death can bring from your unbearable agony.”

“You want to know what will get me through the agony? The certainty that once the good people of Boriga find out that you’ve lost all of their money, that the all-powerful Oz got shaken down like an old lady, and that all of their misery, mourning, and asskissing was for nothing, they won’t care if they live or die anymore, and they will storm this place and rip you to shreds. And when Char over here sees that enraged horde coming, he’ll switch sides and not look back. He’ll cut off your head, stick it on a spike, and wave it around as his flag of surrender in the desperate hope that it will save his life. So bring it on, Diego, I’m ready to die. Are you?”

“We’re done,” Kate said.

“You keep saying that,” Nick said. “It’s almost like you want it to be true.”

“In case you weren’t listening, that was his closing statement to the jury, and it sounded pretty persuasive to me.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a very pessimistic person?”

“Face it, Boyd was overmatched. There’s a big difference between being convincing as Willy Loman in an all-you-can-eat-buffet performance of
Death of a Salesman
and outmaneuvering a top-notch criminal attorney.”

“The only difference is that we don’t have a buffet,” Nick said. “I wish we did. I could go for some fried chicken.”

Burnside leaned back on the couch again and looked Diego in the eye. But Diego didn’t seem thrown in the least. If anything, he seemed amused.

“I like you, Mr. Burnside. You have
cojones
, at least for the time being. I will make you a deal. You will tell me where Derek Griffin is and I will send some people to get him. During that time, you will remain as my guest. If you have told me the truth, you will live. If you have deceived me, then I will cut off your left arm and beat you with it until you tell me the truth. If those terms are not acceptable to you, then I will execute you now.”

Burnside considered his options. Since there were none, it made his deliberations easy.

“Derek Griffin is in Indonesia, living on Dajmaboutu, his private island in the Flores Sea.”

“Why Indonesia?”

“Because they have seventeen thousand islands, a notoriously corrupt government that’s easily bribed, and no extradition treaty with the United States.”

“So how are we supposed to find Dajmaboutu?”

“I’ll give you the exact longitude and latitude. As a bonus, you can have your boys bring you back an actual corpse flower while they’re in the neighborhood.”

Tom led Burnside back to his cell and gave him a tray of beans and tortillas, a glass of sangria, and a book of crossword puzzles. He returned to the house and joined Boyd, Chet, Nick, and Kate in the kitchen. They were all standing around the center island drinking sangria.

Boyd was ebullient, pacing around, still jacked up from his performance. “That was one of the best acting experiences of my career.”

“You were terrific, Boyd,” Nick said. “Utterly convincing.”

“You know why? Because I was given free rein to make the character my own, to fully inhabit him in every way. Thank you for that. And I must say, Neal Burnside was a joy to work with. I’ve never had that kind of freewheeling give-and-take with an actor before.”

“Maybe that’s because Burnside wasn’t acting,” Kate said.

“Yes, he was,” Boyd said. “He was acting like he wasn’t scared.
My favorite part was the corpse flower bit. I worked on that soliloquy for a week, hoping I could find an opportunity to slip it in.”

“I almost messed my pants when you told him about the corpse flower,” Tom said. “How do you think of stuff like that? And man you’ve got to have a lot of guts to take it for a test drive.”

“I thought it made everything more visceral and, therefore, more memorable,” Boyd said. “Now every time Neal Burnside smells that stench, or sees that painting, it will send a tremor of fear through him that only reinforces my character and the illusion of this set.”

“Very true,” Nick said.

“I wish I could have heard it,” Chet said.

“You can watch the footage,” Boyd said. “I’m eager to see it myself.”

“What footage?” Kate asked.

“The playback from all of the cameras,” Boyd said. “No need to edit it together. We can pick my best angles from each one as we go along. I was careful to hit all of my marks.”

“You had marks?” Kate asked.

“I studied where each camera was placed, then I hid little markers that only I’d recognize to show me where I should sit or stand to guarantee that I would be in focus, and showing my best angle, wherever I happened to be in the house or outside. Something I picked up from my work in three-camera sitcoms.”

“You were on a sitcom?” Chet asked.

“A little show called
Friends
,” Boyd said.

“I loved that show,” Tom said, “but I don’t remember you being in it. What part did you play?”

“I was the barista who served the friends coffee for a few episodes. But I was let go over creative differences.”

“What were they?” Chet asked.

“I thought my character should have a name,” Boyd said, “and that he should have a few lines. And that Matt LeBlanc shouldn’t block my face from the camera with his enormous head whenever I set down their coffees.”

“We didn’t record it,” Kate said.

Boyd looked at her in disbelief. “Are you saying my performance of a lifetime is lost?”

“It was never going to be kept. We can’t leave any evidence of what has happened here,” she said. “Don’t forget, we kidnapped Burnside and are holding him prisoner. That’s a felony.”

“But Burnside is a crook,” Tom said. “He helped Griffin escape with all of that stolen money.”

“That’s true,” Kate said. “What we’re doing is for a good cause. But it’s still a crime, and the last thing we want is a recording of it. The reason we have the cameras and microphones is for surveillance and security, not posterity.”

Boyd took a seat on a bar stool, his shoulders slumped, his head hung low. “No one will ever know what occurred here today.”

Nick took a seat beside Boyd. “This was like your stage work. Your searing performance as Stanley in
A Streetcar Named Desire
at the Starlight Lanes and Lounge wasn’t filmed, either, but that didn’t make it any less meaningful.”

“The difference is that on stage I have an audience,” Boyd said. “They remember my performance and it lives on in everyone they tell about it. Who will tell the tale of Diego de Boriga’s corpse flower?”

“This performance lives on, too, not in a mere retelling but in the stunning revelations that your performance evoked and the life-changing events that will follow for so many people as a
result,” Nick said. “In many ways, this performance will have a more lasting and indelible impact than any you’ve ever given before.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Boyd said.

Nick’s good, Kate thought. Full of crap, but he sells it so well. And he looks amazing in those jeans.

“And it’s not over yet,” Nick said. “You’ve got to stay in character until we come back with Derek Griffin.”

“You all do,” Kate said. “But in small doses. You need to interact as little as possible with Burnside from now on.”

“She’s right,” Nick said. “The more you say, the more opportunity you have to slip up. The same goes for this set. We have to limit Burnside’s exposure to it, what he sees, how much of it he sees, and how long he sees it. We want him to get only the big picture, not the telling details. He shouldn’t be allowed out of his cell for more than a few minutes each day, and even then his movements on the property must be very limited and constantly supervised.”

“I’ll switch out the mannequins up in the tower,” Chet said. “And stand watch up there a few times myself. I’ve got some great sound effects lined up for Burnside, too, to hear while he’s in that cell. Trust me, he’ll believe this place is crawling with Viboras.”