The Wheelman (9 page)

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Authors: Duane Swierczynski

BOOK: The Wheelman
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H
ENRY WILCOXSON CLICKED BACK TO THE OTHER line. “Evsei? Thanks for waiting. I think I can help you after all.”
 
L
ENNON FELT A TAP ON HIS SHOULDER. IT WAS THE parking attendant.
“Can I help you?” he said, but his tone was just the opposite.
Can I get rid of you quick, so I can go back to my booth?
Lennon shook his head. But the attendant persisted.
“What kind of car you looking for?”
Lennon ignored him and scanned the last row of cars, near the edge of the lot. He knew they hadn’t parked the Prelude here, but maybe some parking attendant moved the cars around somehow. They did that sometimes, especially to clear a street for a work crew; they just loaded the cars on flatbeds and moved them where they wanted. Although that seemed highly unlikely, Lennon searched anyway.
The attendant seemed to give up, and walked back to his booth. He kept giving Lennon strange looks.
Fuck him. Where the hell was the car?
Only two possibilities.
One—and this was another highly unlikely event—somebody decided to boost the Honda Prelude, and got a nice surprise when they looked in the trunk. In this case, Holden would have been correct to be nervous, and the fates were working against them all.
That was bullshit.
The more likely possibility was that one of his partners, Bling or Holden, had double-crossed him. Of course, that brought up two additional possibilities: one, the betrayer was either working with the Russians, in which case he knew the battering van was coming, and braced himself for impact, then led them to the Prelude. Two, the betrayer survived the Russian ambush just as Lennon had, but beat him to the Prelude and sped away, assuming the others were dead. Lennon hadn’t rushed back to the Prelude, thinking it was better to heal first and let the heat die down.
But now he saw that hesitation was just one of a long series of mistakes he’d made in the past twenty-four hours. If Lennon had gone right for the Prelude, that Saugherty prick wouldn’t have caught him napping on Kelly Drive, and he would have only two deaths on his tab, instead of at least … how many was it? Two, three (Saugherty), four (his big friend), five, six, seven strangers with guns? For a decidedly nonviolent heister, Lennon had racked up an uncomfortably large body count.
Sort it out later. Solve the problem now.
“Dude.”
It was the parking attendant again.
“Phone. It’s for you.”
He held out a cell phone.
 
T
HE MOMENT RAY “CHARDONNAY” PERELLI LEFT THE Dining Car, he called his lawyer, Donovan Platt.
“How do I find somebody?”
“It would help if you could be a little more specific, Ray.”
“I need to find a bank robber.”
“A specific one, or any old bank robber?”
“Specific one.”
Pause. “This guy do the Wachovia job yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
Platt whistled. “What, are you trying to earn your Boy Scout merit badge thirty years too late?”
“Fuck you, you bagadonuts.”
“Hey, calm down. You know what—
don’t
tell me why. Who am I to ask why, right? You want to find this guy, try the usual places.”
“Like where?”
“These pro heist guys are predictable. If he’s still in the city, it’s because the money is still in the city. Try long-term parking lots, bus station lockers, storage joints. If he’s trying to get out of the city, he’ll be at the airport—which makes him a bit easier to track—or driving, which makes it impossible. While these guys are predictable, they’re not easy to track down. The whole point is to blend into the background and slip out as quickly as possible.”
“Wait, wait. Parking lots, bus stations, you said?”
“Yeah, Ray. Anyplace where you can hide stuff without raising eyebrows.”
“Okay. Thanks, Don.”
“Can I ask … geez, should I even ask?”
“Ask what?”
“Ask what you need a bank robber for.”
“Don’t ask, Don. Catch ya later.”
The Italian mob in Philadelphia was dealt a series of death blows in the early 1980s, but hung on through that decade and most of the decade after. Then right before 9/11, a blistering series of federal indictments destroyed the remaining leadership.
Within months, nine players and associates were shipped off to various federal lockups across the country to eat shitty food and work menial jobs that paid thirty-five cents an hour.
Within a few years, all that remained of the Philly mob was a motley collection of mid-level capos who wanted to rule what remained and small-time hoods who fancied themselves gangsters. They had the suits, but none of the muscle to fill them out. They had the small-time scams, but none of the brains to make them mean anything.
All that remained of the Philadelphia mob, actually, was a fairly efficient communication system, older and more secure than Ma Bell. The old guys, the new guys, the mid-level guys, they all talked. That’s all there was to do. Talk.
So when Ray Perelli decided to put out an APB on the bank robber the Russians wanted so badly, it didn’t take long for the word to get out. Especially because it involved the Russians. And shoving it up their vodka-drinking asses.
Within fifty minutes, Perelli received word that a strange guy was poking around a long-term parking lot down beneath the JFK overpass near Twenty-second Street. Perelli called the attendant, who was a cousin of a friend of his next-door neighbor, working his way through his sophomore year at Tyler Art School. What tipped the attendant off was the fact that the guy didn’t talk—didn’t the heister lose his voice? Perelli promised the guy next semester’s art books if he could keep the guy there in the lot. “How am I supposed to do that?” the attendant asked.
Jesus, Perelli thought. Kids don’t want to work for shit these days. “Put him on the phone,” he said.
Which is how Perelli found the bank robber that the Russians couldn’t. The Russians didn’t know the city. They hadn’t been here long enough.
Fuck those Russians, Perelli thought. Fuck them up their stupid asses.
 
“
H
EY THERE.”
Lennon listened. “You’re the guy I’m looking for, aren’t you? The bank heister?”
Lennon listened.
“Now I know you can’t answer. Poster says you’re a mute. So what we’re going to do is this. You listen up, and then hand the phone back to my guy there. If you agree, nod your head and he’ll tell me. Okay? If not, just don’t do anything, and he’ll tell me that.”
The attendant looked bored.
Lennon listened. What the hell was this about, anyway? This wasn’t the Russian mob. At least he didn’t think it was the Russian mob. The Russians would be more pissed. The guy sounded too casual. Too relaxed. Was this an associate of the big cop?
“Okay. Here’s what I’m offering. I’ve got what you’re looking for. You let my guy there drive you out to see me, we’ll talk, and see what we can work out.”
Lennon thought about this and quickly decided that it didn’t make sense. He was looking for a Honda Prelude with $650,000 in the trunk. If the guy on the line had the car and the money, why would he be trying to work out a deal? No, he was offering something else.
“All I want is a little conversation. I’ll get you some medical attention, too—my guys say you look pretty fucked up. Get you a glass of wine, some good food, and you listen to my proposal. You don’t like it, you walk right out. I’m being straight with ya. Whaddya think?”
Lennon knew this was bullshit, but he didn’t have much choice. He was standing in a parking lot with no Honda Prelude, and no $650,000. He had nowhere to go, except a prison or a Russian
mafiya
torture chamber or that steel pipe down by the river. He wasn’t about to flee town screaming yet. Not without that money. There was the off chance that this dipshit knew something. And he had to know
something,
because he knew where to find Lennon.
“Okay. If it’s a yes, you mind handing the phone back to my guy?”
Lennon gave the phone back.
The guy on the other end said something.
“Uh, no.”
Something else.
“No, man, I don’t carry that shit.”
And something else.
“Mace, man. That’s it. I got some Mace.”
Jesus Christ, Lennon thought. How was it that, all of a sudden, his dim future seemed to lie in the hands of a Philly gangster on the phone and one desperately retarded man? Not that there was much difference between the two.
Lennon tapped the guy on the shoulder.
“Hold on,” the guy said.
Lennon lifted his Father Judge sweatshirt.
“Oh shit,” the guy said. “This guy is packing. Seriously. Like … oh man. What the fuck am I supposed … Hold on. He wants to go. So we’re like, going. See you in a few. Wait, wait, wait. Where do you live again?”
 
T
HERE WAS A SMALL KNOCK. BEFORE WILCOXSON could stand, Fieuchevsky was up and answering the door.
Katie’s face appeared in the doorway. She registered surprise when she saw Fieuchevsky, even more so when the Russian punched her in the face. Katie’s body flopped against the wall, then slid sideways down to the carpet. Fieuchevsky slammed the door shut, then grabbed Katie by the wrists and dragged her into the living room.
“Jesus, Evsei. What are you doing?”
“This bitch pistol-whipped me in my own home. I’m giving her a taste.”
“You can’t do that.”
Fieuchevsky looked at Wilcoxson. “Oh, I can’t?”
“She’s pregnant,” Wilcoxson said. “A fall like that, she could lose the baby.” Not that Wilcoxson really cared, one way or the other.
“Fuck her. She pistol-whipped me. And her husband killed my son. You think I give a shit about her baby?”
“She’s not married. Besides, you don’t want her. You want Lennon.”
“I want their entire families dead.”
Crazy Russian bastard. Wilcoxson looked at Katie, sprawled on his carpet, blood streaming from her nose. Even unconscious, she looked beautiful.
Wilcoxson had been in love with her since the first day Lennon had introduced them. Lennon had called her his “sister,” but Wilcoxson knew better. He’d met plenty of heisters over the years who had introduced him to many “sisters.”
He had never met anyone like Katie before. Her smile set his soul at ease. She was shorter than he preferred. Her hair was a dirty reddish-brown, a far cry from the blondes he’d enjoyed over the years. And her body wasn’t quite the proportions he usually desired—thin, wide, thin, then wider. But somehow, Katie managed to look perfect.
From the beginning, this had all been about Katie. Wilcoxson had mentored Lennon—come to think of him as something of a son—though he’d never wanted children, and still didn’t. Still, it had been nice to be able to brag about some of the jobs he’d pulled over the years. Lennon was a quick study, and loved to listen. What else could he do? Wilcoxson had recommended him to a few teams here and there, and the kid had worked out well as a wheelman.
But from the day Lennon brought Katie by to meet Wilcoxson, everything changed. He knew it’d just be a matter of time before he could take her off Lennon’s hands. Lennon was making decent coin, but he really didn’t have all that much to offer her. Not compared to what Wilcoxson had glommed over the years. He could give her the life she deserved. And frankly, Wilcoxson deserved a young woman like Katie. He had experienced enough of the chase, the drama. He wanted to take Katie and settle down. Or at least give it a run.
A few weeks ago, Katie had called him. Confided in him. Asked him what Lennon would think. She didn’t want to tell him right away; he was in the middle of planning a job in Philadelphia, and she never liked to disturb him while his brain was embroiled in a job. Wilcoxson invited Katie to dinner, and they spoke warmly, Katie confiding in Wilcoxson like a daughter would confide in her father. (Her own father, a minor armed robber, had been killed in a shoot-out in 1978.)
But as much as Wilcoxson loved that she trusted him implicitly, his heart sank.
A child.
A child would tie her to Lennon, at least for the foreseeable future.
That night, he decided that Lennon would have to be eliminated.
Around the same time, Wilcoxson had made the acquaintance of an ambitious young musician named Mikal Fieuchevsky, who also happened to be the son of a Russian
mafiya vor.
It was at a December “Power 100” party thrown by a local magazine, and Mikal had approached him about fund-raising. (For all the movers and shakers in the city knew, Wilcoxson was a moderately successful “financial consultant.”) Mikal was trying to complete his first album, and although his father had kicked in some money, it was nowhere near enough to do the project the way Mikal had wanted. Mikal wanted name producers, top-shelf recording gear and session players. This was going to be his statement, Mikal said, his eyes wide. No more South Jersey dives and resorts; he was going to break out huge like Springsteen or Bon Jovi, but with a modern sound. Blues, hip-hop, electronica, he went on, with Wilcoxson only half-listening. He wasn’t much of a music fan.
But later, when Katie came to him and the Lennon problem emerged, and he thought back on Mikal’s need for money, and a connection was made.
That was what Wilcoxson did best. Make connections. He’d always believed that genius was measured by the connections you could make, either in terms of information or people or financial assets.
Wilcoxson decided to sell out Lennon’s job to Mikal.
During phone calls over the next week, Wilcoxson pried small details out of Katie, and they were enough to piece together the heist. A small article in the
Philadelphia Inquirer
clinched it—a large amount of cash was going to be delivered to the Wachovia Bank at Seventeenth and Market in October. From there, Wilcoxson was able to figure out exactly what Lennon planned to do. (After all, he’d taught him how to do it.) He also fingered Lennon’s partners. Only a handful of pros were working the Philly scene. He approached the likely candidate, and that candidate agreed to betray his partners.
Wilcoxson told Mikal to tell his team where to be, and boom, they’d be $650,000 richer. Minus Wilcoxson’s $65,000 fee, of course. Mikal was more than happy to agree to the conditions of the deal, which included the removal of the bank robbers from the face of the earth.
Exit Patrick Selway Lennon.
Enter Wilcoxson, to pick up the pieces. He would deal with a baby just fine, if it meant having Katie. But if it were to disappear like its father, that would be just as well.
Wilcoxson watched her on the floor, bleeding.
Now to calm the crazy Russian asshole. He didn’t feel bad about Mikal getting snuffed—hey, the guy didn’t follow through on his end of the deal. The young Russian had let one of the bank robbers live, and if it was Lennon, there was more work to be done.
Besides, there was $650,000 out there waiting to be claimed.

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