Thick as Thieves (4 page)

Carr watches Mike assemble the drill rig, and Bobby lay out the bits and the borescope. He’s pacing again, and Mike doesn’t like it.

“You’re fucking up my rhythm,
cabrón
. How ’bout you do that someplace else?”

Carr walks his fear and boredom into the hall. He studies the door to Lucovic’s office, and the door frame, and the floor, looking for an unseen contact switch, a pressure plate, some other hidden, independent alarm—something Valerie might’ve missed during her two-week stint emptying trash cans with the cleaning crew. He strains to hear heavy footsteps approaching, even as he tells himself that Valerie doesn’t miss those kinds of things.

And then it’s Delcan’s voice he’s hearing again, back in Mexico City, making his pitch at a table by the kitchen. Declan had not hemmed or hawed, but jumped right in.

“I’m a robber, Mr. Carr, a robber plain and simple—cash and highly liquid items only. No art, no stocks, no bonds unless they’re the bearer variety, no finished jewels, no cars or boats or fancy stamp collections. Just cash and its closest cousins.”

Carr squinted, convinced that Declan was drunk and that this was a joke whose reeling logic eluded him. “A bank robber?” he asked eventually. “Teddy said you were a consultant.”

“Not a consultant.” Declan laughed. “And I don’t touch banks. I don’t touch payrolls or cambios either, nor armored cars nor safe deposit boxes—no official money for me. Too much official firepower looking after that stuff, and anyway, who wants to crawl into bed at night with images of sobbing widows in his head, and big-eyed orphans turned out in the cold? Takes the joy from living, don’t it? So it’s black money only I go for. There’s plenty of that lying about, and it leaves you with a nice clean conscience afterward.”

Carr peered at Declan through smoke and his own drunken haze, still waiting for the punch line. “So, you rob from the rich and give to …?”

“Myself, Mr. Carr. And it’s rich shites I rob from—drug runners, gunrunners, whore runners, human smugglers, kidnappers—the very worst swine. I’ve lightened the till on all of them.”

Carr pulled on his beer, but it didn’t help to anchor him. “I can’t imagine they’re very happy about it,” he said finally. “And they’ve got plenty of firepower of their own, and no hesitation using it.”

“That they do.” Declan laughed. “But the upside is they don’t go whining to the
polizei
either, except maybe to the ones they’ve got on payroll. And when it comes to security, they tend to go for quantity, not quality, if you know what I mean. Heavy stuff, lots of tech sometimes, but not subtle, and typically with some very large blind spots. And, of course, the boys and me are stealthy bastards—they don’t know we exist until we’re over the threshold, and then it’s in fast, out fast, and clear out of town. We don’t leave footprints, and we never—but never—fish the same stream twice.”

“Security in obscurity,” Carr recited—an old lesson that he knew was only sometimes true. “So what’s the downside of your business?”

“What you’d expect: people get cross, they brood over things, they have long memories, and if they catch you they’ll kill you all kinds of dead—by which time death will seem like a mercy. But like I said, we’re dead sneaky: never been pinched; never come close. We’re phantoms, Mr. Carr—black cats tippy-toeing in the black night.”

The smoke that swirled around the room seemed to fill Carr’s head. “I’ve got to have a talk with Teddy Voigt. I don’t know what he’s been telling you about me, but I—”

Declan laughed again. “Teddy said you might be just the ticket.”

“The ticket to what?”

“To bigger and better, Mr. Carr—a step up in the league tables.”

“I’m not following.”

“I’m running a nice enough carnival now. I’ve got a strongman, a fire-eater, a boy who bites the heads off chickens, and I’m the barker that keeps it all going. Our show does fine, Mr. Carr, a reliable money-spinner, but it’s still just a carnival, and I’ve got bigger plans. I want me a full-blown circus, with three feckin’ rings and a fat box office every show. But for that I need a ringmaster: someone to sort out the elephants and monkeys, and stuff the clowns in their wee cars. Someone to make sure the trapeze girl doesn’t land in the lion’s cage, you see? You understand, Mr. Carr, I need a planner, an organizer. Teddy says that’s you.”

Carr’s mind was stuttering, and organization was the last thing on it. He could muster no more than an adolescent shrug, but Declan had momentum enough for both of them.

“Teddy says you’ve got an engineer’s eye for operations—a talent for breaking big problems into bite-size ones, for finding the shortest paths and the points of failure, and coming up with contingencies and fallbacks. He says—”

“Teddy’s talking out of school. He should know better.”

The smile widened on Declan’s chipped red face, and he ran a hand over his thinning hair. His eyes were cold and probing through the smoke. “He says that you’re careful too—that you always pack the belt
and
the suspenders. Caution is a virtuous thing in a planner.”

Carr could never put his finger on just when he’d begun to take Declan seriously, to believe that his talk of robbers and ringmasters was more than just drunken digression, or the overture to some elaborate scam. Maybe it was in the long silence that followed Declan’s speech, as the smoke and sorrowful music pressed closer, or while Carr sipped at the coffee he’d ordered to replace his unfinished beer. Or maybe, on the heels of another failure, another firing, adrift once again, Carr had been a buyer from the start.

“Maybe you could do with a bit more caution yourself. How do you know I won’t go home and call the police?”

“And tell them what? My name? My phone number? You know as well as anyone how disposable those are. And besides, I do my sums, Mr. Carr—I think I know you better than that.”

Carr shook his head. “Fucking Teddy.”

“Don’t go blaming Teddy, either—not too much anyway. Yes, he tells me some things—I expect it for the fee I pay him—but I do my own leg-work besides. So I know about your unfortunate disagreement with your client, and the nice right cross that put an end to your career with Integral Risk. I know about your housing problem, as well. And I know about your brief period of service to your country—very noble that—and how they tossed you out on your arse after all that training. Decided you’re not the kind of glad-handing wanker Langley likes for their agent-runners. Imaginative bunch up there, eh?

“And I know how Teddy recruited you to IR after that, and bounced you around the region a bit, before setting you down in Mexico. And I know that you send a check once a month to your old dad up in Massachusetts. Stockbridge, is it? It’s not everything about you, I’m sure, but it’s enough to give me some comfort you won’t be running to the Garda. You’re too smart for that, Mr. Carr.”

The smile was there, and the furry, conspiratorial chuckle, and there was only the briefest gust of icy air—like walking past an open freezer—when he met Declan’s blue gaze. Carr found the implicit threat comforting somehow—a kind of corroboration.

“Many people get killed in your business?” Carr asked finally.

“I won’t say no eggs get broken, but we try to avoid it. And truth be told, these aren’t altar boys we’re dealing with. They’re dead-enders—hard boys, or so they fancy themselves—bad insurance risks on the best of days.”

“I was wondering more about your own guys.”

“When it comes to me and mine,
safety first
is my motto. I’m pleased to say I haven’t lost a man yet.”

“
Yet.
”

Declan shook his head. “If it’s risk you’re worried about, I can’t change that—it is what it is—but if it’s crime that gives you pause, then I’d ask you to think about who it is I’m robbing. They’re pricks, every one of ’em—none worse in the world. I’m no Robin Hood, but the fact is I hurt ’em where they live—square in the wallet—which might be more justice than they get from anyone else.” Declan smiled again, more broadly this time, impossibly charming, and then he drained his beer. “So what d’ya say, Mr. Carr, you want to run off with the circus?”

Safety first … haven’t lost a man yet
. Carr shakes his head, banishing
the echoes of Declan’s voice. No, Carr thinks, you hadn’t lost a man until four months ago, when you lost two—shot full of holes and burned to a crisp on the side of the Trans-Andean Highway. And too bad one of those rigid cinders was you.

Then Bobby is shaking him, whispering urgently. “The fuck’s the matter with you? You don’t hear that?” Bobby points toward the reception area, where the voices are coming from. Carr wipes a hand across his face and listens. They’re muffled and indistinct, but he can make out two men, talking and laughing.

“
Chingada
!” Mike’s voice is low and harsh. He’s standing, clenched, in the door of Lucovic’s office, and he’s holding a Glock.

“What are you doing with that?” Carr whispers.

“Scratching my ass,
cabrón
—what the fuck you think I’m doing?”

Carr shakes his head. “Stay here, both of you, and put that thing away.”

“Time to pack up?” Bobby asks.

“Just stay,” Carr says, and he crosses the office suite to a teak-paneled partition that reaches nearly to the ceiling and that on the other side forms the long curving back wall of Portrait Capital’s reception area.

The voices are louder here but still muffled, and Carr can tell they’re coming from outside the glass doors. Carr lies on the floor and peers through a gap between the corner of the partition and a potted tree. The reception area is still dark, the metal gate is still down, and the glass doors are still closed, but beyond them, in the dimly lit corridor near the elevators, there are two men sitting on the floor. Their T-shirts and baggy white pants are spattered with paint, and they are smoking a joint. The dope smell is cloying and powerful, and it reaches Carr quickly even across the still air. He rolls back around the corner and nearly collides with Bobby, who is holding a little Beretta.

Carr looks at the gun. “For chrissakes—you too?” he whispers.

“Is it the rent-a-cops from the lobby?”

“It’s the painters from downstairs, getting high. You want to shoot them?”

Bobby tucks the gun into his back pocket. “So are we fucked or not?”

“I don’t know yet,” Carr says. He stretches out on the floor again, peeks around the corner for another moment, and then sits up. “Give it a minute. They’re down to the roach—let’s see if they go back to work when they’re done.”

“Don’t know if Mike’s got a minute—he’s twitchy as hell.”

“He’s not alone,” Carr says, and he gets low and takes another look. “They’re done,” he whispers. “The one guy’s getting up. He’s pocketing the roach. Now the other guy’s up. They’re … fuck these assholes!” Carr turns the corner and stands quickly.

“What’s going on?” Bobby asks, but Carr is crossing the office suite at a jog, headed back to the utility closet. Bobby follows. “What’s going on?” he asks again.

“They’re rattling doorknobs.”

“Shit! Did we lock Molloy’s door?”

“I don’t know,” Carr says, and he drops down to crawl through the hole in the closet wall.

“Fucking thieves,” Bobby mutters, and he drops too.

They almost make it. Carr is halfway across Molloy’s office, headed for his secretary’s, and Bobby is just emerging from the utility closet, when there are whispers in the hallway, and the handle on the office door begins to turn. Carr pulls his headset off, jams it in his pocket, and turns his back to the office door. He stands by Molloy’s desk and picks up Molloy’s telephone. His tone is conversational when he speaks, but his voice is loud—as if the connection is bad.

“Got it, honey—two cases of Lone Star, a case of tonic water, the steaks, the macaroni salad. Anything else?” Bobby freezes in mid-stride, then walks slowly backward until he’s up against the wall. His gun is out again and he’s sighting along the wall, toward the office door. Carr glares at him and shakes his head minutely.

There’s more murmuring in the hall, a suppressed laugh, and the office door begins to open. Bobby works the slide on the Beretta, and Carr slices the air with his fingertips—a gambler refusing a card. Bobby scowls.

“I’ll be a while longer,” Carr says loudly. “Couple of hours, at least. No, I won’t forget the tonic.”

The door opens wider and the smell of weed reaches Carr. He’s certain he can feel eyes on his back, but his own eyes are locked on Bobby against the wall. And then there’s movement in the closet, and Latin Mike is there, lying prone, looking down the barrel of his Glock.

Carr swallows hard. “And the macaroni salad—I won’t forget.” His voice is shaking and he’s trying to catch Mike’s eye, but Mike won’t see him, won’t see anything but the door that’s opening wider still. Carr’s
lungs lock up, his body tenses, and he takes a half-step to his right, right into Mike’s sight line. Bobby draws an audible breath; Mike’s Glock doesn’t waver.

And then there’s laughter in the hallway, a giggled “
Fuck it
,” running footsteps, and the office door falling shut with a decisive click.

The silence afterward is ringing. Carr is conscious only of the pulse in his ears and the sweat running over his ribs. Latin Mike crawls back through the closet wall, and Bobby follows. Carr locks the office door and goes through too, then stands in Lucovic’s office while Mike drills the safe.

Two hundred twenty-seven thousand dollars in neatly bundled cash; three million, give or take, in loose polished stones.

When the adrenaline washes out, Carr thinks, it’s like another country—another planet altogether. On this planet, on this evening, they look like film stars by the swimming pool: Valerie in a slate-blue shift, dark glasses, and a loose French braid; Dennis, Bobby, Mike, and Carr himself all freshly showered, shaved, in crisp shirts and shades of their own. The late-day sun throws sheets of orange light across the pool, the fieldstone deck, the wrought-iron chairs and tables, the sinuous olive trees, and a wide swath of Napa Valley hillside below. The waitress delivers another bottle of Chardonnay, another plate of cheese, and another basket of warm bread to their table. She leaves, and they have the terrace to themselves again.