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The voice says, “Sam, thank you for the input. Kevin, looks like you win the prize: freedom and the lovely Rachel. I know it was an inconvenience, putting you in the cage, but at least you learned that Rachel’s love for you is sincere.”
Can you believe this guy?
The voice continues, “Sam, we’re sorry it wasn’t much of a contest. We can’t begin to understand how you must feel. But it’s all water under the bridge at this point, yes?”
“Not quite,” I say. “I’ve got a question for you, you vomitous piece of shit.”
The voice says, “We don’t believe ‘vomitous’ is a word. However, we’re beginning to see Rachel’s point about you being a sore loser.”
“I don’t care what you think about me,” I say. “But how do you expect to activate the codes? You’ve only got the first half of the sequence.”
The voice says, “Not true. We’ve always had the second sequence. They’re embedded in your computer.”
“That’s not possible,” I say.
“Think about it,” the voice says. “During the past two years, every one of your clients has accessed some of their money at least once. You’re an honest man, Sam. You set up your program in such a way that you couldn’t see your clients’ codes. But we’re not so honest. We hacked into your system and found them—I won’t try to explain how. But we had a problem: the accounts were all numbered. We were kidding about the codes. We never needed them; we had them all along. What we needed were the legal names on the accounts. Without those, we couldn’t access the funds.” My head is swimming, but my captor’s voice sounds confident. “So that’s it,” I say. “It is.” “What happens now?”
“We’ll kill you quickly. With all the twists and turns that have been going on, Rachel and Kevin are going to want to make sure you’re dead. After that, we’ll reunite the happy couple and bring down the curtain on this play.” “Karen’s getting a big cut?” I ask, wondering why that thought popped into my head. Rachel muttered, “I knew she was a whore. But I suppose she earned it, having to fuck you.” “Are you in on it too, Rachel?” I say. “Are you getting a cut?”
The voice says, “Rachel is not a party to this drama. She only gets to live, along with whatever she inherits from your estate.”
“You sound awfully smug,” I say. “If you can’t access the money at the last minute, you’re going to wish you’d kept me alive.”
“Sam,” the voice says, “from the moment you gave us the names, my associates have been working furiously. It’s over; we’ve already got the money.”
“Maybe not all of it,” I say. “What’s the final take?”
The voice pauses, as if checking. After a moment, it says, “Nine billion four hundred million and change. That sound about right?”
Shit.
“Good for you,” I say. “And fuck you all. Go ahead, throw the switch. I’ll see you in hell.”
“Until then, Sam,” the voice says. There’s a slight pause as my captors make the electronic adjustments to start the vacuum pump. When it’s ready, the voice says, “Sorry for the delay. We’re good to go. Make your peace, Sam, I’ll give you ten seconds.” “You get nine billion dollars, and I get ten seconds, huh?” “Doesn’t hardly seem fair, does it?” “When does the countdown begin?” “Now … unless anyone has a final comment … No? In that case—” Kevin Vaughn clears his throat. “Actually, if I may, I’d like to ask Sam a quick question.”
I look up at him and see Rachel doing the same. She looks as worried as I feel. She says in a pleading voice, “Kevin, we’re so close. Please, hon, let’s just end this and go home.”
“What’s your question?” I say.
PART TWO: DONOVAN CREED
Chapter 31
Two days earlier, 9:30 am …
I look at my watch and think about Sam Case who, at this very moment, is in a hotel room having sex with Karen Vogel. This, the best morning of his life, is about to turn into his worst nightmare. I’m in the Rock Creek Diner, by Seneca Park.
The bold writing atop the menu tells me all I need to know about the impending dining experience:
“Since 1947, we’ve served food as good, pure, wholesome, and consistent as a mother’s love.” Jimmy Squint sits across the table, looking at me like my boss must be the craziest son of a bitch on Earth. “Creed, your boss must be the craziest son of a bitch on Earth,” he says, studying my face, waiting to hear the punch line. There is none. “So that’s the plan,” Jimmy says. “What am I missing?” “I could tell it again,” I say, “but it never gets any saner.”
Our waitress, a beautiful little Southern girl named Macie, sets a platter of country ham biscuits between us and lingers long enough to show me the kind of smile she’d use someday to keep her man home at night. Of course, Jimmy Squint ruins the moment by saying, “Biscuits look a bit hard.”
Jimmy might be right about my boss being crazy, but he is dead wrong about the biscuits. Nor does his remark sit well with the customers who overheard it. For his part, Jimmy doesn’t seem aware of the grumbling and general unease building up around us. “You’re serious?” he says, back on the subject of the plan. I nod. “Guy’s got that much money?” “He does.” “But it ain’t enough.” “It ain’t,” I say.
Jimmy Squint gives me his trademark squinty look, wondering if I might be mocking him. Unable to tell for certain, he moves the conversation along. “Seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go through.” I shrug. Jimmy says, “This guy’s got information you want, why not beat it outta him?” I don’t say anything.
Jimmy says, “Or round up his loved ones, kill ’em one at a time. Make him watch … I don’t care who he is, he’ll talk.” “You’d think so,” I say, just to have something to say. “But your guy wants to walk the whole neighborhood just to kick the dog.” Jimmy Squint has an odd way of putting things, but I know what he means. “No matter how you phrase it,” I say, “it still comes out the same.”
Our booth in the Rock Creek Diner has a large window that overlooks Seneca Park. From where we sit, we can see about eighty men and women and maybe a dozen kids, but curiously, no dogs. Jimmy Squint takes a bite of a country ham biscuit. “Where’s this whole shooting thing going down?” he whispers. I nod at the window, indicating the park but get distracted by Jimmy’s frown. “It’s not that the biscuits are hard,” I say. “You’re eating them the wrong way.” He gives me a look of bewilderment. “How many friggin’ ways can a biscuit be eaten?” “There’s a protocol unique to this particular dining experience that should be observed,” I say. “A protocol,” he says. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” “Your biscuit wants to be dipped in the gravy,” I say. He scrunches his face. “That’s like, pure fat.” “You’re in Kentucky, James. That’s authentic redeye. Not fat.” He appraises the tiny porcelain vessel on his plate and frowns. “Why’s it so dark?” “It’s made with coffee.”
“Coffee?” he says, getting all worked up about it. “Who the hell puts coffee in their gravy?”
I hear a couple of chairs scrape the floor as a large man in coveralls and his unshaven wife jump to their feet a few tables behind Jimmy and set their bodies in some manner of backwoods fighting stance. The other diners who heard Jimmy’s latest outburst are glaring at him, red-faced.
“The fuck you starin’ at?” Jimmy Squint says to basically the entire diner.
At first, Jimmy’s hands are at his sides, under the table. There is no discernable movement, but suddenly both his hands are on top of the table, the fingers of his right hand resting an inch away from a serrated steak knife. This happens instantly: no hands on the table and then two hands on the table, no time passing between the two events.
The standing man and woman spit into their palms and start rubbing their hands together. The man is about six-four and two-eighty, strong in that farmhand sort of way. The wife is shorter, but tougher, I think, and she has the shoulders. “If it comes down to it, I’ll take the farmer,” I say. “I think they’re both farmers,” Jimmy says. He had me there. “You take the woman,” I say. “I still ain’t sure which one you mean.” “One on the right.”
The couple advances slowly toward our table while rolling up the sleeves of their long underwear. Jimmy hears something and spins his head toward me. “The fuck?”
Jimmy’s hands aren’t the only fast ones at our table. While he’d been sizing up the farmer’s wife, I’d pulled a gun from beneath the table, ratcheted a live round into the chamber, and aimed it two feet from Jimmy Squint’s face.
“Try the gravy,” I say, and everyone goes quiet.
“What? This is bullshit!” Jimmy says.
“Reason they call it redeye,” I say helpfully, “when you pour black coffee into the drippings, the evaporating gravy forms a red eye in the center of the frying pan.”
Jimmy is a small, ferret-faced man with ferret-quick hands, probably the fastest hands I ever saw with a knife. But I’m not slow either, and we both know he can’t grab the steak knife and reach across the table and stab me before I can squeeze off a shot. Not only that, but he was counting on me for a big payday with minimal work.
He curses incoherently, glances around the room, shrugs, grips a fresh biscuit from his plate, dips it in the redeye gravy, and pops it into his mouth. Every eye in the diner watches him chew, waiting to see the transformation take place, as often happens when Yankees get caught up in the divine exhalation of Southern cooking. Sure enough, despite his annoyance over the forced feeding, a smile starts tugging at the corners of Jimmy Squint’s mouth, and his eyes light up like a preacher spotting cash in the collection plate.
“That’s damn good!” he says.
Farmer man cocks his head, waiting in case a smart-ass remark had has been left unspoken.
“I must apologize for my guest,” I say. “He’s from Detroit.” Farmer man and his wife look at each other and nod, as if that explained everything. “That a real gun?” she says. “It is,” I say. “Kinda puny,” Farmer man says.
“Glock 26,” I say. “Compact model, nine millimeter.” They nod again, go back to their table, and work their large bodies back into their small chairs. A table of elderly women gives Jimmy the hard stare before tucking back into their biscuits. A young girl sitting alone at the counter shakes her head in sympathy and begins Twittering the adventure to her friends. Macie, our cute little waitress, seems relieved. I put the gun back into my ankle holster.
“So what you’re saying,” Jimmy Squint says, “you’re being paid to basically fuck with this guy’s life, and you’re paying me twenty grand to, what—watch him? Follow him? Guard him?” “All the above,” I say. “When’s all this supposed to start?” I look at my watch. “About ten thirty, give or take.” Jimmy motions for our waitress. “Honey,” he says to Macie, “would you be a sweetheart and bring us another plate of biscuits?” Several sets of eyes look up from their plates. “And bring me a double order of that redeye gravy,” he adds.
Chapter 32
“This guy,” Jimmy Squint says. “Sam Case?” Jimmy nods. “What’s he drive?” “Audi R8.” Jimmy nods approvingly. “Sweet ride,” he says. “It is that.” “Where’s the rifle?”
“It’ll be in the front seat waiting for you. Shoot twice and jump in the car. Lou will drive you to the hotel. When you get there, he’ll show you your ride. Climb in, sit tight. Got it?”
Jimmy Squint nods. “I sure would like to drive that Audi one time.”
Jimmy used to be a getaway driver for Frank Carbonne’s crew back in Detroit. To this day, he harbors a fondness for fast cars. Along with his hands, Jimmy has fast feet that he used to tap out rhythms with the gas and brake pedals while being chased by cops or disgruntled mobsters.
“Maybe next time,” I say.
The word on Jimmy was he didn’t enjoy driving getaway unless someone was chasing him. More than once he’d angered his crew by taking unnecessary risks in order to provoke all-out chases. These acts included—but were not limited to—honking his horn, clipping the corner of a cop’s car, and even taking the occasional shot at one.
At 10:00 am sharp, fifteen men walk into the diner wearing police uniforms. One steps forward to do the talking.
“Attention, everybody,” he says. “My name’s Officer Glen Denning, and this …” He gestured toward me. “… is Donovan Creed, special agent for Homeland Security. We’ve got a situation about to go down in Seneca Park, and I’m going to ask for your cooperation, which means I’ll need you to finish up your meals and be out of here in the next ten minutes.” The owner of the diner pops his head through the order window and says, “Make sure they pay their bills, Glen!” Macie adds, “And tip me generous, in case they blow up the diner!” Everyone laughs.
Officer Denning continues, “I’d appreciate it if you stay at least a mile away from the park for the next four hours. My men will keep the area contained, but it’ll go a whole lot easier for us if you don’t tell all your friends and relatives. Last thing we need is a bunch of gawkers getting in our way.”
The patrons hadn’t panicked when I pulled my Glock on Jimmy Squint awhile ago, so I don’t figure they’ll panic over this announcement. I’m right. They busy themselves with paying their bills and leaving. “Give ’em hell, Glen!” says one guy, and some of the others chime in with similar words of encouragement.
Officer Glen Denning nods somberly and says, “We’ll do our jobs.” He pauses before adding, “You can count on that.”
After escorting the last of the diners to their cars, the cops change into civilian clothes and take up their positions along the perimeter of the park. A traffic control crew begins closing off the access streets, ensuring that Cannons Lane will be the only way in and out. Before leaving to join his team, Officer Denning looks at me and says, “How’d I do?” “That part at the end about doing your jobs,” I say. “How long you practice that?” “I know it wasn’t part of the script,” he says, “but I felt it added something, don’t you?” Jimmy Squint says, “What it’s worth, I think they all bought it.”
“Next time,” I say, “if there is a next time …”
The man playing the part of Officer Denning says, “Yes, sir?”
“Stick to the script.”
Chapter 33
Moments later, Salvatore Bonadello’s driver, Shane, calls me from the limo. “Lou’s got Sam’s keys,” he says. “The Audi should be there any minute.”
“Where are you guys?” I ask.
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