“Strange to think how much these are worth, isn’t it?” Salsa was saying. He was running that steady patter of his. Bigelow couldn’t wait to ventilate him. “They don’t look like much, painted this way. But I’ve got a guy who should be able to fetch a considerable sum for them.”
“Good,” Bigelow replied, frustrated to have to listen to him. If he’d still had his Colt Commander, he might have just gone ahead and taken Salsa out right then and there, and gone after Harper and his broad before they knew what was happening. But he’d lost his gun on the way down from the mansion, when he’d fallen for a second time. Just after Harper and Connie had passed him going toward the boat, and with Harper yelling for him to come on, he’d spun his overweight form around too quickly on the storm-soaked slope, crashed to the ground—ground that was no longer grass but simple mud—and slid halfway down the hill, covering himself in another layer of slime along the way. When he’d managed to get back on his feet, he’d hurried after them, not wanting to be left behind and stranded on the island when the authorities got there. In his haste, he hadn’t thought to check on the pistol he’d kept tucked into his waistband. Just before they got to the houseboat, he had realized it was gone. And there was no way, no time, for him to go back and search for it.
But that was okay. He had planned against the possibility of needing another firearm handy. That was why he’d planted a backup, a SIG P210, behind the seat in the truck’s cab during his visit to it the night before.
Again, though, it was the thought of having to do all the carrying and loading of the bricks by himself that persuaded him to wait, to let Harper and Salsa do their share of the work, before he removed them from the equation.
Satisfied to delay their executions just a little bit longer, he hustled back down to the boat and lifted another stack of bricks and started back up to the truck, just as the others were doing. And on it went, as the minutes flew by and the storm intensified, and Salsa continued his endless stream of commentary about the weather and about his missing girlfriend. And slowly but surely the back of the truck filled up with bricks.
At last Bigelow saw that the stacks they were all carrying off the houseboat now would be the last ones, finishing off the entire load. So this was it.
They trudged in a line up the slope to the truck, Bigelow depositing his stack first. Then, as Harper moved up to put his down, with Salsa and then Diaz behind him, Bigelow casually made his way around to the driver’s side door.
Harper first. Yes. That made sense. He was the most dangerous one. Then Salsa. And wouldn’t that be a pleasure, putting that guy out of his misery. Then the broad, whom he didn’t expect to be much of a problem. It was too bad, though—she wasn’t bad looking. But she was Harper’s woman, and there was no way he could leave her alive.
What about Diaz?
Bob pursed his lips, thinking. Diaz had never been as tight with him as the others had been. And letting him live would mean giving away a share of the loot. Diaz might even demand half of it. Imagine that! Half of all that gold, for a little nobody like him. The more Bigelow considered it, the less he liked the idea of anybody walking away from this job besides himself. Still, Diaz had been part of his team, and had never done him wrong…
Big Bob pondered all of this as he reached up and grasped the door handle he’d left unlocked, for quick access in just these possible circumstances. He depressed the lever to open it. He concluded that he’d watch what Diaz did in the next few moments, and see if the guy deserved to live—if he would earn his way into a share of the rewards, or into an early exit from the world.
Satisfied with that, Bigelow pulled the door open, planning to reach behind the seat for his SIG, with which to kill maybe three, maybe four people in the next minute. But something unexpected happened then: to his astonishment, he discovered that someone was already sitting in the truck.
Bigelow hesitated, frowning. It was a big guy—bigger than Big Bob himself. He wore a long trench coat over gray coveralls of some kind, and he had a broad smile on his face. He held Bob’s backup SIG pistol in one hand, pointing directly at him.
“You’ve been a big help,” the man said, and fired. Then he fired again.
Bigelow dropped to the ground and lay there. The last thing he thought in this life was how strange it was to have as many enemies as he had, but to be killed by a total stranger.
27
Harper had just finished packing away the last of the gray-painted bricks in the back of the truck when he heard the unmistakable crack of two pistol shots very nearby.
A bad scenario had become the worst-case scenario. That was a certainty now. He was nearly overcome by the instinct to run—to dive out the back of the truck and just sprint into the distance as quickly as possible. But he couldn’t do that; Connie and Salsa were both out there, vulnerable, neither of them particularly well-equipped to deal with a situation like this.
Like what, though? Was it Bigelow, as he had feared, pulling the double-cross? Was it some other criminals, who’d gotten word of what they would have with them tonight, and where they’d be? Was it the Law?
All these thoughts passed through Harper’s mind in an instant. Then he was all motion and movement: out the back, onto the ground, looking for the shooter, looking for his friends.
Relief flooded him as he saw Salsa diving onto the ground and pulling a stunned Connie down with him. Neither appeared to have been hit and were getting out of the way. Behind them, Diaz was standing there like a deer in the headlights.
Quickly Harper rolled underneath the truck, in order to shield himself, and drew his Colt Super .38 from his shoulder holster. He looked in the direction of the cab, where the sound had seemed to come from.
It was so close to him, at first he didn’t realize what it was: a body. A body lying there, just below the driver’s side door. A big body. Big Bob’s body, in fact. And it wasn’t moving.
Harper frowned at this. It didn’t add up. There had been only five of them on the boat. Bigelow was down now, and the other three were seeking cover at the back of the truck. Who did that leave? Who could be there? He didn’t see anyone else standing around the area. Could they—whoever they were—be inside the truck? Could that hypothetical person have been there already, waiting for them to arrive?
“Who’s there?” Harper called out, then immediately rolled in the opposite direction, toward the passenger side.
A moment of silence, and then a deep voice, partly obscured by the storm, came back from the cab: “Why don’t you come see?”
Someone was in the truck. It had been an ambush. Harper realized he totally would have blamed it on Bigelow—he’d expected some kind of setup before things were done—if not for the fact that Bigelow was lying there dead, just a few feet away. Of course, he thought then, that didn’t mean the ambusher couldn’t have had a deal going with Bigelow beforehand. Maybe they’d simply decided they didn’t want to split the money with him anymore.
Harper was about to steel himself to roll out from under the truck and storm the cab when the engine revved and the truck crept forward. Instantly Harper rolled the rest of the way out from underneath it, just barely missing the back wheels.
Suddenly someone was running alongside the truck. Harper could only see feet moving from where he lay. Shouts were exchanged. There was another gunshot.
A body fell to the sandy pavement, rolled a time or two and lay still. The face stared at Harper, blankly. It was Diaz.
Harper spun himself up onto one knee and leveled his Colt. But there was no target. The bulk of the big truck occupied the space between himself and the driver. Staying low, he sprinted to his left, to get a better angle.
The truck continued on, travelling about thirty yards more, and then it sloughed around sideways and the driver’s side window rolled down. Harper dropped to one knee and brought the Colt up, aiming carefully. Before he could fire, two more shots rang out from the cab, causing him to dive to his right. Neither of the shots had co
me close to hitting him. He took his firing stance again just as lightning flared and lit up the entire area. In that instant he could make out a big, hulking figure leaning out the driver’s side window, gun in hand. Harper saw the face and involuntarily he gasped. So taken aback was he, he failed to fire. He simply couldn’t believe what he had seen.
Another shot from the driver, another wild miss, and then the truck was lurching forward, out of the parking lot, onto the highway, the ancient engine straining as it pushed the vehicle to top speed.
At last Harper did fire, but to no real effect. With the storm all around, the darkness and the distance, he wasn’t any more accurate than the driver had been.
He lowered his gun and turned back to Salsa and Connie, who had gotten up and were hurrying over. Connie looked to be in shock, but Salsa’s face was ashen.
“Did you see—?” Salsa began.
“Yes,” Harper replied.
In the muzzle flash of those final shots from the truck he had seen the driver’s face again, and it was exactly what he’d thought he’d seen the first time. It was a face he would never forget, and it was unmistakable.
It was the face of Brett Rooker.
Brett Rooker: the muscle he and Salsa had brought with them to Vegas from St. Louis for the Caesars Palace job. The big man that Harper knew was preparing to betray them, only to get shot by another heister and then get buried under tons of rubble. The supposed “dumb muscle” who was in fact quite smart, quite clever, quite devious. And quite deadly.
Brett Rooker was deadly, yes—but he wasn’t dead. He was back.
And he was driving away with all their gold.
28
Saturday, seven days before the heist:
When a visibly shaken—and no longer wealthy—John Harper exited his house in Flagler Beach and jumped into the seat of his shiny new blue Camaro, he was being watched. Watched by two different parties, in fact.
He had just made the shocking discovery that his Vegas heist money was missing, and now he was racing back down to Miami to consult and commiserate with his partner in crime, Saul Salzman.
A short distance down the narrow street sat a big, battered, late Fifties Ford sedan, dirt-colored and rusting. Behind the wheel sat a big, battered, trench coat-wearing guy with a dark fedora pulled low over his face. All that was visible of him was his right hand, which held a pair of binoculars, aimed directly at Harper.
He had cruised the neighborhood three times, waiting for Harper to arrive, as he’d known he would. Then he’d parked and sat there, waiting, knowing as well that Harper would be in quite a state when he reemerged from his house.
Grinning, Brett Rooker watched Harper tear out down the street, then put his own car in gear and followed along at a discrete distance. Everything was going exactly as planned.
It had taken a bit of work, back in St. Louis, but eventually Rooker had learned the address of Harper’s old house in Flagler. Beyond that, the trail had grown cold.
All he’d managed to come across beyond that was the name “Davenport,” a new player in Miami, who palled around with a guy named “Gold,” who had a legal background, and who had a gorgeous, showgirl-looking wife or mistress. Some more searching turned up her name: Lois.
Bingo. That was them. It had to be.
Very recently the whispers along the grapevine suggested they were planning something big in south Florida. Salsa had been talking out of school, probably. That guy never knew when to shut up.
But it raised an interesting possibility: If Harper and Salsa were planning a robbery down there, when they already had the millions from Vegas, it had to be quite lucrative, indeed.
So Rooker had driven down to the address in Flagler and turned Harper’s old house upside down. He’d had plenty of time; Harper was rarely there anymore. Finally he’d found what he’d been looking for: a third of the money from the Vegas heist.
He’d counted it out and been amazed to see that Harper had barely spent any of it, relatively speaking. He’d known if he’d had that money all this time, he definitely would have put it to good use. In fact, he had to admit to himself, more than half of it would probably be gone by now. But this thought only caused him to shrug to himself. He could’ve spent Harper’s third and still had Salsa’s third and the Funderburk woman’s third, if things had gone the way they were supposed to.
But they hadn’t. That idiot Monti had screwed everything up—and very nearly killed him in the process. The bastard had shot at him three times at point blank range. Fortunately, in the dark and filled with panic and terror, Monti had only hit him twice, and neither bullet had hit anything particularly vital. They’d both fallen down into the tunnels beneath Las Vegas, whereupon he’d landed on his head and nearly knocked himself out. He’d rolled back into the shadows and laid there a long moment, stunned from the impact and from the gunshot. Maybe Monti had thought he was dead; maybe the continuing explosions rocking the tunnels had scared him. In any case, rather than finishing Rooker off, Monti had scrambled back up the ladder and gotten away. With the bag of money.
Rooker had wanted to continue the pursuit of Monti or the others, but he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that his current physical condition would not allow him to be particularly effective. Instead he opted to back off, lick his wounds, watch carefully, and plan.
As always, Brett Rooker’s business associates underestimated him. They always took one look at his size and his shape and concluded he was a dimwit, fit only for muscle work on a job. Certainly Brett did nothing to dissuade his coworkers of this sentiment. The less they thought of his brains, the better, he’d found over the years. It always led them to underestimating the danger he could pose to them later. They’d always, always make a mistake, and Rooker would be there to pounce.
Except things in Vegas had gone sour. Sour, at least, for him. Harper had been watching him closer than he’d have preferred, and the guy was sharp enough to suspect Rooker had more going for him than he was letting on. And then of course the idiot Monti had overplayed his own hand and ruined it all.
Ruined it for everyone except Harper and Salsa, and the woman. They’d all made out just fine. They’d gotten away with bags of money.
Well, now some of those bags belonged to Brett Rooker, along with a measure of revenge.
He could leave it like that—be content with Harper’s share of the loot—or he could double down and go for all of it. Or—and this was a third option, and one that had only occurred to him in the past couple of days—he could triple down. He could take their Vegas money, and thereby push them into carrying out the Miami operation he’d heard whispers of, months ago. Make them carry out the new job, whether they wanted to or not, because all their cash was gone. Make them rob Ruby Island—and then take that from them, too.
It was just too sweet a prospect to pass up: the Vegas money, the Miami money, and the revenge. Robbing them once, forcing them to do another heist, and then robbing them again. And rubbing their noses in it. Yes. Yes.
Taking Harper’s money from the house in Flagler had been the first domino to fall. Taking Salsa’s had been the second, and even easier. Now he would follow Harper right back down to Miami and find out where all of them were staying, and exactly what they were up to. Then he’d take away the woman’s share, too—as well as any helpful information she might possess.
The notes had worked like magic. He hadn’t been able to find out where Harper was staying, just asking around casually, through the normal channels. He hadn’t wanted to raise any alarms by asking more strenuously. So he’d thought and thought on it, and had come up with this plan: Search Harper’s house, and maybe find at least some of the loot from the Vegas job. As it had turned out, he’d found all of Harper’s share. Take it, and then tell Harper it was gone. Toward that end, Rooker had anonymously sent fifteen notes, all with the same message—one more than clear to Harper, but hopefully opaque to anyone else—to the hotels most likely to currently be hosting Harper. S
ure enough, one of them had been the winner, though Rooker had no way of knowing which one. Harper had read it and had come flying back north to Flagler Beach. Now, having seen for himself the money was gone, he was headed back south. Back to his new digs in Miami. And Rooker was on his trail.
Yes, the plan was coming together perfectly. All he had to do now was find out the details of their operation and then be in the right place at the right time to take it all away from them at the end.
Chuckling to himself, he slowed down, keeping a good distance between himself and Harper’s Camaro.
He never noticed the blue Chrysler that followed along, in turn, behind him. A blue Chrysler belonging to one Ricky Garcia, formerly of the Las Vegas Police Department.
The Camaro, the Ford and the Chrysler all headed south totally separately, yet all together.
29
Wednesday, ten days before the heist:
About the same time a still-wealthy and unconcerned John Harper was sitting by the pool at his Miami hotel, sipping tropical drinks with his girlfriend and pretty much deciding against Salsa’s crazy plan to carry out a heist on Ruby Island, Ricky Garcia was chain-smoking cigarettes and mopping at his sweaty brow as he barreled his blue Chrysler along US Highway 441 northwest of Gainesville.
After twenty years as a cop, Garcia had recently transitioned to a new and slightly different line of work: he was now a private investigator. And he was presently working just one case. At the behest of, and financially supported by, certain elements back home in Clark County, Nevada, he was on the trail of what had happened to the millions of dollars taken from the Caesars Palace vault just prior to the casino’s grand opening the previous New Year’s Eve.
Miami Heist Page 12
