It was a case in which he had not just a professional but a personal interest. He had, after all, been there when that mysterious group of men had emerged from a manhole a mile or so away from Caesars Palace. He’d seen the bags of money they’d brought out with them. And he and his partner had been locked in the back seat of their patrol car by those same guys. The thought of it all still rankled him.
The humiliation. Having to wait for another squad car to come along and free them, hours later.
And the money. All that money, right there in front of him, in big canvas bags. Right there—and then gone, carried away by those same bad guys that had locked him in his car.
He’d barely slept for weeks after the robbery. He’d had enormous difficulties focusing on his work. All he could think about was those guys. And those bags of money.
Eventually he’d had enough. He’d gathered up what information he’d managed to piece together about the heist, and he’d brought it to the people who ran Caesars. It hadn’t taken much persuading on his part; they’d been paying much better-qualified detectives for months to try to track down the perpetrators, and every one of those efforts had come up empty.
But none of those high-priced detectives had been there that night. None of them had looked the perps in the eye; spoken with them; gotten a feel for them. For who they might be.
Garcia had.
He also had every scrap of intel he and his entire department had assembled in the time since the robbery.
So Caesars had put him on the payroll and given him three months to prove his worth.
Now, two months in, the case was still coming together for him, but he had a few leads and a few more theories. Nothing was entirely clear yet, but all signs had pointed him first to St. Louis, and a guy by the name of Bobby Donovan, now deceased. It turned out Donovan had carried a reputation as a first-class safe-cracker in his day, and Garcia had pursued that angle as best he could. That, in turn, had brought up another name from that part of the country: Brett Rooker.
And my goodness but did that name stir up a hornets’ nest of trouble.
Unfortunately, no present whereabouts could be determined for him.
After a week of digging around in St. Louis and its suburbs to the east, he’d found nothing else on Rooker, but he had stumbled across another tenuous lead. Apparently Rooker had some sort of connection to a man named John Harper. And that name, after a lot more digging and after liberally spreading around some of the cash provided by his current employers, had pointed him in the general direction of South Florida.
Beyond that, though? Again, nothing. Like Rooker, Harper seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Just as he’s been about to despair and give up, however, his poking around about Florida—phone calls and conversations, mostly, while he was still in St. Louis—had led him to focus on a spot a bit further up the Atlantic coast. A spot allegedly connected somehow to John Harper.
This lead seemed intriguing. Enough so to cause him to drive all the way down to check on it for himself.
Bypassing Gainesville by way of a complicated series of intersections and traffic lights, he worked his way around to Florida State Road 20 East. Up ahead in the distance was Palatka, and then the road curved southeast toward the Atlantic coast. And toward Flagler Beach.
Once there, Garcia spent the rest of Wednesday, all of Thursday and all of Friday watching what he believed was the correct house. Three uneventful days and nights staking the place out, all of which resulted in nothing but cramps all over his body, heartburn from bad takeout food, and general sleep deprivation.
He was well and truly getting sick of Flagler Beach.
But then, on the fourth day, everything changed.
30
Saturday, seven days before the heist:
The fourth day of Garcia’s stakeout began no differently from the previous three.
Had it really been three days? Yes, he realized, it had.
For three long days Garcia had spent most of his waking hours sitting in his blue Chrysler, parked a short distance down a side street from the salt-washed little one-story house he believed belonged to John Harper. Occasionally he would make a run for sandwiches or coffee at the Purple Pelican near the pier. And now and then he’d go back to his room at the Beachcomber Motel (“Swimming pool! Color TV!” The sign outside his room advertised) for bathroom breaks or a little sleep that didn’t involve sitting in the front seat of his car. Otherwise, though? Three days, sitting right there.
For most of that time, and increasingly so during the third day, he was certain he was wasting his time. Nobody came in, nobody went out. No car was parked in the driveway. No lights switched on inside. The house was empty and deserted. It was true that it was registered as belonging to one John Harper, but that wasn’t a particularly uncommon name. Garcia wouldn’t have been shocked to learn that there were two more of them just in this town alone, and two thousand of them in the entire state of Florida.
Even so, he doggedly sat there for three long days, watching and waiting. Surely, sooner or later, the house’s owner would turn up.
But, very early on the fourth day, someone else did instead.
About six a.m., as a yawning Garcia was munching on a breakfast of a cold ham sandwich and drinking coffee from a thermos, an old Ford sedan of indeterminate color rattled by. It pulled into the driveway of the Harper house and sat there idling a minute before the engine was switched off. This happened so suddenly and yet so casually that Garcia barely registered it at first. He took another bite of his sandwich, looked at the car, looked away—and then nearly choked on the bite. Was this Harper at last? He swallowed rapidly and then sat stock-still, watching and waiting to see who would get out of the car.
The door opened and a large figure in a dark trench coat and fedora emerged. As he fully exited the vehicle and strode across the short distance to the front door, Garcia came to appreciate his size: he was a big guy. Big and muscular looking, under that coat. Scary, even.
The guy stopped at the door, tried to open it, and got nowhere with it. Then he pulled something out of his coat pocket, went down on one knee, and started doing something to the knob. Picking the lock? Apparently so. Right there in the open; in what was, by this time, broad daylight. Well, the man certainly didn’t lack for boldness and determination.
And as he continued to stare at the guy, Garcia became convinced he’d seen him before; that he’d encountered a guy of that massive build previously. In Vegas. Yes. When he and his police partner had nearly captured the entire gang on their way out of the tunnels. This guy was one of them. It was hard to mistake that massive frame.
But was he Harper? Garcia didn’t know for sure, but he doubted Harper would have to pick the lock on his own front door.
So why was one of Harper’s string breaking into his house?
After another few seconds the big man succeeded in picking the lock. He opened the door and went inside. Garcia watched him and suppressed the desire to go in after him. It was way too dangerous and would put everything he’d achieved up to this point in jeopardy. Better, he knew, to sit tight, watch, and follow.
After about forty-five minutes the big guy emerged from the house. This time he was carrying two large duffel bags; so full were they, they looked to be about to burst.
Garcia blinked. The bags. He’d seen them before, too. And he knew what had been inside them before. His mouth watered. Was it the same thing now—a chunk of the change from Caesars Palace?
Pieces started to fall into place for Garcia. The money was here, or at least it had been until this moment. That meant this house definitely belonged to the right John Harper. But the big man wasn’t him. The big man was part of his string, and he was taking Harper’s share of the money. And he’d broken into the house to do it, which meant he probably wasn’t retrieving the cash as a favor to Harper.
The guy opened his trunk and put the bags inside, then slammed it closed and went
back inside.
Garcia frowned. Back in? What was he doing? He had the money. Was there more? What else was he doing here?
He couldn’t stand not knowing. He put on his hat and sunglasses, opened the door of his Chrysler and got out. He stepped briskly up onto the sidewalk, then strolled along as casually as he could manage to the intersection. There he turned and headed for the house he’d been watching.
At the last second he redirected himself off the sidewalk and into the grass of Harper’s yard, moving between it and the house just before it. Within a few steps he was behind a stand of short trees. He made his way around them and up to a side window. Very carefully he eased himself up to it and peered in.
It was a bedroom. Fortunately, the door was open onto a short hall, and at the other end of that was the kitchen. And there stood the big man. His hat rested on the kitchen table, and he held a black telephone to his ear, saying something into it. After a minute’s conversation he hung up, consulted a piece of paper he was holding, and dialed a number. What followed was a very brief conversation that seemed mostly one-sided, as if he were dictating something to a secretary. Garcia remained as still as possible and kept watching, trying to read the man’s lips but mostly failing. He was too far away. All Garcia could make out was the word “Flagler” and maybe “payment.”
After four or five more of these calls—and they all went pretty much the same way, during which time Garcia was sure he had those two words right, but couldn’t make out the rest—the big man hung up the phone for the last time, picked up his fedora and put it back on, and moved to exit the house.
Quickly Garcia crossed back over the side yard to the house next door. He went around behind it and out the far side, now coming out onto the sidewalk two houses down from Harper’s. He continued on along the sidewalk without looking back, moving at a normal pace in case the big man happened to see him. When he turned the corner and came up on his Chrysler, he was able to see Harper’s driveway in his peripheral vision and noted that the big guy was back in his old Ford, starting it up. Garcia let himself into his Chrysler as the Ford was backing out of the driveway and turning to go in the opposite direction. That was a good sign; he figured if the man had seen him and had been suspicious at all, he would have done a quick and casual drive-by just to get a look.
Garcia cranked up the Chrysler and pulled out into the street. He waited a couple of seconds longer than necessary at the stop sign, to let the Ford get a bit further away, then pulled out and followed it.
No, this guy wasn’t Harper. But he knew Harper, had worked with him on the Vegas heist, had taken Harper’s money, and was definitely working an angle now. It was easily the best lead Garcia had gotten since St. Louis. So of course he followed along at a distance and kept a very close eye on that Ford. He wondered how many days he’d have to watch the big man before he learned something else.
31
As it turned out, Garcia had to wait less than a day.
The big man drove from Harper’s house straight to a nearby restaurant, went inside and helped himself to a massive breakfast. Garcia, meanwhile, sat in his car again, a block south, watched the man eat, and envied him. He hadn’t had a decent meal since leaving St. Louis, days ago.
The breakfast went on and on, but eventually the guy seemed to have eaten everything the restaurant had available, so he paid his bill and exited it. Then he made his way back to his Ford and hit the streets again, Garcia once more in tow. The guy certainly didn’t appear to suspect anyone was following him. But, then again, why should he?
Garcia was surprised and yet not surprised to see that they were going back to Harper’s house. As soon as he figured that out, he peeled away and made a few turns, approaching the neighborhood from a different angle. He didn’t want to return to the same spot where he’d parked before; that might surely attract the big man’s notice. Instead he made two additional turns and pulled up along the curb on a street that ran toward the beach, but from where he could still see Harper’s house.
At first he panicked, because the Ford was nowhere to be seen. Had he lost the guy? After all this? Sweat broke out on his forehead. But then he noticed the dirt-colored sedan pulling along the curb very close to where he himself had parked earlier. It stopped and the engine shut off, but the guy didn’t get out this time. He sat there and watched and waited, like Garcia was doing.
And the two of them sat there for five more hours.
At one point it became excruciating, and Garcia had to relieve himself in an empty Coke bottle. He prayed during those moments a cop didn’t come strolling along and see him. Fortunately, the neighborhood was mostly empty. The only people to be seen were occasional tourists and locals walking along the highway that fronted the beach, a couple of blocks to the east.
At the end of five hours, things perked up at last.
A bright blue sports car of a model that Garcia didn’t recognize roared down the street and swerved into the driveway of the house. The door opened instantly and a tall, dark-haired man in a dark suit and tie got out. He moved smoothly but at obvious haste to the front door, unlocked it with a key, and went inside.
A key. So. His house, probably. This, then, must be Harper.
He figured it was a safe bet.
Not five minutes later, a visibly shaken Harper came back out of the house and got into his blue sportscar and tore out of there. Clearly he had just discovered all his money had been taken. A few moments later, the big man in the Ford pulled away from the curb and followed along behind him.
Garcia in turn followed him.
It was a strange feeling for Garcia, knowing that he was the only one of the three people in their little parade who knew there actually was a parade. He chuckled at this, and dug another ham sandwich out of his bag.
Separately yet together, the three cars raced back down the highway toward Miami.
And that was how Ricky Garcia learned who and where Harper was, and that a former associate of his had stolen his money and was shadowing him.
He had no idea what it could mean, but he had no doubt the information would prove extremely useful, and probably sooner rather than later.
32
Thursday, two days before the heist:
Brett Rooker walked into O’Hanaran’s Bar in downtown Miami and immediately a lull fell over the din of conversation. The few people here and there around the main room looked up at him, did a double take—he was a big man, hulking almost, wearing a heavy overcoat and fedora despite the oppressive fall South Florida heat—and looked quickly away. Within a few moments the noise level was back where it had been when he’d entered. Satisfied, he strolled over to an empty table near the far wall and lowered himself into the protesting chair.
A waitress hurried over and he ordered a Budweiser, then sat back and waited.
Something was bothering him. Something was going on, and he didn’t like it. But he couldn’t quite decide what it was.
A couple of minutes later the waitress delivered his Bud. As she set it on the table, he reached into his coat pocket and took out a partially crumpled pack of Marlboros, pulling one out and lighting it. He blew smoke into the humid air while surveying the sparse crowd. Nobody currently present looked like the person he was expecting to meet. So he kept his eyes on the front door and he drank his beer and he smoked his cigarette and he waited.
He’d felt like there were eyes on him for a couple of days now. Maybe since Flagler, even. Like someone was watching him. He had no evidence, no proof—not that he had to prove it to anyone but himself. But he couldn’t deny he felt that way, even now.
Part of him said that he was being silly; that he should dismiss such thoughts and focus on the job at hand. But he couldn’t shake the sense that he was not in complete control. And he hated that.
Not being in complete control had cost him dearly before, in Vegas. He had played the role of the big dumb muscle guy while setting the other members of the string up for a fall. But that wild c
ard, Monti, had ruined everything. Rooker had simply intended to shoot the others and take their shares of the money once it was all over. Monti, who technically hadn’t even been part of their string, had squeezed his way in and then—quite literally—blown everything up. He had even shot Rooker, for good measure.
When Rooker had recovered from his injuries, he had been saddened to learn that Monti had been killed a short time later. Such plans he’d had for the guy, once he’d caught up to him.
Ah well. Things were working out much better this time around. He already had Harper’s Vegas money, as well as Salsa’s. Soon enough he would have the broad’s money, too. He’d gone by her house the day after he arrived in South Florida with all sorts of bad intentions, but she hadn’t been home. Rather than breaking in and searching, as he had done with Harper‘s house, he decided to be patient and wait. They were other things he wanted from the widow besides her bag of cash.
The big prize, of course, was whatever Harper and his people were working on now. That was why Harper and Salsa were still alive: he wanted that operation to go forward and succeed, so he could then relieve them of their second haul of cash, along with their lives. Had he been a more reflective man, he might have considered that the two of them surviving Vegas actually worked out in his favor, because they were about to provide them with even more money before they died. Not being terribly reflective, though, he simply daydreamed about the creative ways he would go about killing them.
The thing they were currently setting up was also the reason he was presently sitting in this bar, waiting. When he had still been in St. Louis, he had made quite a few phone calls, to old contacts and new ones. Eventually he was connected with a guy who claimed to be in on Harper’s current operation. Everything that person had told him had so far proven to be accurate, so now here he was, waiting to meet the guy in person and set up the last details, face-to-face.
Miami Heist Page 13
