Rooker had started on his second cigarette and his third beer when the door of the bar opened and a fellow walked in who was entirely plausible as the person he was looking for.
In just about any other crowd, the guy would have appeared imposing. He was large and heavyset, with a bald head and a blunt nose. He wore dark jeans and a blue short-sleeve shirt, along with an expression of general annoyance. He stood there a couple of seconds, looking around, his eyes eventually landing on Rooker. Then he raised his right hand and rubbed his bald pate in the prearranged signal. Rooker motioned for him to come over.
“You’re Rooker?” the guy asked as he approached.
Rooker rose from his chair and nodded his head once, and it was like the Hulk greeting the Thing in those new Marvel comic books.
The other guy took in Rooker’s frame and visibly blanched. Rooker suppressed a laugh. He was used to people being intimidated by his appearance, and it was never funnier than when it was another big guy who thought he was the baddest man in the room—until he met Rooker.
“Mike Wilson,” the guy said in a surprisingly high and nasally voice. He stuck a hand out and Rooker shook it. “Good to know ya.”
They both sat down. Before they could say much else, the waitress drifted back over to ask Wilson for his order. She did a double-take when she saw the size of the two guys sitting there. It looked like she was about to say something about it, but decided it was better not to.
“I’ll have a Bud,” Wilson said, seeing the one already on the table.
The waitress, an older woman with curly red hair, nodded and moved laconically away. By the time she came back to drop off the icy bottle, they had gotten past the pleasantries and were deep in conversation.
“Ruby Island,” Rooker was saying. “Huh.” He made a show of thinking about the name. “No,” he concluded after a couple of seconds, “never heard of it.”
Wilson proceeded to lay out the plans, just the way Harper had described them at Big Bob Bigelow’s mildewy house a few hours earlier that evening.
Rooker took it all in and nodded. “Not the best plan I’ve ever heard,” he observed, “and, really, I would expect better from Harper. But I guess the lure of that much money…”
“Gold,” Wilson breathed. “Bricks and bricks of it.”
“Gold. Yeah.” Rooker ran a meaty hand over his jaw. “And you think it’s real?”
Wilson shrugged. “Harper and Salsa both claimed they found some of it when they were searching the house. Would they go to this much risk if it wasn’t true?”
Rooker thought that over and shrugged. Either it was true or they were up to something else. Whichever way, there was surely a lot of money involved. Rooker didn’t much care where it was coming from. He just wanted to be in the right place to take it away from them once it was done.
“So this Big Bob fella is planning a double-cross, then?”
Wilson nodded furtively. “But he’s gonna wait until we get to the truck.”
“Yeah,” Rooker said. “That’s smart. Let them do some of the heavy lifting before you take them out.”
“Exactly. Plus the truck will be at what Bob calls ‘a remote location.’ No witnesses.”
Rooker liked the sound of that. He made a mental note about it.
“And what exactly is this truck’s location going to be?”
“I’m not sure,” Wilson replied. “Harper’s taking care of that.”
“Of course he is,” Rooker grunted. He suppressed his disappointment at that. But he supposed he had no reason to expect to get all the information from this one guy.
Wilson finished his beer and waved to the waitress for another.
“Oh,” Rooker said. He reached into his coat and drew forth a thick envelope. “I owe you this.” Now in the possession of several rather large bags of cash, he felt remarkably comfortable handing out little packets of cash in exchange for good information. Particularly to people he anticipated killing later. He expected he would be getting the money back at that point.
Wilson accepted the envelope and tucked it away.
“The next time you see me,” Rooker said, “it’ll be time to make our move. You’ll know what to do.” And by that, of course, Rooker meant fall down and die with the others when I shoot you.
“You got it,” Wilson replied.
“But if you get any funny ideas,” Rooker added, “I’d advise you to talk to the last guy who double-crossed me. Except, oh, you can’t. Cause he’s dead.”
Having said that, Rooker stood up and took off his trench coat, then bent down and hung it on the back of his chair. As he did, Wilson got a very clear view not only of the man’s immense physique but also of the red scar that ran down his thick neck and disappeared beneath his collar. Rooker noticed him looking, as intended, and grinned. “That, yeah,” he said as he sat back down. “A souvenir from Vegas. Some people bring back snow globes.” He chuckled. “The guy thought shooting me from about as far away as you are now was a good idea. That and burying me under half of the state of Nevada. Well…” He spread his hands wide and grinned, and it was a bone-chilling grin. “...You can see how that worked out.”
33
Saturday, the day of the heist:
Lois Funderburk—former Las Vegas showgirl and trophy wife, now independently wealthy widow and socialite—was finishing tidying up her house just to the southeast of Coral Gables and to the northeast of Coconut Grove. She’d already dressed and done her makeup, and a quick check in her hall mirror confirmed that she looked good. Now she was just killing time before she was due to meet Harper and Connie at 4 p.m. at the pier in Miami. From there they would take the ferry over to Ruby Island, and then the fun would begin.
Salsa, of course, had left about an hour earlier. He was transporting the houseboat to the spot where it would be launched. She wasn’t expecting to see him again until the heist was done. He would be helping carry the gold bricks from the mansion down to the boat, while she and Harper’s girlfriend, Connie, were doing their part to keep the crowd in the main hall pacified.
She was hoping she had time to get in a game or two of bridge before the big event. She’d found she quite liked it.
The house was as clean and straight as it would ever be. She hadn’t had to do much; her cleaning woman came in twice a week. Sitting down on the sofa, she picked up a magazine, knowing she only had about ten more minutes before it would be time to go. Outside, the sky was an eerie shade of gray, growing darker by the minute, and the rain was picking up.
As she flipped through the pages, there came a knock at the door. Three, actually: slow and deliberate.
Lois frowned, puzzled. Who could that be? Salsa wouldn’t have bothered to knock. Harper would be busy with a hundred other things. Who else could it be? Normally, she would have assumed it was a friend or neighbor. But the timing… She didn’t like it. It put her off her rhythm. And if it was a friend or neighbor, she’d have to run them out in just a few minutes.
Annoyed, she put down the magazine. Her dark green dress ruffled around her as she walked to the door. She hesitated before opening it. Instead she moved quietly over to the nearest window and peeked out.
A beat-up Ford, mostly brown in color, was parked right there in her driveway. Right where Salsa normally parked his red Mustang.
She angled around a bit more and through the downpour she could just see the partial shape of a man standing at her door. But she couldn’t make anything out about him; it looked like he was wearing a long coat of some kind that concealed much of his shape and appearance.
Quietly she moved back to the door and called out, “Yes?”
“Mrs. Funderburk?” came a deep, rough voice from the other side. “Harper sent me.”
Lois blinked at this. “He did.” She said it not as a question but as a statement of very dubious fact.
“He did,” the deep voice echoed.
Lois was in no hurry to open the door, particularly to a stranger and especially w
hen she was home alone. “What’s it about?” she called back.
“About some business we have going on tonight,” the voice said.
He knew. Lois considered that. He knew about the business that evening. That was a good sign, right? Nobody would know about it unless they were in on it. And he’d said we, not you.
A pause, and then the voice added, “I don’t think you want me yelling about it out here in front of God and everyone.”
Lois swallowed. That much was certainly true. She knew Harper and Salsa would be apoplectic at the thought that she was shouting about the island gig through her front door, to a strange man in an overcoat. “All right,” she called back, “just a minute.”
She unlocked the door and opened it.
A big, hulking shape loomed there, almost filling the entire space of the door frame. He was wearing a trench coat and a fedora, so that she couldn’t make out his features. In his left hand he carried a leather bag. He started into the house, and it was like a Sherman tank rolling into the Ardennes Forest. Lois immediately realized there would be no stopping him, if she needed to.
“Howdy, ma’am,” the big man said. “It’s good to see you again.”
Lois stepped back a couple of steps, confused. “Do I know you?” she asked.
The big guy grabbed the door with his left hand and closed it gently, then turned to face her again. His right hand was in his coat pocket. Continuing to use his left hand, he took off the wet fedora and tossed it onto an end table. Now she could see him, and the broad grin that erupted across his wide, brutal face.
“You knew me a while back, briefly,” he said. His hand came out of the pocket and she saw he was holding a pistol on her. “Back in Vegas.”
“Oh my god,” Lois gasped, the blood draining out of her face. “Yes—yes, I do remember…” She frowned. “But they told me you were dead.”
“People have made that mistake about me before,” he said. “By the way—the name’s Rooker. Brett Rooker.”
“What do you want here, Mr. Rooker?” Lois asked, terrified of each of the various possible answers that came to her mind unbidden.
The big man shrugged. “Eh, I just want to talk a little bit, that’s all,” he said. Still holding the gun on her, he waved her over to an overstuffed recliner with a floral print on it and motioned for her to sit down. Then he set the leather bag on the table next to his hat.
Lois stumbled backward and dropped into the seat. “Talk? Talk about what?” And before he could answer, assuming he was even going to, her mouth ran on with, “I’m sorry, but I’m expected somewhere very soon, and if I don’t show up—”
“Yeah,” Rooker said, “if you don’t show up, Salsa and Harper will wonder what’s going on. I don’t doubt that. But,” he said, and the grin widened again, “you and I both know they won’t cancel the whole operation just because you…” He waved his non-gun-holding hand around airily. “...overslept or something.”
“I think they’ll come looking for me,” she asserted, growing angry.
“I’m sure they will,” he replied. “Right after the heist.” He shrugged. “But by then, it’ll be too late.”
“Too late?” Lois whitened.
Rooker snorted a laugh. “Oh—not like that,” he said. “Jeez, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m not planning on killing you, lady.” Then the smile evaporated and his expression became deadly serious. “At least,” he went on, “not unless you won’t tell me where your share of the Vegas money is. In which case, well, I still wouldn’t necessarily kill you, but…” He shrugged as he let that last word trail off into dark and portentous silence.
Ignoring her pleas and protestations, he pulled a couple of lengths of thin, light rope out of his leather bag and proceeded to tie Lois Funderburk to her chair.
“So yeah,” he said once he was finished with that job. “Let’s have that conversation now. Whaddya say?”
And he reached into the bag.
34
In the days since his arrival in South Florida on the trail of Brett Rooker, Ricky Garcia had made a few contacts and found a few sources of his own. One of them in particular would have been very familiar to Rooker: It turned out Mike Wilson would spill his guts about the upcoming island heist to anyone willing to buy him a couple of drinks. Garcia wondered how the guy had stayed out of prison as long as he had.
After only the briefest of conversations with Wilson, Garcia figured he knew almost everything Rooker knew about the robbery. One positive side effect was that he no longer had to follow Rooker around every time the man drove somewhere. In fact, by now he could pretty much predict where the big man was going.
And so it came as no surprise when, on the afternoon of the day of the heist, Rooker had paid a visit to the Widow Funderburk. Garcia suspected Rooker had already robbed Harper and Salsa; it made sense that he’d want the woman’s share as well.
And maybe she had something more to offer, as well: information. Information Wilson had not possessed.
Knowing this was the day, Garcia tagged along dutifully behind Rooker’s old Ford and, sure enough, he was led right over to the tawny neighborhood of Coral Gables and to the house of one Mrs. Gold, also known as Lois Funderburk.
Garcia had suspected all along that was where the big guy was headed and he had already discovered the house's location. That meant he could avoid suspicion by turning off early, coming down a side street, and eventually parking his blue Chrysler partway down the nearest street running perpendicular to hers. Once there, he turned off the engine and waited to see what Rooker would do.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, that old dirt-colored Ford came chugging along and pulled right into her driveway as bold as anything. Moments after that, the massive form of Brett Rooker in his now-familiar trench coat and fedora climbed out into the rain and started for the front door.
Garcia felt an unexpected sense of dread and uncertainty run through him. He’d left his old life behind and gotten himself into this, months ago, with pure determination and with no sense of sympathy whatsoever for any of the perpetrators he was tracking down. None for Harper, none for Salsa, and none for this woman. They had, after all, broken into a casino in his town and taken millions of dollars out. He wanted to see them all sent away for years and years, busting big rocks into little rocks. He also wanted to recover all that money, so that he could, obviously, bring it back and, um, hand it over to the proper, um, authorities, and, um… Well, that part he wasn’t quite as clear on. But he definitely wanted to recover the money. He would decide what became of some or all of it once he had it. But the perpetrators? Again—he had no sympathy for them at all.
At least, that’s what he had been telling himself. But now, having seen the brutal Rooker in action a couple of times, and seeing him go inside this house, and knowing that there was probably just a single woman alone in there—a woman who probably was sitting on a few million dollars—he wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t do something. But what?
The last thing he wanted to do was tip his hand and let Rooker know he even existed, much less that he was onto most of what the guy was up to. All things being equal, he would have been content to just sit there in his car patiently and wait for Rooker to finish whatever he was doing, and then, when the big man drove away, he would carry on with following him. There were just a few hours left before the big score and Garcia intended to be waiting for them at the end of it. To sweep them up and relieve them of all that money. He felt like the only thing that could mess that up now would be if he barged in through the front door like the Lone Ranger, to rescue one criminal from another.
No way. He was not going to do that. He was not going to be that stupid. He would not let his concern for this woman’s safety ruin everything he had worked so hard for, all these months.
He sat there perhaps another three minutes, squirming uncomfortably, the second hand on his watch moving with all the speed of a glacier. The angel on one of his shoulders and the devil on the o
ther were having a real knock-down, drag-out now, with him stuck in the middle.
At last he couldn’t stand it anymore.
With an audible sigh of exasperation, Garcia opened the door of his Chrysler, got out into the elements, and started down the sidewalk. He used a similar approach to what he had done at Flagler Beach, taking various angles and going around behind houses so there would be a very minimal likelihood of Rooker seeing him approach. Finally he made it to the right house. He crept around the nearest corner, sloshing through puddles in the grass, and came to a side window through which he could see the living room.
Just peeking over the windowsill, he could see Lois Funderburk tied to a chair while Rooker’s massive form towered over her. On the floor behind Rooker was one of those duffel bags he recognized from after the Vegas heist, though it looked only about a quarter full. Rooker was holding a bladed weapon in his left hand and a pistol in his right, and he was making threatening noises in a relatively subdued tone. The woman was answering him with short sentences, but Garcia couldn’t make out what she was saying. She seemed understandably fearful but not overly hysterical, and he was impressed. So far, it looked like she was still intact.
Then Rooker waved the gun around and shouted something. Garcia heard what the woman said back to him: “I’m telling you the truth. I found ways to make most of it look legitimate, and now it’s in the bank, or invested. I keep a percentage in cash on hand here, and you’ve got that now, and you’re welcome to it. Don’t you think I would happily trade a few dollars for my life?”
The big man replied with something low and guttural García couldn’t understand, and he raised the gun. At that point the detective became absolutely convinced Rooker was about to shoot the woman. So this was it: he had to make the call and he had to do it right now. Was he going to charge in there and try to save her—and likely get himself killed—or…?
And then he had another idea.
Miami Heist Page 14
