“I’ve called the police!” he shouted as loudly as he could through the glass. “They’re on their way!”
Rooker spun around, furious, gun at the ready. Garcia dropped below the windowsill just in the nick of time to avoid being seen. Quickly he crept around the corner of the house to another window that let in on the living room, and peeked in again.
Rooker was at the window Garcia had just abandoned, looking through it to the left and right. The rain was making it extremely difficult to see anything, Garcia knew. After a few seconds Rooker turned back and approached the woman again.
“Who was that?” he demanded. “One of your nosy neighbors?”
“I’m sure it was,” Lois replied. “This is a very upscale neighborhood. They probably didn’t like the looks of your car. People take safety and security very seriously here. If someone called the police, they’ll be here in less than two minutes. We pay them very well.”
Rooker shook his head at this and raised the pistol again.
“If the cops find a dead body here,” Lois said quickly, “especially in this part of town, there’s going to be a manhunt—a dragnet across the whole area by nightfall. Is that what you want?” She stuck out her jaw at him defiantly, since it was the only body part she could move. “How will roadblocks and searches fit in with your plans for getting away with all that cash?”
Rooker appeared to think about this for a long moment. Then he made up his mind. He stuck the pistol back in his coat pocket and put his terrifying collection of tools back in the leather bag. He lifted it along with the duffel bag, nodded once to the lady, and headed toward the front door. As he opened it he looked back and said, “You’re keeping most of your money as well as your life. That means you’re making out better than ninety percent of the people I deal with, and a hundred percent better than your boyfriend and his pal. You should consider yourself lucky.”
And before she could say anything to that, he was out the door and into his car and backing out of the driveway.
Now Garcia faced a choice: Keep following Rooker or go inside and talk to the woman.
Following Rooker was chancy. He’d been fortunate a couple of times the past few days, having to hang back so far that he nearly lost sight of the old Ford. Wilson had told Garcia a lot, but he hadn’t mentioned the location where the boat would be coming ashore to rendezvous with the truck, to transport the gold away. And Garcia was convinced that bottleneck would be where Rooker made his play. If Garcia lost Rooker now, in this storm, it would all have been for nothing.
The woman, on the other hand, probably knew everything about the heist that was about to go down. She could probably lead him right to the landing spot. Maybe even get him there ahead of Rooker.
By the time he decided to go with the widow, the old brown car had turned a corner and was gone into the rain anyway.
Feeling like he was taking an awfully big gamble, but with no other choices left, Garcia opened the door Rooker had just closed and walked into the Widow Funderburk’s house.
35
Lois was busily working on the knots in the rope holding her to the chair when her front door opened and another strange man walked into her house, his clothes soaked and dripping.
“Well, just come on in,” she exclaimed, almost frazzled beyond caring at this point. “I’m afraid there’s no money left here, though. The guy just before you took it all. If you hurry, maybe you can catch him.”
The man raised his empty hands before him. “I’m a detective,” he said.
He crossed the room to where she sat and leaned down, looking at the knots that held her. With a few seconds of work, he had them undone.
Lois stood up and flexed her fingers, relieved to be freed and to have the feeling coming back into her extremities. “Thank you,” she said.
She looked at the guy. He was just a bit shorter than her—but of course she was a former Vegas showgirl, so she was used to being taller than a lot of men. He was slender and dark-haired, with a thin mustache. “You’re a cop?” she asked.
“I’m a private detective,” he answered. He hesitated, then, “I was a cop. In Las Vegas.”
Lois’s blood froze in her veins. She forced herself to act nonchalant. “Oh, really? Las Vegas? How interesting.”
“I know who you are,” he said, “and what you and your friends did last New Year’s.”
“Do you now?” Lois casually glanced around her living room, looking for the heaviest object available. “And what might that have been?”
“The Caesars Palace job.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. The marble bookend on the shelf to her right appeared promising. “I used to live in Las Vegas, but I moved away before that particular casino opened.”
“That’s correct, but then, it wasn’t exactly open during the job I’m referring to. And of course there was also that business at the Mint.”
She frowned at this. “The Mint? Someone robbed the US Mint?”
“The casino of that name,” he said. “But you already knew that.”
She stared at him blankly. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re inferring, Mr.…?”
“Garcia. I’m Ricky Garcia.” He held out his hand but she just looked at it like it was a strange animal that had wandered into her living room. After a moment he lowered it and continued. “I know all about you and your friends. I also know Brett Rooker just robbed you, and he also robbed your boyfriend, a Saul Salzman, as well as a John Harper.”
Lois caught that. John Harper, he’d said. Not Davenport, the name Harper was going by these days. This man Garcia knew more about their business than anyone should have. Lois felt herself growing cold inside. He could be a problem. That marble bookend was looking better and better.
She covered her visceral reaction with a smile and a turn, reaching onto the kitchen counter for her pack of cigarettes. “You seem to think you know a lot of things, Mr. Garcia,” she said. As she took out a cigarette he stepped forward and produced a lighter for her. She accepted his assistance, inhaled, exhaled to the side and thanked him. As she did so, she inspected him with narrowing eyes, trying to figure out what his game was.
She turned and walked a few steps away from him, then looked back coyly. “If you think all these terrible things you’re saying are true—if I’m such a hardened criminal—why don’t you have me in handcuffs right now?”
“I should,” he said. “But after everything I’ve seen the last few days, I’ve just about decided I should be focusing all my attention on Mr. Rooker.”
“Oh?” Her eyes widened.
“I know he was part of your team in Vegas. I’ve been watching him. Followed him down here from St. Louis, in fact. He seems by far the worst of your lot. He’s even coming back after the rest of you now.” Garcia looked off toward the living room window, and the sheets of rain falling beyond it. “I could be persuaded, given the right level of cooperation, to concentrate on bringing him in alone.”
“Could you now?” Lois registered this as the first sign of legitimate hope thus far. Up until that moment, she’d been certain Garcia was going to have to come to a bad end.
“I believe so,” he replied. “But, as I said, I’d need your cooperation. Your help.”
“My help?” She stared at him flatly.
“Yes. I think he’s planning to ambush your boyfriend and Mr. Harper as soon as they come back from Ruby Island. I need to get there before that happens.”
“And why is that?” she asked.
Garcia shrugged. “To prevent Rooker from killing them.”
“Right,” Lois said, dubious. She regarded him sidelong as she leaned against the counter. “And your sudden deep concern for their health is something I should just believe at face value.”
Garcia shrugged again. “I don’t want to see anyone get killed needlessly. I want Rooker and I want the money, and I want to take them both back to Nevada with me. If, in the process of securing those
two things, I can prevent people from dying, well…” He smiled. “I would be that much more a hero, wouldn’t I?”
Lois took another drag on her cigarette, then stubbed it out in the sink. “You aren’t planning on letting anyone go,” she said. “You want Harper and Salsa alive because you can’t take them back as prisoners if they’re dead.” And then more of it clicked in her mind. “You said you used to be a cop in Vegas. Now you’re a private detective. What happened? Did you get fired because you let the people that did that robbery get away? And you think I did that? Me and my friends?”
“I know you did,” Garcia said, offering her a thin smile. “But we’re beyond that now. We’re making a deal.”
“You’ll have to excuse me if I happen to think being accused of a major robbery is a big deal,” she said with all the sense of indignity she could muster. “And if it’s hard to trust someone who thinks things like that.” Lois was determined not to admit anything if she didn’t have to. She needed this guy to offer something concrete, not just vague and empty promises.
Garcia sighed heavily and put his hands on his hips. He looked away for a moment, clearly thinking about things. Thinking it all over. Finally he appeared to come to a conclusion, and she waited, tense, to find out what it might be.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t have time to debate this endlessly. Rooker is on the move and your boyfriend is one of his main targets.”
Lois nodded. “So, let’s make a real deal,” she said.
Garcia looked at her warily. “What kind of deal do you have in mind?”
“A deal where you take down that vicious thief and murderer, Mr. Rooker, and get all the glory for it, and then you go away and stop saying these ridiculous things about me and my friends.”
Garcia eyed her sidelong. “And let you and your friends skate on the whole Vegas heist.”
She shrugged. “You suggested it first. And it would be the fair thing to do,” she said, “since we had nothing to do with any casino robbery.”
He rolled his eyes at that, as she had known he would. But she still had to say it. To stick to that line to the bitter end.
“And I’ll agree to that because—?”
“Because you need my help to find the alleged rendezvous point, so you can catch Rooker in the act of robbing my friends. Who may or may not be involved in something money-related tonight,” she added quickly.
Garcia looked like he was about to burst out laughing at that. Then he stood there silently a minute, thinking. This gratified Lois, because it meant that maybe she was drawing up a proposal he could go for.
“I get Rooker and the money,” Garcia said. “You and your friends walk, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
“The money?”
“The money from Vegas. I have to take that back with me. All of it.”
“I don’t know about any Vegas money,” she said. “But if Rooker has cash on him when you capture him, I for one certainly wouldn’t make a fuss about you taking it back to whoever it belongs to. You could even include what he just stole from me. I would consider it a good investment in my health and safety.”
Even as she said that, Lois was thinking, That’s not a problem, my man. Take my Vegas money. I wasn’t lying when I told that thug Rooker that most of my share is already invested and beyond anyone else’s reach. You’d just be getting what Rooker got from me: my spending cash. And with the gold from Ruby Island, Saul and John and I will be doing fine. After tonight, the Vegas haul will be small potatoes.
“Fine,” Garcia said, raising both hands toward her as if she were robbing him. “I suspect that’s probably as good an arrangement as I’m going to be able to make with you.”
Inwardly Lois wanted to shout in celebration, but outwardly she remained utterly calm. She didn’t want to accept the deal too quickly. It needed to seem like it was a tough, tough decision. She waited a little longer while he sweated, as the seconds ticked by and Rooker got farther and farther away. Finally, she met his eyes, exhaled heavily, and said, “All right. I agree to your terms. You’ll get Rooker and let us go free.”
“And the Vegas money,” he said.
She nodded. “If this alleged Vegas money actually exists, then—hypothetically speaking—I would not object to you taking it. But I can’t speak for the others.” Inside she wondered how this would ultimately play out. She doubted that Harper or Salsa would respect or honor the deal she made without them present and participating. But it wasn’t a terrible deal. She would just have to explain it to them and hope they understood.
Now—where’s the rendezvous?”
“It’s better if I show you.”
Garcia started. “What? No! You’re not coming with me.”
“Certainly I am,” she countered. “At least, that’s the only way you’re getting that information from me. Unless you’re planning to tie me down and torture me like Rooker was about to do.”
Garcia looked at her strangely, and for an instant Lois wondered if she had misjudged the man. She wondered if this ex-cop might actually be capable of such a thing—of torturing her for information. She started to sweat a little and again glanced over at the marble bookend. She was regretting not allowing Salsa to keep a gun stashed away in her house.
But then the moment passed.
“If you don’t give me that information,” he said, his voice flat now, “Rooker will be lying in wait for your friends, and they will walk right into his ambush. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “But I’m not going to sit here and wait and maybe never hear from you again, and never see them again. The sooner we leave here, the better.”
She waited while Garcia took this in, hoping she had made her feelings on the matter clear enough.
The man inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. He nodded. “Fine, fine,” he growled. “If you want to put yourself in harm’s way, that’s your business. But the clock is ticking. We have to go.”
Lois beamed. She decided this was working out as well as it could, under the circumstances.
That settled, and as the two of them exited the house and emerged into the storm, she began to consider the most effective way to get Rooker and Garcia to kill one another.
36
Just after the heist:
The Army truck—the one filled with all the disguised gold bricks from Ruby Island—bounced onto US Highway 41 and disappeared into the storm. Harper stood in the parking lot and watched it go with an overwhelming sense of impotence and rage.
To make matters worse, Brett Rooker had taken it. The man who had sought to betray them during the Vegas business—the man Harper had believed dead for months—had somehow come back from the grave and inserted himself into their heist. He’d shot and killed Big Bob Bigelow and his friend, Oscar Diaz, and after peppering a few shots in the direction of Harper, Salsa and Connie, he’d stomped on the gas pedal and taken off with the gold.
With their gold.
And the question wasn’t just how Rooker had survived Vegas, Harper thought as he re-holstered his Colt and made his way over to Salsa and Connie. How had he known about the Ruby Island job, and been in just the right place to ambush them afterward and take the haul?
Harper tried to get past the shock of seeing Rooker alive again and think clearly. The plan had been for everyone to pile into the Army truck, drive it straight to the warehouse they had rented on the far side of Coconut Grove, and unload the gold there. Consequently, they hadn’t parked any other cars here. Their other vehicles were waiting at the warehouse, miles away. Harper had intended to take the truck out US 41 into the swamp and dump it, with Salsa following in his own car to bring Harper back.
It looked like Rooker was taking that same swamp route now. He had made a right out of the parking lot and then a left onto US 41. Harper figured he meant to take that highway right across the peninsula to Naples, and then head north, up the Gulf Coast, and away—before anyone on this side of the state even knew there had
been a robbery. During a hurricane, a big Army truck would look perfectly normal running around; it was probably delivering relief supplies, people would think. No one would look twice.
Harper was about to ask Salsa if he’d seen that face; if Harper had been hallucinating or if Salsa had recognized Rooker, too. But at that moment the rain slackened a bit and he detected the faint outline of a car parked on the other side of a dumpster about forty yards away.
Harper didn’t hesitate. He sprinted towards it. As he went, he called back for Salsa and Connie to follow him.
The rain that hit him in the face was cool; the force of the winds nearly drove him backwards a couple of times. Finally, though, he made it to the car, and looked it over. It was a late-model Lincoln, the color either white or pale yellow. In the rain, he couldn’t be sure, and didn’t care. The door was locked, but he didn’t have time to let that be an obstacle. He pulled out his Colt and used the butt to smash the window. Then he reached in and unlocked the door.
It was good to get even partially under some cover and out of the rain, even though he had to lie over the seat in such a way that his bottom half was still outside, exposed to the elements. He reached under the dashboard and felt around, hoping he still remembered how to hotwire a car in a hurry. It had been a while since he’d last had to put those skills to use.
The one thing working in their favor was that Rooker was driving that old Army truck. A very slow old Army truck. If he’d been in virtually anything else, there would be zero chance of catching up to him.
Then Harper frowned as a thought occurred to him: What if Rooker had stashed some other vehicle a short distance away? What if he was even now transferring those disguised bricks to something else? What if Harper got this car running, only to find the truck a couple of miles away, empty and abandoned?
In that case, it was all over and done, and they had all lost and Rooker had won.
Harper gritted his teeth, refocusing his attention on what he was doing. He couldn’t afford idle speculation at the moment. Every second that ticked away was another point in Rooker’s column.
Miami Heist Page 15
