by EH Reinhard
“Pulling up now.” I looked at my five-story building approaching on my left and up at my balcony on the top floor. After selling the house that my ex-wife and I had lived in, and after a brief stint of living in a hotel, I’d plunked down the money, in full, for a downtown luxury condo. The place was nice, probably too nice for what I needed, but it was close to work and had a hell of a view of the Hillsborough Bay. After Samantha, I needed a drastic change. A downtown condo as opposed to a house in the suburbs seemed as though it fit the bill. I turned into my building’s driveway and stopped before the gates that led toward my underground parking.
“Plans for the evening?” Hank asked.
“Deal with Butch and sit on ass.”
“Do you want me to have Karen see what Steph is up to? Maybe we can all go out.”
Steph, short for Stephanie Donnell, was one of Hank’s wife’s single friends that they’d been trying to set me up with. Stephanie worked at the DEA, with Hank’s wife. While Stephanie seemed to check every last box that a man would look for in a woman, I just wasn’t all that interested in starting a relationship—and Stephanie most certainly was. She’d mentioned how sick of being single she was ad nauseam the last time I’d joined them on an impromptu double date. I had a feeling that if she actually felt that way, and wasn’t just trying to put a bug in my ear, she’d have no problem finding a man to spend time with.
“I think I’m just going to hang out at home, Hank. I have miscellaneous bullshit and laundry to do.”
“The old laundry excuse, huh?” Hank asked. “Were you going to wash your hair after that?”
“I was,” I said.
“What’s up with Steph, anyway? I guess she told Karen that she tried calling you a couple of times and you never got back to her.”
I thought about the last three times she’d called me and how I’d let the calls go to voicemail for fear of trying to think up an excuse on the fly. Stephanie had invited me to so many gatherings, functions, and events that I’d literally run out of excuses to use—I felt it best to just not try.
I rattled my fingertips against the top of my steering wheel. “I’m not really interested in dating anyone right now,” I said.
“You sure as hell should be interested in dating her. That chick is hot. Like model hot. Intelligent. Friendly. Career sorted out, the works.”
“I don’t want to get into it, Hank.”
“All right. Well, it’s my duty as your friend to tell you that you’re an idiot.”
“Got it,” I said. “It’s my duty as your boss to tell you that you have to work this weekend.”
“Ugh. You wouldn’t do that to me. Karen would have my ass. Okay, let me know if you change your mind.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“See you in the morning,” Hank said.
I clicked off and hit the button for the gates on my underground parking. I pulled in after they opened, parked in my assigned spot against the far wall, and rode the elevator up to my floor. My keys jingled in my hand as I found the one for my front door and slid the key into the lock. I heard the sound of paws running through my condo.
“Shit,” I said.
I let out a breath, turned the lock, and pushed the door open as I jammed my foot into the gap of the doorway. In a flash, my foot and ankle were engulfed with leopard-spotted fur. Fifteen pounds of not-yet-fully-grown, thrashing wild cat bit and clawed at my pants. Butch dropped to his side, held the toe of my shoe in his teeth, and clawed at the back of my ankle with his hind legs. I held up my foot, which he hung from, and closed the door at my back.
“That’s enough. Get,” I said. I shook my foot and Butch from it.
He sat and stared at me for a moment. I imagined that he was contemplating whether the duration of his attack was long enough. Apparently satisfied, he let out a short meow and walked to the kitchen.
“So you missed me today is what you’re saying?” I asked.
He let out another meow as he made a line for his food dish.
I followed the cat toward the kitchen and tossed everything from my pockets onto the granite breakfast bar. I hung my suit jacket over the back of one of my tall chairs and did the same with my shoulder holster.
I heard Butch meow again. He was at my feet, weaving around them and digging his head into my legs.
“So now you want to be nice? I bet it has nothing to do with wanting to be fed.” I reached down and gave him a petting. “Come on.”
I walked to the pantry, got his food, and filled his dish. He jammed his face into his bowl and started on his dinner.
“Happy now?” I asked.
He didn’t respond, just continued chewing.
I pulled open my refrigerator. Stark, mostly bare, with white shelves and a twelve-pack of beer staring back at me. My stomach grumbled. My dinner options that night looked to be takeout or delivery. I reached into the refrigerator, pulled a beer from the box, and swung the door closed. Butch was still working on his food—a suitable distraction so he wouldn’t try to attack me as I was going out on the patio, another one of his ambush points. I walked through my living room to my sliding glass patio doors and stepped out onto the balcony. I closed the door at my back and plopped down in my old weather-beaten camping chair. My beer hissed as I popped the top. I kicked my feet up onto the railing and looked out over the bay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The clock on the stolen van’s radio read a couple of minutes before three in the morning. The smell of gas was constant in David’s nose as he sat in the passenger seat. He stared through his binoculars, past the blacktop of the parking lot they’d parked in and past the grass, gravel, and railroad tracks. He turned the focusing wheel until the binoculars focused on the back of the gentleman’s club. He panned right and looked at the Maserati sedan, Solomon’s, parked near the rear door of the building. David panned to the left. A thin man wearing a baseball hat walked toward him. “Here he comes,” David said. He put the binoculars up on the dash.
A moment later the side sliding door of the van opened, and Brad hopped into the rear next to Chris.
“Well?” David asked. He looked over the corner of his seat at the back of the empty van. The seats had been removed. The big black duffel bag containing all of their gear lay in the center of the flat floor. In the back of the van were two gas cans—full and ready to be used to torch the van at a moment’s notice. Chris knelt behind the driver’s seat.
“There was a couple customers left in there still when they gave me the boot,” Brad said. He slammed the side door and pulled himself to the gap between the front seats.
“How many dancers, bar staff? How much security?” Tim asked.
David looked at Tim, who had picked up the binoculars and was looking over at the club.
“Maybe six or seven dancers. Probably three or four in bar staff. Three guys wearing security shirts,” Brad said.
“And Solomon? Did you see him inside?” David asked.
“Yeah. He was sitting with a group of people and then got up and walked toward the restrooms and back door of the club. From where I was sitting at the bar, I had a pretty good view. He walked down the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and stuck a key in a door on the opposite wall as the bathrooms. I walked back for a quick look. There was a small window in the locked door he walked through. It looked like another hallway with an office at the back.”
“It was locked, though?” David asked.
“Yeah, you’ll have to get through it somehow.”
“Okay. Anyone with Solomon when you saw him?” David asked.
Brad shook his head.
Tim set the binoculars up on the dash. “More people just left from inside. Some came from the front— the rest of the customers. Another three came from the rear exit—the bartenders. The security will walk the girls to the car. Make sure they leave without being hassled by any stragglers that were in the club.”
“So we have maybe five or six people left inside?” David asked.
“Yeah,” Brad said. “So are we waiting until it thins out some more?”
David ran his hand over his bald head. “Get suited up,” he said.
Tim left his position behind the steering wheel and turned into the rear area of the van.
David sat in the passenger seat and waited. He stared into the back of the van being lit by a single interior light. Chris and Tim put on their masks and hats. They each grabbed a pistol and extra magazine. Tim took one of three AR-15 rifles. Chris selected the shotgun he was fond of. Brad would stay dressed as he was and wait in the van as a lookout. Anything that seemed off or anything that came through the police scanner on the dash would be radioed in to David, Tim, and Chris immediately.
Brad took his position behind the wheel and grabbed the binoculars.
David rose from the passenger seat and got into the back of the van. He reached into the bag and grabbed his hat and mask with his gloved hands. David pulled the motorcycle mask over his face and snugged his baseball cap low.
“What are you seeing?” Tim asked.
“Looks like the girls are leaving,” Brad said. “Two of them already pulled from the parking lot. A couple more are walking out now. They’re being seen to their cars by one of the security guys I saw inside.” Brad paused for a moment. “Looks like that security guard is hopping in a truck and taking off.”
“Let me see,” David said. He turned, went to the gap between the seats, and looked out through the windshield at the club. Brad passed him the binoculars, and David brought them up to his eyes. He looked left and right and back again. Just the Maserati and two other vehicles remained. “I say we get this show on the road,” David said. “Are you guys ready?”
“Let’s do it,” Chris said.
David turned toward Chris, who was pulling open the rear sliding door. Tim jumped out.
Chris looked over his shoulder at David.
“It’s time to go to work,” David said.
The group left the van, stayed low, and made their way across the trucking depot’s parking lot and over the train tracks. David took up the rear, watching the back door of the club as they advanced. Tim, Chris, and David grouped at the back edge of the gentleman’s club’s parking lot. A single light, attached to the top back corner of the club, lit the area. Tim pointed to the right of Solomon’s Maserati at a pair of green dumpsters near the building’s back door. “That’s our spot until someone comes out?”
Chris nodded.
“Yeah,” David said.
They went single file, crouched, toward the garbage containers. Ten feet from them, David saw the back door of the club crack open.
“Door,” David said in a hard whisper.
The three began to jog, advancing on the door as it swung all the way open. Over Chris’s shoulder, David saw a single man in a black security shirt walking from the open door. The guard looked to be the better part of six feet and three hundred pounds. The security guard’s head snapped up, looking at the group running on him. He froze. Thirty feet, ten feet, five. Chris overtook Tim leading and delivered the butt of his shotgun directly to the guard’s face. The man dropped to his knees.
Chris raised his shotgun and delivered another blow to the man’s head, rendering him unconscious.
“We have to drag his fat ass inside,” Tim said. “I’ll pull the door. David, you cover with the rifle. Chris, drag him in.”
“What the hell good would it do to bring a knocked-out guard inside?” David asked. “It’s just someone we have to watch, which takes our focus off the task at hand. What if this guy comes to while we’re in the middle of something else? We need to incapacitate him. Unless you feel like babysitting this fat ass,” David said.
Tim said nothing.
“Exactly,” David said. “Let me show you how this should be taken care of, Tim.” David took two steps toward the fallen guard and rolled him from his fetal position onto his belly. He stood over the man and positioned his boot perfectly between the back of the man’s head and shoulders. David lifted his foot and stomped it down on the man’s neck. He did it again, putting much of his one-hundred-and-ninety-pound weight directly into the blow. David lifted his foot a third time.
“That’s good,” Chris said. “He was dead after the first.”
David stared down at the man at his feet. He knelt and rolled him over so he faced up. The light attached to the top of the building lit the guy’s face. His eyes were open, his head cocked to the side in an unnatural position. Some scrapes from the blacktop covered the guy’s forehead and nose. David’s stomps had snapped the man’s neck. He looked at Tim and smiled beneath his mask. “Did you like that?” he asked.
Tim said nothing.
“Over behind the garbage cans,” Chris said. “Tim, keep your gun on the door.”
Tim took up a position near the car and crouched with his weapon aimed on the building.
Chris and David each grabbed one of the dead guard’s thick arms and pulled and yanked. Their boots struggled for traction, trying to muscle the huge body behind the cans.
“Let’s flip this fat ass over,” David said.
Chris assisted him in rolling the man onto his back.
David knelt beside the body and rummaged through the man’s pockets. He took his wallet and keys. “Maybe one of these keys does the locked door inside,” David said. “There’s only a couple on here.”
“Good thinking,” Chris said.
David put a knee under himself and got back to his feet.
They returned to Tim, who was still watching the door.
“Should be just the one guard left and Solomon,” Chris said. “Let’s get inside.”
The three went to the back door.
“Rifle inside as soon as I pull it,” David said. He counted off three with his fingers and yanked the door.
Tim immediately went through the doorway, the stock of his rifle planted in his shoulder. Chris followed him in. David rolled around the open door, entered, and closed and locked the door at his back. The three stood in a short, dimly lit tiled hallway. David looked forward—the club opened up at the hallway’s end. To the left in the hall, before it opened into the club, was a pair of restrooms. Ten feet ahead to the right was the door that Brad said led to Solomon’s office.
David stayed low, went to the door, and took a quick look through the small glass window. The hall was well lit and not much more than ten feet long. A closed door, which appeared to be hollow-core wood, sat at the hallway’s end. David fanned out the keys on the key ring and used his best guess as to which keys could operate the lock—he figured it was only one of two options. He tried the first key, which didn’t fit. David glanced over his shoulder at Chris and Tim, their weapons at the ready. David tried slipping the next key into the lock—it went all the way in and bottomed out. He turned the key to the right, which unlocked the door with a satisfying click. He looked at Chris. “Wood door at the end of the hall. I’ll pull this one, and you two go. Put a boot through that door at the back.”
“Got it,” Chris said.
David pulled the door, and Chris and Tim rushed down the hall. Their boots thumped and squeaked off the dark tile. David heard the crash from Chris kicking in the door, followed by shouting the second he entered the room. David quickly rushed to them in the back office.
“Hands, hands, hands!” Chris shouted.
David entered the fifteen-by-twenty-five-foot office. He swung his rifle left in the direction that Chris and Tim aimed. In his sights at the back of the room was Solomon, thin, balding, and wearing a dark suit with a gray dress shirt. He sat at a large cherry-colored desk. Two larger men, both over two hundred pounds, sat opposite Solomon. One had short black hair and was dressed in a suit, while the other wore a black T-shirt with the word “Security” in yellow across the back.
“Get your damn hands up!” David shouted.
The men obeyed. Solomon held his hands up at chest level, his palms facing David, Tim, and Chris. The two
men on the side of the desk nearer the group were turned in their seats, hands above their heads. Tim went to each man, searching for weapons. None were carrying.
“Whatever money is in this place is leaving with us. Every last cent. Let’s go,” Tim instructed. With the barrel of his gun, he motioned the men to stand. “Safe, registers, everything.”
Neither the men seated nor Solomon got up.
“Someone just left with our weekly drop,” Solomon said.
“We’ve been watching. No one left with any drop,” Tim said. “Let’s go. Get your asses moving.”
“There’s nothing here,” Solomon said.
“We know there is. The money. Now,” Tim said.
Solomon again told him that there was none.
David walked to the desk, shouldering his way past Tim as he did. In stride, David put his rifle’s sights on the dark-haired man in the suit. With a single squeeze of his finger on the trigger, he put a round through the right side of the man’s head. Blood peppered the surface of the desk and far wall of the room. Smoke from the rifle barrel hung in a cloud before David. The man slumped from his chair to the tile floor of the office. David stood over the man and put another round in his chest.
Shouts from Solomon and the security guard immediately ceased as David swung the barrel of his rifle onto Solomon.
“Where’s the safe?” David shouted.
“It’s right there on the wall.” Solomon pointed off to his left.
“Right where on the wall?” David asked.
“Behind that poster,” Solomon said.
David motioned to Tim and pointed at Solomon.
Tim rounded the desk and held his rifle just a couple of inches from Solomon’s face. “Slowly,” Tim said.
Solomon rose from his chair, moved to the framed poster, and took it from the wall.
As Solomon set the poster on the floor, David could see a square safe mounted into the wall directly behind it. David grabbed the security guard by the shoulder of his T-shirt. He yanked him up from his seat at the desk and pushed him toward Chris. “Take this asshole and get whatever you can from the rest of the club. Every register. Find the security tapes and get them or destroy everything.”
