by Stuart Woods
“I figure they can’t take a plane, the bags might get X-rayed. They were in a van.”
“Make, model, and color?”
“I never saw it. They said it was a van.”
“Any idea where they’re driving to?”
“Parese said he had a week’s groceries in the van, so someplace with a kitchen.”
“Can you narrow that down for me?”
“Parese said they’d be out of the state by eight-thirty.”
“So, they weren’t going to New Jersey. That pretty much leaves Connecticut, if we’re talking bordering states. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“The lake cabin? That’s the only thought I’ve had.”
“A good choice, probably. They reckon that the Connecticut State Police, having gone over the place thoroughly, won’t be going back there. Oh, I forgot to tell you, they found Bats Buono’s head in the Mercedes when they floated it.”
“Did the head have a nine-millimeter slug in it?”
“Good guess, Stone.”
“When you catch up with them, run Parese’s Glock through ballistics.”
“I’ll see that that happens. You want some more Chinese now?”
“I want a steak,” Stone said. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
Stone found steaks in the fridge and, after seasoning the meat, threw them onto the Viking grill, while Viv boiled some potatoes and made a salad. Dino was on the phone with Dan Sparks, in Hartford.
“Oh, Dino,” Stone said, “I forgot to mention that one of them is probably going to kill the other, as soon as they’re at a safe place.”
Dino covered the phone. “You got a bet on who does the killing?”
“My money’s on Hank,” Stone said. “But you never know.”
“Right,” Dino said, “you never know.” Then he went back to his conversation with Sparks.
“Dino,” Stone said, and Dino covered the phone again. “Now what?”
“I got the impression they were planning some sort of money laundering, swapping the small bills for larger ones. Ask Dan if there’s anybody anywhere near the cabin that would deal in large sums of cash.”
Dino asked Dan Sparks and got an answer, then he hung up. “Dan says there are a couple of Indian-owned casinos within an hour or two’s drive of the cabin. The Indians don’t necessarily run them, they hire experienced managers, people with casino experience.”
55
Hank and Parese were driving north on the Sawmill River Parkway in the van.
“Slow down, Marty,” she said. “There’s a fifty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit up here, and we don’t want to get pulled over tonight of all nights.”
Parese slowed a little. “Awright.”
“See that switch on the steering wheel? That’s the speed control. Set it at fifty-five and leave it there.”
“Awright, awright.” He looked at the steering wheel and nearly missed a curve.
“Watch the road, I’ll do the speed control.” She leaned over and turned it on, then slowed the van to fifty-five and pressed the SET button. “There, take your foot off the accelerator.”
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right, babe.”
“I’m not smarter than you,” she said, softening her voice, “I’m just better at details.”
“I’m not going to argue that point,” he said.
“So, Marty, tell me how we’re going to do this.”
“Why don’t you just leave it to me, baby?”
“Details, Marty, I need to know the details.”
“All right: did Bats ever mention a guy named Tommy Dion to you?”
“Sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Tommy is an old-school Vegas guy. He grew up working the casinos out there, ended up managing a couple of them. When the Indians started opening casinos upstate, he signed on as a consultant to a couple of them, and they were so impressed they made him a manager. Tommy and my old man were tight all their lives, and I’ve done a deal with him.”
“What’s the deal?”
“He brings us four and a half million dollars in hundreds, and we give him five million in tens and twenties.”
“We’re giving him half a million dollars?”
“It’s a good deal, trust me.”
“The thing is, can we trust him?”
“He’s making half a million bucks in one night, and it’s all his, tax-free. He just borrows the cash from the casino for a few hours, and he returns it in small bills. It’s a wash, literally, no bookkeeping problems.”
“And you really trust him?”
“Trust is a relative word when you’re talking this much money,” Parese said. He looked at his watch. “I’m due to call him now.” He took out his cell phone and pressed a button.
Hank kept her hand on the wheel and her eyes on the road.
“Hey, Tommy, it’s me. We’re on. You got the cash ready?” He listened for a moment. “Good work. We’ll be there in an hour. Okay, got a pencil? I’ll give you directions.” Parese dictated precise driving instructions. “You got that? Repeat it to me.” He listened some more. “Now listen to me, Tommy. You know I trust you, but you can only be two guys. We’re two, you’re two. Got that? Good. Now, if there’s more than one guy besides you, and if anybody but you gets out of that car, he will die.” He listened some more. “I’m glad you understand. Did you get the suitcases? The ones with wheels? How many? Two is good. We’ll give you five. Now we’ve done a complete machine count of the money, and it’s exactly five mil. I’ve got the printouts for you to see, but if you want a recount, the machine will be there, and you can run it yourself. All right, two hours. Don’t be early or late. We’re gonna be nervous, and we don’t want any mistakes. See ya, pal.” Marty hung up.
“Are you satisfied that he’s going to do the right thing?” Hank asked.
“I’m satisfied, but there are two shotguns and an Uzi in the back of the van, where the spare tire lives. We’ll be ready for anything.”
“I suppose you’ve thought of killing him and keeping both his money and ours.”
“I thought about it, but it wouldn’t be good practice, you know? We do that and we’ll have not only the cops looking for us, we’ll have a lot of made guys all over the country watching for us, and probably a lot of Indians, too.” He laughed.
“Tell me about tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is pretty straightforward. We drive to Oxford Airport, maybe half an hour’s drive from the house. Nobody’s looking for the van, so we just leave it there. The airplane is a Hawker 400, has enough range to get us all the way to South America, but we’re going to stop in the Cayman Islands, just south of Jamaica, and open a bank account. Then we’ll go on to South America. Rio okay?”
“I think Rio sounds lovely. What’s the airplane costing us?”
“A hundred and fifty grand.”
“Jesus! Can’t we fly commercial from the Caymans?”
“We don’t want to leave a paper trail from there. Sure, we’re overpaying for the airplane, but it’s a long flight, and the pilots have to be taken care of up front.”
“What’s to keep them from abandoning us when we leave the airplane in the Caymans to go to the bank? They could just take off again and fly home, and we’d be out a lot of money.”
Parese thought about that and sighed. “All right, we’ll give them half up front and half when we land in Rio. Worst case, we’ll give them the second half when we’re ready to take off from the Caymans. Oh, we have to buy fuel, too. That could run another eight, ten grand.”
“What time are we meeting the airplane at Oxford?”
“Nine AM.”
“Where at the airport?”
“At the main terminal.”
“Are we clearing out with customs?”
“No,
the pilot files a form with the feds before the flight.”
“Does it have our names and passport numbers on it?”
“Yes, no getting away from that. But it shows us going only to the Caymans. Once we land out of the country, we can fly anywhere with no record of it. The pilots will say they picked up somebody else in the Caymans for the Rio leg.”
“Who owns the airplane?”
“A guy I know runs a charter company. He buys time on airplanes from various corporations, time when they’d otherwise be sitting on the ground waiting for some CEO to fly somewhere. We’ve got the airplane for three full days.”
“That’s good work, Marty, I’m proud of you.”
He grinned. “Thanks, babe. Oh, and you were right about not offing Barrington. At first I thought you were getting sentimental over him, but after thinking about it, he can’t hurt us.”
“We don’t want to kill anybody at the cabin, either,” she said.
“I know, but we have to be ready to do it if it’s called for. I mean, if there’s more than one car, or three or four guys get out of the car, then we’re at war. No way around that.”
“Let’s don’t get into that position,” she said. “Remember to be charming. Charm works.”
“Up to a point.”
“Oh, what are we going to do with the counter-sorter?”
“We’ll dump it in the lake as soon as we make the cash swap.”
“Good. We don’t want to leave it in the van or the cottage, and we want to Windex the van all over to get rid of prints.”
“I’ve never been arrested,” Marty said, “so I’ve never been printed. You?”
“Nope. I’m squeaky clean.”
“Squeaky clean, I like that. Oh, I got a number in Rio—we can get new passports.”
“Fine. Maybe we’ll go to Europe from there. You’d like Rome. You speak Italian?”
“I grew up speaking it half the time. Couple weeks, you’d think I was a native Roman. Listen, babe, this is gonna work, don’t worry about a thing.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the ear. “I’m not worried, Marty, I’m safe in your hands.”
56
Stone, Dino, and Viv had a good dinner and waited for Dan Sparks to call back. “Listen,” Stone said, “I want to get a shower and a change of clothes.”
“Hurry up,” Dino said. “And bring a weapon.”
Stone went upstairs and let the hot shower run on his face, then he got into some comfortable clothes, holstered his lightweight Terry Tussey .45, and went downstairs. Dino was on the phone.
“Okay,” Dino was saying, “at the convenience store in about an hour. This time, don’t bring police vehicles. If we get there first, let’s don’t scare them off.” He hung up. “Everybody ready?”
They went outside and got into Dino’s car; his driver already had the engine running. “You get something to eat?” Dino asked the man.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. It’s going to be a late night. Let’s hit the West Side Highway.”
• • •
“Drive by the convenience store,” Hank said. “If there are police vehicles there, we’ll have to call it off and meet Tommy somewhere else.”
“Okay,” Parese said. They drove past the store at forty miles an hour. “I don’t see anything that looks like cops,” he said.
“Neither do I, but when we get to the lake, let’s drive around the shore road to the right and approach the house from the other direction.”
“Sounds good.”
They turned off on the road to the lake, and a couple of minutes later they came to the T junction and turned right.
“So far, so good,” Parese said. “And we’ve still got an hour before Tommy is due.”
“Look for clusters of vehicles,” she said. “Any kind of vehicles parked in driveways or side roads.”
Parese did as he was told. “I don’t see anything,” he said.
“Then let’s drive on around the lake,” Hank said. “And turn off your lights, there’s enough of a moon to see.”
Twenty minutes later, they were approaching the cottage.
“Pull into the drive and stop,” she said. “I want to walk down there first.”
He pulled into the drive; they could see the house, and it was dark.
“Never mind me walking,” Hank said, “just turn off the engine and coast down to the front of the house, then turn around and back up near the porch. I’d like to be pointed the other way if we have to move.”
They got out of the van and stood in the dim moonlight, listening. Nothing but an owl somewhere. Parese unlocked the front door and turned on a light. “Looks okay,” he called back.
“Let’s get the bags inside,” Hank yelled. Parese came outside, and they wheeled in the five suitcases and their own bags. They set three of the bags containing the money in the middle of the living room, and put two of them on the dining table.
Parese went back to the van and came back with the counter-sorting machine, then he went back and brought in two grocery bags.
“That’s not a week’s groceries,” she said.
“I just said that for Barrington’s benefit,” Parese replied. “There’s enough for a snack tonight and breakfast tomorrow.”
“You hungry?” she asked.
“I’m too excited to eat. This is gonna happen, I can feel it.” He went back to the van and came back with the two shotguns and the Uzi. “They’re all loaded,” he said, putting them behind the front door.
They put their own bags in the bedroom, and when they came out, they could hear the crunch of tires on gravel.
“This is it,” Parese said. He pulled out his Glock and stood by the door, his back to the wall. A car door slammed.
“Marty?” a man’s gruff voice called.
“I’m here, Tommy. Come on in.”
Hank stood where she could be seen. A man appeared on the porch, and Parese turned on the outside light. “Who’s with you?” he called.
“Just the guy who drove me. He won’t move.”
“Come on in, then.”
Tommy walked into the living room and stopped. “I’m unarmed,” he said, opening his jacket and turning around. He also hoisted his trouser legs so Parese could see there was nothing strapped to his ankles.
“You brought the four and a half?” Parese asked.
“In the trunk of the car. Where’s yours?”
“Right over here.” Parese led him to the dining table and unzipped the two suitcases.
Tommy dug down into the bundles of bills and made sure it was all money. “Good,” he said, zipping up the bags and moving them to the floor. “Now let’s see the others.”
The two men hoisted the other three bags onto the table, and Tommy inspected them, then set them on the floor. “Funny how much money weighs,” he said.
“It’s just paper,” Parese replied. “You satisfied, or you want to run it all through the machine again?” He handed Tommy some folded sheets of paper. “Here’s the count as it went through the machine.”
Tommy took the paper and put it in his pocket. “I’m okay,” he said. “Let’s go get my bags.”
“The lady will go with you,” Parese said. “I’ll wait here.” He nodded at Hank. “Don’t worry, babe, you’ll be okay with Tommy.”
Hank followed the man out to his car and around to the trunk. He opened it with a key and hoisted a bag onto the ground. “Take it in,” he said. “I’ll bring the other one.”
The two of them wheeled the bags into the house and to the dining room table. Parese put them on the table and opened them. They were filled with banded stacks of hundreds. He went through random stacks to be sure there was no newspaper in them.
“You want to put them through the machine?” Tommy asked.
“I’m good. You delivered, Tommy, and I appreciate it.”
“I appreciate the action,” Tommy replied.
The two men hugged, and Parese stood in the doorway and watched him walk back to the car. The driver started it, turned around, and drove up the drive. They could see his taillights through the woods as he drove away.
Parese turned and took Hank in his arms. “It’s done, babe.”
“Let’s get those two bags into the van, in case we need to make a hasty departure,” she said. They each took a bag and wheeled it outside, and Parese hoisted the bags into the van and closed the door. “Now,” he said, “I want to fuck you in the worst way.”
“And I want to fuck you, too, Marty,” she said.
57
Stone sat in the backseat with Viv. He didn’t know why he was so tired; after all, he’d spent the day on the sofa in his office. He wished he’d gotten more sleep.
“You’re awful quiet, Stone,” Dino said when they were on the Sawmill.
“I’m just thinking, what if we’re wrong about the lake cottage?”
“Then we’re wrong—it’ll cost you five million dollars, but the world won’t end. I bet your insurance company will cover you. I mean, it’s a straight-up armed robbery.”
“I don’t know what the limits are on my policy.”
“Dino,” Viv said, “suppose Stone is right about being wrong. What’s our backup plan?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Viv. Stone, you got a backup plan?”
“I’m thinking,” Stone said.
“Think faster, we’re half an hour out.”
“I’m thinking as fast as I can.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then.”
“You could think of something, you know, Dino.”
Dino got quiet.
• • •
They got to the convenience store at New Fairfield more or less on time. There were no police vehicles.
“I’ll bet Dan is inside,” Dino said.
They all got out and walked into the store. It was empty of customers. Dino walked over to the lone cashier. “Is Colonel Sparks of the State Police here?”
