Heist Society

by Ally Carter

  "Dad," Kat said slowly, "you don't happen to know anything about that gallery that was robbed last week, do you?" His smile was part pride, part mischief, and yet he didn't face her. He didn't say a single word. "So you didn't do a big job in Italy last week because on the night in question you were doing a little job in Paris?"

  He blew on the steaming coffee, then whispered, "I told you it was a good alibi." He took a small sip. "Of course the work wasn't quite up to my usual standards--you know my best assistant left me recently?" He shook his head and drew an exaggerated breath. "Good help is so hard to find."

  One of the Russian ladies hissed, warning them to be quiet, and Kat started to feel claustrophobic. She wanted someplace private. She wanted someplace she could yell. Then suddenly Kat found herself wondering . . .

  "Dad, if the job was last week, why are you still in Paris?"

  As he paused mid-sip, Kat couldn't help but think that the thief had been caught, busted. The father, on the other hand, just seemed proud of his little girl.

  "Sweetie, let's just say possession is nine tenths of the law,

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  so right now I'm not as guilty as I might like to be."

  "Dad ..." She stared up at her father, not quite sure she wanted to know the answer to her next question: "Where'd you stash them?" he corrected, "is someplace safe."

  "Someplace lonely?"

  "No." Her father chuckled. "Unfortunately, at the moment, it has plenty of friends."

  He continued to smile, but something about the way his eyes kept darting around the square made Kat worry.

  "Then maybe you should leave it there," Kat suggested.

  He rocked on his heels, but didn't meet her gaze. "Now what would be the fun in that?" He smiled wider, and Kat could have sworn she saw one of the Russian women swoon a little at the sight. A pair of teenage girls were whispering and giggling in their direction, but as far as Kat could tell, there was only one woman on the square who dared to openly stare. Perhaps she was too beautiful--too self-assured--to care who saw her looking. And yet this gorgeous, dark-haired woman's unwavering eyes made Kat feel strange.

  "Watching women checking out my dad is creepy, you know?"

  "Sweetheart"--her father's voice was steady--"sometimes it can't be helped."

  He was teasing, Kat thought. Wasn't he? But as they started to follow the tour group to the steps of a nearby church, Kat still felt the staring, as if someone were watching her every move.

  Kat pulled a tiny camera from her purse and scanned the crowd. A man sat beneath an umbrella at a sidewalk cafe, not

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  eating. She zoomed in on two men who lingered on a bench at the corner of the square, and recognized the plain clothes, bad shoes, and haggard look of a surveillance team five days into a job. And finally, Kat studied the woman standing at the edge of the square, staring at her father, who had barely met Kat's eyes since she'd found him.

  "So who are your friends?" She turned back and sighed. "Local cops?"

  "Interpol, actually."

  "Nice" Kat said, drawing out the word. "I thought you'd be impressed."

  "It's every little girl's dream," she said. "Interpol surveillance. And kittens."

  The church bells started to chime again. A bus pulled to a stop in front of them, blocking their view of the square, sheltering them from prying eyes, and in that split second, Kat's father reached for her, gripping her shoulders. "Look, Kat. I don't want you to worry about this thing---this Italy thing. No one's going to hurt me. This guy doesn't care about me. He cares about his paintings, and I don't have them, so . . ." He shrugged.

  "He thinks yon have them."

  "But I don't" he said in that no-nonsense kind of way that all good fathers and great thieves are born with. "I've got a twenty-four-hour tail and a solid alibi. Trust me, Kat. Taccone isn't going to come for me."

  She almost believed him. She wondered if he believed it himself. But Kat had learned at a very young age that thieves live and die based on perception--her whole life was a lesson in sleight of hand. If someone thought her father had the paintings, then the truth wasn't going to save him.

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  "You've got to talk to him," Kat pleaded. "Or hide, or run, or--

  "Give it till the end of the week, Kat. He'll turn over enough rocks, and enough things will crawl out that he'll figure out the truth."

  "Dad--" she started, but it was too late. The bus was moving and her father was already pulling away, his lips barely moving as he said, "So where does your school think you are right now? Do you need me to write you a note?"

  "You already did," Kat lied. "It was faxed directly to Headmaster Franklin from your London office yesterday morning."

  "That's my girl," he whispered, and the previous unpleasant conversation seemed a million years ago. "Now go on, get back to school."

  Kat stalled, not knowing whether she should admit to him that she'd been kicked out--that the biggest job she'd ever pulled had just blown up in her face--or whether to let the con live on.

  "Do they give you a winter break at the Colgan School?" His gaze was locked on the guide at the front of the group. "I was thinking about Cannes for Christmas."

  "Cannes for Christmas," Kat echoed softly.

  "Or maybe Madrid?" he asked.

  Kat held back a grin and whispered, "Surprise me."

  "Kat." His voice stopped her. She even risked looking at him, framed by the ancient church and cobblestone square. "I don't suppose you can help your old man out?"

  Kat smiled and started through the crowd, clutching her camera, just another tourist. When she saw a pair of Paris cops and shouted, "Excuse me!" she sounded like an ordinary girl

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  on the verge of panic. She had a death grip on her purse and looked utterly helpless as she rushed toward them. "Excuse me, officer!"

  "Yes?" one of the cops said in accented English. "Is something wrong?"

  "Those men!" Kat screamed, pointing at the two plainclothes Interpol officers who had left the cafe and were now chatting with their colleague on the bench. "They tried to get me to . . ." Kat trailed off. The cops looked impatient but intrigued.

  "Yes?"

  "They . . ." Kat gestured for one of the cops to come closer, then whispered in his ear. In a flash, both men were pushing through the crowd.

  "Vous la!" the cop called to the surveillance team in rapid French. "Vous la! Arretez!" The Interpol officers were almost to the fountain when the cops called again.

  "Arretez-moidisent!"

  The men tried to pull away, but it was too late. People were staring. The cops were bearing down. French obscenities were flying. Pockets were searched and I.D.s were studied, and through it all, the pigeons kept scavenging, the bells kept ringing.

  And Kat knew that her father was already gone.

  She turned her back on the chaos, ready for a taxi and a long, quiet plane ride over the Atlantic. But suddenly, someone grasped her arms. She heard a car door open behind her, and for the second time in two days, she found herself in the back of a limo, greeted by another unexpected voice.

  "Hello, Katarina."

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  CHAPTER 5

  The only person who consistently called Kat by her full name was Uncle Eddie, but the man in the back of the car could not have been more different from her great-uncle. She studied him--his cashmere coat and matching suit, his silk tie and slicked-back hair, and she remembered Hale's warning: He's a different kind of bad. Her first thought was to fight, but two men were settling into place on either side of her, and Kat knew it wasn't an option. So instead she asked, "I don't suppose you'll let me go if I ask nicely?"

  The man's thin lips broke into a smile. "I was told you had your father's sense of humor." His dark eyes remained cold as he studied her. "And that you have your mother's eyes."

  Despite the circumstances, that was what caught Kat off guard. "You knew my mother?"

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  "I knew of her," he cor
rected. "She was a very talented woman. I'm told she too was like a cat. That is what you prefer to be called, is it not, Katarina?"

  His English bore a faint accent she couldn't place--not entirely Italian--as if he were a citizen of the world.

  "You have very good sources," she said.

  "I have the best of everything." The man smiled. "My name is Arturo Taccone."

  "What do you want?"

  "I thought I might give you a ride to the airport." He gestured around the interior of the beautiful antique car, but Kat merely shrugged.

  "I'd planned on taking a cab."

  He laughed. "But that would be such a waste. Besides, this way, you and I can have a nice talk. And along the way we can even pick up my paintings if you'd prefer."

  "I don't have them," she blurted before realizing how the words might sound. "My father doesn't have them either." She leaned toward him, hoping that proximity might equal believ-ability. "Look, he didn't do it. You're staking out the wrong guy. He was doing a gallery job in Paris that night. Stop. Get a paper. It's on the front--"

  "Katarina," Taccone interrupted, his whisper more terrifying than a shout. "These paintings are very important to me. I came to Paris to explain that to your father, but at the moment he is a bit too popular for my taste." Kat thought about the Interpol officers watching her father's every move. "So it is most fortunate that I should meet you. I want my paintings back, Katarina. I am willing to go to a great deal of trouble--to take a great many pains, if you will--to get them back. You will tell your father this for me?"

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  As Kat sat across from Arturo Taccone, sandwiched between the two massive men who never left his shadow, she had yet to hear the stories. She was ignorant of his dealings in the Middle East. She hadn't heard about the explosions at his warehouse near Berlin or the mysterious disappearance of a bank manager in Zurich. She knew only what she saw: a well-dressed man, an antique walking stick with an ornately carved pewter handle, two guards, and absolutely no way out.

  "He can't return what he didn't steal," Kat pleaded, but the elegant man only laughed a slow cold laugh and called to the driver.

  "Two weeks should be enough time, don't you think? Of course, it should take less, but out of respect for your mother and her family, I'll be generous."

  The limo slowed to a stop. The goons opened the doors, and as Arturo Taccone stepped out into the sunshine of the Paris street, he said, "It was a pleasure meeting you, Katarina." He laid a business card on the seat beside her. "Until we meet again."

  It wasn't until the door slammed and the car started through the busy streets toward the airport, that Kat felt herself begin to breathe in slow ragged breaths. She stared down at the white card that bore Arturo Taccone's name printed in plain black letters. And the handwritten words: Two weeks.

  "He didn't do it."

  Kat spoke from the doorway of a dark room, toward the silhouetted figure in the massive bed. She saw it jump upright, felt the lights flash on, stinging her eyes. But she was far too tired to blink against the glare.

  "Kat," Hale groaned, then fell back onto the pillows. "Funny, I didn't hear a doorbell."

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  "I let myself in; hope that's okay." Hale smiled. "Or the alarm."

  She stepped inside, tossed a pocket-size bag of tools onto the bed. "You're due for an upgrade."

  Hale propped himself against the antique headboard and squinted up at her. "She returns." He crossed his arms across his bare chest. "You know, I could be naked in here."

  But Kat didn't allow herself to think about what Hale was or was not wearing underneath those Egyptian cotton sheets. "He didn't do it, Hale." She dropped into a chair by the fireplace. "My dad has an alibi."

  "You believe him?"

  "Normally?" Kat asked. "Maybe." Then she shrugged and admitted, "Maybe not." She looked down at her hands. "But I'm pretty sure he couldn't have been pulling a big job in Italy on the same night he was pulling a small job in Paris."

  Hale let out a slow whistle of admiration, and Kat remembered that, for all of his resources and talent, the most dangerous thing about W. W. Hale the Fifth was that, when he grew up, he really wanted to be her father.

  "He's still in Paris?" Hale asked. Kat nodded. He swung his bare feet to the floor and looked at her. "So . . . what? He's got the loot stashed somewhere and a twenty-four-hour tail keeping him from recovering it and leaving town?"

  "Something like that."

  "What's he gonna do?"

  "Nothing."

  Hale shook his head. "You Bishops . . . one of you won't leave"--he cut his eyes at her--"and one of you won't stop running away."

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  Without even realizing she'd done it, Kat pulled a card from her pocket and ran a finger across the heavy paper. "What's that?" Hale asked.

  Kat looked toward the dying fire and felt herself tremble. "Arturo Taccone's business card."

  In a flash, Hale had thrown the covers aside and moved toward her. Part of Kat couldn't help but notice that no, he wasn't naked, but other parts--the thief part and the daughter part and the part that had seen the darkness in Taccone's eyes-- barely noticed the Superman pajama pants. "Please tell me you found that on a sidewalk somewhere," Hale said.

  "He was probably there following Dad, but then he saw me and ... he gave me a ride to the airport."

  "Arturo Taccone gave you a ride to the airport?"

  Hale's hair was sticking up at strange angles, but even as Kat said, "Nice pants," she knew there was nothing funny about the situation.

  "Kat, tell me you weren't alone with Arturo Taccone." I'm fine.

  "You're fine?" Hale snapped. "I'm telling you, Kat. Uncle Eddie says this guy means business, and Uncle Eddie--" "Ought to know. I know." "This isn't a game, Kat." "Do I look like I'm playing, Hale?"

  Hale kicked at the fallen covers, and to Kat he looked like a man who was scared and a little boy who hadn't gotten his way. Both. After a long silence, he said, "Well, did you at least tell him he's after the wrong guy?"

  "Of course I did, but he wasn't exactly in the mood to take my word for it."

  "Kat, you've got to--"

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  "What?" Kat cut in. "Hale, what am I supposed to do? My dad doesn't have the paintings. There's no way this Taccone guy is ever going to believe he doesn't have the paintings, so what? Should I tell my father to go into hiding so he'll have a nice head start when the biggest goons money can buy start chasing him in two weeks? I don't know about you, but the fact that he's got an Interpol surveillance detail watching him twenty-four-seven feels pretty good to me right now!"

  "This guy really wants his paintings back."

  "So we're going to give him his paintings back."

  "Great plan. Except we don't have the paintings."

  "We will," Kat said as she stood and started for the door. "Just as soon as we steal them."

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  13 DAYS UNTIL DEADLINE

  NEW YORK. USA

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  [Page Blank]

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  CHAPTER 6

  A n odd thing tends to happen on the cusp of winter. Ask any better-than-average thief and he'll tell you that the best time to pull a con is when the weather should be changing--but isn't. People feel lucky. Marks get careless. They look at the sky and know the snow is up there somewhere, and so they think about how they've already cheated Mother Nature. Perhaps they could get away with much, much more.

  If Kat had any doubt about this theory, all she had to do was glance around Madison Square Park as she and Hale strolled down Fifth Avenue. The sun was warm but the wind was cool, and children played without their hats and scarves. Nannies chatted beside expensive strollers, while businesspeople took the long way home. And that was when she saw him.

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  Kat would not have described him as handsome. She'd been raised by Bobby Bishop, after all, and had spent entirely too much time around Hale. Handsome isn't a synonym for attractive; and while the man walk
ing through the square wasn't the former, he certainly was the latter.

  His hair, for example, was slick and gelled. His suit was the kind of expensive that would be out of style far too soon, and his watch was the only thing about him that was as shiny as his teeth. And yet, for the purposes of Kat's world, he was--put simply--perfect.

  "Oh boy," Kat heard herself mutter as the man traipsed forward, his gaze glued to his cell phone, and ran right into a bumbling old man in a long trench coat and mismatched socks.

  "Oh boy," Hale echoed.

  "Are you okay?" Kat overheard the slick man ask. The old man nodded but gripped the lapels of the other man's expensive suit, steadying himself.

  As the two men parted ways, one stopped after only a single step. But the perfect man--the perfect mark--kept walking. He was well out of earshot by the time Kat waved at the rumpled vagrant and said, "Hello, Uncle Eddie."

  If Kat had stayed at Colgan long enough, a teacher might have eventually told her what her family had been saying for generations: It's okay to break the rules, but only sometimes, and only if you know them very, very well. So maybe that was why, among the world's great thieves, Uncle Eddie and Uncle Eddie alone was allowed the luxury of a permanent address.

  Stepping inside the old Brooklyn brownstone, Kat felt

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  the sun disappear behind a heavy wooden door, blocking out a neighborhood that had spent the last sixty years morphing from trendy to shady and back again. But inside, nothing ever changed. The hallway was always dim. The air always smelled like the Old Country, or what she'd been told the Old Country smelled like: cabbage and carrots and things simmering for long hours over slow heat in cast-iron pots that would outlive them all.