Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3)

by Dale M. Nelson

  Jack’s phone started vibrating. He looked down at the number.

  It was Special Agent Danzig.

  Here we go again.

  PART III

  A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE

  31

  “This isn’t really the best time, if I’m being honest,” Jack said when he picked up the phone. He’d told Megan who it was and excused himself from the table. Jack was now walking across the street and, in his mind, wondering if he was about to run.

  “I can appreciate that,” Danzig said, and there was hesitation in her voice. “Listen, Burdette, I need your help. I don’t have a lot of time for our usual banter, so for a change, I’m going to skip the clever wordplay.” Her tone was dry. “I also don’t want to have to wave your deal in front of you, but I guess it’s worth reminding you that part of that deal is helping out with jewelry theft investigations over which you have specific expertise.”

  “Katrina, I get all that.” Her name sounded strange to his ears when he said it. Jack was used to referring to her only by her last name for so long and negatively. “Get on with it.”

  He’d also killed a man the night before and didn’t have a lot of patience for government bullshit.

  A stabbing pain in his side reminded him that he’d also been shot.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a rough morning, and I’m a little thin on patience.”

  “I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” she said in that same dry tone. “So, I have your cooperation?”

  “I mean, sure. Whatever I can do,” Jack said, annoyed. He started to calm a little, realizing that she wasn’t calling to distract him while law enforcement officers rushed in to arrest him. Jack had gotten halfway down the next block, and he turned and slowly started walking back toward Megan.

  “Okay. I just need to remind you that what I’m telling you is confidential. I shouldn’t even be sharing this much, but I don’t have another choice and time is a factor.”

  “I got it,” Jack snapped.

  Danzig ignored it. “When I visited you at your winery, I told you that Vito Verrazano had possession of diamonds stolen by Niccoló Bartolo in 2003. We were assisting an investigation with our counterparts in Italian law enforcement to arrest a mafia don named Salvatore Cannizzaro. We believe that Verrazano was going to sell those diamonds to Cannizzaro. Cannizzaro was using that to establish himself as a major player in the international smuggling world. Only, the deal never happened. Verrazano disappeared. Instead, he came to the US and linked back up with an old friend of yours, Reginald LeGrande.”

  Jack noted that in Danzig’s speech, she didn’t use the term, “we believe” when talking about Vito bringing the diamonds to the States. She implied they knew.

  Danzig continued. “Reginald is out of prison. My team is trying to get in touch with the California attorney general and the Bureau of Prisons, but it seems as though he qualified for an early release. Reginald and Vito were able to smuggle the diamonds into the US and attempted to sell them. In truth, they stumbled upon a sting operation run by the FBI in Los Angeles. I won’t get into that. They were about to make the exchange with an undercover agent when Cannizzaro’s people showed up.”

  “What, here?” Jack said, feigning surprise. The relative calm he’d felt a few moments ago started draining away now that Danzig was approaching the event. Still, if she thought he was a suspect, they wouldn’t be having this conversation, right?

  “Yes, here. We believe that Cannizzaro sent his people here and they linked up with elements of Italian organized crime in Los Angeles. Part of me telling you this, Jack, is to warn you to be careful. With Reginald, Verrazano, and now the Cannizzaro mafia all in California right now…” Danzig’s voice trailed off. She cleared her throat. “There was a shootout between the mafia and local police. Reginald somehow organized an armored car service, and the shootout started just as they were unloading the diamonds from the truck to bring them inside. You probably saw that on the news. Reginald slipped away in the chaos. But a third perpetrator approached the police after the shooting stopped, identified himself as a federal agent, and showed a fake warrant.”

  Jack’s mouth went dry and his pulse skyrocketed.

  He looked across the street to Megan, who waved in a kind of silly gesture, like it was the first time she was seeing him that day. Torrents of guilt washed over him because Jack knew he was about to run.

  “This individual convinced the police he was a federal agent, took possession of the diamonds, and disappeared. We have Verrazano in custody now.”

  Jack could almost hear the stopwatch ticking off the seconds he had left.

  “So, how can I help you,” Jack said, his voice husky.

  “There are a couple of ways. First, do you have thoughts on whom Reginald might be working with? I know that you two were close before he, well, before he did what he did. Are you aware of anyone he might have been working with? The man was described as a middle-aged white male with dark hair. He was wearing sunglasses, so the local police didn’t get a great look at him.”

  “I’d have to think,” Jack said hesitantly, stalling for time to think through the implications of this as much as trying to sell the idea that he was thinking to answer her question. “I mean, no one comes to mind, but it’s been, what? Eight years since Reg and I worked together.”

  “I thought so, but it was worth an ask. Do try to give it some thought, though. The other area I wanted your help with is locating LeGrande. I need to recover those diamonds quickly. They are instrumental in our operation against Cannizzaro. We—”

  “Katrina,” Jack said. “Reginald is dead.”

  “What? That’s impossible. We can place him in Los Angeles in an undercover buy on Thursday.”

  Jack spoke in slow and measured tones. “Last night he showed up at my house and tried to kill Megan and me. Said it was payback for all of the years he spent in prison. Apparently that was my fault, or maybe he just wanted revenge, I don’t know.”

  “What happened?” There was a wild incomprehension in her voice.

  Jack knew he had to be careful here. Yes, he had a concealed weapon that was licensed with the state, but that license was based on a false identity, which defeated the purpose. “Reginald hid outside my house, waiting for us to come home. He had a gun, forced us inside. I tried to stall, get him to let Megan go at least, but he wouldn’t have it. He talked for…for a long time. Rubbing it in. Eventually, his patience ran out with my stalling. Megan distracted him, she hit him with a wine bottle, and then I shot him with a pistol I had on me. It was enough.” Jack paused. “Reginald managed to get a shot off. He hit me, grazed really, nicked a rib. I was just released from the hospital. The Sonoma County Sheriff has the investigation now. I’m happy to connect you.” Jack gave a short laugh, one without humor. “Same detective as last time.”

  Danzig was silent for what felt like a long time. Jack stood on the corner, somewhat awkwardly. A car rolled past and slowed, and he immediately looked to duck around a corner, the twist sending a shooting pain through his side. He realized it was just some person who thought he was trying to cross the street. Jack smiled and waved them on.

  “LeGrande is dead,” Danzig said, as though her mind hadn’t quite comprehended it yet. “And you’re okay?” she asked, finally.

  “Hurts like hell. I’ll live.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Jack, what I’m about to ask you is very important. I know that you’ve just been through an experience…and I know what that is like. It’ll take some time to process. But what I have to ask you is very, very important. I apologize in advance because this is going to sound callous, and it’s not meant to be. I’m in Rome. The agents in Los Angeles are looking for this third accomplice, but they have very few leads. So, I need your help…”

  It was insane and surreal.

  It defied all logic and reason.

  Danzig wanted him to find the diamonds. She said if there’s one person
in the world who can, right now, it’s Gentleman Jack Burdette. Her deal was simple, but it was absolute. Help her and she would process him as though he were in witness protection. She would arrange it so that his name was legally changed to Frank Fischer, and he’d be given a new social security number. Jack Burdette would be…dissolved, as though he’d never existed.

  All he had to do was locate the diamonds, deliver them to her, and he would have his way out, for good.

  Well, he had to come up with a convincing story that would show how he found the fictitious third partner, managed to steal the diamonds from him in a way that seemed shady enough to believe, and deliver the diamonds to Danzig in Rome.

  He had forty-eight to seventy-two hours, she said.

  Jack couldn’t go home.

  The Sonoma County Sheriff’s forensics team had what they needed from Jack’s house by the next day and would turn the keys back over to him. His gun was now evidence. Navarro told him it was going to take longer than he thought to formally clear the case, because everyone—himself included—was helping out with the fires. There were mandatory evacuations that had to be enforced and voluntary ones that had to be encouraged. Navarro did, however, tell Jack that he would be closing the case as soon as he could. Jack could tell how distracted the detective was when they spoke, his mind was clearly on two or three other things at the same time.

  “I’m probably not supposed to tell you this,” he said, “but it’s pretty clear to me that it was self-defense. LeGrande had a clear revenge motive, and the gun he used had the serial numbers filed off. You and Ms. McKinney have the same story. Mostly, this is just waiting on me to finish up the paperwork. I’ll get to it when I can, but it’s hell around here. Sure you can appreciate.”

  Jack said he could and he thanked the detective for his time. Jack could pick his keys up at the station in downtown Sonoma. He told Jack that there were remediation companies that specialized in removing blood from crime scenes, though he might have to call down to San Francisco for one of those. There were plenty now that specialized in remediating fire damage, and they might be able to help him.

  For the time being, Jack was staying with Megan.

  After breakfast and his call with Danzig, they went back to her place and Jack tried to lie down, get some sleep. Eventually, he must have napped because when he woke up, Megan was gone. She left a note saying she’d gone into the winery. They both processed things differently, and when Megan was under stress, she needed to do something.

  They agreed the winery would stay open through Monday, though the fires were getting closer and the staff was getting nervous. They could see flames in the hills behind the winery now. There wasn’t anything on the property yet, though if the winds shifted that could change very quickly. Jack and Megan already made the decision that working was optional; if anyone wasn’t able to come in, they understood. They would make a call Tuesday whether to shut down and let folks go home. It looked like that was what would happen. Some of the staff was forced to evacuate already.

  Megan huddled the remaining staff on Saturday and told them what happened to her and Frank. It was difficult, in the moment and under stress, she told Jack later, to remember to refer to him as “Frank” in front of the staff. She told them that the man who was behind the embezzlement eight years before and had gone to prison for it showed up Friday night and tried to kill them. He wanted revenge. She said after the thing that happened at the winery years back, for those that remember, Frank carried a concealed pistol and shot Reginald LeGrande. If he hadn’t, he and Megan would have been killed. She told them Frank had been shot, it wasn’t bad, and he was already out of the hospital but would probably take a couple of days off.

  Jack had at least that long to figure out what he was going to do about the diamonds.

  Navarro’s people had searched the house to verify Jack’s story that Reginald was only there for revenge, and if they found the safe, they respected his privacy and didn’t say anything about it. Jack thought the investigation might have been more thorough if there hadn’t been the fires to contend with. He also thought that was bitter irony. The thing that would likely destroy the civilian life he’d worked so hard to build was the thing that protected his criminal one.

  Jack drank in the dark.

  Megan had gone to bed, but Jack told her he couldn’t sleep and stayed up for a nightcap. He needed to think. Megan, surprisingly, had a taste for bourbon. She said after being around wine all day, there were times that was the last thing in the world she wanted to drink. Jack helped himself to a glass of Four Roses Single Barrel and brooded.

  It was hard to believe Reginald was dead.

  Harder to believe Jack had killed him.

  And would walk for it.

  After Reginald’s betrayal eight years ago and Jack having learned about the long years of deception leading up to it, Jack had wondered about this moment. He’d dreamed about it. Wanted to see the smug, arrogant look on Reginald’s face drain away like so much blood. In truth, Jack found, a revenge fantasy was much less satisfying.

  He’d still killed a man. Regardless of the fact that it was Reginald and regardless of the fact that his mentor had earned this, Jack killed him, and that was not an easy thing to live with. He tried to force himself to think about what Reginald had done, to conjure up a justification in his mind. He thought about the ten-million-dollar theft from the winery that he set Paul Sharpe up to pull and how, even today, the aftershocks rippled through Jack’s business and his life. Both lives. Jack tried to force himself to think about the harm Reginald had done so that he could ease his mind with what he’d just done. He thought about the two friends Reginald had ordered killed, or, at least, hadn’t tried to stop. Jack wanted that to be insulation. But it wasn’t. His mind went to everything else. To the long-distant memories of when they’d been friends. To the scores they’d pulled together, the reminiscing on Reginald’s boat, and going all the way back to Jack’s earliest days when he’d recruited Jack, a wet-behind-the-ears kid boosting cars.

  It came down to a fairly simple calculus. Jack had killed a man.

  That’s what he thought about, alone and in the dark.

  Not the hundred things Reginald had done to earn it.

  It was the one or two things that made Jack feel guilty for having done it.

  There was a time in the night, probably into the second bourbon, where Jack sat on the couch and stared at the door, waiting for it to bust open and for police to pour in.

  But they never came.

  The night passed slowly, and eventually Jack slept. He crashed on the couch so that he didn’t bother Megan. He woke to the sound of her making coffee. While it was brewing, she came and joined him on the couch, gently taking his head in her hands and placing it on her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair but said nothing.

  Jack took his coffee and went out on her deck to make a phone call.

  Megan lived in Santa Rosa, a small community to the north of the town of Sonoma, about twenty miles from Kingfisher. The house was on a mountainside covered in black oak on the western edge of town, and her deck looked out over the valley. She had neighbors in the technical sense, but they weren’t close. Jack set his coffee on the deck railing, under the thick clouds of the marine layer, and watched the sky, a universal gray slab, for a time. Then he called Enzo using the burner they’d bought right before they split up. It would be night in Italy. Jack also realized that he hadn’t considered the fact that the phone wouldn’t have an international SIM card and might not work in Italy.

  So, he was actually a little surprised when Enzo picked up on the third ring.

  “Hey,” Enzo said, and his voice sounded rough.

  “You okay?” Jack asked.

  “No,” Enzo said. “I couldn’t get on the plane.”

  “You what? Where are you?”

  “I’m in a hotel in New York.”

  “In the city?”

  “Yeah. I was supposed to fly out of JFK
yesterday, but I couldn’t get on the plane.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve fucking never smuggled anything before,” Enzo snapped.

  Jack couldn’t fault him for that. Jack had never tried to hand-carry thirty-five million in diamonds either.

  “I understand,” Jack told him. Then, “Reginald’s dead. He showed up at my place, must have gotten away from the police in Los Angeles. He was going to kill me.”

  “But you got him instead, I guess?” Just like that.

  “I did. If there’s a small measure of justice in this world, Reginald got what he deserved,” Jack said, then was silent for a few moments. “Were you able to get Cannizzaro’s number?”

  “Ahhh, yeah. It took a couple of favors, but I got it.” Enzo’s voice was subdued and a little halting. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  Pressing the burner between his ear and his shoulder, Jack grabbed his other phone. Enzo relayed the numbers, and Jack typed it into a note using his thumb.

  “Anything from Rusty?” Enzo asked.

  “No,” Jack said. That moment seemed a world away, but it had just been days. “I didn’t hear from him.” By now, Rusty would have checked in with his handlers and explained the situation. They were counterintelligence guys, not jewelry guys, but they would certainly notify Danzig of their involvement. Right? They would have to tell her that their source, Rusty, could place Jack in Los Angeles.

  Jack pinched his eyes shut.

  A week ago, this was such a simple job. They were just trying to get back what was theirs. Stealing something that was already stolen. But it had gotten so far out of control since then. So far past the point where he could have, should have walked away.