“It’s fascinating, actually,” Nicole replied.
The wife ignored her. “I want you to meet someone.” She pulled him away.
Nicole stepped over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out over the city. The view from here was spectacular. The lights on the bridge, the headlights racing along the streets. She wondered how many people stayed in this building over the holidays. The safes alone would probably make the job worthwhile. Her phone vibrated. It was Tony.
“All done,” he said.
“Have you got him on the straight and narrow?”
“He won’t be making any more trouble.”
“Great. Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to the Marriott by the airport.”
“Oakland?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
When Nicole found Denison, he was talking with Jill, the director of his foundation, and one of the young women from the mayor’s office. She put her hand on his back and leaned up to his ear. “I have to go,” she whispered.
He smiled and nodded.
“I’ll see you at home.”
He turned and kissed her.
She ordered a rideshare before she got on the elevator. She only had to wait at the corner for a few minutes before a Camry pulled up.
“You’re going to the Marriott in Oakland?”
“Yes.”
The car merged into the night traffic. Nicole got out her extra phone to call Lily. “Hey. Can you talk?”
“Just a minute.”
The Camry bumped down the street and took a quick left.
“Okay,” Lily said.
“It’s all taken care of.”
“You’re sure?”
“He won’t bother you anymore.”
“But he’s not…”
“No, he was just made to see reason,” Nicole said.
“How?”
“We’re not going to get into that.”
“But it’s done?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“So it’s the straight and narrow for you?”
“It’s—I really, really, really appreciate what you’ve done for me. But I just can’t do that stuff anymore.”
“I understand.”
At the Marriott, Tony and Nicole were lying together on the bed. The lights were on. Their clothes were scattered across the carpet. The curtain to the balcony was open, showing the night sky. Tony leaned up on one elbow so that he could look at her. “Paid the guys four apiece, so I’m three grand out of pocket.”
“You sure about Sanders?”
“Guy peed his pants. His backup guy—some merc from a legit armed-response company, I’m going to guess—didn’t even resist.”
“I missed you,” she said.
He squeezed her shoulder. “It’s been too long.” He glanced at the clock. “Do you have to go back tonight?”
“I’ve got another hour to get my story straight.”
“But he knows about us?”
“Yeah, I always tell him the truth. But this is his world, so it’s sort of cheating.”
He smiled. “Makes the sex even better, doesn’t it?”
She ran her hand along his side. “Almost all healed. The scar will be even smaller than the other one.”
“Shot twice in that side. Both times it was from jumping the gun. You weren’t there to make me think it through. I rely on you too much.”
“Too much?”
“If you’re not standing beside me.” He took her hand in his. “I know I said I was cool with Denison, that he could be your retirement plan, but I don’t want you to think I’m pushing you away.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re always my girl. You know that, right?”
“I know it.”
“So if you don’t think you can play the straight game, if you think you’re too young or it’s just too hard, you know you’re not trapped—”
She poked him in the ribs. “You want me to come back to you.”
“I’m just saying—”
“You need me. You need me as much as I need you. Why don’t you just admit it? We both know it.”
“Look—”
She kissed him. “You’re so sweet when you’re trying to be honest. But I have less than an hour left, and all this honesty is making me horny. So stop talking.”
Afterward, Tony watched as she washed up and got dressed. “To continue our conversation,” she said while she looked in the bathroom mirror, combing her hair. “You don’t want to tell me what to do, but if I’m fed up with the straight life, you want me back.”
“It’s a lot of money to give up. Originally, I saw it as sort of a long-term con, but now I know that’s not the way it works. And the way we click together. It’s just special.”
She put down her brush. “Yeah, it is special. And it is a lot of money. But money has never been a problem for us. Not for long.”
“Maybe you could go visit him five or six times a year.”
She got out her makeup to touch up her face. “He already thinks he’s agreeing to too much. I’m sure I could come visit until he found a new woman, but the future Mrs. Denisons are already circling.”
“If you stay here, there’s no more extracurricular for you.”
“Yeah, it really is all or nothing. If I stay with him, I’m eventually going to have to agree to marry him, and then he won’t want me working with you at all.”
“Full retirement.”
“Full retirement. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”
“I’ll put you on my Christmas card list.”
“Don’t be a bastard.”
In the elevator on the way down, she gave herself the hard look-over in the mirror. Her hair, her makeup, her clothes all looked the same as when she had left Denison at the fund-raiser. Maybe she’d get lucky and he’d be asleep when she got home.
It was 2:30 a.m. when the rideshare dropped her off at the door to the condo. The lights were on. She found Denison standing in the living room still dressed from the party, a glass of whiskey in his hand. “Well?”
“All settled.” She kicked off her shoes.
“And?”
“Nobody’s dead. Sanders is going to leave Lily alone.”
“Who did you go see tonight? Nothing bad happened, so you can tell me.”
“Tony.”
“He’s been in town?”
“I called him when things got out of hand. I promised you I wouldn’t take any chances, so I didn’t.”
“You got Tony to take them.”
She poured herself a whiskey.
“How long has he been here?”
“A couple of days. He’ll be gone tomorrow. The guys he hired have already left.”
“What did he do?”
“James, I’m not telling you that. No one was injured. That’s all you need to know.” She started toward the hallway. “You coming to bed?”
She led the way to the bedroom. She set her drink on her dresser, stripped off her dress, and went into the bathroom in her underwear. She turned on the shower. “Do you have to get up in the morning?”
“No.”
She was in the shower when Denison entered the bathroom. “Come on in,” she said.
He climbed into the shower. She could smell the whiskey on him. She put her hands on his hips. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Enough.”
She kissed him. “You’re not a drinker. What’s worrying you?”
“All this business. You sneaking around. Lily. I figured Tony was in town. You act a little different when he’s nearby. It’s that world from the kidnapping. I love you, but I can’t live in a world where I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.”
“But you know what’s true right now. Me and you, together. Tomorrow doesn’t come until tomorrow.” She kissed him again. “Take your shower.”
She was in bed i
n the dark when he came back into the bedroom. She saw his naked silhouette before he turned off the bathroom light. “You don’t want to make a girl wait too long.”
He climbed into bed. “I don’t know if I’m up for this.”
She remembered the first time, how awkward and honest he’d been, no guile in him at all, his sadness about his newly dead wife, his appreciation as if she’d been performing a repulsive task, fucking a bad-smelling mark, not making love to a handsome, gentle man. Making him love her had been too easy. But things were in transition now. Playing the honesty game, she was losing her hold over him. Would she win him back, or was their relationship already on the decline? She knew in her heart that she could never give up Tony. And she knew she wasn’t ready to give up Denison. Even though it would have to happen someday, right now, in this moment, she intended to make their relationship as real is it could possibly be. She was going to make love to him tonight, make love to him so deeply that no matter what happened in the future, whenever he thought of her, he’d be thinking of them locked together in ecstasy. That would be her gift to him.
The day was already bright when Nicole finally woke up. Denison was still asleep, his face turned away from her. She slipped on her robe, waved at the housekeeper who was dusting in the living room, and padded into the kitchen, where she made coffee. When she returned to the bedroom with two cups, Denison was awake. He sat up in bed, squinting in the light. “My head is pounding.” Nicole took two ibuprofen out of the pocket of her robe and handed them to him. “Thanks,” he said. “I should have taken them last night.”
“You shouldn’t have drunk so much. You’re a brooder. Drinking just makes you brood more.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever liked the cheerful morning you.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “What about the cheerful afternoon me? Or the cheerful evening me?”
“I just got really worried. We agreed to compartmentalize—we’re here in our compartment, then you’ve got your other compartments when you’re not here, but I can’t always keep my head in this compartment. The unknown can lead to a bad emotional place.”
“I didn’t help by playing hooky with Lily. I’m going to try harder to be here when I’m here—not just hanging around, but having a real life. I’ve just got to decide what that life is going to be, how I’m going to model it, and I’ve been putting that off.”
“Why not just be yourself? That’s who I love.”
“Jimmy, myself is exactly what you don’t want me to be.”
He looked at her quizzically.
“Here, with you, you want my personality but not my inclinations.”
“That’s not true.”
“Being on the con is not something I learned to do because I needed to make money and I couldn’t do anything else—well, maybe it was for a little while, but that was a long time ago. Being on the con is who I am. Doing the straight life, for me, is setting up a con that I’m never going to spring. Convincing everyone that I’m trustworthy so they’ll let their guard down and then not taking anything. It’s like quitting smoking and always walking around with an unlit cigarette in your hand. Does that make sense? It’s like you going around acting like you’re going to help people and then not helping them. Could you do that?”
“So how can you ever know if you’re really being honest with anyone?”
“You don’t have to be disinterested to be honest. You were honest with the people at the fund-raiser, weren’t you? Even if you called it a cocktail party. Even if we were setting our alibi.”
“But I didn’t lie to them.”
“But you were trading on their emotions, their friendship, their desire to be thought of as generous.”
“For a good cause.”
“Because you get to decide what’s good?”
“But what about in our relationship?”
“I’m on the con. I’m honest with you because I want you to really love me, no matter what I do. Working so far?”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“It’s the same for you, isn’t it? You’re hoping to keep my love. And when you get jealous,” she smiled, “is when you’re afraid you’re not inside the game anymore.”
“I don’t want it to be a game. It’s got to be more than that.”
“Jimmy, I promise you, I’m always going to tell you everything.”
“What about Tony?”
“What about him?”
“Did you sleep with him while he was here?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. So when he’s here, there are no compartments.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s true.”
“I don’t think I can accept that. Sharing you in another world is not the same as sharing you here.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t hurt me. Be with me or be with him. Make up your mind.”
12
Loose Ends
On Labor Day, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at two o’clock in the morning, Tony and Nicole were waiting in the shadows by the steel door to a high-security storage unit while Alphonso, their computer guy, was bypassing the alarms and motion sensors. “I still have a hard time believing that the money is here,” Nicole said.
“If the info is good, one hundred K in small bills,” Tony said.
“I think it’s all bullshit.”
“We’ll see in a minute.”
“All set, boss,” Alphonso said.
Tony picked the locks and pulled open the door. Three duffel bags sat on a wire shelf mounted to the back wall. Tony opened the closest bag. It was crammed full of twenties, tens, and fives. Drug money.
“Don’t they count this shit?” Alphonso asked.
“They weigh it,” Tony said. “They know how it averages out.”
The other bags were the same. They loaded them into their stolen Ford, closed the door to the storage unit, and reset the alarm system. Nicole slid in behind the wheel. She took a left out of the storage facility and then a right onto Jackson Boulevard.
“Hey,” Alphonso said, “I thought we were going back to the motel.”
“Never go back,” Tony said. “That’s where the bushwhackers or the police are waiting.” He turned in his seat and pointed his pistol at Alphonso’s chest. “If you move your hands, I’m going to think you’re reaching for your gun.”
“You got me wrong, boss. I’m not the guy who cheats his partners.”
Tony shook his head. “There’s always one on every crew, isn’t there, baby?”
“Yeah,” Nicole replied, “somebody who thinks they’re smarter than anyone else.”
She pulled up an alley behind a pizzeria and parked next to the dumpster. The air smelled of burned crust and rotting vegetables.
Tony gestured with his gun. “So which are you, Alphonso: double-crosser or cop?”
Alphonso’s eyes had the deer-in-the-headlights look.
Nicole got out of the driver’s seat holding a sawed-off shotgun and opened the back seat door next to Alphonso. “Out you go. Don’t make me shoot you.” She grabbed him by the collar, pushed the shotgun into his side, and pulled him out of the car.
Tony came around the car, pushed Alphonso up against the fender, frisked him, and took his pistol. “Let me make it easy for you, Detective. I think you’re a task-force cop, wife and two kids waiting at home. You prove you’re a cop, you walk away.”
“I’m not an asshole, and I’m not a cop.”
Tony smacked him in the back of the head. “Listen up. There is no third choice. There’s only two. Die here or walk away. What’s it going to be?”
“My ID’s inside my left shoe.”
“Kick them off.”
Under the insole of his left shoe was a state police ID. Tony smiled. “You just saved your life, my friend. Don’t screw this up. We’re taking the money and leaving. You’re going home to your family.”
They cuffed his hands with plastic cuffs, pushed
him down onto the back seat, and cuffed his ankles. They pulled the duffels from the trunk, walked down the alley to a black RAV4 parked beside the service entrance to another store, put the bags in the back, and circled around onto Jackson Boulevard. “You were right about Alphonso,” Tony said.
“We both knew there was something about him that didn’t add up.”
“Yeah, but I thought he was going to rip us off.”
“It’s better this way.”
“Yeah. Always better when they don’t know who you are and you don’t have to kill them.”
Nicole took the ramp onto the freeway. “We’ll be at the airport in two hours.”
“When’s your flight?”
“Six a.m.”
“Did Denison call at all this time?”
“No. Like I told you, he’s not worried anymore. He’s conflicted. He’s still grateful that I saved Bell from that psycho and he’s still in love with me, but he’s jealous of my relationship with you and angry that I won’t stop helping you.”
“You going to turn on the charm?”
“After all the honesty, it would be hard to fool him. I know I could do it. I just don’t have the heart. He’s not just another mark. I’m not going to rob him, so what’s the point?”
“So it’s crash and burn?”
“You ever wonder, baby, how it is that people do these relationships? They fool themselves, and they see what they want to see.”
“Sybil’s doing a great job. This is my third visit to see my mom at the care center, and she hasn’t asked if she can come with me.”
“You’ve always been a wonderful son.”
“Thanks.”
She sped up to pass a semitruck before they started up a hill. “But you don’t love her.”
“No. But I enjoy her company. She’s under my protection. I wouldn’t hurt her or let anyone else hurt her.”
“Do you know when you’ll leave her?”
“I can’t stay forever, but I’m hiding in plain sight. I’ve got no reason to go. Unless you’re wanting to make a change.”
“Retirement. It was a great idea. A wonderful gift.”
“Thanks.”
The Murder Run Page 17
