The Professionals

by Owen Laukkanen

  You’re being selfish, he told himself. If you’re lucky enough to solve this case, you’ll come home to a wife who understands you, and a couple of kids who worship the ground you walk on. You’re a cop, he told himself. You solve crimes. Nobody said anything about glamour.

  Still, it took hours for Stevens to fall asleep. He thought of nothing but the case, watching the hours tick by toward dawn, and when the morning finally came and his plane took off for Detroit, Stevens was passed out in his window seat, asleep on a plane for the first time.

  fifty-seven

  You know,” said the salesman, studying Pender across the hood of the van. “You look awfully familiar. You from around here?”

  Pender nodded. “Got cousins in Mooresville,” he said. He gestured to the car and tried not to breathe through his nose. “Someone die in this thing, or what?”

  The salesman turned to examine the vehicle, a ten-year-old Chrysler minivan with a bad paint job and a rank odor inside. He shook his head. “Reeked like this when they traded it in. Could have someone take a look if you want.”

  “That’s all right,” said Pender. “I’ll just crack the windows. You said a thousand?”

  “Yeah.” The salesman cleared his throat. “You sure I couldn’t interest you in something in a little better condition?”

  “Got anything around three grand?”

  “Got this old F-150,” he said, gesturing across the lot at a red Ford pickup. “Low miles, asking thirty-five hundred. I’ll give it to you for three grand flat.”

  Pender shook his head. “I need something with room. The van’s fine. Maybe throw in an air freshener or ten.”

  A half hour later, Pender drove off the lot, the windows down and air fresheners hung all over the car. The guys are going to love this, he thought, but we’re two grand up. They can’t complain.

  It seemed a shame to ditch the Durango, and Pender was almost tempted to try and sell the thing. But then he caught a glimpse of his face in a newspaper box, and he pulled his hat lower and he knew they had to burn it.

  They had gotten away from Macon clean, leaving the hotel around two in the morning, he and Sawyer swapping shifts as they traversed the back roads toward Charlotte while Tiffany tended to Mouse in the back. The kid was degenerating rapidly, Pender realized. He’d been barely conscious when they moved him out of the motel, and he hadn’t said a word on the drive so far. We’ve got to get him looked at and fast, he thought. He’ll die if we keep going like this.

  Tiffany called her father from a rest stop on I-20, waking the man up and putting on her best scared voice as she repeated what Pender had scripted for her. She danced back to the car smiling and told Pender her dad would come up with the money, just like in the movies. Pender didn’t remind her that in the movies, the cops always won in the end.

  He tried to play out the next few days in his head. We get the money, he thought. We leave Tiffany with her father. Then we drive south, get Mouse fixed up. Then down to Jacksonville. Fly Carter down and get Marie out of jail. Then we get the hell out of the States and try to retire on half pay. It was a heavy gamble, but there was really no other option short of abandoning Mouse at an emergency room, leaving Marie to rot in prison, and getting out of the country alone.

  Pender drove the minivan to the outskirts of town, retracing his tracks until he found Sawyer and others sitting low in the Durango, hidden behind a patch of old shipping containers and jumpy from being out in the open for so long. “Jesus,” said Sawyer. “Thought you’d never come.”

  “What is that, a Voyager?” said Tiffany.

  “We can’t all drive Bentleys,” said Pender. “Let’s get Mouse aboard and get going.”

  They torched the Durango behind the shipping containers and hit the road again, stopping for food somewhere in Virginia and then bombing north toward Pennsylvania. They hit the outskirts of Philadelphia around rush hour, relying on Tiffany’s directions to navigate them around the traffic toward Bryn Mawr.

  Sawyer kept his nose in a gas station map book, and they made camp in a Super 8 alongside Interstate 76.

  “We should get points for all the money we spend in these places,” said Sawyer, setting his bag down on the first bed he saw.

  “You want to send in the receipts, be my guest,” Pender told him.

  They muscled Mouse inside, Pender and Sawyer holding him upright and Tiffany running interference in case anyone came looking. They had to drag the kid to his bed, barely conscious, and when they set him down he passed out again. “This is not good,” Pender told Sawyer. “We gotta get him help, fast.”

  Later that night they ate takeout, chewing in silence, everyone preoccupied. It was Mouse, Pender knew. Where normally they’d be keyed up and nervous the night before a job, now they were scared and their minds were nowhere near ready for what they’d have to do tomorrow.

  Pender put down his chicken wing. “All right,” he said. “We’re all worried about Mouse.” He glanced over. The kid was out cold, his thin chest barely moving in time with his weak breathing. Pender shook his head. He glanced at Sawyer, at Tiffany. Sawyer chewed a forkful of fried rice, watching him. Tiffany kept her eyes on Mouse.

  “This is our biggest job yet, and we’re doing it shorthanded,” Pender told them. “I need you guys to be focused. As long as we get the money, Mouse will be fine. So let’s make sure we pull this off, okay?”

  Sawyer nodded.

  “Tiffany?”

  “We’ll pull it off,” she said, “and it’s going to be badass.”

  As far as pep talks went, it was pretty weak, Pender knew. But the whole thing felt wrong. He retreated to his own room and tried to fall asleep but couldn’t, lying awake on top of the covers instead and feeling the knot in his stomach grow ever tighter.

  fifty-eight

  D’Antonio knocked on the door once and then pushed it open, balancing the tray against his hip with the other hand. The girl was sitting on her bed, staring at the wall. Her novel sat where he’d left it for her on the nightstand, and she didn’t look to have moved much herself.

  “Brought you some food,” he said. He put the tray on the bed, and the girl stared down at it. She hadn’t eaten in a day or so, but she sure didn’t look hungry.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Meat loaf.”

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “Not today you’re not,” he said. “We’re fresh out of tofu.”

  The girl sighed. She looked at D’Antonio. “Okay,” she said. “If you’re not some pervert, then what the hell are you after with Tiffany?”

  D’Antonio walked over to the nightstand, examined the novel. Trashy chick lit. Typical. “Tiffany’s mixed up with some people,” he told her. “We’re just trying to get her back.”

  She scoffed. “That’s a lie. You’re no guardian angel.”

  “These people did something wrong,” he said. “Something bad.”

  “What did they do?”

  He walked to the front of the bed, feeling the girl’s eyes on him. “That’s not something you need to worry about.”

  “You might as well tell me.”

  He looked her over, admiring her long tan legs, the swell of her body in that tight shirt. “Why’s that?”

  She frowned as if she could read his mind. “I’m obviously not going to tell anyone.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “I saw your face,” she said. “The other guys’, too. You didn’t even bother to blindfold me when you brought me into this house. You’re going to kill me.”

  She said it so calmly, D’Antonio thought he’d misheard. “We’re not going to kill you,” he said.

  She gave him a cold smile. “Bullshit. Soon as you get Tiffany, you’re going to cut me up and dump me somewhere. I watch TV.”

  D’Antonio stared at her. She stared back, unblinking, her smile scaring the shit out of him. “They killed a man,” he said, surprising himself. “They tried to kidnap him and the job went sour.
So they killed him.”

  “And you worked for him.”

  “I work for his wife,” he said. “And for people who work with his wife. She wants revenge. That’s where I come in.”

  “Wow,” she said. “A real live gangster.”

  He examined her face, trying to decide if she was serious. She stared up at him, eyes wide, lips parted. “I bet you get lots of girls,” she said.

  “Come on.”

  “You come on.” She lay back on the bed, stretched out. Her eyes on his, watching him watch her. “You’re so sweet and dangerous. Girls must love you.”

  He studied her some more. Almost fell for it. Then she sat up and laughed in his face. “So, fucking kill me, then. If that’s what you want.”

  D’Antonio straightened, adjusted his tie. He stood and walked to the door. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said. “I don’t want to fuck you, either.”

  “You sure?”

  He turned back to her. “I want you to bring me your friend. And her friends. That’s all.”

  The girl rolled her eyes. Sank back on the bed as he stepped out of the room. “Always Tiffany, huh?” she called after him. “Christ, be original.”

  He walked down the hall, breathing a little heavier than normal, trying to wipe the girl from his mind. The girl played tough—hell, she played fearless. Like this kidnapping thing was a game. D’Antonio couldn’t remember ever facing down anyone who’d stared back at him so damn nonchalant.

  “Boss.” Zeke, from the living room. “Your phone.”

  Zeke handed over his cell phone, and D’Antonio held it to his ear. “Yeah.”

  “It’s Johnston.” The cop. “You, uh, didn’t have anything to do with that dustup at the Everglades, did you? The girl I was telling you about?”

  “Of course not,” said D’Antonio. “What do I want with a girl?”

  “Yeah, I guess not. The guy they had posted, Bramley or whatever, hasn’t been much help. Made the attackers as two weirdos trying to pass themselves off as detectives.”

  “He give descriptions?”

  “Said they were big and white. That’s all he got.”

  “I haven’t heard anything,” D’Antonio told him. “Any word on the kidnappers?”

  “Nothing serious. APBs out for the Durango. About a thousand anonymous tips from here to Macon, Georgia, with nothing to show. Oh, they moved the girl from Jacksonville up to Detroit. Guess they’re going to arraign her for your boss’s murder.”

  “He was my boss’s husband.”

  “Yeah, exactly. What’d I say?”

  D’Antonio ended the call, and walked into the kitchen, where Zeke and his massive Cuban-American girlfriend were at an impasse over the meat loaf. He grabbed the girl’s laptop from the counter and returned to her room.

  Haley hadn’t moved, hadn’t touched the meat loaf. “You’re going to turn carnivore or you’re going to starve to death,” he told her.

  “Better than getting shot.”

  “Not really,” he said. “You starve to death, it’ll take weeks.” He put the laptop on the bed and opened it, booted it up. “Let’s see if your friend checks her e-mail.”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “You looking for a pen pal?”

  “Just shut up and type what I tell you,” he said.

  The laptop hummed to life, and D’Antonio watched as the girl brought up her e-mail provider and typed in her password. He watched over her shoulder as her account loaded up. “You tell her to get her ass back to Miami, or else, understood?”

  She typed. “‘Or else.’ Original. Anything else?”

  “She have any other accounts? What about Myspace?”

  “Nobody uses Myspace,” she said. “She has a Facebook account, but it’s linked to her e-mail.”

  “All right,” said D’Antonio. “What else? She have a cell phone, a pager?”

  “She left her cell phone in the room to charge,” said the girl. “And nobody has a pager anymore.”

  “Well, then.” D’Antonio put his face close to hers, looming over her, trying to draw an ounce of fear from the girl. “I’ll say it again. What else have you got?”

  The girl didn’t flinch. She thought for a second. “I could call her house. Her dad’s place in Pennsylvania. He’s never around. Maybe she went home.”

  “Or maybe he can get a hold of her better than you can. Call her house if you want. But you got two days to make this girl materialize before we start taking body parts.”

  “Fuck off,” she said. He slapped her, surprising them both. Her head snapped back, but she didn’t make a sound. She brought her hand to her lip, her eyes wide. She glared at him. “Give me the goddamn phone.”

  fifty-nine

  Daddy?” Tiffany whimpered into the pay phone. “Daddy, it’s Tiffany. No, I’m okay. They want to know if you have the money.”

  Pender listened, watching the pay phone for eavesdroppers. Should have bought burners, he thought. He felt bare naked, standing outside this run-down convenience store in the middle of the day. No burner, no intel. This whole thing is a farce.

  “Okay, I’ll tell them,” Tiffany was saying. “Just leave it at the McDonald’s by the SEPTA station. The back dumpster. I love you, Daddy.”

  She hung up the phone. Flashed Pender a smile, wrapped her arm around his. “He got the money,” she said. “What did I tell you?”

  “I’ll believe it when we’re stacking cash,” he said, climbing into the minivan.

  “You worry too much. We’re practically home free.”

  “Knock on wood.”

  Tiffany leaned forward into the driver’s seat, knocked on Sawyer’s head. “Not funny,” he said, but he smiled.

  “Drop’s good for two-thirty?” said Pender.

  Tiffany nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Fine.” He checked his watch. Ten minutes to two. Forty minutes to showtime.

  They swung back to the motel, and Pender and Sawyer dragged Mouse out into the minivan. They laid him across the backseat, and then Sawyer got behind the wheel. “Tiffany,” said Pender. “Ride shotgun.”

  Tiffany glanced back at Mouse. “Why?”

  “Just do it,” said Sawyer, and Tiffany frowned and got in the front seat.

  Pender climbed in back with Mouse, his heart like a drum machine as Sawyer started the van and they pulled out of the motel lot. They were at the McDonald’s in what seemed like half a minute, though the clock said it had taken fifteen.

  These drives never take long enough, thought Pender. He felt good now, caught up in the nitrous oxide rush, the crazy burst of adrenaline that always came before the job. I’d forgotten how good this feels, he realized.

  They drove around the block, scoping out the McDonald’s and peering down alleys for half-hidden radio cars and unmarked units lying in wait. They found nothing.

  The McDonald’s faced out into the street, with a drive-thru track that made a giant U-turn around the property along the inside of the parking lot. The dumpster was in back, across the parking lot and up against a corner of heavy green fencing. Pender soured on the scene as soon as he saw it. If anyone called the cops, they would be easily trapped by a couple of cruisers out on the main road, no matter what exit they chose. “Shit,” he said. “Let’s hope this guy’s as good as his word.”

  “He’ll be here,” said Tiffany.

  A couple of minutes later, she pointed out the front window. “There’s my dad’s car,” she said, sitting up in her seat and pointing to where a gray Bentley was pulling into the McDonald’s lot, as incongruous as a stripper at an inauguration ball. Pender watched the big car disappear into the back of the parking lot. “You told him drop the bag off, then leave, right?”

  Tiffany nodded. “I told him everything you told me.”

  After maybe five minutes, the Bentley appeared on the other side of the building. Pender watched the driver, a very calm-looking middle-aged man, peer out into traffic and then make a right-hand turn. He drove to the end of the blo
ck, made another right, and disappeared. “This is it,” said Pender.

  Sawyer pulled into the parking lot. “Let’s get paid.”

  The bag was sitting exactly where Tiffany had instructed, a glorious green plastic garbage bag playing cool at the base of the dumpster. Pender saw it and felt his heart start to race. Shut up, shut up, he told himself. You haven’t done anything yet.

  Sawyer pulled the van up to the dumpster, and Pender slid open the rear door. He reached out and grabbed the bag, hefting it into the back of the minivan. It felt heavier than normal, bulkier. A million bucks is a lot more paper than we’re used to, he reminded himself, and he set the bag on the floor to examine its contents.

  Sawyer looked over at Tiffany. “Okay, get out.”

  “What?”

  “Your dad paid the ransom. It’s time to go. Beat it.”

  Sawyer reached across to try and open the passenger door. Tiffany struggled with him. “Sawyer, quit it,” she said. “This wasn’t the plan. We got the damn money. Let’s jet.”

  “We don’t have the damn money,” said Pender. He looked up from the bag, now wide open on the floor of the van, its contents a cargo of sweaters and T-shirts and blue jeans: laundry. “We don’t have shit.”

  Tiffany slammed her door closed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Maybe that’s not the right bag,” said Sawyer. “You see another bag around?”

  Pender went to the side door, searched the ground around the dumpster. No bags, anywhere. Then his heart went cold. Sirens. Over the crush of traffic and the mumble from the drive-thru, he could hear the wail of sirens, maybe a coincidence and more than likely not. “We got sirens, Sawyer,” he said, climbing into the van.

  Tiffany was reaching into the garbage bag, examining the clothes inside. She pulled out a vintage Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. “We got the right bag,” she said. “This is my shirt.”