by L. T. Ryan
“Shouldn’t take long,” I said. “Go ahead and get the car. Meet me out back.”
Alik nodded. I opened the door and stepped out. He called after me, holding the phone out the window.
“Better you keep it,” he said.
I walked back, grabbed it, and powered it down while I headed toward the entrance. It was warm already. And humid. The clouds bunched up overhead. They looked black in some spots. I figured it’d be raining when I stepped back outside. Hopefully they had a waterproof bag for me to use.
Cold air wrapped around me as I opened the door and crossed the threshold. My footsteps echoed off the tile floor. The walls in the entryway looked the same as the material used outside. Past that, they smoothed out and were painted an industrial grey. Similar looking short-pile color carpet butted up to the tile.
On the other side of the room were four teller windows. Two had signs in the middle which I assumed said closed. The other two were occupied by young women who looked like they might’ve been sisters. I glanced around the room. There were several offices with windows for walls. The woman who’d opened up the bank met my gaze and smiled. She stood as I approached.
I stopped in her doorway and said, “Do you speak English?”
She smiled and nodded and gestured for me to have a seat.
I pulled the door shut behind me. It banged as it latched. She was younger than she looked from a distance. The tight spirals of her hair bounced as she moved. Her thin nose had a slight crook to it, but nothing that took away from her looks. I sat opposite her and folded my hands on her desk.
“How may I assist you this morning, sir?” Her words were practiced but her pronunciation sounded forced. Better than I could do in her native tongue, that’s for sure.
“I need to wire in some money from a Swiss account.”
Her eyebrows rose and she cast a quick glance over me. I didn’t match the profile of a customer who’d walk in and make such a request.
“I’m more comfortable dressed like this,” I said, sparing her the embarrassment of questioning me.
She smiled. “I apologize. We don’t have many of these types of requests. I’m not sure I know where to start.”
I leaned forward, grabbed a pen and her notepad and wrote down the phone number to the bank. Underneath that I wrote the access code.
“That’s all you’ll need,” I said. “Tell them you are calling to initiate a wire transfer. They’ll patch you through to the correct person. Once you give that person the access code, they’ll want to speak with me, then they’ll need a bit more information from you. The money will be available a few minutes after that.”
“I see you’ve done this before,” she said.
“A time or two.”
“Don’t I need your name?”
I shook my head. Kept eye contact with her.
“Even for my own personal reference,” she said.
I shrugged and told her my name was Martin. After that she stopped asking questions and placed the call. She left the phone on speaker. The operator answered and quickly transferred the call to the next department.
A voice came on and spoke in a neutral accent. “Access code.”
She seemed taken aback that they hadn’t greeted her. “Uh, well, it’s—“
“Access code, please.”
She read off the string of numbers and then repeated it upon request.
A few seconds passed. The connection hissed like a leaking tire.
“Place the account holder on the line.”
I grabbed the phone, whispered, “Take me off speaker.”
She hesitated.
“They’re going to ask me specific questions. I can’t have you knowing the answers.”
She nodded knowingly, then pressed the speaker button.
“I’m here,” I said.
The person on the other end read off five of the twenty possible security questions. I provided the prearranged answers. If anyone had heard the exchange, they’d be mystified by what we said. It was like two kids reading the scripts from ten different movies. That’s how it had to be. The account had over five million in it and not even the bank in Switzerland could put a face to it.
“How much would you like transferred today, sir?”
“One hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”
“Place the banker on the line please.”
I handed the phone back to her. She set the cradle on her shoulder and held it in place with her cheek. It had the effect of bunching the skin up and narrowing her eye. She listened while the Swiss banker asked her for information, then she spat out a string of numbers and codes like she’d done this a hundred times. She thanked the person on the other end and set the phone on the cradle.
She looked at me with a smile. “Should be ready to go in a few minutes.”
I was too tired to keep her engaged in conversation. She stood and walked around me and opened her office door. The low hum of chatter from the main room filtered in. I looked out past the glass wall. Six people stood in line. They spoke to one another while sipping their coffee. It was the kind of town where everyone knew each other. We couldn’t be more than fifty miles from Athens. Yet the people here were very much small town.
Every few seconds she tapped her keyboard. Refreshing her screen, I presumed.
“And it’s delivered.” She stood and extended her hand. “Come with me, Mr., uh, Martin.”
We walked into the lobby, past the tellers and the people waiting and the other offices. More than a few male eyes watched her as we passed. She pulled a key from her pocket and inserted it into a thick steel door that hissed when she opened it. The air inside was a little cooler, and a lot more stale. Almost smelled like a hospital.
She grabbed a metal briefcase the size of a large luggage bag. It had wheels on one end and a handle on the other. She fingered the combination lock.
“Do you have a preference?” she asked.
“For?” I said.
“Denominations.”
“Mix it up evenly.” I paused a beat and heard tinny thumps against the roof. The rain had started. “Would you happen to have a waterproof bag big enough to fit the case?”
She nodded without looking back and continued filling the briefcase. After she was finished she rose and gestured me further into the room. There was another door, this one not as domineering as the first. She used another key. I followed her into a small square room with a stainless steel table in the middle.
“I’ll count,” she said. “Then you do the same.”
Less than ten minutes later, the briefcase was stuffed inside a large duffel bag, and she was shaking my hand outside her office. I thanked her, then turned and headed for the exit.
“Goodbye, Mr. Martin. Enjoy the rest of your stay.”
There would be nothing enjoyable about it.
Chapter 31
I FELT LIKE I WORE a target that was visible from outer space. Standing in an unknown city behind a bank while holding a hundred grand wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done. And I’d done plenty of stupid things. Alik had left me the phone, but kept the pistol.
Thirty minutes had passed. Had to be enough time to get a car and get back.
Then the what-ifs kicked in.
The police had found Esau’s body sooner than we anticipated. Someone had mentioned we lived upstairs. We weren’t there. Esau’s car was gone. Two plus two equals four. Someone manages to get our images up and the cops spot Alik.
Or maybe there’d been an accident. I had the phone. Alik had no ID on him. No one would know who to contact if he were seriously injured.
“Stop it, Jack,” I muttered.
I was wasting energy. Energy I didn’t have to spare. The day might last another eighteen hours. Or it could be over in two. Either way, I had to conserve.
The rain had fallen hard for a few minutes, but then settled to a drizzle. Steam rose off the asphalt. Max humidity. Sweat coated my forehead, mixing with raindrops. I felt be
ads dripping down my neck and back.
It was a bad idea to hang around the back of the bank for too long. Especially carrying a large duffel bag. But I couldn’t leave. Not until I saw or heard from Alik. So I looked around and spotted a bench tucked between a couple trees. Looked like a good enough spot.
I sat there for five minutes before a set of headlights flashed at me. The horn barked a couple times. The vehicle cut across the lot toward me, then whipped to the side. The driver’s door opened and Alik stepped out.
“The hell took you so long?” I said.
“Three people ahead of me,” he said. “You believe that? In this little place?”
I shook my head and said nothing.
“You get it?”
I held up the bag. “Right here.”
“All of it?”
“And then some.”
“What’s the extra for?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”
I hopped in the car and opened the bag. I pulled out the extra cash and tucked it in the glove box.
“You think that’s the safest place for it?”
“Got anywhere better?”
“No.” Alik reached down and pulled out a pistol. “But I got this off my pilot friend. Didn’t want you to have it while you were inside the bank.”
I took the weapon and inspected it. It was a Jericho 941. A 9mm pistol popular with Israeli Special Forces. “What exactly did your friend do before ferrying his friends over the sea in his little Cessna?”
“A little of this. Little of that. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
We stopped at a light on the edge of town. “Should we call now?”
“Not yet. Let’s drive past the house. Want to make sure I know where it is. We’ll call then and loop back so he has no choice but to meet us there.”
“Do we really want to do that?”
“I don’t know. Part of me says it’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever had, and believe me, there’ve been plenty of them. At the same time, I know he can find us back in town. Hell, he’s probably got people still close by the cafe. I think every minute we waste is an opportunity for them to discover Esau’s dead. So going direct to Kostas makes most sense.”
Alik thinned his lips and stared at me for a long moment. “If you say so.”
We continued on with only the wind rushing in through the cracked windows breaking the silence.
I looked over the map Alik had picked up with the rental. It took a few minutes, but I located the correct road. Alik studied the map, traced his course with his finger. For more than thirty minutes, we traversed the hilly, winding roads until we reached the airstrip I’d departed from the night before. A short drive later, we passed the obscure house that had contained half- or fully-nude women the night before, and led to a walkway that wound through landscaping on the way to Kostas’s office. Two women were smoking in front of the entrance door. They had on tight shorts and shirts that were torn just above the navel. They ignored us as we passed.
“Turn around and pull over here,” I said.
Alik jammed on the brakes. The car fishtailed on the slick road. He maintained control, veered hard to the side then whipped the vehicle around and stopped on the opposite shoulder.
“Time to make a call.”
The phone had one number in its contact list. I highlighted it, pressed send, waited for the tones.
“Was wondering when we’d hear from you.” The neutral accent gave the man on the other end of the line away as Chris. “The old man come up with the rest?”
“Isadora still in good condition?” I said. “Last I saw her, you were holding your pistol to her head.”
“All for effect, my friend. Didn’t harm a hair on that gorgeous head of hers.”
“Put Kostas on.”
“You are not in a position to demand such things, Noble.”
I hated that he knew my name. The guy came from somewhere else. A hired mercenary. He’d go back where he came from at some point. He’d mention my name. Someone would recognize it. God forbid if Frank hadn’t released me to the world by then.
Chris said, “We’ll meet you—“
“We’ll be at the house in two minutes,” I said. “Call off the guards up front. I know the way to Kostas’s office.”
He started to say something. An objection, I figured. I pulled the phone away and ended the call.
“Sounds like that went well,” Alik said.
“As well as expected,” I said.
“Time to go?”
“Yeah, time to go.”
Chapter 32
NO ONE STOOD OUTSIDE WHEN we pulled into the driveway. Presumably, Chris had sounded the alarm and someone told the women to get inside. Alik braked hard on the driveway. The car swerved into the grass. He left the engine running as we stepped out. The ground was muddy. Felt like the humidity rose up from the earth. Smelled similar to a wet dog. The house shielded us from the wind. It shook branches and leaves overhead. Sounded a bit like the rolling waves outside our window at the cafe.
I didn’t bother knocking on the front door. Reached out and turned the knob. It was unlocked.
The girls had retreated inside. There were a few others in there with them. No guards, though. And there were no smiles or gestures with various body parts or winks this time. They covered themselves up with pillows or their own hands. Smoke leaked from a clear glass bong set on the couch to the right of the back door. The pungent odor of marijuana filled the room. Weed and sex. I hoped that’s what Kostas’s crew had on their mind that morning.
I barreled through the back door and scanned the walkway. No one waited. They’d all headed for the boss’s office, I presumed. We took the winding walkway cautiously, but not slowly. There was no smell of lavender. The wind blew it past and replaced it with the scent of rain and earth.
“How many you think there will be?” Alik said.
“There were at least eight here last night,” I said.
“They’ll want our weapons.”
“Probably.”
“Fuck that. We don’t give them up.”
“Works for me.”
We passed the final curve and the backdoor was in sight. It opened when we were ten feet from it. The bald guy with the fat head and mustache stood there. He held the door open with one hand. A pistol with the other. His round frame blocked the entrance.
“That the money?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Let me see it,” he said.
“Piss off,” Alik said.
“Who the hell is he?” the bald guy said.
“He’s with me.” I had my hand wrapped around the pistol’s grip. “Now it’s best you step back.”
“Give up your weapons first.”
I shook my head. “Not gonna happen.”
“I’ll shoot you right here then.” He swung the handgun side to side. I noticed the whites of his eyes were glossy and stained red.
“How much of that weed you smoke back there?” I said.
He looked over his shoulder. Back at us.
“Room was a haze,” Alik said. “You must be flying right now.”
The bald guy lifted his weapon, but aimed it somewhere in between us.
“You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” I said. “Lower your weapon and step back. If Kostas wants us unarmed, he can tell us himself.”
The bald guy looked scared and confused and like he wanted to get back to the room and the ladies and the pot. He hopped from foot to foot as though he had to take a piss. Then he retreated into the hallway, pulling the door wide open.
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light as I crossed the threshold. Once they did, I saw that it was empty except for my bald friend. Alik stepped in. The bald guy let go of the door. I drew back and punched him in the gut, grabbed his arm, wrenched the pistol away. He fell to the floor, hands clawing at the thick carpet as though the oxygen he needed t
o refill his lungs was there.
“Let’s go,” I said, tucking the extra pistol around my back in my waistband.
At the other end of the hallway I didn’t bother to knock. I turned the knob, felt the latch give, and kicked the door open.
Kostas sat behind his overbearing desk, smiling. He didn’t flinch when the door crashed wide on its hinges.
I swept the room left to right and back again. Isadora sat at a small circular table, facing away from me. Chris was on the other side of the room, hands crossed by his waist. His pistol dangled from his right hand. He nodded at me, then studied Alik for a long time after we entered the room.
“What’s he doing here?” Kostas said.
“He’s here for just in case,” I said.
“In case of what?” Kostas rose slowly. He winced the way old men do when they stand. Pains left behind from a lifetime of action. “Are you saying I’m not a man of my word?”
“I trust no one, Kostas.”
“Smart man,” he said. “Neither do I.”
“Where’s the rest of your thugs?”
He shrugged. “It’s early. Anyway, judging by what you did to Mikhail out there, they are worthless in the morning. Not like we get a lot of visitors out here. My reputation scares people a lot more than these morons do.”
I smiled at him, but internally I was cataloguing everything in the room and matching it against what had been there the night before. Fatigue had set in. Things didn’t look right. I didn’t know if I could trust my memory.
Kostas’s gaze traveled to the bag. “That the money?”
I nodded.
“All of it?” he said.
I nodded again.
“May we count it?”
“I want to talk to Isadora first.”
“You can turn around,” he said to her.
Her eyes were red and puffy. Her nose red and raw. Her bottom lip swollen on the left. I wondered if they knew about Esau already. Something had to account for the light mood and lack of security.
“You OK?” I said to her.
She nodded. “You?”
“Hanging in there.”
“I’m sorry, Jack.”
“Don’t be. It’s all right. We’re gonna get you out of here soon.”
