Thick as Thieves

by Peter Spiegelman

  Carr’s laugh is bitter. “Everybody in the stands gets an opinion. They just shouldn’t confuse watching with being on the field.”

  “Is that really how you want to approach this?” Tina says quietly. Her smile is thin and chilly and doesn’t reach her eyes. After a moment Carr looks away.

  There’s a gull hanging in the breeze above the terrace, eyeing the paper scraps on the table and, Carr thinks, eyeing him. He waves a hand at it, but the bird is unimpressed. He looks back to Tina. “Even if Rink hasn’t made many changes to Prager’s security—and even if we could verify that—there’s still the issue of my prints. A day or so from now, she’s going to know I’m not Greg Frye. How do you make that go away?”

  “I don’t,” Tina says, and then she picks up her phone and walks to the far corner of the terrace.

  She’s on for a long while, walking a tiny square while she talks. The wind carries her voice in pieces. Carr can’t make out the words above the beating of the surf, but her tone is tense and urgent. Her face, when he can see it, is blank, and her shoulders are rigid. The longer she speaks, the tighter his chest becomes.

  Tina closes her phone, leans against the terrace rail, and looks out at the waves. For a moment Carr thinks she might throw the phone into the sea, but she slips it into her pocket instead and walks back to the table.

  “Boyce?” he asks. Tina nods. “And?”

  “We have to wait and see.”

  31

  From half a mile out, from beneath the canopy of an open fishing boat rocking gently on flat water, the Prager compound is impressive even to the naked eye. The sweep of sand is like a quarter-mile curve of new snow. The bordering palms are lush, lithe, and synchronized in the breeze. The stone stairs, terraces, and retaining walls are meticulous gray lines. The boathouse, at the end of a spidery pier, is a trim, white chapel. The three-hole golf course is like a velvet swag across the east end of the property, and the corner of a house, visible between palm trees at the west end, is like a slice of pink cake.

  “Let me have the binoculars,” Carr says, and Bobby passes them over. Carr adjusts the dial and details emerge in the bobbing frame. Shadowed foliage becomes careful landscaping, dense green with generous dollops of color—hibiscus, bougainvillea, ixora, and red ginger. A swimming pool casts a shimmering web on a striped awning. A gust of wind swirls tennis court clay into a thin red cloud that settles at the edge of a croquet lawn. The slice of cake turns out to be the corner of a guesthouse—a pink stucco confection with a satellite dish. Of the main house, only a section is visible—an acre or so of terra-cotta barrel tile, a length of colonnaded portico, and a line of French windows that catch light off the ocean.

  “We got them curious,” Bobby says. “On the beach, at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Carr scans the binoculars from west to east and sees them, two security grunts: crew cuts, polo shirts, dark glasses, and earpieces—first cousins to the minders at his hotel. “Didn’t take long,” he says. He drops his sunglasses back on his nose, pulls his ball cap down low, and hands the binoculars back to Bobby.

  “I make it six minutes.”

  Carr nods. “Me too. Get a head count.”

  Bobby peers through the binoculars and Carr steps around the center console, keeping his back to the shore. He fiddles with the fishing rods and the lines that run off the stern.

  “I got five,” Bobby says. “The guys on the beach, one more by the guesthouse, and two at the pier, who look like they’re coming to say hello.”

  Carr glances up and sees two men donning float vests and pulling at the lines of a red-hulled Zodiac moored near the boathouse. “Plus the two we saw on the gate,” he says, reeling in the lines.

  “And who knows how many inside,” Bobby says. “That’s seven-plus on a weekday afternoon, with nothing much happening. With a party going on, it could be twice that.”

  Carr stows the fishing rods and returns to the console. He flips a switch and the twin outboards start. There’s a puff of pale exhaust at the stern, an upwelling of foam, and a throaty rumble that echoes across the inlet. He lifts the binoculars and sees thick faces turn, can feel their sharpened interest. The men are climbing into the Zodiac now, and Carr hears their outboard whine.

  “I don’t need any more,” Bobby says. “How about you?”

  “We’ve seen what we came to see,” Carr says, and he pushes the throttle, turns the wheel, and carves a long white crescent in the ocean.

  What they’ve seen is bad to worse, and it’s been the same everywhere they’ve looked the past two days—since Carr agreed with Tina to make a hurried reconnaissance of Isla Privada’s security arrangements. In George Town, at Isla Privada’s back office, the new guards are practically tripping over the old ones. From Boca Raton, Valerie called to report that Amy Chun’s lethargic driver is due to be replaced in the coming week by an armed one, and that her house will be swept even more frequently for unwelcome electronics. Curtis Prager’s personal protection has gone from one paunchy ex-cop to three muscular crew cuts. And here at his compound on Rum Point Drive, the household detail has grown from four to something north of seven. Only Dennis has yet to report in, on the all-important state of Isla Privada’s network security. If that has changed, Carr told Tina, it’s game over.

  Carr has the boat planing now, and just coming even with the jagged peninsula that marks the western edge of Prager’s property. He looks back along their wake. The protected inlet is dwindling behind them, and so is the red Zodiac, which has barely made it to the reef, two hundred meters from shore. Carr begins a wide curve around the rocks. He sees the Zodiac slow and then turn back. He looks ahead, and in the misty distance he can make out Rum Point.

  Bobby calls to him over the engine and the rush of wind and water. “You want a beer?” Carr shakes his head. Bobby reaches into an ice chest beneath his seat and pulls out a bottle of the local brew. He takes a long swallow and sighs. “This stuff sucks.”

  “It’s what they had at the store.”

  “No wonder,” Bobby says, and takes another drink. “This Rink chick has been busy.”

  Carr nods. “Seems that way.”

  “She’s got people nervous.”

  “I know, Bobby.”

  A third swallow and he pats his mouth with the back of his hand. “I fucking hate surprises.”

  It’s pretty much all Bobby has said for two days—how much he hates surprises, how fucked up Boyce’s intel was, and that they should be thinking about packing it in. And Carr has explained, over and over, that if they can’t get a handle on what changes Rink has made, or if she’s changed anything material to their plans, then they would indeed call it a day. The message has a half-life of about five minutes in Bobby’s brain. Dennis is even more anxious but, mercifully, more inhibited about saying so, and Carr is glad he took Tina’s advice and made no mention of Rink taking his fingerprints.

  As wearing as Bobby’s and Dennis’s worry is, Valerie’s and Latin Mike’s seeming lack of nerves is somehow even more so. After his initial outburst, Mike has uttered no other word of complaint or concern, but simply set about reconnoitering—an uncharacteristically cooperative soldier. Valerie has yet to say anything.

  They are approaching Rum Point, and there are other fishing boats ahead, pushing north out of the sound, and swimmers closer to the beach. Carr eases up on the throttle and turns the wheel a couple of points northwest.

  Bobby pulls off his T-shirt, wipes his brow with it, and leans back in his seat. His body is thick and white, a fish from a different sea. “Could be twice the security when he has a party, could be three times—we really don’t know,” he says. “We’re just guessing at what Rink might’ve changed. We don’t know shit.”

  Carr sighs. “There was a lot we didn’t know when Silva was in charge.”

  “We knew he was a lazy drunk, and that was …” Bobby puts up his hands, searching for a word.

  “Comforting?”

  “There you go,” Bobby s
ays, raising his beer bottle. “We’re just feeling around in the dark now, and I like it better with the lights on.”

  “Like I said, Bobby—if she’s changed anything important to our plans, then we don’t go. If all she’s done is add muscle—”

  “You sound like Mike now.”

  “Yeah? I haven’t heard Mike say much lately.”

  “Well he’s saying the same shit as you—how it’s all manageable, how we should keep on keepin’ on. Personally, I think his perspective’s fucked.”

  “Which means that mine is too?”

  Bobby shrugs. “You can’t like a job so much you lose sight of the basics. You can’t get locked in. You gotta be willing to cut your losses if it’s the smart thing.”

  “And you think I’m not willing?”

  “Hey—I want to finish this as much as anybody. I got the same time in—the same sunk costs. But there’ll be other jobs.”

  “Not too many others this size, Bobby.”

  “See what I mean—locked in,” Bobby says. “That’s the kind of attitude that gets you killed, brother.” He drains the rest of the beer, pulls a fresh one from the locker, and holds the bottle against the side of his face. He closes his eyes.

  Carr swings the boat farther north. They pass day-sailers and catamarans coming out of the sound, and divers massed along the reefs of Stingray City. When the sea around them is empty of other boats, Carr cuts the engines and lets them drift.

  Bobby sits up and looks around. “What—we fishing for real?”

  Carr shakes his head. “You know, I had a talk like this with Declan, just before the Mendoza job—”

  “Oh for chrissakes!”

  “About getting hung up on a job, and losing sight of the fundamentals.”

  “Motherfuckin’ Carr—”

  “You think that kind of attitude got him killed, Bobby, or was it something more specific?”

  “I thought for sure we were done with this crap.”

  “We’re done when I say so, and I’m not there yet. But here’s where I am, Bobby: I’m down to the short strokes on the last job I ever want to work; I’ve had a nasty surprise with bad intel; and whenever I’ve asked a question in the last four months about what happened in Argentina I get answers that are at least fifty percent bullshit. So I’m nervous. And I don’t want to be nervous anymore. I’m fucking tired of it. I’m tired of wondering who’s got my back and who’s going to stick something in it. If I’m going to finish this job, I need to know what’s what, Bobby, and you’re going to tell me.”

  Bobby shakes his head slowly. “Mike said—”

  “Mike isn’t here, Bobby. You’re going to tell me.”

  Bobby chuckles and opens his beer. He takes a long swallow. Then he looks over his shoulder at the empty ocean. “Or what—you’re gonna make me swim back?”

  “We’re pretty far out, so let’s not have it come to that.”

  Another drink. “What the fuck do you want me to say, Carr?”

  “I want to know what happened that night.”

  “Jesus, I’ve told you—”

  “Talk to me about the barn. Talk to me about the money in the barn.”

  Bobby looks up. He shakes his head and laughs softly. “Mike thought you knew. In fact, the fucking guy thought I told you.”

  Carr sighs and looks at the sketchy clouds. He nods and smiles minutely. “Well, now he’s right.”

  “Aw fuck!” Bobby barks. He pushes his sunglasses into his hair. His eyes are bleary and buried deep in a nest of lines and folds. “You fucking prick. That was bullshit, Carr—total fucking bullshit. What are you, practicing to be a cop?”

  “Yeah, really sorry, Bobby. I feel just awful about betraying your trust. Now talk about the barn.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So you’re going to try the swimming?”

  “Fuck you,” Bobby says again, but there’s less to it now. He lets his sunglasses fall to his nose, and he takes a deep breath. “Everything I told you about our run up to Bertolli’s place, and everything I said about our running out again—all that was true. The only bullshit part was about the barn. They didn’t hit us before we went in; they hit us after—after we came out.”

  “Who’s we, Bobby? Who went in?”

  “All four of us—me, Mike, Ray-Ray, and Deke. It was pitch-fucking-black, like I said, and cold—cold enough to see your breath if it wasn’t so dark. We came up real quiet—coasting in at the end. There was a chain on the sliding door, and we clipped it. Then we popped the door lock and went inside.

  “The goddamn place reeked of dirt and horse shit—it came out like a big cloud—but there were no horses. No, it was just like Deke said it would be—a long row of empty stalls, and one at the end that was outfitted as a strong room. Steel wall panels, a big reinforced door, this giant fucking lock that was about as useful as skates on a pig, and some really stupid wiring. We snipped the wires, jacked the door frame right off the wall, and opened her up like that.” And Bobby snaps his fingers.

  Carr starts at the sound, and it breaks a spell he didn’t realize Bobby had woven. The darkness, the oiled weight of weapons and tools, the rich, humid scent of earth and horses, the metal tang of adrenaline on the tongue—Carr could taste it and smell it and feel it all. He could practically see Declan, hulking but somehow graceful as he moved through the shadows. Bobby is watching him, looking worried.

  Carr tugs at the bill of his cap. “And inside?”

  Bobby drags a hand across the back of his neck. He’s staring at his feet, at the beer bottle, empty now, at anyplace but Carr. “Inside was money—bricks of euros, banded and shrink-wrapped, very neat. It was like Deke said, just not quite as much of it.”

  “How much?”

  “We took out about two.”

  “Two million?”

  “About. In two duffels. Ray-Ray had one, Mike took the other.”

  Carr nods slowly. “Split evenly—a million in each?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we came out to the vans, and it was like I told you—they came around that hangar and lit us up.”

  “As you came out of the barn?”

  “As we were getting back in the vans.”

  “And Mike still had the duffel?”

  “He had one; Ray-Ray had the other.”

  Carr nods again and watches a cruise ship churn across the horizon to the north. “Then what happened?”

  “Then it was lights, camera, action: yelling, shooting, hauling ass out of there—exactly like I said.”

  “Except you left out the part about hauling ass with a bag full of money.”

  “Yeah, well, the driving was the same, and so was the shooting.”

  “And the safe house, and the call from Declan—were those the same too?”

  Bobby blots his face with his balled-up T-shirt and looks at Carr. “I swear to Christ, that was straight up—all of it.”

  “But you and Mike decided not to mention the money. Why?”

  “It was Mike’s idea,” Bobby says, slouching in his seat. “After Mendoza, we didn’t know what the fuck was going on—if the Prager job was still on, who was gonna run things, hell, we didn’t know if there was gonna be anything to run. And Mike said it was us who almost got our asses shot off—not you or Val or Dennis. We’d earned the money, and why the hell should we pay into the kitty for a job that might not happen.”

  “Except, as it turns out, the job is happening—and it’s been happening for a while now. But I guess you two never revisited your original reasoning.”

  Bobby sits up and sticks out his chin. “It was us—”

  “Who almost got your asses shot off—I heard you the first time. So, you lied about the money. Anything else you want to clear up?”

  “Fuck you. Nothing else.”

  “No? You didn’t kill Declan then? You didn’t sell him to Bertolli?”

  Bobby’s face and fists clench tight. “You ke
ep talking like that, ocean or no, you’re gonna catch a beating.”

  Carr shakes his head. “So what was the take?” he asks.

  “I told you—we got about half.”

  Carr pulls off his sunglasses. “Don’t give me this about crap, Bobby. How much exactly?”

  Bobby reaches into the ice chest and pulls out a fistful of crushed ice. He sits down and runs it over his neck and shoulders. “One point two even.”

  “And what happened to it?”

  “In a bank—banks—finally, and what a pain in the ass that turned out to be. That much cash—it’s a fucking albatross. Took forever to get it moved, converted to dollars, give it an acceptable past, and get it deposited. I see why we pay Boyce to handle all that crap. Mike needed help to get it done.”

  Carr is standing now, out from under the canopy. “Help from who, Bobby?”

  Bobby smiles and reaches into the ice chest for another beer. He pulls the cap off and takes a long drink. “That’s a funny story,” Bobby says. “Nando fixed it for us—set us up with a couple of friendly bankers in Miami. Remember Nando? It was a real blast from the past when Mike told me he was in touch. He knows all about this shit now. Guess he’s come up in the world.”

  32

  The dream leaves him sweating and breathless, grasping for the story line even as it fades in the predawn light. Something with his father. Something with his mother. The courtyard in Caracas, the bedrooms in Mexico City. The beds empty. A booming, piratical laugh. Carr wakes holding nothing more than sheets.

  He runs water on his face and walks into the living room. The walls are bathed in shifting blues and yellows from the television, playing silently to Latin Mike, who is stretched out on the sofa. A shopping channel from the States—makeup and jewelry that is not quite gold.

  “You buying, Mike?” Carr says quietly.

  Mike yawns widely. “Maybe the eyeliner.”

  Carr nods at Bessemer’s bedroom. “Howie sleep tight?” he asks.

  “Went in there with a bottle about midnight,” Mike says. “Hasn’t come out since.”