by D. C. Brod
Mick smiled and shook his head. “Won’t happen. Bull hates that goat. Thinks it makes Blood look like a sissy. He won’t want any of his guests seeing the two of them snuggling up together.”
With that, he leaned forward and pulled a folded up paper from his back pocket. Unfolded, it was a drawing of the stable’s layout and the surrounding area. I slid a little closer to him.
“Here’s the stables,” he began.
“I can see that. Are you sure it’s accurate?”
“Of course I’m sure. I helped him design it.”
All the stalls were there, all but one noted as unoccupied, and dark Xs where the surveillance cameras were mounted. Next to Blood’s stall was a smaller stall. Mick tapped his thumb on it. “There’s no camera aimed here. This is where the goat will be. Either that or he’ll be wandering around the stables. Or outside.” He dragged his finger down to a fenced-in area just east of the stable. “No camera there either. If he’s not outside, you come in this way,” he indicated the main entrance, “your pockets full of goat goodies you can coax him with.”
“What if he won’t follow me?”
“The goat likes you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Denying it was pointless. “But what if he doesn’t remember me?”
“Goats remember.”
I snorted.
“Seriously. If he liked you a couple of days ago, he’s going to like you on Thursday. It’s not like he’ll recognize your face. He must like the way you smell or something.”
I let that waft by me. “If he doesn’t?” I paused. “I can’t battle a goat the whole way.”
Mick shrugged. “Then you walk away.”
That I could do. “And the motion detector will be off.”
“They’ll turn it off when they take Blood out of the stable.” He cocked a wry grin. “He’s the only thing in the stable that Bull figures is worth stealing. Hell, he’s practically the only thing in the stable.”
He looked at me. “And, you know what? Like I said, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it.” He paused. “You move your mother in with you and I... I do something else.”
“You forgot the third option. One or both of us winds up in jail. And if it happens, it’ll be me.”
“You won’t go to jail. Not if you’re caught stealing a goat. That’s a misdemeanor. You don’t move into the capital offense bracket until we ask for money. And that’s the easy part. Getting the goat is the hard part.”
“What do I do with the goat? I can’t smuggle it into my apartment. And your place would be too obvious.”
He smiled. “Where’s the best place to hide a goat?”
“With a goatherd,” I ventured.
“Close,” he said. “I’ve got a friend. Meyer. He’s got a small farm. A bunch of goats. Couple of horses. In fact, it’s the farm where Sassy came from. He’s gonna be out of town for a long weekend at some county fair.” Then he said, “While he’s gone, his brother’s staying at the farm.” He smiled again. “His brother knows squat about animals, just tosses them some food when he figures they’re hungry, and he starts drinking around five p.m. and doesn’t quit until he falls asleep.”
“Where does this goat man live?”
“Ten minutes from Bull’s place.” Then, “We only need to keep him there for a day. While we make the call and collect the money.”
“What if they put Sassy’s photo on TV and Meyer’s brother recognizes him?”
Mick just looked at me for several moments, and I think he was trying not to laugh. “This is a goat, Robyn. There are no Amber Alerts for goats.”
But it was extortion. “And who makes the phone call?”
“You need to do that.”
“Why me?” As Mick pointed out, the phone call was where the crime went from something rather minor—swiping a goat—to a more criminal offense.
“Because I’ll be at Bull’s. With any luck, I’ll be the one delivering the money.”
“What if you’re not? What if Bull decides to do it himself?”
Mick frowned, and I kept going. “It’s got to be somewhere public enough so one of us can pick up the money without being noticed, but not so public that there could be twelve of Bull’s people watching either of us do it.”
He nodded, chewing on the corner of his mouth. “How about the Wired Lizard on the corner of Seventh and State. You get there—”
“Why me? If you’re not dropping off the money, then surely you can pick it up.”
“Maybe. But I’m guessing that Bull will be keeping me pretty close. I don’t want to have to beat him to the drop.”
Again, he had a point, but why were all the points on his side? “Go ahead with the plan.”
He shrugged. “You get ahead of him so you can see who’s coming and going. Work on your book or something.”
I snorted, and Mick continued. “Tell Bull to leave it in the garbage in the men’s room. After he leaves, you wait a few minutes then, when there’s nobody back there, you duck into the men’s room, grab the bag and beat it.”
“I have a better idea.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me.
“I tell him to drop it at Phinny’s Tap, which is across the street from the Wired Lizard. I can sit in the coffee shop and watch him go in and leave. Then I go in there and pick up the money.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that is better.”
It could work. “I could do a minimal disguise. Odds are he wouldn’t see me at the Wired Lizard. I know Phinny’s, and the restrooms are in the back off a narrow hall to the left. Someone heading that way wouldn’t be seen by the customers in the main room. The women’s room is a single seater without a stall. I assume the men’s room is the same.”
“It is.” He nodded. “I think the garbage is in one corner.”
I just looked at him. “You’ve got amazing recall of a john.”
With a shrug he said, “I notice details.”
I slumped back into the bench. “Let me see if I have this straight. I sneak onto Bull’s grounds in a van marked as the caterer’s.” Mick nodded, and at this point I began to wonder if disguising me as a caterer hadn’t been part of his plan all along. He’d just let me think— for whatever reason—that I was contributing. But it didn’t make much difference in the long run, so I continued to describe the plan as I saw it. “You phone me when I’m good to go. I steal the goat while avoiding the cameras, hustle him into the van and drive to the goat place where the caretaker will be inebriated, and I can slip in an extra goat without him noticing. Then I make the ransom call, and if you’re not the one to deliver the money, I’ll have to pick it up as well.”
He shrugged. “I’m the inside man.”
“I’m the do-everything woman.”
“Okay,” he said with an annoyed sigh. “What’s your suggestion?”
“We’re asking for a half million?”
Mick nodded. “That’s probably as much as he can come up with on short notice.”
“I get three.” I really didn’t care that much about the fifty grand; two hundred and fifty thousand dollars would be enough to take care of my mother for a while. But I was taking more of a risk than Mick, and I knew what it was to be undervalued.
“What if you do get caught?”
I could see where he was going with this. “It was my own idea. I had no help.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “It’s a three/two split.”
There was that warbling wren again. As if it were warning me that we weren’t finished negotiating yet.
Mick glanced at me. “One question.”
I waited.
“Once you get this three hundred grand, what are you going to do with it?”
“I told you. I’m using it to keep my mother in Dryden.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I know that. But where are you going to tell the IRS it came from?”
Shit, I thought, you’re the taxman, you tell me. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying that out loud.
“I could say it’s my mother’s money,” I told him, but I knew that would present the same problem. Besides, I’d just convinced the state of Illinois that she had no money. “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “I guess I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You know who could help you?”
Cocky bastard. “My accountant.”
He grinned. “He could be a lot of help.”
“So, basically, I’d be paying you fifty grand to launder the money?”
“I’m not in the business, but I know people.”
For someone who hated being without options, it was happening to me a lot lately. “You got me.”
He looked at me. “You mad?”
“Yes.”
“Guess I’d be too.”
I pressed my hand on the seat of the bench and tucked my fingers under its edge, gripping it hard. “It was my idea. I’m the one who can get caught.”
“I’ll do it for twenty-five,” he said. “You get two-seventy-five and I get two-twenty-five.”
After a few moments I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling my sigh as I said, “Okay.”
“What’s wrong? That not enough?”
“No,” I said. “That’s fair.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Where to start?
“Oh, shit, Mick. This is getting too complicated. It’s too scary, and I’ve got to be crazy to be sitting here talking to you like we’re planning a party or something.”
“But it’s not complicated, Robyn. This is done all the time—”
“Not in my universe.”
“Welcome to Bull’s world.” He leaned toward me. “Hell, that’s how Bull gets away with ripping off investors.”
“Well, that drops me into a category I’d love to squirm out of.”
“Robyn,” he said and waited until I looked at him, “Blood will miss the goat for a day and then they’ll be back together. He might even win that race. The only one who gets hurt is Bull. And it’s his ego that’ll take a bruising. And it’s not like you’re taking what belongs to him.”
“But it doesn’t belong to me either.”
“Okay, if it makes you feel better maybe you can designate the money for a fund to compensate the people Bull ripped off.” He waited. “How much sense does that make?”
“None,” I admitted. Pulling this off might be easier than learning to live with it.
“You’ll have to show me how to get to Meyer’s farm,” I finally said.
“I’ll come by to get you tomorrow afternoon. Meyer’s brother won’t be there.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll pick up a cell phone for you,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll pick it up.”
“Pay with cash.”
“Of course.”
And, because he must have known what was on my mind, I said, “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t completely trust you.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t seem surprised. “What part of me don’t you trust?”
“Most of you.”
He inched a little closer, and then he moved in and kissed me. I responded. He was a good kisser, and I wasn’t so staggered by the events to dismiss him. But when he drew back, his hand still touching my cheek, I rested my fingers on his wrist and said, “That’s nice, Mick. Really. But that doesn’t make me trust you.”
“What do I have to do?”
“I don’t know. And maybe that’s the point. I play by the rules. You do my income taxes. You know what I’m talking about. I won’t take a deduction I don’t deserve.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if I didn’t trust you. So maybe that’s enough?”
“I don’t think it is.”
“How come?” His confusion seemed genuine.
“You have a reputation. You must know that. I suspect you’ve cultivated it.”
“I work for some unpleasant people. If I show my belly, it’s all over.”
“Why do you work for people like that?”
With a sigh he collapsed back against the bench. “I’m returning some favors.” He turned toward me. “Believe it or not, a jockey with a bum leg isn’t in big demand. It’d have been real easy to slide into a bottle or pain meds.” He picked up my can of soda and took a swig. “But I’d had some good rides and—contrary to legend—had an honest reputation. I’d done some riding for a guy whose family was in the business. He paid my way through U of I. When I finished and set up my own practice, he was my first client. Started doing some investing for him and made him some money. The rest I got through references.”
“You still work for that man?”
He shook his head. “He died about five years ago. But the business is still there.” Then he added, “Most of my clients are legit.”
“How do you know about money laundering?”
He twisted his mouth in good-natured annoyance. “Every CPA knows how to launder money. There’s a big difference between knowing how to do it and doing it.”
“I see.” I stared off toward the house, letting the colors blur and blend. I wanted this to be over. I wanted it to be Sunday, when either I’d have a sudden influx of cash or I’d be posing for my mug shot.
Beside me, Mick said, “We’re gonna make a great team.”
Right.
After leaving Mick’s I drove straight to the nearest box store and purchased a disposable cell phone. I felt a tad illicit paying for it in cash, as though the clerk knew I had something to hide, and he would record the purchase on some “watch list” the moment I was out of sight. Then I went to another store and bought a voice changer. The clerk assured me that it would give me “endless” voice options. I had considered disguising my voice naturally, which I can do. When I was in high school, my girlfriend and I occasionally made prank phone calls using our “Arnold” voices. It came from somewhere deep in the throat where all the phlegm lived. We sounded a bit like Gollum, hobbit gone bad. But now I figured why risk it when someone had been thoughtful enough to invent the voice changer? Several years ago, I’d read an article advising women how to protect themselves, and one of these devices was recommended so a female voice would sound like a man’s when answering the phone. At the time, I thought it was a bit paranoid and never imagined myself buying one. But now I had to believe that no extortionist who knew what she was doing would leave home without it.
When I got home, I dug a wig from a box shoved into the corner of a closet shelf. It was a blond bob, which I’d purchased years ago in an attempt to find out if they did have more fun (not in my case), and then I plucked a pair of black slacks that I had worn three sizes ago from another corner of the closet. It was the only article of clothing I kept from my heavier days, and I kept it around to serve as a ghost of pounds past. If I ever fit into them again, I would have to have some serious words with myself. I’d wear a white blouse while waiting and bring a black, long-sleeved T-shirt to change into when I needed to be sneaking around in the dark.
The pants were still quite large, but if I wore panty hose with some stuffing, I could make them work. It would be warm, but I’d handle the discomfort. I also found a pair of old glasses that I could still see out of fairly well. They were no seamless bifocals, but I didn’t plan to do any reading that night. My eyesight is bad, and I require rather thick lenses, so normally I don’t leave the house without my contacts. Vanity was a necessary casualty of deception.
I tried on my disguise and, standing there in front of my full-length mirror, barely recognized myself. Just the look I was going for.
Wednesday had its ups and downs. But, by the end of the day, as I sat down with my scotch, I was as prepared for the Sassy caper as I possibly could be. I’d taken to referring to it as a “caper.” There was something about the word that implied frivolity and good-natured hijinks. “Extortion” sounded like what it was. In the morning I had cruised past Naomi and Nathan’s Catering, which was based in High Grove, a town
about five miles east of Fowler. I wanted to know if Mick’s makeshift sign would stand a chance of passing muster.
It occupied a large portion of a strip mall and, in addition to private catering, it also had a nice deli open to the public. I picked up a price list, coffee, and, while I was at it, a black bean and corn salad that looked pretty tasty. The lettering on the one van parked in front of the shop was, as Mick promised, an unpretentious serif style font without a logo. Black lettering on white. It shouldn’t be difficult to produce a reasonable facsimile. Once again I had to wonder if Mick had the idea before it ever occurred to me. Maybe he already had the sign made and the truck hired. Seemed there’d never been much doubt in his mind that I would go along with this insanity.
Jack never called, and I wondered if he was put off by my canceling the “date” with my mother. Mostly, I hoped he hadn’t shown up there alone. I’d thought about calling him, and then figured what with all that was going on, I didn’t need to be pursuing romantic possibilities.
I tried to do some work on an article that was due on Monday. Strange the way I assumed my life would go on as before, with this goat thing just a bump in the road. But I found it hard to concentrate, and in the middle of a sentence, I opened a new document and typed three lines in 14-point Helvetica: five hundred thousand dollars, Phinny’s Tap, 1 p.m. I inserted a note card into my printer and hit the “print” button. As the printer spit the card out, it occurred to me that I must be one sorry extortionist if I needed a cheat sheet for my ransom call. Well, I was. I hesitated, then decided I’d better print notes for each of the calls I would make. I hoped I wouldn’t need any of them, but didn’t want to be at a loss for words with Bull. I tucked these cards into my handbag, right between my new phone and the voice changer, and then deleted the Word documents without saving them.
Mick had come by at three o’clock to drive me out to Meyer’s farm. It was a straightforward route—even if it was a bit more than ten minutes from Bull’s. There were only two turns with prominent landmarks, but I paid close attention, seeing as there might be a goat bleating in my ear the next time I drove the route for real. As promised, Meyer’s brother was gone, so we had time to check the place out. There must have been a dozen of the pygmies, along with a couple of nubians, two horses and a llama. Several of the goats nuzzled up to me, and the rest regarded us with benign expressions. I didn’t push for interaction. I might not be a goat whisperer, but I also wasn’t a goat agitator.
