Deadly Anniversaries

by Marcia Muller

  “Or maybe we could just sell the name to a company that makes ball caps.”

  “Yeah. For a million dollars, maybe.”

  They could have cleaned up, except it turned out that someone else had already done it. Shame, too, ’cause it was looking more and more like the Saints were going to the Super Bowl.

  “Know what I’ve always said?” Forest mused. This time they were at Molly’s, sitting right in the open window.

  “Sure. Perfect time for crime is during a Saints game. ’Cause ain’ nobody on the street, so there’s not gon’ be no witnesses. And no cop in New Orleans is gon’ tear himself away from the tube long enough to work a lick.”

  “You ain’t so dumb,” Forest said approvingly, even though he knew different.

  What Roy was was handsome. He looked just like the Kennedy kid who crashed his plane, one of his primary attributes as a crime partner. Only one woman on earth—who might or might not be named Heidi, and might or might not be Dutch—didn’t fall for that perfect mug, but that was probably only because Roy hated her. Forest was about half in love with her. “Heeeey, baby,” Roy said, as some skinny redhead in a fur coat and shorts the size of Barbie clothes sat on the bar stool next to him.

  He was going to be busy for a while, but Forest didn’t care—he was used to it. He scrolled over to nola.com to get some scores, but something else caught his eye. He was always on the lookout for stuff he could steal, and here, right before his eyes, was a dream score—a freakin’ pot of gold, just waiting for him barely ten blocks away. This was the headline: “For the Birds: First-edition Audubon prints coveted by collectors—and thieves.”

  “Thieves ’R Us,” Forest mumbled, and scrolled ahead hungrily. Two items had particularly caught his attention. One was the name of a museum in the French Quarter; and the other was this figure: 11.65 million dollars. That was for a four-volume set of prints—not even originals, just prints!—called Birds of America.

  There were a bunch of these books, two hundred originally, but the right one, the Havell Edition, was worth a fortune. That was the one with the “double elephant folio.” He had no idea what that was, but it sure sounded cool. The main thing was, the museum had it.

  He got sort of puffed up, absorbing the double elephant part, and wondered what Roy would make of that. He shook his head. Roy was not going to get the hang of it at all, but he knew who would. The only problem was, Roy wouldn’t work with her.

  This was a heist made in heaven. There was even a movie about someone who’d tried something like it once—American Animals. A gang of frat boy amateurs had ended up first getting the wrong edition, then trying to sell it at Christie’s. Just walked in with stolen merch and offered it up for sale. Dumbasses. Everyone knew you had to get the insurance company to ransom it. You’d never get your ten or twelve million, maybe just one or two, but Forest could live with that. And he was pretty sure the Dutch Treat could figure out how to do it. Roy would kill him, but Forest needed her. Okay, he’d worry about her later.

  First he had to get Roy on board. When the redhead was gone, he said, “See, the thing is, the Super Bowl’s different from a regular game. When the Saints win, I mean.”

  Roy said, “Well, yeah. Somebody beat you with a genius stick?”

  “No, I mean it’s different for crime purposes. Remember how it was last time? Everybody in the whole freakin’ city out in the street? I mean, everybody.”

  “Oh yeah. All these chicks were kissing everybody, and high-fivin’ and everything.”

  “Well, they were kissing you. But, yeah, everybody was high-fivin’ and hugging. Everybody.”

  “Some reason you keep saying everybody? Like it means something special?”

  “It does. Think about this part—do you remember how traffic came to a standstill? You literally couldn’t drive anywhere.”

  Roy pulled at his tongue, like he was trying to remove a stray piece of tobacco. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I was stayin’ with some girl at the Royal Sonesta and we had to walk all the way back from whatever party we were at, somewhere Uptown. In the Bentley-Benz district. Waaaay Uptown. Took about an hour, but what an hour.” His face got all dreamy. “All that kissin’ and high-fivin’. Wouldn’t trade that for nothin’.”

  “So the point...” Forest said.

  “Oh, wait! I see what you’re getting at. After the game is even better for a crime than during. ’Cause even the cops can’t go anywhere. Yeah, I see it now.” His whole torso was in motion. “It’s a beautiful thing. A real beautiful thing.” Then his face fell. “But only if the Saints win. If they lose it’s off. Whatever it is.”

  “No, see, I’ve got that figured, too. What we do, see, is we bet on the other team. Then if the Saints win, we make a big score. And I mean a humongous score. If they lose we still win something. Like a consolation prize.”

  “Excuse me. Did you just say bet against the Saints? No! Not going to do it. That is flat against my religion.”

  “Roy, you don’t have no religion.”

  Roy laughed, and tapped his cigarette, looking down ruefully. “Okay, you got me. So what’s the hustle? I’m pretty much up for anything so long as The Treat’s not involved.”

  “Awww, Roy. I don’t even know how to get ahold of her. Anyhow, would I do that to you?”

  “Yeah, you would, ol’ buddy.”

  He was right, and Forest knew it. They ought to have a Twelve Step Program for that woman. Neither of them had any business even being in the same state with her.

  Funny thing was, Roy had been the one to find her, not Forest. She was so far out of Forest’s league he wouldn’t even have tried to talk to her. He was your average sweaty redneck with dirty-blond hair and love handles, whereas Heidi was not just attractive, but a lady. Pretty, sure, in that classic blonde round-faced way that was almost innocent, the kind of face people call “all-American.” But there was something special about her.

  And she wasn’t American. She said.

  The first time they’d met her, she’d said she was Dutch, and they didn’t have any reason to think different now, because they still didn’t know a goddamn thing about her. And she had that tiny trace of an accent that Forest found so appealing. Sometimes. Other times she kind of sounded like she came from the Gulf Coast, like they did.

  She was Heidi Van Eyck that first time, and Heidi Handshaw, or possibly Mrs. Ben Inglesby the second, but another time she’d been Renee something, and once even Rosa Klebb, but Forest knew she was just joking around with that one.

  Three times—three completely different, entirely unrelated times she’d made fools of them. Totally fucked them over, left them more broke than a windshield in a wreck, and lucky not to be arrested or shot. Roy would probably kill her if he got the chance and would definitely kill Forest if he ever proposed working with her again.

  But Forest? He’d kill to hear her laugh again. She had the goddamndest laugh he ever heard, like water from the deepest cave on the continent rippling its silvery way over sunbaked rocks, all the way to the ocean. Or the Nile or the Congo, or maybe Alf the sacred river in the drug poem he had to learn in high school. God, what a laugh she had!

  Also she was far and away the most adept criminal he’d ever seen, on or off the screen, and you had to respect a fine talent. Forest flat-out worshipped her. Even though he understood perfectly that she was what would happen if sarin gas and ricin had a baby.

  How they’d met was, Roy’d somehow struck up an acquaintance with her in a seaside town they were planning to knock over—a town called Seaside, matter of fact—and brought her over to the beach to meet his good buddy Forest. To this day Forest didn’t have a clue why, except that Roy had so many women he usually didn’t even want the next one. Maybe also because Forest had just finished a two-year stretch in an Alabama prison, and she was Roy’s idea of a coming-out present.

  If he’d been that pres
umptuous, the gods of feminism had gotten their revenge. Although they were probably goddesses. It wasn’t but half an hour before she’d gotten them involved in some caper so ingenious no way it could screw up. And it hadn’t. It worked perfect. Just the way she planned it. Which meant Forest and Roy got screwed.

  The next time, they asked her. They thought of it as kind of the rematch where they got their revenge, and they were right about the first part. They could have walked away with two million dollars. The Queen of Crime did instead. That was how Forest thought of her.

  The third time was... Well, who the hell knew? Seemed like they’d just kind of accidentally run into her when she was about to get killed by her current crime partner (who she fucked over just as bad as them), but maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe she had some kind of magic power, and had summoned him there. Not “them,” meaning Forest and Roy. Just Forest. Because maybe they were meant to be, somehow or other.

  Heidi and Forest, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. Sure, dream on, Forest told himself. Meant to be, like a wolf and a rabbit. He didn’t even know her freaking name.

  He told Roy what the hustle was. “We boost this ten-, maybe twelve-million-dollar item from a museum and walk away in the crowd. That simple.”

  “Ten million dollars, huh?”

  “Maybe twelve.”

  “Forest, Forest, Forest, you’re such a dreamer.” Somehow, that wasn’t the reaction Forest had expected. Roy was usually up for anything. “That cannot happen this year,” Roy continued.

  “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

  “Hail,” was how he said it. “It cannot? It wouldn’t be any miracle, bro’. They’re this far from the play-offs. All they gotta do is get in the play-offs, which is practically a done deal, and then win the play-offs.”

  “And the game. They’ve gotta win the game. I don’t know. I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because next year would be the perfect Two Dat—the tenth anniversary of their first win ever.” He got a dreamy look. “Now that’s symmetry.”

  Forest didn’t know Roy even knew that word. “Well, I get that. I can see that. Okay, you’re right. That can’t happen this year, ’cause it’s only the ninth anniversary. But nine’s better than ten, you know? Because they can still go ahead and win next year, too, and then you get your symmetry. Just a year late.”

  “I don’t know. I gotta have somethin’ to believe in.”

  “Well, believe in this—think of it as a dry run. Sometime it’s gotta happen, am I right? Sometime. You agree?”

  “Well, sure, it’s gotta happen sometime.”

  “And that book’s always gonna be there. So if it doesn’t happen this year, then you know what? We’re ready for next year. We’ve already had a dry run and we’ve ironed out all the glitches. And then next year we go the whole nine yards!”

  “That’s it! Dude, that’s it.”

  “That’s what?”

  “That’s the symmetry. This year we go the whole nine yards. ’Cause it’s the ninth anniversary. Yep, that’s it! Okay, it’s meant to be. You were right all along.”

  Forest shook his head. Sometimes he had trouble following Roy, who seemed to have dropped a stitch there, but who cared? “Works for me,” he said.

  “What’s the next step?”

  “Let’s go case the place.”

  “Now? It’s almost midnight.”

  “Not now, dumbass. In the morning.”

  * * *

  This was Forest’s favorite part—the planning was almost better than the money, which was a good thing, because so often that didn’t pan out. But making a perfect plan was a payoff in itself. It took an artist to figure out these things, and Forest was practically a Picasso. The Picasso of planning, he called himself. And he had all the time in the world to get this one right. Maybe he could even get a job at the museum. Hey, that was a thought. Heidi’d once gotten a job as a security guard to pull off a heist. How clever was that? It was the perfect fox-in-henhouse dodge.

  Oh, wait. Probably no one would hire a guard with a rap sheet as long as an alligator. So maybe not that. Maintenance was a thought, though. Everybody needed janitors. And delivery guys! Maybe he could get a job with a business that serviced the museum. Like FedEx, only local. A deli, maybe. Maybe the real guards ordered out. Yeah, something like that. He was getting excited. He could do that. For once he had time.

  Figuring it might be a quiet part of the day, he and Roy ambled over just before lunch. No guard at the front door, and none just inside. Just an ordinary counter with a cheery lady behind it. “Goooood morning,” she said. “Would y’all like to see the museum?”

  “We sure would, ma’am.”

  “That’ll be twenty dollars for two.”

  Well! Forest hadn’t counted on that part, but sure, why not?

  “You can go right through that door.”

  So far so good. Not a single guard. They walked into a large room where a group was taking a tour, and someone was asking a question. Something about it must have been funny because everyone laughed, including the tour guide. It was a group titter, nothing much, but when the tour guide laughed, it was the silvery sound of the purest water in the world crackling its way over stones worn smooth over centuries on its way to...

  Wait a minute!

  Forest froze. Roy said, “What the fuck?”

  Forest didn’t think Roy’d ever even noticed Heidi’s laugh. “Be cool now,” Forest whispered. “We gotta just keep a low profile and everything’ll be cool.”

  Roy’s answering whisper was like a desperate cry. “What the fuck is she doing here?”

  “Shut up and watch her, okay? Whatever you do, don’t let her out of your sight.”

  They stalked her at a distance, taking note of the way she’d once again reinvented herself. Her hair was dark, with heavy straight bangs, and it was long, so her face looked longer. She wore huge black-rimmed glasses, very fancy, Forest imagined, and meant, he supposed, to make her look like a student of Louisiana history, to which the museum was devoted. Her clothes were different, too. He’d only seen her in bathing suits and sarongs. And shorts and summer dresses.

  Today, she had on a long black skirt—what chicks called a “maxi”—and a matching turtleneck thing with a big ol’ pendant necklace. He noticed with trepidation that the pendant was a gold fleur-de-lis. The Saints’ logo. Half the town was wearing Saints gear these days—Roy himself had on a gray hoodie bearing the word Saints and a smaller version of that same fleur-de-lis. But Forest didn’t like the idea that the looming play-offs were so clearly on her mind.

  She saw the two of them, he was pretty sure, but she never lost her train of thought, never faltered in her seemingly off-the-cuff lecture, which, to his mind, was very polished and learned, although slightly accented. One thing about the Queen of Crime, she never did anything halfway.

  When she had said goodbye to her history class, Forest called quietly to her, “Howdy, Miss Heidi,” making the “howdy” part sound almost like her name. She shot him a caustic glare, clearly designed to shut him up, and turned away. So he got a little louder: “Now, is that any way to treat your ex-husband?” This wasn’t entirely off-the-wall—it was one of the parts she’d once duped him into playing.

  When she turned back to him, she was smiling, ready to play. “I beg your pardon. I think you may have confused me with someone. My name’s Sasha. Sasha Orloff.”

  “You sure do like those foreign names, don’t you?”

  She ignored that. “And you are?”

  “Forest McElroy, at your service. As usual.”

  “We’re the plumbers,” Roy said, “You left a note for us...?”

  She shook hands with them, so that anyone watching would think they’d just met. “Ah, yes, we spoke on the phone. Shall we go outside to
talk?” He could see she was getting rattled, looking all around to make sure no one overheard them. “Wait for me. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Now it was Forest’s turn to laugh, and Roy joined in, creating a raucous redneck chorus, just what you wouldn’t want in a place like this. “Not a chance.”

  They stopped by the desk, where she told the resident sweet apple-cheeked lady that she was taking lunch now.

  “Good,” Forest said. “You’re buying. I think you owe us.”

  They were barely on the sidewalk before she spluttered, “What the hell are you two cretins doing here?”

  “I could say we’re trying to collect a debt—wait! Make that three debts. Pretty sure you owe us at least a couple million by now—but let’s let bygones be bygones. We didn’t exactly expect to see you today. And we’re seriously hoping never to see you again. This is our play, got it?” He hated saying the part about never seeing her again, but he had to shut her down. Right this minute! Even though he felt her pulling him in all over again. She always did that. She’d be the perfect crime partner, a whole lot better than Roy, if she’d just quit fucking him over.

  She said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Hey, baby, this is Forest and Roy. That fancy museum guide thing ain’ gonna fly with us. We know you.”

  “Docent,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Not guide. Docent. It’s a volunteer job.”

  Oh yeah, of course she’d done that. Just what he’d been about to do himself—gotten a job that would let her case the museum without causing suspicion. “A volunteer job,” he said, “that you got when you realized the Saints were going to be in the play-offs.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” She stared at him through the elephantine spectacles.

  But her face changed as she thought it through, the Super Bowl possibility clearly presenting itself for the first time. Forest realized he’d blown it. Ray elbowed him. “You dumbass!”