“It’s completely bare of humanity,” David said.
“Perfect,” Vlad concluded.
David contemplated a set of city plans. He pointed ahead, and Vlad climbed over a small chain-link fence to reach the concrete tiers around the edge of the reservoir. David followed. Directly underneath the bridge and built into the side of the reservoir, David found a steel grate in front of a sewer output pipe. It was rusted shut.
They sprayed WD-40 on the bolt and with a little elbow grease, the bolt loosened. Vlad and David took turns to finish loosening all of the bolts on the sewer output pipe, but they didn’t open the grate.
As Vlad was wrapping up his tools and placing them into the back of his Mercedes, he noticed David standing at the water’s edge, gazing over towards Manhattan and the glowing Montgomery Noyes building far in the distance.
“I always knew they were never going to look at me like an equal. But I was loyal. I thought it meant something,” David said.
“Loyalty is nothing to them—not like it is with us. People like Howard Bergensen sit in that black tower and dictate their sense of right and wrong to the masses, calling themselves bankers and the people they work for clients? Please. That’s just a tower of thieves. It’ll crumble down to rubble and destroy half of civilization no matter what you do. The job of a real capitalist is to make sure you’re there to pick over the pieces of debris on the way out,” Vlad said.
“Right. I know that now.”
“Now, let’s get out of here, my peach.”
■
The entire team assembled in Vlad’s office for their final meeting. Vlad went through the upcoming robbery for the hundredth time, including the post-heist plan of attack.
“Baranowski will put the stuff on a truck to Florida. They’ll melt it and sell it in bulk to our Cali fences,” Vlad directed. “David. I got you a gift.”
“I don’t want a gun,” David replied once he saw the black case Vlad was holding in his hands.
“It’s not exactly a gun. At least read the instruction manual. A little offense can come in handy,” Vlad said. He opened the case to reveal the neon yellow taser gun that had been used to great effect on Tyler Stanton. David accepted and pocketed the taser.
“Help the twins with the burner, why don’t ya?” Vlad suggested. “Cleanup is one of the most important parts of any job, and we are not going to leave a single clue for the pigs to slurp up. I want your clothes in there too. Then we scrub this whole place with mineral spirits before we leave.”
David followed Roschin and Petrov towards an incinerator that was installed in a dark corner of the warehouse. Although long forgotten for its original purpose of destroying soiled food stock, it was still in working order with a gas connection. Roschin and Petrov lit the pilot light. David opened the heavy feed door and peered inside. It had been used relatively recently. The ashes of a previous burn were evident in a pile at the bottom of the furnace. But something was stuck on the inside hinge of the incinerator, not having been completely burnt through: a piece of charred rubber. David grabbed the mushy plastic with his hands. He noticed that it was the remains of a prosthetic facial mask. He couldn’t make out any of the features except for an ear. It was rubber. Was it a Halloween costume? An uneasy feeling crept across David.
“You just gonna stand there like a deer in the headlights, my peach?” Vlad said, suddenly appearing behind David.
David dropped the plastic mess back into the incinerator as Vlad and Konstantin loaded sections of PVC pipe into it for destruction. The crew took turns loading up the incinerator, cranking it on, and shoveling out the ash debris into plastic garbage bags every hour or so.
After almost everything in the old cherry factory, including their tools, had been incinerated, Vlad brought the group together again. The six men stood in a small circle, stripped down to boxers and disposable flip-flops.
“Tomorrow we’ll do the most amazing thing we’ve ever done. It will be life changing for each and every one of you. The most important rule afterwards is that you live the same life you do now. No one spends anything. And the only person that leaves town is David, after we deliver him to our vanish man in Pennsylvania. Every single day that passes from tomorrow is a good day, because the chance of our busting up falls exponentially. I’m not going to be a statistic. I’m going to be an outlier. Or maybe I got those terms wrong. David? Either way—you get the point. You stick with me—you listen to me—you’ll be all right. I won’t let you down. That’s what I promise you. Give the same back to me, and all of us are going to glide into the sunset together—rich as hell, smooth as butter, baby.” Vlad grinned while the rest of the group cheered.
David’s situation had pushed him down the hill, and the momentum was turning into an outright landslide. He just hoped he could hold on long enough to land on two feet at the end of it all. He pulled Vlad aside as they left the building.
“I’m not hiding, Vlad,” David said.
“What?”
“I can’t run. I need to be with Marina and Mikey.”
“During visitation in prison?”
“Listen, I appreciate your offer. But I can’t do it. I can’t just disappear. I’ll turn myself in. I won’t blow your scene. You know I never would. You hold my share—take care of my family. I’ll do my time, whatever that is. Then when I get out? I’m solid. I’m on the up and up.”
Vlad stared at David against the sunset for quite a while. Then he nodded his agreement. “I understand. That could be a tough road, David. But I get it. That’s fine. Ya. Do it that way,” Vlad said.
■
It was midnight at the beautiful brownstone built on bonus money. Tyler Stanton descended a spiral staircase into his basement. Beep. Beep. About to head out for a late-night errand, or perhaps a rendezvous, Tyler opened the door to his Porsche in the garage. Then he heard a man’s gravelly voice.
“Tyler,” the man said.
Tyler turned quickly, shocked by the presence of someone in the shadows of his garage.
Bang. One precise shot to the forehead echoed through the chamber. Tyler Stanton died instantly. He fell to the floor like a sack. His assassin calmly stepped over him and exited the garage without even checking his handiwork, apparently confident in a job well done.
■
The assassin dropped the pistol from his gloved hands into a drain in the alley outside Tyler’s house. He walked through the alley and out the other end, whistling a bit as he did and pulling his hat down farther over his head. He stepped onto Amsterdam Avenue and disappeared into the night.
But after the assassin departed the alley, an apparent lump sitting next to a large dumpster started to move. But it wasn’t a lump. She was a destitute homeless woman. She emerged from her sleeping position behind the dumpster and skittered towards the gun. She gazed into the drain, her eyes wide with fright.
■
In Konstantin’s safe house apartment that evening, David paced back and forth nervously. He finally grabbed a jacket and exited the room.
■
David walked past his house in Bensonhurst. He ducked across a neighbor’s lawn when he spied the unmarked police car at the driveway. Hiding within a grove of trees across the street, David gazed at a glowing light emerging from Mikey’s bedroom. David rotated slightly around the tree. He could finally make out Mikey sitting on his bed, a reflection of a Samurai Cat cartoon playing across Mikey’s face. David smiled.
■
Marina sat in the kitchen. She suddenly heard a suspicious light thud emanate from the other side of the house, breaking up the peaceful night. Slightly alarmed, Marina stood and walked through the kitchen. She passed the Froggie Finder still sitting on the countertop. She hadn’t touched it in two weeks, because she would never allow Mikey out of her sight again.
She entered David’s office, where she could have sworn she’d just heard the noise. But nothing was amiss in the sunporch. She glanced out the windows. Then she walked to the back door
. She tried the handle. It was unlocked. Marina opened the door and gazed into the night.
“Hello?” Marina asked. But there was no response. After a beat, she closed the door and locked it. She walked back through the kitchen to where she’d started. She sat down, pondering the state of the back door. She was sure she’d left it locked. There was no reason for it to be open. She was confident of that fact. But then again, she was having trouble putting any chain of logic together recently. She had trusted David when she’d seen him in Brighton Beach, believing what he’d said. As much as her brain was screaming at her to disagree with him, she couldn’t help it. She loved him. But then Jake had informed her that the containers were a bust—nothing there. She was furious that David had misled the police, but she was apoplectic that he had lied to her. Her rock-solid judgment was at stake. As the days went on, she realized that her entire life was shifting underneath her feet. Her and Mikey’s future might look nothing like the one she’d been picturing for years. And for the first time in her life, she had no idea what to do.
Perhaps if Marina hadn’t been spending so much time doubting herself, she would have noticed that an element of the kitchen had changed. She would have seen that the Froggie Finder was no longer sitting on the counter. It had vanished.
■
Upstairs in his bedroom, Mikey sat and watched his cartoons. Then he heard a knocking on his window pane. Mikey’s head curiously darted in the direction of the glass. He hopped off his bed and reached the window. He looked outside. There was something sitting on the sill. He opened the window for a better look. A hand-drawn picture of Samurai Cat stared back at him. Mikey pulled it inside and smiled broadly. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then he hid the drawing under his pillow without telling his mother.
■
Early the next morning, Tyler Stanton’s body lay in his garage, covered by a white sheet. Police officers guarded the scene. Jake watched as Villalon ran a small electronic fingerprint scanner across the gun that had been retrieved in the alleyway. Tony checked a connected laptop database and confirmed a successful pull. It was only seconds before a match appeared: David Belov.
“Unbelievable,” Jake said. “Where did his prints come from?”
“He got picked up when he was a kid for shoplifting. So you think the quant shot Mr. Stanton?”
“Sure looks that way,” Jake said, nodding, “This guy is digging himself a hole in a lake of quicksand, and I don’t think he can ever get out.” Jake glanced into the alleyway. The homeless woman was being interrogated by another officer.
Interested in what she was saying, Jake stepped towards them both. “You saw the shooter?” he jumped in and asked. She nodded her head affirmatively. Jake pulled out his cell phone and cycled through a series of photos. He held out the phone towards her. She inspected the photo Jake was showing her.
“Is this him?” Jake asked.
“Yesiree. No doubt about it—not one bit. That’s the guy.”
Jake turned his phone around. He’d pulled up the old photo of David and Marina and the other couple that Jake had encountered and snapped a frame of in David’s office during his initial search. Jake placed his finger on David’s face. “This man. Right?” he confirmed.
“No,” she said and shook her head defiantly. The homeless woman was suddenly confused by Jake’s action.
“You’re not sure?”
“I’m sure that it wasn’t. It was the other guy—this one. He was the killer,” she said. The woman pointed to the photograph. She was pointing at the other man in the picture.
“And who the hell are you?” Jake asked as he stared at Vlad Zhadanov’s face on the screen.
TWENTY-NINE
THE MONTGOMERY NOYES SKYSCRAPER rose into the sky like an imperial obelisk. But today it was a target. The city began to buzz as David walked down the street in a suit, circulating amidst the urban lemmings. It was another Monday morning, only two weeks after the flash crash. It was a return to familiarity for David—and the habits fit nicely. It was also a sorrowful moment—the last time he’d set foot in the city for the foreseeable future. This time around, he appreciated the place drastically more. Every cloud of acrid sewer stench that he passed through brought a smile to his face—not because his senses enjoyed it, but because of the memories.
He thought back on the evening he’d finally saved up enough money to take Marina out on the town. It had been dinner at Morimoto’s followed by the Les Misérables show. Every little detail was etched into his mind. He’d worked so hard for it. He didn’t even like Broadway, but he hadn’t known that ahead of time. He had just known what he wanted. He wanted to sit down amongst the elite and watch the lights dim with his lady by his side in her sequined dress. He would never forget the moment when he waited for her to use the restroom during intermission. When Marina emerged at the top of the flight of stairs, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She set his heart on fire. Words could not express the sensation—they were below his feelings. He had ordered drinks at the bar—martinis—one for each of them. And they sipped the drinks quietly, watching the rest of high society filter throughout. They didn’t say much to each other in that moment, because they both felt exactly the same. This was the definition of living, and it was theirs that day. He finally had it all.
With the last gust of smoke from a hot dog stand, and a last glance upwards at the perfectly blue sky with only a sliver of cloud in sight, David cocked his head down to avoid surveillance cameras and stepped through the rotating doors of Montgomery Noyes.
■
David entered the main atrium of his old building but made sure to not walk towards the security desk in the back. Instead, he entered the coffee shop spanning the front of the lobby and ordered an espresso. He sat looking out the window and sipped on his drink as he watched the throngs of humanity pace past.
“Hey, brother,” a man’s voice rumbled.
David glanced up to see Hank, Montgomery’s sandwich guy. David reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver sticker and an electrical-outlet extender.
“You’re sure that this won’t come back on me?” Hank asked as he glanced at the items.
David handed Hank an envelope. It was stuffed with cash. “You’ll be fine. Even if they see you on the cameras, they won’t—”
“I didn’t ask you to sell me,” Hank interrupted him. “Like I told you on the phone, I just wanted your word. You need this for your family, right?”
David nodded.
“Then all I need is a handshake,” Hank said. They shook hands. That settled their transaction. Hank grabbed the items and walked away. David took a final sip of his coffee and exited the building.
■
David was minding his own business as he stepped down a side street and away from his old headquarters, until a suited man suddenly stopped him.
“David? What the fuck! Aren’t you like . . . wanted?” It was Rick Stanfield. What a terrible coincidence. David picked up his pace in an attempt to escape him, but Rick ran after David. Rick was holding a large file box in his hands, stuffed with personal items. He jammed David against the side of the building.
“What’s up, man?” Rick asked again.
David didn’t respond, staring at the box in Rick’s hand, unsure of his intentions, or if this meant the whole setup was busted before they’d even begun. But Rick didn’t seem perturbed at all. He actually seemed excited to see David.
“I got fired this morning. I guess they don’t condone helicoptering prostitutes into the company ski retreat. Whatever,” Rick said.
“Hope you land on your feet, Rick,” David replied, jumping back into a normal act for the time being.
“I’m money. Already got a new gig doing the exact same shit.”
David twisted away and continued to pace down the sidewalk, but Rick followed him.
“I can’t believe one of those high-frequency, automated trading outfits hasn’t snapped you up
yet. That’s where the real money is nowadays—not with us old dinosaurs,” Rick said.
“I’m not exactly hirable material,” David replied.
“Yeah. But fuck man . . . Honestly, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“’Cause you’re a legend now. The street will never forget your name. And no one can ever take that away from you,” Rick said. He put his hand on David’s chest. “Hey. Did you hear about Tyler?” Rick asked.
“No. What about him?”
“He died last night,” Rick finally said.
“Are you serious?”
“Murder. Google it,” Rick replied. “Well, I guess I should go. Great to see you, David. It really is. And don’t worry—I won’t call the police. I’m too busy, and I don’t like kicking people when they’re down. Except if I can make money off it. Can’t make a buck off you, now, can I?” Rick finally turned and walked away, and for once, David believed him.
■
David paced towards his originally intended direction—a white rental box truck parked legally on the street beside Montgomery Noyes with the words “Soda Supply, Inc.” freshly painted on the sides. David jumped into the truck to encounter Petrov and Roschin in the back. They nodded at him as they fiddled with a large piece of machinery in the rear of the rental.
David pulled out his laptop and connected it to the internet through a mobile card. He quickly searched for “Tyler Stanton.” David read a small news article about the murder. Rick hadn’t been lying. David confirmed that Tyler had been shot dead a night earlier, in his garage, in what was described as a carjack attempt gone wrong. The revelation ripped through David’s body like an earthquake. Tyler’s death couldn’t be random. He looked up. Petrov and Roschin stared at him coldly. He smiled nervously.
“Did you guys know about this?” he asked. “Tyler Stanton got killed?”
Petrov shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.
“I don’t know anything,” Roschin said.
Flash Crash Page 20
