by Tod Goldberg
And then I began to notice other details. The floor, while dusty, was lined with razor-thin metal piping that led directly into a series of small boxes built into the floor at the front of the store. The only time I’d seen that previously was in a vault inside a mansion in Belarus, which is good, because once you see a floor that’s capable of electrocuting you with the flip of a switch, you generally want to avoid a second occurrence.
The double doors swung open and out came a man of about seventy. Maybe seventy-five. He did not look like the kind of guy who would electrocute you without cause. Nor did he look like someone named Jacques. Harvey? Certainly. He was bald except for a wisp of gray hair in the center of his head, wore eyeglasses with no frames and had on a dust-covered gray shirt covered only nominally by a dust-covered gray apron.
“Are you here to pick up your trophy or to design a plaque?” Harvey said.
Barry started to speak, stopped, started again, and then reached into his pocket for the scrap of the yellow pages he’d scribbled on, and attempted to read his own handwriting. “Uh, we are here to pick up the trophy for, uh, the, uh, Desperados?”
Harvey didn’t respond.
“The, uh, Diamondbacks?”
Still nothing.
Barry attempted again. “The, gosh, Destroyers?”
Harvey scratched at something on this nose.
“Mike, you wanna take a shot at this?” Barry said and handed me the paper.
Anyone with this much patience and an electrified floor probably didn’t appreciate Barry’s inability to read his own words, so I decided to take a more direct approach. “Harvey,” I said, “we’re here because I need a plate to counterfeit money from. Is this the right place?”
Harvey pulled a cloth handkerchief from his pants pocket, took off his glasses and then spent a few moments cleaning the lenses, all the while breathing so heavily I thought he was having a stroke. When the glasses were finally clean enough, he put them back on and stared at me with something like recognition. It was a look I’d seen many times before, just in a different package, and usually not in a trophy store.
“Marines?” he said.
“Rangers,” I said.
“CIA?”
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“Not officially, no,” I said.
“You lose your pension or something?”
“Something,” I said.
“You going to pay someone to blow up a government building or fund a terrorist cell?”
“No,” I said.
“You usually work for people like Barry?”
“For? No. Barry and I have some mutual interests. In this case, specifically, I’m trying to keep him alive.”
“In the event it’s possible, will you return the plate to me?”
“In the event it’s possible, absolutely.”
“Are you local?”
“Born and raised right here,” I said.
“Back for a visit?”
“You could say I had a burning desire to come home.”
Harvey cleared his throat and then spat on the floor. I had the sense maybe he’d found himself in a similar situation in the past.
“Yes,” he said. “Well. I don’t suppose you have a card or something?”
“My name is Michael Westen,” I said.
“Oh. I see.”
“Were you ever in Germany?” I said.
“East or West?”
“East.”
“For a time,” he said.
“There used to be a lovely pastry shop in the Ottersleben district of Magdeburg,” I said. “Karl’s, I believe it was called. You ever get there?”
“Delectable!” Harvey smacked his lips. Karl’s was a drop spot for American and British spies for about fifteen years. If you did time in East Germany, you had yourself a few pastries at Karl’s. “Wait here,” Harvey said, and disappeared back through the doors.
Barry began to say something, but I put a hand up over his mouth. “Don’t speak,” I said.
A few moments later, Harvey appeared holding a chromium plate. It looked to weigh about fifty pounds, which meant either Harvey was in surprisingly good shape underneath the dust or he’d spent a lot of years lugging heavy plating. “Just the twenties?” he asked.
“The twenties will be fine,” I said.
He pulled out his handkerchief again and wiped off his face and then he nodded at me. I nodded back. And then I picked up the plate and made my way out of the store, with Barry trailing behind me.
“What just happened?” Barry asked once we were back in my car.
“I’m going to guess that old Harvey was a spook,” I said. “Probably still is.”
“You recognize him from the Masonic Temple or something?”
“His floor was electrified, Barry,” I said. “You didn’t notice that?”
“No,” Barry said. “I don’t even know what an electrified floor looks like.”
“The only other time I’ve seen it in a domestic situation was in a house in Belarus owned by a former Soviet commissar. It’s not a standard upgrade.”
“And he just gave you the plate because you both know the secret handshake and had eaten at the same pastry shop?”
“Something like that.”
“You gave him your name.”
“It’s all a man’s worth these days,” I said.
“Do you know what a plate like that is worth on the black market?”
“Barry,” I said, “I told him I’d return it if I could, and I mean to do that.”
“I’m just saying,” Barry said, “that you and I could both be very wealthy men. I’d be willing to split any profit with you sixty-forty, and understand that extra ten percent on my end would be my standard finder’s fee.”
“Barry,” I said.
“Just letting you know it’s an option.” We drove in silence for a few moments, until Barry said, “A guy like him, what’s he doing running a trophy shop?”
“You said yourself that everyone needs a day job, Barry.”
“An electrified floor?”
“Yes.”
“So if he wanted to, he could flip a switch and sizzle everyone?”
“That’s the idea.”
“You have a weird life,” Barry said. He was silent for a moment, and then said, as if it had just dawned on him, “Wait. Did you say East Germany?”
“Did I?”
“Didn’t the wall come down in, what, 1990?”
“I don’t recall.”
“So you were there when you were in your teens? You left high school and ended up in East Germany?”
“Barry,” I said, “if you ask me any more questions, I’m actually required to kill you.”
That wasn’t strictly true—at least not since I’d been burned—but it’s nice to keep your associates guessing.
My cell phone rang. It was Fiona. “Sam is taking Father Eduardo to your mother’s, and then he said he was going to check out the plates on the police cruiser,” she said. “Am I free to spend the rest of my afternoon shopping, or would you like me to beat Barry some more?”
“Actually,” I said, “I think it would be good if you joined Barry and me for a little recon mission.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said. I told Fiona about acquiring the printing plate, a fact she was as excited about as Barry was, which made me concerned that the two of them had more in common than I’m sure Fiona would be comfortable knowing. And then explained to her that I had another move planned. “When Junior’s men take over the printing plant, we need to find a way to keep them there and keep them immobilized.”
“You could have Sam tell them all about the pilgrims. People always love to hear about that.”
“Funny,” I said, “but no. I was thinking something along the lines of a chemical agent.”
“Mustard gas?”
“Preferably something that won’t kill everybody.”
“You’re never an
y fun,” she said.
“Do you know where we might find ourselves a large quantity of fentanyl?”
“Do you need to stop smoking?”
Fentanyl is what comes on the backside of smoking-cessation patches, but when it’s turned into a gas, it’s also a very effective chemical for subduing a human being. Problems occur when people don’t know just how much gas one might need to use to effectively render a human unconscious (or, in what is often a better outcome, exceptionally relaxed) versus the amount that will kill them, which is what happened in Chechnya, except that the Russians didn’t just use fentanyl when they tried to smoke out the terrorists that had overtaken a school; they used a chemical derivative that renders the nervous system obsolete, particularly, as it happened, in the small children who’d been taken hostage.
But dissolve a small amount of fentanyl and the chemical portosyt together, which Lowe’s and The Home Depot keep in the garden section in huge cakes to help with the growth of new strains of certain field grasses, and you end up creating a gas that will cause disorientation and drowsiness, followed, usually, by sleep, but that won’t turn off your central nervous system. It’s the perfect chemical agent to use when putting down a rebellion, provided the rebels don’t have gas masks. It’s also known to be a very popular party drug in parts of Belgium where, apparently, falling asleep is the height of fun.
“I need to stop the Latin Emperors,” I said. “But what I’d really like to do is get them to steal the fentanyl for us.”
“Oh, Michael,” Fiona said, “I love it when you double-cross people.”
“I’m looking for a warehouse,” I said. “Something with cameras. Know of any?”
“I just sold some guns to some very nice Australian separatists who were planning several very interesting, nonlethal attacks on their government,” she said. “Let me ask them if they have any leads and I’ll call you right back.”
“Australian separatists?”
“Everyone hates their government, Michael,” she said, “not just burned spies.”
Usually, planning a heist requires a certain amount of qualitative thinking mixed with just a hint of immorality and a dash of spite. If you’re robbing something so large that you actually need to plan a heist versus just walking into a bank with an Uzi, the spite issue is paramount. Most criminals work quickly because they work from need. Out of drug money? Rob a liquor store. Or they work from specific, unreasonable obligations they’ve made for themselves. Like a billion-dollar pyramid scheme that needs constant attention. But in order to orchestrate a big score, to embark on the sheer amount of planning that goes into a high-level action, a driving personal desire helps keep you excited through the down times.
Sometimes, however, planning a heist comes down to a single word that has bedeviled bad guys since the beginning of time: opportunity. See a truck from Best Buy rolling through your neighborhood? Need a television? Need five televisions? Have a gun and some friends with dollies? You have an opportunity.
I couldn’t help but think, as Fiona, Barry and I sat parked across the street from Harding Pharmaceutical Labs of America, that the opportunity to rob Harding glimmered like a diamond. The building was a one-story warehouse structure with a loading dock on the east end and was surrounded by a chain-link fence, atop which stood video cameras. A nice precaution.
There was also a sign that promised an armed response by a private security company, which was also a nice precaution.
When you’re staking out a place to rob, it’s important to know just what an armed-response sign means. And that means spending some time examining the cars in the parking lot of the place you’re considering robbing. If you don’t see any security-company cars in the lot, that usually means security isn’t on-site, or if they are, they aren’t armed. For insurance purposes, most security companies require their armed employees to check in at their offices first, receive their guns and then leave again in a company-owned fleet car.
If the parking lot has an empty space reserved for the security company, that means the security company tends to come by at prescribed intervals, or it means that there’s a security guard on duty who also drives around the property, looking for criminals, when he’s not sitting behind a desk, reading Harlequin romances. This person might be armed, but it’s unlikely, and, nevertheless, if he’s not there, it’s irrelevant.
The mere sign itself indicates a response, not a presence. If you’re savvy, this makes a difference. If you’re a crackhead looking to steal a home theater system, it probably doesn’t.
Harding had neither a space nor a car in the lot. Employees and visitors each drove into the facility through a big, open driveway that was on either side of the chain-link fence. They’d taken precautions here, but I had a pretty good feeling that’s all it was. The building was certainly alarmed, but beyond that, an armed response was likely ten to fifteen minutes away, which was fine, as Harding Pharmaceutical wasn’t exactly making nerve gas in their offices.
A simple look at their Web site told me that what the mythical guards were guarding was, in most hands, absolutely nothing of value. They warehoused various “stop smoking” products from a variety of corporate partners who used their fentanyl, but since the chemical wasn’t being made in the building—they handled that in lovely Newark, New Jersey—it was merely a shipping port for a variety of Southern locations. The Web site also touted their frozen-storage facilities for products like chlorine dioxide hydrate, a product so volatile and toxic when defrosted that you’d need to be a chemical engineer to make it worthwhile to possess, unless, of course, you intended to bleach wood or process flour.
“How did your Australians find this?” I asked Fiona.
“They needed chlorine dioxide hydrate,” she said.
“For what?”
“I don’t ask questions,” she said.
Sometimes, being a burned spy is actually a blessing.
“They break in?”
“No,” she said, “they bought their supplies using a purchase order. They are very organized.”
“Barry,” I said, “what’s the market value of fentanyl?”
“Pure? I could name my price. But if it’s just on patches, it’s worthless. I’d tell my clients just to go to Target and buy what they want.”
“What about, say, half a truck full?” I said.
Barry thought about that for a moment. “Would the truck be included?”
“If need be,” I said.
“There could be a profit,” he said.
“What if we just needed the truck to be ditched somewhere after they took the product?”
“The truck could be stripped in this scenario?”
“Of course,” I said.
“And who gets the money?”
“I thought maybe a donation could be made to Honrado,” I said, “and then the rest could go to the charity of your choice.”
“The International Barry Appreciation Society is holding a charity dance next month,” he said.
“Make some calls,” I said. “See if you can get someone ready on a moment’s notice.”
“I’ll be in my office,” he said, and then Fiona let him out of the backseat so he could walk down the street and conduct his business. Better I didn’t hear him making his connections.
“How many guys you think we’d need to hit this place, get a truck and not get anyone killed?” I asked.
Fi pushed hair from her eyes and exhaled hard. “Michael,” she said, “you bring the Latin Emperors here, and someone is going to get hurt. What time were you thinking of doing this?”
“Night,” I said.
“So some custodian can get stomped to death?”
“Broad daylight would be a little brazen even for the Latin Emperors. They aren’t exactly a tactical force. I need them to leave as much evidence as possible,” I said, “but that doesn’t include slugs in heads. You have a better idea?”
Fiona watched the delivery bay for a few moments before res
ponding. “You might consider sending a pretty girl over with a problem. See if she can maybe lock someone in a closet.”
“Too risky,” I said. “We can’t have you leaving prints all over the place or appearing on camera. But it’s too risky having these knuckleheads out here when something might go wrong. We need a third force.”
We spent another few minutes watching the building, until Barry walked back up and Fi let him back into the car. “I’ve got a guy who is happy to take on this complex project,” Barry said.
“Good,” I said. “This is a Barry project, right? I’ll never see these guys?”
“They’re New York Russians,” Barry said. “They’ll be selling smoking patches on Coney Island before the police have even begun investigating this.”
The police.
Sometimes it’s the obvious things that make the most sense. I pulled out my phone and called Sam. “Any luck tracking down that plate?” I asked.
“My special powers know no bounds,” Sam said. “Or will have no bounds as soon as I meet a friend of mine in a bit.”
“So you don’t have it?”
“Not yet, no,” Sam said. “But it’s like all things, Mikey. In due time. Due time.”
“It’s due time,” I said. “If we’re going to make this all work out, I need to get that plate confirmed.”
“No fear, Mikey. It’s going to be like that time we took down that evil criminal mastermind.”
“When was that?”
“You know, Mikey, any of the times. I’ll call you when it’s in hand.”
I hung up with Sam and looked back out the window. “You see any police cars roll by since we parked?” I asked Fiona.
“No,” she said. “Why would they?”
“Exactly. So it will be a good thing when one pulls up here and tells the night crew there’s a problem.”
Barry leaned into the front seat. “You got police on your payroll, too?”
“I do now,” I said. I put my phone on speaker, dialed another number and waited for someone to pick up.
