by Rob Byrnes
“What about me?” asked Austin.
Lisa sized him up. She didn’t share Mary Beth’s enthusiasm for the kid, although she supposed he could be kind of charming in a certain way… No! She shook the thought out of her head.
“Go somewhere and stay out of our way. We’ll be in touch.”
Jamie was not a regular patron of the New York City subway system, which is why what should have been a short ride across town on the E Train turned into a long ride to Harlem on an A Train. But he finally made it to the Lexington Avenue station and mounted the stairs two at a time until he was at street level.
He was a half block from PEEBLES FOR THE PEOPLE headquarters when he saw Farraday steer the dark blue garbage truck around a corner.
Damn! He had missed another job!
Jamie mentally kicked himself a few times before realizing there was still time to play a role in the last big job of the morning: the burglary of United States Representative Catherine Cooper Concannon’s district office on Second Avenue. If he could catch up with Farraday, he’d still be part of the action.
It didn’t occur to him that Farraday had turned west off Lexington, when Second Avenue was east. The only thing that occurred to him was that he had to catch up that garbage truck.
He broke into a run.
In the shadow of the Roosevelt Island Tram, Constance and Angelina had just finished telling Grant and Chase how they’d robbed Kevin Wunder and caused a panic on East Eighty-first Street when Lisa led Mary Beth and Chrissy into the plaza. So Grant made them tell the story again, which produced a lot of laughter and almost as much scratching at imaginary bedbug bites.
Chase looked around when the laughter subsided. “Where’s Nick?”
Lisa shook her head. “I sent him home to change his clothes.” Grant started to ask, but she stopped him. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
There were some things Grant was fine with not knowing, and it sounded like this was one of them. He brought up another unpleasant topic instead. “I see you don’t have Jamie with you.”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “Jamie Brock is useless. But we already knew that.”
“The guy brings us a bum job and then doesn’t help pull it off. In my book that makes him worse than useless.”
Something about the route didn’t look right to Jamie. It seemed the truck was heading in the wrong direction.
Then again, from where he stood perched on the rear bumper of the garbage truck, holding on to the handle next to the compactor for dear life, it was hard to get a good read on the scenery. At one point the truck stopped for a red light, and he’d attempted to hop off and climb into the truck’s cab, but before he reached the ground, the truck suddenly accelerated and almost threw him. He figured he was better off staying where he was than risking being left behind and missing the final part of the job.
He knew Grant didn’t respect him very much, but Jamie was determined to prove him wrong. He would not only be present for the final part of the job, he would be the member of the gang who made a difference.
Farraday made a right turn and Jamie tightened his grip on the handle as the truck lurched and his body swayed. And then…
The truck started to speed up.
It took him a while—at least several miles worth of thinking about this situation—before he realized the truck was speeding north on the West Side Highway. And there was no way he was going to jump off the back of a moving garbage truck as it traveled down a highway at fifty-five miles per hour.
But he had great views of the Hudson River as the truck crossed the George Washington Bridge. That was something, at least.
Fifteen miles into the state of New Jersey, Farraday took a look to see if Jamie was still hanging on to the back of the truck. He didn’t really care much either way but figured it was probably for the best when he saw an arm waving in the rearview mirror.
If Jamie could hold on for the last five miles until Farraday could ditch the truck, he’d have one hell of a story to tell some day.
The deck was stacked against them, Grant thought, as he sat on the bench and stared at nothing. They’d had a little bad luck and a little incompetence—he was being kind in thinking Jamie was incompetent; it seemed more likely he’d taken a powder on the job—and the combination was leading to failure.
It wasn’t enough that four jobs had been pulled off. Unless all five were completed, they wouldn’t succeed.
Worse than that, if all five weren’t completed, they’d either have to walk away with nothing, or…
He refused to think through that “or.” Because the only option other than walking away was to plan and execute the entire thing all over again.
With every passing moment, a successful fifth burglary moved a bit further out of reach. First he’d lost Farraday and his garbage truck. Now he was about to lose Lisa.
“I’ll be back.” She lit a cigarette in defiance of the municipal code. “Just call.”
He didn’t like that. “I don’t know that we’ll have much lead time once I sort this thing out in my head. Are you sure you can’t stay?”
She took a drag. “Positive.”
“What could be so important?”
“I have to make a living, Lambert.” She leaned down until they were at the same eye level. “Look, I think I’ve been a good sport about this, but I’ve got a real estate business to run and a book coming out in a few weeks. I don’t have free time to sit around and wait for you to come up with a plan.”
He grumbled; she didn’t care.
“You’ll be fine. I’ll see you soon.” Lisa disappeared down East Fifty-ninth Street.
Ah, well. Grant still had Chase. And Mary Beth and Constance, as well as the apparently naturally brilliant Angelina. He supposed it was better than nothing.
A few pros, a bitch, and a rookie. What could possibly go wrong?
Seven minutes later, Nick Donovan reappeared and reminded him.
“Ta-da!”
Grant looked up, expecting the worst, but Nick wasn’t wearing a goofy outfit. That was progress.
Then Nick had to go and shatter the illusion. “Underneath my clothes, I’m wearing a Spider-Man suit!”
“A…a…?” Grant’s head began to ache.
Nick pointed at the incoming tram. “C’mon, you’ve seen the movie, right? That scene where Spider-Man had to save the Roosevelt Island Tram?”
Grant was thinking maybe a good punch to the throat would shut the kid up but didn’t follow through.
Because he had a sudden inspiration.
“Okay,” he announced. “I’ve got a plan.”
Chapter Eighteen
“So if you don’t mind me asking,” said Chase as he waited with Grant for the light to change, at which point they’d cross Second Avenue, “what’s your brainstorm?”
“Nick Donovan is wearing a Spider-Man costume under his clothes.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Chase wondered if maybe Grant had snapped under the stress of the job.
“And?”
“And that got me thinking.” The light changed and they continued walking. “See, I’d been planning on doing this the traditional way and coming from the inside—go through the front door, pick the locks, and so on—but what if we come from the outside? That’s what Spider-Man would do, right?”
Yeah, thought Chase, he’s snapped.
They reached the now-familiar white brick façade of the building that housed Triple-C’s district office, and Grant kept walking to the north side of the building. He pointed down the narrow alley next to it, the same passageway where a few days earlier Wunder had led them when they upped their fee to thirty thousand dollars. That seemed like such a long time ago.
“If I’ve got my bearings right, Wunder’s office looks out on this alley.” Grant’s finger counted up to the fifth floor window, three below the roof, and studied it in silence.
“So what’s the plan?” Chase finally asked.
“Hmm.” Grant took a
step to the side and studied the building opposite Wunder’s window. “We have to either access Wunder’s office from the roof…or from the window across the alley.”
Chase didn’t like those options. They both sounded like someone was going to get hurt, which is what he told Grant.
“If Farraday was here he could steal us a cherry-picker,” said Grant. “But he’s in Jersey with the garbage truck, so we’re stuck with those options.”
Chase figured the alley was eight feet wide. He pointed to the window opposite Wunder’s. “How are we supposed to get across?”
“I dunno. Build a bridge out of something, I guess.” Grant took another look at the top of the building. “You don’t want to go over the roof?”
“Hell, no.” Chase shook his head. “The only one of us I’d trust dangling from a rope one hundred feet above the pavement is Nick, and I don’t even trust him that much.”
Grant nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” That settled, he turned to his partner. “Call Lisa and tell her it’s time to get to work.”
Margaret Campbell—the Grande Dame of the American Mystery Novel, according to People—had been waiting for David Carlyle in the reception area of Palmer / Midkiff / Carlyle’s office on Sixth Avenue for a half hour before he finally stepped off the elevator at 9:00 a.m. He saw her before she saw him and briefly considered trying to escape but knew he’d have to go into the office eventually…and she’d still be waiting. Like a trip to the dentist, it was preferable to deal with the pain of Margaret Campbell as quickly as possible, before it got worse. Then, God willing, she would go back home to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and leave him alone for a while.
“Margaret!” he gushed and forced a smile to his pink face. “How is my favorite author?”
She shot him down with a stare. “Cut the crap, Carlyle. You know why I’m here.”
“Do I?” A hand fluttered to his face. “I’m afraid I have to plead ignorance.”
“Really!” It was a declaration, not a question. “Did you even look at what your copy editor is trying to do to my manuscript?”
He had, and he had agreed with the copy editor. Margaret had been getting a little sloppy lately, no doubt due to an unfortunate combination of too much writing and too much bourbon. He wouldn’t tell her that, of course.
“I’ll talk to the copy editor.” David’s hand smoothed back a stray strand of thinning white hair that threatened to fall over his face. “I’m sure we can make you happy. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment…”
Margaret Campbell stared him down. “And is that appointment with someone more important than Palmer / Midkiff / Carlyle’s top-selling author?”
He was tempted to inform her that no fewer than six other PMK authors now outsold her, including Glenda Vassar, a romance novelist who tragically seemed to have a fresh nervous breakdown every six months. But, tempting as that was, Margaret’s books still made a lot of money for the publishing house his grandfather had co-founded, so he held his peace and hoped she wouldn’t bolt to Simon & Schuster.
“If you must know—”
“I must.”
“I’m going to finally sit down with Lisa Cochrane to discuss publicity for her book.”
Margaret frowned. “Who?”
“There! I told you it wouldn’t interest—”
“Calm down, David. I know exactly who you mean. The real estate lady, the one who consorts with criminals.”
He looked around to see if anyone was listening. No one was. Still, he leaned close to her. “We don’t know those gentlemen were criminals.”
“They weren’t gentlemen. And they were criminals. Meaning she’s probably one, too.”
“A gentleman?”
She hit him in the shoulder, and not in an affectionate way.
A few moments later the ding of an elevator announced Lisa’s arrival. David welcomed her and began escorting Lisa down the hall. Margaret—uninvited and not going anywhere—followed, much to their chagrin.
If there was payback, it was how boring the next half hour felt to her, because the editor and the picture-book author actually talked book publicity. It was so painfully boring she eventually couldn’t take it anymore.
David droned. “And then you’re booked at the Barnes and Noble in Albany…”
That’s when Margaret decided to interrupt. “I still want to meet those criminals you associate with.”
Lisa sold real estate and therefore lied a lot and quite expertly. She knew how to handle people like Margaret.
She smiled. “I have no idea what you mean.”
David’s head bobbed in vigorous agreement. “Neither do I. Margaret, you’re being—”
He would have continued, but Lisa’s cell phone rang. She grabbed a blank notepad from in front of David, jotted something down, and disconnected the call, ripping off the piece of paper and tucking it inside her blazer pocket.
“Gotta go!”
They waited until Lisa was far away from the office before speaking.
Margaret spoke first. “Did you see that? I’ll bet you anything she’s about to commit a crime with those crooks she hangs out with.”
He leaned forward, a bit too excited at the thought. “You think so?”
“I know so.” Her smile was almost blissful. “Trust the mystery writer in me, Carlyle.”
David spun in his chair until he looked out his window. “I have a confession to make.”
“Spill.”
“Remember that time years ago when you and I got ourselves in the middle of that, uh, little adventure?”
“Which…? Oh, you mean the thing with the Mafia?”
“Exactly. And the FBI. All that running around and danger and, uh, sexual tension…”
She frowned. “What sexual tension?”
“Okay, maybe I’m confusing things. Anyway, it was all so exciting!”
She remembered it a lot differently, and that was even before he mentioned sexual tension. Mostly, she remembered a lot of talking without action. She thought she might have met an FBI agent and was pretty sure she’d met the son of a mob boss, but—as usual—David Carlyle was glamorizing the adventure.
But still, he was right. “Those were some good times.”
He slammed his palms on the desk and Margaret jumped. “Dammit, I never felt as alive as I did then! That was amazing.” He shook his head slowly and sadly. “Sometimes I feel as if life is passing me by, and, well…I wish Lisa had taken us with her. If she’s really going to meet up with those criminals, that is.”
Margaret Campbell’s smile was tight. “So you agree with me now?”
“I do.”
She scowled. “Not good enough.”
“I do! I do believe!”
“So let’s follow her. She can’t exactly stop us.”
A quizzical look came to his face. “We don’t even know where she went.”
She sighed and wondered why she was always the person who had to do all the thinking. “Give me a pencil.”
He doubled up on the quizzical expression. “I don’t think I—”
“Look in your drawer.”
Eventually, he found a pencil tucked beneath packets of catsup and Chinese mustard. He handed it over, and Margaret lightly brushed the graphite over the notepad until the impression of an address emerged on the sheet below the one Lisa had written on.
“Let’s grab a cab.”
Before Lisa arrived, the rest of the gang had taken a few steps in the direction toward turning Grant’s plan into a reality.
With a boost, Chase raised Nick up to the fire escape so he could access the building opposite Triple-C’s offices. Nick slid open a window, then scrambled down the stairway to the ground floor, where he expected a sign would warn him of alarms. But there were no signs, so he held his breath and pushed it open to let them inside.
It was the building’s emergency stairwell, and because people who belonged in the building would be using the elevator,
that meant there was a good chance no one would be interrupting them while they were trying to work.
But they still needed something to bridge the gap across the alley. Leaving Grant behind, they propped open the door, split into teams, and dispersed through the neighborhood to forage for materials.
Chase and Nick returned first, carrying a few sections of metal scaffolding pipes they’d borrowed from a construction site a few blocks away. Grant looked them over and figured they’d reach the other side, but couldn’t see himself crawling on hands and knees over a fifty-foot drop with only two flimsy metal rods to support his weight. So maybe the pieces of scaffolding weren’t the best idea.
It was a better idea than Mary Beth and Chrissy had, though. They were the next to come back to the stairwell, bearing a couple of two-by-fours that would never support the weight and girth of a full grown man…or even Nick Donovan, for that matter. Not to mention, the pieces of wood were only six feet long.
Constance and Angelina did much better. They spotted a ten-foot long wooden extension ladder propped against a building façade on First Avenue and borrowed it, figuring the guy whose feet were dangling out the second-floor window would probably feel for a rung before he put his weight down and gravity dropped him to the sidewalk. If not, it would be an important lesson for him to learn.
Grant sized up the ladder and figured it would do the trick.
Outside, Lisa paid her cab driver and stood on the sidewalk in front of the alley, where she lit a cigarette before looking up. Five stories above her head, she watched as a ladder poked out of a window in the building to her left and was slowly extended across the gap until…
She winced at the sound of breaking glass and took a long drag on her cigarette.
Yeah, she’d found them, all right. Who else could it possibly be?
They ducked below the window frame when the ladder broke through the window on the other side of the alley, but—when nothing happened and no one started shouting, “What the hell did you do to my window?”—finally got up the courage to peek outside.
