by Thomas Perry
He had grown up going past those places and thinking what relics they were. What prosperous people around here had been doing for some time was to buy a place like that, drive a bulldozer through the old farmhouse, and build a much bigger house surrounded by the tall, old hardwood trees that had once shaded the farmhouse. They paved the gravel drive, put a rail fence or a stone wall or a hedge along the highway, and they had themselves a nice two- or three-acre estate. That was what he had done. Or the last owner before him had anyway, and it was the same thing. Now he lived in a neighborhood full of doctors and lawyers, all of their houses secluded on woodsy lots. Sometimes as he passed, he saw the kids walking the hundred yards or so down those long driveways to get to the end so the school bus could pick them up. They looked pretty cold sometimes in the winter, but it was worth a little discomfort to live in a house like that.
As Crane drove around Western New York, he looked for neighborhoods with plenty of big, new houses set far apart. Behind them they had pools and tennis courts, and the best of them had horses grazing on pastures that were relics of the farming days. Lately whenever he went through an area with old farmhouses like Chelsea’s, he knew that the next time he passed through, the developers would have begun their transformation, tearing them down to build houses for the upwardly mobile. He would have made a good land developer himself, but what he did produced more money.
The center of his empire was a storage facility he had built not far from here. The land was a twenty-acre remnant of one of those old farms. He had taken out a loan against it, poured a long, narrow slab of concrete, and then erected what amounted to a connected series of ten-by-fifteen-foot enclosures made of cinderblock with a roof of corrugated steel and an aluminum garage door on each one. A year later he’d poured the next long, narrow slab of concrete and built the next set of storage bays. Two years later, he’d built three more rows. Now he always had a new set of bays under construction, barely able to build them fast enough. He was rich.
As he drove on, he still could hardly get over the sting of this morning’s conversation with Chelsea. She was putting him off, keeping him at a distance.
Chelsea couldn’t be actually unkind to him. He had been far too generous and steadfast for that. But she wasn’t responding the way he had hoped and expected. He wondered for a moment. Had her boyfriend Nick told her something about him? He followed the question up and down all avenues in rapid succession.
Nick had been stupid and he had been overconfident. His fight in a bar with that Indian had been just like him—a man revealing his whole nature in one performance, like a character in an opera. But Nick had not been naïve enough to let Chelsea know that the work he did for Crane was not just renting storage space to people who had bought so much crap that they couldn’t keep it all in their houses. Most of the money Nick brought home had come from the other parts of Crane’s business. Chelsea had liked Nick, but if Nick had told her he was a thief she would have thrown him out. Nick couldn’t have told her anything about Dan Crane. Was there any other way she could have found out? Had Nick inadvertently left something lying around that she could have interpreted as evidence that Crane was paying him to commit break-ins? No again. She would have left. And she certainly wouldn’t have let Crane inside her house.
Chelsea could only believe that Crane was what she could see—a nice guy a few years older who had been her boyfriend’s boss and patron. Nick had been dead almost two months. By now it must have crossed Chelsea’s mind that she no longer had a boyfriend, and that she would have to find another one. Crane was rich, fairly good-looking, and successful. Nick had been what? A big lout. A dolt. A man who had probably been manipulated and used by everyone he met. Nick had been so greedy, and so lazy, that it was impossible not to know what inducements would beguile him. Crane had turned him into a thief by simply offering to include him on a crew he was sending to clear out one of those newly built houses set back from the road. Being a burglar had sounded easy, so Nick had jumped on the truck.
It occurred to Crane that almost the same crew was out right now doing another break-in. He searched his mind to see if he could detect any regret at not having Nick alive to work this trip. No, he felt no regret. The men who were left would just have to work a little faster and lift a little more weight into the truck. He wasn’t sorry he had shot Nick. He had done it because he had wanted Chelsea, but there had been many other good reasons to get rid of him. Having a stupid man know his secrets was too risky.
Crane pushed Nick to the back of his mind for a moment, and went over the details of today’s trip. They would probably be loading up the truck right now. They would haul the merchandise to the storage facility, and put it all into J-17. He had already rented that bay to a fictitious customer who had paid in cash for the first six months. The guys would close the bay, slide the bolt into the receptacle, put the standard padlock on the bolt, and leave. The rental agreement was on the books already, and the rental money was in the safe. Anybody looking for stolen items today would have 164 identical bays to search, and 106 empty ones with padlocks on them. He looked at his watch again. He would check with his spies after five. He always sent two, and made sure neither knew about the other. He asked enough questions to pick it up if someone were diverting merchandise instead of turning it all in to him.
After he killed Nick he had considered starting a rumor that the reason Nick was gone was that he had pocketed a valuable ring from a burglary. After thinking more about it, Crane had decided that he would benefit more from taking revenge on Nick’s killer, that Indian who had decked Nick in the bar fight. Scaring his employees would have been good, but risky. He had to believe that building their loyalty would be better.
He ran through other topics to keep his mind from returning to Chelsea Schnell. Did he need anything at the supermarket? Had he let any bills go too long without paying them? Did he have clothes ready at the cleaners’? He knew that thinking about Chelsea was a waste of time. Thinking about her was not going to solve any problems, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind. As he drove, he relived the short visit he had made to her house.
He had knocked on her door, and there she was, behind the screen door. Her image had been slightly unclear, because the screen was like a veil between her and him. What, exactly, had her expression been? Had she been pleased to see him, or only surprised, but not really pleased? Teeth. He clearly recalled seeing the row of small, perfect white teeth as she’d appeared behind the screen door.
A smile. She had been glad. That moment was the one that mattered most, he decided. His appearing at her door unexpectedly had made her smile. She hadn’t had time to overcome some other reaction, hide it, and paste a fake smile on her face. The smile had been genuine, a sincere reflexive impulse from nervous system to facial muscle, without delay or disguise. She had been pleased to see him.
Anything after that could have been thought out, a conscious decision. She had taken the flowers, and walked away from him to the kitchen. She was easily old enough and experienced enough to know he would be watching her, his eyes naturally taking in the shine of her golden hair, the graceful white shoulders, the narrow waist, the rounded hips and bottom. She had walked very appealingly, swaying a little from side to side. Could that have been anything but intentional? Women, alone among all creatures, practiced their walks. And then, when she had leaned herself against the counter her ass had been pushed outward, her lower back and midriff bared by the stretch to reach up into the cupboard. The pose had shown him parts of her ivory skin that most people never saw. Could any of that not have been choreographed? She had been trying to entice him.
He considered the possibilities. Maybe she was simply one of those women who wanted all men to see how beautiful she was, and found it pleasant to know they were feeling the pain and sadness of not being able to touch her. But Chelsea wasn’t flirting with all men. She wasn’t even going out anywhere to
be where men could see her. She wasn’t going to work or visiting or shopping. She was only displaying herself to Dan Crane. So why was she doing that? She pointed out today that Nick had only been dead a few weeks, and that explained why she didn’t want to go out with another man. Maybe she didn’t want people—other women, really—to be critical of her for getting over Nick too quickly. Or maybe she really didn’t feel any interest in other men yet. That couldn’t be right, though. If she felt that way, she wouldn’t be flirting with him. She seemed to draw him in, then push him away. She had used the flowers as an excuse to say nice things about him and kiss him, and then shut him down when he had asked her to have a simple lunch in a public place.
Another idea began to form in his mind. What had she shown that she liked? She had liked Nick Bauermeister. Who was he? He was a big, muscular, dumb guy who had the manners of an ape and treated her as though he owned her and she wasn’t especially valuable. In the few times when he had seen them together, Nick had paid no attention to her for long periods, talking mostly to the other guys. On one night he remembered her reminding Nick that she had to work the next morning, and asking if he could please take her home so she could get some sleep. He had laughed, told her to go get him another beer, and slapped her on the ass when she had left to get it. Crane had heard somewhere that women loved men who had confidence and took charge. They pretended that men who were concerned about their preferences, and sensitive, and asked permission for everything, were the only ones who were behaving acceptably. But they never fell in love with them. They practically stood in line to throw themselves at men like Nick.
Crane drove to his storage facility, stopped at the gate, pressed the button and took a ticket, then pulled the Range Rover forward as the barrier rose to admit him. He parked between the two electric golf carts plugged in and charging beside the office, and stepped to the door. The office was the only two-story building on the property. The bottom level held special storage bays like closets, where customers stored things they were especially worried about. Two men occupied the office twenty-four hours a day, so there was an added layer of protection. He opened the door and climbed the staircase. One of the things he liked about the storage business was that it didn’t require many people. He had only a dozen men working for him. All of them worked on his break-in crews, and also worked shifts here, renting out storage bays and watching the place. He didn’t have a secretary or bookkeeper, salespeople, or any other office workers. He handled his own books, and let his ads and website do his selling. Whoever was on duty answered the phone.
He reached the second floor, where the office was. He could see Harriman was the one sitting at the desk watching the long, narrow storage buildings through the office windows. There were also eight television screens showing what the security cameras aimed up and down the drives between the storage buildings could see, but those were most useful for looking closely at things too far from the windows. Harriman had heard Crane climbing the stairs, and now he glanced over his shoulder to see him. “Hey, Dan.”
“Hi. Anything up?”
“My friend Carl is in the Erie County lockup for ninety days. He had his girlfriend in court to say he beat her again.”
“Carl. Which one is he?”
“Carl Ralston. The biker. You remember the big guy, a little overweight, with the tattoos up both arms?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Crane. “Will he actually do it?”
Harriman said, “I’m thinking Carl Ralston is the most likely to succeed. He’s been in jail a few times, and he knows the routines. Like when the guards are likely to toss a guy’s cell to look for stuff, and where the blind spots of the cameras are.”
Crane shrugged. “It doesn’t add up to much unless he’s willing to actually kill the guy who shot Nick.”
“If he gets a decent chance at him, he’ll do it. He’s not going to shank him in front of a guard, but he’s killed people before. He’s one of the few guys around who will get a benefit for doing it. The bikers he hangs out with will respect him for it. Respect matters to bikers.”
“I suppose it would,” said Crane. “And you told him what it pays?”
“I told him twenty-five thousand.” Harriman suddenly looked worried. “That was right, wasn’t it? I really don’t want to wait until he’s done it and then tell him different.”
“No, no. Don’t worry. Twenty-five is right. And even if it wasn’t, I’d cover for you just so you wouldn’t need to get word to him now while he’s inside. Any communication between you and him could bring attention to us. You did your job. Now let him do his.”
“I will,” said Harriman.
“Good. Are the guys back from Orchard Park yet?”
“They got back a while ago. They went out again to repaint the sides of the truck so it won’t say Sears on it.”
“All of them went?” asked Crane.
“No. Steel and Slawicky stayed back to do the inventory and put the stuff in storage.”
“Maybe I’ll go down and take a look.” Crane took off his sport coat and hung it on a wooden hanger, then put it in the closet, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, and walked to the stairs. He descended to the first floor and walked past the small-size units in the hallway. They looked like narrow closet doors, but they were deep enough to hold most things that were really valuable, and they had built-in four-button locks that made customers feel safe leaving things they might not want to entrust to a garage door with a padlock on it.
He went out the door and walked down the long roadway between two storage buildings, past bay after bay. He could see J-17 from a few hundred feet away. The roll-down door was open a couple of feet from the bottom so there was air inside, but no passerby could see anything that was going on in there. He approved of that precaution. In the summer those bays could get pretty hot, and with this humidity, they could be awfully uncomfortable.
When he reached the bay, he pulled up the door and watched the two men spin toward him. Steel was taller than Crane, thin and dark with close-set dark eyes, and Slawicky was wider and older, with thick, muscular arms. He had blond hair and a small, round nose. Crane said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He had, actually. If they were hiding something from him, he wanted to know.
“No problem,” said Steel, but he looked a little sheepish because he had jumped.
“Right,” said Slawicky. “Harriman would have called us if he’d seen a customer or a cop heading down here.”
Crane wondered. Had Harriman called them to let them know that the boss was on his way out to the bay? Possibly. If he had a chance he would check Harriman’s phone for recently called numbers. He stepped closer. “What did we get?” He realized he had said it in a way they would resent. “I really mean what did you get? I was driving around wasting my morning while you guys did all the work.”
Slawicky waved toward a coffee table a few feet away, where small objects were piled in neat rows. “The best stuff is on the table.”
Crane picked up a stack of money with a thick rubber band around it. He read the slip of paper under the band. “Three thousand four hundred and sixty. Not too bad. It pays for expenses, anyway.” He set the money on the table and turned his attention to a jewelry box that was made to look like a hardcover book. He opened it and lifted a thick chain necklace, bounced it up and down on his palm to feel the weight, then looked at it more closely. “Feels like gold.”
“We haven’t tested it yet.”
“I’ll bet I’m right.” He picked up a tennis bracelet studded with small diamonds. “This is all pretty good stuff. Assuming the diamonds are real, this would be about five grand new.”
“That’s about what I figured,” said Steel. “There are a couple of pairs of diamond earrings too, and an emerald ring.”
“What else have you got?”
Slawicky said, “The furniture is all good—all new and high-end. We also got a couple of Apple laptops, both over there.”
Crane said, “That could be really good. Salamone’s got people who might be able to hack their way in and see if anything on their hard drives leads anywhere. They might be able to do some online banking or something.”
“That pillowcase over there is full of financial stuff we found in the little home office they had. We took it without looking too closely, but there’s a tax return, and that will have social security numbers and all that. We also brought the paintings and sculptures because they looked real.”
“Salamone’s people will have to decide about that stuff. They don’t usually want anything that’s one of a kind, but maybe they can sell it in another country or something. Good job, you guys. And you didn’t have any trouble?”
“No,” said Slawicky. “It was the usual thing. We backed the truck into the driveway all the way to the house, opened the cargo bay, and brought big cardboard boxes down the ramp and into the house on a dolly, like we were delivering a refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer. Everybody worked fast, wore gloves and hats, and cleared the place. If anybody saw anything, they don’t know what they saw.”
“Great,” said Crane. “I’ll leave you guys alone, and go do some work in the office.”
The others didn’t offer any more information, and as he walked back to the office neither of them ran after Crane to tell him anything he needed to hear privately. He would see each of them alone over the next day or two.
