Smash & Grab

by Amy Christine Parker

  “That information of yours—is there anything in there about how the vault opens up?”

  “Well, yeah. A couple of pages. The only way in is to get the codes the bank managers and security have. They change all the time, so you’d have to force the manager and the lead security officer to go down to the vault with you and open it.”

  The boys and I couldn’t do that from inside the vault, but she could do it. From the outside. I get her the safe-deposit box in exchange for her letting us out. I’ll have to come clean about how the heist is being planned, but as long as she knows she’s getting what she needs, it shouldn’t make a difference how the robbery goes down. We get out of the vault. She gets to expose this Harrison guy. There are still some things to sort out—like how to keep Soldado and the Eme from green-lighting us the minute they realize what we’ve done. And then there’s the money. I’m not risking everything to come out empty-handed.

  “I’ll get you what you want. But I’ve got some conditions of my own,” I say. “You and your posse up there agree to help us with the job.”

  For the first time she’s the one who looks unsettled. “Help how? We’ve done some stuff, but we’re not bank robbers.”

  “You want what’s in that box? You’re going to have to become one.”

  She looks up at the spot above us where her friends are. “I don’t think we…”

  So I tell her about the tunnel and Soldado and what Benny overheard, as well as my idea to salvage the job, and when I’m done, she goes silent for a while as it sinks in. I’m in league with one of the most dangerous gangs in LA and the Mexican Mafia. This isn’t a chess game we’re playing. This is real life, and there are real consequences if we make a wrong move. But on the other hand, the only way to get what she needs is to enter the bank with her group the way my boys and I usually do. Pretend to be us and get the vault open so we can all leave the bank through the front door. The decision should be easy. This guy at the bank isn’t worth risking everything for. I should tell her this, but if I do, then I’m back to square one, and my boys and I don’t get out of the vault. Do I turn noble and save her from herself or go the selfish route and take care of Benny, Carlos, Eddie, Gabriel, and me? The fact that I can’t do both really sucks.

  “But if he takes all the money and collapses the tunnel, you leave with nothing, and he’ll probably still come after you. And eventually…” She looks up again. “Us.”

  “Well, I still have a few things to figure out….”

  She leans back on the heels of her hands and chews on her bottom lip. “You could collapse the tunnel before he does. Wait for him to get underground and then rig it to blow before he reaches the vault.”

  “You’re suggesting I bury him alive?” It’s a clever plan, but there’s no way. As awful as Soldado is for double-crossing us, I can’t kill him in cold blood. That’s not me. If I did that, I’d be as bad as the Eme. Does she really think it’s an option?

  “No! I would never. What I’m saying is I think we could figure out a way to collapse a section of the tunnel without the whole thing coming down. We could trap them inside so that you have enough time to get out of the bank.” She half laughs. “You could even work it so they have some of the vault money with them. Make it look like they were the ones inside the vault. You tip off the cops and they dig them out.”

  And then they would be the ones to go to jail. It’s brilliant. “You’re brilliant,” I say, and I’m tempted all over again to kiss her.

  “I have to talk to my friends about this before we can commit to anything,” she says. “If we decide to, we’ll have to get everything ironed out before the day of the job. And I want to know every single detail. If I think you’re holding anything back, it’s off.”

  “Understood.”

  “Call me once you talk to your boys and let them know about all this.” She leans over, grabs my phone, and punches in my security code before she accesses my contacts.

  “Note to self: change security code,” I say dryly.

  “I wouldn’t bother,” she fires back. “I’ll only figure it out, too.”

  She adds her phone number and puts Angela in the name box, then uses my phone to call hers so she has my number, too. She opens her bag and hands me the packet of papers she brought with her. “Here’s what I have so far.”

  “There’s one more thing,” I say. Heat creeps up my neck. My face feels like it’s catching fire. “Soldado knows I have a contact at the bank, and his girlfriend, Rosie—she works the taco truck with me—knows it’s you.”

  She frowns. “And?”

  “Well, I wanted to keep you safe before, and really, I still need to, so I told him that I got you to give me the information because you have the hots for me.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “You did?”

  I shrug and concentrate on my shoes. Oh hell, this is humiliating. “Pretty much. So if we’re going to keep meeting up…it would be better…I mean…it would help if…”

  “If I acted like I have the hots for you when we’re together. In case they’re watching.”

  “I’ve been followed a couple of times lately, and chances are I might be again. It would help convince them that we aren’t up to anything.”

  “Except fooling around.” I still can’t look at her, but I can hear the amusement in her voice.

  “Just when we’re out in public anywhere. Can you do that? Make like we’re dating? Fake it until the job?” Now I do look at her, straight into her eyes. I’d be lying if I said I’m not hoping she’ll say yes.

  “So much for keeping it strictly criminal,” she says.

  “Okay, you way undersold that boy. He is off-the-charts hot,” Elena whispers to Whitney and me as we walk toward the car. Quinn, Leo, and Oliver are up ahead, deep in conversation about the prospect of our joining the Romero Robbers’ next heist.

  “And a criminal,” I say, “who’s basically trying to recruit us.” I can’t think about how hot he is. Or how I nearly let him kiss me back there. I have bigger things to worry about. Like figuring out exactly how we’re going to go from risk takers to bank robbers by the Fourth of July.

  “Is it bad that it kinda makes him hotter?” Elena asks.

  Whitney laughs. “It shouldn’t, but you’re right. Somehow it does.”

  “Maybe because in spite of that he still seems like a nice guy,” I say. And there I go, thinking about him again, giving myself reasons why it’s okay to be into him. This is why faking that I like him whenever we’re together is a bad idea. There won’t be much pretending involved.

  “It’s an act. Gotta be. Those guys are good at cons, right? Otherwise he’d be in jail right now,” Elena reasons.

  She’s probably right. I think back to my conversations with Christian so far. Am I letting whatever chemistry we seem to have blind me into thinking he’s being honest? What do I really know about this boy?

  The carousel is in full swing as we approach the parking lot. I watch the little kids wave from their horses, all smiles. Quinn and I came here with our housekeeper a lot when I was small. I stop for a second and stare as the horses blur by, try to pick out the one I used to love to ride the most. I remember it was a light tan color with a blue jewel near its hindquarters and a long white tail that nearly grazed the carousel’s platform.

  “Remember when we used to ride that?” Quinn asks, coming up to stand beside me.

  “I remember that you let me pick my horse first, and you’d always get the one beside me so we could ride together.”

  “Anh would stand over there and watch us.” Quinn points at the little space by the ticket booth, and I can almost see Anh there now, squinting up at the carousel, bouncing up and down because when she waved at us, she did it with her whole body. Of all the things we’ve had to give up or give away, letting her go has been the hardest. I would never think of telling my parents what we’re up to, but I would consider telling Anh. She would know whether Christian can be trusted. But she’s not here, and
so I have to rely on Quinn and myself.

  “Do you think we can trust him?” I ask.

  “Not even a little bit,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Well, then let’s make sure we don’t need to,” I say.

  “I still don’t like it. But I also know you won’t stop until we get what’s in Harrison’s safe-deposit box, so fine. Whatever we have to do, let’s do it.”

  I nudge Quinn with one shoulder and he nudges me back. I’m lucky to have a brother like him—still letting me choose the horse and riding alongside me to make sure I don’t fall.

  I pull out of Griffith Park and head toward the interstate, the Five, and home, my head swirling with all that’s happened. I get my phone out and call Benny, fill him in. Once he realizes I’ve got a plan in place to keep us from getting stuck in the bank, he laughs for, like, a full five minutes. “So, college boy, how’d it feel not to be the smartest person in the room for once? I think I like this girl.”

  I think about Lexi sitting in the early-evening sunlight, tucking her hair behind her ear as she entered her number into my phone. “It feels pretty good,” I admit. And it does. An hour with her and suddenly I have hope that we can get out of this job without our lives imploding. And I’m going to make sure she and her friends do, too. If we figure out how to collapse the tunnel the way she said, and I work with them on how to enter the bank and effectively manage the place once they’re in, there’s no reason why we can’t all get out safely.

  “So what happens next?” Benny asks.

  “We gather the boys and let them know what’s up.”

  Benny’s end of the line goes quiet for a few seconds. “You think Gabriel will believe it? He and Soldado seem to be pretty tight lately.”

  “Speaking of, I need to stop over at the Madison Street house first to drop off Gabriel’s car and give him the information Lexi gave me, so he can pass it on to Soldado. You think we should wait to tell him?” I exit the freeway and head for Madison Street. “You don’t think he’s in on it? That’s not what you’re saying, right?” As much as I’ve doubted Gabriel lately, he’s still our cousin, and blood comes first. I know he believes it, same as me.

  “No. You’re right. He’s still one of us.” Except Benny doesn’t sound like he believes it.

  “We’ll talk about it when I get there,” I say before I hang up. I rest my head on the back of my seat and try not to worry. If Gabriel is suddenly more loyal to Soldado than us, I’m putting Lexi in real danger if I let him know about her or the new plan we worked out.

  Once I’m about a block out and sitting at a traffic light, I use my phone to take pictures of the building plans and the security information. I want to make sure I have my own copies. An ambulance screams by, startling me so I drop my phone on the car floor. I lean over to dig it out as a fire truck whizzes past, both vehicles driving on the grass on the right-hand side of the road, close enough to Gabriel’s car that it rocks in their wake. I lower my window and poke my head out, try to see where the accident is up ahead. I watch them turn right and round the corner, heading in the same direction I am.

  But it isn’t until I near the Madison Street house that I really start to panic. The ambulance and the fire truck are parked in front of it, along with a handful of landscaping trucks and a backhoe. There’s a crowd of people, too—guys from Gabriel’s crew, people who must live nearby—all of them staring at something in the yard that I can’t see. I park the car a couple of houses down and run for the crowd, push my way in.

  Someone’s lying in the yard, his face too bloody to recognize, but I know who it is anyway. Gabriel. He’s lying at a weird angle, head cocked back and oddly misshapen, his right arm broken badly enough that a piece of bone pokes out of his forearm. My stomach lurches, and I grit my teeth to keep from gagging.

  “What happened?” I ask the man next to me. Mateo. The landscaping guy Gabriel uses to sod the houses before they go up for sale.

  “The backhoe ran over him,” Mateo says, not looking at me.

  “The backhoe?”

  “That’s what I said, yeah.” Mateo shoots me a warning look and then cuts his eyes to the other dudes around us. In other words: don’t ask anything else. I take a closer look at the crowd and see a few Florencia Heights gangbangers lingering at the back. This isn’t an accident, no way. I curse under my breath. What happened? Of all of us, Gabriel’s been the tightest with Soldado’s crew and the Eme. I watch the EMTs work on his body. He looks dead already. Too bloody and ruined to be okay. I edge closer so I can hear what they’re saying, but none of it makes sense. It’s just a jumble of words: intact distal movement and weak radial pulse. They get him on a longboard before they very gently slide-move him to the stretcher waiting nearby. He groans faintly as they pass me and I let out a breath. He’s alive. I don’t understand what could’ve gotten him in enough hot water that he got jumped this close to the biggest job we’ve ever done. It doesn’t make any sense. The EMTs load Gabriel into the ambulance, and then the doors shut and the siren starts to wind up again.

  I jump back into the car and call Benny.

  “Something happened to Gabriel. It’s bad. I’m coming to pick you up.” I don’t wait for him to ask questions. I just hang up and speed toward his house with my heart in my throat.

  I don’t like hospitals. Not since my abuela died. I know most people come here to get better, but to me, the place reeks of death. I never seem to acclimate to it, even after we’ve been in the waiting room for hours while Gabriel goes through surgery. He really was run over by the backhoe…but only after he was beaten down to the ground. The cops came early on, and we heard them talking to the nurse about his injuries and how they needed to talk to him once he stabilized. Benny and I made ourselves scarce and hid out in the hospital cafeteria until after they left.

  We don’t ask permission to go see Gabriel once he’s placed in a recovery room. We wait until the nurses are busy with their paperwork and we slip in on our own. The room is dim and cool and filled with noise: the rhythmic beep of the machine he’s hooked up to, the faint echo of footsteps in the hall outside, the soft in-and-out sound of Gabriel’s breathing. Benny and I work our way to his bedside, both of us going slow, reluctant to look too closely.

  He’s a mess. There’s no other way to describe him—flat on his back in the hospital bed, IV snaking from one arm, a cast encasing the other. His face has the look of a bruised and rotting banana.

  “Gabe?” Benny calls softly, resting a hand on the bed beside Gabriel’s leg.

  Gabriel groans, licks his lips. “Hey.” His voice is nothing more than a whisper and tight with pain.

  “Man, what happened?”

  Gabriel takes a long, shaky breath and blinks at us. His eyes are swollen to slits, the skin around them a violent smear of purples, reds, and blues. He grabs at my shirt to pull me closer and misses. His arm flops down at his side and he winces. “Listen to me. I found out something I shouldn’t have.” He tries to sit up, winces, and then falls back against his hospital pillow. “The job is a death sentence.”

  A chill runs up my spine even though I’ve known there was trouble from the minute I saw him lying on the Madison Street house lawn. “Why?”

  “He was never planning to let us go. It is the last job, but we aren’t meant to walk away. Dad overheard some of the Eme talking. Soldado’s been bragging about the job to some of the brothers, the carnales, at the prison. He keeps telling us that they’re the ones who want us to keep doing all these heists, when really it’s him. Soldado is going to let us”—he swallows—“I mean, you guys get the dough, and then they ambush you in the tunnel and open fire. No one’s supposed to make it out alive. They shoot you and take the cash and then collapse the tunnel. He gets to keep the whole take for himself—minus what he owes the Eme.” Gabriel coughs, and Benny grabs the cup of water on his nightstand and helps him get a drink.

  So the tunnel guys have it wrong. Soldado isn’t going to strand us in the vault so we
get caught. I believed it because I never thought he would go this far, not with us. He’s been in our homes. Hung out with our families. He was family. I thought jail was the worst thing that could happen, but this? This is so much worse. My whole body goes numb. “So what are we supposed to do?”

  Gabriel stares at me. “You have to find a way to trick him somehow. You run, and he’ll kill you and your families for walking out on the job.” He sucks in a breath and hisses, holding a hand to his ribs. “Psycho did it. He found out that I knew. He told me if I said anything to you guys, he’d kill my dad. And my mom…” Tears roll down his cheeks. “They’ll kill her, too, but not before they…um…they…uh…” He can’t finish the sentence. I close my eyes and try to steady myself. The room feels like it’s spinning.

  Benny walks over to the window. He’s breathing hard, folded over like someone’s punched him. He leans against the windowsill and looks out. There’s not much to see. Just another wing of the hospital building, floor after floor of windows and brick wall.

  So this is it. We can’t go to the police—we have no proof. Our word against Soldado’s, that’s it. And considering that he’s got a handful of cops on the payroll, he’d know the minute we walked into the precinct. If we want to keep Gabriel safe, we have to pretend he didn’t tell us anything. Either we walk into the job knowing we’re going to die and accepting it to save our families, or we figure out a way to save ourselves. But how? I want to rage. Smash the windows out. Yell at the top of my lungs. Find Psycho, Twitch, and Soldado and obliterate them.

  “So this is how it ends?” Benny asks, his voice ghost-hollow.

  I put my head in my hands and close my eyes. My temples are throbbing so hard my face feels hot and full of blood. “No.” I think about Lexi and the plan. It could still work. We just have to make Soldado believe that we don’t know what’s really going on.