The Stakes

by Ben Sanders

  Meaning four- or five-on-one might be a handful.

  Miles said, “We’ll find out. If it gets too much, I’ll just have to shoot someone.” He said to Edward Rhys, “Use your left hand again and take the holster off your belt. And I mean the whole thing.” He heard a car door slam. “You touch the gun, I’m going to put a bullet in you.”

  Rhys complied, right hand raised palm-out like it might fend off lead. He lifted the holster off his belt and leaned forward and placed it in front of him on the coffee table.

  Miles said, “Well done.” He kept his aim on Rhys and looked over at Lane Covey. “Give Marilyn the phone.”

  The doorbell rang.

  The three of them looked toward the noise, and then Lane looked over at his wife—a silent question—like trying to decide if there was an exit coming up.

  Miles said, “Just look at me. I’m the one who decides who gets shot.” He nodded at Lane and said, “Give Marilyn the phone.”

  The picture on his handheld screen blurred and then gained clarity as the lawyer passed the phone to his wife.

  Miles said, “Hold it out in front of you.”

  Marilyn complied, the phone at arm’s length like some kind of Geiger counter. On the screen in his hand, Miles saw an image of himself, sitting there masked in his armchair with the gun, and his elbow propped on the rest.

  He kept his tone conversational: “All right. Mr. Rhys, in a moment you’re going to answer the door and bring our guest in here. Marilyn, you’re going to collect my two hundred grand. If either of you can’t manage, then I’m going to have to take it out on Mr. Covey.”

  Marilyn Covey said, “Fuck you, you little shit.”

  It wasn’t a royal turn of phrase, but she gave it a noble edge somehow, lifting her chin as she spoke, like he was violating hallowed privilege.

  Miles said, “You can go now, Marilyn. Keep the phone out in front of you.”

  She just watched him.

  Miles said to her, “I’ve weighed this all up very carefully, and if I have to shoot the crooked wife of a crooked lawyer and walk away without my payoff, so be it. But there’re two sides to all this, and yours is the fatal one.”

  She turned away then, but she was smiling to save face, letting him know this was far from the end of the matter. He watched on the little screen as she walked along the corridor, and then made a left and started up the stairs.

  The doorbell rang again, and someone knocked this time, too. Miles pointed the gun at Covey and held the phone up close to the pistol. He said, “Mr. Rhys, you can go to the front door, but don’t open it until I tell you to.”

  Rhys got up and crossed the room, and Covey ran his hands through his hair. He didn’t seem so bored and unimpressed now.

  Miles waited until Rhys was along the hallway, and said, “What’s your liquidity right now?”

  “My liquidity?”

  Miles watched Marilyn’s progress in the upstairs hallway, and said, “Yeah. How much have you got in the bank?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  The doorbell rang again, a double push to convey impatience.

  Miles said, “Well, if the money goes missing in your custody, common sense implies you’re liable. So it’s a question of whether or not you can pay.”

  Covey said, “Jesus Christ, fuck you. I’m going to be out a hundred and eighty grand.”

  Miles raised his voice slightly and said, “Mr. Rhys, you can open the door.” Then to Covey: “Twenty K’s not a bad fee. So what’s your liquidity like?”

  “Fuck you, I got debts.”

  “Which is why you bought into this circus, right?”

  Covey didn’t answer.

  Miles’s screen showed a large document safe, door open, a leather duffel inside, standing upright. Stacked cash on a shelf above, and Marilyn’s hand raking up a bundle, the close-range lens giving her a giant’s fist. In the entry hall he heard Edward Rhys saying, “Follow me.”

  Miles kept the phone up by the gun and shifted the sights to the narrow slice of door, and a second later Edward Rhys stepped in, followed by a bald man in his early forties. The guy was wearing a bright-red Adidas tracksuit, the top unzipped over a white T-shirt.

  He saw Miles, but didn’t break step as he entered. He gestured at him as if tossing out the dregs in a glass and said, “What’s this?”

  Miles said, “Everyone’s been very composed so far.”

  The tracksuit man walked over to the window and claimed an armchair, sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His mouth curled up on one side as he said, “You trying to set a record or something? Dumbest goddamned hijacking anyone ever heard of.”

  He sounded Russian. Miles said, “Are you Russian?”

  The guy smiled. “Are you a moron? Do you know who you’re ripping off?”

  Miles didn’t answer, watched on his phone as Marilyn Covey descended the stairs, and a few seconds later she was back in the room with the leather duffel from the safe. She dropped it on the floor at Miles’s feet. The label said Gucci.

  Miles put the phone down and said, “They could’ve just used a Costco bag, saved another few thousand.”

  The tracksuit man said, “We’ll see if you’re still Mr. Funny Guy when we find you.”

  Miles said, “I don’t think you’ll find me.”

  The tracksuit man seemed to be enjoying himself, not too bothered by the fact he’d be leaving with less money than he should be. Or maybe it wasn’t his money. He said, “There’s only a few people who could put this together. So we’ll catch up eventually.”

  Miles leaned forward and tugged the duffel’s zipper open, saw bundled hundreds in ten-thousand-dollar bands. He thumbed a random stack in case it was bulked with ones or paper, but it looked legitimate. He took out four bands—forty grand—and lobbed them gently underhand onto the coffee table. The stack slid apart on impact and ended in a vague grouping.

  The tracksuit man said, “What’s this?”

  Miles said, “Insurance.”

  “Yeah? For what?”

  Miles said, “Mr. Covey owes you a hundred and eighty K, so we’ll call that a down payment. I don’t want him murdered before he can get the rest of it together.”

  Tracksuit man’s smile grew, showing teeth. He said, “What are you, the gentleman thief?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  The man leaned back, put a white Adidas sneaker up on the opposite chair, rocked the knee from side to side as he looked at Miles, thinking something over. He said, “Well, I can be a gentleman, too. You want to leave the bag on the floor, we don’t have to take this any further. You walk away, we can forget the whole thing. Otherwise.” He made a gun with his fingers, pursed his lips, and kissed the sound of a shot.

  Miles said, “Everybody does that.” He stood up. “I need your car keys.”

  * * *

  He told Stokes to take backstreets for the getaway: Great Neck Gardens to Kensington and then down through Thomaston. Stokes kept it slow, thirty miles an hour through the quiet suburbs while Miles checked the cash, thumbing each band for cutouts or a GPS unit. But the money was clean: a hundred and sixty grand in nonsequential used bills, and no antitheft measures. He transferred it all to a briefcase he’d brought with him, and then dropped the duffel out his window as they went past a golf club. He figured it wouldn’t be too incongruous. Golfers would’ve seen Gucci before.

  A minute later they joined the Long Island Expressway, and he finally felt himself relax, the stream of westbound traffic turning them anonymous. Stokes stayed quiet another mile, watching his mirrors as he drove, and then said, “Who was the dude in the tracksuit? He had some flair.”

  His voice sounded tight, like he hadn’t quite worked off all the nerves.

  Miles glanced across at him, Stokes driving with one hand and the other in his lap, the .45 nestled cross-draw in his belt.

  Miles said, “I don’t know. He was colorful though, wasn’t he?”

  St
okes was silent another minute, finger tapping the wheel like he was counting the yards. Eventually he said, “Maybe like, in the mother country, it’s a strict dress code, and then they come here and it’s way more chilled. Let them wear Adidas.”

  “Yeah. And drive convertibles.” He jiggled his confiscated keys. It was a nice collection: Covey’s Lexus, Rhys’s Range Rover, the tracksuit man’s Bentley coupe. He said, “If we had a buyer set up, could’ve taken a car too, made a bit extra.” He clucked his tongue. “Bentley and the Lexus together, might’ve been another three hundred K.”

  Stokes smiled, ran a hand around his jaw as he watched the road, but he didn’t answer.

  Miles put a speaker bud in one ear, but didn’t hit play on the iPod. He said, “I don’t think it’s worth turning back, though.”

  He placed the briefcase on the floor and rested it against the door, turned slightly in his seat so he had a shoulder to the window. Stokes watched the road, still massaging his jaw as he drove, like trying to warm it up for small talk.

  Miles said, “If you take the next exit, you can let me off in Fresh Meadows. I’ll get a cab.” He dropped the Range Rover and Bentley keys in the footwell.

  Stokes glanced at him. “We can go all the way to Manhattan, if that’s easier?”

  “No, this is fine. Next exit.”

  Stokes changed lanes and got off at Utopia Parkway, hung a right at the bottom of the ramp. It was almost midnight, not much traffic on the through-road.

  Miles said, “Anywhere’s fine.”

  “I’ll go around the block.”

  He went right again, onto a quiet suburban street, tidy brick town houses on both sides, minivans in the driveways. Miles made a show of glancing around, no pedestrians out at this hour, and said, “I guess if you want to roll me, now would be the time.”

  He knew he’d called it right: Stokes’s first reaction was to dab the brake, like he’d been caught off-guard and his driver’s instinct kicked in, telling him to slow down. After that, the panic seemed to hit, and he clawed for the gun.

  Miles let him do it: watched him draw the Colt right-handed and then start to line it up, the frame held sideways and the barrel rising, coming for his head. Miles waited until the pistol was up at eye level, Stokes’s thumb on the hammer, and then he ripped the handbrake. The car stopped like it had hit a wall. The pair of them jerked against their seat belts, and Stokes’s arm and the gun at the end of it received the same forward jolt, swinging out like a horizontal pendulum, and so for a long clumsy moment the gun’s aim was not on Miles’s head but on the window beside him. Miles caught the pistol with his right hand and rammed the Audi’s ignition key into the underside of Stokes’s wrist. Stokes swore and lost his grip as he yanked his arm back, and Miles stripped the gun from his loose fingers and then leaned against his door. He held the Colt two-handed at his hip, aiming at Stokes as the man sat cradling his injured arm and sucking air through his teeth.

  Miles watched him for a few seconds, didn’t speak until he felt his pulse level out. He said, “If you hadn’t done that you could’ve walked away with ten grand, be the highest-paid chauffeur in America.”

  “Could’ve walked away with more, though. Even better.”

  Miles checked both ways along the street and then dropped the handbrake. The car crawled forward. Miles said, “Pull over. Can’t sit here all night.”

  Stokes took them to the curb, steering with his good hand, the injured arm lying palm-up in his lap.

  Miles said, “You’ll have a bruise, but you’ll survive.” He put his back to the window and a foot on the transmission and said, “Most guys if they’re talkers, they’re quiet on the buildup, and then you can’t shut them up afterwards. But you were the other way around. Made me think your job hadn’t actually started yet. So that was a good guess, wasn’t it?”

  Stokes didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “Next time you pull this kind of thing, make sure you’re nice and chatty. And you swapped your gun over, too. Had it on your hip before.”

  Stokes looked at him and said, “Any chance I’m getting it back?” He didn’t seem too concerned about his botched double cross. Maybe he thought it was just business—win some and lose some.

  Miles said, “Turn the lights off, or we’re going to look mighty obvious, aren’t we?”

  Stokes killed the power. The lights died, and the pair of them turned to silhouettes.

  Miles waited for the keys to stop tinkling, and said, “Stanton told you I know what I’m doing, but you had a go anyway. So what’s made you so desperate you’d take the chance?”

  Stokes didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “This is what they call shitting in your own nest. You won’t be getting any more work out of Stanton. In fact, I’d change your number. And your locks.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Sure. So how much debt have you got that you’d take this kind of risk? Or are you just a spur-of-the-moment dumbass?”

  Stokes started to say something and then changed tack. He said, “Look.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked out his window, tidy dark suburbia with nothing stirring. He said, “I got a wife, man.”

  “You don’t need to tug my heartstrings. I’m not going to shoot you.”

  Stokes didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “You know, I’m pretty comfortable with the ethics of everything tonight. Don’t know about you, I won’t lose much sleep, taking murder profit off a bent lawyer. But I didn’t think I’d have to deal with you, trying to serve up moral dilemmas.”

  Stokes tipped his head back on the rest and smiled. “Don’t know about moral dilemmas. I just wanted your money.”

  “Well, whatever. Just be thankful the loudest voice in my head is saying don’t shoot.”

  Stokes didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “What’s your wife think you’re doing, when you head out on these little adventures?”

  Stokes laughed through his nose, palmed his shaved skull. “Thinks I’m having an affair.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Yeah, well. She asks am I seeing someone, I tell her no with a clear conscience.”

  Miles said, “You’re a genius. What’s your debt?”

  Stokes let his breath out through his teeth, took a moment to answer. He said, “Eighteen K.”

  Miles said, “Gambling or drugs?”

  The silhouette of Stokes’s head rocked back and forth. He said, “Bit of this, bit of that. You know how it is.”

  “No, not really.”

  Stokes didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “Big risk for a small debt.”

  Stokes shrugged. “Big risk, big payoff. You got a hundred sixty grand there.”

  Miles didn’t answer. He knew he should walk away from it right now, but that was just setting himself up for a long spell of feeling like shit: lying awake thinking he should’ve put Stokes in the black, or wondering how the wife was doing, or whether there were kids in the picture yet. People he’d never meet, but he’d still chew on whether he was culpable for any debt-related strife they might face. Problem was, right now, he could pay Stokes nothing and feel fine about it for the next thirty minutes, but once hindsight was up and running, there’d be no reprieve. He’d second-guess himself into insomnia.

  He said, “Jesus Christ,” and popped the lid on the briefcase. He took out two bands—twenty thousand dollars—and tossed them in Stokes’s lap. He snapped the briefcase closed and said, “How’s that for irony: pull a gun on me, and double your take.”

  Stokes didn’t answer. Miles wondered how he saw it: twenty thousand up from zero, or a hundred and forty down from one-sixty. He didn’t have time to delve into his philosophy though, whether he was a glass-half-full or half-empty sort of guy.

  He said, “Don’t be too cut up about it: you could be dead.”

  He racked the slide on the gun and tipped the chambered round in his lap, dropped the magazine and thumbed out the bullets one at a time.
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  He said, “You can have the gun back, but I need to keep the car.”

  He clicked the pistol back together and tossed it in Stokes’s lap.

  “You can get out now.”

  * * *

  It was only a ten-minute drive down Midland Parkway to Jamaica. Prosperity faded as he went south: brick to clapboard, lawn to dirt, hedge to chain link. He parked on 179th Place, only a hundred yards past the subway station, left the car with its door open and the key lying on the seat. It was a 2008 Subaru Legacy: black paint, cream leather interior, smoked rear windows. He hoped a car thief would see its merits.

  He walked back to the station and dropped the confiscated keys and Stokes’s bullets in a trashcan, and then caught an F train all the way west to Manhattan—Lexington and Sixty-third. He transferred to a downtown 6 train and got off at Fourteenth, caught a cab up to Herald Square, dropped his mask in a trash can, and then rode a Q train all the way back down to Canal. If anyone had tracked him through all that, they deserved to find him.

  His hotel was the Tribeca Gardens, an upmarket high-rise place that seemed a strange addition in this area, the south side of Canal mostly cheap gift shops and stores done up in neon, groups of guys lining the sidewalk, pushing homemade CDs on anyone with an empty hand. It was like Times Square, with a smaller headcount and more grime. He went into the hotel and nodded to the deskman on the way past, used one of the lobby phones to call Wynn Stanton.

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  Stanton said, “Detective. How you doing?”

  TWO

  NEW YORK, NY

  Miles Keller

  Miles said, “I don’t think you can call me that while I’m suspended.”

  Stanton said, “Yeah, tell you what: I’ll call you Detective, you call me Counselor, we’ll just keep it between us. How’d it go?”

  Miles said, “It had a happy ending.” Other than Stokes, of course, but he could bring that up later. He said, “I need to square it tonight, though.” Meaning he wanted Stanton’s fee off his hands.

  Stanton answered with a sigh that crackled the line, working hard to sound inconvenienced. “Yeah, all right. Where you calling from?”

  “The hotel. Canal Street.”