The Stakes

by Ben Sanders

  Kenny killed the music, but Stanton’s joint had gone out. He fumbled his matches and got one lit, but that was only half the struggle, potholes on Broadway making the car yaw, the flame and the joint tip in close orbit but resisting unity. They hit a smooth stretch and Stanton found alignment, drew deep and got the joint tip glowing just as Kenny changed lanes. The flame lost contact on the swerve but the deed was done, and Stanton shook the match out as he leaned back and blew smoke out his teeth. The cabin smelled sweet with marijuana.

  He said, “How’d you know that?”

  Miles said, “Met her on a case. While ago now, five years or so.” Five years to the month actually, but he knew precision wouldn’t serve him well. No point raising questions about why he knew the date.

  Stanton grinned at him. “Back in the innocent days, when you didn’t know robbery’s the fun part of robbery detective.”

  “I don’t do it for entertainment.”

  “Oh, yup, I forgot: restoring karmic balance.” Stanton blew a smoke ring. “So she was a suspect, then?”

  Miles nodded. “Looked at her for a heist.”

  “Did she do it?”

  Miles shrugged. “Maybe.” He watched some of the Broadway view, pedestrians just still-frames at this speed. He said, “It was a cool job and she was a cool lady. It was this banking executive or something—he’d had some people over one night, they got him drunk, shot him up with sodium pentothal he figured, asked him what his safe code was. And because he was full of truth serum he came right out with it, and they walked away with about a million bucks.”

  “Nice.”

  “We didn’t have enough on Nina, so she walked.”

  Stanton puffed and watched the night roll by. “You said she’s a bank robber. I don’t think it counts, if you just rob the boss over dinner.”

  Miles said, “I think bank jobs were her main occupation.” He paused, looking back through the years, and said, “I brought her in for an interview this one time, asked her straight up whether she’d drugged and robbed anyone before. You know, wanting to see how she’d play it, and she just told me she was used to going in the front door, pointing a gun at the teller. I thought that was pretty good.”

  “So why’s she calling up, five years later or whatever it is?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wants to cop to it.”

  He doubted it though. Meeting her at the time, he got the impression that she knew her own mind, and that there wasn’t a lot of guilt in there.

  He said, “Probably got bailed out during the GFC, and now he’s back on seven or eight figures.”

  “Who?”

  “The bank guy she robbed.”

  Stanton said, “Yeah, but he might’ve worked hard for it all.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Stanton did his little half-smile again, looking superior. “You don’t know what’s on his scorecard, might’ve had something buried way back, made him deserve a shitload of loot. Might be good deeds you’re not privy to.”

  Miles said, “You see the bright and shining goodness in everyone, or you just playing devil’s advocate?”

  Stanton grinned around his joint. “Yeah, I work for the devil.”

  They crossed Houston Street, into SoHo now and through the sheer and narrow corridor of grand facades. Stanton said, “How’d she even know to call me?”

  Miles had been chewing on that one himself. He said, “Probably tried NYPD first, and they referred her on. Might’ve been something good too, if she called you twice.”

  “She sounded hot. You know how some girls just have that phone voice?”

  Miles didn’t answer.

  Stanton puffed away for a few blocks and said, “Ken, your joint rolling’s come a long way. I’m liking this one a lot.”

  “It’s good weed, too.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. It is good weed.”

  They reached Canal Street and made the right turn. Miles leaned forward over the console for a better view: shops lit up in every shade of fever dream, hipster-looking kids in threes and fours, no doubt headed for some eardrum-busting rave, the same group of guys outside the gift shop on the south side, not quite ready to call it a night. He saw cabs over by the hotel, a black Chevy Tahoe at the curb toward West Broadway. He turned to look out the rear window, saw another Tahoe back by Lafayette Street.

  Stanton saw him looking and said, “Chill, they’re just cabs. Or what’s that thing called? Uber, or whatever.”

  “No they’re not. Pull over.”

  Kenny said, “Where, here?”

  “Yeah, anywhere. Pull over.”

  Stanton said, “Ah, Jeez, come on,” but Kenny pulled over.

  Miles said, “There’s only one hotel between Lafayette and West Broadway, and they’re nowhere near it. So they’re not cabs.”

  Stanton looked like he might argue, but then he stubbed out his joint in the ashtray on his door. “Might not be for you.” He looked out his back window. “And don’t tell me how like, you wake up in the dark at two A.M. and you just know. They’re just cars sitting there.”

  Maybe he was right. Then again, he would’ve bet ten-thousand-to-one he was the only man on the street with his name on a hit list. Maybe the Coveys had found out who he was, and sent someone. Or maybe the guy in the red tracksuit was well connected. But it could be anyone. He’d been running heists for years now, which was just another way of saying he had no shortage of people wanting payback.

  Stanton was still twisted around, looking out the rear window. He said, “It can’t be from that Covey thing, it’s too soon. Probably to do with your what-do-you-call-it.” He made inverted commas with raised fingers. “‘Officer-involved shooting.’”

  Miles said, “Just wait here a second, I need to think it over.”

  He had a hundred and forty thousand dollars in the briefcase. He could keep going and never come back, forget about his hotel stash. But two hundred fifty grand was a lot to sacrifice for what was so far just a bad vibe.

  He said, “Let me out by the entrance, and I’ll see if I get a follower.”

  Stanton said, “Atta boy. They’re just corporate cabs or something.”

  Kenny moved away from the curb and merged with thin traffic. Miles unclipped his briefcase, smelled used cash as he raised the lid. Those bills would have seen it all: everything from Walmart to mounds of coke. If only money talked. You’d have a record from the gutter to the heavens. He took out twenty grand and dropped the bands on the seat beside him.

  Stanton picked them up—a wad in each hand—and fanned himself with the cash, eyes closed and face serene. “You know how to make a man happy.”

  Kenny made a U-turn just before West Broadway and pulled up outside the hotel. Miles clicked the briefcase shut and said, “You want to do me a favor?”

  Stanton said, “Yeah, why stop now?”

  “Pull over somewhere, give me a call if anyone follows me in.”

  “How long we gotta wait until it counts as a favor?”

  “If you sleep easy, you know you’ve done it right.”

  Miles climbed out, and got a smile and a nod from the concierge who held the lobby door for him, and when he glanced back, Stanton’s car was already pulling away into traffic with a long, slick note of ground water.

  Inside, there was a guy behind the desk, and a family of four who appeared to be checking out, given the nearby colony of luggage. The bar at the back of the lobby was closed, but there was a little business center in the middle of the floor, with a few computers and a printer set up on a long table, corralled vaguely by potted plants. He took a seat at a screen and opened an internet browser. The deskman was too friendly, laying on the charm extra thick with the mother, maybe polishing his moves. The dad had that thin, empty smile that signaled dangerously low patience. Miles brought up nytimes.com, scrolled aimlessly while he watched the lobby doors. No one entered. The deskman wrapped up his schmoozing. The family of four departed in size order: Dad toting duffels, Mom with h
er sheaves of map, the sullen and pear-shaped teenaged boy and girl.

  The man at the desk made a brief call and then paced slowly, hands behind his back. Miles clicked random links. He scrolled and watched the street. He gave it up after twenty minutes and headed for his room.

  He had an elevator to himself, quiet violin music and a measured ding as the sign above the door counted floors. His room was on fifteen, which in real terms meant fourteen, given the absence of a thirteenth floor—at least as far as the labels were concerned. Miles thought the best way to thwart bad luck would be to keep the numbers honest and just leave the thirteenth floor unoccupied. Surely false accounting was just tempting fate even further.

  His room was at the end of a corridor behind two blind turns, and he decided if he heard the phone ringing he’d just turn around and head straight back down. But nothing like that awaited him: just silence, and Nina Stone leaning against his door.

  * * *

  Part of him wondered if she was here to take him out, but this seemed like a strange way to go about it, unarmed and looking pleased to see him.

  She said, “I saw you yesterday. I was in a cab, you were walking down Canal Street, and I thought: I know who that is.”

  Like he’d lived next door when they were kids or something, not investigated her for robbery. He realized too, he might have to revise his odds: maybe he wasn’t the only one with people after him. His one-in-ten-thousand estimate could be wrong, by the dark light of Nina.

  Miles said, “You know anything about those two black SUVs out front?”

  She smiled slightly, looking vindicated, like she knew he’d ask. “They’re not here for you, if that’s what you’re thinking. But we can talk about them if you like.”

  She must’ve been thirty-five now, but she hadn’t lost any magnetism. He remembered interviewing her, trying to catch her off-guard with that question on past crimes, and she’d come straight back with her line about pointing guns at bank tellers. Facetious enough to make it inadmissible, but at the same time he knew she was giving him the truth, in a certain shaded way. He’d been hooked by that one phrase, wanted to know everything about her, this woman who’d showed up for a police interview about a felony, and didn’t even bring a lawyer.

  She said, “Five years is a nice round number. Almost feels like it’s meant to be.”

  It was a lure framed as small talk. She wanted a question in return. She wanted him to ask what she was doing here, context and coincidence and all the breathless wonderment of how she found him. An hour ago with Stanton, he’d said farewell to risk, and nothing would have made him take another job. But faced with Nina Stone, he felt that earlier conviction fading, the old feeling of intrigue tugging at him. In an almost out-of-body way, he could see his mind-set changing: Forget caution—let’s see what the lady has to say.

  He turned and checked along the corridor, but it was just the two of them. He wondered what he’d be doing now if he hadn’t found her waiting. Maybe he’d be on the phone to Stanton, asking for her number. Or maybe it was just her being here that made him want to know more. It could all be simple and male: a pretty woman outside his room, and he couldn’t tell her no. But whatever, even with part of him knowing this was how bad endings started, he took out his keycard and said, “Let’s sit down.”

  FOUR

  NEW YORK, NY

  Miles Keller

  The room was the shoebox standard: a double bed, with a desk and television opposite, and an armchair in one corner by the window. Miles let Nina go ahead of him, and she walked in with enough disinterest that he wondered if she’d been here before. She cut a nice figure though, in her jeans and denim jacket, shoulder-length hair that showed off the bounce in her walk. She was tall, too—six foot, maybe six-one—and built like a pro tennis player: that lean perfection, still intact five years on. He liked how she carried herself as well: confident, knowing she looked good, but not flaunting it too hard. He remembered back when he interviewed her, how she’d showed up in a cream sleeveless dress and carrying a little clutch that matched. He remembered trying out a few headlines: THEFT OF A MILLION DOLLARS BY WOMAN WHO LOOKS A MILLION DOLLARS. It needed some work, but she’d definitely turned heads in the corridor.

  He’d pictured her every now and then over the years, and she was always in black for some reason—black, but with a moneyed California vibe: wide-brimmed hats and big shades, clicking along in heels, a cigarette in one of those long filters. Five years ago, she’d told him she was in New York on vacation, that the bank man she’d supposedly robbed was a friend of her husband’s, but she sure as hell hadn’t drugged him and gone off with his money. She said her husband owned a film studio in L.A., and that the allegations against her would make a good movie—they seemed to like stories that shared zero ground with reality.

  She claimed the armchair, and he took the seat at the desk, spun it around to face her. It would block her view of the honeymoon photo on the desk behind him. He said, “Were you standing out there all night, or do you just have good timing?”

  She smiled. “The deskman was a sweetheart, said he’d give me a call when you came in. Scored himself double points actually—I was out the first time he tried.”

  “He must’ve been a sweetheart if he told you my room number.”

  She put an elbow on the rest and propped her temple with a finger. Her hair leaned out to find the vertical. “He didn’t mean to. I just went down this morning and asked him to call your room, watched him type the number in. They had me up on twenty at first, so I said we were colleagues, and they moved me down here.” She nodded at the entrance. “I’m three doors along.”

  Miles laid the briefcase on the bed and put his feet up next to it. “So is this a little catch-up, or work-related?”

  She drew a long breath without looking away. “I wasn’t quite sure at first.”

  He said, “Well. Do you need a police detective or not?”

  “I don’t know. But they have more than one use, presumably.”

  That was pretty good. He let that sit between them for a moment, and in the lull, reality began to show itself: the fact he’d let her in on some emotional whim because she’d piqued his interest five years ago, and now here he was, a hundred twenty grand in the case on the bed, another two-fifty-odd in the safe, and a stranger seated opposite.

  Miles said, “How can I help you?”

  Nina nodded again, aiming at the window this time. She said, “I saw you walking around in your suit with your briefcase, thought maybe you were on some shady law-enforcement job. But then I called your old number at NYPD, and all they did was refer me on to whoever it was. Stanton and Co. Which I thought was strange. But then I did some Googling, saw your name on a cop-hate forum, said you shot and killed a guy last month. And I thought, well, maybe that’s standard practice, putting me through to your rep.” Offhand, but not too breezy, nothing accusatory in her tone.

  Miles said, “There were extenuating circumstances.”

  “Such as?”

  “The man was a hit man. And he had a woman captive.” That wasn’t quite true—it was a break-in, not an abduction. But for some reason, he wanted Nina on his side.

  She said, “Well, maybe it’s a good thing that you shot him.” Like this was all pretty routine.

  Miles said, “That’s what everyone’s trying to decide.”

  She let the shooting have a quiet moment, and then said, “The deskman told me you’ve been here a few weeks.” She looked around, the little room devoid of homeyness, unless his luggage counted as a personal touch. “Made me wonder if you’re on the brink of cutting ties.”

  He’d caught a slight pause midsentence, like she was going to call it “running,” and then changed her mind, went for the euphemism.

  She said, “So can I make a guess, see how close I am?”

  Miles shrugged. “Guess away.”

  She was biting her lip lightly, like she was putting things together, but he knew her conclusions woul
d be locked in by now.

  She said, “I think you’ve gone from detective, to detective-with-a-question-mark, and now you’re getting ready to run.”

  Run. There we are: she’d just wanted to land it with the right punch.

  Miles didn’t answer, waited for her to get to whatever she was building up to.

  She glanced around again and said, “Bit of a squeeze too, if you brought the wife. So is it married-with-a-question-mark, or just plain divorced now?”

  He knew his face didn’t change, but she read something anyway: “Sorry. Too close to the bone.”

  Miles said, “I’m considering my options.”

  Nina shifted in her seat, looking at him from a new angle. “Well, see what you think about this option: I’m here on business, and I thought you might be interested. If you want in, I’ll pay you half a million dollars.”

  * * *

  He wished he’d booked a bigger room, an executive suite maybe with the bedroom separate from the living area, so he didn’t have to use the mattress as a footstool. He could picture himself walking to a side table, pouring a couple of drinks, a finger of something Scottish on ice. The way he’d do it, he’d hold the tumbler overhand as he passed it to her, and then they’d share the sofa while she told him what was worth five hundred grand. He could do it here, but he wouldn’t seem quite as smooth, using the minibar under the desk.

  He said, “You proposing legal employment, or will I have to feel guilty about it?” Keeping his voice flat, trying to match her tone.

  Nina said, “Don’t you feel guilty already?” No smile, but there was a light in her eye that made the question playful. He wondered what she meant: guilty because he’d let her in the room, or guilty due to prior actions.

  He said, “I try to avoid extra, if I can.”

  She said, “Not many jobs pay half a million dollars and keep you out of trouble.”

  Getting closer to the truth, but he sensed reluctance. It was quite a risky endeavor, proposing lawbreaking to a police detective.

  He said, “You want a drink?”

  He thought alcohol might make her more forthcoming, but she said, “I’ll have a water, if there’s one going.”