The Stakes

by Ben Sanders

  Miles paused, and then felt a kick of adrenaline that got him moving again, tried to move naturally despite the guy’s clear line of sight. He’d been masked last night, but his build hadn’t changed, and maybe the guy was a savant at recognizing walks. He felt a hum along his spine that felt like close attention, glanced back and saw the shadow of the man behind his windshield, a hand raised by the look of it, maybe talking on a phone. Miles walked back to the SUV and climbed in. Lucy was scrolling through something on her phone.

  She said, “Was it as bad as it’s supposed to be?”

  “Yeah. It was about right.”

  His breathing was steady, but he could feel his heartbeat in his ears. He leaned across and opened the glove compartment, removed the Glock and checked the load. The chamber was empty, but it had a full clip.

  “What are you doing now?”

  Miles said, “Can you drive?”

  “I can do anything but run.”

  “Good. Keys are in the ignition.”

  He had his gloves in his back pocket, but barehanded would be best. He didn’t want to tip the guy off. He slipped the gun in his belt and pulled the coat across to hide it.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” It was the first time in a while he’d seen her looking surprised—it took a lot to shift her out of chill mode.

  He kept his eyes on the road ahead as he took the burner phone from his pocket and passed it to her. “Send yourself a text. I need your number.”

  “You going to message me about what’s going on?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Oh, we’re being all grim now. Okay.”

  He waited as she typed, and when he heard her phone ding with a message he took the burner off her and pocketed it again.

  He said, “I’ll call you about what’s happening next. But if I’m not back in thirty minutes, drive yourself home.”

  “Dude, what the hell is going on?”

  He got out and closed the door on another question, walked back up the street to the Covey place and then around the corner of the intersection to the adjoining road. The Cadillac was still there, and the tracksuit man was still on his phone. Miles crossed the street and walked around the car’s hood, and the guy only seemed to pay attention once Miles had opened the passenger door and climbed in beside him.

  There was no look of recognition yet. The guy just seemed faintly perturbed. He would’ve seen Miles on the crime scene a moment ago, probably thought he was just a cop with excess arrogance, overstepping his entitlements.

  Miles waited for him to wrap up his call, the guy turning to his window, voice dropping a touch as he said, “I’ll call you back.”

  Miles let him put the phone down and then he looked him in the eye as he pulled the pistol, saw the man’s gears click with a suddenness that made his face go blank. Miles rested the Glock on his thigh and said, “Remember me?”

  FOURTEEN

  KINGS POINT, NY

  Miles Keller

  The tracksuit man made a fast recovery, only spent a few seconds slack-jawed from the shock of seeing Miles for a second time. Once he got his face arranged, he didn’t seem too bothered about being a captive in his own car, sat there with an eyebrow raised as if listening to the worldview of a madman.

  Miles said, “Phone,” and the guy allowed an insolent pause before offering up the Samsung he’d used a moment ago. Hanging out in murder-for-hire circles, he would’ve seen some fraught situations in his day, and Miles sometimes wondered how his own efforts ranked in the grand scheme of tense encounters. Sometimes guys were cool, and sometimes they were just good at putting it on. So how many times had he been the worst moment of someone’s life?

  He found the power button by touch and turned the phone off, dropped it in his coat pocket without moving his gaze from the man beside him. He said, “You see this on the news as well, or were you just in the neighborhood?”

  The guy started on something, but then paused and seemed to change direction. He looked at the Glock in Miles’s lap and said, “What are you—NYPD, or state police?” He looked up with a half-smile, kind of distant, like he was above all this. “Or does someone just owe you a favor?”

  Miles said, “I guess I’m two out of three.”

  The guy nodded slowly. “Yeah, I thought so: definitely not a hundred percent.”

  Miles said, “Let’s see some ID.”

  The guy kept his eyes on him as he reached in his pocket, came out with a fold of cash and a driver’s license trapped together with a rubber band. He lobbed them into Miles’s lap.

  Miles flipped the bundle over and read the license details. He said, “You got to be joking. No way is your name Gary Peters.” He tossed it back. “You know a good forger, or you got an inside man at DMV?”

  The guy still had his smile. “Neither. Just an Eastern accent and a Western name.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Up the street he could see the BCI detectives arguing with Miciak on the Coveys’ driveway, all of them fairly worked up by now. Miciak was in defense mode, bright red, elbows pulled in tight and his shoulders right up by his ears as he shouted something.

  The guy said, “This is a good little scheme you got. How’s it work: you go through all your databases, rip off whoever’s got spare cash?” He let his head kind of loll over on his shoulder as he turned look at Miles, trying to seem bemused, like this wasn’t the first time he’d been cornered by a lawman who dabbled in robbery.

  Miles said, “Yeah, kind of. I’m old-school, though: tend to just go on word-of-mouth.”

  He paused, unsure for a moment about how to move things forward, whether to push the guy hard, or try to seem relaxed about the whole arrangement. He couldn’t risk him getting out of the car though, which meant he needed full disclosure on his cop status—stop the guy viewing it as leverage.

  Miles said, “I worked the Carl Tobin investigation. That was the credit-card scammer you guys whacked?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Sure. Anyway. He worked for this printing outfit that had a contract with Chase Bank, doing their plastic. We found five and a half thousand of them hidden under his floorboards. Hacked his email, turned out he was running the scam with his brother-in-law. I tracked the guy down, he told me Carl had got cold feet on the deal, so he went to Lane Covey to have him killed. Even told me when the payment was going through. Shot himself in the head when I tried to cuff him.”

  The guy was doing a good job of seeming uninterested.

  Miles said, “So. All you have to do is tell me who Covey hired for the job. There’re three people dead in that house because you didn’t make your pickup, and someone didn’t get paid.”

  The guy was shaking his head, but Miles carried on: “So you can either tell me who did it, or I have to assume that this is your handiwork.”

  The head shaking stopped, but he still wasn’t saying anything. Miles said, “Timing’s not quite right though, is it? I saw you there at ten thirty, but the shooting didn’t start until about four. So who’d you call in for the slaughter?”

  “Why do you give a shit?”

  Miles said, “Well, I don’t really, far as the Coveys are concerned. But Mr. Rhys didn’t deserve the end he got, so I’d like to tidy things up on his behalf. Even if he doesn’t know about it.”

  The guy looked at the windshield and then back, trying to pick a way through. He shrugged and said, “Look. I’m just the fucking errands guy.”

  Miles nodded, like he was sympathetic. He said, “Nice car to be running errands in.”

  The guy didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “Nobody ever knows anything, right? Everyone who’s been pulled over with a car full of contraband, always a big surprise when you ask them where they got it. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. Life’s hard.”

  “Definitely. You’re a bit different though—gave me that little talk last night about how I could leave the money where it was, and you wouldn’t take it any
further? Shot me with your finger gun to make it seem real smooth. That’s pretty dedicated for a courier. Unless you’ve actually got a decent stake in all of this.”

  “Yeah, sure. And this is like one of those weird things where the killer shows up at the crime scene, likes watching the cops try to put it all together.”

  Miles took off his shades one-handed. They were a gift from Stanton, chrome Randolph Aviators with PLAY TO WYNN etched inside one arm, and PURE STANTON etched inside the other. Stanton’s pair was identical, except the text was on the outside.

  Miles breathed on a lens and put them on again. He gave himself another moment and said, “You think because I’m law, this will all stay real civilized, and you’ll be right as rain. But how does that marry up with the fact I stole a hundred sixty grand at gunpoint last night?”

  The guy didn’t answer. His finger was tapping fast and light on the windowsill, like doing its bit to find a way out of this.

  Miles glanced around, more for show than a genuine appraisal. He said, “And this is pretty extreme in itself, don’t you think? Sitting here in a car with you.”

  The guy said, “I could get out.” He tipped his head toward his window but held on to Miles’s gaze, needing to see how far he could push it. He was smiling, but his pulse was going strong under his jaw. He said, “What do you think they’ll do when they find out you were there last night?”

  There was a strong urge now to do some hard persuading, but Miles didn’t rush it. He said, “How’re you going to put that to them? Just gloss over the part about you being there too, hope the Keystone Kops don’t notice?”

  “I think you’ve got more to lose than I do.” He opened his door. A digital tone began to chime.

  Miles made himself wait a long beat and said, “I’ve got a badge and a thirty-eight throw-down. You can close the door now, or you can look like a police shooting. All I’ll have to tell them is that you pulled first.”

  The guy looked up the street, dipped his head slightly as if gauging the distance to the corner. “You think you can rig the scene before they get here?”

  It sent a jolt through his guts: “rig the scene” put him back at Lucy’s house, Jack Deen dead on the floor, backup only minutes away and he knew he had a short window to get everything right. Blood spatter and ballistics and all the moral angles of it. How do you fix it up so you keep a clean slate and a clean conscience—

  He said, “It’s not rocket science. What I’ll do, I’ll shoot you maybe four times, put your hand on my backup piece. Then when they come running over, I’ll wipe my brow and say, Gee that was a close one.”

  Neither of them moved.

  Miles said, “Five. Four. Three.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The gun clicked.

  The guy jumped like he’d been grabbed in the dark.

  Miles racked the slide hard—a sharp clack—and said, “Pretty scary, right? Even worse if I actually shot you. And we’re live now, so we can go that way if we want.”

  The guy swallowed. He had one foot on the road.

  Miles said, “Don’t make me start the count again. I was almost finished.”

  More staring, and then the guy pulled the door closed. Quiet in the car now without the chiming, and the tension seemed to have dipped with the volume. The guy took a moment to settle back into looking cool, ran a long breath out through his bottom teeth and then leaned against his door with an arm on the sill, half-turned to Miles like he had nothing to hide.

  He said, “You figured you can risk talking to me now. But what’s keeping you safe when we part ways?”

  Miles said, “What, you think the facts are going to change? You only know I was there because you were there, too. It’s not like that’ll be different if you wait a week.” He nodded up the street. “If you’re going to blow my cover, might as well do it now, otherwise they’ll give you a hard time for not coming forward earlier.”

  “Yeah, cute. I’m not talking about the law.”

  Miles raised his eyebrows, smiled at him. “Oh, right. You mean I have to watch my back, or bad things’ll happen?”

  The guy didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “Tell me what you’re doing here.”

  “Same as you. Trying to find out what’s happening.”

  Miles turned his lip out and nodded at the house, as if watching from here struck him as a good technique. He said, “Didn’t think you’d get anything useful, watching from a car. I thought maybe you’d just sit here and keep an eye out for people having revelations, give someone a call if you thought they were getting close?”

  “If I’m part of this, why am I not getting distance right now? Flying to Guatemala or something?” He had his confidence back: his pulse wasn’t leaping out of his throat, and his finger tapping had settled down, too.

  Miles shrugged. “I’m part of it, and I’m not in Guatemala.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He reached across himself for the phone in his pocket, remembered Edward Rhys last night on the couch, making that same awkward move. He hoped this wasn’t the start of something: Rhys flashbacks hitting him until his guilt glands were spent, everyone issued their comeuppance. He opened the messages and found the text from Lucy, twenty minutes old now: “Miles the Man.” He could get that on a T-shirt maybe, once this was all squared away. He called her number, and she got it on the first ring.

  “Hey.”

  Miles said, “It’s me. Head back to the house. The guys are going to pack everything up and take you somewhere.”

  “What’s happening?”

  Miles said, “I’ll tell you later.”

  He hung up on her, and the guy said, “I’d be intrigued too, getting messages like that.” He leaned his head against the window as he pointed up the street at the house, a gesture with a limp hand, making sure he looked unbothered. He said, “What are you going to do if someone comes over for a chat? They might not approve of your conduct.”

  Miles looked up from the phone, gave the question genuine thought. He said, “Well, I couldn’t shoot both of you, that’d be a real mess.” He turned to the guy and said, “So I guess I’d have to drill you real fast, dress it up before anyone gets here.” He looked down at the phone again as he dialed another number, said, “My advice though: keep an eye out for people coming over, back us up real quick if they look friendly.”

  He put the phone to his ear, kept his eyes on the man beside him, feeling a rejoinder coming and wanting to give something back if needed. But the guy just sat there quietly, and Miles waited through the ringtone until DeSean picked up and asked him, “Yeah, what’s happening?”

  Miles said, “It’s me. We need to pack everything up.”

  “You think someone’s coming by?”

  “Yeah, there’ve been developments. Wait for our guest, and then go somewhere else.”

  “Like where?”

  “I can’t say it straight out, I got someone right here. Ask me questions.”

  “Okay. You want me to call Stanton?”

  “Yeah. He’ll fix you up with something.”

  “When’s the girl getting here?”

  “I don’t know. Soon. But don’t sit around playing PlayStation till the doorbell goes. You got to be ready to clear out.”

  “Yeah, yeah. ’Sall good. And what are you doing?”

  Miles said, “Cleaning something up. I’ll give you a call.”

  He clicked off and the guy had a smile ready, said to him, “I don’t think it counts as cleaning up when you’re wading into a ton of shit.”

  That had crossed his mind actually, but it wasn’t like he could just turn around and walk out of it. He took the guy’s phone from his jacket pocket and held it out to him across the console. “Power it up and unlock it for me.”

  The guy just sat there, Miles waiting for him, the phone cantilevered flat off two fingers like a giant business card.

  Miles sighed, not breaking eye contact, like
this was just tedious more than anything. He said, “Look. You seem to have grasped my situation pretty well. Which means you understand I don’t really have anything to lose. I don’t keep you in line, I’m probably looking at dying or going to prison. So you can unlock the phone, or I’m going to have to shoot you.”

  Maybe the guy had to weigh that one up carefully, because several more seconds passed before he finally took the thing and powered it on. He typed in an access code and then passed the phone back.

  Miles juggled it on his palm to get it upright, and then opened the text-message app. The file was empty. He navigated to the call log. The last outgoing was to a New York City area code, a four-minute exchange cut short when Miles had shown up. He scrolled down and saw the same number several more times, once or twice per day, going back the last week. There it was at eight P.M. last night: two minutes’ duration, a quick update before the visit to the Coveys, and then again at eleven P.M.—twenty-three minutes that time. Miles had left the house at ten thirty or thereabouts, which meant it took the guy about half an hour to call in and admit that the money was gone.

  He memorized the number, and then typed it in as the recipient of a new message. In the text field he wrote, “A few developments. We should meet. Rockefeller Center in two hours?”

  The tone seemed about right. Concision implied alarm without being panicky, but there was something between the lines as well. “Developments” was euphemistic. There was a hint of burgeoning crisis.

  He read it through a couple more times, pressed send, and dropped the phone in his coat again. He said, “Change of plan. We’re going for a drive.”

  FIFTEEN

  NEW YORK, NY

  Bobby Deen

  He remembered his first visit to New York, and thinking he’d never make it big.

  Charles had flown him up for film work. It was just a background role, but it was a thank-you gesture for all of Bobby’s drug runs. The trip over felt like something he could get used to: flying across the country on someone else’s dime to make a movie. Then he arrived, and got the true perspective on his status, saw the wealth and power and knew exactly where he ranked in the world. He knew first visits were meant to inspire—people seeing the scale of the place and doubling their ambitions—but driving through Midtown at night in the fog with the buildings turned to pillars of suspended lights, it all looked like a ceiling he’d never touch. Then he spent three hours in the rain, dressed as a cop and pretending to flush out terrorists from the ground floor of some south-of-SoHo shithole, and he worried that he was truly in his element.