The Stakes

by Ben Sanders

  She came over to Bobby and handed him the phone. “Your turn.”

  Meaning call Charles Stone, and spin a story.

  Nina said, “You’re going to have to tell him something good.”

  Bobby said, “The truth should do it, then.”

  She was back in the kitchen, opening the freezer, taking out a bottle of vodka—Grey Goose by the look of it. She said, “You can tell him the part about the gunfire, but I’d keep the rest of it to yourself.” The stopper made a thock as it came out of the bottle. “Maybe don’t mention the part about not taking me back to California.”

  Bobby said, “Maybe I will, just not on his time frame.”

  “Yeah. That could work.” She looked at the ceiling, like she saw a plan already: “Maybe you could find where we left that boat. A month or two at sea wouldn’t be bad.”

  The boat, the boat: maybe it was a sign. He’d had his little flashback, and now it was on her mind, too.

  She raised the bottle at him. “You want one?”

  Why not? He liked where this was going, even though he knew the clocks were running, counting down to various dilemmas. They would’ve lifted his prints off the gun in the hotel, maybe even got a hit off his LAPD file. And his luggage was in that shot Mercedes. Which meant there could be a notice out on him already. But then the scene in front of him had a lot of punch to it: Nina right there, offering a drink. That one-woman tableau seemed to say:

  This will all be fine.

  So Bobby nodded and said, “On ice, if you’ve got any.”

  He looked at the phone again, and knew that this was high-pedigree deceit, standing in another man’s apartment, preparing to tell him lies, meanwhile said man’s wife pours drinks for two.

  He dialed Charles, the landline number for the house in the Bird Streets, and watched Nina drizzle vodka over ice as he waited for an answer.

  She raised the glasses to check the levels, and said, “Make sure you tell him why you took so long to call. No good saying you’re obsessed with his wife and can’t think straight.”

  He went free-fall for a second, but then Charles was on the line and pulled him out of the drop: “Yeah?”

  Bobby kept his eyes on Nina. “It’s me.”

  “You’re back at the apartment?” Recognizing the number. “What happened?”

  He’d expected more volume, but Charles sounded measured.

  Bobby felt his pulse in his ears. That didn’t usually happen—he was meant to be the Ice Man. He said, “Put the news on.”

  “Or you could just tell me what’s happening.”

  He watched Nina coming over with their drinks, tumblers gripped overhand, wrists swaying gently to make the ice tinkle.

  Bobby said, “We met her in the hotel but got intercepted on the way out—”

  “Shit—” There was ice tinkling at Charles’s end, too.

  Bobby said, “Two guys came in and shot up the lobby. Marko and Luka are dead.”

  “Oh Jesus…” Getting breathy now—borderline panic.

  Bobby said, “I went with Luka to ICU, but they couldn’t keep him going. Nina’s meant to meet me back here.” He watched her nodding as she drank, approving the story, looking out at the river.

  “But she’s okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine.”

  “Isn’t it bodyguard rule one: keep the principal real close. Especially after a fucking shoot-out?”

  That was a point. Nina’s eyes shifted to him, like maybe she’d heard. It was that same pose he’d seen earlier in the diner, eyes slightly narrowed and her chin up a touch, looking strong.

  Bobby said, “It’s hard telling her what to do,” and Nina smiled, liking that just fine.

  Charles said, “You should have held on to her—”

  “There were cops around. I didn’t want to end up in the cells.”

  “Jesus…” He subvocalized awhile, awful stuff, like some rosary to the devil. Bobby waited for him to come right, and eventually Charles said, “So where is she?”

  Bobby said, “She took a train uptown. I was doing first aid, but the cops were rounding up witnesses, and she didn’t want to hang around. There was an exhibition at the Met that she wanted to see.” Now that was inspired—fucking perfect, and Nina thought so, as well: nodding along to a rhythm, like the lies had flow.

  Charles said, “Great—she going to do some shopping too, maybe catch a movie? Shit.”

  Bobby said, “She’s got time. I’m back sooner than I planned. I thought Luka would hang on longer. They gave him three pints of blood but he kept flatlining.” That was a nice touch, as well.

  Charles said, “Shit. All right. Goddammit.” Sounding weaker, like the shooting news was only just getting through. He said, “So who was it?”

  “Not sure. They had masks.”

  “And what happened? You killed them?”

  Bobby said, “They came in shooting, but there was a cop in the lobby who sorted them out.” That was a funny way to put it—sidestepping Keller’s proficiency, the fact he’d dropped them clean and easy.

  Charles said, “So they’re dead?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “All right. Okay. Okay.” Grinding through it all, working out a narrative. “It must be Garcia’s people.”

  Bobby ran with it: “Yeah, probably pissed off I didn’t bring his boat back.”

  He heard squeaks at Charles’s end, wheelchair tires on polished concrete, the old man doing tense laps of the living room.

  Charles said, “Why did you let her go off to a fucking gallery?”

  “No one’s looking for her in a crowd of tourists.”

  “Yeah, but…” It took him a while to get there, trying to wrap his booze-smashed head around the different angles. After a moment he hit the obvious question: “You realize, I sent her up there because she’s running on me. So how do you know she’s coming back?”

  This was getting too hard. Bobby said, “Trust me.”

  “Or, just fucking tell me. There’s enough gone wrong, I want to hear how everything’s going to work.”

  Bobby’s heart went slam, slam, slam, and he said, “I saved her on that boat, so she trusts me.” He didn’t dare look, but she was there as a shape in his periphery. He said, “She thinks I’m helping her.”

  He knew it was a high-stakes claim—she was right there, and how could it not put ideas in her head? But she was still nodding along to his story, as if the words had gone straight past her.

  He heard Charles’s breath on the line, rhythmic crackle with a bit of wheeze, and the old boy said, “All right.” Then in a lower tone, like he was being overheard: “You put her on the plane, bring her back, we’ll double your fee.” Then as an afterthought: “I didn’t know it was going to get this messy.”

  Bullshit—Bobby knew the mess didn’t bother him. He was scared of being lied to.

  She thinks I’m helping her.

  The line had got Charles’s gears turning. Maybe the lies didn’t stop at Nina. The old man wanted insurance.

  And that was fine. Bobby might as well capitalize. He said, “How about six hundred even,” and looked at Nina to see her eyebrows going up.

  Charles wheezed fast as he thought it over. He said, “You’re a greedy prick, Bobby, but fine. Call me when you’ve got her on the plane. And remember: no wife, no money, either.”

  Bobby said, “I think I can live with that. You might want to book a return trip, too. New York cops’ll want to ask you about Marko and Luka.”

  The old boy scoffed. “I’m Charles Stone. They can come to me.”

  The tone went beep in his ear.

  Nina passed him his drink and said, “He’s giving you more money?”

  Bobby took a sip as he walked the phone to the counter. “He’s worried I’ve swapped sides.”

  Nina smiled. “Which you have.”

  She was totally at ease, leaning back against the window with her legs crossed, looking him in the eye. But did that mean she trusted him, or
just that she could handle whatever came her way?

  Bobby said, “Charles has a plane on standby to take us back to L.A.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “So how does this sound: we collect your commission fee, then we go and find Keller and take his money too, and then we fly back to California and take a bit more off Charles.”

  “How much is a bit more?”

  Bobby said, “He’s promised me six hundred grand.”

  Nina swirled her glass. “Every little bit counts, doesn’t it?”

  Bobby wondered what her spending was like, how long she’d take to get through six hundred grand. He said, “We can sell the boat when we’re done with it, make another million.”

  He kept saying “we,” but he didn’t have a clear idea of what that actually meant. But Nina seemed to be going along with it happily enough. She said, “Getting to Keller might take a while. It’s more than an afternoon’s work.”

  Bobby said, “I’ll make up a new story for Charles, buy us some more time.”

  “He’s not renowned for his patience.”

  Bobby said, “The less he trusts me, the more he pays me, so maybe it’ll all work out.”

  He thought he’d get a smile out of that, but she just sipped her vodka, not dropping eye contact. She said, “What exhibition was I seeing?”

  Bobby shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably some kind of Renaissance shit.”

  There it was: she smiled.

  He said, “Should’ve told him it was promo posters for B-grade nineties movies, he’d have loved it.”

  She laughed, and he found himself wanting a follow-up line, something perfect that she’d find even funnier, throw her head back and let him see that white arch of upper teeth. Time it well, and he could be right there when she opened her eyes again. He was coming up blank though, knew he shouldn’t move closer until he had something to say—it’d only seem natural if he walked up delivering a line. Close the gap in silence, he figured there was a high risk of making it awkward.

  He moved in anyway, trusting that a cool one-liner would show up at the right moment, and maybe by accident Nina actually helped him: took a drink and watched with one eye as he came over, and he figured that vodka was a good enough topic.

  He said, “You always hit the spirits in the afternoon, or is it a special treat because I’m here?”

  Kind of lacking in the humor department, but it wasn’t bad. It set a playful tone, at least, and now she had to give him something back. They were close enough their glasses could touch—not to mention the rest of them—and Nina clinked her tumbler against his as she said, “You know in movies, when they want to make someone look in-control, they give them something to eat? Not so they’re stuffing their face, but just so they have a snack on the go?”

  Bobby thought about that one and said, “Like Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven?”

  “Yeah, exactly. Let you know he’s Mr. Cool, eating nachos while he plots a casino takedown.”

  She was leaning back with her head on the glass, and Bobby knew if this was going anywhere she’d step forward. He’d done the hard work closing the big gap, but that last little push had to be hers.

  He said, “So you’re giving me a drink to find out if I’m as cool as Brad?”

  Nina shook her head. “No, I knew that already.” Not saying, though, whether he measured up.

  She said, “Way I see it, if someone comes to your apartment to drop off a bag of money, you want to make people think you’ve done this all before, and none of it’s a big deal. That way no one tries to play you, or renegotiate, or just shoot you and keep the cash.” She raised the glass and looked up at the base of it, smiling a little, like seeing the whole situation in fresh terms. She looked at him and said, “Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I’m giving the impression that I’m fine with everything.”

  She drank to that, and Bobby did as well. He wondered if she could see the pulse in his neck. He wanted to just get it over with, grab and kiss, but he figured he could give it another minute.

  He said, “Have you done this before?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I was in this movie—seven, eight years ago. Final scene was a meeting between these two crime families, going over this deal or something. And of course the whole thing gets a bit unpleasant, everyone starts shouting and then it’s a full shoot-out. Remember I took a bullet in the leg, had to go down shouting, ‘dahlia,’ I think it was. The scene got cut.”

  Bobby said, “So it didn’t work out okay.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “But that’s what I’ve got you for this time.”

  Bobby said, “I think a gun would be better than a glass.”

  She looked him up and down, just her eyes, and said, “You’ve been standing right in front of me for a while.”

  Bobby said, “Yeah, I was waiting for the right line so I could seem real smooth.”

  It sounded kind of cryptic, but Nina seemed to know what he meant, and maybe she even looked hopeful about where this was heading, so he reached around her with his free arm, and their glasses clinked a second time as he pulled her in, and she was cold and tasted like vodka as he kissed her. They came up for air, and their heads swapped angles and then went for it again, and he heard her glass drop and roll across the floor.

  She broke away and stepped back from him with her hands on his shoulders. With the window behind her and the view of the city, it was like the whole world was watching.

  She said, “We could have got here weeks ago, but you took me back to Charles.”

  Only a whisper, and he wasn’t sure if she was sad or curious. With her so close and looking her in the eye, he could see her deeply, and he knew they were the same. There was a world in her head where they’d been together, and right now was that perfect moment: reality coaxed to match the form of shared imagining.

  He said, “We made it eventually.”

  She was kissing him again, and he felt her hands on his back, under his coat, sliding it off, and then the doorbell chimed.

  Nina’s hand trailed off him as she stepped past him, and she said, “We’ll pick this up in a minute.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  NEW YORK, NY

  Miles Keller

  The two new guys were called Dodd and O’Shea. He’d never seen them before, and they hadn’t told him what division they were with. Whatever they did though, they’d been at it awhile. They had that patient-but-skeptical look police detectives get after twenty-five years on the job.

  O’Shea had brought in a chair from along the hall, and he got himself comfy across the table from Miles, slightly off to his right, legs crossed and a clipboard propped on one knee. To Miles’s left, Medina was fussing with the video camera, and McKenzie and Dodd were leaning against the wall to either side of the door. On the table was Medina’s yellow legal pad, and some forms on NYPD letterhead he’d no doubt have to autograph.

  Something on the camera beeped, and he turned to see a red light glowing above the lens. He should have known better than to look. If this went to court, they’d probably cut the first half-second of footage, have him looking straight down the barrel in the opening frame, wondering what he was in for.

  Medina took her seat beside O’Shea and ran through the preamble: time and date and everyone’s names, and what the interview related to. He said he was happy talking to them without a lawyer, and she made him sign all the forms. His signature was the only sound in the room, a hard swish in triplicate.

  Medina lifted a page on her pad and spent a moment scanning over something. She said, “All right,” drawing it out slowly, the way a doctor might, not sure how to break bad news.

  Miles waited.

  Medina let the page down softly and said, “Walk us through it to start with. Where were you were when you heard the first shot?”

  The pen had a cap, and he took a moment clicking it into place, laying it on the topmost page, sliding everything back across the table. Four pairs of eyes an
d the red light held him steady.

  The first shot.

  Or the first volley, really, when they’d blasted that Mercedes. He’d been sitting in the Cadillac, and if he told them that, it’d lay out another thread for them to tug on. But he couldn’t lie about it, because he was on film up at Kings Point, looking through the Covey crime scene.

  Medina prompted him: “Mr. Keller?”

  So they weren’t calling him “Detective” anymore, which was fair enough, he supposed. The thing that bothered him most was that he didn’t know what the other two wanted. A four-strong inquisition was getting pretty busy, which reinforced his feeling that Dodd and O’Shea were here for something else.

  He said, “I was on Canal Street, just east of the Tribeca Gardens Hotel. I saw two men with MP5 submachine guns get out of an SUV on the sidewalk ahead of me. They crossed the street and opened fire at a Mercedes sedan stopped in traffic in the westbound lane. I opened fire in return, but didn’t put them down.” He closed his eyes briefly, saw the men in black and their MP5s, heard that blitz of noise like the world tearing on a hidden seam. Miles’s Glock leaping as he squeezed off his shots.

  He said, “I fired twice, but didn’t hit them. They were moving across me so I didn’t have a great line.”

  Medina said, “And they were heading for the hotel?”

  He nodded. “They entered the lobby and opened fire again.”

  “So you followed them?”

  He nodded, tried to keep his tone level, as if to say the next move was obvious, ethically immaculate, the type of action any decent and concerned citizen would take. He said, “Yeah. I went in behind them and shot them both.”

  “You weren’t concerned about bystanders?”

  “I was mostly concerned about them being injured by an MP5 on full auto. But people were keeping low, and I was shooting high, so I think it turned out all right.”

  Medina said, “You had a Glock pistol, is that correct?”

  He nodded. “Glock 17.”

  She said, “Given you’re on leave, turned in your badge, why were you carrying a firearm?”

  She’d changed direction. He’d handled her bystanders question with a pretty light touch, and given collateral damage was a life-or-death issue, he thought she’d want to give it a bit longer before they moved on to gun ownership matters. And he wasn’t sure how much they already knew. Did they have a print on the Glock that tied it back to DeSean, which in turn could link the weapon back to Miles? It was a small question in the scheme of things, but he felt very aware of his need to pretest every claim, see how much bullshit it could hold.