The Stakes

by Ben Sanders

  He said, “I was in a car outside the hotel with someone who happened to have a gun.”

  Now they were into the good stuff.

  Medina said, “Who were you with?”

  Miles said, “He told me his name was Gary Peters, but I don’t think he was telling the truth.”

  O’Shea said, “You’re right: he wasn’t.”

  Miles looked at him, knowing that this was where things would pivot, and the guy said, “He was an undercover cop called Vincent Petrov.”

  * * *

  Well, that changed things slightly. Petrov. As far as Russian names went, it was way more convincing than Gary Peters. And for some reason that thought took precedence, getting through before the important stuff: the fact that he’d taken a police officer hostage, the fact that an undercover cop knew that Miles had robbed the Coveys, the fact that if said cop was alive, then that information was still out there for discovery. And what about his Rockefeller Center meeting? Who had actually been waiting for him? Maybe all that phone messaging had just been setting up his own arrest.

  O’Shea said, “You still with us?” He had a perfect voice for these little interview rooms: quiet and a little bored, but with a gravelly, cigarette undercurrent.

  Miles didn’t answer. If this Petrov guy was dead, then things were okay for now. But if the guy was recuperating in an ICU, Miles’s freedom was on a short timer.

  He said, “I gave him first aid on the sidewalk. He was shot when the suspects were heading for the hotel.”

  O’Shea said, “But you forgot about that part earlier?”

  He thought back to how it had played: firing at the guy but hitting the Mercedes, ducking for cover when he saw the MP5 taking aim, glass from the car’s windows raining on him and the noise of it drowned out by the rat-a-tat. He should’ve known it right then, that a wrecked car probably meant an injured driver, but he was too busy planning how to save Lucy.

  He said, “I didn’t leave it out, it just wasn’t my recollection. It wasn’t until I’d come outside again that I saw the guy was shot.”

  O’Shea said, “When you fired at the suspects you drew their aim, and that’s when Petrov was injured.”

  So he was hanging in there.

  Miles said, “If you’re just talking about the order of events, then I agree. If you’re trying to imply culpability, then I think that’s a pretty stupid way to look at it.”

  Nobody answered.

  Miles said, “In any case, I hope he’s all right.”

  O’Shea said, “What were you doing in Petrov’s car?”

  Miles looked at Medina, saw that she was happy to let O’Shea pursue his little side road. They would have settled the agenda earlier, during their office powwow. The way she was sitting back, not worried about her notes anymore, she seemed genuinely interested to hear the story.

  Miles said, “I met him up on a crime scene earlier today.”

  O’Shea waited, and then he shrugged and spread his hands. “You going to tell us the story, or do I have to ask for it line by line?”

  Miles said, “I turned on the news this morning, saw an attorney had been murdered up in Kings Point. Guy called Lane Covey.”

  O’Shea said, “So you thought you’d cruise up there and check it out?”

  Miles looked at him, gave it a couple of seconds. “You want me to tell the story or not?”

  O’Shea didn’t answer.

  Miles said, “I had a case that Covey was connected to.” He paused and looked away, thinking how to summarize his dealings without wading in any deeper than necessary. He said, “We had a robbery victim who we suspected was running a credit-card scam. We got a tip-off that Covey was a facilitator.”

  O’Shea said, “Facilitating in what sense?”

  “I don’t know. There was a Russian mafia angle apparently, so it got moved to Organized Crime. You’d have to ask them about it.”

  He had a feeling they knew the answer already. If they knew Petrov was undercover, then they were most likely from an OC unit. Which meant they were trying to catch him out, rather than gather information.

  Miles said, “What’s the prognosis? Is he going to pull through?”

  O’Shea said, “We really hope so.” He lifted a page on his notes and set it down gently, not seeming to read anything, buying time while he formed a question.

  He said, “All right. So you saw the Covey guy had been killed. But why was it your problem? You’re on leave, the case had been reassigned anyway.”

  He thought about going with a kind of liberal cliché—how this was a free country, and he could go and stand at a crime-scene tape should he so wish. But he said, “I know the local cops up in Kings Point, and I figured they’d want to know what I had to say about it.”

  “How do you know the Kings Point guys?”

  Miles said, “I talked to their detective chief a couple times about Covey, before OC took it off me.”

  “So then why were you up there today? If the case had been moved to OC and you didn’t really know the details?”

  Miles said, “Well. I knew to tell them who to ask about it. I’m just lowly robbery police, but I understand in these murder cases, time is of the essence.”

  He left it there a moment, but no one cut in.

  He said, “They had State BCI up there throwing their weight around, wanting to do things exactly their way, and Kings Point PD was putting a lot of effort into holding their ground, so I thought it might’ve been a day or two before anyone thought to call Organized Crime at NYPD.”

  Yeah, that was good. But O’Shea only held back for a second or two. He said, “So how did you end up pals with Vince Petrov? You go around chatting up the rubberneckers until you hit someone friendly?”

  He felt like he needed to come in close to the truth here. O’Shea definitely knew more than he was letting on.

  Miles said, “I’d seen him before—”

  “Oh yeah? Where?”

  Miles shrugged. “Not sure. I spend a lot of time following shady characters. I recognized him.”

  He thought O’Shea was going to keep working him on that point, but he said, “So where was he?”

  Miles said, “Standing by his car, not far from the house. Hard to miss him in that tracksuit.”

  O’Shea said, “And so you had a nice little chat? Obviously went okay if he gave you a ride.” He turned and looked at McKenzie and said, “Pretty friendly, right?”

  Miles said, “I didn’t get that impression.”

  O’Shea looked back at him, eyebrows up.

  Miles said, “Like I told you, I’d seen him before. So I just walked up to him and asked what he was doing, if this was like one of those strange psycho traits—you know how murderers sometimes show up at the victim’s funeral?”

  O’Shea deadpanned him: “Yeah. I’ve heard about that.”

  Miles said, “Yeah, anyway. He got in the car as I was heading over, so I got in as well and gave him the line, just to see how he handled it.”

  “And how did he handle it?”

  Miles said, “He started driving.”

  No one answered.

  Miles said, “He told me that what he was doing was none of my business. Which in a legal sense was all well and good, but it didn’t stop me being curious. But he said I could either fuck off, or be stuck in the car with him.”

  He waited, but O’Shea was keeping quiet.

  Miles said, “So I called his bluff, and sure enough I was stuck in the car with him. Said he had a meeting in Manhattan, and he wasn’t going to be held up.”

  “And you just went with it?”

  Miles shrugged, like this kind of thing had happened before—unwanted rides from dubious characters. He said, “He loosened up, we got talking.”

  He left it at that for now, not quite sure what they would’ve chatted about, but imagined he could iron out those details when he had to.

  For a moment he thought O’Shea was going to make him do exactly that, but he said, “
Lane Covey was robbed last night.”

  He was sitting with his hands linked on his clipboard, not interested in his notes anymore, just waiting—as Miles had said—to see how he handled it.

  Miles said, “How do you know that?”

  O’Shea said, “Because Vincent Petrov saw it. A masked man with a gun showed up at Covey’s house and stole two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Miles said, “That must’ve taken balls.”

  O’Shea said, “Yeah. But my theory’s this: you ripped off the Coveys last night, and then dropped by the crime scene this morning. Like one of those weird psycho traits, where the killer shows up at the victim’s funeral.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  NEW YORK, NY

  Bobby Deen

  Nina pressed a button on the intercom by the door, and a polite male voice told her she had a visitor. Nina said, “Send them up,” and then fetched her glass from the floor by the window and poured herself another vodka and soda. She made it a dance for him, dipping her knees as she moved between fridge and countertop, swaying her hips. There was a fine balance in it that she managed to get just right: putting on a show, but pretending not to notice his attention.

  She raised the glass in Bobby’s direction. “What do you think? Probably looks best half-full, right? Like I just happened to be drinking it.”

  It was funny hearing her say it, or make the admission, really—that she was getting into character, playing someone who did this all the time. He thought of her as an expert in everything, no pretense required.

  He said, “You need special rounded ice cubes, so they look melted.”

  “Yeah, there’s an idea. And I should spray dew on the glass, so it looks like it’s worked up a sweat.” She smiled at him. “Might be too much admin.”

  She came around the counter again, heading for the door, still holding on to the smile. Something caught her halfway, and she turned back to him and said, “I remember Charles saying whenever people visited for business, he always had the door open, ready. That way you see them come in, and you’ve got time to do something if there’s an issue.”

  Bobby said, “Shoot them one at a time as they come in.”

  “Yeah. Otherwise you open up, and they have you by the throat before you know what’s happening. So I said to him, why don’t you just get a camera, and then if they look like they want to break bones, you just never let them in? Think he decided I was onto something.”

  There was a knock at the door, brisk but deferential. She was still looking at him.

  Bobby perched sidesaddle on an armchair. He said, “So are you going to check the camera?”

  Nina said, “No, I’ve got you for backup,” and went and opened the door.

  She wouldn’t have needed help anyway. She stepped aside, and Bobby saw a small Asian woman in her forties, a duffel in one hand and a big wheeled suitcase in the other. Maybe it was just the luggage, but she looked like a flight attendant, trim and polished, hair pulled back in a bun, wearing a dark suit that looked tailored.

  She said, “Good afternoon. Delivery for you, ma’am.”

  Nina told her to put it on the table. The woman did as asked, a consummate professional, faint smile and indifferent eyes. She stood to one side as she raised the lid on the case, like making a little ceremony of it. Cash was stacked to the zipper—hundred-dollar bills in bands of ten thousand, Bobby guessed.

  “I have a cash counter if you’d like to verify the total.”

  Nina said, “No, it’s fine.” She was standing ten feet back, arms folded, working on her drink. She looked at Bobby and said, “Maybe it’s rigged anyway.”

  “I can assure you nothing has been tampered with.”

  Nina said, “It’s okay, I’m only shitting you.” She took a band and fanned the corner, checking for fakes. She said, “Looks okay.”

  She dropped it back with the others, and that was that. She stepped away and drained her glass as she headed back over to the counter.

  “The bag is complimentary, ma’am. Samsonite. And it meets standard carry-on dimensions, too.”

  “Excellent, thank you.”

  The money scent was starting to work through the room. Bobby knew at certain concentrations it could dissolve any problem.

  The woman bid Nina a good afternoon, and the door clicked, and then she was standing in front of him, blocking his view of the case.

  She said, “Well that was easy. I was worried I might need your expertise. Hotel lobby, round two.”

  “I might not shoot straight after the vodka.”

  She tilted her head as she looked at him. “I actually thought it’d be more low-key—pictured maybe three or four guys looking like trouble, and you just sitting there telling them how it is.”

  He said, “How much is in the case?”

  She looked over at it, as if running the numbers. “Eight hundred grand, in theory. Million-dollar commission fee, less two hundred thousand for the performance at the hotel.”

  “You didn’t want to count it?”

  She pursed her lips slightly, as if being diplomatic, and said, “My mind was elsewhere.”

  Bobby said, “What’s going on?”

  Nina came closer and said, “You want to hear the story, or shall we get back to other business?”

  * * *

  He opted for other business.

  He followed as she walked backward to the bedroom, the pair of them lock-lipped and Nina effortless in reverse, steady-footed and with Royal Ballet poise. She freed his shirt buttons top-down, one then the next with no fumble, and he knew that right now was a rare and perfect moment: so often the thing you want is forever out of reach, and yet here she was, leaving fantasy for dead.

  He said he wanted her forever. Before now he didn’t know how to say it—how to stop it sounding trite or adolescent, like a wish from heady daydreams. But in between the sheets the tone was different, and it sounded right. It wasn’t naive or out of reach.

  She wanted the same.

  He’d been on her mind since he saved her life. She knew that day had gravity, enough to make them re-collide. Here was proof: he’d been pulled across the country, and now he was hers. He felt a kind of inner lurch, his life being pulled back on course. She saw it in his eyes and held his face.

  He knew then that he was safe and he could tell her everything.

  It poured out:

  He’d been scared for thirty years, scared that the good life would never find him. He’d had a vision of picket-fence suburbia—forget that blood-money condo, full of Charles Stone’s trinkets. He wanted two boys. They’d have everything he hadn’t, and a boyhood worth remembering. He knew where his youth had gone awry, and how to fix it. He’d be different from his father.

  She asked him what he’d done, and Bobby heard that voice: What are you looking at, boy?

  He couldn’t stop now, and she kept holding him. Bobby knew she could fix everything. He laid out the old man, the sad précis of Bobby Senior.

  He’d had grand plans for his boy. He was meant to be a child film star. Kids’ movies made megabucks—the parents’ profit must be huge.

  He told Bobby he had the looks and natural flair. He rented movies and transcribed dialogue by night. They read lines at the kitchen table, working through a stack of bootleg scripts, eighties blockbusters written out by hand. Bobby learned E.T. off by heart.

  They went to auditions, but he couldn’t make the cut. His career high point was a McGee’s Cheese commercial—Bobby as a cowboy kid in the starring role. He got callbacks for films, but he never got the Big One.

  Senior kept him at it.

  They upped rehearsals, but Bobby couldn’t crack it. Senior put it down to lack of dedication. Bobby got the belt if he missed a line. He got the belt if he didn’t get a callback. The equation was straightforward: you work hard, you make progress.

  Bobby did work hard. He was eight years old and wanted to please. He auditioned, and the phone didn’t ring.

  Senior st
arted drinking, and getting real violent. Missed lines meant a belt and a fist. He heard about Macaulay Culkin, and lost his shit—that could’ve been you, kid. He took out his frustration on Home Alone—the VHS cartridge turned to broken plastic and black ribbon.

  His mother copped beatings too, punishment for not helping with the boy, not keeping him on The Path.

  Then he’d sober up and feel guilty, confess all in church. The priest was a pedophile and had a soft spot for the wicked. He’d absolve anything. Senior would come home sobbing and swear he’d changed.

  He did change.

  He ditched the Bobby-as-child-star dream, and took up drinking full time. He swapped violence for resentment. He looked at Bobby like a shit stain he had to live around. All he said was, What are you looking at, boy?

  The trick was to stay away completely, and he started wearing hats so he’d never catch his eye. It worked too, and now he hadn’t seen him for sixteen years. Senior lived alone with liver cancer in Modesto, California.

  Nina listened and didn’t let him go. She read his mind too, and told him they were different people. He was nothing like his father.

  But she’d tapped a lifetime of buried angst, and there was way more to come.

  He didn’t know if life was slow to fix itself, or if he was just trapped in Charles Stone’s orbit. He was a fraud: his mother thought he was a big-shot producer. He was just a no-mercy enforcer. He’d justified his lies as the cost of admission—it wasn’t easy gaining access to the good life.

  Nina said he was wrong. She had him right here, and she could see the real Bobby. He wasn’t a fraud.

  But comfort was nothing without full disclosure. He went all in:

  He feared Connie’s death was his fault. He had these dreams where he pushed her, but they couldn’t be the truth. He’d been there at the edge, but he couldn’t have hurt her. Reality clashed with the fact of his nature. He loved her too much. The fury was from trying to save her. There was no way he pushed her. The cops grilled him, and he ran it down a dozen times. The mantra became the facts.