Wicked Prey

by John Sandford

  Shafer thought about that for a minute, then said, "I definitely want the truck. Then I'm going home to Oklahoma and I'm never coming back to this place. Minnesota sucks."

  Jenkins said, "Casse toi, pauvre con."

  Shrake said to Lucas, "French lessons."

  ***

  Back at the apartment, Cruz told Lane and Lindy about the cops at the motel. "They're right on top of us," Lindy said. "We've got to get out of here."

  Cohn was watching her: she was excited, pink-faced, scared, rattling around inside a thin cotton dress, and it was making him horny. Cruz, on the other hand, was pulling together, tighter and tighter.

  "No. What they did was, after they found my place in LA, they checked phone numbers and got the number from my phone," Cruz said. "That was the phone I used to call my friend, to get her out of the house. She did, and she's ' safe. But they found the record and they traced that to the calls I made to Shafer. They're moving really fast. Really fast. I don't know how they dug Shafer out of the motel, but I've put enough word around about him, to wind them up, that they might have shaken down the whole motel and picked him up at random. So they get him, and they co-opt him, get him to call me. They still don't know where we are. They do know who we are. Brute and me, anyway. And Tate. They've digitized all the fingerprints and they'll nail Tate down in two minutes. If they find any connection to Jesse, they'll have him, too."

  They all looked at Lane, who said, "I hung out with Tate a few years ago, in LA, but never got busted with him. The only jobs I done with him I did with Brute."

  "So you might still be clear," Cohn said. "Besides, they'll be looking for a guy with swastika tattoos. That little idea may save your bacon, someday."

  Cruz looked at her watch: "We're twelve hours away from hitting the hotel. If we can get through the twelve hours, we're good. I mean, we could have used Tate, but' we could still do this."

  "We'll be in there for an hour," Lane said. "We'll be making noise. Christ'"

  "We can do it," Cruz said. "If Lindy can make it as a desk clerk, we can pull it off."

  Lindy shook her head, but she didn't say anything.

  ***

  Cruz hooked her laptop to the television, took them through it, using PowerPoint, a series of photos and diagrams of the St. Andrews Hotel.

  "We go in between three and four o'clock in the morning. Everything will be over for two hours, by then. Two cars here, in the parking ramp." She flashed the route with a laser pointer. "From the hotel, if we have to run, we have access to the ramp twenty-four hours a day, up the back stairs to the skyway, or down on the street, up through this stairway." She pointed out the access and escape routes on the photos. "We should walk it one last time, this evening. There'll be a night manager on duty, and a desk clerk, but all the restaurants and bars are closed. The safe-deposit room is right behind the reception desk. When I put my stuff in it, I got these photos ' this is just a cell phone cam, so excuse the quality."

  The safe-deposit room was a six-by-eight-foot rectangle, with sixty steel-door boxes set into a concrete wall.

  "What worries me is that whole "one minute" business," Lane said. "Sixty boxes, sixty minutes. But if it's a minute and a half, then we're in for an hour and a half. If it's two minutes…"

  "We get the point," Cohn said. "If we get pushed, we drop the tools and walk. But Don Walker said that he knows those boxes, and it won't take a minute. He says it'll take more like thirty to forty-five seconds ' So now we're in for less than an hour."

  "I would have liked to have drilled one myself," Lane said. "Just to know."

  ***

  "I'm thinking, if we get in clean, I might want to talk to the desk clerk for a couple of minutes," Cohn said. "I'll take a rope along and strangle her a little, if I need to. Tell her we need the names of the boxes she put stuff in. The ones with the most jewelry, the most cash ' She'll have an idea."

  "That could work, if you're not herding other people around," Cruz said, nodding. "If we get in clean, we move the manager and the clerk onto the floor in the safe-deposit room, put on the restraints. If they won't talk, maybe get rough with one of them…"

  "That would cut the time down," Lane said. "If we knew which boxes to do first-or which ones were empty."

  "We'll know which ones are empty, if there are any, because the desk will have both keys for them. For the ones being used, they'll only have one key. They keep their keys in a cupboard behind the front desk," Cruz said.

  Cohn said, "The other thing is, I could take a look at what we're taking out. If we hit some certain point, we quit. Or, if nothing much is happening, if we're getting junk, if there's no cash, we wrap it up and take off."

  Lindy asked, "Are you going to kill the clerk and the manager?"

  Cohn said, "See when we get there. It's bad business, killing somebody when you don't have to. Tends to attract the eye." He didn't want her to know ahead of time.

  Lindy was looking at the photograph of the safe-deposit room, and said, "Look at the wall plug-in. It looks like it's burnt."

  They all looked and Cruz said, "Picture's not clear enough."

  "I wonder if they had to drill a box, and it sucked down too many amps," Lane said. "If that outlet is burned out, we'd be fucked."

  "That's a good catch, Lindy," Cruz said. "I didn't see that. There's another outlet on the wall behind me, behind where the camera is, but if there's a circuit problem ' You know what, Jesse? You should stop at a hardware store and pick up one of those long heavy-duty extension cords. It's ninety-nine percent that we won't need one, but if we need one and don't have it'"

  "I'll get one," Lane said.

  ***

  When they finished working through it, they ordered out for pizza. Lindy met the pizza man at the door, overtipped him, and brought the pizza back into the living room and said, "What we need to do is ask, "What if we didn't do this?"' We know there are a bunch of cops on our asses. They know what Brute looks like, and Rosie. What if we walked away from it, and started planning another job somewhere else? We could get in the cars and be in Missouri by midnight. Jesse could be home by tomorrow morning…"

  "Maybe not," Jesse said. "That's a long haul, south of St. Louis."

  They all sat and chewed on the meat-eater's specials, with olives and mushrooms, and Cohn sighed and said, "The big money keeps getting harder. The trucks get better, the guards get better, there are more cops all the time. They got DNA now, and instant fingerprints ' This money is right there. And Rosie and I gotta go deep, this time. We've got to stay gone for years, maybe. If we pull this off tonight, we won't ever have to come back. I can move to India or New Zealand or South Africa and stay lost forever. If we have to come back for another job ' I mean, the way fingerprints work now, if I get stopped coming across the border, and they print me, I could get busted right there."

  "It'd still be safer," Lindy said. "I got a really bad feeling about this one, Brute. Really, really bad. We don't even know how the cops got onto this Shafer guy, we don't even know what they're doing."

  Cohn sat chewing for a minute, then said, to Lane, "We can't do it without you. You in, or out?"

  "If you make the call, I'm in," Lane said. "But Lindy has some points."

  Cohn bobbed his head, smiled at Lindy. "You do have some points. You're smarter than I thought. Saw that thing on the outlet, too." He shook his head. "But fuck it: we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it, so let's get ready."

  ***

  They finished eating and watched TV for a while, Oprah, and then Lane said, "I'm gonna go get that extension cord. Anybody want to come?"

  Nobody did. Lindy was scared. "I'm afraid to go outside. This convention, I bet they got cameras everywhere. If they see me with you guys, I'm as bad off as you are, and I haven't even done anything."

  Cohn nodded, stood up and stretched. "So you keep your head down," he said. "Once it gets dark, the cameras won't work so well." To Cruz: "Let's go walk to the hotel."

  ***

&nbs
p; The St. Andrews was the modern counterpart to the aging St. Paul Hotel, as they stood side by side facing the CNBC TV platform set up in Rice Park, and conveniently outside the main security lines. The St. Paul was once the classiest place in town; now it was the second classiest, to the St. Andrews. Because they were only two blocks from the convention center, the richest Republican donors were stuffed in the two hotels, and the richest Republican nomination ball was set for that night in the St. Andrews ballroom, with John McCain himself scheduled to make a handshake tour and maybe dance with a couple of dowagers.

  The main door of the St. Andrews faced Rice Park, but there were other entrances from the second-floor skyway, and out the back door onto St. Peter Street. Cohn and Cruz took their time, walking off the skyway escape route, with Cohn counting the steps: Cruz had already measured the distance, and, one afternoon in June, had put on jogging shorts and a T-shirt and jogged the route, timing herself, but she didn't disturb the count.

  When they dropped down the stairs into the lobby, Cohn nodded at Cruz; he bought her timeline. Of course he did, because she wouldn't mess up anything that basic. At the same time, she appreciated the check. If anything went wrong, they needed to know their escape moves, and know them exactly.

  Inside the hotel, they walked from the front desk to the bar, which was jammed with politicos and media, pouring it down as fast as it could be served. At the front desk, Cohn got a map from the desk clerk, consulting with her about the best route to the interstate entrance. And about the safe-deposit boxes: "I have a friend staying with me tonight, after the ball. If she needs one, would you have one available?"

  The clerk shook her head. "As of now, we're all full. First time that's happened. Have you looked at your room safe?"

  "She'll be wearing some fairly, mmm, important jewelry," Cohn said. "We thought that a real safe-deposit box might be more appropriate."

  "If you can leave your name and room number, we can let you know about any availabilities," the woman offered.

  Cohn shook his head: "Ah, it's six to eight hours. I guess we can do with the room safe. I thought I'd ask."

  Back down the hall to Cruz: "They have no boxes available. They're all taken. I tried to impress her by telling her that we had some important jewelry coming in. She wasn't impressed. They must have goddamn Tiffany's in those boxes."

  "Told you," Cruz said.

  A guy went by with a broom and a dustpan, hurrying to clean up a mess somewhere. He was wearing a neat gray uniform, with his name in red script in a white oval. Cohn looked after him and asked, "How many janitors working overnight?"

  "Couldn't find that out," Cruz said. "Probably a couple."

  "Would have been nice to know."

  ***

  They walked through the hotel for fifteen minutes, got a drink, watched the crowd, checked where the cops were. "The only really bad, serious, unpredictable factor would be if the protesters broke through the police lines and started trashing the area," Cruz said. "In that case, we walk away. There'd be cops every fifteen feet. Chaos. But from what I can tell, from walking it, they'll be kept well away, over to the north of the convention center. They're not going to allow anything down here. Lots of cops, but all out on the perimeters."

  "The biggest problem won't be cops-the biggest problem is that we have to take down so many people that I can't control them," Cohn said. "Would have been easier with McCall. Goddamn McCall."

  "You shoot him?" Cruz asked.

  Cohn did a double take on the question. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "Just' wondered," Cruz said. "If he was hurt, couldn't walk ' I thought maybe you made sure."

  "Jesus Christ," he said. The red-eyed anger was right there. "He was shot in the head and the heart by the cop. He was dead before he hit the ground. If I'd gone through first, it would've been me."

  "Sorry," she said. But she wasn't; and she wasn't quite sure of Cohn's answer.

  ***

  An hour and fifteen minutes after they left the apartment, they were back. They found Lane standing in the apartment-almost crouched, when they pushed the door open. He looked past them. Cohn asked, "What?"

  "Is Lindy with you?"

  "Ah, shit," Cohn said, looking around the apartment.

  "She's not here," Lane said. "Her clothes are gone. So's the money. All of it."

  ***

  After a while-a while-Cohn had to laugh. "She's fucked us, that's for sure. Now, there's no choice. Now, we have to do it. No calling it off."

  "I should have thought of it," Cruz said. "It honest-to-God never occurred to me, because I didn't think anybody in the group would have the balls to do it to you."

  "With good reason," Cohn said. "When I catch her, and I will, I'm going to kill her and anyone she's with. I'm gonna take my time with it, so she can see it coming."

  Lane said, after a bit: "She has to know that."

  Cohn looked at him.

  Lane said, "She has to know that you'll kill her. So she has to believe that you won't be able to. She either figures the whole plan is fucked ' or…"

  "Or the bitch is gonna turn us in," Cohn said, erupting from the couch where he'd sat down. "Just to make sure…"

  ***

  They packed up, and wiped the apartment, in fifteen minutes. As they were stuffing what they could into their bags, Cohn said to Cruz, "You didn't say, "I told you so." You never wanted her here."

  Cruz said, "I didn't have to say it. You knew it. No point in pouring salt in the wound. Wouldn't get us anywhere."

  Then Cohn said, "You know what? She might turn us in-might get us raided. But she's not going to tell them about the hotel. She's not going to implicate herself. She's going to call in anonymously, and tell them that we're here. Call from a Target store. Like she's some citizen. Then, she's got to figure that whatever happens, she'll come out okay. If they get us, fine. If they get us at the hotel, that's fine. If they don't get us, and we get out with twenty million dollars, she figures that she can buy her way back in with us. Keep me from killing her. Tell us she panicked, and here's the money back…"

  "Still can't take a chance," Cruz said. "Pack faster."

  "But we're still good for the hotel," Cohn said.

  "We can't do it, without Lindy as a desk clerk," Cruz said.

  Cohn said, "You're the desk clerk." When Cruz opened her mouth to object, Cohn waved her down. "Yeah, yeah, you have to watch the radios. Well, watch them from the desk. Bring them with you. Anybody coming through the door will just think you're listening to the cops fighting the protesters."

  Cruz said, "I've never been inside." That wasn't true. She'd just never been inside with Cohn.

  "First time for everything," Cohn said. "We go with what we got, and you're what we got."

  They were out of the building in fifteen minutes, and gone.

  ***

  Lucas left Shafer with the Secret Service. He'd be pushed around a little more, but nobody expected much: nobody mistook either Shafer or Briar for masterminds. Shafer was probably going to be locked up again, until after the convention and things had calmed down. After talking to Lucas, the Secret Service expressed little interest in Briar: her involvement was local, as far as they were concerned.

  Lucas decided to take her back to the BCA, with Shrake trailing in her van. He took her up to the third floor, to the labs, where he sat her down with a guy who'd done the photo touch-ups. "When you're done with the pictures, you can take off," he told her. "Don't leave town. I'll need your address and phone number."

  She gave him her mother's address and phone, and Lucas went down to his office, collected Shrake and Jenkins, and suggested that they go back to his house for an early dinner and to talk over the next move. He worked the phones as they drove along, trying to round up some help, and to warn the housekeeper that they were coming. He and Shrake and Jenkins trooped into the house together, and the housekeeper fixed them up with cold fried chicken, apple pie from the pie place on the corner, and milk an
d coffee.

  "I want to suggest something," Lucas began, poking a drumstick at them. "That is, they must know the jig is up on these moneymen robberies. We ambushed them on the last one, and even if somebody got away, we killed one of them. They won't do another one."

  Jenkins and Shrake both nodded.

  "So, at this point, now that they know we have Shafer, there are really only two possibilities," Lucas continued. "First, they take off. They have a rep for being bold on strategy and careful on tactics. If they're gone, then there's nothing we can do about it. Put together what we've got, try to get as much publicity as we can, and let somebody else catch them."

  "That's boring," Shrake said.

  Lucas held up a finger: "The second option is, they go ahead with whatever they're planning. They know we're looking, they know we got to Shafer. But they also probably figured out how we got to Shafer-through Diaz's house in Venice. And they still were setting us up, taking a look at us. I think they were going ahead with whatever it is. They were checking on Shafer's status, and now they know."

  "But what the hell is Shafer for?" Jenkins asked.

  "I got one possibility," Lucas said. "It looks like they were lying to him from the start. He really doesn't have anything to do with the main job. But what if he's a diversion? Like this: they get him to come up here, go around to some quarries where he's sure to attract attention-he's shooting a.50-cal, for Christ's sake. They drag him through the gun stores, while they stay out of sight. They plant some shells, with his prints on them, up on the hillside…"

  Jenkins picked it up: "So when they do whatever it is, they call nine-one-one and say they've seen Shafer with his gun. Cops rush in from all over."

  "And the target is clear. Whatever it is. The commo guys start screaming about Shafer, and everybody starts running. There's panic…"