“Fucking kids spilled a full Coke on my backseat,” Bruno said, not that Jeff had asked. “Splashed it up on the back of my fucking sweater, too. Two-hundred-dollar sweater and now it’s sticky as shit. They don’t make sippy cups anymore? You gotta give your kids a full can of soda?” He stopped his rant for a moment, appeared to notice Jeff and Matthew for the first time, and said, “I thought you were coming alone.”
“Good to see you, too, Bruno,” Jeff said.
He regarded Jeff with a look of exasperation, like they’d been together on some kind of horrific experience, then he just got back to scrubbing. “Two hours I spend with that family. And what do they tell me? They’re just looking. You know, look on your own time.”
“This is Matthew,” Jeff said. “He’s working with me.”
“And one more thing,” Bruno said, “if you got a problem with two-story houses, then move to the Saharan desert and get a tent, okay? What is wrong with people these days? A two-story house is America. It’s the dream. Am I right?”
“I live in an apartment,” Jeff said.
“You don’t count. You work for the government.” Bruno finally paused and gave Matthew the once-over. “What about you, Encyclopedia Brown? You want a two-story house? Basement, wet room, big yard. You want that, right?”
“I’d just be happy not to have any more student loans,” Matthew said.
“When I was a kid, you know what I wanted?” Bruno said.
“To be an adult?” Jeff said.
“That’s right, that’s right,” Bruno said. “I just wanted to be bigger. You know? These kids, they kept telling their parents what they needed in a house, like they were gonna bust their asses on the mortgage. The gumption. That’s what gets to me.”
“This doesn’t sound like the sort of talk that made you the King of Lake Country Home Deals,” Jeff said. “Hardly what one would expect from a person who has his own Gold Pro Team.”
“You wanna know the truth?” Bruno said.
“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “Do I?”
This got Paul Bruno to laugh. “There is no Gold Pro Team. I’m it. These other people? I just found them in some clip art book. They don’t exist.”
“I believe they call that a racket,” Jeff said.
“Just false advertising,” Bruno said. “Anyway, I’ve sold more houses in this shit hole than anyone. This is my baby out here. You know more people move to Wisconsin than any other state in America?”
“That can’t be true,” Jeff said.
“It isn’t,” Bruno said. “So I always say it like that. Make it a question. People, they’ll hear what they want to hear, right?” He looked at his watch. “I got another client in an hour. Come on, get in the Hummer. I’ll drive you down to this development I’m buying into. We can talk in the car.”
Jeff slid in the front seat, left the sticky backseat for Matthew, who didn’t seem to mind. Bruno got behind the wheel and fired up the engine. It sounded like a bomb going off. Jeff couldn’t figure out one good reason for anyone to own a Hummer unless they had designs on attacking Baghdad. He knew several agents who drove them, but they were always ex-military types who wanted you to know just how comfortable they’d been riding in armored vehicles, so much so that they bought them to drive around the South Loop, too.
Bruno drove them through Pleasant Farms Lakes, pointed out where all the amenities were going to be, all of which were just mounds of dirt, and then pulled out of the development and headed down a road that had only recently been paved. Up ahead was a gate and a sign that proclaimed the development, called Legacy at the Lake Country, was Oconomowoc’s first “over 55 luxury retirement destination.” Jeff saw only dirt and gravel behind the gate. Bruno hit a button on a remote control, and the gate opened, and the Hummer pulled through and then came to a stop a hundred yards in, near a construction trailer. In the distance Jeff could make out two land graders moving back and forth near a low outcropping of tamarack and shagbark.
“This place,” Bruno said, “is my secret nest egg.”
“How secret is it if you’re showing it to us?” Jeff said.
Bruno considered this. “You got the can, right? For the Cupertine shit?”
“Paid leave,” Jeff said.
“Same shit. What about you, Encyclopedia Brown?”
“Fired,” Matthew said. “Just for knowing Agent Hopper.”
“So neither of you is officially FBI right now, right?”
“Correct,” Jeff said, though officially he was.
Bruno turned in his seat to face Jeff and Matthew. “So I tell you the plan, you tell me what kind of legal trouble I’m looking at, okay?”
“Fine,” Jeff said. He’d had conversations with Bruno like this before. He always had a scheme of some kind.
“So the builders? They’re friends of mine, plus, you know, I’ve got cash in the deal. Whatever. It’s a good deal, right? So they’re gonna put in these windows and sliders with locks. Everyone afraid of the world, they all want locks. Every single house is going to be Fort Knox, because these old motherfuckers will be moving in here with all their worldly goods, waiting for the Rapture and all that. Thing is, I’m going to have a master set of duplicates to every house. I fall on hard times, need a quick score to get me out of the city, on a boat to Hawaii, or I just want some extra cash to buy my groceries, whatever, I got my own mall right here. All I can steal. What do you think of that?”
“That’s a sound plan,” Jeff said. “I’d say ten years, maybe fifteen. Could probably plead down and get five.”
“Nah,” Matthew said. “I bet he’d only get two years. Non-violent crime? They’d process him out in a year.”
“Maybe so,” Jeff said. “Maybe plea insanity, Bruno, hope the people you’re ripping off get Alzheimer’s before they need to testify.”
“These old motherfuckers,” Bruno said, “they won’t know if a ring or two is missing. It’s not like I’m going to be housing the whole joint. Just diamonds, Baccarat crystal, easy stuff to move. Just little things, here and there. Maybe a car if I need one. Free and clear, I think.”
“It would be hard to get caught,” Matthew said. “Having a key makes it easier to be discreet. Having a car key makes it even easier in the event you decide to move into full GTA mode.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Bruno said. “See, Agent Hopper, Encyclopedia Brown here knows a good score.”
“Of course,” Matthew said, “you might break into the wrong house and there’s some old man who did a couple tours in Korea waiting for you with a shotgun. Or maybe someone’s grandson with a nine and good aim. Things could take a turn.”
“Risk of doing business,” Bruno said. “What do you think, Agent Hopper? My feeling, if it works, I do this all over the country.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it,” Jeff said, though of all Bruno’s scams, it did have the highest degree of possible success, “but if you feel like in the future you’re going to need extra money, who am I to tell you who not to rob? But why not just make it simple and have the builders put in a false wall for you, something on the side of the house, near the garage, something you can just pop in and out and have it open into the back of a closet or something.”
Bruno pondered this. “Tongue and groove it, essentially?”
“Sure,” Jeff said.
“Maybe make sure there’s a shrub in front of it, make sure it’s a guest room closet or some shit, right?”
“Right,” Jeff said. He’d spent his entire life trying to stay one step ahead of crooks, and this had been the one idea he’d really appreciated stumbling on. A small arms dealer operating out of Rochester had a similar setup in his home as an escape route.