I walk back out through the club, ignoring any looks and comments, head up the steps, through the door, along the corridor, and back outside. I put the cap back on my head, squinting as my eyes re-adjust to the natural light from the gloom inside. It’s started to rain lightly. I jog across the street and open the back door to the Winnebago.
“How’d it go?” asks Josh, looking up from his laptop as I step inside. “And what’s in the bag?”
I don’t say anything; I just smile at him as I rest the bag on the seating by the back window. His eyes narrow and he sighs wearily.
“Adrian, what have you done?”
11
Josh is worried. It’s my fault; I know that.
Look, I had to make a bold statement and hit Trent where it hurts. I’ve managed to steal just over twenty-three thousand dollars from his club, and probably ten kilos of cocaine, which I imagine has a street value of around a quarter of a million dollars or so.
That would certainly get his attention…
We left Shakes and headed straight back to our hotel in the center of the city. We’re both in my suite. I’m lying on the bed with my head propped up on the pillows, and Josh is pacing back and forth.
I smile to myself at the role reversal — it’s normally Josh who’s the calm and collected one, and me wearing the carpet out in frustration.
“Can I speak freely?” asks Josh after a few moments of silence.
“Don’t you always?” I reply.
“You’re an absolute dick.”
“Huh, fair enough,” I say, letting him get a much-needed vent of frustration out of his system. “What’s today’s reason?”
“Smiling and fucking waving at Wilson Trent!” he shouts. He glares at me, then almost immediately puts his hands up and takes a step back in apology. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scream at you.”
I wave my hand dismissively.
“Forget about it,” I say. “People need to let their anger out sometimes, and I’d rather you did that than let things build up and fester inside and slowly drive you insane…”
“Thanks.”
“But talk to me like that again and I’m gonna have to shoot you just a little bit, okay?”
I smile, signaling a joke, which he returns with a weak attempt of his own.
I let out a heavy sigh and stand up. I walk over to the shoulder bag I brought back from the club and empty it out on the bed.
“If it’d make you feel any better, I’ll donate all the money to charity and flush the drugs down the can,” I say.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in obvious frustration.
“Jesus… Adrian, it’s not about the fact you robbed him. Well, it is, but I don’t care about what you took. It’s the fact you took it and mocked him on a goddamn security camera. What happened to maintaining the element of surprise?”
“Look, for a moment back there, I was on the phone to the bastard. I restrained myself from saying anything to him and just hung up. But I realized that it’s all well and good hitting him where it hurts and disrupting his business, but if I’m gonna get to him, I need to get inside his head. Anonymity is no use long-term. I saw an opportunity to re-introduce myself to him, and I took it. He’s gonna go out of his mind when he sees the footage, but what can he do? He has no idea where we are, or even who I am anymore. He’s gonna think he’s still the Big Bad, and I’m the same wannabe who ran away from him almost a decade ago. I’m gonna mock him, openly, and make sure he underestimates me. Then I’m gonna bury him.” I pause. “Are you still with me on this, Josh?”
He shrugs and takes a deep breath. “It’s your show,” he says reluctantly. “I’ve got your back, you know that.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it though, and this isn’t the first time since we got here…”
“I’m just worried about you,” he says. “I’m sorry, but you’re acting like you’re invincible, and all the years we’ve spent together, carefully planning hits and executing them with meticulous accuracy… y’know, all the stuff that’s kept us alive? You seem to be forgetting all that, and I’m genuinely afraid that you’re gonna get yourself killed. There — I said it. You’re acting like you’ve got a fucking death wish, Adrian, and if that’s the case, I want no part of this.”
“So, what are you saying? That you don’t think I’m capable of stopping Trent?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying the way you’re going about stopping him is reckless, and I think you’re blind to that fact because of the emotion driving you. I think you’re running the risk of making a mistake, and we both know you can’t afford to get it wrong when you live the life we do.”
His words hang in the air as silence descends on the room.
Shit.
I hate when he’s right. You’d think I’d be used to it by now — ninety-nine percent of the time he knows better than me.
He paces slowly around the room before finally settling in front of the large window, looking out over the city below us.
“What would you do?” I ask, finally.
He turns to look at me. “What do you mean?” he replies.
“I mean, we’ve been doing this my way since we left San Francisco and, like you say, maybe I’m losing control of the situation a bit — letting my emotions cloud my judgment…” I sigh, having never found it easy to admit when I’m wrong. “What would you do differently?”
He stands and looks out the window silently for a moment. Then he turns around with a smile on his face. “How’s this?” he begins. “You want to hit Trent where it hurts, right?”
“That’s the plan,” I reply.
“Okay. And the guy’s a businessman, so hitting his businesses seems the logical way forward.”
“Like I did at the strip club?”
“Exactly… well, sort of. But just robbing him and shooting his staff won’t make a dent in an empire that stretches as far as his does.”
“So what are you thinking?” I ask with genuine curiosity.
“While your approach is good for messing with his head, there’s no long-term damage. What we need is a hammer blow that will hurt him more permanently.”
“I’m sensing you have just such a hammer?”
“Maybe… Going after his wallet is a good idea, we just need to think bigger. If I could hack his bank accounts, I could directly control all his assets. I could seize them, delete them, give them to the FBI… Anything, really.”
“Jesus… you could do that?”
“Theoretically, yeah. It’s not easy, but I’ve got a few contacts I can hit up for some help. The hard part is covering your tracks — the hacking itself is pretty straightforward with the right equipment, but I imagine Trent will have someone keeping an eye on all his financials. Assuming they’d be halfway competent, it’d be difficult to not get caught.”
“But you’d be sat in front of a computer, not physically breaking into a bank or anything,” I say. “How will they know it’s you?”
“Oh, Adrian…” he replies, smiling condescendingly. “I could easily explain it to you, but it would be like trying to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to a five year old!”
I pull a face of mock offense.