Adele frowned and would have none of it. "Right. Gray is definitely not my color, Alex. What's wrong?"
"Not a thing."
Adele lit a votive candle. "I just love magic," she whispered and smiled mischievously. "I haven't seen you in a while, Alex. That's either very good or very bad."
I lit a votive candle myself. Then I said a prayer. "Dear Lord, continue to watch over Jannie. I also wish that Christine wasn't moving away from Washington. I know you must be testing me again."
Adele winced as if she'd been burned. She looked away from the flickering votive flame and into my eyes. "Oh, Alex, I'm so sorry. You don't need anymore tests."
"I'm all right," I told her. I didn't want to get into it now, not even with Adele.
"Oh, Alex, Alex." She shook her head back and forth. Tern know better than that. I know better."
"I'm fine, really."
Adele looked completely exasperated with me. "Fine, then. That will be one hundred for the visit. You can put it in the collection basket."
Adele walked back to her family, who were already seated about halfway down the center aisle. She turned, and looked at me. She wasn't smiling now.
When I got to our pew, Damon asked me who the pretty lady was that I'd been talking to in the back of the church.
"She's a doctor. A friend of mine,” I said, which was true enough.
"Is she your doctor? What kind of doctor is she? She looks like she's kind of mad at you," he whispered. "What did you do wrong?"
"I didn't do anything wrong,” I whispered back at Damon. "Don't I get any privacy?"
"No. Besides, we're in church. I'm hearing your confession."
"I don't have any confession for you to hear. I'm all right. I'm fine. I'm at peace with the world. I couldn't be happier."
Damon gave me the same look of exasperation that Adele had. Then he shook his head and turned away. He didn't believe me either. When the collection basket came, I put in a hundred dollars.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Mastermind was keeping everything on a tight schedule. The clock inside his head was ticking loudly, always ticking.
The best of the bank-robbing crews, the creme de la creme, was scheduled to meet with him in his suite at a Holiday Inn near Colonial Village in Washington. They were on time of course. He had made it a formal condition of the meeting.
Brian Macdougall swaggered into the suite ahead of the others. The Mastermind smiled at the absurdly cocksure way Macdougall carried himself. He knew that Macdougall would lead the way into the room. He was followed by his subordinates, B J Stringer and Robert Shaw. The three of them look like anything but high-level thieves, he thought. Two of the three wore royal-blue-and-white T-shirts from the same Long Island softball league.
"Mr. O'Malley and Mr. Crews?" the Mastermind asked from behind the screen of lights that prohibited them from seeing him. "Where are they, might I ask?"
Macdougall spoke for the group," They have to work today. You gave us kind of short notice, partner. Three of us took off this morning. It'd look suspicious, if we all called in sick."
The Mastermind continued to observe the three New York men sitting beyond the lights. Each looked like your average Joe. In truth, they were the most dangerous of the bank-robbing crews he'd used. They were exactly what he needed for the next test.
"So this is what, an audition?" Macdougall asked. He had on a black silk shirt, black trousers and loafers. He had slicked-back black hair and a goatee.
"An audition? No, not at all. The job is yours, if you want it. I know how you work. Know all about you. I know your track record."
Macdougall stared ahead at the bright lights, almost as if his gaze could penetrate them. "This needs to be a face-to-face meeting, "he said stonily. "That's the only way we'll do the job."
The Mastermind rose quickly. He was stunned and angry. The legs of his chair made a loud scraping noise against the floor. "You were told from the beginning that wasn't possible. This meeting is over."
A heavy silence filled the hotel room. Macdougall looked over at Stringer and Shaw. He scratched his goatee a few times, then he laughed out loud. "I was just testing, partner. I guess we can live without seeing your face. If you have our payment with you?"
"I have the money, gentlemen. Fifty thousand dollars. Just for meeting with me. I always keep my promises."
And we walk away with the payment if we don't like your plan for the job?"
Now it was the Mastermind's turn to smile. "You'll like the plan," he said "You'll especially like the part about your share. It's fifteen million dollars."
Chapter Fifty
"Did he say fifteen million?"
"That's what the man said. What the hell are we supposed to rob?"
Vincent O'Malley and Jimmy Crews weren't at work that day. They were waiting inside a Toyota Canary and a Honda Acura, respectively. They were in contact with each other by headphone. Their cars were parked on opposite sides of the Holiday Inn in Washington. They were watching for the Mastermind to appear outside, so that maybe they could follow him, find out who the hell he was.
O'Malley and Crews listened to the meeting through Brian Macdougall, who was wired for sound. They heard fifteen million mentioned and they wondered what the hell the job could be? The guy who called himself Mastermind was something else. He talked, or rather, lectured, and he made the mind boggling job sound like a walk in the park. Six to eight hours of work; thirty million to split. The most impressive thing was that he answered all of Brian Macdougall's tough questions.
O'Malley stayed in contact with Crews in the other car. "You listening to this shit, Jimmy? You believe it?"
"He has my rapt attention. I'd love to see the tricking look on Macdougall's face right about now. This asshole has his number. It's like he knows everything about Brian. Hey, I think the meeting's breaking up."
O'Malley and Crews remained silent for the next few minutes. Then O'Malley spoke. "He's outside the hotel. I see him, Jimmy. He's on foot. He's walking south on Sixteenth Street. Doesn't seem concerned about being followed. I got him!"
"Maybe he's not so fucking smart, after all," Crews said.