“What’s going on?” Bobby asks, but Carr is crossing the office suite at a jog, headed back to the utility closet. Bobby follows. “What’s going on?” he asks again.
“They’re rattling doorknobs.”
“Shit! Did we lock Molloy’s door?”
“I don’t know,” Carr says, and he drops down to crawl through the hole in the closet wall.
“Fucking thieves,” Bobby mutters, and he drops too.
They almost make it. Carr is halfway across Molloy’s office, headed for his secretary’s, and Bobby is just emerging from the utility closet, when there are whispers in the hallway, and the handle on the office door begins to turn. Carr pulls his headset off, jams it in his pocket, and turns his back to the office door. He stands by Molloy’s desk and picks up Molloy’s telephone. His tone is conversational when he speaks, but his voice is loud-as if the connection is bad.
“Got it, honey-two cases of Lone Star, a case of tonic water, the steaks, the macaroni salad. Anything else?” Bobby freezes in mid-stride, then walks slowly backward until he’s up against the wall. His gun is out again and he’s sighting along the wall, toward the office door. Carr glares at him and shakes his head minutely.
There’s more murmuring in the hall, a suppressed laugh, and the office door begins to open. Bobby works the slide on the Beretta, and Carr slices the air with his fingertips-a gambler refusing a card. Bobby scowls.
“I’ll be a while longer,” Carr says loudly. “Couple of hours, at least. No, I won’t forget the tonic.”
The door opens wider and the smell of weed reaches Carr. He’s certain he can feel eyes on his back, but his own eyes are locked on Bobby against the wall. And then there’s movement in the closet, and Latin Mike is there, lying prone, looking down the barrel of his Glock.
Carr swallows hard. “And the macaroni salad-I won’t forget.” His voice is shaking and he’s trying to catch Mike’s eye, but Mike won’t see him, won’t see anything but the door that’s opening wider still. Carr’s lungs lock up, his body tenses, and he takes a half-step to his right, right into Mike’s sight line. Bobby draws an audible breath; Mike’s Glock doesn’t waver.
And then there’s laughter in the hallway, a giggled “ Fuck it,” running footsteps, and the office door falling shut with a decisive click.
The silence afterward is ringing. Carr is conscious only of the pulse in his ears and the sweat running over his ribs. Latin Mike crawls back through the closet wall, and Bobby follows. Carr locks the office door and goes through too, then stands in Lucovic’s office while Mike drills the safe.
Two hundred twenty-seven thousand dollars in neatly bundled cash; three million, give or take, in loose polished stones.
5
When the adrenaline washes out, Carr thinks, it’s like another country-another planet altogether. On this planet, on this evening, they look like film stars by the swimming pooclass="underline" Valerie in a slate-blue shift, dark glasses, and a loose French braid; Dennis, Bobby, Mike, and Carr himself all freshly showered, shaved, in crisp shirts and shades of their own. The late-day sun throws sheets of orange light across the pool, the fieldstone deck, the wrought-iron chairs and tables, the sinuous olive trees, and a wide swath of Napa Valley hillside below. The waitress delivers another bottle of Chardonnay, another plate of cheese, and another basket of warm bread to their table. She leaves, and they have the terrace to themselves again.
Latin Mike sips and sighs and stretches in the cooling air. “Nice,” he says. “Whose choice?” Carr nods toward Valerie, and Mike smiles. “You can book all my hotels, chica. ” She lifts her wineglass and smiles back.
“Lucky to be here, no, jefe?” Mike continues. “Those two stoners could’ve screwed us up but good.”
Carr shakes his head. “The luck was that you didn’t start banging away. Otherwise we’d be picking brains off our lapels around now, instead of drinking wine.”
“That’d work too,” Mike says. “My tastes are simple.”
“So instead of nobody knowing anything, we’d have had maybe ten minutes to haul ass before the cops got there. And that works for you?”
Mike shrugs. “Not everybody’s so squeamish, cabron. ”
Carr takes off his sunglasses. “Not everybody’s so stupid, either.”
“You saying Deke was stupid, bro? ’Cause he didn’t mind a little juice.”
“He didn’t mind when there wasn’t another option.”
“Traffic moves fast. There’s not always time to figure the options.”
“Which is why you’re not supposed to figure anything-you’re supposed to listen to me. For chrissakes, Mike, we’ve put months into this gig, and you nearly ended it in the first act.”
Valerie mutters something, and Dennis shifts nervously in his chair. Bobby clears his throat. “Which is something we’ve been wondering about,” Bobby says, “ending it in the first act, I mean.”
It was hard travel from Houston-dusty, hot, and bumpy-and though he’s washed off the grit, Carr can still feel the ride in his shoulders. He looks at Bobby and then at Latin Mike. “We made a deal,” he says, “a commitment. We’ve got big sunk costs in this thing, and so does Boyce. He’s not going to like it if we walk away.”
Mike clasps his hands behind his head. “ Senor Boyce-el padrino. ”
“Fucking ghost, more like,” Bobby says.
Carr rises from the table and walks to the terrace railing. He looks at the darkening vineyards and sighs. He’s been down this road before with Mike and Bobby, more than once-do the job, don’t do the job; one last run, or not-but with three and a quarter million in swag in a room upstairs, the potholes and blind curves are less theoretical now.
“You’ve worked for him longer than I have, Mike,” Carr says. “You were working for him when I signed on.”
“True that, cabron, but I’ve never met the guy. None of us have had the honor-only Deke and you.”
“I didn’t ask for it-it’s the way Deke set it up. It’s the way Boyce wants it.”
“But you see how it makes a guy nervous.”
“You never had a problem before-no worries about the intel he feeds us, or the logistics; no complaint about the splits or the banking service; no gripes at all that I heard about.”
Latin Mike nods slowly, but concedes nothing. “Still, a guy gets older, he starts to like the bird in the hand, right, Bobby?”
Bobby smiles. “Three bucks and a quarter-we used to call that a nice payday.”
There’s wood smoke in the air, something fragrant, mesquite maybe, mixing with the scents of warm earth, bay laurel, and sage that rise from the hillside. Carr breathes in deeply.
“Back when Declan brought me on, you guys thought half a buck was Christmas morning. Times change; prices rise. Three and a quarter isn’t what it used to be, especially after expenses. It’s not beach money anymore.”
Mike empties his wineglass. “And you’re all about retirement, right, jefe?”
“I thought we all were. I thought that’s what we said the last five times we had this conversation. But if you’re saying something different, let’s not dick around. Tell me now and I’ll tell Boyce when I see him day after tomorrow.”
Bobby pops up, as if he’s sat on a tack, but he’s smiling. “Nobody’s saying anything. We’re just thinking out loud.”
Valerie’s laugh is like ice in a glass. “Is that how you split the labor, Bobby-Mike thinks, and you do the out loud part?”
Bobby flips her the bird, but he’s laughing too, and so is Dennis, and so-finally-is Mike. Carr is still watching purple shadows spread over the valley when the waitress reappears and says that their table is ready.
It’s set with heavy linen, battered silver, and votive candles in thick blue glass. Valerie is at the head, between Bobby and Latin Mike, and Carr sits at the other end, between Dennis and the vacant chair. Valerie’s playing hostess tonight, smiling, laughing, keeping glasses filled and conversation weightless. It’s a part she plays welclass="underline" conspiratorial and flattering with Mike; flirtatious and profane with Bobby; and with Dennis simply present to be gazed upon. Carr can relate; he can’t look away either.