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 and coffee.