Dodge popped open a search window, typed in, KEY.
High-pitched noise scribbled in his ears. And then the wife spoke, the search feature elevating the volume on the last syllable of her sentence: ‘Stay still, monKEY.’
Dodge clicked Find Again. More chipmunk babble and then, ‘I got a text from your cell asking me where the safe-deposit KEY was.’ Dodge waited, and then a feminine voice replied, ‘In the tissue box in your nightstand. I wouldn’t ask that.’ The time stamp was from earlier today, shortly after they’d sent Mike the sham text message.
Dodge folded up the equipment, distributed it to various pockets, and pressed his ear to the door. From the kitchen he heard tool meet metal again, and he stepped out into the hall and headed down to the master bedroom.
The bathroom door was cracked, the shower running. As he passed the open slice of doorway, he saw the flesh-colored outline of Annabel, blurry behind the steam-clouded glass. He opened the nightstand drawer. Inside, a Kleenex box encased in a plastic decorative cover. He reached through the slit, fingers digging around the tissue. Nothing. He lifted the plastic cover, and there, taped to the underside, was the safe-deposit key. He wiggled it free, pulled a similar-looking key from his pocket, and wormed the replacement into the spot beneath the bubbled strip of Scotch tape.
As he eased the cover back down, a glint in the rear of the drawer caught his eye. He pulled the drawer all the way out. A Smith & Wesson.357. Using only one hand, he removed it, thumbed the lever to release the wheel, and flicked it, setting it spinning. Cocking his head, he stared down the sights. His lips twitched in a sneer.
The water stopped. The shower door creaked open. He tilted his wrist, the wheel clicking home, and set the revolver back beside the new cellophane-wrapped package of bullets. When he closed the drawer, it made a soft thump.
‘Babe, you about done with that sink?’
Dodge made an agreeable noise in his throat.
‘Man, this steam.’ Her hand tapped against the bathroom door, and it swung open another foot or two.
Standing a few feet to the hinge side, out of view, he withdrew a ball-peen hammer from the deep thigh pocket of his cargo shorts. He waited, but she did not appear.
Moisture wafted across his face as he took a step out in front of the open door. Annabel was doubled over, twisting her wet hair into a towel, her eyes on the floor. He swiveled back, his face affectless, and walked out of the room. Moving down the hall, he slid the hammer into his pocket again.
Katherine was in the small bathroom, toothbrush in tiny fist, leaning over the sink to spit. He floated past her, his mirror reflection passing above her bent head, and walked back into the kitchen.
Mike remained angled up into the cabinet beneath the sink as if it were devouring him headfirst. His legs were bent, hips raised, braced for traction. A muffled clang issued through the wood, and Mike said, ‘Damn it.’ His hand poked out, groping around on the bathmat, tapping across various tools.
Dodge’s boot scuffed the threshold bar between kitchen and laundry room, and Mike said, ‘Hey, babe?’
Dodge halted.
‘Get me the pipe wrench, would you?’
Dodge hesitated, facing the rear door. Then he reversed, trod back across the kitchen, and plucked the hefty tool from the bath mat. He bent over and slapped it into Mike’s waiting hand.
Then he walked calmly out through the laundry-room door, slipping back into the night. Hands in his pockets, he started up the sidewalk. The white van sputtered to life a half block away and crept up on him, the rolling door sliding open to swallow him whole.
Chapter 19
Dodge and William waited by the Dumpster in the midnight-dark back parking lot of Union L.A. bank. The rear door had been shut and relocked, but a light shone through a high interior window. Despite the cold, Dodge wore his short-sleeved button-up open, revealing a clean white wife-beater. Eyes on the building, William shifted impatiently from leg to leg.
He cracked a sunflower seed between his front teeth and blew out the shell. ‘Cigarette,’ he said.
Dodge’s cheap plastic lighter flared, and then two cherries burned at his mouth. He removed one cigarette and handed it over. William sucked an inhale and closed his eyes, savoring it before letting white smoke trickle from the corner of his mouth.
Dropping the lighter into his shirt pocket, Dodge drew hard on the cig, the burn crackling down a third of its length.
The inside light clicked off, and a moment later William’s brother appeared at the back door with a nervous security guard, who glanced around before stepping outside.
Hanley scurried over to them, the guard on his heels. ‘It’s fucking empty.’ He tapped the safe-deposit key on his knuckles so hard it made a wooden knocking sound.
William drew back his lips, bit down on the cigarette. ‘Empty?’
‘He must’ve figured out the text was fake and cleared out whatever was in there.’ Hanley was bouncing from tiptoes to heels until Dodge blanketed his shoulder with a hand, firming him to the ground.
‘Listen…’ The guard fussed with his hands at the periphery of the triangle Dodge and the brothers had formed. ‘I did my job, right? I glitched the security recording, nothing written on the safe-deposit log – covered all the bases. So my sister’s cool? Accounts balanced and all that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She can’t go down again, man. She got three kids under the age of ten. I mean, she’s staring at ten to fifteen. Are you sure? You positive your guy can-’
‘Boss Man says he’ll square it,’ William said, ‘then he’ll square it.’
‘You guys are angels, man. Guardian fuckin’ angels.’
‘We didn’t get what we wanted here,’ William said. ‘So what do you say you take the party elsewhere?’ He flicked the cigarette over the guard’s shoulder, sparks cascading down the front of the uniform shirt.
The man’s face changed. He looked at Dodge, who had moved to stand apart, staring at the black edge of the parking lot with no apparent interest. ‘Okay.’ The guard held out his hands. ‘I never saw you. You never saw me.’ Shoring up his posture, he headed back inside, loop-de-looping his mass of keys on its retractable cord. The Plexiglas door closed after him. His pale face stared out at them as he turned the locks, and then he was gone.
‘Goddamn it,’ Hanley said. ‘All that and the fucking thing’s empty?’ He hurled the safe-deposit key into the darkness. It clicked off the side of the van, then skittered across the asphalt.
Dodge’s head turned. ‘Get it.’
‘Look, I-’
‘Now.’
Hanley went over and searched for a time on his hands and knees. Dodge lit two more cigarettes and he and William smoked them down.
Finally Hanley brought the key over to Dodge. Dodge dropped it on the ground, kicked it into a sewer grate.
‘Sorry,’ Hanley said.
‘Relax.’ William slung a hand over to cup the back of his brother’s neck. ‘We were a step late.’
‘I know this is a big job, and-’
‘No.’ Dodge’s gaze was cold and steady.
‘Well, now.’ William showed his teeth. ‘Is it a job or The Job? That’s what we have to find out.’
‘How?’ Hanley asked.
‘How do we always get answers?’ William said. ‘Slow, steady pressure, watch ’em crumble. We gotta poke at him and poke at him. Till he shows us the way. He’s on edge, right? Wingate? Well, guys on edge make mistakes. He’ll reveal who he is.’
Without Dodge’s hand weighing him down, Hanley was back to bouncing. ‘I say we just fuck it and handle’m now.’