Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

“Were you ever in Germany?” I said.

“East or West?”

“East.”

“For a time,” he said.

“There used to be a lovely pastry shop in the Ottersleben district of Magdeburg,” I said. “Karl’s, I believe it was called. You ever get there?”

“Delectable!” Harvey smacked his lips. Karl’s was a drop spot for American and British spies for about fifteen years. If you did time in East Germany, you had yourself a few pastries at Karl’s. “Wait here,” Harvey said, and disappeared back through the doors.

Barry began to say something, but I put a hand up over his mouth. “Don’t speak,” I said.

A few moments later, Harvey appeared holding a chromium plate. It looked to weigh about fifty pounds, which meant either Harvey was in surprisingly good shape underneath the dust or he’d spent a lot of years lugging heavy plating. “Just the twenties?” he asked.

“The twenties will be fine,” I said.

He pulled out his handkerchief again and wiped off his face and then he nodded at me. I nodded back. And then I picked up the plate and made my way out of the store, with Barry trailing behind me.

“What just happened?” Barry asked once we were back in my car.

“I’m going to guess that old Harvey was a spook,” I said. “Probably still is.”

“You recognize him from the Masonic Temple or something?”

“His floor was electrified, Barry,” I said. “You didn’t notice that?”

“No,” Barry said. “I don’t even know what an electrified floor looks like.”

“The only other time I’ve seen it in a domestic situation was in a house in Belarus owned by a former Soviet commissar. It’s not a standard upgrade.”

“And he just gave you the plate because you both know the secret handshake and had eaten at the same pastry shop?”

“Something like that.”

“You gave him your name.”

“It’s all a man’s worth these days,” I said.

“Do you know what a plate like that is worth on the black market?”

“Barry,” I said, “I told him I’d return it if I could, and I mean to do that.”

“I’m just saying,” Barry said, “that you and I could both be very wealthy men. I’d be willing to split any profit with you sixty-forty, and understand that extra ten percent on my end would be my standard finder’s fee.”

“Barry,” I said.

“Just letting you know it’s an option.” We drove in silence for a few moments, until Barry said, “A guy like him, what’s he doing running a trophy shop?”

“You said yourself that everyone needs a day job, Barry.”

“An electrified floor?”

“Yes.”

“So if he wanted to, he could flip a switch and sizzle everyone?”

“That’s the idea.”

“You have a weird life,” Barry said. He was silent for a moment, and then said, as if it had just dawned on him, “Wait. Did you say East Germany?”

“Did I?”

“Didn’t the wall come down in, what, 1990?”

“I don’t recall.”

“So you were there when you were in your teens? You left high school and ended up in East Germany?”

“Barry,” I said, “if you ask me any more questions, I’m actually required to kill you.”

That wasn’t strictly true-at least not since I’d been burned-but it’s nice to keep your associates guessing.

My cell phone rang. It was Fiona. “Sam is taking Father Eduardo to your mother’s, and then he said he was going to check out the plates on the police cruiser,” she said. “Am I free to spend the rest of my afternoon shopping, or would you like me to beat Barry some more?”

“Actually,” I said, “I think it would be good if you joined Barry and me for a little recon mission.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I said. I told Fiona about acquiring the printing plate, a fact she was as excited about as Barry was, which made me concerned that the two of them had more in common than I’m sure Fiona would be comfortable knowing. And then explained to her that I had another move planned. “When Junior’s men take over the printing plant, we need to find a way to keep them there and keep them immobilized.”

“You could have Sam tell them all about the pilgrims. People always love to hear about that.”

“Funny,” I said, “but no. I was thinking something along the lines of a chemical agent.”

“Mustard gas?”

“Preferably something that won’t kill everybody.”

“You’re never any fun,” she said.

“Do you know where we might find ourselves a large quantity of fentanyl?”

“Do you need to stop smoking?”

Fentanyl is what comes on the backside of smoking-cessation patches, but when it’s turned into a gas, it’s also a very effective chemical for subduing a human being. Problems occur when people don’t know just how much gas one might need to use to effectively render a human unconscious (or, in what is often a better outcome, exceptionally relaxed) versus the amount that will kill them, which is what happened in Chechnya, except that the Russians didn’t just use fentanyl when they tried to smoke out the terrorists that had overtaken a school; they used a chemical derivative that renders the nervous system obsolete, particularly, as it happened, in the small children who’d been taken hostage.

But dissolve a small amount of fentanyl and the chemical portosyt together, which Lowe’s and The Home Depot keep in the garden section in huge cakes to help with the growth of new strains of certain field grasses, and you end up creating a gas that will cause disorientation and drowsiness, followed, usually, by sleep, but that won’t turn off your central nervous system. It’s the perfect chemical agent to use when putting down a rebellion, provided the rebels don’t have gas masks. It’s also known to be a very popular party drug in parts of Belgium where, apparently, falling asleep is the height of fun.

“I need to stop the Latin Emperors,” I said. “But what I’d really like to do is get them to steal the fentanyl for us.”

“Oh, Michael,” Fiona said, “I love it when you double-cross people.”

“I’m looking for a warehouse,” I said. “Something with cameras. Know of any?”

“I just sold some guns to some very nice Australian separatists who were planning several very interesting, nonlethal attacks on their government,” she said. “Let me ask them if they have any leads and I’ll call you right back.”

“Australian separatists?”

“Everyone hates their government, Michael,” she said, “not just burned spies.”

Usually, planning a heist requires a certain amount of qualitative thinking mixed with just a hint of immorality and a dash of spite. If you’re robbing something so large that you actually need to plan a heist versus just walking into a bank with an Uzi, the spite issue is paramount. Most criminals work quickly because they work from need. Out of drug money? Rob a liquor store. Or they work from specific, unreasonable obligations they’ve made for themselves. Like a billion-dollar pyramid scheme that needs constant attention. But in order to orchestrate a big score, to embark on the sheer amount of planning that goes into a high-level action, a driving personal desire helps keep you excited through the down times.

Sometimes, however, planning a heist comes down to a single word that has bedeviled bad guys since the beginning of time: opportunity. See a truck from Best Buy rolling through your neighborhood? Need a television? Need five televisions? Have a gun and some friends with dollies? You have an opportunity.

I couldn’t help but think, as Fiona, Barry and I sat parked across the street from Harding Pharmaceutical Labs of America, that the opportunity to rob Harding glimmered like a diamond. The building was a one-story warehouse structure with a loading dock on the east end and was surrounded by a chain-link fence, atop which stood video cameras. A nice precaution.