Макс Коллинз - Spree

She wiped the tears from her face, and then he said something wonderful: “I’ll take you to Vegas when this is over and prove it.”

That was as close to a proposal as she was likely to get out of him. Suddenly she was smiling; suddenly she was believing she would live through this ordeal.

“Hang on, baby,” Nolan said, and he hung up.

She put the receiver gently back in its cradle, and the world exploded and went black. She crumpled to the floor, not even knowing that Lyle Comfort had pistol-whipped her. She slept blissfully, ignorant that her captor of these past few days was now slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of something, carrying her into the woods, where the mess wouldn’t matter.

The worst part, for Nolan, was having to mingle with his customers. Fisher had wired his black box in at 10:27, according to Nolan’s watch, and they waited till 10:45, just to be safe, before assuming the cops and security guards wouldn’t be showing up. Then the job had really got under way.

But Nolan’s didn’t close till two; the bartender and waitresses would be out of here by two-thirty, and then, finally, better than four hours into it, he could join up with the others out in the mall. Until then, he was a captive in his own club, striving to maintain the appearance of just another night, and building a partial alibi at least.

The very worst thing was DeReuss and his wife had eaten supper here tonight; thank God the jeweler had long since gone — having him here during the heisting of his own shop would’ve been a little much even for Nolan’s nerves.

Before leaving, DeReuss had complimented Nolan on the Surf and Turf, and added, “I’ve been giving some thought to your complaints about the security out here — I’m ready to go to bat for you at the next Merchant Association meeting.”

“Good,” Nolan had said.

Now Nolan glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty. It would be hours before DeReuss’ jewelry store got Winch’s attention; no safes would be blown till Nolan’s was closed and the nitro noise would attract no attention.

Right now, Dooley would still be working on picking locks, although the Leeches and the rest would be well into looting stores, according to Nolan’s priority list, loading up the dollies and furniture carts with goods from the stores Dooley had already unlocked. The first thing he’d had Dooley do was pick the locks on the three major department stores and the garage doors at the loading docks therein, for the Leeches to pull their trucks up to.

He walked casually in back and used the Radio Shack walkie-talkie on his desk, checking in with Jon.

“Nothing so far,” Jon reported. He was sitting in the cab of the semi backed up to the central loading dock, the one behind Penney’s. He was keeping watch for patrolling cops and any stray Nolan’s customers who might for whatever reason choose to pull around back on their way home. No civilian cars were parked in the rear lot — only the loading-dock trucks, Fisher’s gray Buick, Comfort’s red pickup, Jon’s blue van and an old clunker belonging to the lady janitor. Nolan would move his Trans Am back here after Nolan’s closed.

“How’s the loading going?” Nolan asked.

“Nothing in this truck yet,” Jon said. “Are you sure this is where you want me?”

“It makes you a free agent, not being part of the action inside. That could be helpful.”

The walkie-talkies he and Jon were using were a forty-channel model; these he had purchased, at his usual discount. By now another eight walkie-talkies should have been lifted and distributed among the other players. After Dooley picked the department store and loading-dock locks, the Radio Shack store was next on the list. Nolan had instructed Dooley which walkie-talkies to steal, putting three-channel models in everybody else’s hands, giving Nolan and Jon the opportunity to communicate without being listened in on.

“No sign of Lyle either,” Jon said.

Nolan didn’t know if that was good or bad.

“Okay,” Nolan said, and signed off.

He went back out and mingled with the customers. It was a dirty job but somebody had to do it.

Phil Dooley was averaging ten minutes a lock — the loading dock’s garage doors had taken a little longer, but the stores were going quickly. It was approaching midnight now. He figured he should be done by two, easy. Then he would pitch in with the others and haul goods out and help load up the trucks. He would rather have worked with Roger, as usual — been there to give him a hand, say if he had to lay a safe on its back for a gut shot. But that just wasn’t practical — every able body was needed to get all the heavy labor done.

Right now, Roger was helping the Leeches load refrigerators and TVs out of an appliance store; Fisher was, too.

That left Dooley the solitary job of going from store to store — according to Nolan’s list — and opening them for business. The mall with its Christmas decorations and limited lighting was a strange place to be, even for somebody like Dooley, who was used to being in places after they were closed. Most places were completely dark, though — not half alive, like Brady Eighty. The sounds of the men working, the wheels of their carts, the whump of heavy appliances being set onto carts, occasional swearing, occasional ouches, echoed down the wide central corridor, as Dooley bent over the lock of the Haus of Leather.

The last place he’d opened for after-hours business was a luggage shop — Nolan had suggested it because some of the luggage was expensive, but also because they could use the stuff to transport some of the smaller items — everything from jewelry to expensive perfume.

Dooley liked the concentration, the close work; doing a marathon number of locks like this — nothing in his career to date compared to it — was the sort of challenge he relished. If the take tonight was what Nolan and Comfort indicated, this could even put the capper on his career — he could retire on his cut.

Not that he didn’t feel bad about Nolan’s situation. He truly hoped Nolan’s woman would be returned unharmed — he had no one similar in his life right now, but he could empathize. He had never had a lasting relationship, though not for want of trying, and perhaps for that reason he was especially attuned to pains of the heart. What Nolan must be going through, behind that stony exterior. A shame, a rotten shame.

But the money at stake made Dooley secretly, if guiltily, glad the job hadn’t been called off.

The tools Dooley was using, two of which were presently inserted in the lock where the sliding glass doors joined in front of the Haus of Leather, were picks — small thin steel objects with curlicue tips, not unlike dentist’s tools, and used by Dooley with similar care and expertise. Dooley carried these in a custom soft-leather pouch, which was currently on the floor at his feet, should he need to use another of the fine tools. Delicate instruments, requiring a delicate touch, which Dooley had.

Even at his age, with his experience, Dooley practiced several days a week, at least; and, through his legitimate locksmithing business in Des Moines, he was able to keep on top of the latest trends in the industry, ordering any so-called burglarproof lock advertised in the trades, practicing on it till he could pick it in minutes. He’d encountered only a couple he couldn’t master, and these he never went near.

Picking the locks at Brady Eighty was, thus far at least, about as hard as buttering a roll.

For example, the Haus of Leather was open for business right now.

Andy Fieldhaus, half asleep and completely naked on the vinyl couch in his back room, on his side next to and facing a half-asleep and completely naked young woman named Heather, who was also on her side, on that same vinyl couch (as fate would have it), thought he heard something.