Peter Leonard - Quiver

There was a green Lexus 430 in the next row. He walked around it and checked all the obvious hiding places and found a yellow magnetic box covered with road scum attached to the frame under the rear bumper. He pried it open and there was a spare key. He unlocked the door, threw his knapsack on the front passenger seat, and got in behind the wheel. The parking ticket was in a cup holder in the console.

He’d learned this trick in the early days of stealing cars. Keeping a spare key somewhere sounded like a good idea, but it was almost as dumb as going into a store for a pack of cigarettes and leaving your car running. Or parking in a bank lot and going in to use the ATM-it’ll only take a minute-and leaving the keys in the ignition.

Best place to find the car you were looking for was to stake out a sporting event, movie theater, or airport. What he also did-and it took a little longer this way-was find a car he wanted at an upscale mall or market and follow the person home. He’d break in the next day, find the spare keys and boost the car. That way, it was nice and clean. Better than pulling the lock barrel out of the door with pliers or breaking a window. You didn’t have to worry about car alarms, either.

Jack had worked for a guy named Torcellini, a Sicilian from Palermo who came over to Detroit when he was sixteen and still carried a switchblade in his zippered black boot. Torce, a fan of westerns, had a pencil-thin mustache and sideburns and wore a black Stetson and a duster. He thought he looked like Lee Van Cleef of spaghetti-western fame. “What do you think?” he’d say to Jack with a mean look on his face, the Stetson low over his eyes and Jack would say, “Yeah, I can see it.”

Torce would give him a list of cars he needed, and Jack would find them and bring them in. He got $1,500 for a late-model high-end ride. Cash on the spot. Some weeks he made $9,000. Not bad for a twenty-two-year-old whose friends were trying to scrape together enough money to buy a six-pack.

Torce had chop shops around Detroit where they could strip a car down to its frame in six hours. If it had a blue book value of $20,000, they could strip it and sell the parts for $32,000, or more.

Or he’d boost a car, bring it to the shop, and they’d strip it clean and drop the shell on a street somewhere. The police would find it and tell the owner, who’d tell the insurance company, who’d sell it at auction to try to recoup some money. Torce’s guys would buy the shell at auction, put the stripped parts back on it and sell it as a used car. It was beautiful.

They also shipped high-end Benzes, Bimmers, Caddies and Jags to buyers in Latin America and the Middle East. That’s how Jack met Teddy and DeJuan. They all worked for Torce, until the operation got busted-Torce and fifty-six others arrested in a raid conducted by a joint task force of the Detroit Police and the FBI.

Jack had just stolen a Benz S600 from the Somerset Mall. He was outside Nordstrom. Watched the valet run to get a car and walked over to the curb when the Benz pulled in, an annoying guy on a cell phone, telling him to be careful, saying the car cost more than he’d make in four years.

Jack said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on it for you,” and he did.

When he got to the chop shop, an old brick warehouse on St. Antoine, it was surrounded by police cars, light bars flashing. He could see the Ren Cen, now the GM building, in the distance. Teddy pulled up behind him in a black Town Car. They decided it might be a good time to leave town, figuring someone would dime them for a plea, human nature being what it was-the urge to protect one’s own ass overriding any sense of honor or loyalty.

Jack cruised out of the parking deck in the green Lexus, hands on the varnished wood steering wheel, engine so quiet, it didn’t sound like it was running. He stopped at the booth, paid the parking fee with the fifty he’d borrowed from his sister, and drove to Kate’s.

“Luke, I’m leaving,” he heard his mom call up the stairs. “Are you sure you have a ride to school?”

Luke yelled, “Positive,” from the upstairs hall.

It was 7:45. He didn’t have a class on Friday till 8:30. He stood at his bedroom window and watched her pull out of the driveway. Luke stuffed clothes in a backpack, grabbed his iPod and went downstairs to the kitchen. The keys to his dad’s Corvette weren’t in the drawer where they usually were. His mom probably hid them somewhere. He checked her desk in the den, didn’t see them. He went upstairs to her dressing room. His dad’s clothes were gone, his side of the dressing area, cleaned out. Why’d she get rid of his clothes? Was she trying to forget him?

He found the car keys in her jewelry box. Slid them in the pocket of his jeans and went back down to the kitchen.

He heard a car and saw a green Lexus drive up and park. He saw Jack get out and come to the door, press his face against one of the glass panes. Knocking and then opening the door and coming in. What was he doing here?

Luke went through the dining room and circled around to the front of the house, hiding in the front hall closet, door cracked open half an inch. He heard Jack walk in from the kitchen, cowboy boots clicking on the slate floor. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “Anybody home? Kate…?”

Luke watched him go into the den, but couldn’t see what he was doing.

Kate told him she had a dentist appointment at eight and knew Luke would be at school, so no one would be home. He sat behind Kate’s antique desk, staring at her checkbook. He’d seen it the night before on the house tour. He was desperate for money and decided to write a check for a thousand dollars to hold him over.

Jack felt odd taking money from her, but then thought about Guatemala. How much did it cost him to get Kate and her friend back? Five grand-at least. She owed him. He made the check out to cash and traced Kate’s signature from a letter he found in one of the drawers. It wasn’t that difficult.

He stared at the check and for the first time in four years, Jack was feeling good about himself. Things were falling into place. He was as close to being rich as he’d ever been.

Leon came down the stairs now, stopped, sniffed the air and wandered over to the closet. Luke trying to get rid of him, “Leon, get out of here,” saying it under his breath. “Go on.” He pulled the door closed and Leon yelped and barked.

Jack saw the dog and called him. “Here, boy. What’re you doing over there, huh?”

Luke cracked the door and Leon was sitting there, tail wagging, tongue hanging out, drooling, eyes fixed on Luke.

He heard Jack’s boots on the slate floor again coming across the foyer toward them. “What’re you doing?”

Luke could see him coming toward the closet.

“Something in there you want?”

Luke stepped back into the darkness, kneeling behind some boxes.

“Boy, want a treat?” Jack said. “Does the big man want a treat?”

He could see Jack heading for the kitchen, and Leon, to Luke’s surprise, was following him.

Luke went through the living room to the sun porch, unlocked the door and went outside, moving along the back of the house to the kitchen. He looked in the window, saw Jack open the refrigerator, helping himself to leftover lamb chops, eating meat off the bone and throwing Leon scraps.

Ten minutes later Jack got in his car and left, Luke wondering what was going on, this old friend of his mother’s coming in their house like that.

Jack cashed the check at the Chase branch at Cranbrook and Maple. He didn’t have an account, but he flirted with the teller, a mousy little thing and she said she’d make an exception and he said, “Thanks, darling.” Then he drove back to Kate’s to wait for her.