Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

“Nothing much, and I can’t imagine she hasn’t heard the word whore before.”

“For chrissakes!” Carr says, and he realizes he’s shouting, and that the few people on the beach are staring.

Arthur Carr laughs again. “In fact, I’m sure she’s heard worse.”

Carr sighs and walks toward the jetty that marks the edge of the hotel property. “You can’t talk to her that way, Dad,” Carr says softly. “You can’t expect her to put up with it.”

“Do you have any idea what I’ve put up with?”

“You can’t talk to people that way.”

“ People? She’s not people-she’s my goddamn wife, and I’ll talk to her any goddamn way I please.”

The breath catches in Carr’s throat, and there’s a rushing noise in his ears. When he speaks, his voice is soft and even. “We’re talking about Mrs. Calvin, Dad.”

There’s angry silence on the other end, and then an embarrassed cough. “What the hell are you saying? I know who we’re talking about.”

A wave catches Carr as he reaches the jetty, lifting him and banging his knees on a rock. The sound of surf against stone drowns out the sound of his father’s hasty good-bye.

“Fuck,” Carr says aloud.

When his phone rings again, he thinks it’s his father calling back, but it’s not.

“Jesus, Dennis, I’ve heard from everybody but you today,” Carr says, leaning against a rock. “Please give me some good news.”

“I would if I could.”

“The fucking thing’s still not plugged in?”

When he answers, Dennis’s voice is thin and tired. “I got the message ten minutes ago. It’s plugged in all right, just not into Prager’s computer.”

Bobby has exhausted his many variations on fuck this. He hunches forward on the sofa in the sunny front room of the workhouse and runs his hands though his hair. When he looks up at Carr, he looks as though he’s come through a hurricane.

“It’s the worst fucking Plan B I’ve ever heard,” Bobby says.

“No argument,” Carr says. “It sucks. So give me an alternative.” He looks at Latin Mike, who stares longingly at a jet dwindling in the sky.

“It’s for shit,” Mike says, “but I got nothing better.”

“You can get the hardware?” Carr asks Bobby.

“That’s not the problem. I’ve got the boat; a couple of WaveRunners won’t be an issue. The problem is all the fucking variables.”

“And the putty?”

Bobby shakes his head. “I know where I can get it, the det cord too-equipment’s not the problem. The problem is too many variables-too many places where the fucking wheels can fall off.”

“Let me worry about those.”

“That’s not a lot of comfort,” Bobby says. “No offense.”

“Then give me an alternative,” Carr repeats.

Bobby shakes his head and puts his hands through his hair again. Carr looks at Dennis, who is thinner than ever-a ghost-eyed wheat stalk. “And you’re sure it’ll load, even if the screen’s locked?”

“Screen locked, power-saving mode, waiting for a password, whatever-I’m working down below the operating system. If the computer’s switched on, it’ll load. Fifteen seconds, max. The LED will blink green.”

“What if the computer’s not switched on?”

“Then switch it on-it’ll load. It’ll just take a little longer-a minute, maybe.”

Latin Mike gives up on the airplane, lights a cigarette, and blows smoke at the ceiling. “What about Bessemer-can he handle it?”

“It’s a party-mostly he has to handle eating and drinking. He’s good at that.”

“He’ll have to say his piece to Prager in person. You think he can do it?”

Carr nods. “A case of nerves will make him more plausible.”

“Long as he doesn’t crap his pants, jefe. ”

Carr stands and stretches. He hasn’t slept and his eyes feel like an ashtray. “I’ll let you guys start putting it together.”

Still bent forward, Bobby laughs bitterly. “You don’t know what they’re going to do with a party going on. How do you know they won’t call the locals? I don’t want to find myself playing hide and seek with a coast guard cutter.”

“Rink won’t do that,” Carr says. “She’s still new. She wants to prove herself.”

“You don’t know,” Bobby says, shaking his head. “You don’t know shit.”

Carr shrugs and walks to the door. “No argument there, Bobby.”

There’s a tin-roofed shack, painted bright blue, on the side of the road to the airport, where the fat counterman serves fresh fish-and-chips and cold beer, and where Carr meets Tina. It is well past lunchtime, and they’re the only ones sitting at the open-air counter. Carr drinks an iced tea and eats fries from Tina’s plate, which is otherwise untouched.

Tina watches heat rise from the asphalt. Her voice is low and tight. “Isn’t that your job, to plan for these things?” she says. “To have a fallback when shit goes wrong?”

Carr laughs. “I did plan for it. Of course, my plan assumed that Eddie Silva was still running security, and I didn’t find out he wasn’t until I was standing in Prager’s offices. Remind me again who’s responsible for that triumph of intel.”

“Fuck you,” Tina says, without much conviction. “You think this will fly?”

Carr shrugs. “The bigger question is whether Greg Frye will last until the party.”

“It’s not much longer.”

“Yeah, but Dennis tells me Rink’s been busy. She’s poring over what was on the flash drive, Googling like mad.”

“Doing it herself?”

“Apparently.”

“I’ll call Singapore-make sure our guy remembers his lines.”

Carr nods. “If he does, and if Rink stays focused on the info on the flash drive, Frye might last. If she starts digging deeper into his criminal record-trying to talk to arresting officers or prosecutors-we’re hosed.”

Tina’s jaw clenches. “Just a few days more,” she says, and she jabs her fish with a fork.

Carr has a laptop open and aerial photos of Prager’s property spread out on the coffee table. He’s looking at a floor plan of Prager’s house when Howard Bessemer walks in. Bessemer is fresh from the hotel spa, wrapped in spa terry cloth, shod in spa slippers, and admiring his new spa manicure. He stops when he sees Carr and stares at the coffee table.

“That doesn’t look like packing, Greg,” Bessemer says.

“Don’t worry, Howie, we’re going home-right after the party.”

Bessemer’s spa glow vanishes, replaced by a nervous pallor. “You said we were leaving before then.”

“Change of plans.”

Bessemer looks down at his terry-cloth slippers, and then at the tabletop again. “That can’t be good.”

“It’ll be fine, Howie,” Carr says, and he returns to his work.

“What do we-”

“It’ll be fine,” Carr says again. “Just think about what you’re going to do afterward. It’ll be fine.” Bessemer looks at him skeptically and Carr ignores him until he goes away.

Carr isn’t lying to Bessemer. An uncharacteristic calm settled over him the night before, as Dennis delivered the news, and it hasn’t abandoned him yet. The adrenaline started pumping as he began laying flesh on his skeletal fallback plan, and it’s built with every detail he’s added, but it hasn’t jangled him. In fact, there’s something oddly comforting about it.

He studies the photos and drawings, memorizing points of entry and egress, camera fields and blind spots, alternate routes and dead ends, and it reminds him of his training days at the Farm. His heart rate is up, his fingers are drumming on the table, and there’s a hum in his gut that he recognizes as eagerness. Carr can almost hear the rough brogue and smiles to himself. Roller coasters -after all this time, here, on his last job, he’s finally developed a taste for them. Declan would be proud.