Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

Two places jump off the floor plan: a cloakroom, just off the main entry hall, and Prager’s bedroom. Going to the cloakroom means crossing the entire main floor of the house; going to the bedroom-the master suite-means going upstairs. So, the bedroom first.

Carr doesn’t remember the trip down the hall and back across the atrium to the curving staircase, but somehow he’s climbing the stairs. There are footsteps below, and voices, and radio chatter. Carr hurries to the top.

Upstairs, the polished stone floors and raised white paneling give way to glossy wood and silk wallpaper. Carr passes a line of bedrooms, each one done in a different ocean color: sea foam, turquoise, aquamarine, and each with an ocean view. The maid is in the last one, a silhouette on a balcony, watching the action on the bay. Carr doesn’t realize she’s there until he’s already passed.

“Shit,” he says to himself.

The master is at the end of the hall, behind a pair of teak doors with gleaming brass hardware. The doors aren’t locked, and the mechanism is almost silent. Chest heaving, Carr closes them behind him.

He’s in a sitting room, with a fireplace, a big ocean view, and none of the austere minimalism of Prager’s office. The sofa and chairs are fat and silk-covered, in blue and gray stripes, the rugs are Persian, the low tables are teak, and the pictures on the wall are tinted engravings of sailing ships. Outside, through glass doors and beneath a green awning, there is a large balcony that wraps around all three of the suite’s exposures. And in the corner, near the fireplace, there is luggage: two large leather suitcases and a leather duffel, open and half-packed on folding stands. Pressed shirts, balled socks, but no laptop.

“Shit,” Carr whispers. He looks at his watch. Nearly nine minutes since the show began. He walks into the bedroom.

It’s like the sitting room, but with a king-size bed instead of a sofa and chairs, and a small teak desk near another set of balcony doors. Carr sighs deeply and smiles. Like the sitting room, only infinitely better: Prager’s laptop is open on the desk.

He nearly laughs aloud when he touches the space bar and the screen lights with a message asking for a password. He pulls out the flash drive, feels for a USB port, and plugs it in. And then Carr hears the almost silent mechanism of the teak doors, and his heart lodges in his throat.

He drops low, peers into the sitting room, and sees a door swing open and the maid walk in. She’s dark and serious-looking behind the basket of folded laundry. She crosses to Prager’s bags, picks through the basket, and places a stack of underwear on a table beside the luggage.

Carr looks behind him, at the open doors of Prager’s walk-in closet. He looks at the flash drive. Fifteen seconds to load, Dennis said, and the LED would blink. How long has it been in? Did the light blink? Fuck! The maid stacks undershirts on the table and lifts the basket, and in two quiet steps Carr is in Prager’s bathroom.

It’s like an old-fashioned bank-chrome and marble from floor to ceiling-and Carr stands behind the door, trying not to breathe. He watches through the crack as the maid stows clothing and glances out the window at the bay. She glances out often, as if something new is happening, and now she goes to the balcony doors. When she opens them, Carr can hear the buzzing of the WaveRunners along with a new sound-the angry sputter of an outboard. The Zodiac is running.

The maid stands in the open doorway, watching, shaking her head, and from down the hall Carr hears a voice.

“Yo, Sylvie!” a man calls.

“In here,” the maid answers.

“Shit,” Carr says to himself. He looks around the bathroom. It’s huge, with a soaking tub, a steam shower, double sinks, and views of the garden. And straight back, its own pair of glass doors to the other side of the wraparound balcony. He looks through the crack again, and sees two crew cuts headed down the hall. One waits at the doorway to the master suite, the other-the one whose khakis have damp knees-comes in smiling.

“You watching the circus out there, girl?” he says. “My boss’ll have a stroke if we don’t chase those boys away.” He steps onto the balcony and runs his hand over her back.

She giggles and knocks his hand away. “And so will my boss, she finds you up here wasting my time.” The crew cut laughs and slides his hand lower, but Carr is watching his partner, who still stands in the doorway.

The maid giggles again and points at the water. “Your boss got her wish. They’ve run away behind the rocks. Show’s over, I guess-no more circus.”

Carr’s whole body tenses and the crew cut on the balcony says something, but his words are lost in the flash and the whump and the rattling of windows. Carr feels the shock wave in his chest, and the maid is screaming now, and both crew cuts are on the balcony yelling what the fuck, and Carr steps into the bedroom. He stays low and pockets the flash drive, and then he’s back in the bathroom, through the glass doors, onto the balcony, and over the rail.

Offshore explosions have a muting effect on parties, and Prager’s party is not immune. The jetty screens his guests from seeing the blast itself, but they hear it and feel it and see the smoke. There are cries of surprise, then silence, then a milling confusion. And then the rush to be as uninvolved as possible.

Amid the hunt for valet tickets and the hasty good-byes, no one notices Carr’s sweat-soaked shirt, or the scratches on his face and hands from the pindo palm that broke his fall. No one notices him listening intently to a voice on his cell phone. No one notices his smile as he puts the phone away.

Carr glides weightless through the crowd, with Dennis’s words still echoing: It’s loaded, boss, nice and clean. He touches the flash drive in his pocket, and tells himself to slow down, to focus. Now it’s Declan’s voice he hears: Don’t fall in love with yer own genius, lad-there’s no greater arse than the one gets shot while he’s staring in the mirror. Yer not home till yer home, and maybe not even then. Carr runs a hand down his face and wipes the grin off.

He finds Howard Bessemer by the guesthouse, holding a glass and staring at the jetty. He’s pale and sweating and shaking his head. “Now’s the time, Howie,” Carr says.

Bessemer swallows hard. “Jesus Christ,” he whispers. “Did you see what happened? Did you hear that noise? Did you see who it was on those things?”

“I know, Howie, everything’s fine. It’s time now-just like we went over. And then we go home.”

Carr has worried this part to death. Would Howie balk? Would he freeze up? Would he fold altogether? For an instant, Bessemer tilts sideways, threatens to buckle, but the prospect of home has a bracing effect on him. He steadies himself on Carr’s shoulder, nods curtly, and reaches into his glass for a chip of ice.

“Where is he?” he says, chewing.

Prager is outside the main house, smoldering. He’s accepting quick, embarrassed farewells-one after the other-from his guests, and Kathy Rink is standing several paces off. She is paler even than Bessemer, and maybe more jumpy. Her shoes and the hem of her floral dress are wet, as if she’s been in the water. When she speaks it’s to bark at her men. When Prager speaks, she twitches.

Bessemer hangs back while Carr says his good-bye. Prager’s eyes catch for an instant on a scratch on Carr’s face, but he’s got other things on his mind. They shake hands quickly.

“The police are on their way,” Prager tells him, irritation swelling in his voice. “So you’ll want to be on yours. Unfortunate we didn’t get to talk more, but as you can see,” his eyes flick to Kathy Rink and then to the cloudy sky, “this day has gone to hell.” Carr nods. “Give her your number,” Prager says. “We’ll arrange a secure call while I’m on the road, and after you’ve had a chance to think some more.” Carr nods again and moves off. When the line of departing guests ebbs, Bessemer steps up.