Brad Meltzer - The Millionaires

DeSanctis and Gallo rush in after him. I spin around to share the news with Gillian. But just as I do, I step on a stray Christmas light that’s hanging off the side of the float. There’s a sharp crack and I freeze in place. Crap.

“What was that?” Gallo asks.

I duck down and search the aisle for Gillian. She’s not there.

“You coming?” DeSanctis asks.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Gallo says as he turns back toward the parade floats. “I just want to check something out.”

He decided to wait for the little girl to stop crying. Tucked back on the wood porch of the Pecos Bill Cafe, there was no sense calling attention to himself. And as long as the little girl across the street kept screaming – as long as she and her consoling mom were blocking the swinging gate that Gallo and DeSanctis had just ducked behind – he wasn’t going anywhere. Of course, there was something to be said for taking it slow. From here on in, there was no reason to rush. Oliver and Charlie… Gallo and DeSanctis… he found them earlier – he’d find them again. Last time, all he had to do was wait around the corner from DACS. He knew they’d come running by. Just like Gillian had said.

He grinned to himself at the thought of it. Gillian . Where’d she get that name anyway? Shrugging it off, he didn’t much care about the answer. As long as they got their money, she could call herself whatever she wanted.

Scanning the crowd, he kept tabs on every stray glance and every lingering look. He didn’t like being alone in Disney World. If he were younger, maybe, but at his age – without kids – it was a guaranteed way to stand out. And right now, standing out was the last thing he wanted to do. Eventually, he hopped off the porch, shoved a hand in his pocket, and calmly headed across the street with the purposefulness of someone rejoining his family. In front of the swinging fence, the little girl had stopped crying. And the crowd had stopped staring.

“I’m sorry – are we in your way?” the mother of the girl asked, kneeling down and wiping her daughter’s nose.

“Not at all,” the man said with a friendly nod. Stepping around them, he opened the fence and crossed inside. As it closed behind him, he never looked back.

I squat down behind the Cinderella coach float, and the door to the closet slams shut. In the distance, I hear Gallo slowly spin around. His shoes scrape like glass against the pavement, then pound like a dinosaur against the warehouse floor. He lumbers and limps slowly. Just waiting for a sniff of my reaction.

I don’t give him one.

“I know you’re here,” Gallo calls out, his voice echoing up the aisles. Thanks to the enormous ceiling, it’s like shouting in a canyon. “So who am I with?” he asks, still facing my direction. “Charlie… or Oliver?”

Across the room, three or four aisles down, there’s another snap and a quick shuffle of footsteps. Gillian’s moving.

“So there’re two of you in here?” Gallo asks. “Am I really that lucky?”

Neither of us answers.

“Okay, I’ll play along,” he says, taking a step in my direction. “If it’s two of you… and one’s alone in the other room, well… I know I don’t got Oliver and Charlie. She’d never let that happen. On top of that, I saw who was odd man out in Duckworth’s backyard…”

I take the tiniest step backwards. I swear, I hear Gallo grin.

“So whattya say, Oliver? You and Gillian having fun yet?”

The room is dead silent. He takes another step toward me.

“That’s the problem with threesomes,” Gallo warns. “It’s always two against one. Isn’t that right, Gillian ?”

Hunched over behind Cinderella’s carriage, I scramble like a crab back up the aisle. I hear Gillian moving toward the front. Gallo leaps into my aisle. But all he sees are two empty rows of abandoned parade floats.

Crouching behind a float shaped like a pirate ship, I sneak into the next aisle. I’m leaning in so close to the ship, the barrel of my gun brushes against the tips of the Christmas bulbs. On the side of the hull, I stick my head up and stare across the bow. Gallo’s still in my old aisle.

“C’mon, Oliver, don’t be stubborn,” he warns. “Even I’ll admit we’re past our bedtime. It may be a hike for the Orlando cops to get on Disney property, but even out here – even in the back lot – it’s not gonna take forever. The clock’s ticking, son… they’re gonna find us soon.”

As he wanders down the aisle, there’s a noticeable change in Gallo’s voice. Quieter. Almost anxious.

“I know you’re the smart one, Oliver. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have gotten this far.” He pauses, hoping the compliments soften me up. “Don’t forget: It took Brutus to kill Caesar. You may’ve been a few steps ahead, but we were always close. Real close. Like in the same room. D’you understand what I’m saying, son? It’s time to make some hard decisions – and if you’re smart about it, the first one you’ll ask yourself is: How much do you trust Gillian?”

“Don’t listen to him, Oliver!” Gillian’s voice booms through the room. “He’s just trying to confuse you.” I look to my left, hoping to trace the sound, but the acoustics make her impossible to pinpoint.

“I told you it’d be a hard one,” Gallo adds, sounding like he’s moving further up the aisle. “But all you have to do is use your brain. You were in the tunnels under Disney World. How do you think we found you?”

His footsteps are close, but he’s headed in the wrong direction. I duck under the front of the pirate ship and blanket myself in silence.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why you couldn’t find any of Duckworth’s relatives when you worked at the bank?” Gallo asks. “He didn’t have any, Oliver. Never married. No kids. Nothing. If he had, we never would’ve used his name in the first place. That was the whole point of creating and keeping his name on the account. If anything went wrong, no one was there to complain.”

“He’s a liar!” Gillian shouts.

“Oh, she’s getting pissed now, isn’t she?” Gallo asks. “I don’t blame her either. I saw what she did to Duckworth’s old place – from the photos… to the soft-touch bedsheets… You have to give ’ em the A-plus for effort – they pulled it together pretty quick.”

They?

“Personally, I think the paintings were the nicest touch. I’m betting those were to win over Charlie. Am I right, Gillian, or was it just part of the show?”

For the first time, Gillian doesn’t answer. I try to tell myself it’s because she doesn’t want to reveal her location, but as I’m finally starting to realize, every lie takes its toll. Especially the ones we tell ourselves.

“Time to make a choice,” Gallo says, his voice coming from everywhere at once. “You can’t do it all by yourself anymore, Oliver.” Like before, he lets the silence of the room pound his point into my brain. “It’s time to get out of here, son. Now which one of us do you want to trust?”

The first thing DeSanctis noticed were the heads. There were two when he walked in – Goofy’s and the Mad Hatter’s. Neither was attached to a torso; they were just two colorful costume heads lying lifeless on the bright white linoleum floor. From the small folding table that was knocked over, DeSanctis knew where they’d fallen from. That much was simple. The hard part was seeing where it led. Exiting the closet and stepping into the hallway that ran perpendicular to it, he held his gun with both hands. On his right, toward the back, was a rolling laundry cart. Straight ahead was another room that smelled like bleach. On his left was the front door to the building, the easiest way out.