Blake Crouch: Grab

# # #

She ordered a foot-long veggie at the Subway in the visitor's center and claimed a booth.

Crazy hungry.

Didn't even come up for air until she was halfway through and nearly choked when she did. Because that man was sitting across from her, smiling. It was a beautiful smile. Broad and bright. But there was something malicious and knowing in it which she couldn't quite put her finger on. Like the man wasn't smiling at her, but rather at something he knew about her.

Letty put her sandwich down, wiped her mouth.

"By all means," she said. "Please join me."

The man unwrapped his sandwich—a meatball sub—and dug in.

"You followed me here," Letty said.

He nodded as he chewed.

Through a mouthful, he said, "Picked you up in Gallup."

"What do you mean 'picked me up?'"

He just smiled.

"There something I can help you with?" she asked.

"Damn, girl. Can I eat my sub first?"

They ate in silence, watching each other. He was thirty-something, Letty figured, but closing in on forty. Her age possibly. No trace of stubble. Brown eyes. Movie-star handsome. Shredded.

They finished their sandwiches without a word, and then he washed his down with a long hit of Coke through a straw that sucked his cheeks in.

He said, "Ahhhh. Can't believe they had a Subway. That's just bonus. You look thoughtful. Lemme guess. You going through all the people you ever wronged, trying to figure out who's come back to settle a score. Yeah?"

Letty made no acknowledgement, but he was right.

"This ain't about none of that," he said. "Ain't here to hurt you. This got nothing to do with anything in your past. All about the future."

That unnerving smile again.

Letty drew in a long breath. Her head was clear now, and she was afraid.

"How'd you find me?"

"Friend of mind in Charleston put a TrimTrac on your ride. Know what that is?" She shook her head. "Little device that lets me track your location using GPS. I heard you was coming west, thought we should meet."

"Why?"

"We'll get to that."

"I have a phone. Just calling would've been less creepy than this by a factor of a hundred."

"I'm more persuasive in person."

"Have we met before?"

"No, but we share a friend."

"Who's that?"

"My man, Jav."

"Javier sent you after me?"

"Not after you. To you. With a proposal."

"I hope you weren't counting on Javier's name to facilitate whatever the hell you thought was going to happen here."

He reached his hand across the table. "Isaiah."

She didn't take it.

"Damn, that's cold."

"I want you to get your tracking device off my car and leave me alone."

"Why you hatin' when you ain't even heard what—"

"Does Javier want something? Is that what this is about?"

"No, I want something."

"I don't understand."

"He recommended you to me."

"For what?"

He grinned. "What do you think? A job."

Letty leaned back against the seat.

"I did some work with Jav last fall," Isaiah said. "He's an interesting—"

"He's a psychopath."

"Be that as it may, he knows a lot of people. I called him last week. Told him about this thing I got going. This bind I'm in. Told him the kind of person, kind of skill set I needed, and he said I had to have you."

"No, I'm done with all that." Even as she said it she tasted the lie. "Do you know why I'm driving across the country, Isaiah?"

"No."

"To see my son."

"For real?"

"For real."

"And what? You ain't seen him in a while?"

She shook her head.

"What happened?"

"Right. I'm going to tell the guy who's been spying on me for the last week about my private affairs."

"You ain't gotta be this way, Letisha. I ain't coming at you with negativity."

She sighed. "What do you want?"

"Javier tells me you the best."

"The best what."

"Best liar he's ever worked with."

"Thanks, I guess."

"And that you got scary-fast hands."

"So."

"So that's exactly what I need."

"I think I already gave you my answer."

"You don't even want the pitch?"

"Nope."

"So you out, huh? Gonna go be Miss Respectable Citizen? Get a nine to five. Pay taxes. All that shit?"

"I'm gonna go be a mother to my son."

Isaiah's eyes didn't exactly soften, but his body language changed. Like someone had let a little air out of the tires.

"That's cool then. I feel that." He crumpled up his Subway wrapper, slid out of the booth. "Good luck to you, Letisha."

"You too Isaiah. Hope the score's big and you don't get caught."

His laugh was low, booming. "Never."

# # #

She watched him walk out of the restaurant.

Felt suddenly cold.

Alone and empty and void of anything approaching hope.

Here it came, right on cue—the crushing need to use.

Challenge the thought.

When I'm high and when I'm on a job—those are the only times in my life not plagued by the sadness of the past and the fear of the future.

So, tonight you can either be high in some motel room, taking that first step toward running your life into the ground once again.

Or...

5

Letty caught Isaiah in the parking lot, crouched down beside her car, prying the tracking device off the undercarriage.

He looked up, grinning.

She said, "I was thinking."

"Yeah?"

"You wanna walk around the crater."

# # #

It was God-awful hot, Letty already sweating.

Isaiah moved slowly along the footpath. They had to keep stopping to let the tour group up ahead gain distance.

"Ever hear of a man named Richter?" he asked.

"What thief hasn't? The rock star grifter we all want to be. But he's just a myth. Urban legend."

"Actually, he's not."

"You've met him?"

"I'm doing a job with him."

Letty felt a pulse of energy ride up the bones of her legs into her stomach, like it had come from the ground beneath her feet.

"Where's the job?"

"Four and a half hours from where you stand."

She stopped.

Shielded her eyes from the sun as she stared up at him. He was smiling but his eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"Vegas?"

"Fabulous Las Vegas."

She said, "A man I respect very much once told me that of all the jobs in the world, the only one I should never touch was a casino. Said 'there's all this money floating around waiting for us just to reach up and grab it. Why rob it from the pit of hell?'"

They walked again.

"I'm part of Richter's ten-man crew," Isaiah said.

"What's your superpower?"

"Brute force. Weapons. I was Force Recon back in the day. So the vault in one of the major casinos is having its security system overhauled this coming weekend. We don't know if it's Friday, Saturday, or Sunday."

"I'm not going into any goddamn vault. I'll just tell you that right now."

"Me and you both, sister. Here's the cool part. They don't trust nobody. Not even the security company personnel. Two hours before the install, they box the cash up and cart it from the vault area into a room in the hotel. Of course, the money is still guarded by its own private army, but at least there's no vault to break it out of."

"And what? Richter has a guy on the inside?"

"Exactly. At some point on Friday, twenty-four to thirty-six hours from now, Richter will get a call or a text from his contact. They'll tell him when the security install is happening and which room in the hotel will be housing all that cash. Richter's plan is ingenious. The crew gains access to the room directly underneath. We go through the ceiling, set up an ambush, and let the money come to us."

"You have blueprints of the hotel?"