Meaner Things (21 page)

He stood where he was, between me and the elevators, which meant I had to approach him. I walked towards him at slower than usual pace, feeling as if my legs were about to collapse from under me. When I was close enough to see the glint of his wire glasses I gave him what was supposed to be a casual nod.

“Morning, Mr. Boylan.”

He hadn’t moved since I’d spotted him and by now his lips were so compressed they had almost disappeared. His hands came from behind his back and I saw that he was holding a buff manila folder. He rocked slightly on the balls of his feet.

“Mr. Robie. Just the person I want to talk to.”

Talk
to
. Not ‘see’. I wondered about the significance of that, if any.

I knew better than to pretend I was in a hurry and try to brush past him. That would immediately make things worse – I had visions of him calling security. I had to try to talk my way out of this.

“What can I do for you?” I asked. Despite the churning fear inside me, I was getting some control back now. I was pleased to hear my voice sound neutral, almost relaxed, a little puzzled. Just the way it should be.

“During our routine screening,” Boylan continued, holding up the folder, “Something came up.”

“Really? To do with me? I thought that was all settled ages ago.” I was being deliberately ambiguous. If it was only one thing in the background checks, it might not be disastrous after all.

“Sometimes these things take time. The information you gave us doesn’t check out.”

I opened my mouth and tried to look seriously baffled. “Anything in particular?”

“You say you have retail stores?” He opened the folder. “A small chain called ‘Bejeweled’? We couldn’t find any such franchise.”

“Well . . . I can explain that,” I began, then trailed off. It was okay now to be flustered; this would be an embarrassing question for any
bona
fide
tenant.

“We can discuss this in your office if you like, Mr. Robie.”

“No, no need for that.” Now I really was flustered. I frantically tried to think like a businessman. “It’s very simple really. I had to close down that chain. You know how it is; there was a silent partner I had to get rid of – that sort of thing.”

Boylan looked as if he had no idea how it was at all. Frowning, he said, “Mr. Robie, I’m afraid we couldn’t find
any
diamond business registered in your name.”

Wham
! This was the big one. Everything depended on the answer I came up with now. And I only had a split second to concoct it.

“Of course you couldn’t, Boylan. If you must know,” – I put a dose of huffiness into my voice – “The silent partner I mentioned is my ex-wife. All my new companies are in unnamed trust ownership. That way she can’t come after me for even more of my assets. Do I really have to spell it out?”

I watched his face intently and thought he turned slightly pale. He probably didn’t like discussing personal affairs like this. His eyes never left me, but he seemed to be thinking hard. Finally he said, “Ah, I’m not a businessman myself, but I see how that would work. You place company ownership into a trust. Anyone looking for ownership only sees the name of the trust, there’s no way to find out who the beneficiary is.”

“You’ve got it.” I put on a pleased expression, as if he was finally catching up. “All she can see is the registered agent and the name of the trust. I’m effectively invisible.”

Boylan nodded. “Right, I’m glad we went over that.”

Now it was time for me to go on the offensive. “Frankly Boylan, I’m shocked that your . . . er . . . researchers couldn’t figure out such a simple thing. It must happen all the time.”

He frowned. “You understand that we have to be careful who we let into this building?”

“Of course. But please get your facts right before making needless accusations.”

“So you’re still active in the diamond trade then, are you?”

“Certainly. Why else would I be here?”

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.” He snapped the folder shut. “I’m afraid you’ll still have to refile your application though, this time with two references from established dealers. Will that be a problem?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good. I’ll send the documents up to your office presently. Good day, Mr. Robie.”

He disappeared down the hallway. I walked into an empty elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor, trying to keep my body from shaking. This business was taking a heavy toll on me. I closed my eyes and pressed my sticky forehead against the steel door, treasuring the few seconds of solitude before it opened again.

It had been another close call and I’d been lucky to fend it off. They were becoming more frequent, and that told me my time here was severely limited.

One more confirmation that the heist had to be soon.

*

I sat on my bed, my back pressed against the wall. It was past midnight and I’d switched off the lights and pulled the curtains back from the window. For the last half hour I’d been staring at the stars.

I’d gone over the recent close calls and analysed them as best I could. In the end, I just didn’t have enough information to know if they were on to me or not. The Zheng encounter had been bizarre. For one terrifying moment I’d been sure that he knew very well that I was standing behind the door, a few steps away from him. Had he been toying with me, playing with me like a cat plays with its prey? It certainly fitted his character.

If Zheng was on to me, I was pretty sure that Boylan wasn’t. His backtracking had seemed genuine enough. But all that meant was that Zheng might be keeping him in the dark while sending him to me for another cat and mouse display. For all I knew, Zheng might have been watching the encounter via a security camera.

Net result: even if I was simply being paranoid, I was still attracting too much attention to myself. That was worry number one.

My other concerns were more personal. I looked around my tiny apartment, that I was already a month’s rent behind on. For the last decade I’d been a penniless nonentity, a sad sack content to wallow in mediocrity. Emma’s return to my life had changed all that. I felt reborn. I had purpose. I had skills that no-one else possessed; ability to do the seemingly impossible. If all went as planned my life would be transformed.

So much change in so little time. What would I become? Could I handle it?

Even with so much else going on, in my quieter moments I was still haunted by two things. They both centred on Emma and, no matter how often I forced them out of my mind, telling myself that resolving them was best left until later, they kept reappearing.

My
unwelcome
ghosts
from
Heist
-
mass
past
.

Emma’s mysterious name change was one of them. I ran it over and over in my head, but it made no more sense than it ever had. Then there was the biggie, the elephant in the room, her betrayal on the warehouse rooftop. She still hadn’t told me the truth about that, not the whole truth anyway. There had to be more to it.

I needed to be careful not to let these things eat away at me. This wasn’t the time to insist on having it out with her; that could come later. And it
would
come later, it had to. Until then, the challenge for me was to continue to trust her. I’d found I could do that, most of the time anyway.

I didn’t just need her money; I needed her support. I needed her to give me confidence in myself. Despite being proud of my unusual talents, I didn’t really feel like a master burglar. But I’d have to feel exactly like that if I was going to pull this off. Anything less and the odds would be too heavily stacked against us. Even at the top of my game, if something went wrong I’d be lucky to get us out of the building before the cops arrived.

Assuming I could keep it all together, then I reckoned our chances were pretty good. Zheng’s corrupt business empire would come tumbling down around him, Emma would be free and secure. I’d get the girl and the money.

Better still, the yearning deep inside me, the desire that had been driving me crazy for the last ten years, ever since I’d crash-landed onto a museum warehouse floor, would at last be fulfilled.

20.

TRIAL RUN

I paced up and down the thin office carpet, anxiously waiting for a knock on the door. Every couple of minutes I checked my watch. The minutes seemed to be crawling and flying at the same time. It was already past nine thirty and I’d been here since eight. If he didn’t arrive soon, I’d go nuts. If he did arrive, I’d strangle him.

And if he got caught, it would be the police knocking on my door.

More minutes ticked by. I checked the time again. Nine forty-five. I’d definitely kill him when he got here.

The telephone rang and I grabbed it like a drowning man grabs a lifebuoy.

“Yes, send him up,” I barked. I began to breathe again. It was him, at last.

A few minutes later there was a
tat
-
a
-
tat
-
a
-
tat
-
tat
-
tat
on the door.

I strode over and peered through the peephole. A short figure in overalls. I opened the door just enough to let him in, then immediately locked it behind him.

“What the hell took you so long, you fucking little dwarf?” It felt good, letting the volcano erupt.

Charlie gave me a squinty-eyed look. “Calm down. Just slept in a bit, that’s all. I got here as soon as I could. I’m bloody hot, too.”

“You took your time about it. How do you think I felt, waiting all this time?”

He ignored me, tossed his tool bag aside, and stripped off his overalls. I got a whiff of stale lager mixed with fresh sweat. No doubt he’d been boozing last night and slept it off on his ratty, flea-infested couch.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to cool it. “OK, sit in that seat and tell me exactly what happened down below. I want every detail. Every single thing.”

He abandoned the overalls in a heap in the middle of the floor and sat behind the desk.

“Got any water?” he asked.

I grudgingly took a bottle from my briefcase. “Here, but make it last. I only have one more and you’re not getting it.”

He gulped half the bottle down and set it on the desk. “That’s better. I need to wet my whistle before I speak.”

“Get on with it.”

“OK, but don’t interrupt. I came in the building all business like and purposeful, just like you said. I gave that work order you made up to the sour-looking guy in the glass cage.”

“Roger.”

“I said don’t interrupt. It slows me down.” He took another drink. “Where was I? Oh yeah, the bugger in the cage. He looked at the chit like it was in Swahili and grunted something about photo ID. I showed him my driver’s license and he gave me a temporary pass card stamped with today’s date.
Good
for
Thursday
28th
only
,
don’t
forget
, he said. I swiped through the turnstile, found the elevators and came right up to twelve. Nothing to it.”

“Was there a tall, thin man in the foyer, with long grey hair and wire glasses?”

Charlie thought for a moment. “Nope.”

“Did you hang around a bit like I asked you, to see if Roger called anyone?”

“Yeah, I did. I forgot to mention that. Anyway, I stuck around, tied my shoelace and crap like that, even juked back out the elevator and took a gander at him. He seemed to have gone back to sleep, to be honest.”

“Good. Looks like we’ve got away with it. Got everything in your tool bag?”

“Take a look for yourself.”

I did. Inside the bag I found a full set of wrenches, a hacksaw, two rolls of industrial strength double-sided tape, and a long, narrow metal plate with right-angled side panels. The latter looked vaguely like a bricklayer’s hod.

“All present and correct,” I grudgingly conceded.

I left Charlie alone and sat down in the only other chair in the room, a wobbly Mission-style wreck with narrow, curved arms and a heavily stained seat. My plan to get Charlie inside the building had come off, so far at least. I’d made up a bogus invoice for Charlie to present at foyer security, showing that I’d hired his security company to install a video surveillance system in my office. Most of the other offices I’d seen already had a video camera outside their door, so I reckoned this wouldn’t arouse suspicion. It was what a normal diamond wholesaler would do.

Charlie and I had vital work to do later on, after the building closed for the night. Until then, he’d have to stay cooped up in my office, well out of sight.

A wet, gaseous sound, like a deflating balloon, came from Charlie’s direction. I looked up.

“Sorry,” he said, “I had Brussels sprouts last night with the beer.”

It was going to be a long day.

*

I threw my playing cards down on the desk and looked at my watch. Twelve thirty; lunchtime for a lot of the tenants in the building. The turnstile down in the foyer would be busy with tenants swiping out to visit various nearby restaurants and bars. I got up to join the exodus.

“Charlie, I’m going down now. We’ve gone over this already but, listen, it is
really
important that you call me at exactly twelve forty-five. Don’t mess that up, OK?”

‘Gotcha’ was all he offered in reply.

I stepped into a crowded elevator, went down to the ground floor and surged out among the group heading towards the front doors. I checked my watch and stepped aside. Only twelve forty. It was essential that I timed my run perfectly.

At twelve forty-four I approached the turnstile. Roger G. was casting his beady eye over the flow of tenants carding-out beside his security counter. I fingered the cell phone in my pocket and willed it to ring. It didn’t.

By now I was right at the turnstile, swipe card in my free hand, a queue of impatient tenants behind me. I managed a last glance at my watch. Twelve forty-six. The little prick upstairs was letting me down again.

The person in front of me swiped his card and moved on. I reached down to do the same. There was no way that I could delay it any longer. Already I could sense some people behind me wondering why I was moving so slowly. Roger G. would wonder too, if I overdid it.

My cell phone rang. I swiped the card and pulled the phone out of my pocket.

“Urgent business call,” I said to no-one in particular, and moved back and away from the turnstile.

I muttered a lot of incoherent nonsense into the phone, random stuff about diamonds and imports and customs duties, paying no attention to the equally random nonsense that Charlie was muttering in reply. As I gabbled, I moved away from the turnstile and edged my way along the wall, back to the elevators. I kept an eye on Roger G. but he never looked in my direction.

So far, so good. I’d successfully swiped out of the building, as its computer records would verify, without actually leaving it.

I was moving slowly and by the time I reached the elevators the crowd at the turnstile had melted out the doors. I noticed Roger G. pick up the phone in his cubicle and speak into it. For one awful moment I thought he was calling security about me. As I watched, he exited the cubicle, locked the door behind him and walked off in the direction of the video room.

My brain raced along at a hundred kilometres an hour. This was a rare occurrence indeed. I could have waited for this for days and never happened upon it. It was too good an opportunity to miss.

I had intended to swipe both my own and Charlie’s temporary card at the turnstile, but had abandoned that plan when I saw how rapidly the queue moved and how closely Roger G. had invigilated the whole process. My back-up plan was to send Charlie down later to repeat my performance at the turnstile. It was risky, but there didn’t seem to be any other way to do it. We both had to stay behind inside the building after closing time and yet be recorded on security as having left it. I thought about Charlie’s acting abilities and knew in my heart he would botch it up.

I watched Roger G.’s back disappear around the corner. My fingers found Charlie’s temporary pass in my pocket. It was now or never.

I strode up to the turnstile, swiped Charlie’s card, turned and walked away.

In the elevator I went over it in my mind. I’d achieved what I’d set out to do. At what cost? My actions would, like everything else in the public areas of the building, be recorded on videotape. But as long as the guards on duty in the video room hadn’t noticed it – and with several screens active it was unlikely that either of the two guards would happen to be paying close attention to the right one at the precise moment – then I was okay.

I filed a mental memo to remember to steal that particular videotape on the night of the heist.

*

The day dragged on and the hands on my watch crawled around as if moving through treacle. At six o’clock I stood behind the office door and listened to various sets of footsteps pass by as the building emptied for the night. When nine o’clock came I got up, did some press-ups, reached for water and found it was all gone. I couldn’t leave the room now to get more. There was still a long way to go, so I flopped down in the rickety chair and stretched out my legs. Charlie was bizarrely sprawled backwards over the desk, snoring loudly. I didn’t think that I could sleep, but eventually nodded off.

I woke up with a stiff neck from slouching sideways on the chair and saw that the window was pitch black. The room was dark too, as I’d kept the lights off so as not to show under the door. I got up and stretched, checked my watch.

Eleven thirty-five. Perfect. I stood for a moment and went over what I was about to do. Everything rested on tonight. Get caught and I’d immediately be sent to prison and the heist would be scuttled.

I shook Charlie and roused him. He gave me a squinty, puzzled look.

“Time to get going,” I hissed.

We each pulled on a pair of thin rubber gloves and Charlie shouldered his workbag. I opened the door as quietly as possible, locked it behind us, and we slipped down the hallway. We crept the short distance to the elevators, but ignored them, and went on to the stairwell. It was possible that there were a few tenants still in the building working late, and it was important that we didn’t run into any.

There were also two night security officers and we didn’t want to run into them either. With any luck they were holed up in their room on the third floor, drinking coffee and watching the sports channel. Or, better still, dozing.

We glided rapidly down fourteen flights of stairs, pausing briefly at each floor to listen for sounds of anyone else moving through the dark building. On the seventh floor I snuck into the washroom at the end of the corridor and refilled our empty water bottles with cold tap water. Continuing down the stairs, I paid special attention to the third floor and main floor but heard no-one.

At the stairwell door into the vault floor I paused and calmed myself. I turned the handle slowly, inching the door open, as if there might be some wild beast or monster awaiting us. But there was only the dank gloom of the unlit room, broken by even darker rectangles of elevator doors opposite.

There was also a large white video camera protruding from the ceiling, its red light indicating that it was active and able to record anything that moved. I hadn’t been able to establish how well these cameras worked in darkness – I suspected that they were useless, but it was just possible they had some infrared capability. In any case, we needed light to do our night’s work.

I’d scouted and recorded the exact location of this camera soon after I’d infiltrated the building. Fortunately it was placed right above the stairwell door. Even if it had been somewhere else, it wouldn’t have presented an insurmountable problem – there would just have been one more videotape on my ‘be sure to steal later’ list.

I reached up on tiptoe and was just tall enough to be able to cover the camera’s lens with a hood made from double-thickness baize cloth. I taped it on tightly and lowered my over-stretched arms. Now there was no chance of someone watching the tape and discovering our activities before the heist itself.

With the camera obscured, I flicked on the light switch, squinting when the stark fluorescent tubes came alive. On the far side of the room stood the enormous vault door, a great steel shield silently proclaiming ‘Strictly No Admittance’.

I led Charlie over to it and pointed out the magnetic alarm. He put his tool bag down and examined it from all sides.

“Anything there I didn’t see?” I asked him. This was my single greatest fear – that there was an alarm somewhere I had overlooked, that I just hadn’t noted, and that would send us both to jail.

Charlie stood on his tool bag to get extra height and I feared he might damage the contents. He eyeballed the magnetic alarm, his face a study in concentration, then jumped off the bag and peered closely at the rest of the circumference of the door. I waited impatiently for his diagnosis.

“Nah, you got everything. Key, combination, magnetic alarm, everything on a timer, that’s about it.”

He reached into his tool bag and took out the long metal plate. If my idea worked, this item would become a key feature of the heist. It was designed to fit perfectly over both halves of the magnet. Charlie had custom-made it according to my measurements and I watched anxiously as he lifted it up to the alarm. Had I got it right?