Criminal Enterprise (23 page)

T
HEY PLAYED IT AS BEFORE.

Tricia took the first guard as he walked from the van to the cash-advance storefront. Fired a warning blast with her shotgun and froze the scene.

Tomlin fired a burst at the guard in the back of the truck. Advanced and kept firing as the man ducked for cover, begging for his life. Tomlin laughed in his face. Shot him dead.

Tomlin climbed inside the truck and threw the guard’s body to the pavement. Then he searched the compartment. Found three big bags of cash and chucked them out the doors. The rest of the cargo was paperwork. Waste of time. Tomlin jumped out of the truck, lifted the money bags and hurried back to the Civic. He was almost at the trunk when someone fired behind him.

The first bullet smashed a windshield about three feet away. Tomlin felt it whiz by. Heard the glass shatter. He ducked and spun around with the rifle, saw the third guard, the driver, crouched along the side of his vehicle, pistol aimed square in his direction.

Tomlin squeezed off another burst with the rifle. The guy ducked back and hugged the pavement. Stayed covered. Then Tricia came back to the Civic, started hefting bags of money into the trunk.

Tomlin steadied his breathing. Focused on the guard by the truck and fired again. Missed high and wide. More windshields shattered. More screaming. The guard disappeared behind the truck again, safe.

Then Tricia made a noise behind Tomlin. He turned and saw the first guard tackle her to the ground. The shotgun clattered away. Tomlin stayed in a crouch and ran over. Grabbed for the guard as the asshole by the truck started firing again.

Tomlin turned and returned fire. Missed again. The guy ducked back, though, as Dragan started out of the Civic, his pistol drawn. “Don’t worry about her,” Tomlin told him. “Get back in the car.”

Dragan hesitated. Then he moved again for Tricia. Tomlin reached for his own pistol. “Have it your way,” he said. “I guess now’s as good as ever.”

Pow.

Dragan staggered back, his eyes wide, brought his hand to his chest. Tomlin shot him again. Dragan fumbled for his gun. Dropped it. A split second later, he dropped to the pavement.

Pow,
Tomlin thought.
You like that?

The guard at the truck was making another move. Tomlin fired again with the rifle. Heard the click as the magazine emptied. He had extra mags in the Civic, but no time.
The money’s already loaded,
he realized.
I could climb behind the wheel and take off, leave Tricia to the law and take every penny for myself.

He glanced back at Tricia.
Or I could have her, too.
He ducked and hurried back to the fight. Grabbed the guard and threw him away. Drew his pistol again and shot him. The guard writhed on the pavement as Tomlin turned back to find Tricia was gone.

She’d run over to Dragan, oblivious to the third guard and his gun. Tomlin fired at the armored truck and slammed the Civic’s trunk closed. Ran to Tricia and dragged her, screaming and fighting, to the passenger door. He wrenched the door open and threw her inside, then hurried back to the driver’s side and pulled Dragan’s body away from the door. Slid behind the wheel and stepped on the gas.

D
OUGHTY WAS
ALREADY
on scene when Windermere pulled up in the Chevelle with Stevens. She parked beside her partner’s Crown Vic and climbed out and surveyed the chaos.

Just like yesterday: a sketchy mini-mall, a check-cashing joint, a blue armored truck, and a gaggle of police officers, news reporters, bystanders. A light snow starting to fall, the clouds cold and gray overhead, a storm threatening. A medical examiner’s van pushed through the crowd, horn blaring, and Windermere watched its slow progress.
More bodies,
she thought.
This guy’s on a rampage.

Doughty climbed out of his Crown Vic and looked across the Chevelle at Stevens. “Who’s this?” he asked Windermere.

“Stevens. He’s BCA.” She kept her eyes on the scene. Saw a guy walking around in an armored guard’s uniform, which probably meant Tomlin hadn’t killed everybody. Small miracles.

Doughty made a face like he’d bit into a lemon. “What’s he doing here?”

“Stevens gave me Tomlin, Bob,” Windermere told him. “He broke this thing open.”

Doughty studied Stevens. Stevens held his gaze.
Good for you both,
Windermere thought.
Let’s turn this into a big pissing contest.
She walked away from the men and toward the cluster of city cops and forensic technicians. Counted two bodies, plus a crowd at the ambulance.
Shit,
she thought.
Worse than yesterday?

She nudged her way through the cops standing ringside. Made the middle of the mob and looked down at the first body: not a guard. A young acne-scarred kid in an Adidas soccer jacket. Two shots to the chest and one to the stomach. Windermere caught the eye of the nearest cop. “This guy a bystander?”

The cop shrugged. “They say he’s a perp.”

She looked at the body again. Heard footsteps and turned to find Doughty and Stevens coming at her. “He’s one of them,” she said. “Maybe. One of Tomlin’s crew.”

Stevens looked past her. He nodded. “Not so easy the second time around.”

“Guess not.” She spotted another guard in the crowd. “Hey,” she said. “What happened?”

The guard gave her a thousand-yard stare. “You a reporter?”

She showed him her badge, and he glanced at it and looked off again. “Ambush,” he said. “Three of them. Just like yesterday.”

“Who’s the dead kid?”

The guard looked past her at the crowd of cops. He shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “I was too busy not getting shot.”

Windermere waited, but the guard wasn’t talking. She walked back through the crowd, looking for his companions. Stevens called her name. “Over here.” She found him by the ambulance, where a couple of harried paramedics were treating a second guard for a gunshot wound to the stomach. “Tell her what you told me,” said Stevens.

The guard had the eyes of a battle-weary soldier. Probably in shock. Another young kid, barely in his twenties. “Just tell me what happened,” Windermere told him. “Take your time.”

The guard glanced at Stevens again, exhaled. “We stopped out front here,” he said. “I went to bring in the money, and they came in behind us.”

“You get a look at their car?”

The guard thought about it. “Civic.”

“Maybe a Camry?”

He shook his head. “Civic. Silver, kitted out. Blue racing stripes.”

Windermere swapped a glance with Stevens. “So they ambushed you,” she said. “How’d it play?”

“They started shooting,” the kid said. “I figured they aimed to kill everyone, like they did yesterday. I couldn’t stand for it. I made a run at the girl.”

Henderson. “Then what?”

“This is what you need to hear,” Stevens told her.

“That young kid was driving the Civic.” The guard gestured toward the body. “He come out of the car when I jumped the girl. The other guy with the rifle said something to him and then he took out a pistol and capped him.”

Windermere looked at Stevens again. Stevens shrugged. “You’re saying the one bad guy shot the other bad guy,” Windermere said.

“Point-blank. Then he came for me.”

“Couldn’t have been your partner shot him?”

The guard shook his head. “I saw the guy do it. Corner of my eye. I had the girl pinned, and I looked back and
bang
.”

“Bang.”
Windermere looked at Stevens. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

“He shot Howie, too,” said the guard. “Back of the truck. Would have shot me dead, but Carl laid down, covering fire. Saved my ass.”

Windermere thanked the guard. Nodded to the paramedics, who lifted Dragon’s stretcher and slid it into the back of the ambulance. Slammed the doors closed, and the ambulance drifted off through the chaos. Windermere watched it go. Then she turned back to Stevens. “Two dead,” she said. “One guard and one bad guy.”

“Both killed by Tomlin,” said Stevens.

“Why the hell does he shoot his own guy?”

Stevens shook his head. “Disagreement or something? I can’t make it work.”

She surveyed the parking lot, her eyes dark and troubled. “He’s losing control,” she said finally. “That downward spiral I mentioned. And whatever his endgame is, Stevens, it’s coming, and fast.”

T
RICIA RAN
FOR
the bathroom as soon as Tomlin unlocked the door. He watched her disappear. Heard the door slam. Listened to her sob through the motel room’s thin wall. He tried the door handle. Locked. He stood outside the door for a minute and then walked back out to the Civic and popped the trunk open. Took the money out and started to move the bags to the Jaguar.

Three bags today. All filled with cash. About six hundred grand. Added to yesterday’s score and that was a million five. More than enough to retire on.

Tomlin emptied the Civic of all but a half-used roll of duct tape and the duffel bag with the guns, nearly buried amid a pile of fast-food wrappers. He brought yesterday’s bags from the motel room and packed them into the Jaguar as well. Ran out of room in the trunk halfway through and shoved the last couple bags in the backseat. A snow started to fall as he worked, the sky gray and foreboding. The AM newscaster had promised a blizzard.

Tomlin slammed closed the Jag’s door and walked back to the room. Tried the bathroom door again. Still locked. No sounds from within. Tomlin knocked. “Tricia?”

Something rustled inside. “Go away.”

“We made a shitload of money today,” he said. “Maybe six hundred grand. We’re rich, both of us.”

She made a strangled sound. “I don’t care.”

He walked back to the beds and sat down and turned on the news. The anchor was talking about the blizzard outside. Said it would cripple the Twin Cities all weekend. Then he switched stories, and Tomlin saw his own face on the screen. The picture was cropped from a family shot, the four of them at Dave and Buster’s. Heather’s birthday, last year. He had a forced smile on his face. He’d been annoyed, he remembered; the video-game machines were too loud, and their waitress too chipper. The girls, though, had loved it, and he had studied their happy faces in the rearview mirror on the ride home and decided it was probably worth it.

“Carter Tomlin,” read the tagline beneath the picture. “Armed and dangerous.”

Tomlin shook his head and turned up the volume. “Tomlin, a Saint Paul accountant, is suspected of killing two armored truck guards yesterday in Minneapolis in a daring heist worth a reported one million dollars.”

Nine hundred thousand
,
but who’s counting?

“Tomlin is also suspected of having murdered another armored guard, as well as an unidentified accomplice, in a similar raid this morning. The two surviving suspects are driving a silver Honda Civic with street-racer accessories, and are armed with high-powered assault weapons. Authorities are urging citizens to exercise extreme caution when dealing with these two dangerous criminals.”

We’ll have to get to another city,
Tomlin thought.
Chicago’s the best bet. Maybe too close, though. Detroit, or Saint Louis. New York, even. Find someone to change our cash into overseas funds. Buy new identities somewhere, get plane tickets, and go.
Then Mexico. A quiet beach. Palm trees. Piña coladas and tanning oil
. Tomlin pictured Tricia in some skimpy bikini.
She’ll come around,
he decided.
She’ll forget her little boyfriend soon enough.

The newscaster switched back to the blizzard again, and Tomlin stood and walked to the window. Peeled back the curtain and looked out at the desolate lot, at the snow.
We need to get out of here.
Before this goddamn blizzard shuts down the whole state.
He walked to the bathroom door again. “Tricia.”

“Leave me alone,” she said. “Please.”

Tomlin leaned against the door. “We need to get moving. Dragan’s car is on the news. My face, and yours. They know us. We need to get out before this storm really hits.”

Silence. He heard rustling again. Then the door clicked and swung open and Tricia stared out at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes puffy and red. She stared at Tomlin, depleted, her whole body limp. “What the hell am I going to do?”

Tomlin looked at her, admiring the curves of her body through the tight shirt she wore, the tap pants that clung to her hips. He wanted her, badly. He would have her. “We’re getting out of here,” he told her. “You and me. Together.”

S
CHULTZ STOPPED AT
a Denny’s by the highway and tore a page out of the phone book chained to the pay phone outside. He ate a chicken sandwich inside and studied the rumpled paper, a long, greasy list of Twin Cities Tomlins, and then set out again in search of his target.

There were five entries for “Tomlin, C,” in the Saint Paul Yellow Pages, their addresses scattered across the four points of the compass. Schultz worked from the outskirts in, worked all day, knocked on four different doors with his gun in his waistband and got nothing but blank stares and headshakes for his time.

The sun was halfway through setting when he turned the truck toward the last name on the list, a Summit Avenue address downtown. Schultz flipped on the news as he drove, sat up straight when he heard Tomlin’s name. The fucker was still on the loose: He’d taken down an armored truck yesterday and another one this morning. Two dead in yesterday’s heist. Two more today.

He was still at large—that was the main thing—and flush with ready cash. The trouble now would be making the connection. Finding the bastard and taking his money.

Darkness had fallen by the time Schultz pulled into downtown Saint Paul. He parked under a streetlight on a side road, spread a map of the city on his dashboard, and compared it with the page he’d torn from the phone book. Summit Avenue. Not too far away now.

Schultz wondered how Tomlin would act on his own turf. Truth be told, his memory of their first meeting was a little hazy. The concussion had knocked a lot of shit out of him, and anyway, he’d been pretty buzzed beforehand. He remembered the guy’s face and how nervous he’d seemed. How surprised he’d been when the geek reared back and hit him.

Schultz piloted the truck through a maze of dark streets, the houses growing in size as he drove deeper into the neighborhood. It was snowing now, heavy, and the truck scrabbled for traction when he pressed on the gas, fishtailed as he pulled away from stop signs.

He found Summit Avenue. The houses were huge now, the lawns vast, and he had to squint through the shadows for house numbers in the flying snow. Then he found the place. As big as any on the block, with an enormous expanse of lawn spread out before it. The lights were on everywhere; it looked like a cruise ship on an empty sea. Schultz pulled the truck over.
Bingo,
he thought.
Bet the bastard has a shit ton of cash hidden in there.

Schultz picked up the TEC-9 from the seat beside him and reached for his door handle. Then he stopped. Something was wrong, though he couldn’t quite place it. There was a big Lincoln Navigator in Tomlin’s driveway: probably the same truck he drove down to Hastings. No problem there. Schultz looked up through the big picture window, watched shadows play on the walls as someone moved inside.

Schultz stuffed the gun in his waistband and climbed out of the truck. He started along the sidewalk toward the front walk, creeping slowly, surveying the street as he walked. Halfway down the block, he saw the sedan. A flat-drab Crown Vic, unmarked, a light bar in the rear window.

Fucking cops,
Schultz thought, climbing back in the truck.
I could smell them.
He drove away from the house and off through the snow.
I’ll find a bar for a while
, he thought.
Have a drink or two, calm the nerves. I’ll wait until it’s darker and everybody’s asleep. Then I’ll come back and rob the joint.