Lights Out!--A heist thriller involving the Mafia (19 page)

‘How much commission?'

‘It's usually fifteen per cent, but this is a big deal. Lots of risk. Twenty per cent.'

‘If that is what it must be,' she said. ‘What must I do?'

‘Nothing, Gina, just lay back and enjoy it.'

The meaning of his caustic comment was lost on her.

Now, as she sat on the terrace of the cottage that she would soon share with Smythe, the conflicting thoughts that had bombarded her drifted away with the breeze that cooled her lovely face and caused a mobile of hanging metal rods to jingle, their sound reminding her of church bells. He'd called Smythe a sugar daddy, which had rankled her. What was his friend, Joe Schott's wealthy, wrinkled widow-lover? A sugar mommy? She smiled at having thought of that.

‘Mrs Carlton Smythe,' she said aloud as she stood, took another loving glance at the scene from the terrace, and headed for her car. ‘It is good.'

A
fter calling Saison from his pool house office the previous night, Smythe and Cynthia watched television until eleven. She'd spent a considerable amount of money shopping with her mother that day and had modeled her purchases for her husband, who was appropriately admiring.

‘Tomorrow's opening should be special,' she told him during a commercial break.

‘What opening?'

‘Of
Don Giovanni
, silly.'

‘Oh, right, I've been so busy I forgot.'

‘The entire run is already sold out,' she said. ‘It's one of my favorite operas.'

‘Yes, you've said that.'

‘Check your tux, Carlton. You want to look your very best.'

He spent much of the next day in his office inside the house handling family financial matters, but found concentrating to be impossible. He checked the clock on the wall every five minutes, but the red hands never seemed to move across the white face. It was as though time had stood still, and he thought of old black-and-white movies in which the passage of time was indicated by calendar pages rapidly flipping across the screen. It was coming down to the wire, D-Day, when he would take a Herculean leap into a new life that was at once bright and sunny, and treacherously dark.

He napped that afternoon. When he got up, he told Cynthia that he had a dinner meeting with a potential client.

‘Who?' she asked.

‘A start-up tech firm,' he lied.

‘Here in Toronto?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's good, Carlton. No traveling.'

‘Yes, I don't want to travel anymore.'

‘Mother will be so pleased.'

‘That's good.'

‘I'm pleased, too.'

Saison had dressed better than usual for dinner with Smythe at Le Papillon. He wore a wrinkled blue sport jacket over a white shirt, and his chino pants were relatively free of stains. He'd arrived early and was on his second bourbon on the rocks when Smythe walked in.

‘You don't look so good, Smythe,' he said after they'd been shown to a corner table near a window.

‘I feel fine,' Smythe said, nervously surveying the handsome brick-walled room in search of familiar faces.

‘Have a drink, huh? I see little nerve ends sticking out of your head.'

‘Don't be silly. Yes, I will have a drink.'

‘So,' Saison said, ‘we get close to the big money, huh?'

‘Yes. We're almost there. I wanted to outline for you how you'll get your money once the blackout has occurred.'

Saison held up his index finger. ‘One minute, Smythe.' He waved over the waiter and ordered an expensive bottle of Cabernet and
crepes bretonnes
. ‘Oh,' he said as the waiter turned to leave, ‘and some
escargots en croute … 
OK, Smythe, I am listening.'

Smythe looked around before pulling a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket that he'd prepared earlier in the day. He unfolded it and placed it in front of Saison.

‘So what is this, huh?'

‘A drawing of my property.'

‘What, you want to sell me your house?' His laugh was annoying.

Smythe took a breath to calm himself. ‘I want to show you how and where you will get your money after the blackout.'

‘OK, Smythe, show me.'

Smythe used a butter knife from the table to point to things on the paper. ‘This is a sketch of my backyard. See? Here's the house and its back door to the yard. Here's the pool. See over here? That's a gate that leads into the yard from the street.'

‘So where's the money, Smythe?'

‘OK,' Smythe said, sitting back as their wine and food was delivered. When the waiter walked away, Smythe leaned closer to Saison again. ‘Here's what I've worked out, Paul. On the night of the blackout there will be a party at my house. I'll be there. But you mustn't come to the house. You understand?'

‘Yeah, sure.'

‘A few minutes before nine forty-five I'll go out and unlock the door to the pool house.' He pointed to it again with the butter knife. ‘Your money will be just inside the door in a box with your name on it. You come into the yard through the back gate, go to the pool house, open the door, take the box with the money, and leave immediately. Right?'

‘You go to a party the night we do this?' Saison said, incredulous.

‘Yes, of course. If I were to leave Toronto before the blackout, people would suspect that I had something to do with it. I plan to leave a few days later.' His First Class airline reservation to Buenos Aires was for Sunday, two days after the blackout.

Saison dug into the crepes and escargots as though he hadn't eaten in days. Smythe watched with disgust as the French-Canadian dribbled juice on the paper with the sketch, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Have some, Smythe. Good escargots, best in the city.'

Smythe half-heartedly ate. The waiter reappeared to take their order for entrées, filet mignon for Saison, salmon for Smythe.

‘Let's go over it one more time, Paul,' Smythe said. ‘You create the blackout at nine forty-five. You come to my house, park on the road, come through the gate into my yard, open the pool house door, take the box with the money, and leave immediately. Right? C
ompris?
'

‘Sure, sure, I understand. You don't speak good French, Smythe.'

‘Just as long as it's clear to you.'

Saison put the sketch in his pocket and they finished dinner, with Saison topping it off with
crème brulee
and a shot of aquavit.

‘Careful driving home, Paul,' Smythe said as they stood in the parking lot.

He watched Saison drive from the lot and disappear down the street. ‘Don't let me down, Paul,' he said aloud as he got behind the wheel and headed home. ‘Just don't let me down.'

Janet Kudrow had followed Smythe to the restaurant. She took telephoto shots of the two men saying goodbye in the parking lot, and had photographed Saison's license plate. She watched Smythe pull into his driveway which snaked around the house, and park next to a blue Jaguar. She called Miller, who told her to send him the pictures and to go home, which she was glad to hear. A favorite show was on TV that she didn't want to miss.

T
oronto's Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts was aglow on Thursday night for the premiere of Mozart's
Don
Giovanni
. As Cynthia and Smythe entered, he immediately saw among the throng of opera-goers Dominick Martone chatting with a half-dozen people, with Hugo and his skinny pal standing guard. He'd hoped that the Mafia don wouldn't be there that night, but since he was he had no choice but to acknowledge him.

‘Ah, Mr and Mrs Smythe,' Martone said as they approached. ‘A special night in Toronto.'

‘Good evening, Mr Martone,' Cynthia said, accepting his outstretched hand. Smythe, too, shook hands with him.

‘How are you, Mr Smythe?' Martone asked.

‘Me? Oh, I'm fine, just fine. And you?'

‘Couldn't be better.'

‘Is Mrs Martone with you?' Cynthia asked.

‘Unfortunately not. Maria is feeling under the weather.' He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. ‘Besides,
Don Giovanni
isn't her favorite opera.' He laughed. ‘She hates the character of Don Giovanni so much that the last time we saw it I was afraid she'd jump on the stage and personally rip out his immoral, cheating heart.'

Cynthia laughed. Smythe swallowed hard

Cynthia was called away by another board member.

‘Everything set?' Martone asked Smythe in a tone that promised terrible things if it wasn't.

Smythe nodded. ‘Yes, Dom, everything's set. Excuse me.'

He went to the men's room where he thought he might throw up. He splashed cold water on his face before finding his wife, who was being interviewed by a local music critic about future plans for COC. He waited until she was finished and accompanied her into the theater where choice seats were reserved for board members.

‘Are you still talking with Dominick Martone about doing business with him?' she whispered in his ear.

‘Ah, no, not anymore.'

‘Good. I don't think he's the sort of man you should be involved with. Not that I don't adore him for his support of COC. It's just that—'

The lights dimmed and the orchestra began its overture.

Sitting through an opera about the rapist, murderer, thrill-seeking, morally bankrupt Don Giovanni, who allowed his sexual drive to corrode his soul, was excruciating for Smythe, and when the vile cad was stabbed in the heart by a woman he'd sexually abused, then thrown out a window and accompanied to Hell by the rotting corpse of someone he'd murdered, Smythe felt that he was about to faint.

The audience jumped to its feet and gave the cast a rousing ovation. Smythe remained in his seat until Cynthia punched him on the shoulder and gave him a withering look.

A lavish cocktail party followed the production, and the evening would be extended back at the Smythe household for a select group of friends. Voices rang out throughout the house as wannabes did their version of operatic karaoke. By the time Smythe got into bed it was after two, and he wondered when he woke up whether he would be stabbed in his heart, then tossed through the window into the garden, where Cynthia and her mother waited with hatchets. That nightmare continued throughout the night, and he awoke the next morning, Friday, August twenty-second, drenched in sweat.

S
enator Miles Quinlin, frontrunner in the Democratic primary for president, rolled into Manhattan Friday morning with his entourage. It would be a day packed with fundraising events, culminating with a dinner at the Hilton Hotel that would add a few million dollars to his campaign coffers.

While Quinlin and his staff settled in their suite on the twelfth floor, Tengku and his small band of assassins ordered room service to their suite one floor below.

It was a bright, sunny day in New York City.

The forecast for that evening was for clear weather.

The weather forecast in Toronto for Friday, August twenty-second was for overcast skies, with an eighty per cent chance of showers and thunderstorms later in the day and into the evening.

For Carlton Smythe the forecast was for hurricane-force winds of anxiety and a deluge of emotions.

He went through the motions of helping Cynthia plan for that evening's party. He was pleased with the rainy forecast. It would keep guests from straying out into the gardens where Saison would be showing up to collect his money.

At noon, Smythe ran by his rented office where he picked up the box with Saison's name on it and brought it to the pool house, using the gate to enter the yard so as to not be seen by Cynthia or others in the main house. After locking the pool house door, he spent the rest of the afternoon doing what he could to ready the house for the arrival of guests. The caterers showed up at five and took over the kitchen, while Cynthia made multiple forays to issue last-minute instructions about the food and how she wanted it presented by the two uniformed waitresses.

Smythe was showered and dressed by six. Cynthia descended the staircase at six forty-five wearing a new purple-and-white dress she'd bought while shopping with her mother. Mrs Wiggins occupied the largest chair in the living room where she read that day's newspaper, half-glasses perched low on her aquiline nose, her eyes peering over them now and then to check on progress.

Guests began arriving at seven fifteen, greeted by Smythe and Cynthia at the door. A CD compilation of famous arias oozed from speakers in every room, and the volume of chatter increased with each arriving couple. It took every ounce of willpower for Smythe to assume a pleasant, relaxed demeanor, and to not look at his watch every thirty seconds.

The time passed with agonizing slowness.

Paul Saison's shift at Power-Can started at four that afternoon and ran until midnight. He arrived at work late, having stopped at a dive bar outside the plant to fortify himself with shots of vodka. Until that day he hadn't allowed the seriousness of what he was about to do, and the potential ramifications, to set in. Now, the only thing that kept him moving forward was the thought of a quarter-million dollars sitting in the pool house in back of Carlton Smythe's home.

Although he'd contemplated leaving Toronto and flying to Paris once he'd tripped the right switches to cause the blackout, he hadn't made any concrete plans and realized that he'd better do it now. Without a credit card – his Visa and MasterCard accounts had been closed for lack of payment – making an advance reservation would be difficult, if not impossible, so he decided simply to go to the airport once he had the money and take the next Paris flight, carrying with him only the bare necessities. He wouldn't tell Angelique that he was leaving. The hell with her. He, Paul Saison, deserved better, and he envisioned himself lounging in bed with Parisian paramours who knew how to treat a man, and who would appreciate his many charms.