The Chase (22 page)

“We aren’t going to be the ones who take him down. Carter is going to do it for us. But to make that happen, there is one little thing we have to do first.”

She sat down on the edge of one of the beds. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“We have to pull off the most daring and lucrative museum heist in Canadian history. And it has to be done in Montreal on July first in broad daylight.”

“That’s only a week away. Why does it have to be that specific day?”

“July first is the Fête du Déménagement, the day when people in Quebec move to new homes. It’s a tradition that goes back to the eighteenth century. A quarter million people in Montreal move on that day every year, clogging the streets with boxes, furniture, appliances, and trucks. It’s also Canada Day, so you can throw a few parades into the mix, too. Those are the perfect conditions for committing the perfect crime.”

“But a week leaves you no time for planning.”

“I don’t need any. I’ve been thinking about this heist for years. I just needed an excuse to do it. Carter is it.”

“You have my attention,” she said.

“We’re going to steal some Rembrandt masterpieces from the Musée de Florentiny in a robbery so audacious that it will capture the world’s attention,” Nick said. “And especially Carter Grove’s. We’ll offer to sell the paintings through Julian Starke, the dealer du jour for stolen art.”

“It’s clever, I’ll give you that,” Kate said. “But Bolton will never authorize it.”

“Don’t tell him. You’ve been suspended, remember? Think of this as a vacation abroad with some friends.”

“What friends did you have in mind?”

“We’re going to need Joe, Boyd, and Willie.”

Kate shook her head. “We got them to believe we’re two unconventional PIs with big expense accounts who will go to extremes to nail bad guys and undo wrongs. But now we’re asking them to help us steal Rembrandts from a museum in Montreal. I don’t see a way to spin this that doesn’t make us look like crooks.”

“We’re only borrowing the paintings. The museum will eventually get them back.”

“What makes you think they’ll believe that?”

“What makes you think they’ll care? Willie
is
a crook. As long as we give her something to drive, fly, or pilot she’ll be happy. Boyd is an actor, all that matters to him is the part that he’s playing. And Joe hates Carter even more than we do and will appreciate the lengths we’re willing to go to nail him.”

“Why can’t we just throw a grenade into Carter’s house, dress up like firefighters, and discover his stolen art when we rush in with the
real
firemen to put out the flames? That will expose his crimes, ruin him, and bring down BlackRhino.”

Nick smiled. “I like the way you think, but I’m sure his collection isn’t in Palm Beach anymore. He’s too smart to leave it where it was after we broke in. He has to realize that not only do we know about the collection, but someone high up in the FBI has to know as well. Leaving it in that house would be like sitting on a ticking timebomb.”

“So you’re saying that robbing a museum in broad daylight a week from now is the only way we can deal with Carter.”

“The alternative is to give me to Carter.” She stared at him. “How did you know that’s what he wants me to do?”

“It’s politics. He wants someone’s scalp for stealing his rooster. You’re an FBI agent. Taking you out could bring the United States government down on him. I’m an international fugitive. Nobody will come after him if I disappear. I’m expendable.”

“Not to me,” Kate said. “I’ll never let that happen.”

“You won’t have to. I’ll make a deal with you. If this plan doesn’t work, I’ll walk into BlackRhino headquarters and give myself up.”

“Why would you do a stupid, suicidal thing like that?”

“I won’t let your family get hurt for something I’ve done.”

“
We’ve
done. I was as much a part of it as you were. I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I’ve been a terrible influence on you.”

Kate gave up a sigh. This was true.

When Joe Morey returned from Palm Beach, he immediately quit his job at Best Buy, bought a new Camaro, and moved into a condo complex in Marina del Rey.

The complex was packed with flight attendants, who liked it because they were close to the beach and LAX. It was also packed with divorced middle-aged men, who liked it because they were close to the flight attendants. On move-in day, Joe was horrified to find that the parking garage was filled with Camaros, and that there were more potbellied men around the pool than hot young women.

That horror evolved into depression on his second day there. He sat on a chaise beside the pool, in a T-shirt and board shorts, watching those newly single men, their guts hanging over their Speedos like muffin tops, ogle the women in bikinis. Did those guys really think they had a shot at the women? Joe knew his luck wouldn’t be any better. Sure, he had youth on his side, all his hair, and a flat stomach, but most of those men probably had good jobs and things happening in their lives that might make them attractive enough for a woman to overlook their man boobs.

What did he have going for him? Zilch. Even his financial independence was an illusion. The money from the Carter Grove caper wouldn’t last long, especially in Los Angeles, so he knew he’d have to do something to make more money and occupy his mind. But he was unemployable in corporate America after what
had happened at Gant Security. So what kind of job was he going to get? Two years from today he could be back in a Geek Squad uniform, teaching some old lady how to tweet.

And that’s when an angel in the form of Kate O’Hare appeared in front of him in sunglasses, a tank top, and jeans. He blinked hard to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Hello, Joe,” she said. “Have you got something in your eye?”

“No, no, it’s the glare. Please sit down.” He gestured to the chaise next to his and propped up the backrest for her so she could sit straight. “I didn’t expect to see you again. I mean, I don’t mind, it’s just that I thought it was only a one-time thing.”

Joe realized it sounded like he was talking about a one-night stand rather than the robbery they’d committed together. Then again, the two situations did have some things in common. They were both illicit, exciting, and maybe a little shameful.

“So did I,” she said. “The thing is, it bothers us that we got the rooster back but Carter didn’t really get punished for what he did.”

“Guys like him never do,” Joe said.

“We think there might be a way to get him after all.” Kate leaned toward him, close enough to whisper in his ear. “But we’d have to rob a museum in Montreal to do it.”

Joe’s heartbeat jacked up as if he’d been shocked with defibrillator paddles. His depression vanished too. The idea of nailing Carter, and experiencing the thrill of another caper, was the antidote to all of his worries, at least temporarily.

“I’m in,” he said.

She whispered in his ear again, and that was almost as exciting as the words she was speaking. “You do realize we’re talking about committing a major felony in a foreign country, right?”

Yes, he did, and it was great. Larger than life. Well, certainly
larger than
his
life. Just being asked to participate meant that he wasn’t pathetic Joe Morey, ex–Geek Squad guy and prematurely middle-aged man anymore. He was slick Joe Morey, an international man of action possessing special skills. All of a sudden he was certain that he could easily pick up any of the women by the pool and give them the best night of their lives.

“Whatever it takes,” he said. “That bastard has to go down.”

“We’ll pay you another hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but I want you to think about the risk involved. You could end up in a Canadian prison if this goes wrong.”

How bad could a Canadian prison be? It was in Canada. Canadians were civilized. It had to be better than going back to the Geek Squad. And if he pulled this heist off, he’d have twice as much money socked away, buying him another two years to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

“I understand that,” Joe said. “But there’s nothing I want more than to see Carter Grove behind bars.”

That was at least partly true.

She looked at him for a long moment. “You used to sell security systems, but you sacrificed your career to expose criminal wrongdoing at your company. Now you’re cracking security systems and stealing stuff. You’ve done a complete about-face for us. Has it occurred to you that maybe we’re just a couple thieves taking advantage of you?”

Actually it hadn’t, but he didn’t want her to think he was so blinded by his hatred of Carter, hobbled by insecurity, and desperate for money that he hadn’t considered all of the angles.

“Of course it did,” he said. “But a real thief wouldn’t be so bothered by her conscience that she’d keep trying to talk me out of the job she wants me to do.”

“Maybe I’m using reverse psychology.”

“Fine,” Joe said. “I’d better see Carter Grove doing a perp walk when this is over, or I’ll go to the feds. Feel better?”

“Much,” she said.

Of course he was bluffing. If he turned her in, he’d be confessing to a crime himself, which would probably get him sent to an American prison, and he knew they were bad. He’d watched
Lockup
on MSNBC. So no, he wouldn’t do anything if he found out he was being tricked.

But Kate probably knew that. She just needed to hear him say he’d turn her in, and that had a powerful impact on him. It convinced him that she was honest, even if she was doing something inherently dishonest, and that she genuinely cared about his safety.

The needle on the Corvette Stingray V-8’s speedometer was passing 150 miles per hour, and the tachometer needle was shivering near the 6500 rpm redline, when the car salesman in the passenger seat let out a frightened squeal and gripped Wilma Owens’s thigh in terror.

Willie was in her mid-fifties but looked twenty years younger, if you didn’t look too close. Her hair had been bleached to the color and texture of straw. Her boobs had been surgically hoisted and stuffed with silicone. And her taste in clothes screamed redneck slut. She had the uncanny ability and insatiable desire to drive or pilot anything with a motor in it, from a bus to a blimp, whether she owned it or not. Her tendency to borrow vehicles for joy rides often got her into trouble, which is how she’d come to Nick’s attention. Getting Willie out of one of those jams was how Nick had recruited her for the first swindle he and Kate had pulled off together.

The Corvette salesman’s hand had been doing a slow creep up Willie’s bare thigh since they’d left the Phoenix dealership, where she’d shown up all cowgirl in short denim cutoffs, her shirt tied under her breasts, her power nipples pointing at the Stingray and hypnotizing every man in the showroom. A square-chinned salesman named Buddy, with a mustache like Hitler’s, gladly stepped up and offered her a test drive before she could ask. She’d learned that alert nipples could get her into more cars than a slim jim, which was why she’d augmented hers today with a pair of Bodyperk silicone stiffies.

Buddy broke out of his nipple trance the instant she shifted into seventh gear on the two-lane desert highway and the scenery became a blur outside the windows. It was like the
Millennium Falcon
going into hyperdrive.

“You can’t go this fast,” Buddy said. “It’s a test drive.”

“When you buy a Corvette, honey, it’s for the 460 horses under the hood, and you aren’t going to feel ’em parallel parking.”

“This car isn’t meant to be driven this hard.”

“They didn’t put seven gears in this transmission for dropping the kids at school and going grocery shopping. It should be against the law to sell this car to anybody who isn’t going to make the tachometer lick the redline at least once a week.”

Willie’s cell phone buzzed in the hip pocket of her short shorts. She squirmed in her seat to pull out the phone and the car veered into the next lane. Buddy yelped and clutched her thigh again. She answered the phone, slowing to ninety-five while steering with one hand. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Nick said. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“I’m having a great time,” she said. “I’m test-driving the new Corvette Stingray.”

“Does the owner know it’s missing yet?”

“I’ve got the salesman right here.” She held the phone out to him. “Say hello, Buddy.”

“It’s against the law to talk on a cell phone while you’re driving,” Buddy said. “You’ll get a ticket.”

“A cop would have to catch me first, and if he can then you’ve got some balls selling this car for seventy-five thousand dollars.” Willie put the phone back to her ear. “What’s up?”

“I need you for a job.”

“What will I be driving?”

“A moving truck,” he said. “I know it’s not as sexy as a Corvette, but it pays better.”

“How much?”

“More than enough to buy yourself that car.”

“That would take the fun out of it, sweetie. I like cars the way I like my men. I pick them up, grab the stick, and drive them hard down the straightaways and fast around the curves.”

“Is Buddy panting yet?” Nick asked.

“Are you?”

“I’m taking a cold shower as soon as we get off the phone,” Nick said. “Are you in?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great. You’ve got a reservation at one-thirty this afternoon out of Sky Harbor on United Airlines flight 1607 to JFK, where Joe Morey will be waiting for you. I need you two to pick up a van for me in the Bronx and drive it up to Montreal. I’ll text you the addresses and details. Can you make it?”

She made a sharp U-turn and floored it, throwing Buddy hard against the passenger side door.

“With time to spare,” she said.

• • •

“Cut,” the director said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Now everybody in the film crew let go of the sobs they’d been holding back while the cameras were rolling. They were crowded into a diner on the San Pedro docks and had just shot a scene about a waitress turning down a date with a lonely fisherman played by Boyd Capwell and, because of his bad breath, leaving him heartbroken and confused.