The Millionaires (24 page)

Nodding to herself, Joey turned under the awning and peered through the double glass doors that led to the lobby. Inside,
a doorman was hunched against the front desk, flipping through the newspaper. No uniform; no tie; no problem. Just another
daddy’s little girl’s first apartment.

Painting on a wide grin, Joey unclipped her cell phone from her belt, held it to her ear, and pulled open the door. “Uch,
I hate it when they do that!” she whined into the phone. “Panty hose are so middle-class.”

“What’re you talking about?” Noreen asked.

“You heard me!” Joey shouted. She blew by the doorman without a wave and stormed straight for the elevator. The doorman shook
his head. Typical.

Twenty-three floors later, Joey rang the bell for Apartment 23H.

“Who is it?” a female voice answered.

“Teri Gerlach—from the National Association of Securities Dealers,” Joey explained. “Oliver Caruso recently applied for his
Series-7 license, and since he listed you as one of his references, we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions.”
As she said the words, Joey knew there was no reference check for the Series-7, but it never slowed her down before.

There was a quiet clink and Joey could feel herself being studied through the eyehole. Once it got dark outside, women in
New York had plenty of reasons to not open their doors to strangers.

“Who else did he list?” the voice challenged.

For effect, Joey pulled a small notepad from her purse. “Let’s see… a mother by the name of Margaret… a brother, Charles…
Henry Lapidus from Greene Bank… and a girlfriend named Beth Manning.”

Chains whirred and locks thunked. As the door opened, Beth stuck her head out. “Didn’t Oliver already take his Series-7?”

“This is for the renewal, Miss Manning,” Joey said matter-of-factly. “But we still like to check the references.” She motioned
back to the notepad and offered a perfectly pleasant smile. “I promise, it’s just a few simple questions—painless as can be.”

Shrugging at no one in particular, Beth moved back from the door. “You’ll just have to excuse the mess…”

“Don’t worry,” Joey laughed as she stepped inside and waved a hand against Beth’s forearm. “My place is fifty times worse.”

* * * *

Francis Quincy wasn’t a pacer. Or even a worrier. In fact, when the lid on the pressure cooker clamped down, while everyone
else was anxiously roving back and forth across the carpet, Quincy was the one stuck to his seat, quietly calculating the
odds. Even when his fourth daughter was born three months premature, Quincy stepped back and took silent solace in the fact
that eighty percent of similarly aged babies turn out just fine. Back then, the numbers were in his favor. Today, they were
out of his control. He still didn’t pace.

“Did he say anything else?” Quincy asked dryly.

“Nothing… less than nothing,” Lapidus said, rapping his middle knuckle over and over against the desk. “They just want us
to keep a tight lip.”

Quincy nodded, standing alone by the window in the corner. Staring out at the electric skyline, he reached up and gripped
the top of the butterfly-covered shoji screen for support. “Maybe we should wait a day before telling the partners.”

“Are you crazy? If they found out we were holding back… Quincy, they’d drink our blood for breakfast.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Henry, but they’ll be screaming for blood no matter what—and until we find Oliver and that
money, there’s nothing we can do.”

Lapidus’s knuckle rapped even harder. “I already called twice. Gallo hasn’t called back.”

“If it’ll make it easier, Henry, I’m happy to take a stab at it.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Maybe Gallo needs to hear it in both ears,” Quincy suggested. “Just to tip the scales a little.”

Lapidus paused, studying his partner. “Yeah… no… that’d be great.”

Almost immediately, Quincy headed for the door.

“Just don’t forget whose side Gallo and DeSanctis are on,” Lapidus called out. “When it comes right down to it, law enforcement
is just like any other client—out for their own peanut.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Quincy said as he left the room. “I know all about it.”

* * * *

“So how’re we looking?” DeSanctis asked, cradling the phone with his chin.

“Hard to say. Obviously, we hit a few speedbumps, but I think it’s all about to smooth out,” his associate explained. “What
about there? How’s Gallo doing with the mom?”

Peering through the one-way glass, DeSanctis watched as Gallo helped Mrs. Caruso thread her arms into her coat. “We’ve got
it covered,” DeSanctis said dryly.

“You don’t sound too confident…”

“I’ll be confident when we have them,” he insisted. Charlie and Oliver may’ve gotten away once, but it wasn’t going to happen
again. Not with stakes like this.

“Have you thought about calling in other agents?”

“No—no way,” DeSanctis shot back. “Believe me, we don’t want that headache.”

“So you really think you and Gallo can keep it quiet?”

“Personally, I don’t see much of a choice—for any of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” DeSanctis said coldly. Through the glass, Gallo led Mrs. Caruso out of the interrogation room. “You just do your
job, and we’ll do ours. As long as that’s taken care of, they don’t have a chance.”

H
ere you go,” Oz says, slapping a blue-and-white Continental Airlines envelope against Charlie’s chest. I rip mine open; Charlie
does the same. Flight 201—9:50 tonight, nonstop to Miami.

“You didn’t put us next to each other, did you?” I ask.

Oz stings me with the same do-I-look-like-a-schmuck look I usually get from Charlie. Still, this is no time to take chances.
“25C,” I tell my brother.

He studies his ticket. “7B.” Turning to Oz, Charlie adds, “You stuck me in a middle seat, didn’t you?”

Oz rolls his eyes. It’s always been Charlie’s best magic trick. Keep ’em talking. Reaching down to the laminating machine
that’s balanced on a stack of boxes, Oz picks up the iron-on wrapper and peels it open. “Remember that crappy fake ID that
helped you buy beer in high school?” he brags. “Well, say hello to the real thing…” Like a cop flashing his badge, Oz shoves
the laminated card straight at us. Without question, it’s a perfect New Jersey license, complete with my picture and brand-new
black hair.

“Spiffy,” Charlie adds.

Oz told us to pick easy-to-remember names. Charlie’s says Sonny Rollins, jazz master and legend. Mine says Walter Harvey,
dad’s first and middle names. Physically and in name, we’re no longer brothers.

Charlie kisses the picture of himself. “Mmmmm, mmmm—this baby’s gold…”

“But it ain’t foolproof,” Oz warns in full Hoboken accent. “Like I tell everyone, don’t put all your eggs on the ID. It may
get you on the plane… and maybe into a motel… but it only gets you so far…”

“What do you mean?” I interrupt.

“It’s just the way the world spins,” Oz explains. “No matter how fast you think you are, three things always pull the rug
out: ego, greed, and sex.” Knowing he has our attention, his high voice gets quicker. “Ego—you mouth off to your waiter; you’re
a jerk to the maître d’—that’s how the guy at the restaurant remembers you and picks you out for the cops. Greed—you buy a
big watch; you bite off five lobster dinners in a row—that’s how the bartender recognizes your photo. And sex—baby, that’s
why all the clichés are true. Ain’t nothing like a woman scorned.”

“Do you see this streaky blond hair?” Charlie asks, pointing to himself. “And his nasty black bird’s nest?” he adds, pointing
to me. “From here on in, women are the least of our worries.”

“So when you add in the travel and everything else,” I interrupt, “how long you think we have before people realize we’re
gone?”

Oz turns to his computer and studies Charlie’s fake driver’s license, which is still staring back at us from the screen. “Hard
to say,” Oz replies as his voice gets shaky. “Depends who you’re running from.”

W
attya mean,
Wonder Bread?
” Noreen asked through the cell phone.

“Wonder Bread,” Joey repeated as she drove back through Brooklyn. “As in
yawn
… as in
boring
… as in
whiter than white.
I’m telling you, whatever Oliver sees in her—this girl’s as exciting as a speedbump. I knew the moment I walked in: flower-patterned
sofa, with matching throw pillows, with matching carpet, with matching coasters, and a matching Monet poster on the wall…”

“Hey, don’t bust on Monet—”

“It was
Water Lilies,
” Joey interrupted.

There was a pause. “Well then, you should’ve killed her right there.”

“You’re missing the point,” Joey insisted. “It’s not like there’s anything wrong with her—she’s nice, and she smiles, and
she’s pretty… but, that’s it. Every once in a while, she blinks. There’s nothing else.”

“Maybe she’s just an introvert.”

“I asked her for a funny story about Oliver, and all she could come up with was ‘
He’s nice
’ and ‘
He’s sweet.
’ That’s as excited as she gets.”

“Okay, so she’s probably not in on it with the brothers. Did she give you anything else about Oliver?”

“See, that’s the tickle,” Joey said as her car bounced across the potholes of Avenue U. “Oliver may be a nice guy, but if
he’s dating Beth, he can’t be much of a daredevil.”

“So?”

“So think about how that fits with the other pieces: Here’s a twenty-six-year-old kid scrimping and saving with the age-old
dream of getting out of Brooklyn. He gets his kid brother a job, pays for mom’s mortgage, and basically plays dad full-time.
At work, he spends four years as boy Friday to Lapidus, hoping it’s an inside track to stardom. Clearly, he’s got bigger aspirations—but
does he break out and start his own company? Not a chance. Instead, he applies to business school and decides to take the
safe road to riches…”

“Maybe Lapidus wanted him to go to business school.”

“It’s not just B-school, Noreen. Pay attention to the details. In Oliver’s recycling bin was a subscription to SpeedRead.
Y’know what that is?” When Noreen didn’t answer, Joey explained, “They put out a monthly pamphlet summarizing all the top
business books so you can have something smart to say at cocktail parties. In Oliver’s world, he actually thinks that matters.
He thinks the system works. That’s why he waits in line—and that’s why he goes out with Beth.”

“I’m not sure I’m following…”

“And I’m not sure there’s anything to follow,” Joey admits. “I can’t describe it… it’s just that… people who date the Beths
of the world… they’re the last ones to plan a three-hundred-million-dollar heist.”

“Wait a minute,” Noreen blurted, “so now you think they’re—”

“They’re not innocent,” Joey insisted. “If they were, they wouldn’t be running. But for Oliver to leave his happy little comfort
zone… there’s clearly something else we’re not seeing. People don’t change their spots without a damn good reason.”

“If it makes you feel better, Fudge told me we should have most of the research tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Joey said as she turned onto Bedford Avenue. Unlike the last time she was here, the light gray sky was now pitch
black, making it look less like a neighborhood and more like a dark alley. Still, even in the darkness, one thing stood out:
the telephone company truck parked in front of Maggie Caruso’s building. Pulling in close, Joey glided by the van and studied
her rearview. Two agents were in the front bucket seats.

“Everything okay?” Noreen asked through the cell phone.

“I’ll tell you in a second.” Heading halfway up the block, Joey ducked the car into a private driveway diagonally across from
the building and cut the engine. Close enough to see, but still far enough not to be noticed. Squinting toward the van, she
knew it didn’t make sense. Black bag jobs were supposed to be in and out. If they were still here, something was up. Maybe
they found something, Joey thought. Or maybe they were waiting for—

Before she could finish the thought, tires screeched and a car turned onto the block.