The Millionaires (8 page)

“Interviewing?” Kenny laughs. “I’m not here for a job—I’m here as a client.”

I rocket up in my seat.

That’s all Kenny needs to see. Big putz grin. “I’m telling you, real estate is always hot,” he adds, the canary still fresh
in his teeth. “Seventeen million—and that’s just from the buyout. Where else you gonna get free cash like that? I mean, without
getting arrested, of course.”

* * * *

The instant the door slams behind Kenny, I sink down in my seat. Charlie’s up and moving, unable to stop. “Maybe we should
call Shep,” he says as he starts pacing. “He’s still my friend… he’ll listen to reason…”

“Just give me a minute…”

“We don’t have a minute—you know he’s gonna be here any second… and if all we do is sit around… I mean, what’re we still doing
here anyway? It’s like pulling the pin and waiting with the grenade in our pants.” He wheels around, all set for me to argue,
but to his surprise, I give him nothing but silence. “What?” he asks.

“What’d I do now?”

“Repeat what you just said.”

“About the grenade in our pants?”

“No—before that.”

He thinks for a second. “What’re we still doing here?”

“That’s the one,” I say, my voice now cruising down the runway. “How do you answer that?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What
are
we still doing here?” I ask as I stand from my seat. “Shep just had us nailed for swiping three million bucks—but does he
tell Lapidus? Does he tell Quincy? Does he call in his buddies from the Secret Service? No, no, and no. He walks away and
saves the conversation for later.”

“So?” Charlie says with a shrug.

“So what’s the first rule of Law Enforcement 101?”

“Be a power-mad donkey’s ass every time you pull someone over?”

“I’m serious, Charlie—it’s page one in the rulebook: Don’t let the bad guys get away. If Shep smells something wrong, he’s
supposed to go straight to the boss.”

“See, now you’re reaching. Maybe he’s just giving us a chance to explain.”

“Or maybe he’s—” I stop mid-step. Up goes the suspicious eyebrow. “How well do you know this guy, Charlie?”

“Oh, c’mon…” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Now you think
Shep’s
the thief?”

“It makes perfect sense when you think about it. How else would he know about the original Duckworth fax?”

“He told you, Sherlock—he saw it come in…”

“Charlie, do you have any idea how many hundreds of faxes come in here every day? Unless Shep spends his days hunting through
every fax in the building, there’s no way he’d find it. So either someone tipped him off before it got here… or somehow, some
way…”

“… he knew it was coming,” he says, completing my thought. His mouth gapes open. His body stiffens, like his blood’s running
cold. “You really think he…”

“You don’t know him at all, do you?” I ask.

“W-We hang out at work.”

“We should get out of here,” I blurt. I take off and rush to the door.

“Right now?”

“The longer we sit here, the more likely we’ll be tagged as scapegoa—” Tearing the door open, I look up. There’s a figure
in the doorway.

With his chest in my face, Shep steps forward, forcing me to step back. Once he’s in the room, he whips the door shut. He
studies Charlie, then stares at me. His thick neck keeps his head brutally arched, but it’s not an attack—he’s taking our
measure. Weighing. Calculating. It’s like one of those silences at the end of a first date—where decisions get made.

“I’ll split it with you,” Shep says.

E
xcuse me?” I ask as Charlie moves in next to me.

“No joke,” Shep says. “Three ways—a million each.”

“You gotta be kidding,” Charlie blurts.

“So it
was
you who sent the first letter,” I say.

Shep stays silent.

So does Charlie. His teeth flick against his bottom lip. Half of it’s disbelief and the other half ’s…

Charlie’s whole face lights up.

.… pure adrenalized excitement.

“This could easily be the single best day of my life,” Charlie beams. The boy couldn’t hold a grudge if it was glued to his
chest. I’m different.

Turning to Shep, I add, “You were just in here blaming us, and now you expect us to hold hands and be partners?”

“Listen, Oliver, you can chew my head off all you want, but just realize if you blow the whistle on me, I’m gonna blow it
right back on you.”

I cock my head sideways. “Are you threatening me?”

“That depends what you want the outcome to be,” Shep shoots back.

Standing in front of my desk, I watch Shep carefully. Deep down, I may not be a thief, but I’m also no sucker.

“We’re all here for the same thing,” Shep quickly adds. “So you can either be a mule and get nothing, or you can share the
profits and walk away with a little something in your pocket.”

“I vote for the profits,” Charlie interrupts.

“Screw this,” I say, storming to the door. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

Shep reaches out and grabs me by the biceps. Not hard—just enough to stop me. “It’s not stupid, Oliver.” As Shep says the
words, the swagger’s gone. So’s the Secret Service. “If I wanted to blame it on you… or turn you in… I’d be talking to Lapidus
right now. Instead, I’m here.”

Even as I pull away, Shep has my undivided attention.

He looks up at the NYU diploma on my wall and studies it carefully. “You think you’re the only ones who have that dream? When
I first signed up with the Service, I thought I was going straight to the White House. Maybe start with the Vice President…
work my way up to the First Lady—it’s a nice life when you think about it. What I didn’t realize was that before you get on
Protective, you usually spend five years or so on Investigations: counterfeiting, financial crimes, all the scut work we never
get credit for.

“So there I am, a few years out of Brooklyn College, in our Miami office in Florida. Anyway, on the drive from Miami to Melbourne,
there was this wide-open stretch of unlit highway. Drug-runners would land their planes there, dump duffel bags full of money
and drugs, and then have their partners pick it up and drive it down to Miami.

“Night after night, I’d fantasize about finding these guys—and every time, the dream was the same: In the sky, I’d see the
red lights of a fleeing plane. Instinctively, I’d cut my own lights, slow the car, and stumble upon an army green duffel bag
full of ten million dollars in cash.” Turning back to us, Shep adds, “If it ever happened, I’d throw the bag in my trunk,
leave my badge behind, and just keep on driving.

“Of course, the only problem was, I never found the plane. And after missing four consecutive promotions and barely surviving
on government pay, I realized that I don’t want to work until the day they put me in the ground. I saw what it did to my dad…
forty years for a handshake and a fake gold plaque. There’s got to be more to life than that. And with Duckworth… a dead man
with three million dollars… it may not be as much as the clients here have, but I’ll tell you… for guys like us… it’s as good
as we’re gonna get.”

Charlie nods his head ever so slightly. The way Shep talks about his dad… there’re some things you can’t make up. “So how
do we know you won’t play Take the Money and Run?” I ask.

“What if I let you pick where the transfers go? You can start over from scratch… put it in whatever fake company you want.
I mean… with your mom here… you’re not going on the run for two million dollars—that’s the only guarantee I need,” Shep says,
ignoring Charlie and watching my reaction. He knows who he has to work on.

“And you really think it’ll work?” I ask.

“Oliver, I’ve been watching this one for almost a year,” Shep says, his voice picking up speed. “In life, there’re only two
perfect—and I mean
perfect
—crimes where you can’t be caught: One is where you’re killed, which isn’t too great an option. And the other is when no one
knows that a crime took place.” Swinging his sausage-shaped forearm through the air, he motions to the paperwork on my desk.
“That’s what’s here on a silver platter. That’s the beauty of it, Oliver,” he says as he lowers his voice. “No one’ll ever
know. Whether the three million goes to Duckworth or to the government, it was always leaving the bank. And since it’s supposed
to be gone, we don’t have to go on the run or give up our lives. All we do is say thank you to the forgetful dead millionaire.”
Pausing to drive it home, he adds, “People wait their whole lives and never get an opportunity this good. It’s even better
than the plane and the duffel bag—the bank spent the last six months trying to contact his family—no one’s there. No one knows.
No one but us.”

It’s a good point. Actually, it’s a great point… and the best insurance that Shep’ll stay quiet. If he toots his horn to anyone,
he risks his own share too.

“So whattya say, Oliver?” he adds.

The Art Deco clock on my wall was last year’s holiday gift from Lapidus. I stare up at it, studying the minute hand. Two and
a half hours to go. After that, the opportunity’s gone. The money’ll be transferred to the state. And all I’ll be left with
is a clock, a handshake, and eighty thousand dollars’ worth of hospital bills.

“It’s okay to want something more,” Charlie says. “Think of what we can do for mom… all the debt.”

Back in my seat, I take a deep breath and spread my palms flat on my desk. “You know we’re gonna regret this,” I say.

They both break into smiles. Two kids.

“We have a deal?” Shep asks, extending a hand.

I shake Shep’s hand and watch my brother. “So what do we do now?” I ask.

“Know any good fake companies?” Shep replies.

That’s my department. When Arthur Mannheim divorced his wife, Lapidus and I opened a holding company and an Antigua bank account
in a total of an hour and a half. It’s Lapidus’s favorite dirty trick—and one I know all too well. I reach for the phone.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Shep scolds, pulling my hand away. “You can’t call these people yourself anymore. Everything you touch,
everything you do—all of it’s a link, just like a fingerprint. That’s why you need a go-between—and not just some schlub off
the street—you want a professional who can protect your interests so no one ever sees you. Someone who you can send a thousand
dollars and say, ‘Make this phone call for me and don’t ask any questions…’”

“Like a mob lawyer,” Charlie blurts.

“Exactly,” Shep grins. “Just like a mob lawyer.” Before I can even ask, Shep stands up and leaves my office. Thirty seconds
later, he returns with a phonebook under each arm. One for New York; one for Jersey. He tosses them on my desk and they hit
with a thud.

“Time to find the stutterers,” Shep says.

Charlie and I look at each other. We’re lost.

“You’ve seen ’em in every phonebook,” Shep explains. “The first alphabetical entries in every category. AAAAAA Flower Shop.
AAAAAA Laundromat. And the most pathetic and desperate of all the stutterers—the ones most likely to do anything for a buck:
AAAAAA Attorneys At Law.”

I nod. Charlie grins wide. Par for the course. Without a word, we dive for the phonebooks. I get New York; Charlie gets Jersey;
Shep reads over our shoulders. Flipping as fast as I can, I go straight for the Lawyer section. The first one I spot is “A
Able Accident Attorneys.”

“Too specialized,” Shep says. “We want a general practitioner—not an ambulance chaser.”

My finger scrolls up the page. “A AAAA Attorneys.” On the next line are the words, “All Your Needs—Lowest Prices.”

“Not bad,” Shep says.

“I got it!” Charlie shouts. Shep and I both shush him down to a whisper. “Sorry… sorry,” he says, barely audible. He spins
his book around and shoves it in front of my face, knocking my own phonebook straight into my lap. His pointer finger jabs
right to the spot. All it says is “A.” Under it, the text has one word:
Lawyer.

“I still vote for mine,” I say. “You gotta like the low price guarantee.”

“Are you on crack?” Charlie asks. “All. Mine’s. Using. Is. An. A.”

“Mine’s got five As—all in a row.”

Charlie looks me straight in the eye. “Mine’s from Jersey.”

“We have a winner,” Shep announces.

This time, Charlie’s the one who leaps for the phone. Shep pounds him in the knuckles. “Not from here,” Shep says. Heading
for the door, he adds, “That’s why God invented payphones.”

“Are you crazy?” I ask. “All three of us hovering over a payphone? Yeah, that’s inconspicuous.”

“I suppose you have a better idea?”

“I work with rich people every day,” I say, stepping in front of Shep and taking a quick glance at the clock. “You think I
don’t know the best places to hide money from the government?”