“What about you?” Rachel argued, changing the transmitter position slightly with the joystick Nick had given her to use. “If you were -”
“I’ll never be taken,” Nick interrupted again. “We can park now. Maybe I can find a spot under one of those trees in the parking lot across the street.”
“We don’t have to shut off the car and the AC while we broil, do we?”
“I’m a psycho, not stupid. I don’t underestimate my enemies and I don’t project abnormal intelligence into common thugs doing a boring job. There’s a spot.”
Nick drove in a semicircle, parking with the front of their rented Buick pointed at an angle toward the front of SunTrust Bank’s main branch. He took out his spotting scope and checked the scene around the bank’s front entrance. Rachel used the mounted transmitter with digital zoom to scan the area on Nick’s notebook computer.
“I’m good. How about you?”
“We have only limited vision on the cars on our side,” Rachel answered.
“These guys won’t be sitting in a hot car all day,” Nick explained. “For one thing, the cops would be called in by bank security. One of the reasons you see a bank’s security guard walk around in front of the bank has nothing to do with getting a breath of fresh air. They look for cars parked too long in front of the bank with idling motors-or double parked cars.”
“That’s the reason you had me film so far down the street in both directions.”
“There are plenty of little shops on Main Street. They’ll be watching the bank with at least one of each team within grabbing distance. The other one will hover close to the car in case the grabber misses. We have a number of objectives. We need to ID our two teams and their vehicles. It will be important if we can determine whether they’re aware of each other. I’m betting Tanus doesn’t know where Javier went, so they’ll be flying blind. They’ll suspect Javier went rogue on them, but they won’t know with whom. Fletcher’s people will know Tanus has a team here. By the way, this is an inexact science.”
“Why is this starting to sound very familiar to me?” Rachel looked up at Nick from the notebook computer questioningly.
“Ever see any of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Spaghetti’ Westerns?”
“I knew it!” Rachel laughed, pointing her finger at Nick. “This is the plot from A Fistful of Dollars. The man with no name comes to town and plays off the evil Rojo brothers against the equally evil Baxter clan. You’re not playing by some assassin’s rulebook, you’re following the script from a 1960’s Italian Western.”
“I don’t plan on being caught and tortured by the two sides. Damn,” Nick complained. “I never figured you saw those movies.”
“I was a tomboy and I loved Clint Eastwood.” Rachel reached over to grasp Nick’s hand. “Maybe that’s why I love you.”
“I’m Brad Pitt, remember?” A chill ran through Nick from where she grasped his hand.
“You’re a cold-blooded killer with no conscience. The man with no name saved a Mother and her child in A Fistful of Dollars, too, on a whim.”
“Maybe I love you because I can’t think of anyone else who would have made the connection.” Nick brought Rachel’s hand up to his lips. Flashes of her in his arms the night before, muffling her screams of pleasure with both hands, romped through his head.
“So, how do we play Tanus off against Fletcher?”
“We find out first if those two guys from the mug shots I showed you are down here for Fletcher Exports.”
“And…and we turn them over to the cops,” Rachel added excitedly.
“After the cops drag those two away we’ll only have the Tanus team to deal with for a few days. I’ll give Fletcher’s people a call and tell them Javier tipped off the cops. That will cause some excitement. We’ll hit the bank the moment we only have Tanus waiting for you. I’ll take them beforehand.”
“Gus drives up. You get out, dressed like a model, with red hair and all your accessories. Gus will back your play if you need help. As we discussed, you can bet Tanus owns a couple people inside the bank. The moment you access the safety deposit box, their team outside will know it. Since I found out Javier switched sides, I’ve decided against having you bludgeon your way through. Hopefully, with Fletcher and Tanus at each other’s throat, we can get far away from Sarasota before they know we’re gone. I’ll get the flash drives copied and then we’ll begin negotiating.”
“What if they have more people than you think and they follow Gus away?”
“Let me worry about pursuit. We want -”
“There, Nick.” Rachel paused the video taken while cruising earlier, pointing to a blue Ford Five Hundred parked across the street from the bank. It had Louisiana plates.
“I’ll take a stroll first and see if I have any luck. There are little shops along this side of the street for me to saunter past.” Nick took two photos from the folder, along with their rap sheets. “Vertinski here was busted in Baton Rouge for drugs and assault.”
Nick turned the computer toward him for a moment. He hacked into the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles, querying their database for a stolen Ford Five Hundred with license plate matching the one across the street from the bank. Nick started laughing.
“Dum…da dum dum,” Nick intoned the popular opening to the TV series ‘Dragnet’. “He’s a genius, Rach. The dummy didn’t even have sense enough to switch plates. Oh man, if he’s around the car, this could be our lucky day.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Nick, be careful. Don’t let a little positive stuff screw up your bad karma.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” Nick gave Rachel’s hair a tug before exiting the Buick with ball cap and sunglasses on. He had dressed in khaki shorts, gray t-shirt and tennis shoes with no socks before leaving the condo with Rachel. The heat after being inside the air conditioned Buick nearly dropped him to his knees. He pointed at the throwaway cell-phone near Rachel. “I’ll have mine at my ear like all the other cell-junkies do so we can stay in constant contact.”
Taking a few deep breaths and feeling droplets of sweat forming everywhere, he closed the Buick door. He walked briskly toward Main Street while phoning Rachel’s cellphone.
“Rachel on the run, Rachel speaking.”
“Oh, you are just too cute for words.” Nick rounded the parking lot in front of a Spanish-style building. He stepped up on the sidewalk, glancing at the cars parked diagonally near a line of shops with awnings. “I see it and the genius.”
Vertinski stood, arms folded across chest, in front of the second shop, leaning against the building. He wore mirror type sunglasses, a sleeveless white t-shirt, loafers and tan shorts. Nick stopped in front of him, smiling up at the heavily built man.
“Excuse me, Sir, do you know what time it is?” Nick asked politely, pointing at Vertinski’s Rolex watch.
“I don’t know,” Vertinski growled, not making any move to turn his wrist. “Go ask inside, meatball.”
“Sure, sure.” Nick scurried back as if frightened, and then walked away up the street. He lifted his phone up again. “It’s Vertinski.”
“I heard you playing with him, dummy.”
“I’m going across the street to the bank to start up a savings account. When I get done taking pictures in there with my really good digital camera, I’ll leave and take a picture of the gorilla posing right in front of his stolen car. We’ll post the picture to the Sarasota police department and kick back to watch the fireworks.”
“Showoff.”
Nick took his hand-held digital camera out as he walked into the air conditioned bank with an audible sigh of relief, clicking away with his camera, while talking to Rachel. While he waited in a seat near the desks for his turn to talk with a consultant, he snapped pictures without being obvious. His mouth tightened when he saw one of the security guards come out of the rear.