You can get onto the grounds without going through the front office and there’s no CCTV outside. Which makes my life a lot easier. We check out Larkin’s unit. It’s off by itself and there are some bushes in front that’ll be good cover for us going in. There’s no gray Ford here now so he’s probably at the hospital. In a way I’ll be doing him a favor because when my mother went it was pretty bad. The pain.
We wait a little and he doesn’t show so we head off to Applebee’s and have some food and a beer but only one because we have to stay sharp. We drive back and Dave is all chatty. “You know what an aardvark is?” he asks me.
I sort of do. An animal of some kind. But I just look at him.
“I just think it’s neat. Not the thing itself. No. What’s neat is it’s the first word in the dictionary. I read the dictionary. I like to do it. You learn things.”
This is pretty crazy to me, both reading the dictionary for fun and telling me he reads the dictionary.
“What’s the last word?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. I haven’t got there yet.”
I wonder what letter he’s on but decide not to ask.
Dave says, “So you’ve never bagged anybody before.”
“No.”
“I’ll do it, you want. I’ve done six.”
He’s sort of bragging maybe. I can’t tell.
“Naw, Papa wanted me to.”
“Like a test. Like a chemistry test.”
I don’t know if Dave’s laughing at me but I don’t think he is so I don’t say anything. Maybe he’s trying to make me feel comfortable.
But we stop talking because we pull into the parking lot and there’s Larkin’s Ford. He came back when we were eating.
If he’s inside we may have to wait. We park a ways away and get out and put our weapons and the booties and gloves and bonnets in a grocery bag and walk to the big landscaped area in the middle of the place, which is all grass and gardens and sidewalks. We’re both wearing golf caps again and we keep our heads down. Larkin knows what we look like and even if it was over a month ago we’re pretty distinctive with Dave big and me kind of short and looking like a wolf. He’d wonder what the hell are these guys doing here and might even call the heat. Or beat the shit out of us with his special forces and karate or whatever.
We pause at the gate leading to the courtyard and see he’s not here. There’s an old guy in a sweat suit and a woman getting their mail at one of those racks of mailboxes and a couple kids on skateboards. Nobody pays any attention to us.
“Let’s go.” I nod toward Larkin’s unit. We walk across the courtyard and up to the front door and I peek through the window and can see through a gap in the blinds. It looks deserted. “Don’t see anything.”
We pull on the gloves and take the guns and chamber rounds but keep them under our jackets and knock on the door.
Both of us are ready to push inside and I remind Dave to be careful because of the special forces stuff again.
But Larkin doesn’t answer. I give it a few minutes in case of the shower and knock again. Nothing.
“Pick it,” I say to Dave.
And he does. In a minute we’re inside and cover each other while we get on the bonnets and booties. We search fast and see the place is empty.
“Where is he?” Dave asks.
That cocktail hour starts in five minutes. I say maybe he’s there.
“Where should we be when he comes in?” Dave asks.
I look around then walk to the door and glance out through the peephole to see if Larkin is on his way but he isn’t.
“Come on in here.” I nod toward the kitchen.
“It’s your ball game. You want me in the kitchen?”
“Yeah.”
Dave joins me and I pull a long filleting knife from the butcher block and shove it into Dave’s chest. At the same time I grab his Glock with my other hand and take it. Then for good measure I slash his throat then step back fast from the spray.
“What, what, what...?”
And after he collapses on the floor I bend down, minding the blood, and I tell him what Papa told me to tell him before he dies when Papa and me met about the job. “You dumb shit. When you came to pick us up at the jobsite the day of the heist you shouldn’ta brought the Porsche. If you’d come in stolen wheels like you shoulda you’d still be alive.”
He makes some wicked throat noises and pretty soon he’s dead and I walk back to the peephole. Still no sign of Larkin. I go through Dave’s pockets and get his phone and anything else from his pockets and his wallet that’ll link him to Papa or me or Marco or anybody else in the organization.
This’s the plan that Papa and me figured out. Dave and Larkin fought and Larkin stabbed him but before he died Dave shot Larkin.
I glance down at Dave.
I think I should be feeling something bad but I don’t.
I sit down to wait for Larkin.
But then I hear them. Sirens. Getting closer.
Probably nothing.
Except a minute later they’re really close and I look out the kitchen window and see police cars and there are three of them pulling into the parking lot of the Welcome Inn.
Did somebody see us break in?
Hell. Maybe. I’ve gotta leave. I’ll figure out something about Larkin later. I put Dave’s gun and phone and other stuff in the grocery bag and walk fast to the front door and glance out through the peephole. No police. Just the woman with the mail walking back from the reception area of the inn with a glass of wine. She’s not looking this way just at the sound of the sirens.
I open the door and leave, then pull off the booties and bonnet and gloves fast. I keep my head down and walk along the sidewalk toward the gate and the parking lot. I relax some because the sirens are in a different part of the complex. Still I want to get out of there. I pass the woman and I’m looking away and I’m glad she doesn’t say anything ’cause I don’t want to have to answer. Then just as I pass she tosses away the wine and turns and lifts my left arm straight up in the air really hard and, Jesus, she kicks my legs out from under me. I mean, serious martial arts. I land hard on my back and my breath is knocked completely from my lungs and I can’t move.
Two minutes later I’m sitting in Larkin’s unit again and I’m fighting to breathe.
Which isn’t easy.
The woman — pretty and as hot as I remember — has emptied my pockets and is looking over everything that was in the bag with one hand. And she’s holding my Glock in the other like she knows what she’s doing. She’s looking through my phone and Dave’s and writing down the numbers. I go all cold because that’ll lead her to Papa. I make a move but she has the gun up in an instant and I sit back. At first I think she’s a cop. But if that was the case she would’ve kept me on the ground and cuffed me or called for backup.
And then I think: Wait. She had Larkin’s key since here we are.
“Who the hell...?” And then my voice stops.
And I see the she isn’t really a she.
Holy Christ.
She’s Jonathan Larkin, the tan jacket guy.
I close my eyes for a second or two and then look closely.