“Eldon,” Vince Fleming said. He was wearing a puffy Windbreaker zipped up halfway and holding a takeout tray in his left hand with two coffees in it. “Got something to help wake you up. Four sugars, right?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“You gonna invite me in?”
“Shit, yeah, sure.” He opened the door wide and Vince, one hand in his jacket pocket, stepped in. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”
“We’ve got a situation, Eldon. Hopin’ you can help me with it.”
Eldon blinked a few more times, his eyes adjusting to daylight as Vince stepped into the kitchen area. He put down the tray and handed Eldon his coffee. The nearly naked man took it awkwardly in two hands.
“A situation?” He looked back out the door, but he couldn’t see down to the parking lot from up here, not without going out onto the landing. “Gordie and Bert with you?”
“No. They’ve been busy all night. Still going at it. Everything work out with you last night?”
“Huh? Yeah. I took care of the money. Came home after that. If something was going on, you shoulda called me.”
“That’s okay.”
“So what’s this situation?” He was still holding the coffee, hadn’t taken a sip. Vince had removed the lid from his, was blowing on it.
“Damage control,” Vince said.
“What?”
“Yeah. They’re checking on all our locations. We got hit last night, Eldon.”
The man’s jaw dropped. “Fuck, no. You gotta be kidding.”
“I wish.”
“That’s bad. That’s really bad.”
“No shit. Sit down, Eldon.”
Eldon set the coffee down on the small table in front of the couch. Vince had left his in the takeout container back on the counter. “Why don’t I get dressed first. I can be ready in a couple of secs.” The man looked vulnerable, standing there in his boxers and ratty slippers.
“No, have a seat.”
Eldon took the couch while Vince struggled to lower himself into a low, swoopy Ikea chair.
“You’re not curious about where we got hit?” Vince asked.
“Of course. I was just about to ask.”
“The Cummings house.”
“Whoa,” Eldon said. “You’re talking two hundred thou in there, plus incidentals. Fuck, Vince, that’s not a hit. That’s a catastrophe.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Whose money is that? That the bank manager from Stamford? Took him three years to embezzle it? He’s thinking about heading off to the Caymans, but he might be wanting that money soon. He’s not gonna be happy.”
Vince shook his head. “No. Whose money it is doesn’t matter. The fact that it’s gone is what matters.”
“Was it just the one place?”
“Like I said, we’re checking.”
“We shouldn’t be sitting here,” Eldon said. “We need to get out there.”
Vince shook his head, raised a palm to get Eldon to stay put. “What’s interesting about last night is, it looks like the Cummings place got hit twice.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. Twice in one night. Looks like one party was already there when the second one arrived.”
Eldon Koch looked baffled. “I don’t get that. Like, did they know each other? Were they working together?”
“Not sure. Looks like someone got in the regular way. With a key and a code. Then someone else came along and broke in through a basement window, didn’t know they could have walked through the front door and not set off the alarm.”
Eldon continued to look mystified. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and pointed a finger at his boss. “The dog walker could have got in the regular way.”
“Maybe,” Vince said. “That was my first thought.”
“He’s got a key. He knows the code. That’s one of his houses.”
“Maybe,” Vince said again.
“What?” Eldon asked. “What you thinking?”
“You were late getting to the meet last night.”
“Huh?”
“At the motel. You were late.”
“I told you, I’m sorry,” Eldon said. “I let Stuart take the Buick, and that left me the Golf. Thing wouldn’t start for me. Had to fiddle around with it to get it running. If I’d had a brain, I’d have given Stuart the Golf, let him deal with it, but I think Stuart was seeing some girl, and the Buick, well, it’s got more space in it, you know?” He grinned amiably. “More make-out room, right? Shit, I was young once. I know what that’s like, so I let him take it. The Buick, it’s a tank — thing won’t die. I really am sorry. I meant to be there on time.”
“Once you got the Golf started, you make any stops on the way to the motel?”
“No, I floored it. Shit, you have to floor it just to make it go. I went straight to the meet. What’s going on, Vince? Why you asking me questions like this? You got a beef with me? Okay, I was late. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. But what’s that got to do with us getting hit?”
“Where do you keep the list?”
“Huh?”
“Stop saying that, Eldon. It’s annoying.”
“You want to know about the list? Where I keep it?”
Vince sighed. “Yes. That’s what I’d like to know.”
“I never put it on the computer, like you said. I keep things up-to-date in my notebook. You tell me stuff, and I write it down in there.”
“Where’s the notebook?”
“Right this second, it’s in my pants,” he said.
“Get it.”
Eldon got off the couch, his slippers making swishing noises as he walked into his bedroom. Vince heard pocket change jangling as Eldon picked his jeans off the floor. He returned in a few seconds, notebook in hand, and sat back down on the couch.
“See?” he said, handing it over to Vince.
Vince opened it, flipped through the pages.
“You always have this thing on you?”
Eldon shrugged. “’Cept maybe when I’m writing in it. I might set it down or something at the shop.”
The auto body shop that served not only as Vince’s headquarters, but as a business front to funnel through some of his funds.
“So you might leave it around where someone could pick it up and look at it. What about here, in the apartment? You ever leave it sitting out?”
“Jesus, Vince, where is this—?”
“Just answer the question, Eldon.”
There was fear in Eldon’s eyes for the first time. “Um, maybe. But it wouldn’t matter. Only one ever here is Stuart. You could ask him, but I don’t think he’s come home yet.” Eldon glanced at the closed door to his son’s bedroom. “I could check.”
“Don’t bother,” Vince said. “You tell your kid how you keep track of things?”
Eldon scratched his head. “I... He asked me one time about the addresses. I told him I take one off each number, how 264 Main Street would be 153, and like that. It was just father-son stuff, you know?”
“And the dates?”
Eldon swallowed. “I told him it was the same thing. Like, say, March tenth to twentieth would be February ninth to nineteenth. Like we worked out. But Jesus, Vince, are you thinking Stuart would try to rip us off? There’s no way. Even if he looked at my book, he wouldn’t have a key.”
“Where are your keys right now?” Vince asked.
“They’re right in the bedroom where—” He stopped. He sprung to his feet, went back in there. “I always leave ’em... Okay, I usually leave them on the table right here next to the bed.” He emerged from the bedroom with a single key. “I got the one for the house I had to get into last night.”
“Where are the rest?”
Slowly, he said, “I guess they’re at the shop.”
Vince smiled. “Not really an issue anyway. That’s not how Stuart got in. He busted a basement window.”
“Oh, goddamn!” Eldon made a fist and brought it down on his knee, hard. “Are you kidding me? That stupid little shit! I’ll beat his fuckin’ head in.” His face, angry, suddenly shifted to concern. He jumped up again, strode into his bedroom, came back with a cell phone. He stood behind the couch and entered a number, put the phone to his ear.