Out in front of him was the wide, nearly empty parking lot, dusted with snow, and beyond it a line of evergreens and some gray trees and not much else. They really were alone out here, on the edge of the city, a whisper away from the Interstate — just a bunch of thieves and the vast storehouse of goods that was Brady Eighty mall.
The sounds of activity back there in the trailer behind him were strangely calming — particularly the occasional sounds of voices. Sitting here, watching for cops or anything else unexpected, was unnerving as fuck. All he had to keep him company was the walkie-talkie, which he used to check in with Nolan, and the truck’s scanner, which was keeping track of the half-dozen frequencies in use by the Davenport police, as well as the county sheriff department and the Highway Patrol. From the silver and blue scanner box on the dash, the tinny, barely understandable cop chatter went back and forth about domestic disturbances and drunk and disorderly and cars that slid from icy roads into ditches, on what appeared to be (in every cop’s opinion) a “real slow” night. Without the constant squawk- box noise, he’d have long since gone nuts.
At least he was warm. The semi’s heater made it possible for him to sit there without his coat on, even if the interior of the truck was as dusty and scruffy as the Leech Bros, themselves. When Nolan first told him about this duty, Jon had assumed he’d be freezing his ass off till dawn in a cold truck cab. He didn’t realize he could keep the diesel motor running virtually all night. The exhaust pipes on a semi weren’t snaked under the truck, meaning no carbon monoxide danger for the men in the loading dock behind him.
He’d never been in a situation like this before — one that mingled boredom with anxiety. It was weird beyond words to sit and tremble with fear, fear generated by the sure anticipation of violence, while at the same time being bored to fucking tears. It was at times like these that he wished he’d never met Nolan. He wondered if Sherry might be thinking the same thing.
If she happened to still be alive.
He was trying to get his mind off that when, shortly after two-thirty, a cherry-red Camaro roared into the parking lot and skidded and slid to a stop. A frantic-looking Lyle Comfort climbed out of the car. He was wearing a brown leather jacket and gray jeans and the side of his face was bruised and puffy and scraped-looking. Somebody had tried to knock some sense in the dumb a-hole; futile effort, Jon thought, then quickly wondered: was this Sherry’s work?
Lyle saw Jon sitting in the truck and came quickly over, slipping on the ice a little; he knocked on the cab door, as if Jon hadn’t seen him coming. Jon swung the door open and looked down at Lyle, who stood there with hands in his jacket pockets, breath smoking, eyes wild; he really had taken a nasty bash.
“How do I get in?” he asked.
He seemed upset.
“They’re loading this trailer up right now,” Jon said, and pointed back with a thumb. “Go to the side door — I’ll raise ’em on my walkie-talkie and somebody’ll let you in.”
Lyle nodded and headed that way and Jon shut the door and did as he’d promised.
Then he used the walkie-talkie again — to check in with Nolan. On their private channel.
“How are you doing?” Jon said. The greeting was a sort of code, in case the other wasn’t alone.
“I can talk,” Nolan said; the metallic ring of the walkie-talkie only intensified the hardness of his voice. “I closed up the club a few minutes ago. I’m in the process of checking in with everybody, seeing how their individual gigs are going.”
“Well, you can check in with Lyle too if you want,” Jon said. “He just showed up — entering at the Penney’s loading dock.”
“Let’s hope your girlfriend’s sitting with Sherry.”
“I don’t know. Something’s wrong.”
“You want to tell me, or play twenty questions?”
Jon sighed. “Lyle’s face was bunged up. Somebody smacked him with something.”
“Could be her. Could be she got away.” There was urgency in his voice, and something else — hope? Anyway, it was an emotion, and Jon wasn’t used to hearing emotion in Nolan’s voice.
“Nolan, we got to face the possibility she made a break for it and didn’t make it.”
“Of course.” No emotion now.
“Lyle looked kind of dazed,” Jon said.
“Lyle always looks dazed.”
“Not really, Nolan. He usually doesn’t look any way at all.”
Silence for a few beats — no, not silence: Nolan was there, the walkie-talkie static said so. He just wasn’t saying anything.
Then he did: “I’ll spend some time around him and his father.” Nolan paused. “Maybe I can read it.”
And clicked off.
Nolan entered DeReuss Jewelry, which like most of the stores at Brady Eighty was trimmed festively for the season, and walked past the mostly empty display cases (their contents kept in the store’s vault overnight — though some inexpensive items remained on display, like a countertop spinner with Caravelle watches) and found Dave Fisher in back, facing a side wall, prying something off it with a screwdriver, while Roger Winch, wearing old clothes and shoes that were obvious veterans of odd around-the-house painting jobs, leaned against a nearby display counter, arms folded, waiting, his duffel bag of tricks at his feet.
“How’s it going?” Nolan asked.
Fisher glanced over his shoulder. “Just need to defeat this tear-gas gimmick before our friend here blows their safe.”
Nolan turned to Winch. “What are you up against?”
Winch shrugged. “Standard J. J. Taylor. Built into the wall. Jam shot. It’ll make some noise.”
“Nobody here to hear it but us crooks,” Nolan said. “Did you hit the luggage shop like I said?”
“Yeah,” Winch said. He nodded behind the counter he leaned against. “I got a nice big Samsonite over there, which I intend to fill to hell and back with sparkly stuff.”
“Do that,” Nolan said.
Fisher had the metal facing plate off the wall alarm and was again scraping insulation from wire with his pocket knife.
“Nolan,” Winch asked, “any word on your girl?”
Nolan shook his head no. “Your concern’s appreciated, but don’t mention it again. You never know when there’s a Comfort in the woodpile.”
“Or a Leech,” Fisher said.
Winch nodded, winked, pointed a forefinger fleetingly at Nolan, in an affirmative gesture.
Nolan turned to go, then stopped and said, “Hit the bank last, remember.”
“No problem,” Winch said.
It was shortly after three when the explosion jolted Jon in his seat, and rattled the building and truck trailer behind him, causing him to say, “Holy shit!” For a second he didn’t know what it was, then he remembered: the jewelry store safe. This would be the first but hardly the last of such shocks to his nervous system tonight (this morning), what with another jewelry store to go, and the bank’s money machine and several night deposit safes.
The thought then occurred to him — for the first time — that he stood to get rich from tonight’s haul. As much as he’d wanted to leave this life behind, he was caught up in a heist that should make all involved a bundle. Those that lived through it, that is. Small detail.
He poured himself some more hot chocolate — he’d brought along two Thermoses — but with a shaky hand. The explosion had rocked his nerves a little. He sipped the warm liquid. He stared out at the snowy parking lot with its handful of vehicles belonging to those at work inside.