Duke City Split (2 page)

“I talked to my partner about it.”

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“I’m interested.” The voice came from behind him, and Johnny nearly shat himself in surprise.

He turned to see a man slumped in the narrow backseat. The man wore an overcoat and a black woolen ski mask.

“Hey, what the fuck,” Johnny said. “What is this?”

“A friendly meeting,” the driver said. “My partner doesn’t want you to see his face.”

“Jesus, man. You startled the hell out of me.”

“Sorry about that,” said the masked man. “Just being cautious. We don’t know you.”

“I don’t know you, either.” Johnny took a deep breath, trying for calm. “I’m operating on trust here.”

“Yeah,” the big man said. “We’re not much on trust. We probably shouldn’t be here at all. But we talked it over, and the potential’s good enough that we have to hear you out.”

He started the engine, backed the Charger out of the parking slot and turned it toward the street. Empty fields stretched away on the far side of the blacktop. Scattered sagebrush and chamisa rocked in the wind.

Johnny looked up the long straightaway to where the Tewa Casino and Hotel stood just outside the city limits, in the foothills of the looming mountains. Even this far away he could read the casino’s yellow sign.

“So,” the man in the backseat said, “the armored truck comes right down this road every day?”

“Yeah. It’s the only way in and out. The road dead-ends at the casino.”

“Uh-huh.”

“As I told your partner, I noticed it from my window upstairs there, and got curious. So I started following the trucks.”

“And they never spotted you behind them?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

Johnny turned to look at the man in the ski mask.

“Well, I can’t be a hundred percent sure, can I? But they never changed anything. Didn’t try to outrun me or call the cops on me or anything like that.”

“How long did you follow them?”

“Three weeks. But not every single day, you know. Some days I had to get to work early or whatever.”

Out on the street, the Charger headed downhill toward town, the driver gunning the engine. From up here in the foothills, they could see the city sprawled before them, filling the leafy Rio Grande valley and climbing the arid West Mesa beyond.

“Show us this bank.”

Johnny nodded, then caught himself. “You mean we’re going to do it?”

“We’re not promising anything yet,” the driver said. “We need to check it out.”

“But if I show you which bank—”

“Don’t worry. We won’t rob it without you. Most likely, we won’t rob it at all.”

“How come?”

“Too close to home,” said the man in the backseat. “We don’t need the heat.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Just show us,” the driver said. “If we decide it’s a job worth doing, we’ll include you. If we don’t like the way it looks, then we’ll go our separate ways and forget we ever met.”

“Okay,” Johnny said. “Take a left at the next light.”

They turned onto Wyoming Boulevard, a four-lane avenue lined with houses and stores and fast-food joints. It was two miles south to the bank, which stood in a puddle of asphalt at one end of a strip mall. The shopping center had five storefronts side by side—beauty shop, tax preparation office, drapes-and-blinds store, pet shop, and cut-rate cigarette store. The First State Bank of Albuquerque, a one-story building made of gray concrete and brick veneer, sat apart from the others, a few parking spaces in front and a drive-through window on the south side.

The parking lot was empty, but they didn’t pull in, just slowed as they passed by.

“Nobody’s open yet,” Johnny said, glancing at his watch. A quarter to nine. “Shit. I’m gonna be late for work.”

The driver turned on his blinker. “We’ll take you home. We don’t want you to be late.”

“That’s right,” said the other man. “Stick to your normal routine. If we do this job, we don’t want somebody thinking afterward about how you’ve been acting funny.”

“Don’t worry,” Johnny said. “I’m cool.”

The Charger U-turned around the median and zoomed along the busy street, heading back the way they’d come.

“So what do you think?” Johnny ventured. “It’s like I said, right? Looks easy?”

The driver snorted.

“They’re never easy, kid. But we’ll check it out. If it looks doable, we’ll be in touch.”

Nobody said another word until they pulled into the parking lot outside Johnny’s apartment. He had his hand on the door handle, ready to get out, but had one last question.

“How long am I supposed to wait?”

“Until you hear from us,” said the man in the ski mask. “It won’t be long. Just sit tight.”

They’d left the apartment complex and gone about a mile downhill when Bud Knox pulled off the ski mask. Still in the backseat, he leaned over so he could see his reflection in the rearview. He wiped perspiration from his broad forehead and smoothed his thinning hair.

“So,” Mick said, “what do you think?”

“You’re right about that kid. He’s no cop. Too young and squirrelly to be undercover.”

“What do you think about the
bank
?”

“Too soon to say,” Bud said. “We’ll have to check it out. Watch the place on our own.”

“Sure. But it’s possible he’s right about it?”

“I suppose,” Bud said. “But it still makes me nervous, being so close to home. It’s risky.”

“They’re all risky,” Mick said. “But what if Johnny’s right and we walk away with a bundle? We wouldn’t have to pull another job for a long time. And you don’t have to be away from your family while we set it up.”

“I’ve got to think about it some more. I really don’t like the idea of including that kid.”

Mick drove in a silence for a minute. Bud watched him from the backseat, knowing he was trying to think of a way to sell it.

“Maybe we can keep Johnny out of the way until we’ve got the place under control,” Mick said. “Just use him to help with the heavy lifting.”

“You really think there’ll be that big a haul?”

Mick grinned. “A fellow can dream, can’t he?”

“Yeah. Prisons are full of dreamers.”

Two hours later Mick Wyman stepped through the doors of the First State Bank branch. He was dressed as before, except he’d replaced the sunglasses with a blue L.A. Dodgers cap that partly shielded his face from the security cameras that looked down from every corner of the bank.

Mick nodded to the guard, who stood just inside the door, thumbs in his gun belt, which was weighed down by a clunky revolver. The guard looked Hispanic, maybe forty years old, a little lumpy, but not as fat and slow-looking as Johnny had implied. He wore a crisp blue uniform, a polished badge, and a carefully trimmed mustache that formed a narrow line over his lip.

“Say, who do I talk to about setting up a new account?”

The guard looked Mick up and down, then lifted his chin in the direction of a wooden desk off to the left. The unoccupied desk had a sign on it that plainly said:
NEW ACCOUNTS
.

“Ah. Thanks, man.”

Mick strode across the tiled lobby and flopped into a chair beside the desk. His eyes took in the wall-mounted video cameras, the tall wooden counter with two tellers—young, female, nobody who’d put up a fight—and the vault behind them. As the kid had promised, the thick steel door stood open. Mick could see shiny safe deposit boxes lining one wall of the vault.

The drive-through window was on the left side of the lobby, and a willowy teller swayed over there, counting bills while waiting for her next customer.

A blank door in the corner opened and a plump blonde emerged, straightening the snug skirt of her blue business suit. The room behind her was dark, and Mick figured it was a bathroom for the employees. Might come in handy later; he wondered if that door locked from the outside.

The blonde hurried over to him.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” She leaned across the desk to shake his hand. Her hand was damp. “I’m Jean Hutchins, the branch manager. How can I help you today?”

“I just moved to Albuquerque, and I’m thinking about opening an account.”

“Well, we’d love to have you as a customer.” She smiled broadly. “Are you settled in somewhere yet?”

“Still looking around. Do I need to find an apartment before I can get a checking account?”

“Afraid so,” she said. “We need proof of address. A lease agreement, utility bill, something like that. Are you looking in this area?”

“Yeah. Lots of apartment buildings around here.”

“We’re very convenient,” she said. “Drive-through window, and we’re open from nine to six every weekday and until noon on Saturdays.”

“Sounds good. Guess I should go find a place to live, then come back and see you.”

She smiled. “Are you moving here from California?”

“How’s that?”

“California. Your cap says ‘L.A.’ on the front.”

“Oh, yeah.” He chuckled. “Forgot I was wearing it. I lived in Los Angeles for a while, but I’m moving here from Arizona. Still a Dodgers fan, though.”

“Me, too. My dad has followed the Dodgers his whole life. I still read the box scores every day.”

Time for him to go. He didn’t know shit about baseball. He got to his feet and thanked the manager. She shook his hand again.

“Hope to see you back here real soon,” she said, beaming at him.

Mick turned away, keeping his chin down so the bill of his cap hid his face. He nodded at the guard on his way out but got nothing in return. Fucking guard was asleep with his eyes open.

The front door and the tall windows to either side of it were tinted to block out the desert sun. Mick paused and looked back as the door closed behind him. Nearly impossible to see inside. Perfect.

He walked along the strip mall sidewalk to where he’d left the Charger in front of the pet shop. A litter of black and white puppies slept piled together on a blanket in the store’s front window. Mick rapped a knuckle against the glass, but the puppies wouldn’t stir.

He climbed behind the wheel of the Charger and started the engine. While it idled, he leaned his head over so he could see the bank, down at the end of the row.

This branch reminded him of one in Phoenix that he and Bud had knocked over
two years earlier. Easy in and out, minimal security. They’d made a decent haul, nearly fifteen thousand dollars. This one promised to be worth much more, if Johnny Muller was right about the casino money.

The kid had been right about this bank. Looked easy. Mick could practically see himself going through the motions—showing a gun, disarming the guard, bagging up the loot.

Now he only had to persuade Bud.

Bud Knox had lunch ready when Linda got home from her job at Albuquerque Realty. Eating lunch at home was one way to economize during the housing slump, and Bud made the most of it, baking bread and making vegetable soups from scratch. With the girls in school, lunch together gave Bud and Linda a time for undisturbed conversation. Usually, that meant Bud listening to Linda complain about her boss and foreclosures and the economy. But today he intended to do the talking.

Linda bustled in a few minutes past noon. She wore black slacks and a silky blouse, and her sand-colored hair was pulled back into a long ponytail. She dumped her briefcase by the door and came to the table carrying her ever-present cell phone.

Bud had made gumbo from a recipe he’d clipped out of a magazine, and the house smelled of spicy sausage. He set steaming bowls on the table, little corn bread muffins—from a mix—on the side. Linda made the usual happy noises over his culinary exertions, then tucked into the meal. Bud waited until she was settled before he brought up the bank job.

“Mick and I went to see that kid this morning. The one I was telling you about.”

Linda frowned and set down her spoon, as if the topic had killed her appetite.

“I wore a mask,” Bud said quickly. “He never saw my face.”

“Still,” she said, “that’s taking an awful chance. What if he’s a cop?”

“Nah, he’s exactly what Mick said he was, a young man with a big dream and no idea how to accomplish it.”

“That’s where you come in?”

“Maybe. Mick’s checking the place out some more, but I have to tell you, hon, it looks pretty sweet.”

Her eyes didn’t blink as she studied him. Those brown eyes are what hooked him, thirteen years ago, when they’d first met. Linda had been waiting tables, working her way through college, and he’d become a regular customer, trying to get her attention, trying to make contact with those big brown eyes. Now he felt they could see right through him.

“You’re bored,” she said. “You need some excitement in your life, so you’re falling into this.”

“You’re describing Mick, not me.”

“You two are more alike than you care to admit,” she said.

Bud ate in silence for a minute, wondering if that were true. He and Mick had worked together a long time, longer than he and Linda had been together. He’d never lied to her about his unconventional life. It was one reason she insisted on having her own career, insurance against the day when he finally got caught.

Linda sipped her iced tea, still watching him, waiting.

“Have you looked at the bank account lately?” he said finally. “We need money.”

“We’re doing okay. And the market’s beginning to pick up. I think that house on Wellesley is about to sell.”

“That’s great, hon, but still. We could use a bunch of cash. If I don’t do this local job, then I’ll have to go out of town to do one. You know how much harder that makes things around here. Picking up the girls from school, all that.”

“It worries me, Bud. You’re breaking your own rules, working so close to home. You never would’ve considered that in the past.”

“It’s a onetime deal,” he said. “If the kid is right about the size of the haul, it could be enough to set us up for retirement, college for the girls, you name it.”

She turned her attention back to her meal. That was so Linda. She’d had her say. Now she was done. The rest was up to him.

“Come on, hon,” he said. “Try not to worry. I won’t do this thing unless I’m sure we’ll get away clean. I’d never do anything that could blow back on our family.”