The Bubble Gum Thief (10 page)

“I brought you lunch.”

“Oh, thanks, but actually—”

“Don’t be rude.”

The bag contained a turkey sandwich on rye bread and a bag of baked Lay’s potato chips. She took a bite of the sandwich. “Thank you.”

The Professor opened a desk drawer and pulled out a bag of Cheetos. “Our program ends in two weeks, and Frank Cooper wants to send you back to New York to work the Milano case—full time, seven days a week, through capture and trial. The detail could last a year or more.”

“Oh.”

The Professor tore open the Cheetos bag, and most of the contents fell onto his desk. “You don’t sound enthusiastic.”

“It’s a good case. It’s just...”

“Yes?”

“The Milanos of the world kill each other. I didn’t sign up to save gangsters from one another. I wanted to help—”

“Regular folk? Innocent civilians and the like. That’s why you’ve been teaching yourself Arabic?”

“Yes.” Dagny knew there were ten thousand FBI agents, and only fifty of them spoke Arabic. “It’s coming, slowly.”

“So I assume you’d eventually like to do counterterrorism work, whatever that means,” the Professor mumbled, his mouth full of Cheetos.

“I think so.”

“Ninety percent of terrorism cases these days are plots the Bureau concocts to entrap Muslim kids.”

“But then there’s that ten percent,” she said.

He nodded. “I understand you’re seeing someone. Perhaps you’d like to stay in DC for now?”

How did he know about Mike? She’d never mentioned him to anyone in the Bureau.

“If possible.” Not long ago, Dagny wouldn’t have cared.

“Well, I have a proposal.” The Professor swept the remaining Cheetos into the desk drawer. “I need a research and writing assistant for a few months. If you work for me, you’ll have plenty of time to continue your Arabic studies—even enroll in a course if you’d like. Working for me won’t help your career, but learning Arabic will. We’d work at my home in Arlington. And when we’re done, we can see about getting you reassigned somewhere that lets you protect the regular folk from the ten percent.”

It was intriguing. Stay with Mike, learn Arabic, figure out her life.

“You can do this?”

“I talked to Cooper last night.”

“And he agreed?”

“He doesn’t want to lose you, but I have a little sway,” the Professor replied. It’s good to know the president, Dagny thought. But then why was he stuck on the boiler-room floor? “I try to pick my battles,” he replied, reading her mind. “One more thing. Cooper told me about March fifteenth. You still have to hit the target. That’s part of the deal. You understand? I need you healthy, too.”

She nodded. That’s why he had forced lunch on her.

“So does this interest you?”

It seemed almost too perfect. “Very much.”

“Then we have an arrangement.” He leaned over the desk and shook her hand, oblivious to the orange dust that coated his fingers. “Now you can go do your run, if that’s what you’d like. But take the rest of your lunch with you.”

Dagny grabbed the remaining half of her sandwich. At the door, she turned. “Professor, what are we working on?”

“My memoirs,” he said. “Until something interesting comes along.”

She nodded and started down the hallway past the clattering pipes. As the metal door swung shut behind her, she heard the Professor yell once more, “Eat the rest of the sandwich, Dagny!”

She smiled.

March 1—Cincinnati, Ohio

Cynthia Johnson frowned. It was a boring day.

She leaned against the counter and twirled her red locks. Down on the floor, the latest issue of
Us Weekly
peeked out the top of the twenty-eight-year-old’s purse, teasing her. The magazine was folded in half, so only “erlake” and “ansson” showed. There was a single security camera in the lobby, and she knew Mr. Waxton studied the footage to make sure they were working. Once, he’d caught a teller flipping through a
Vanity Fair
and docked her pay for each minute she’d spent reading. When the woman had been caught a second time, she’d been fired. So
Us Weekly
stayed in Cynthia’s purse.

Because Maxine Campbell’s car wouldn’t start, there were only two tellers working the morning shift at Waxton Savings and Loan. Even down a teller, it hadn’t been busy. Two hours, six customers, and nothing else to do but listen to the clock tick.
Tick. Tick
. Fifty-nine minutes until lunch.

“I’m bored to tears, dearie,” Reggie Closter said. Four feet tall and four feet wide, she was an elderly cube. Cynthia hated
her throaty, smoke-torn voice, and she really hated being called “dearie.”

“I know, Reggie. I’m bored, too.”

There were two glass offices in the front of the bank. One was empty; Roy Fielder sat in the other. He had short curly hair and a head that widened from top to bottom, providing ample room for the biggest smile Cynthia had ever seen. Cynthia had gotten to know him a bit, and wanted to know him a bit more, even if he was a little young for her. She wondered why Roy was wasting time working in this rinky-dink savings and loan instead of a prestigious bank like Fifth Third or Citibank. Heck, a piggy bank was more prestigious than Waxton Savings and Loan.

Roy was on the phone. Cynthia couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he seemed pretty excited. When he hung up, he grabbed his coat and briefcase and bounded out of his office.

“I’m off to Dayton.”

“What’s in Dayton?” Cynthia asked.

“Big loan. Maybe very big. If I can get it.”

“Great.” Cynthia shrugged. “More money for Mr. Waxton.”

“Well, it’s his bank,” Reggie interjected. “Who do you think signs our checks? Santy Claus?”

Cynthia ignored her. “Coming back?” she asked Roy.

“Oh, yeah. Probably by four.”

As the door closed behind Roy, Cynthia turned to Reggie and seethed, “You know, Reggie, you don’t have to invite yourself into every conversation.”

“He wasn’t talking to you. He was just talking generally.”

“He was
too
talking to me.” Cynthia leaned against the counter again. Fifty-five minutes until lunch.

“I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“Yeah,” Cynthia looked at her watch. “I guess it’s been ten minutes.”

With Reggie gone,
Us Weekly
was tempting. Maybe she could just sneak a quick peek. She was reaching for the magazine when a large, heavyset woman entered. Most of the bank’s customers were elderly folks who had banked with Waxton for most of their lives, so it was unusual to see a fresh face. Fresh face was a generous description for this woman, though. She had a heavy brow, a bar-fight nose, and saggy cheeks caked in rouge. Her green ensemble was more tent than dress. She wore white gloves and carried a large canvas purse.

“Can I help you?” Cynthia asked.

The woman responded with a man’s voice. “I have a gun, and I need you to put your hands on top of the counter, and not to say a word.” It was a deep, soothing voice, but Cynthia was still hyperventilating when she put her hands on the counter. “If you do exactly as I say, everything will be fine.” His saggy cheeks were beginning to tear away from his face—it was a mask of some kind, made of putty and makeup, like they’d wear at the theater. “Do you understand me?”

Yes.

“Answer me!” That wasn’t soothing. It was angry. Violent.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to come around and watch you open both drawers. At no time should either of your hands go anywhere near the right side of the drawers. You are not to trigger the alarm.”

The man walked around the counter, keeping his gun pointed at Cynthia. He nodded toward the drawer and she opened it. The man held his purse open, and she transferred the cash to the bag. “Bottom, too,” he said.

Each teller had two drawers, one on top of the other. Cynthia turned a key in the bottom drawer and popped it open, then loaded the money into the man’s bag. “Top drawer of that one,” he said, motioning to Reggie’s drawer. Only the bottom drawer required a key, and he knew it.

Cynthia emptied the bills into the man’s bag. “Don’t cry,” he said. “This isn’t about you.” She hadn’t realized she was crying.

The door chimed. Cynthia looked up and saw Reggie walking back into the bank. “What the—”

The man shot his gun at Reggie, shattering the glass door behind her. Reggie dove through the doorframe and the mostly shattered glass, screaming as she fell on the concrete sidewalk in front of the bank.

The man grabbed Cynthia’s wrist, kicked open the door to the back hallway, and dragged her along. At the end of the hallway, he kicked in a door marked
CHESLEY WAXTON
in black block letters, then yanked Cynthia inside. Mr. Waxton wasn’t there. Maybe he had escaped to the back parking lot, Cynthia hoped.

The man fired a shot into the bookshelf behind the desk. “Get up, Waxton!” The bald, spotted tip of Waxton’s head rose from behind the desk. Like Cynthia, he was crying. The man motioned for him to stand and then tugged Cynthia by her wrist toward her boss, before placing the barrel of his gun against Waxton’s head.

“The sins of the angels remain with them in heaven,” the man intoned. “The sins of the angels remain with them in heaven. Say it to me.”

“Wha-wha-what?”

“Say it back to me!” He pushed the gun harder into Waxton’s temple.

Waxton squeaked, “The sins of the angels remain with them in heaven?”

“Not as a question!”

Waxton was dripping with sweat. “The sins of the angels remain with them in heaven.”

“Again.”

“The sins of the angels remain with them in heaven.”

“This is important, so don’t forget it.” The man shoved Waxton to the ground, then let go of Cynthia’s arm and pointed to the floor.

Cynthia joined Waxton on the floor, and the man walked over to the bookshelves behind the desk. She watched him reach for the autographed baseball resting in a glass sphere, suspended by a stem over a wood base. It was Waxton’s prized possession. The man opened the sphere, removed the baseball, and tossed it in his bag with the money. Then he set a small white card inside the sphere so that it stood on its short end. He turned toward Cynthia, and she twisted her face back toward the ground, afraid to make eye contact with him. The man walked over to Waxton and dug his heel into his back. “One more time.”

“The sins of the angels remain with them in heaven.”

“Exactly.” The man sprinted to the door, fired two more shots into the bookcase, and disappeared.

Cynthia began to shiver. A sheen of sweat covered her arms and face, and the air from the vent felt cold. She was lost in the sound of her breath when she heard a car engine fire. He was leaving.

Cynthia sat up, and Mr. Waxton crawled over to her and hugged her tightly. Silently, Cynthia regretted every bad thought she’d ever had about the man. A few minutes later, Reggie appeared in the doorway. Her dress was torn in several places, and her arm was bleeding. She held a lit cigarette in her hand, and in her throaty snarl, she croaked, “That woman was a real bitch, wasn’t she?”

As awful as the day had been, this made Cynthia laugh. “It was a man, Reggie.”

“Well, she’s gone—whatever she is.”

Waxton let go of Cynthia and lifted himself up by the edge of his desk. He seemed a little embarrassed by the hug. Cynthia
looked at the empty glass sphere, then turned to Mr. Waxton. “He took your ball.”

In the past few minutes, she had seen Waxton afraid and nervous and even embarrassed, but for the first time he flashed despair. “My ball?” He started to cry again. “We have a vault here, for Christ’s sake. Why the ball?”

While Waxton cried, Cynthia looked inside the glass sphere to the card the man had left behind.

THIS IS MY FIFTH CRIME.
MY NEXT WILL BE BIGGER.

Cynthia Johnson couldn’t help but smile. It was not a boring day.

March 3—Alexandria, Virginia

Dagny climbed out of bed and walked blindly through the darkness to the bathroom. She flicked on the light, stripped off her nightgown, and looked at herself in the mirror. Something was different. A puff in her cheeks, maybe. A crease missing from her brow, perhaps. She saw Mike step behind her and she smiled. The smile—now that was different.