A Heist Story Page 9

  “Charlie’s book.”

  “Yes.” Shelly plucked Marcey’s coffee away from her and took a sip. “Kat always has an agenda. You have to understand that going into anything with her.”

  “You make her sound like some sort of cartoon villain.”

  “I’m being serious, Marcey. If you want to do this, you can’t just rush in and do a smash-and-grab. This isn’t the best place to do this job, despite everything Kat’s hinted at. You don’t back down from dares, that much is obvious, but take this from someone who’s been around the block with Kat a few times: this isn’t a dare you want to get involved with. If you’re caught—arrested and locked away—they’ll have grounds to seize your shit.”

  “I thought that was illegal.”

  “It isn’t if they think it will be used in the commission of a crime. It’s called civil forfeiture.” Shelly tapped her nails on the table. “Charlie’s book is a guide to his entire life. It’s got everything you’d need to put together a crew to steal anything. If they arrest you, they’ll get it.”

  “How do you know they want it?”

  Shelly smiled sadly. “Because Kat Barber doesn’t have it. If she did, I doubt we’d be having this conversation.”

  Marcey didn’t follow. “I’m sorry?”

  “Look, kid, I know that you’re new to this, and that you think you’ve got it all figured out, but I’m here to tell you, you don’t have a fucking clue.” Shelly met Marcey’s gaze evenly. “Your beef with Linda Johnson? Over her daughter? That’s fucking cute, but it’s nothing compared to what went down between her, Charlie, and Wei Topeté. Linda Johnson is Wei Topeté’s contact here in the US. She’s worked with Johnson before, when Charlie was arrested and eventually tried and sentenced for a securities scam he ran in 2007. If Topeté is after the book, she could get it from Kat, sure, but she’d want it for different reasons than Johnson would. If Johnson gets it, it stays here, in the US. If Topeté gets it first, it ends up feeding into decades of Interpol investigations and probably Kat Barber never ever getting arrested for the crimes she has committed.” Shelly shook her head. “Basically—with Charlie dead, everyone is scrambling to find his estate.”

  “So, we need to screw Linda Johnson,” Marcey said firmly. “Because through her we can get to Topeté and through Topeté comes Kat.”

  Shelly gave Marcey a long, searching look. “Why go after Kat?”

  “I’m not going after her,” Marcey answered. “I’m just leveling the playing field. Charlie was meant to leave that book for Kat, wasn’t he?”

  “As far as anyone knew.”

  “Then there’s got to be a reason it’s in my hands now, rather than hers.” Marcey shook her head. Shelly was angling for something, that much was obvious, but what, Marcey couldn’t figure it out. Talking about Kat was safe until she could figure out what Shelly’s motivation was for coming back. She couldn’t just ask. Asking was too easy; it begged the question of why she was thinking about it at all, and that just planted seeds of doubt in people’s minds.

  Shelly looked thoughtful. “Charlie… He did things his own way, you know. After a while I just sort of stopped being in awe that this wonderful man was willing to be with me, despite—well. And I just went with it. He never cared about the details like that, I think because he was always ten moves ahead of everyone else. He could predict behavior, to an extent. It’s what burned him in the end—he couldn’t predict Kat.”

  “She screwed him.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Royally.”

  “Then I want to screw her. And Linda Johnson, because let’s be real, Linda’s the one who stands the most to gain by this.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Mar.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Think about it. If Kat gets this book, if you get your ass arrested because you’re too proud to admit that you’re in over your head with Charlie’s half-baked plan—”

  Marcey swallowed and met Shelly’s gaze evenly. “It isn’t half-baked, though. The whole thing’s written down in his storage unit. Every single thing we’d need to do.” She didn’t mention that Charlie’s plan was about this painting as well, and that Marcey’s willingness to look into it was far more of a professional curiosity about Kat Barber than it was about wanting to steal it.

  “And you want to use it to somehow turn the tables on Linda Johnson?”

  Marcey’s head dipped a nod. She couldn’t meet Shelly’s eyes. “That’s what I want. I want to use Charlie’s book—and whatever Kat Barber is up to with this painting—to ruin her.” She exhaled, slow. “Is that possible?”

  Shelly hummed. “Perhaps. The first move is always the hardest.”

  It was close to eleven when Marcey left her mother’s apartment and walked the two blocks north to the subway station. Shelly was back at home, in some far-flung part of Queens, having left Marcey at the subway hours ago with instructions to do the same. They’d each come at this from a different way.

  Shelly was right. This was a game, and someone had to make the first move. Kat had made her gambit, but it wouldn’t be until all the players were on the board that Kat would know what she had to work with. Charlie had the sketches of a crew, a plan up in New Hampshire. It could be done. Marcey could do it. And she wasn’t about to let Linda Johnson or her pet Interpol agent, or even Kat Barber, make any moves until this was in place. There was falling on her sword, and then there was seeing what would happen if she did.

  Marcey hummed to herself. That part of the plan was still at its beginning stages. What would happen if she did get caught? Would she even be arrested? Would she allow herself to go far enough to try?

  What if she did succeed? Would she cut the painting from its frame and irreparably damage it? And what would happen then? They couldn’t sell it through legal channels. Marcey bit her lip. But what if they could find a way? Charlie’s notes mentioned something about a fake. Maybe that was the key. And the funds to buy the painting would have to come from Johnson. That was the ticket. That was what they had to do to expose Johnson as power hungry and corrupt.

  The subway station was abandoned, which wasn’t all that odd at this hour. The 6 train was equally empty: a few sleepy tourists headed back to their expensive Midtown hotels and a few drunk kids headed back after a night of the basketball tournament. It filled up, the closer they got to Midtown, but it was nowhere near the levels Marcey was used to.

  Marcey got off the train ten blocks up from the Perôt, her heart was already racing Even when she and Darius were younger, this was never something she’d done. Shelly hadn’t listened when Marcey tried to tell her that maybe they could stage something to distract the police. She didn’t listen to any of Marcey’s ideas, shooting them down and telling Marcey to go home and call Kat Barber in the morning. There was no point in any of this—they were just going to get arrested.

  That’s when the idea struck Marcey, and the plan jumped, fully realized, into her head. It was quick, simple, easy.

  The painting could not be stolen tonight.

  However, it could be made to look as though an attempt was made. Marcey could get caught, or come close to being caught. Charlie’s connection wouldn’t be seen at first, except to the small handful who knew he was planning this job. If Marcey was careful. If Marcey was careful, maybe left some evidence behind, maybe Linda Johnson would start to grow suspicious too. And that was good. Suspicious people were less careful. They’d fuck up.

  Perhaps that was what Kat Barber desired to see as well. Maybe it would force her to come clean about what had happened with Charlie in Rio and why she was after Charlie’s book now. Marcey wanted to know why Kat hadn’t been forthright from the beginning, and why Rio was such a mess for everyone involved.

  Marcey kicked a pebble and hurried along, occasionally glancing over her shoulder and pulling her hoodie down low over her eyes. Shelly would never agree to this part of the plan; Marcey had a gut feeling about that.

  Darkness was never true
in New York City. Especially not so close to Midtown. Still, if one stayed off the main avenues and walked east to west instead of north to south, it was fairly easy to find oneself in total darkness. This was a residential part of the city, not quite transitioning back into skyscrapers and offices. Marcey sloshed through puddles and ducked her head to avoid the streetlights. She was a shadow, stealing her way down the street.

  She was far too full of herself and overdramatic to boot.

  Chuckling at her overdramatic mind, Marcey pressed on.

  When she reached the well-lit part of Broadway that played host to the shuttered businesses and sleepy galleries, Marcey was largely alone on the street. She didn’t pull her hood down. She kept it, and the snapback holding it firmly in place, pulled low and walked with her gaze trained on the ground in front of her.

  The Perôt itself was silent, empty at the late hour. Marcey stole into a shadow on the far side of the building before deciding to walk around the block and check it from behind. The back half of the building, a filthy alley buttressed by dumpsters and the tell-tale squeak of rats, was ugly compared to the ornateness of the front. Windows crammed with AC units became one with the night sky above.

  The back door to the gallery was surprisingly unguarded. Usually the first level of any building in the city had some sort of anti-theft device—Marcey had learned that the hard way with Darius’s cousins back in college. Marcey tugged her jacket sleeve over her fingers and tried the door handle. It was locked. She stepped back and pulled out her wallet, taking out a Panera card and trying to jiggle the handle and force the door open with her card. Darius had taught her how to do this when they were kids, but she couldn’t remember it now.

  The card slipped, and Marcey dropped it. She bent, scrabbling on the dirty ground. Her fingernails came away black. She wiped them on her jeans and shoved the card away into her pocket. When she got up, her shoulder bumped against the door.

  Perfect.

  A shrill beeping rang out. Marcey stumbled backward, and the alarm grew louder and louder. She turned, her feet slipping on the wet trash in the alleyway. Marcey ran. She ran as fast as she could, circling the block and heading out into the brightly lit sidewalk. Already there were two police cruisers parked in front of the Perôt. How had they gotten there so quickly?

  Breathless, Marcey dodged around a taxi and crossed the street to where there was a growing gathering of onlookers. She looked like shit, dressed all in black, covered in mud and smelling like a dumpster. She should just get out of there, but Marcey wanted to see why there was already a crowd of gawkers outside. She frowned, eyes narrowed. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “What happened?” she asked a guy filming the scene with his phone. There was a live Periscope feed opened. “Did someone get hurt?”

  “Look.” The guy stepped aside, allowing Marcey’s shorter frame to step into the red and blue flashing light of the police cars. The windows of the Perôt were smashed in. “Said they saw someone…with a hood and a ball cap.” He glanced at Marcey, eyeing her suspiciously.

  Marcey shifted away from him, trying to slip back into the crowd, only to find herself making eye contact with one of the beat cops corralling the line. He stepped forward and gestured for her to come closer. Marcey couldn’t run. If she ran, she’d look guilty. Maybe she could talk herself out of this?

  All she’d tried to do was jostle a lock, after all. They couldn’t prove anything else. She was careful. This? She hadn’t done this.

  “Can I help you, officer?” Marcey asked.

  He glanced at her clothes, her hoodie under her leather jacket, the Jets snapback she wore. The mud and grime staining the knees of Marcey’s jeans was obvious now. As was the dirt on her fingernails, she’d been somewhere dirty recently, and the alarm in the alley went off. “Do you know what’s happened here?”

  “Someone broke the window,” Marcey answered. “It’s a shame. There was a pretty cool painting in there. Did someone steal it?”

  “Why would you think someone stole a painting?”

  Stupid. Marcey feigned self-flagellation and closed her eyes, as though preparing for the inevitable. “I just assumed, it’s a gallery, ya know?”

  The cop stared at Marcey for a moment. “You’re that kid from the posters. The one who sold those drugs in that school.”

  Marcey opened her mouth, actually flabbergasted and no longer acting. “What the fuck, man.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me and answer a few questions to clear up what’s happened here.” The man’s face was a twisted contortion of smugness and cruelty. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from a pouch on his belt.

  “What?” Marcey took half a step backward. This time the instinct to run felt real, the crushing, defeated sense of resignation that she would not be able to pull this off as cleanly as she would have liked. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You match the suspect description.”

  “But I—”

  “Don’t resist.”

  Marcey put her hands up. She wasn’t resisting. Marcey let herself be led away. She scanned the gathering crowd for Shelly only to find the tall woman missing from the gaggle of onlookers.

  Marcey started to speak as she was manhandled to the car. The cop banged her head, shoving her into the back seat of his cruiser. Little bursts of color filled Marcey’s vision, fusing with the blue and red of the lights overhead.

  When she got out of this, her first phone call would be to Kat. That bitch had called this in. She was the only one who could have known when Marcey was there and what Marcey might be planning to do.

  PART TWO

  A Heist, Unraveling

  CHAPTER 10

  Marcey, Leaping

  Security camera footage exonerated Marcey in the end. The detective, LePage, pulled it from the Banana Republic across the street and reviewed it for hours before he was willing to let Marcey leave. He showed her the footage before cutting her loose, apologizing for the mistake. “We took a look, and you can see that the guy who broke the window is a lot taller than you. I’m sorry for the mix-up.”

  Marcey fumed, watching the footage. The person in the video was obviously large, easily a foot taller than her five two. And heavy too, judging by the way his feet fell onto the pavement as he ran away once the window was smashed. “That’s it?”

  LePage frowned. “What?”

  “That’s all I get? An apology? You locked me up for hours. You didn’t let me call my mom—or a lawyer.”

  “Innocent people don’t call lawyers, Ms. Daniels.”

  “They do when they sue your ass for wrongful imprisonment.” Marcey snatched her things from the bin the clerk passed her and tugged her jacket on. Indignation she could do; it was a face she wore easily. She could channel the idea that she had never been treated this way before. She knew it was because she looked guilty as sin, because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that shouldn’t’ve mattered. For all they knew, she wasn’t doing anything that any other kid out on a night of the NCAA tourney wouldn’t do.

  No, she’d looked good for it, and they’d hauled her in, no questions asked.

  It’d help if LePage didn’t look so fucking disappointed about the whole thing. He rubbed at the back of his awful haircut. “Look, I’m sorry. You’re the kid from those posters, okay? I just saw you and thought…”

  “Maybe I’ll sue Linda Johnson and her sleazy Super PAC too. That shit’s illegal and you know it.” Marcey tugged her collar out from where it was twisted under her jacket. She gathered her hair in a sloppy bun. She wanted a shower. If she was going to get arrested, she wanted it to be on her terms, and not so clearly orchestrated to prove a point. “Just…let me go, okay? I didn’t do this. Let me go.” She stormed out of the precinct office and nearly walked straight in to Shelly and— “Devon?”

  He waved a hand at her, looking a little sheepish.

  Shelly threw her arms around Marcey’s shoulders. There was weight to her
actions. Marcey didn’t know how to take it. It felt so maternal. “Are you all right?” Shelly asked, stepping back and squeezing Marcey’s shoulders in a reassuring gesture. “We were just coming to get you out. I came as soon as I heard.”

  How Shelly knew was not exactly the first question on Marcey’s mind. She just assumed that this was all a part of some lesson she was meant to learn but hadn’t quite seen the truth of yet. The actual truth wouldn’t be until later, when the pieces slid into place. Marcey was more preoccupied with how Shelly was fussing over her, steering her away from the precinct door and settling her on a bench at the bus stop, tutting at the mess on her jeans and how dirty she looked.

  “They just locked me up. Didn’t ask questions, didn’t bother to get a statement, just shoved me into some black hole in the basement of the precinct for hours.” Marcey’s fingers trembled. “I can’t—I don’t know—” Darius. She couldn’t get the image of him behind bars like that out of her mind. When they were kids—they hadn’t been locked up, just dumped back with their parents. This was different. This was terrifying. “I can’t go back in there.”

  Shelly smoothed Marcey’s dirty bangs from her forehead, before pulling her close. She exchanged a look with Devon over Marcey’s head, one that Marcey was pretty sure Shelly hadn’t meant for Marcey to see. It spoke volumes and drove home Marcey’s true fear. This was deliberate. “No one’s going to throw you in jail, Marcey. You’re free to go…”

  The trailing end of the sentence made Marcey push Shelly away and get to her feet. “You were right.” Hot tears stung at the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t realize it, didn’t want to hear it, but you were right. I’m too fucking green for this shit. I needed to be careful and I wasn’t. Look where it got me.”

  Devon frowned. “It’s just a night in jail, Mar. Wouldn’t be your first…”