Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) (10 page)

Mara said, “With all that has gone on in the last couple months, what’s your best guess?”

“I would say it is likely they have abilities. The question would be, are they con artists or are they do-gooders?” Ping said.

“Are these metaphysical abilities or inherent ones?” Bohannon asked.

“Most likely inherited, if they are real,” Ping said. “The metaphysical abilities I referenced are extremely rare. I have only encountered three people in my life with distinctly metaphysical powers. One was your partner, Suter.”

“Who were the other two?” Bohannon asked.

Ping looked at Mara.

She nodded and said, “Me and my brother, Sam.”

“That’s how you froze those rescue workers after the explosion at the office park.”

She nodded again and blushed a little.

Bohannon looked away, not wanting to gawk at her embarrassment for some reason. They fell silent once more for a few seconds, and it fell to Ping to restart the conversation.

“Bo, do you have any other questions?”

“Just one. How would the two of you like to attend a healing revival tomorrow?”

Rivercore Northwest Bank sat on an island of concrete floating on the southern edge of the Clackamas shopping mall’s massive parking lot. It was almost lunchtime and, though it was a typical gray mid-November day, the clouds didn’t appear to be threatening rain, so foot traffic seemed to be increasing along the extensive network of sidewalks that connected the mall to the chain restaurants, clothing boutiques and electronics shops within its orbit. Prado and Merv sat in a silver BMW 3 Series across from a smoothie shop with a good view of the bank.

In the passenger seat, Merv nervously twisted around, tugging at his blue oxford shirt which strained against its buttons and radiated a burst of creases across his chest and belly. The loosely knotted maroon power tie did little to conceal that he was much too large for the shirt, but at least it held his collar somewhat closed, despite being under assault by his bulging neck. Having shifted the shirt laterally across his girth to a more comfortable position, he switched to futzing with an object in his pocket.

Next to him, behind the wheel, Prado turned his gaze from the bank to his passenger. “Stop messing with the webcam. It’s clipped on just how we need it,” he said, picking up his smartphone from the dash and turning its screen toward Merv. The device displayed the view through car’s windshield from the perspective of Merv’s pocket.

“I don’t get why we have to go through all this. Why don’t we do it and get it over with?” Merv whined. “These clothes are about to strangle me to death.”

“We need to be methodical and thorough in our planning if we are to do this successfully,” Prado said, his lisp lightly kissing the last word. “Every detail needs to be meticulously executed, or we will both end up in jail.”

“And you think this is better than swiping some software and selling it?”

“Yes, I do. Selling stolen goods puts us in danger of discovery or capture several times—during the robbery, during the transport of the goods and during the transaction with the buyer. That’s too many steps to take to simply acquire money. Why not cut to the chase and take the money? Especially if you consider the advantages your particular talents afford us,” Prado said. “This will work if you do it my way. I assure you, I am good at this.”

Merv looked around the interior of the car and said, “You know, we both seem to be doing fairly well financially in this place. Being dermatologists pays enough to get along. Maybe we should go legit.”

“The world may think we are dermatologists, but we don’t know anything about it. How long do you think it will be before our patients and coworkers figure out that we are frauds? And how long do you think you can work in an office where your job is to examine people’s skin before you accidently touch someone and turn into them?”

Merv held up his latex-gloved hands and said, “A doctor’s office is one of the only places this doesn’t look weird.”

“Accidents do happen, and being in constant close quarters with people will increase the chances of something bad happening. Do you want to live like that?”

“No, but I don’t want to live like this either.” Merv tugged on the waist of his pants which squeezed him into two doughy segments stacked on top of each other.

“Next time we’ll spend a little more time scouting out our target. There are plenty of plus-size bank managers out there, I’m sure.” Prado noticed movement at the glass doors at the front of the bank and turned. “Speaking of bank managers, there’s our target, heading out to the sandwich shop next door, right on schedule. Are you ready?”

Merv tensed and jerkily reached for the door handle.

Prado put a hand on Merv’s shoulder and said, “You are not going to need those gloves. Leave them here.”

“Oh, right.” Merv snapped off the gloves, threw them on the dash. He turned back to open the door.

“Don’t forget the briefcase,” Prado said.

“Got it.” Merv reached into the backseat and pulled a brown leather briefcase over his headrest. He opened the door and heaved himself out of the car.

Prado’s eyes widened, watching the added strain placed on Merv’s clothing, afraid both his pants and shirt were going to split. He relaxed when Merv straightened, slammed the car door and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Merv pulled a phone out of his pocket, lifted it to his ear and pretended to have a conversation while he walked along the sidewalk toward the bank. Meanwhile, the bank manager, a fifty-year-old man of average build with olive skin and a head of cottony white hair, walked in the opposite direction on the same sidewalk, toward Merv.

Prado watched through the windshield, then looked down at the swaying image on his smartphone. Merv stood on the right side of the sidewalk, so the webcam in his pocket had a perfect shot as the bank manager approached. As they were about to pass, Merv swerved to the left, crashing into the man walking toward him. The bank manager stumbled over a raised curb that ran along the edge of the sidewalk and separated it from a small grass-covered median. Falling to his hands and knees, he turned and looked over his shoulder, red-faced and yelled, “Hey!”

Merv slipped his phone into his pocket, put his briefcase on the sidewalk and ran over to the man, extending his hand to help him up. “I am so sorry. That was completely obnoxious. I hate when people walk around blindly bumping into things while they talk on the phone.”

The man took the proffered hand, stood up and brushed himself off. He glanced up at the bank sign, reminding himself that this was likely one of his customers and said, “No harm done.”

He smiled and was about to turn away to continue to the sandwich shop when he noticed Merv’s tie and said, “Nice tie you’ve got there.” The bank manager grabbed his own tie and waved it. They were identical. It didn’t occur to him that their blue oxfords and khaki pants were the same as well.

Merv quickly turned away and headed into the bank. “Sorry about that,” he said over his shoulder.

The bank manager shrugged and headed to lunch.

Before Merv got to the front doors of the bank, his face was roiling and shifting, compressing and elongating. His jaw cracked and then popped. He felt his teeth grind as they slid along the moving gum line. The roots of his black hair turned white and then, in a sudden burst, covered his head in a snowy mane. His skin darkened across his face in a wave like a loaf of bread baking in a time-lapsed video. As his chest tightened and his belly collapsed, his tight clothes loosened and shifted on his frame. Merv had to hold on to the door handle while his legs narrowed and lengthened. This time, his shoes fit before and after the morphing. In about two minutes, Merv lifted his head, turned toward the parked BMW, nodded and entered the bank.

* * *

In the BMW, Prado watched on his smartphone as Merv walked into the bank lobby. Ahead of him, a security guard nodded and said, “Mighty quick lunch, Mr. Bartolucci.”

Prado could hear Merv reply in an unfamiliar voice, “I remembered a couple things I needed to do before I took a break.”

Merv, the cloned bank manager, headed toward the row of tellers along the back wall. As he approached the door leading to the rear portion of the bank, someone buzzed him in. Prado had watched this process several times, and he wasn’t sure if one of tellers or someone watching on a security camera was allowing the bank manager access to the secured portions of the bank. Whatever the method, Merv seemed to pass muster.

After clearing the door, Merv turned left and entered a short hall that led to an office on the right and what appeared to be an employee break room on the left. He entered the largely sterile small office and sat down at the desk upon which were a name plate engraved Christopher Bartolucci, Branch Manager, alongside a phone and a computer. There were no papers, family pictures or other personal items, but he did notice a briefcase—exactly like the one he held in his lap—sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the desk.

A woman on her way to the break room stopped in front of the office door and said, “Oh, Chris, I thought you were out to lunch.”

“I forgot to make a phone call before I left.”

“What, you don’t have a cell phone?” She smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Didn’t want to talk with the lunch crowd in the background.”

“Makes sense.” She turned and went into the break room.

Merv stood up, walked out of the office and back down the hall. He made sure not to leave his briefcase behind. Instead of opening the door to the lobby and exiting, he continued past the tellers and took another left where he saw a large metal door left slightly ajar. On the wall next to it was an electronic keypad. The vault. He grabbed the heavy door with two fingers and pulled it open wide enough to see inside. He paused for a moment to look around to see if anyone noticed him. Everyone ignored him.
After all, he belonged here
. He turned back to the vault.

On a table in the center of the small room lay three large canvas bags that had been dropped off by an armored car service fifteen minutes ago. Apparently they had not been emptied yet. The walls of the vault were comprised of a series of shelves and drawers, presumably to hold the cash. Merv stepped into the vault, walked around the table but did not touch the bags. After a minute, he exited the vault and then left the bank.

Outside, he sort of half jogged over to the BMW and got in.

“Why are you running?” Prado asked.

“I’m making sure I don’t run into myself. That bank manager might come back from lunch unexpectedly and get a big surprise.”

“How did it seem to you?”

“Piece of cake. I think this will be easy to pull off. Too bad we can only take as much as will fit in this briefcase. We’re leaving a lot of money on the table, literally,” Merv said.

“It looked like things went smooth on the video feed. I think in two days we’ll be ready to do the job. Let’s come by tomorrow and watch things one more time to make sure the bank manager’s habits persist and that the cash delivery follows the expected schedule.”

Merv grabbed the rearview mirror and looked at his recently acquired face. “Not a bad-looking guy, a little old, but not bad. I can live with this for a couple days.”

The green-tinged oxidized copper roof of the cupola struck Mara as almost dainty atop the hulking block of dark gray that comprised Pioneer Courthouse in downtown Portland. Copper made her think of the Chronicle, and she rubbed her palm across the right pocket of her jeans where she carried it, when she carried it. The pocket was empty. She, Ping and Detective Bohannon stood at the corner of Southwest Morrison Street and Sixth Avenue, waiting for a mass of people who had disembarked from the MAX train to clear out of their path.

Diagonally from where they stood, the sea of brick that made up Pioneer Courthouse Square lay before them. Directly ahead, on the west side of the plaza, the bricks swept up in a wave of wide curving steps that wrapped around, turning the square into a man-made block canyon, an amphitheater of masonry topped with off-white columns and a bank of businesses anchored by a Starbucks coffee shop. A brick Nordstrom store loomed in the background beyond, centered over the square as if it were the retailer’s patio. Off to the left stood Jackson Tower, a rectangular wedding cake of a building, topped with a clock instead of a loving couple.

Once the commuter crowd cleared, Bohannon pointed in the direction of the clock tower toward the left end of the sweeping steps where a small group of people had coalesced, in stark contrast to the dozens of pedestrians crisscrossing the bricks oblivious to each other.

“I think that might be them over there,” the detective said, lowering his hand to the grip on his crutch.

Ping and Mara followed him across the street and entered the square, dodging a couple tourists who were staring down at the bricks beneath their feet. Mara followed their gaze to the ground and saw names etched on many of the bricks.

“I always do that,” Mara said.

“What?” Bohannon asked.

“Look down at the bricks to see what people find so fascinating. I forget that a lot of the bricks are engraved with the names of the people who contributed to the plaza. I don’t come down here very often.”

“Perhaps it’s a touch of psychological avoidance, considering your aversion to bridges and having to cross one to get here,” Ping said.

“Water, not bridges,” Mara said.

Bohannon nodded toward the opposite side of the plaza while continuing to alternately plant his crutches and swing his body forward. “I used to have a partner who would come down here and play chess all the time. He consistently wanted to play on the brass boards over there, but usually he’d have to use one of his own since those were almost always occupied. Wonder if they still play down here.”

“They do, mostly during the spring and summer, I believe,” Ping said. “Although I’m sure there are some die-hard enthusiasts who love the idea of sitting in the rain for a game.”