Frank Sinatra in a Blender (13 page)

“They cut his dick off?”

Sid told him they did. Wasn’t that long ago he saw something like that on the telly.

The Lexus made a right in front of the Indigo, waited for a snowplow to turn around, then they pulled into the parking garage. Sid turned the car off with the wipers in mid-wipe. Things couldn’t have worked out better.

“We take the bag with us, Johnny. We’ll keep it in the car until the end of the day, then we split it up and we go our separate ways. But not to Florida.”

Johnny said he could live with that.

•••••

Doyle pulled package after package of cash
from the duffel bag and stuffed it in the hockey bag. The bills were in stacks of $10s, $20s, $50s, and $100s. They were wrapped individually in color-coded bands. He couldn’t believe no dye packs managed to find their way into the bag. Doyle knew that once a dye pack exploded, it released an aerosol of red smoke and dye. The robbery becomes pointless and the unlucky bastard usually tossed the bag to the ground. But this time it didn’t happen, which surprised Doyle.

When the hockey bag was full of money, Doyle manhandled the oxyacetylene torch from one bag to the other; he shoved his portable hydraulic jack beside it. Along with both the sledgehammers, two hacksaws, a fifty-foot extension cord, a ballpeen hammer, a pair of asbestos gloves, a welder’s helmet, a chain, and a come-along winch.

The hockey bag was just as heavy as before; he struggled to carry it back toward the front door.

He turned to take one last look at the room; he wanted to be sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Then remembered the loose cash back in the safe, plus the overpowering allure of that watch. He set the duffel bag on the floor and made a run for the safe. He decided to take what he could before he left.

Doyle returned to the living room with the jewelry, the cufflinks, the watch, and the dildo. As he stuffed the goods into his pilfer bag he heard the unmistakable voice of that English cocksucker on the other side of the door talking to a guy he’d called No Nuts.

•••••

Johnny was already telling Sid he was hungry
when they stepped from the elevator. They rounded the corner and Sid told him, “Well, we should go through his bloody fridge. I’ll let you make me a sandwich while yer at it.”

No Nuts laughed. “Yeah, maybe just this once.”

Sid unlocked the door and they stepped into Joe Parker’s living room.

He called out for Cathy Parker; just to be sure she hadn’t come home for lunch.

When Sid felt confident they were alone, they turned and went down the hall.

They never saw the curtains moving as Doyle stepped out onto the balcony with the hockey bag full of cash.

The first thing they did was walk to the closet and check for the bag. They looked at each other, grinning. Sid nodded, said, “We did it, Johnny.”

Johnny still couldn’t believe it. He wanted to spit in Parker’s face for all the abuse he’d taken over the years. He wished he could see the look on Joe Parker’s face when he realized he and Sid just
restole
his stolen money.

They walked back into the kitchen and Sid opened up the fridge. He removed a jug of orange juice, took a big shot from the bottle. He opened up the crisper, removed a package of deli meat and crammed it in his mouth. “This is pretty good shit, Johnny.”

Johnny didn’t answer.

Sid rummaged through a few cabinets but didn’t see anything worth pinching. His mind was in overdrive, his thoughts spiraling. He had to maintain his cool. Had to think things through. Once Parker realized the money was on the street he’d know the first two guys to chop up.

And it wouldn’t just be Parker, but the people Parker worked for. People with connections in New Jersey and worse.

Sid finished slamming the bottle of Tropicana. He looked around, but he couldn’t find No Nuts.

“Hey, Johnny?”

Johnny yelled something from the other room.

Sid walked into the bedroom, asked, “What the bloody hell. . .” But he stopped mid-sentence. Johnny No Nuts was squating on the Parker’s bed with his pants rolled down to ankles, propping his back up against the headboard, pissing and shitting on Joe Parker’s silk pillow.

“
Good Christ, Johnny!
You’ve bloody lost it mate, haven’t you?”

Sid was drunk with laughter; he stepped back out of the bedroom in tears. No Nuts was shitting on the boss’ pillow.
Son-of-a-bitch
. It looked like there was no turning back now.

•••••

Doyle had rehearsed this situation
from the balcony of the room he was supposedly checking out for his parents. He prepared for it. Just in case he’d have to climb up onto the balcony above. Something he could do, but not with a hockey bag full of money weighing him down.

Cautiously and with great reluctance, he tossed the bag off the ledge. He watched it fall slowly then crash to the ground in an explosion of snow and ice. He’d have to come back around the building to recover it later. He just hoped nobody came across it while they were out walking their dog. The irony of stealing stolen money only to lose it to some curious resident with a schnauzer was difficult to bear.

With the pilfer bag firmly attached to his belt, Doyle grabbed the bottom of the balcony above him and pulled himself up. The purple dildo poked him in the stomach as he shimmied. He tried to remember why he stole it.

When he practiced the climb two months ago it was October. The weather was 68 degrees and sunny. There were no gale force winds. Nor was there ice. And when he practiced, he never actually made the climb, but he
did
eyeball it. In his mind Doyle was pretty sure he could do it.

He held the railing tight and worked his hands up over the top until he could find the concrete ledge with his knee. Anyone driving by the Indigo and paying attention would see a man in a dark jumpsuit dangling two hundred feet up. His left hand slipped momentarily, the metal was enclosed in ice, difficult to grip, but he was finally able to pull himself up over the top and fall onto the floor of the terrace. He lay on the ground long enough to find his breath, but he had to get that money.

The one comfort he reserved was the knowledge the unit above the Parker’s was vacant. A stroke of luck admittedly, and a deciding factor that allowed him to do the job in the first place.

After breaking in through the sliding door, Doyle walked across the empty apartment and through the front door of Apartment 302, exactly one floor about Parker’s apartment. He took the first elevator down. He was still nervous and sweating like a cross-country runner, despite the astringent cold.

The elevator stopped on the next floor. When the door opened, a stranger stepped inside and gave Doyle the once-over. The stranger noticed the sweating.

“Hot out there, huh sport?”

Doyle recognized the accent. It was that British asshole.

Doyle shook his head. Sweat was running down his face and raining on the floor. When he looked down Doyle remembered his pilfer bag was still attached to his waist. He wondered if English Sid would see the outline of Mrs. Parker’s significant dildo.

Doyle got off on the first floor. He assumed Sid was going down to the parking garage but he wanted off that elevator the first chance he had. He cursed the fucking luck he was having. He knew the Englishman had to recognize him. Any minute now the shit would hit the fan and Doyle’d be fucked.

He walked as fast as he could down the hall, then made a right, found the exit he needed. When he opened the door he saw the bag waiting in a quiet nook between two shrubs. Doyle grabbed the duffel bag and the expression on his face was a mix of pride, excitement, and satisfaction.

And worry. He couldn’t believe it. It was too easy.

Doyle got back to the van and his heart thumped loud enough that everyone in the garage could hear it. The scene in the elevator was too fucking close. He was sure English Sid recognized him. He had to. It was a small city.

They’d seen each other around, most recently at Cowboy Roy’s not two months ago. Doyle was pretty sure Sid had been nailing one of the strippers on a semi-regular basis. He couldn’t remember her name, but he was sure he could ID her by her tits. Something about her rack just left an indelible impression in Doyle’s mind.

He’d have to ask Big Tony about her. Big Tony knew all the strippers at Cowboy Roy’s and tracked all of their personal comings and goings for his own amusement.

Doyle’d sent him a text earlier that said:
Meet me at titled kilt in Arnold. 1 hour
. Although he couldn’t imagine Big Tony’s fat fingers pawing the keyboard with legitimate success, he at least hoped he’d managed to read the message.

They needed someplace new. They couldn’t trust Cowboy Roy’s. They had to stay low until they could get out of town. Doyle knew the perfect place.

Doyle opened the bag and pulled out a package of $100 dollar bills. He put his nose down in the bag and smelled all the money. Split three ways, it was still a fortune worth dying for.

So far, everything they’d done was worth the risk.

He walked to the back of the van and dumped the money on the floor. He wanted to hide as much as he could before he had to divide the rest up. He deserved an extra share. He’d done all the work.

Doyle stuffed piles of cash into the toolboxes he had in the back. He stashed bundle after bundle in a roll of carpet, hide a few more stacks of hundreds under a blanket. He put the rest back into the hockey bag.

Once he assumed the Lexus was long gone, he stripped out of his jumpsuit, changed into a pair of khakis with a button-down shirt and a winter coat with a hood. He didn’t look anything like the man in dark coveralls who walked around the building and picked up a hockey bag full of money. He didn’t look anything like the man English Sid talked to in the elevator. At least that was what he hoped.

Doyle left the Indigo, escaped the Central West End, and made his way to Interstate 44, which he took to Interstate 270. Ten minutes later he walked into the Tilted Kilt and ordered a double cheeseburger, onion straws, and a root beer. The regulars did shots as a big guy in a Pearl Jam t-shirt destroyed the other regulars in a trivia contest.

Doyle watched the girls in their trademark low-cut uniforms with their short skirts that stopped just below each ass cheek. His waitress was Courtney, she was beautiful and he gave her a twenty-dollar tip. The hair fell around her face in dangling strands and he fought every urge to tell her to quit her job and move away with him to their own private island, where they would spend the rest of their lives fucking and doing cartwheels on the beach.

•••••

While Sid waited for No Nuts in the Lexus
he scrolled through his phone, scouting the different locations in Florida for him to call home. He raced out of the room once he saw No Nuts depositing his stool sample on the pillow. He told No Nuts to bring the bag downstairs with him when he came.

Sid was listening to Jason Ellis on satellite radio and having a good laugh when Johnny finally made it down to the car. When No Nuts stepped from the service elevator Sid could read the distraught lines that were carved deep in his worried face. He popped the trunk, but No Nuts walked up to the driver’s side and dropped the duffel bag on the ground. Sid noted the bag made a weird
tink
sound when it hit concrete.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Somebody robbed us, Sid! Somebody robbed Parker! They broke into his safe and they took our money. They filled the bag with scuba gear or somethin’.”

Sid did a double take. “
Scuba gear?
What the fuck are you talkin’ about, Johnny?”

No Nuts bent down and unzipped the bag to show his partner the acetylene tank and the sledgehammers. He held up a pair of asbestos gloves.

Sid looked up, his eyes as big as the pewter salad plates at Scupper Jack’s. He slammed his palm against the side of his door.
“What the fuck is this?”

“Fuck if I know! After I finished takin’ a shit I went into the bathroom to wash my hands and saw the safe open. Where the fuck is our money Sid?”

Sid was thinking. He looked around, told No Nuts to get in the car.

“We gotta get outta here, Johnny.”

He threw the bag of tools in the trunk and jumped into the passenger seat.

Sid looked around the parking garage. He tried to figure things out. At first he thought Parker’d set him up, but that didn’t make any sense. He tried to think but No Nuts kept going on about how they were fucked. How Mr. Parker’d hang their nuts sacks from a pike.

“Shut the fuck up, Johnny! I gotta think. Use you’re bloody head for once and help me.”

The clues were in the bag. A torch, heavy-duty gloves, sledgehammers, hydraulic jacks, gauges to measure heat temperatures. Somebody planned a job, a serious job, but they didn’t end up using the gear.
Why?
Because they just so happened to find a large bag filled with money in a closet.