Getting Sassy (25 page)

“Right. I’ll get it for you—don’t worry about that. You drive it in, park it, and stay in it until I call you.”

“We still haven’t got me in yet.”

I thought about who might be attending one of Bull’s parties in a van. “Who’s the caterer?”

Mick smiled like he’d already arrived at where I was going. “Gwen always uses Naomi and Nathan’s Catering.”

“Can we match the truck and the sign on their truck?”

“Yeah,” he said, drawing the word out. Then, with more certainty, “Sure. Easy enough. Get one of those magnetic signs we can write on. Stick it on the side.” He nodded again. “That’ll work. You just show up after the caterer is already there. Nobody’ll question someone in a catering van. Park and wait until I call you to let you know that Blood’s out of the stable.”

“Does the caterer have more than one truck?”

“Sure,” he said. “They’re big in this area. I’ve seen three or four at an event.”

“What do they wear?”

“Whenever I’ve seen them, they wear something like black pants and a white shirt.”

“You’re sure you can match the sign?”

He nodded. “From what I remember it’s nothing fancy. But I’ll check it out this afternoon.”

“So the guard will see a catering truck and let me in?”

“There’s an intercom there, but I doubt anyone will even ask. Not once they see the van.” Then he shrugged. “If the guard asks, just tell him you’re bringing dessert.”

“If the guard sounds at all suspicious, I’m leaving.”

“Fair enough,” he said, then added, “They won’t. Catering trucks are always coming and going from these things. It’s Gwen. She sees the caterer as her personal servants. I’ve seen her send one of them out for caviar because some guy Bull was trying to impress had just come back from Russia.”

This didn’t seem out of character for Gwen.

“Okay,” I finally said. Maybe, just maybe, this could work. But I was the only one at risk, and that wasn’t right.

Perhaps sensing my reluctance, Mick added, “Not only do I have to be there when the goat gets snatched, but I’ve gotta be with Bull when he’s showing off Blood. Truth is, Bull’s scared shitless of that horse.” With a shrug he added, “I’ll be handling him.”

“I see.” I wasn’t sure whether Mick was referring to Bull or Blood, and I supposed it didn’t matter.

I swallowed more soda, which was no longer cold and didn’t burn going down. My throat wasn’t closing up anymore, and I decided that was a good sign. “Okay, let’s get back to that in a minute, then.” I eyed him. “The barn has security cameras, right?”

“Right.”

“Aimed at Blood’s stall?”

He nodded.

“But when they move Blood, they’ll move Sassy out of that stall. You’re sure? What if Sassy wants to tag along? Or, what if Bull brings the whole crowd to the stable?”

Mick smiled and shook his head. “Won’t happen. Bull hates that goat. Thinks it makes Blood look like a sissy. He won’t want any of his guests seeing the two of them snuggling up together.”

With that, he leaned forward and pulled a folded up paper from his back pocket. Unfolded, it was a drawing of the stable’s layout and the surrounding area. I slid a little closer to him.

“Here’s the stables,” he began.

“I can see that. Are you sure it’s accurate?”

“Of course I’m sure. I helped him design it.”

All the stalls were there, all but one noted as unoccupied, and dark Xs where the surveillance cameras were mounted. Next to Blood’s stall was a smaller stall. Mick tapped his thumb on it. “There’s no camera aimed here. This is where the goat will be. Either that or he’ll be wandering around the stables. Or outside.” He dragged his finger down to a fenced-in area just east of the stable. “No camera there either. If he’s not outside, you come in this way,” he indicated the main entrance, “your pockets full of goat goodies you can coax him with.”

“What if he won’t follow me?”

“The goat likes you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Denying it was pointless. “But what if he doesn’t remember me?”

“Goats remember.”

I snorted.

“Seriously. If he liked you a couple of days ago, he’s going to like you on Thursday. It’s not like he’ll recognize your face. He must like the way you smell or something.”

I let that waft by me. “If he doesn’t?” I paused. “I can’t battle a goat the whole way.”

Mick shrugged. “Then you walk away.”

That I could do. “And the motion detector will be off.”

“They’ll turn it off when they take Blood out of the stable.” He cocked a wry grin. “He’s the only thing in the stable that Bull figures is worth stealing. Hell, he’s practically the only thing in the stable.”

He looked at me. “And, you know what? Like I said, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it.” He paused. “You move your mother in with you and I... I do something else.”

“You forgot the third option. One or both of us winds up in jail. And if it happens, it’ll be me.”

“You won’t go to jail. Not if you’re caught stealing a goat. That’s a misdemeanor. You don’t move into the capital offense bracket until
we ask for money. And that’s the easy part. Getting the goat is the hard part.”

“What do I do with the goat? I can’t smuggle it into my apartment. And your place would be too obvious.”

He smiled. “Where’s the best place to hide a goat?”

“With a goatherd,” I ventured.

“Close,” he said. “I’ve got a friend. Meyer. He’s got a small farm. A bunch of goats. Couple of horses. In fact, it’s the farm where Sassy came from. He’s gonna be out of town for a long weekend at some county fair.” Then he said, “While he’s gone, his brother’s staying at the farm.” He smiled again. “His brother knows squat about animals, just tosses them some food when he figures they’re hungry, and he starts drinking around five p.m. and doesn’t quit until he falls asleep.”

“Where does this goat man live?”

“Ten minutes from Bull’s place.” Then, “We only need to keep him there for a day. While we make the call and collect the money.”

“What if they put Sassy’s photo on TV and Meyer’s brother recognizes him?”

Mick just looked at me for several moments, and I think he was trying not to laugh. “This is a goat, Robyn. There are no Amber Alerts for goats.”

But it was extortion. “And who makes the phone call?”

“You need to do that.”

“Why me?” As Mick pointed out, the phone call was where the crime went from something rather minor—swiping a goat—to a more criminal offense.

“Because I’ll be at Bull’s. With any luck, I’ll be the one delivering the money.”

“What if you’re not? What if Bull decides to do it himself?”

Mick frowned, and I kept going. “It’s got to be somewhere public enough so one of us can pick up the money without being noticed, but not so public that there could be twelve of Bull’s people watching either of us do it.”

He nodded, chewing on the corner of his mouth. “How about the Wired Lizard on the corner of Seventh and State. You get there—”

“Why me? If you’re not dropping off the money, then surely you can pick it up.”

“Maybe. But I’m guessing that Bull will be keeping me pretty close. I don’t want to have to beat him to the drop.”

Again, he had a point, but why were all the points on his side? “Go ahead with the plan.”

He shrugged. “You get ahead of him so you can see who’s coming and going. Work on your book or something.”

I snorted, and Mick continued. “Tell Bull to leave it in the garbage in the men’s room. After he leaves, you wait a few minutes then, when there’s nobody back there, you duck into the men’s room, grab the bag and beat it.”

“I have a better idea.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“I tell him to drop it at Phinny’s Tap, which is across the street from the Wired Lizard. I can sit in the coffee shop and watch him go in and leave. Then I go in there and pick up the money.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that is better.”

It could work. “I could do a minimal disguise. Odds are he wouldn’t see me at the Wired Lizard. I know Phinny’s, and the restrooms are in the back off a narrow hall to the left. Someone heading that way wouldn’t be seen by the customers in the main room. The women’s room is a single seater without a stall. I assume the men’s room is the same.”

“It is.” He nodded. “I think the garbage is in one corner.”

I just looked at him. “You’ve got amazing recall of a john.”

With a shrug he said, “I notice details.”

I slumped back into the bench. “Let me see if I have this straight. I sneak onto Bull’s grounds in a van marked as the caterer’s.” Mick nodded, and at this point I began to wonder if disguising me as a caterer hadn’t been part of his plan all along. He’d just let me think—
for whatever reason—that I was contributing. But it didn’t make much difference in the long run, so I continued to describe the plan as I saw it. “You phone me when I’m good to go. I steal the goat while avoiding the cameras, hustle him into the van and drive to the goat place where the caretaker will be inebriated, and I can slip in an extra goat without him noticing. Then I make the ransom call, and if you’re not the one to deliver the money, I’ll have to pick it up as well.”

He shrugged. “I’m the inside man.”

“I’m the do-everything woman.”

“Okay,” he said with an annoyed sigh. “What’s your suggestion?”

“We’re asking for a half million?”

Mick nodded. “That’s probably as much as he can come up with on short notice.”

“I get three.” I really didn’t care that much about the fifty grand; two hundred and fifty thousand dollars would be enough to take care of my mother for a while. But I was taking more of a risk than Mick, and I knew what it was to be undervalued.

“What if you do get caught?”

I could see where he was going with this. “It was my own idea. I had no help.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “It’s a three/two split.”

There was that warbling wren again. As if it were warning me that we weren’t finished negotiating yet.

Mick glanced at me. “One question.”

I waited.

“Once you get this three hundred grand, what are you going to do with it?”

“I told you. I’m using it to keep my mother in Dryden.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I know that. But where are you going to tell the IRS it came from?”

Shit,
I thought,
you’re the taxman, you tell me.
But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying that out loud.

“I could say it’s my mother’s money,” I told him, but I knew that would present the same problem. Besides, I’d just convinced the state
of Illinois that she had no money. “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “I guess I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“You know who could help you?”

Cocky bastard. “My accountant.”

He grinned. “He could be a lot of help.”

“So, basically, I’d be paying you fifty grand to launder the money?”

“I’m not in the business, but I know people.”

For someone who hated being without options, it was happening to me a lot lately. “You got me.”

He looked at me. “You mad?”

“Yes.”

“Guess I’d be too.”

I pressed my hand on the seat of the bench and tucked my fingers under its edge, gripping it hard. “It was my idea. I’m the one who can get caught.”

“I’ll do it for twenty-five,” he said. “You get two-seventy-five and I get two-twenty-five.”

After a few moments I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling my sigh as I said, “Okay.”

“What’s wrong? That not enough?”

“No,” I said. “That’s fair.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Where to start?

“Oh, shit, Mick. This is getting too complicated. It’s too scary, and I’ve got to be crazy to be sitting here talking to you like we’re planning a party or something.”

“But it’s not complicated, Robyn. This is done all the time—”

“Not in my universe.”

“Welcome to Bull’s world.” He leaned toward me. “Hell, that’s how Bull gets away with ripping off investors.”

“Well, that drops me into a category I’d love to squirm out of.”

“Robyn,” he said and waited until I looked at him, “Blood will miss the goat for a day and then they’ll be back together. He might even win that race. The only one who gets hurt is Bull. And it’s his ego
that’ll take a bruising. And it’s not like you’re taking what belongs to him.”

“But it doesn’t belong to me either.”

“Okay, if it makes you feel better maybe you can designate the money for a fund to compensate the people Bull ripped off.” He waited. “How much sense does that make?”

“None,” I admitted. Pulling this off might be easier than learning to live with it.

“You’ll have to show me how to get to Meyer’s farm,” I finally said.

“I’ll come by to get you tomorrow afternoon. Meyer’s brother won’t be there.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll pick up a cell phone for you,” he said.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll pick it up.”

“Pay with cash.”

“Of course.”

And, because he must have known what was on my mind, I said, “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t completely trust you.”

“Yeah?” He didn’t seem surprised. “What part of me don’t you trust?”

“Most of you.”

He inched a little closer, and then he moved in and kissed me. I responded. He was a good kisser, and I wasn’t so staggered by the events to dismiss him. But when he drew back, his hand still touching my cheek, I rested my fingers on his wrist and said, “That’s nice, Mick. Really. But that doesn’t make me trust you.”

“What do I have to do?”

“I don’t know. And maybe that’s the point. I play by the rules. You do my income taxes. You know what I’m talking about. I won’t take a deduction I don’t deserve.”

“I know. I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if I didn’t trust you. So maybe that’s enough?”

“I don’t think it is.”

“How come?” His confusion seemed genuine.

“You have a reputation. You must know that. I suspect you’ve cultivated it.”

“I work for some unpleasant people. If I show my belly, it’s all over.”

“Why do you work for people like that?”

With a sigh he collapsed back against the bench. “I’m returning some favors.” He turned toward me. “Believe it or not, a jockey with a bum leg isn’t in big demand. It’d have been real easy to slide into a bottle or pain meds.” He picked up my can of soda and took a swig. “But I’d had some good rides and—contrary to legend—had an honest reputation. I’d done some riding for a guy whose family was in the business. He paid my way through U of I. When I finished and set up my own practice, he was my first client. Started doing some investing for him and made him some money. The rest I got through references.”