The House That Death Built (5 page)

Rob needed a score like other
people need oxygen.

It had been too many years, too
many disappointments, too many reaffirmations of the universe's apparent need
to screw him over.

His dad had been a writer. A
talentless good-for-nothing who somehow managed to sell just enough books that
the dumbass could continue to delude himself that someday he might just make
it. Just enough books to keep the family balanced on the knife-edge of
destitution. Just.

One day he took Rob aside and
gave him one of his periodic "man to man" talks. Spewing life lessons
that he'd obviously read about in some glossy magazine while waiting to cash in
his food stamps at the super market.

"Remember, son: no matter
what you do in life, you must run yourself like a business. The difference
between me and most people trying to make it in such a difficult industry is
that I know this fact. I know I'm not just an 'artist,' I'm a businessman. I
create a product for value, and every transaction I enter into has to create
net value for me, or else it's not worth pursuing."

Rob had nodded. Only eight years
old at the time, but he was already old enough to know that if his father had
actually
followed
that advice he probably wouldn't have had to settle
for second-hand toys from the Salvation Army as Christmas presents.

"Yes, dad," he said.
Shane Johnson kept on word-vomiting until Rob settled into a half-conscious
series of nods interspersed with a periodic "uh-huh" designed mostly
to keep himself from slipping completely into a coma.

Rob's father kept at it like that
until the day he died. Dispensing wisdom he either didn't follow himself or –
worse – that made so little sense it was a struggle to keep from strangling the
old fart. Shane died the worst thing possible: a has-been who never quite
was
.

Still, he had given that one bit
of good advice. Rob treated himself like a business, and that was one of the
things that had always distinguished him from so many other thieves. Every time
he scored, Kayla and Tommy went out and blew the money within a month. Aaron
spent it on his old lady, which made him even stupider than Kayla and Tommy
combined.

But Rob….

Rob saved. He invested in his
future. He looked to step up, a bit at a time. Conservative growth was the
safest, best bet for long-term financial gain. He read that once in a
Maxim
,
and that shit
resounded
.

Still, no matter how careful you
were, no matter how cautious in your growth and conscientious in your business
choices – even if that business involved separating people from their
possessions – nothing could stop the grim reality of bad luck.

Bad luck could turn every good
idea into a catastrophe.

Bad luck could change promise to
dearth.

Bad luck could keep you down.

Bad luck was, overall, a
malicious asshole.

Bad luck had taken that one night
–

(
What was that family's name?
)

– and changed it from a one-time
screw-up to a pattern. Since then, Rob hadn't managed to put together a single
job that didn't go sideways. They all broke even at best, lost him money at
worst. Tommy and Kayla still went along with his ideas, but he suspected that
was because Kayla was an adrenaline-junkie, and Tommy was willing to brave one
bad job after another if it meant he might get to kill someone.

No good jobs. Just a never-ending
storm of bad luck.

Until tonight.

Rob knew the instant the guy
walked into the restaurant. Knew that this was the moment things would start to
turn around.

He made sure the stranger was
seated at his station, and made sure to be attentive, careful, caring. You
didn't get to be a waiter at a place like Rudolfo's – arguably the finest
restaurant in Los Angeles – without being all those things. But still, there
was service and there was capital "s" Service. And that was what Rob
provided.

He wasn't Rob here, of course.
"Rob" was far to gauche a name for someone who provided vittles to
the rich and famous. Here you had to be something with at least two syllables,
so here he was "Robert" – even though that was what his old man had
called him and every time someone said it he had to resist the urge to look
around to see if the worthless coot had somehow come back from the dead.

So it wasn't Rob who attended the
man. It was Robert. And Robert was such a perfect waiter that how could anyone
help but start chatting with him?

Chatting was part of how it
worked. The way it had to start for the job to work.

The man looked like he was in his
mid to late forties. Dark hair that was graying at the edges, nose that had a
bit of a hook to it, though not so much that it was unattractive; it simply
made him seem a bit dark, a bit dangerous. Someone who wasn't merely wealthy,
but powerful.

Those were the best marks. They
were the ones Rob could enjoy the most – taking what they had and making them
beg. Delicious.

The man wore a suit that had the
distinctive look of a Brioni, which made Robert grin all the wider. Anyone who
wore a fifty-thousand-dollar suit would have money to burn, and money to take.
He also wore a top-of-the-line Omega that matched the gold cufflinks he wore,
said cufflinks sporting rocks so large that an uncouth like Rob would think
must be cubic zirconia.

But Robert knew better. These
were diamonds.

Both Robert and Rob were in
agreement.

He's perfect.

The man ordered no food, which
surprised Robert. He
did
order a bottle of Penfolds Grange 2007, which
more than made up for it since that cost nearly as much as a typical meal at
Rudolfo's.

Robert thought, He has excellent taste.

Rob thought, This guy's
loaded
.

The wine sat unopened for a long
time, the man at the table just ordering water. That meant he was waiting for
someone.

Wife? Fiancé? Mistress?

Whoever he was waiting for,
Robert would be there. And Rob would be listening.

After half an hour, the man
sighed, then pulled out his phone and sent a quick text message. He put it on
the table, then picked it up as soon as it vibrated. Sighed again and put it
back in his coat pocket before signaling to Robert and asking him to open the
bottle.

Robert did. He pulled out a
corkscrew in a motion so smooth he knew it would seem near magic, then offered
the cork to the man. He declined. Robert placed the cork on the table, then
poured a glass before setting the wine on the table.

"Would you like a dinner
menu after all, sir?" Robert asked. His voice was smooth. Not a voice that
spoke of high education or even high class. It was better than that, because
every tone spoke the one thing every single rich –

(
entitled sonofabitch
)

– patron wished to hear:
I am
at your complete disposal and service.

The man shook his head. Not
curtly, which was good. Robert had worried he might be angry at whatever he had
read on his phone, which made information gathering harder. But the man –

(
the mark
)

– seemed at ease. Not angry,
though no longer wearing quite the smile he had had when he first walked in.

Robert left. Serving several
other patrons, but always with his body angled so he could see the man as he
slowly drained the bottle of wine.

Finally, Robert – with a bit of
prodding from Rob – went over and said, "Sir, can I call you a cab?"

The man at the table looked at
him, his eyes tracking around a bit before finally managing to settle on
Robert's face. Then he waited a few seconds, as though the words hadn't quite
filtered in.

The man grinned lopsidedly.
"I look that bad?"

Robert was the soul of tact and
discretion. "Not at all, sir. Just making sure you are comfortable and
cared for."

 The man's gaze drifted to the
bottle. He had spilled a bit the last time he poured, and the linen tablecloth
had darkened. Crimson on white.

(
Blood on a carpet.
)

"Probably best that you do
call me a cab, I guess."

His words weren't slurred too
badly, but there was a definite laziness about his pronunciation. Again, good.
Both Robert and Rob knew that this space between a simple buzz and a full-tilt
bender was a time when normally quiet people would open up. Would speak
secrets.

"Celebrating, sir?"
said Robert.

The man's grin grew wider.
"Big news for the wife.
Big
news."

"Congratulations, sir. If you
wish to stay longer to wait for her, I certainly don't wish you to feel as
though –"

"No," said the other
man, waving him off. "It's fine. She won't be joining me."

"My condolences, sir."

The other man shrugged. "She
had a big day. Lot of work to do. And she didn't even know we were
celebrating."

"Indeed?" Robert was
aware that his manager had glanced his direction. A subtle look that meant he
was probably going to get in trouble later for chatting up the clientele.

Suck it, dickhead, said Rob in
his head.

Robert merely smiled and nodded
in a way that indicated he was here because the patron
wanted
him here.

"Yeah, no, she doesn't know.
Surprise." The man leaned in a bit. Conspiratorial. "Kept it a
secret. A secret our
whole marriage.
But tomorrow…." He leaned back
and Robert expected him to rub his hands together in excitement.

The man belched instead. Then he
said, "Tomorrow is my big Tefra payment."

Robert felt a thrill.

Tefra?

For this guy?

For
this
guy?

Holy shit.

He wasn't sure who voiced the
last. Normally Robert wouldn't even come close to such gross speech. But in
this case….

Still, he kept his face blank.
The way to keep someone talking wasn't to tell them what
you
knew. It
was to show you needed them to explain.

"Tefra?" he said,
putting just the right nonchalance into his expression:
Interesting. I've
never heard of it. But don't feel as though you
must
tell me more. Only
if you wish to.

The man nodded. "You never
heard of it?"

(
yes yes oh yes you bet your
life I have
)

Robert shook his head. "I'm
afraid not. Should I have?"

The man nearly giggled with glee.
"Nope. She hasn't, either. But when I pop open the safe and tell
her…." The man mimed his head exploding.

Rob caught onto the word:
"safe."

Good news: people only held their
greatest treasures in safes.

Bad news: that meant he'd have to
get Aaron on board.

The man at the table fell to
silence as his sodden brain ran out of things to say. Robert waited a polite
moment, then said, "Well, congratulations, sir. Will there be anything
else?"

The man nodded, then shook his
head. Not a very clear set of gestures, taken together. But he fumbled at his
pocket a moment later and took out a number of bills. He dropped four hundreds
on the table.

"Keep the change," he
said.

Robert nodded and smoothly
removed the bills. Not so quickly that he would seem overeager, just acting to
remove a tacky thing like the price of the man's wine. One of the things that
made Rudolfo's seem so upper-crust was that there were no prices on the menu,
no mention of cost. If you could come here, there were no questions or concerns
about expense. The illusion that everything was so costly it came full circle
and was free.

A lie, Rob knew.
Everything
costs something.

Robert waited a moment. The man
looked at him, confused. Robert waited a bit longer, just enough to make the
pause a bit awkward, a bit uncomfortable. He did it for no other reason than
because he wanted the man to know he wasn't in charge.