Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

Safe and Loft by John Lutz

An Edgar Allan Poe Award winner, a multiple Shamus Award winner, and a recipient of the PWa’s Lifetime Achievement Award, John Lutz is one of the most esteemed writers in the field. He’s the author of dozens of novels and some two hundred published short stories. His latest thriller, In for the Kill, was published as a paperback original by Pinnacle Books in ’07.

Rose had mud on her nose.

Not a lot, but enough to arouse suspicion. Laker considered telling her about it, but that would be foolish. Instead he pretended to admire the green and yellow tie with the staring-eye pattern.

“Nice,” he said, fondling the tie.

Rose was alarmed. This customer was in his thirties, handsome, with blue eyes and wavy dark hair, and a sort of amused grin that was probably always on his face. His suit was okay, a kind of wrinkled gray blend with a fair amount of wool in it, that had never been touched by a tailor. What alarmed Rose was that he couldn’t really like the tie. And that he seemed so confident, as if he had some big secret.

Rose told herself, so what, everybody has a big secret. Rose was like that.

“Have I got it right,” asked the customer, “all you sell here are ties?”

Together, he and Rose glanced around the tiny downtown shop with its claustrophobically low ceiling and crowded racks of ties. “Not much room to sell anything else,” she said.

She waited, but he didn’t mention that they were the ugliest ties imaginable. Massed as they were, they were a visual assault. Some of them actually hurt the eye

“You want the tie?” Rose asked from behind the counter.

“Sure.”

He dug five ten-dollar bills from his wallet and paid her, watching her tuck the money into the register.

“No change?” he asked.

“Fifty even,” Rose said. “Tax included.”

“A bargain,” said the guy, through his amused smile.

Rose carefully folded the hideous thing and placed it in a bag.

“No receipt?”

“You’ve got the tie,” she told him with her own smile.

“Good point.” He thanked her before she could thank him, then went to the door and opened it, causing the tiny bell above it to tinkle as if sounding a faint alarm. “I’ll tell my friends,” he said, before going back out onto the busy sidewalk.

Rose said for him to be sure to do that, then went behind the curtain to the back room and down the crude wooden steps to where the digging was being done. “I sold a tie,” she said dejectedly.

Donna and Corrine stopped digging. Even dirty, Donna, with her lush, long red hair and big green eyes, looked like a beauty-pageant contestant. Corinne had blond hair, a heart-shaped face, and was attractive, but looked too delicate to be in any kind of contest. Her shovel was smaller than Donna’s. Somehow she hadn’t gotten dirty. All three women were the same age — twenty-one — and attended Pierpont University, but the semester had ended and they weren’t going to classes, so they were working on a summer project. They were robbing a bank.

Specifically, the one directly across the street from the Tie One On Shop, which they’d bought six weeks ago from an eager owner who’d retired to Florida. It had been a small jewelry shop, but the bank robbers had converted it to a tie shop and stocked it with the least appealing merchandise possible, and generally did what they could to discourage customers. They wanted to concentrate on their digging.

The tunnel, which had progressed to about halfway, would run beneath Ninth Avenue, and then beneath the vault of Sixth National Bank, where the plan was for it to make an abrupt upward turn.

“It was bound to happen,” Donna said, removing a work glove and fluffing her hair, done just yesterday by Evander, who wasn’t cheap, “that someone would buy a tie.”

“There was something about the guy who bought it, though,” Rose said. She didn’t look like any kind of beauty contestant. She was short, wiry, had mouse-colored, naturally spiky hair and fierce brown eyes above a turned-up nose. If she’d been born a dog, she’d have been one of those small breeds that strain to wriggle into tunnels to fight and kill burrowing vermin. A good ratter.

“Did he look like a cop?” Corrine asked, her eyes pie-plate wide.

Rose thought about it. “Not honest enough. He looked like he secretly hated the tie, which is something to be said for him.”

“He was cute,” Donna said. “I can tell by the way you describe him.”

“Cute and dangerous,” Rose said.

“Your type,” Donna said.

Rose didn’t argue.

“Selling ties is part of the plan,” Corrine said. “We are in business.”

That was a laugh, because the three of them were from incredibly wealthy families, which was why they could afford a snooty school like Pierpont. They were of an age and nature to resent their wealth and hate their dependence on those families. To rebel. Not uncommon. There were all sorts of ways for young women such as they to revolt and act out; anti-this, anti-that. It seemed to Rose that most of it had all been done. So she’d convinced Donna and Corrine to set aside their causes (No World Dominion, and Alternatives to Eggs) and, with her, rob a bank. It had nothing to do with money. It was exactly the sort of thing people without money did. That was the point. Also, who would suspect them, since their families were fabulously wealthy?

No one, that’s who.

All three agreed that it was a neat thing to do, so here they were, tunneling beneath Ninth Avenue. Each evening Rose would take the subway to where their innocuous-looking gray truck was parked, drive it to the tie shop, then back the vehicle in tight to the rear door for deliveries. Only the truck wasn’t there to make deliveries; it was there to pick up dirt, which was later dumped in New Jersey, which, being the Garden State, could always use dirt.

“It’s not a catastrophe that we sold a tie,” Corrine said brightly.

“That tie,” Rose said, “is a catastrophe.”

“So what’re we gonna do?” Donna asked, leaning fetchingly on her pickax.

Rose worked her hands into her gloves and picked up a shovel.

“We’re gonna dig.”

It was hard work, digging. No one here had ever before developed a callus, though Corrine had once had a humongous blister after a strenuous tennis session. Now all three young women had hardened calluses on their hands, even though they wore gloves. They’d been digging for almost a month.

Easy to imagine their disappointment and near panic when they stopped digging for the day, switched off the lights they’d strung in the tunnel, and climbed back up into the tie shop to wash up in the half-bath and leave — and encountered three uniformed cops.

Rose was as alarmed as the others, but she sensed immediately that there was something out of kilter here. Something not right with what was wrong.

These cops were lounging around where they were bound to be seen when the diggers emerged, because they’d opened the curtain to the back room. One was seated on the counter near the register, another slouched on the floor, and the third was leaning against a wall near a tie display with the casual but watchful attitude of someone waiting for a bus. The leaning one was the man who’d earlier that day purchased the yellow and green tie with the staring-eye pattern.

Scary, Rose thought. Lots of blue uniform, glistening black leather, shiny silver badges. And they were pointing their guns at the bank robbers.

“Holy smokes!” Donna said.

“Oh, wow, no!” cried Corrine.

“I didn’t think you looked honest enough to be a cop,” Rose said to the one who’d bought the tie.

“Well, you’ve got me there,” he said, with his irritating smile. He straightened up away from the wall in a way that made him appear to have been stuck to it. “My name’s Laker.” He motioned backhanded toward the cop on the counter. “Officer Fink.”

Fink smiled and nodded. He was a pink-eyed, skinny guy with hair redder than Donna’s.

“And Officer Andrepinino.”

Andrepinino had classic Latin good looks, only his nose was way too long and had a bump in it. He also smiled and nodded.

“Are you going to read us our rights?” Donna asked Fink, since he was the only other natural redhead.

The three cops glanced at each other, then returned their guns to their holsters.

Oh-oh, Rose thought. Here we go.

“We’re with the Six-Ten Precinct, the Safe and Loft unit,” Laker said.

“You guys are one unit?” Corrine asked.

“You wouldn’t know it to look at us,” Laker said, “but we are. We’ve had you ladies under observation for the past several weeks and couldn’t help but notice you’ve set about robbing the bank across the street.”

“Oh,” Donna said, “that one.” She smiled at Fink, who cocked his head sideways and stared mesmerized at her.

“It’s our job,” Laker said, “to arrest you.”

“Our duty,” Fink said.

“But you’re not going to,” Rose said.

“Bingo,” Fink said, still looking at Donna as if maybe he was going to beg for a treat.

“We’ve researched you three ladies,” Laker said. “We know your names and backgrounds.”

“Very wealthy ladies,” Andrepinino said.

“He speaks,” Rose said.

“But not to our superior officers or the district attorney,” Laker said. “Not yet. Same goes for Fink and me. Nobody knows about you and your plans except the six of us.”

“Are we going to have to choose between jail or a fate worse than death?” Donna asked, looking at Fink as if she’d already chosen.

“Don’t misunderstand, ladies,” Laker said. “This isn’t about choosing. We’re here to kidnap you.”

“Grand,” Rose said.

“Think about it,” Laker said. “It’s not a bad idea. You aren’t about to rob Sixth National for the money; you are what we on the force call rebellious youth — among other things. So what you’re going to do, instead of fifteen to twenty for attempted bank robbery, is cooperate in your kidnapping and help us hold up your wealthy parents. Assuming they’ll pay the ransoms, which we’ll split with you. Rich people like you surely have abduction insurance, so your folks will be reimbursed for the ransom money, which means nobody gets hurt even financially.”

“I never heard of abduction insurance,” Rose said.

“You don’t attend Pierpont University without it,” Laker told her.

“Oh.”

“We’re going to take you from here to a nice place out in the country, where one of us will stay with you all the time. We know you ladies are used to luxuries. You’ll have TV and magazines to read, good food and drink — everything but a phone. You’ll play along with the ransom demands and provide proof that you’re still alive, and you’ll talk your families into not contacting the authorities. I suspect all three of you are good at talking people into things.”

“And out of,” Donna said.

Andrepinino shook his head. “Not us, though.”

No one said anything for a long time.

“That’s it?” Rose finally asked.

Laker nodded. “It. And miles safer than robbing a bank.”

Rose looked at Corrine, who looked at Donna, who looked at Fink.

“I like it,” Rose said. Donna nodded. Corrine looked prettily concerned, then also nodded.

Laker smiled. This was going nicely. “You will now accompany us to our SUV parked outside. It seats eight, six comfortably, and the windows and locks are controlled from the driver’s seat.”

“You’re not arresting us,” Donna said, “but we’re still your prisoners.”

“Definitely,” Fink said.

“Um,” Donna said.

“What about clothes?” Corrine asked. “And cosmetics?”

“You can give us a shopping list,” Laker said.

The three hostages smiled at the word shopping.

“You boys have thought of everything,” Rose said.

“Nobody thinks of everything,” Laker said, “or it would be a boring world.”

Rose found herself beginning to like him.

Two hours later the six collaborators were secured in a rambling log hunting lodge in a remote spot near a remote lake in a remote forest. The windows had been boarded up and the doors secured by dead-bolt locks that could only be opened with keys. The cops were seated in leather armchairs in a room whose paneled walls were festooned with antlers. Their willing victims were visible at the other end of the vast room, seated at a round oak table and working on shopping lists. They seemed to be having a good time.

“You sure nobody’ll show up at this place?” Andrepinino asked.

“It’s only used in the winter during deer season,” Laker said. He stood up from his comfortable chair and listened to the sigh of air from the cushion. When this was over, maybe he’d buy a chair just like it. “You take first shift keeping an eye on our collaborators,” he said to Andrepinino.

Andrepinino nodded. “I’ll cook up some dinner for us. I doubt any of those ladies can cook.”

“They know how to order from a menu,” Laker said. “That’s about it.”

“You two wanna hang around and eat with the ladies and me?” Andrepinino asked. “I think I’ll do something with eggplant.”

“Sounds good, but we’re going to be busy.”

“Making those ransom calls?”

“We can do that tomorrow,” Laker said.

Andrepinino raised his eyebrows. “Then what are you gonna do?”

“We’re going to dig,” Laker said.

“Dig deep as you have to,” J. Herbert Knifer, president, chairman, and CEO of Knifer Consolidated Industries, said to his chief of security, Otto Lugar. “Find the scum who snatched my daughter. No one—” he pointed an ominous finger at Lugar — “and I mean no one, takes something that belongs to J. Herbert Knifer.”

“Or Knifer Consolidated Industries,” Lugar added, with the wisdom that had garnered him the fast track to promotion.

Knifer smiled, but grimly. He was a short man who seemed tall, with craggy gray eyebrows, piercing dark eyes, and a nose like a hatchet blade. Rose had fortunately inherited most of her mother’s good looks. Her mother had been discarded not long after Rose’s birth, when it was discovered that she could bear no more children. If you didn’t produce, you were of no lasting interest to Knifer. Lugar knew that.

“Remember,” Knifer said, from behind the half-acre marble surface of his desk, “the authorities must not be involved. If anything happened to Rose because we disobeyed the kidnappers’ instructions and contacted the police... well, I’d never be able to reimburse myself.”

“I have confidential connections not involving the police,” Lugar said. Though he looked like a thug, with his bull shoulders, bald head, and formidable slash of a mouth, he was smart and reasonably sophisticated. And not to be trusted, which was what Knifer liked about him. Lugar would sell out to the highest bidder, but that was Knifer. So Lugar could be controlled, which wasn’t exactly like trust, but close enough.

Lugar stood up from his chair, which was an impressive sight, because he was six and a half feet tall. “I’ll head a small, select team that knows how to keep a secret.”

“Imperative.”

“We’ll give the recording of the ransom call to our own laboratories. Our sound analysis should give us something to work on, and once we have that, the outcome isn’t in doubt. You’ll have your daughter Rose back, sir, and you won’t have paid a cent in ransom money.” He knew Knifer expected that outcome, but one out of two would be enough to preserve Lugar’s employment, if it was the right one.

“Keep it confidential,” Knifer said.

“Done,” Lugar said.

“It better be.”

“Another few days and we’ll be there,” Laker said, hoisting a shovelful of dirt.

“I gotta say,” Fink said, staying bent low so as not to bump his head on the tunnel roof, “this is working out better than I thought it would. The families are mulling it over, but there’s no sign they’ve contacted the authorities.”

“They’ll pay,” Laker said confidently. “Because they’re worth so much they won’t even miss the money.”

“The girls are okay, too,” Fink said. “They’re being very cooperative.”

“That Corrine’s a honey,” Laker said. “And some cook.”

“Andrepinino kind of likes her,” Fink said. He added, “Donna’s a beauty, doesn’t need to know how to cook.”

“And Rose—”

“Is never gonna be happy,” Fink said, interrupting.

“Never,” Laker agreed.

But in truth, he wasn’t so sure. Rose had been close to being happy when she beat him at checkers during his shift as guard at the lodge. Not like when it became apparent she was going to lose and she’d upset the board. What she did mostly was scribble with a pen in what she called her novel, a thick spiral notebook. Laker figured that was okay; it would keep her out of trouble. She was an English major, and whether she knew it or not, the notebook wasn’t going anyplace.

Fink dragged a sweaty forearm across his brow and adjusted the “Nixon’s the One” tie he had wrapped around his head to keep perspiration out of his eyes. “We’re gonna be under the vault in a few days, and we might need some kind of cutting torch to get through the steel floor.”

“We can afford to buy one,” Laker told him. “One way or the other, and maybe both ways, we’re about to get rich.”

“The ransom deadline’s past on all three of them,” Andrepinino said two days later when they were almost directly beneath the vault floor. “We’re not going to get rich that way. I hate to tell Corrine. She’s gonna be awfully disappointed.”

“All three of them will be,” Laker said.

“I think Rose kind of expected it,” Andrepinino said. “She’s sort of steely beneath the surface.”

“Not far beneath,” Laker said.

How Rose had acted was to withdraw, curl up, and scribble like mad in her notebook novel. Laker would have to read it someday, before it was burned.

“So what’re we gonna do now?” Andrepinino asked, putting down his shovel. He was wearing the Nixon tie for a headband. He kind of liked it and had bought it from Fink, who’d assured him it only needed dry cleaning and would be good for at least three or four more years. When this was over, he’d wear it for a souvenir. At least that had been the plan. “I mean, we threatened to kill them if the ransom wasn’t paid.”

“It’s awkward,” Laker admitted.

The three kidnap victims were well aware of the deadline being past; they’d helped with the ominous phone demands, pretending to plead for their lives. Andrepinino thought Corrine had really put her heart into it. Not just cute, but some little actress.

“Any ideas?” Andrepinino asked.

Laker peeled off his leather work gloves. “We better go out and buy that cutting torch.”

When they’d cleaned up and returned to the lodge, they found Fink and the hostages sitting around the living room watching TV news and sipping apple martinis. No one looked particularly in angst.

Laker sighed. “I guess we all know the ransom deadline is past,” he said solemnly.

“Forget about that,” Rose said, making a careless motion with her hand. “It’s not as if you’ve never broken a promise.”

Laker didn’t contradict her.

“This is the way it’s going to be,” Rose said. She motioned toward the easy chairs angled toward the sofa, then used the remote to switch off the TV. “Sit down.”

Laker and Andrepinino stared at her.

She took a sip of her martini and stared back.

Laker and Andrepinino sat.

“Look at you two,” Rose said from the sofa. “You’ve got dirt all over you, including your muddy thinking.”

“They figured out about the digging,” Fink explained from where he sat beside Donna. He might have been slightly drunk from the martinis.

Corrine said, “Duh!”

Andrepinino lowered his head. “I guess this isn’t working out the way we planned.”

“Don’t feel so bad,” Corrine said soothingly. She reached over and squeezed his hand.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Rose said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“They’ll think we killed you,” Andrepinino said. “They’ll never stop searching for us.”

“He’sh right,” Fink said, sloshing martini and resting his head on Donna’s shoulder.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourselves,” Rose said. “When we eventually turn up alive, the heat will be off. There might not be any ransom money, but we still have the bank.”

“I like the way you think,” Laker said.

“Are you nitwits under the vault yet?” Rose asked.

“Less than another day’s digging,” Laker said. “And we bought a torch to cut through the floor.”

“Hey! Initiative.”

“There’sh no need to be shmart,” Fink said.

“Good thing for you three there’s some truth to that.” Rose crossed her legs at the knees, not liking the way Laker was staring at them. “When we get the money from the bank, we split it six ways, then you guys go back to your insignificant lives, and the three of us will say the kidnap thing was all a girlish lark and return to our loving families. We’ll say we were in Belize or someplace like that.”

“What do you get out of it?” Laker asked. “You don’t need the money.”

“Not so. We’d all like to be financially independent of the people who wouldn’t pay ransom for our release. Can you blame us for that?”

Laker couldn’t. “What’ll happen to you when you go back?”

“I’ll sweet-talk my way out of any trouble,” Donna said.

“I’ll tell off my father, then spin on my heel and walk out,” Rose said.

Corrine said, “I’m sure I’ll be grounded for at least a week.”

“Ugh!” Donna said.

Laker thought this would probably work.

Lugar had called the meeting with the security chiefs of the other two companies involved in the ransom demands, that of Donna’s father, Rapacious Conglom, and of Corrine’s father, Eminent Domain, Inc. They were in the offices of Knifer Consolidated on the fortieth floor of the Knifer Building, all seated at one end of a long conference table of polished inlaid woods.

The other two security chiefs listened carefully to what Lugar had to say. He began with: “The time has come for us to join forces.”

“Which means sharing information,” Vasteen of Rapacious said. He was an impeccably groomed man the size of a Humvee. His bulk, along with his scarred face and dark scowl, made his expensive chalk-stripe suit look like tailored prison garb. He glanced around. “Agreed?”

“That’s why I called the meeting,” Lugar said. “The kidnappers didn’t get what they asked for, but they might try again. There’s a chance they haven’t killed the abductees yet; they’re still potentially valuable. But whether the abductees are alive or dead, we have to find the kidnappers, or our own life expectancies will be shortened.”

Smith of Eminent, a smallish man, also well tailored, nodded his bald head in agreement. He had strangely reptilian features, perhaps because of his protruding brown eyes, which were without lashes or brows. They blinked infrequently, but when they did, it seemed an event. “We share. And when we act, we act together.”

“That only makes sense,” Lugar said.

No one disagreed, though no one here trusted anyone else. What bonded them was their mutual interest, and the certainty that any one of them would kill any other if double-crossed. They were comfortable with the arrangement; it worked for countries.

Since the pooling of resources was his idea, Lugar spilled what he’d learned first. It wasn’t much.

Smith followed, then Vasteen.

When all three men were finished talking, they sat silently. It seemed they hadn’t made any progress, but they couldn’t be sure. Not yet. They sat for several moments, mulling over what they’d just heard, before Vasteen looked at Smith. “You said one of your men talked to a student at Pierpont who mentioned giving Corinne a lift one day to a tie shop.”

Smith nodded. “It wasn’t either of the other two abductees.”

“But a tie shop,” Lugar said. “What’s a college girl doing at a tie shop?”

Smith shrugged. “Buying a tie for her boyfriend?”

“Or maybe her father,” Lugar said. All three men laughed.

“Why I ask about it,” Vasteen said, “is one of my people tracking whoever the abductee talked with during the past several months traced one of her phone conversations to Sarasota, Florida. A retired guy in his seventies.”

“What might they have been talking about?” Lugar asked.

“I don’t know,” Vasteen said, “but we checked him out, and what I remember about him is that he recently moved south after selling his jewelry store to someone who wanted to open a tie shop.”

The three security chiefs looked at each other silently. Then they smiled and absently fingered their silk tie knots, which suddenly didn’t seem so tight.

The captors and captives, or six co-conspirators, had a blueberry pancake and bacon breakfast at the lodge, then drove into the city in the SUV.

It was time to go to work.

The acetylene torch was in the back of the SUV, where it would stay until the last of the digging was done, which, Laker estimated, would be early this evening. By tomorrow, they should all be rich. Well, some of them richer, and in an independent if illegal way.

After parking the vehicle behind the tie shop, they walked around front and went inside.

The place was hot, musty, and confining, almost as much so as the tunnel itself. Laker led the way into the back room and down into the tunnel. He was followed by Andrepinino, the three women, and then Fink. Five feet in, Laker switched on the string of lights.

Rose liked what she saw. The tunnel was ninety percent finished, and had been made higher and widened.

Suddenly Andrepinino stopped in front of her. The whole chain of co-conspirators stopped.

“What’s going on?” Rose asked, getting a sinking feeling. Her father. She just knew it. He wasn’t often outwitted.

“The tools,” Laker said. “We left them lined up here, and they’re gone.”

“Come the rest of the way in,” a deep voice said. “We’ve gathered up your toys and put them all in one place. You’re finished playing with them.”

Laker’s mind began to whirl, trying to get hold of and assess what was happening. Not having much luck. Nothing to do but continue his hunched-over walk toward the area beneath the vault. Behind him, the rest of the train began to move.

Two large men were waiting for them, guns drawn. Laker knew at a glance they weren’t cops. They were in suit pants and expensive shoes, ties loosened, shirt sleeves rolled so they weren’t so warm. One of them had on a Rolex, the other a big diamond ring. Behind them the shovels and pickaxes were stacked in a neat pile.

Fink wasn’t last in. He was followed by another man in dress slacks with his sleeves rolled up, and carrying a handgun. This one was smaller than the other two, but somehow just as dangerous looking.

Laker was certain these weren’t the dads. They all looked like well-dressed thugs.

“Rose Knifer,” said one of the big ones, who had eyes like ice, “I work for your father.” Rose knew he was telling the truth; she’d seen him once before, remembered those eyes, thought his name was Lugar.

“You three guys,” said the small one, who had a head like a snake’s, “get over there in a bunch so we can keep an eye on you.” He gave Fink a shove. “And stay away from these girls.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Donna said.

“Back off!” Fink said when he was given a second shove.

Laker raised a hand. “Don’t say anything. These aren’t cops.”

“We’re security, punk,” said one of the big ones, waving his gun at Laker as a signal to move. “Get with the other two losers.”

The big one with the icy eyes smiled. “The cops aren’t coming. Remember, you insisted the authorities not be involved. We’re going to deliver you to our employers. The next time you meet the police, it’ll be in some country you never heard of, and they won’t be gentle.”

“Thank God you’re here,” Rose said.

Everyone looked at her. She stepped over and gave the surprised Ice-eyes a hug. Then she moved back along the tunnel, toward the tie shop.

“Where you going?” asked Little-and-dangerous. But he didn’t aim his gun her way.

“To phone my father and tell him I’m safe. My cell phone won’t work in this tunnel.”

“Ro — Miss Knifer,” Ice-eyes said. “You don’t need—”

“You mean you’re forbidding me to phone my father?” She fixed her own glassy stare on him, one that matched his and then some. Her eyes were so like her father’s. “What would he think if I was only trading one set of captors and bullies for another?”

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “Go ahead and phone. Then come right back here.”

She continued to stare.

“Please,” he added. He glanced at his two companions. “It won’t hurt anything; we’re going to phone them anyway.”

“I like doing it in our own good time,” said Little-and-dangerous.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the other big man. “We’ve got what we want.”

Everyone stood silently, sweating, until Rose returned. When she did, she was carrying a wrinkled paper sack and smiling. She gave Laker a glance. “It’s all right now,” she said. “I called the police.”

As she spoke, her back to the three security men, she withdrew from the sack three nine-millimeter, semiautomatic handguns she’d gotten from the jackets of Laker, Andrepinino, and Fink, left behind the counter in the tie shop. It took her only a few seconds to hand them out to their grateful owners.

Stunned, everyone but the three women pointed a gun at someone. The situation was, in a precarious way, neutralized.

“I don’t get it, Miss Knifer,” Ice-eyes said. His gun was aimed at Laker.

“I think I do,” Laker said. He’d come to know Rose well enough to figure it out. She smiled her appreciation. “My partners and I got a tip that someone might be tunneling into the bank, and we’ve had this tie shop staked out for weeks. You three—” he nodded at Lugar and the other two security chiefs — “are under arrest for attempted bank robbery.”

Security looked collectively astounded. “You’re cops?” sputtered Little-and-dangerous.

Fink, who carried his shield in his hip pocket, removed it and flashed it at the three men.

Lugar looked imploringly at Rose. “Miss Knifer!”

“Oh, I’m not here,” she said. “This is strictly a guy thing.”

And she led Donna and Corinne from the tunnel.

A few minutes later came the muted wails of sirens. They might have been in the street right above.

“This isn’t going to fly,” Lugar said.

“We always worked with gloves on,” Laker said. “Your fingerprints are all over the tools you gathered up. And, of course, there’s the strongest evidence.”

“Which is?”

“You’re here, in a tunnel, beneath the vault of Sixth National Bank.”

There was noise from the mouth of the tunnel, voices. The cops had arrived.

The other cops.

“I advise you to drop your weapons,” Laker said. “It might be dangerous to hold on to them.”

The three security chiefs had no choice but to obey. They were all staring at Laker in a way that made him queasy even though he held all the high cards.

“Anything you say can be held against you,” he said.

“And won’t be believed,” Fink added.

And it wasn’t believed. Because Rose, Donna, Corinne, Laker, Andrepinino, and Fink testified otherwise.

The three security chiefs were convicted of attempted bank robbery and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Their respective employers made it clear that they were safer inside the walls than out.

Donna stamped her foot, Corrine cried, and their families forgave them for their kidnap prank and secret trip to Belize.

Rose never really convinced her father there wasn’t more to what happened than he knew, but he knew better than to try to pry more information out of her. Besides, everything had turned out all right. Nothing had been lost but an incompetent and disloyal chief of security.

Laker, Andrepinino, and Fink received commendations.

Corrine and Andrepinino began dating. As did Donna and Fink. But they were the kinds of relationships that devolved to warm friendships and nothing more.

Not so with Laker and Rose.

One morning, when they were lying side by side in bed in their resort hotel room in Belize, Rose proposed marriage. After all, she was independently wealthy, now that her novel, Dirt, Love, and Money, was on all the bestseller lists. No one suspected it was fact rather than fiction.

Well, almost no one.

“I can’t promise I’ll go straight,” Laker said candidly. “You wouldn’t want a husband in prison.”

She laughed. “Silly! You can be legal and not go straight.”

Still, he hesitated. “I don’t know if it’ll work, Rose. We’ll always have that bank job between us.”

“I’ll tell you something Donna and Corinne never knew,” she said. “My father owns Sixth National Bank.” She laughed. “If you want, I can see that you become bank president.”

Laker lay back on the bed and laughed with her, thinking of what he could do with a whole bank.

What they could do, he and his new bride.

Funny the way things can fall into place, he thought. It’s all so easy when the author is on your side.

© 2008 by John Lutz