Outsourced

8

Holy shit. I’m going to be robbing that damn bank.

Even after all of his planning, the bank robbery had never seemed real to Dan. At some level, he must’ve been hoping that Joel would turn him down, that he would have an excuse to back out. Now that Joel was in, the robbery was no longer a vague concept. They were going to do it. He was going to do it. When the realization had first hit him it left him numb. Driving back from New Hampshire, he could barely pay attention to the road. It was as if he were on autopilot, moving without any thought or awareness. Kind of like he was stoned on some powerful shit. He remembered stopping off at home. His hair was wet so he probably took a shower, and he had a fuzzy recollection of talking with both his children, but that was all. On his way to Gordon’s he must’ve stopped off for a pizza and a six-pack of Guinness because as he pulled into the complex he noticed the items on the front seat next to him.

Gordon was waiting in the parking lot, his belly pushing out of a worn tie-dye T-shirt, his shorts barely containing his body. He met Dan at the car.

“Hey, Dan, I thought I’d catch a few rays while waiting. So what do you want to do, eat at one of the picnic tables or go inside?”

“Why don’t we go inside?”

Gordon took the six-pack, and as they walked, Dan tried to act casually. He tapped his friend on the stomach. “Putting on a little weight there, huh, buddy?”

Gordon showed a sheepish smile. “Yeah, I need to get new clothes. My back’s been kind of iffy, my knees also, so I can’t really run any more. Without the exercise I’m gaining weight like crazy. I’m becoming a regular fatso. Have you heard from anyone?”

“Not really, but we’ll talk inside.”

As they walked Gordon asked about Shrini and other mutual friends, but Dan couldn’t keep his train of thought long enough to answer. When they got to Gordon’s apartment, a panic overtook him. At first he couldn’t breathe, almost as if a fist were squeezing his heart. He knew he was sweating profusely. The room started to tilt sideways on him. Somehow he made his way to a chair and collapsed on it, praying that he’d stay conscious and not pass out. Time seemed to skip ahead as he watched Gordon talking a mile a minute, the animated motion of his mouth disconnected from the noise that was coming from him, his voice becoming nothing more than a buzz running through Dan’s head.

Almost as if a switch had been thrown, a calm came over him. With a clarity of thought, he accepted that the robbery was going to happen. More than that he had somehow become at peace with the idea. The buzzing in his head was replaced by a coolness. The world seemed to slow down on him. He asked Gordon if he could use the bathroom.

“Uh, sure, but what do you think?”

“I don’t know. Ask me again when I get back.”

“Jeez, haven’t you even heard what I’ve been saying?”

Dan signaled with a hand for him to wait then walked slowly to the bathroom, his legs too rubbery to move at a normal pace. Inside, he turned the cold water on full and splashed it on his face for a full minute before looking up at the mirror. His skin was pale and clammy, with no color whatsoever in his lips. He was pretty sure he had only suffered a panic attack and that it had nothing to do with his heart. Still, he couldn’t keep from showing a sick grin as he thought about Gordon being so wrapped up in his own world that he hadn’t even noticed what must’ve looked like a full-blown heart attack.

The only towel in the bathroom appeared to have been rubbed with mud. Dan used his damp shirt to dry off his face. When he went back out to meet Gordon, three slices of pizza were gone and two empty Guinness bottles lay on the floor. Gordon finished off the slice he was working on and rubbed a hand across his face, leaving a streak of grease in its place.

“Jeez, Dan, I was telling you before about Elena. Remember a few months ago I flew her to Cancun? I got an email from her yesterday. She’s blowing me off for some guy in Oregon. I think she met him while we were in Cancun.”

“Gordon, I’m not in the mood to talk about this.”

“Well, excuse me, then.” Gordon leaned back in his chair, an indignant look pushing on to his face. “All I wanted was your opinion. After all, I just got dumped.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. Go ahead, what did you want to ask me?”

“Well, what do you think I should do?”

“I’m confused. I thought you’ve been telling me for the last couple of months you don’t even like her.”

“That’s not the point. I was the one to spend the money flying her from Moscow to Cancun, why should some guy from Oregon benefit from that? Besides, I wouldn’t quite say that I don’t like her. Her English is very good.”

“You spent a week with her in the same room and didn’t even sleep together. Didn’t you tell me she slept on the sofa every night?”

“That was only because I snore. And after I woke up that first morning and found her on the sofa, what was I going to do?”

“What are you trying to tell me, Gordon? That you’d like to marry her?”

“Well, no, but I paid for that trip. I mean, come on, how would you feel? That guy in Oregon should at least pay me back.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Well, you can see how I’d feel the way I do.” Gordon took a slice of the pizza, chewed it half-heartedly. “I’m thinking I should forget about Russian women. This month’s catalog has a very pretty twenty-eight-year-old from Saao Paulo. She’s a dental hygienist so she’s got to be somewhat educated. I could always arrange for us to meet in Rio, and then I could tell my parents we met while on vacation. The only problem is I’m not sure of her English.”

“Yeah, that could be a problem.”

“You’re being sarcastic now,” Gordon said, his hurt look reappearing. “But it is a problem. If her English isn’t good then people will be suspicious about how we met.”

Dan gave Gordon a hard look, trying to make up his mind. The guy was an oddball, no question about it, and he could understand Joel’s reluctance to have him involved. But on the other hand, there was no question he was bright and looked at things from a unique perspective and that could come in handy. And even though Gordon liked to talk, Dan couldn’t think of one thing of substance he had ever said. There were things locked away in that head that were never going to come out.

Dan said, “I’m robbing a bank. You want to join me?”

“Nah, I’d rather be a contestant on one of those other shows.”

“What?”

“You know, like Big Brother or Amazing Race. I tried watching Bank Job last night and it didn’t really do much for me.”

“Gordon, I’m talking about robbing a real bank.”

“Sure you are.”

“I’m serious.”

“Jeez, Dan, I couldn’t do something like that. What would my parents think if I was caught?”

“Gordon, I’m not joking. Shrini’s in on it.”

“Really?”

“So’s Joel.”

“No kidding?” Gordon pushed his chair back and started tapping his chin with his thumb. His eyes focused on a spot on the ceiling. “The weasel, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Gordon lowered his gaze to Dan’s face. His features had changed, becoming grimmer, harder, and it took Dan by surprise. He had never seen Gordon like that.

“You’re not pulling some weird joke on me?” Gordon asked.

Dan shook his head.

“Shrini and the Weasel. Wow. Well, guess what? You can count me in.”

“Do you want to know the details?”

“No, you know me. I’m not a big picture guy. All I want to know is my piece. Let me just focus on that.”

Dan nodded, fully expecting that answer, just as he had fully expected Gordon to go along with the robbery. He couldn’t help thinking how the line from that old Dylan song, There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke, fit Gordon perfectly.

“Instead of robbing a bank,” Gordon said slowly, his gaze moving away from Dan, “I’ve been thinking about something lately that would be easier and probably far more profitable. We could take one of Peyton’s kids.”

“Gordon, let’s pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do, you know, kidnapping, ransom. We could probably squeeze several million from Peyton.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Why not? If you’re going to propose robbing a bank, why not this instead? It would be a lot easier.”

“How in the world could it possibly work? Peyton’s kids know us. They’d identify us once we let them go.”

“Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

“Gordon, come on.”

“You can’t tell me Peyton wouldn’t deserve it.” Gordon paused for a moment, choking back emotion. “He’s been dangling that restaurant in front of me for three years now – ever since I was laid off. That was all his idea, investing in an open-pit Texas-style barbecue for me to run. He came to me with it. And he’s been bringing it up for three years. Yesterday for the first time I tried asking him about it, and all of a sudden he doesn’t want to do business with a friend. Can you believe that, Dan? He’s sitting on eight million dollars and all of a sudden he doesn’t want to invest sixty thousand dollars to do business with a friend.”

“Let’s drop this, okay?”

“Sure, we can drop it, but I’ll tell you, I’d have no problem kidnapping one of his kids. Probably even enjoy taking care of that brat of his, Petulia.”

“I don’t want to hear this. We’re not hurting anyone, especially not a kid. For God’s sakes, we’ve known Peyton for years.”

“Sure, whatever, I was just throwing out an idea. What do you want me to do for this robbery?”

“Turn on your computer and I’ll show you.”

Gordon obliged. After the computer came on, Dan did a search on the Internet and brought up a color photo of a member of the Boston mafia named Raymond Lombardo. “I’m hoping all those years you’ve spent doing makeup for community theatre can finally be of some use. Can you make me look like him?” Dan asked.

“Depends. You need to be more specific.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have to look like him from a distance, from up close, or good enough to fool his mother? Stuff like that. How much do you need to look like him?”

“Enough so that he’s identified by video from a security camera.”

“How tall is he?”

“My height.”

Gordon squinted at the photo, appraising it. “He looks heavier than you.”

“Yeah, he is. About sixty pounds.”

“I think I can do it,” Gordon said, nodding to himself. “I’m going to have to add some padding, make you look heavier. What are you going to be wearing?”

“Work overalls.”

“Okay, no problem there. You’ll need a wig and facial hair. I should be able to build you a thicker jaw and nose. Maybe have you wear dark glasses to hide your eyes. Sure, I can do it.”

“I don’t need the dark glasses. I’ve already got cosmetic contact lenses to change my eye color. I’ll also be wearing a ski mask and taking it off so I can be captured by a security camera.”

“Well, that’s going to be a problem.”

“Why?”

“I can’t use putty. Otherwise, when you take the mask off it could bend your nose. That would give the police a good chuckle.” Gordon scratched his head as he thought. “I could use a rubber compound,” he said slowly. “That should work. When are we doing this?”

“Six days.”

“Not giving me much notice, are you? Well, if I can put together the makeup for Phantom of the Opera over a weekend, I can do this.”

“You really like this theatre stuff, huh?”

“I hate it. Absolutely can’t stand it.”

“I don’t understand. You’ve been doing this for years.”

Gordon gave a slight smile that could’ve been lifted directly from the Mona Lisa. “Since college, actually. That was when I started this simply to piss my father off, and you know, I don’t think I could’ve picked a better way. Joining the theatrical club was respectable enough that I had my mother bragging to all their friends about how I was involved in theatre, and my father just had to sit and listen and pretend he was fine with it. I keep doing this community theatre stuff so I can talk about it when I see them over Christmas.”

“You’ve been doing this all these years just to get at your old man?”

“As good a reason as any. You haven’t told me, do you want me just to do the makeup or am I going to be involved in the robbery? You know I did a tour in Vietnam.”

“I need you for the robbery. We’re going to meet at Joel’s house tomorrow to go over the details. I’ll pick you up at ten.”

“Will I have a gun?”

“Yeah.”

Gordon folded his arms, nodding. “Okay then.”

Yuri Tolkov pulled the Mercedes into the driveway of a small cape-style house on a dead-end street in Melrose. Petrenko sat in the passenger seat and an older soft-looking man sat in the back. Yuri checked the address against a piece of paper he had, then indicated to Petrenko that they had the right house. All three men left the car, Yuri and Petrenko leading the way to the front door. The older man carried a leather bag as he trailed behind, walking as if he had pebbles in his shoes.

“There will be three Arabs, right?” Petrenko asked.

“That was the agreement.”

After they knocked on the door, a window curtain was pushed aside and a man with an angry scowl opened up and signaled impatiently for them to step inside. He was in his early twenties, thin as a rail, and had a sub-compact Glock 9mm pistol shoved in his waistband. Sitting on a sofa were two other Arabs. One was a heavyset man with a thick beard trimmed close to his face, the other was also rail-thin, angry-looking and with features that looked sharp enough to cut paper. All three Arabs were wearing leisure suits.

Yuri told Petrenko in Russian that the angry looking man on the sofa was the one on the FBI’s ten-most-wanted list and went by the name Abbas.

Anger flushed Abbas’s face when he heard the Russian. “The agreement was we speak English only,” he said, his eyes simmering. “Another word in Russian and the hell with you!”

Petrenko showed a humorless thin smile. “Relax,” he said, “my employee was just being polite. All he said was that it smells like the inside of a shoe in here. I have to agree with him. Not only that, it is like an oven. Could you open a window or turn on an air conditioner?”

Abbas stared dumbly at Petrenko for a moment and then barked out a command in Arabic to the man who had escorted them in. With his scowl deepening, the man moved over to one of the windows and opened it a crack.

“We have ten diamonds for you to appraise,” Abbas said, his face still mottled with anger. “Eighty others just like these are being held in a safe place.”

Petrenko, unblinking, dropped his smile. “We can agree on a price, but later we will have to appraise all the diamonds and make adjustments as necessary.”

“You won’t have to make any adjustments, but we do not have to argue this now.” Abbas slipped a hand into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small silk bag. He extended the bag to Petrenko who didn’t bother moving. Instead, the older man with the leather bag took the diamonds and was escorted to a table where he could examine them. He took a portable xenon lamp, a small scale, a Schneider loupe, and bottles of different solutions from his bag, then hunched over the diamonds, examining and weighing each one. When he was done, he hobbled over to Petrenko and in Russian told him the ten diamonds were of high quality and worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

“English! We agreed English only!” Abbas screamed. He barked out a string of commands in Arabic. The Arab standing near Petrenko reached for his Glock. Petrenko feigned a jab with his right hand and almost instantaneously rabbit-punched the man in the chest with his left, his fist moving as a blur. The punch knocked the Arab off his feet. As he hit the floor, his Glock bounced out of his waistband and landed a few feet from him. Before he could reach for it, Petrenko stepped on his hand and picked the gun up himself. The heavyset Arab started for his inside jacket pocket but stopped as he realized Yuri had the edge of an eight-inch switchblade against his throat.

Petrenko removed the magazine from the Glock and handed the empty gun to Abbas. “If I wanted to kill you and steal your diamonds I could do so easily,” he said. “I do not wish to do that, though. I am hoping you and your friends will stop acting like children and that this can be the first of many business transactions between the two of us.”

Abbas was shaking with a combination of fear and rage. “We had a deal! Only English!”

“He doesn’t speak English, only Russian,” Petrenko said, waving a hand towards the jeweler. “All he said to me was that the clarity of the diamonds is sub par and they are only worth twenty thousand dollars.”

“That’s right, each diamond is worth twenty thousand dollars!”

“No, twenty thousand dollars for all ten. Because I want future business deals between us, I will pay you sixty percent of what all ninety diamonds are worth. A hundred and eight thousand dollars.”

“They are worth twenty times that!”

“No they are not.” Petrenko stopped for a moment to rub the area above both temples. “And quit shouting. You are giving me a headache. So do we have a deal?”

Abbas was close to epileptic, both too furious and scared to do anything but move his lips in some sort of internal dialogue. He looked helplessly at his two companions. The one next to him still had a knife edge held against his throat, the other was sitting on the floor holding his injured hand.

“You can turn me down if you want to,” Petrenko added. “There will be no hard feelings on my part. If you want, try to find someone who will pay more. You can always take a trip to the New York Jewelry District and see if anyone there will do business with you.”

Abbas tried answering, but couldn’t get the words out. Finally, after his third attempt, he sputtered, “You will kill us if I turn you down.”

“No, I don’t think so. You don’t want to do business, fine, we leave. But I don’t think you’re going to find a better price.”

Yuri backed away. The heavyset Arab had turned somewhat green, and was rubbing his throat where the blade had left an indentation. Abbas looked at him and then his companion still sitting on the floor. He licked his lips. “I will think about your offer,” he said sourly.

Petrenko shrugged. “You know how to reach me. Don’t think too long, though.” He then turned and left the house. The jeweler hobbled out next. After that, Yuri closed his knife and walked backwards out of the house.

Once in the car Yuri turned to Petrenko. “You sure you don’t want to go back in there and take those diamonds? Five minutes we’re done.”

Petrenko shook his head. “If we’re patient they will sell us all of their diamonds. And more in the future. We’re offering only a fraction of what they were looking for. They will need to make up the difference by bringing in more diamonds to sell us. For them, diamonds are easy to smuggle into this country, cash is not.” He paused as he made a fist and rubbed a thumb over his knuckles, feeling the hard calluses that covered them. “Besides,” he added, “if I went back in there I would want much more than five minutes.”