The Double

Eleven

Three men sat in a white police-package Crown Victoria purchased at auction in Manassas, Virginia. They were in the lot of a Maryland rest area between Washington and Baltimore off Interstate 95. A middle-aged man approaching elderly had gotten out of a late-model Honda Accord and from its rear seat had retrieved a brown attaché case and a gym bag with padded handles. Now the man was walking, somewhat stoop-shouldered, toward the men’s room. The men in the Ford were watching him.

“He is taking the goods inside with him,” said Serge Bacalov from the backseat. He was dressed in tight jeans, a fitted T-shirt sporting a winged logo, and running shoes. His hair was curly and dark. He had thick lips, a simian-like muzzle, crooked teeth, and eyebrows that met above his nose.

In the passenger seat, Billy King made no comment. Bacalov tended to state the obvious and talked too much in general.

Billy was in his midthirties and wore khaki pants, leather boat shoes without socks, and a sky-blue polo shirt stretched tight across his heavily muscled shoulders and chest. His thinning blond hair was combed to the side and some of it fell across his flat, tan forehead. His eyes were pale blue and lacked warmth. He was the type seen in beach towns and marinas in November, frayed shorts and brown Reef sandals, his sunglasses hanging on a leash, sitting at the bar next to an older divorcée, preparing to move in to her settlement-house for the winter.

Beside him, behind the wheel, was a younger man named Louis Smalls. He was tall, reedy, and quiet. His eyes were deep brown and could move quickly from needy to cool. He typically dressed in jeans, faded T-shirts, and Vans, wore his hair shaggy, and had a full beard in the manner of a singer-writer circa 1970 or a sensitive, hungry young poet. Of the three men, he was the only one carrying a criminal conviction. He had done time in Hagerstown for a series of convenience store robberies, which he’d committed using a ski mask and a snub-nosed .38. He had served out his full stretch deliberately, so as to avoid supervision. Despite his innocent looks, he was capable in complicated situations, ice when things got heated, and deft in the handling of cars.

King, Smalls, and Bacalov used different last names whenever the situation demanded it. They mostly used their real Christian names. Otherwise, a man could forget who he was and not respond when being spoken to. They all possessed multiple IDs. The IDs would not be passable to the eyes of trained law enforcement professionals, but for laymen they were fine. In the city, these were easy to obtain.

“I’ll do it,” said Bacalov, eagerly, reaching under the front seat and slipping something short and substantial under his shirt.

“Go with him, Louis,” said King. “Abort if anything looks wrong.”

Smalls nodded. He and Bacalov got out of the car and went where the old man had gone. King could not see much, as a row of hedges blocked his view of the facility, but he trusted Louis to make the right call. King sat calmly and waited.

Five minutes later, Bacalov and Smalls returned and took their spots in the car. Both were empty-handed.

“What happened?” said King.

“Fucking people,” said Bacalov. The numerous tourists, truckers, and I-95 commuters milled around the facilities, some heading in and out of the bathrooms, others there for the Travel Information Center, or simply standing, smoking, walking their dogs by the picnic tables, or stretching in the lot.

“Too many,” said Smalls. “And there’s a camera mounted over the door to the men’s room.”

Smalls was particularly sensitive to the placement of surveillance cameras. He had been convicted based on the video obtained from a 7-Eleven he’d done in Burtonsville, Maryland. He had been wearing a mask, but his distinctive forearm tattoo, a skull cleaved by a dagger, had been visible in the shot. He’d rolled his sleeves up before he’d gone in, because he’d been hot. A mistake of youth, one he would not make again.

“He’s in the bathroom?” said King.

“Serge followed him in,” said Smalls.

“He is leaving shit,” said Bacalov.

Taking a shit, you dumbass, thought King. But he made no comment.

Soon Rubin emerged from around the bank of hedges, goods in hand, and went to his Honda. He started the Accord, drove out of the lot onto the long exit road, and merged back on to 95 South. Smalls kept the Ford back and followed.

“He lives in Rockville,” said King. “That’s another half hour away. Old fuckers have weak bladders. Maybe he’ll have to stop again.”

“You hope,” said Bacalov.

King grew doubtful as Rubin moved down the highway. They passed the exits for Route 216, then 198. They blew by an omnibus sign advertising lodging and fast food. Rubin hit his right turn signal at the next exit, Route 200, heading toward Calverton. Smalls let a Pathfinder get ahead of him, and as its driver put his car between the Crown Vic and the Accord, he too exited. On Powder Mill Road the Accord slowed down and turned into a lot of a McDonald’s, and Smalls did the same, swinging into a spot far from where Rubin had parked. Rubin again got the attaché and gym bag out of his car and entered a side door of McDonald’s.

“He saw the Golden Arches on the sign,” said Bacalov. “Americans cannot resist.”

“Why the side door if he’s going to order food?” said Smalls.

“He’s gonna wash his hands first,” said King. “This could be our last chance. The next stop for Rubin is his house. I don’t want to do an invasion. There’s no need for that.”

Ira Rubin was a coin dealer who had a retail storefront in the Wheaton Triangle. He was returning from a convention in Trenton, New Jersey, with many items he had bought in meetings held in private suites. While there he had successfully negotiated the purchase of a collection of uncirculated 1908-S twenty-dollar St. Gaudens gold pieces housed in thick plastic cases. Each could be resold for about nine thousand dollars, though Rubin had negotiated a far lower price. The collection, when sold together, was worth close to a hundred thousand dollars on the open market, and would soon be even more valuable, thanks to the recession and the attendant investment flight to gold. He had also purchased a rare, uncirculated 1926-D that was worth twelve thousand dollars.

King did not have knowledge of these transactions or details. But he knew that Ira Rubin was a large regional player in the coin world because he had read about him on several specialty Internet sites. He had also visited Rubin’s shop. From message boards on those same sites, he had learned that Rubin would be attending the convention in Trenton and that he was “coming to buy.” A story in the Washington Post about a coin dealer who was robbed in his own driveway in Arlington, Virginia, had further piqued King’s interest. This was a job that could be easy and relatively safe.

King, Smalls, and Bacalov had once taken off a check-cashing store in a poor neighborhood of the District, but the monetary rewards had been paltry. With the cameras and the potential for armed employees, that type of thing carried too much risk. Only Bacalov seemed to enjoy the experience. In comparison to a retail job, hitting an old coin dealer seemed like a walk. Plus, gold was up to almost two thousand dollars an ounce. And, as always, Bacalov was game and had experience. He and his Russian friends had been involved in this kind of thing before. As for Smalls, he didn’t object, which was like saying yes, for him. King thought, Why not?

It had cost them some seed money. They had tailed Rubin from his house to New Jersey, had to spring for a couple of rooms at a Motel 6, fill their tanks many times with gas, buy meals and liquor. There had been no good opportunity for the takeoff up north.

Now they would see if the expense and time had been worthwhile. But it had to be now.

“You and me,” said King, to Bacalov. “Let’s go.”

Smalls kept the motor running and watched King and Bacalov walk toward the fast-food house. King was talking, Bacalov nodding his head.

“I’ll stand by the door,” said King.

“Good.”

“You have to do it fast, fella.”

“Yes, of course.” Bacalov smiled thinly. “I will give him a goodnight kiss.”

They entered the side door of the McDonald’s. It was not particularly full, some booths and two-tops occupied, many others empty. Bacalov went straight to the men’s room door, pushed on it, and stepped inside. Billy King stood near the door, took his smartphone from his pocket, and studied its screen as if he were reading messages. From outside the door, he heard a thud, like laundry being dropped to the floor.

As soon as Bacalov entered the small men’s room and saw the open stall door, he knew that he and Rubin were alone. Rubin had the attaché case and the gym bag wedged between his feet, and he was standing over the sink, splashing water on his face. He stood before a mirror but his eyes were closed, and Serge withdrew the sap he had wedged in his waistband. He raised it, stepped forward, and swung it with great force to the back of Rubin’s head. Rubin said, “Ah,” and his eyes rolled up as his knees buckled. His face hit the sink counter on the way down to the floor.

There was copious blood, a pool of it widening around the man’s head. Bacalov did not check on him. He picked up the attaché and gym bag and went back toward the door. King had said not to dead the old man and he had not intended to, but there was only one way to get in and get out quickly, and that was to turn off Rubin’s lights. Anyway, Bacalov had the goods.

Bacalov and King went through the side dining area, passing adults and their children busily eating their fast food. None of them looked up or seemed to notice anything at all.

“Did you hurt him?” said King, as they moved through the lot.

“Yes, I think so,” said Bacalov.

Louis Smalls put the Ford in gear as they settled into their seats. He drove quickly out of the parking lot, careful not to leave rubber or make any significant noise, and soon the three of them were back on 95. There was a stony silence in the car, and Bacalov knew it was meant for him.

“I fucked up,” said Bacalov, with a careless shrug. “Okay?”

“Serge hit the old man too hard,” said King.

“You kill him?” said Smalls.

“No,” said Bacalov. But he thought maybe he had.

They drove to a house they were renting in Croom, Maryland. It was not far from D.C., but it was straight country, west on 4, south on 301, in the hilly terrain near the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary of the Patuxent River. King was pleased when he found it. He was most comfortable when he was near water.

The house was an old two-story colonial with a wraparound porch, clapboard siding, and thick plaster walls. It was reached by a gravel road, set back in the woods. King had seen a FOR RENT sign one day while driving to Chesapeake Beach, where he liked to troll for women, and he had come off the state highway, followed the sign to the house, and called the posted number. He made the deal right away, after he’d had a quick look inside. As always, he overpaid the owner, cash in advance.

The space on North Capitol had grown too small for the goods they were accumulating, and King did not like the fact that he and his partners lived apart. He trusted Smalls but not Bacalov. Serge was not treacherous but he was impulsive and careless, bordering on stupid.

In their living room, furnished in the manner of a biker/stoner lair, complete with overstuffed furniture and a bong seated on a cable-spool table, they looked at what they had stolen from the old man. The coins were laid out on a dining room table illuminated from above by an old crystal chandelier. None of them had deep knowledge of the coin market, but a child could see that some were in better shape and more significant than others, and that the collection housed in plastic was clearly the prize. Certificates of authenticity, found in the gym bag, identified the coins. King used his personal laptop to discover that, indeed, the coins, if they matched the paperwork, had great value.

“Are we rich?” said Serge, seeing King’s bright eyes.

“I’ll take these to my man and find out what we’ve got,” said King. “I’m guessing we did some good work today.”

Bacalov went to a small table set up as a bar and poured himself a Luksusowa over ice. A decent potato vodka for the price: Polish, but what the hell. He went upstairs to one of the three bedrooms on the second floor, where he kept his cash, a pump-action Ithaca shotgun, and a Glock 17. Bacalov masturbated to some amateur porn he found on the RedTube website, then fell to sleep. He was a man of uncluttered needs.

Smalls had gone out to the porch to smoke a cigarette. He returned, filled the bowl of his bong with some good hydroponic, and fired it up. He let the smoke linger in his lungs before exhaling, then sat back on the couch, fitted the earbuds of his smartphone to his head, and found some Mastodon he liked. He thought of an older man with one droopy eye coming to his bed at night, and he saw the man and smelled Lectric Shave and whiskey. The collision of that awful recollection and the violence of the music pleased him.

King walked into the kitchen past the dining room. It held a back door that opened to a small yard and the woods. He found a green bottle of beer in the fridge, uncapped it, and came back out to the living room. He pulled deeply from the bottle and looked around the room. Three framed paintings, wrapped in brown paper, leaned against one of the walls. One of them, The Double, was very valuable. The others, though of lesser value, were worth significant money as well. Stacks of laptops and other electronic goods, burgled from residences and commercial offices, lay heaped in a corner. The coin collection was on the table. Pistols had been strategically placed under the cushions of sofas and chairs.

They would sell their bounty to various buyers, mostly middlemen in the underworld who then moved the goods to private collectors and investors. King knew that what they’d get was very low compared to the actual value, and that he and his partners had incurred all of the physical risk, but he didn’t care.

They were thrill seekers. Serge knew no other way of life. Louis used the jobs to fight off his demons. Billy King had come to the D.C. area to have fun, steal what he could, and fuck and use as many women as he could. No bosses, no rush hour, no line at Starbucks in the morning, no crowded Metro cars. No responsibilities.

It wasn’t about money. It was about having enough to stay in the game.