Void Moon

26

CASSIE Black punched the buzzer on Leo Renfro's door at noon and almost doubled over when the simple action sent a charge of pain up through her sore arm. When Leo opened the door she pushed in past him with the briefcase. He checked the street and then turned back to her as he closed the door. He was holding a gun down at his side. She spoke before he could say a word, and before she saw the gun.

"We've got a big problem, Leo. This thing was – why do you have that out?"

"Not here. Don't talk at the front door. Come back to the office."

"What, more feng shui bullshit?"

"No, John Gotti. Who the fuck cares? Come on."

He led her through the house once more to the rear office. He was wearing a white bathrobe and his hair was wet. Cassie assumed he had been swimming laps – which was late for him, unless he needed to do it to relieve stress.

They stepped into the office and Cassie lifted the case with her right arm and banged it down on top of the desk.

"Jesus Christ! Take it easy, would you? I've been going nuts here. Where the fuck you been?"

"Flat on my ass on the living room floor."

She pointed to the briefcase.

"The fucking thing tried to electrocute me."

"What?"

"Built-in stun gun. I tried to open it and it was like getting hit by a bolt of lightning. It knocked me out cold, Leo. Three hours. Look at this."

She leaned forward and used both hands to spread the hair on the top of her scalp apart. There was a surface cut and a swollen bump that looked painful.

"I hit the corner of the table when I went down. I think that knocked me out more than the bolt."

Leo's look of anger over her lack of communication was immediately replaced with a sincere look of surprise and concern.

"Jesus, you sure you're all right? You better get that checked."

"I feel like I have that baseball guy Nolan O'Brien's arm."

"Ryan."

"Whatever. It feels like it's dead. My elbow joint hurts worse than my head."

"You've been lying on the floor of your house all this time?"

"Just about. I got blood on my carpet."

"Jesus. I thought you were dead. I've been going nuts here. I called Vegas and you know what I was told? My guy said something's screwy over there."

"What are you talking about?"

"The guy disappeared. The mark. It's like he was never there. He's not in the room and his name's off the computer. No record of him at all."

"Yeah? Well, that's not the worst of it. Take a look."

She reached for the briefcase's latches but Leo quickly reached for her arms to stop her.

"No, no, don't!"

She shrugged him off.

"It's okay, Leo. I got some heavy-duty rubber gloves – like the ones the guys who work on the power lines use. It took me almost an hour to work the picks with the gloves but then I got it open. I disconnected the battery. The case is safe but not what's in it. Look at this."

She unlatched the case and opened it. It was lined side to side with stacks of hundred-dollar bills bundled in cellophane and marked with a " 50 " in thick black ink. She watched as Leo's mouth dropped open and then a look of dismay crossed his face. They both knew that seeing a case full of cash of high denomination was not immediate cause for celebration. It was not the pot of gold at the end of every thief's rainbow. Rather, it was cause for concern and suspicion. Like a trial attorney who never asks a question of a witness that he doesn't already know the answer to, professional thieves never steal blind, taking something they do not know the consequences for stealing. Legal consequences are not the issue. The concern is over consequences of a more serious kind.

It was a good ten seconds before Leo managed to speak.

"Fuck…"

"Yeah…"

"Fuck…"

"I know…"

"You count this?"

Cassie nodded.

"I counted the bricks. There are fifty of them. If that fifty on each one means what it looks like it means, then you're looking at two-and-a-half million in cash. He didn't win this money, Leo. He came to Vegas with it."

"Hold on, hold on a minute. Let's think about this for a minute."

Cassie started unconsciously massaging her sore elbow.

"What is there to think about? They don't pay you at the cashier's cage in fifty-thousand-dollar bricks wrapped in plastic. He didn't win this money in Vegas. Period, Leo. He brought it with him. It's a payoff of some kind. Maybe drugs. Maybe something else. But we took it – I took it – before it was delivered. I mean this guy, the mark, he was just an errand boy. He didn't even have a key to the case on him. He was just going to deliver it and probably didn't even know what was in it himself."

"He didn't have a key?"

"Leo, have you heard anything I've said? I got knocked on my ass trying to open this with picks. Would I do that if I had the guy's key?"

"Sorry, sorry, I forgot, okay?"

"I took the guy's keys. He had a key that opened the cuffs but none to the briefcase."

Leo dropped into his chair as Cassie put her backpack on the desk and started digging through it. She took out four rubber-banded stacks of hundreds and put them down.

"This is what he won. A hundred and a quarter. And half of the info you got from the spotter or your partners was for shit."

She snaked her hand back into the bag. She brought out the wallet she had taken off the bed table in room 2014 and tossed it to him.

"Guy's name isn't Hernandez and he isn't from Texas."

Leo opened the wallet and looked at the Florida driver's license behind the plastic window.

"Manuel Hidalgo," he said. "Miami."

"He's got business cards in there. He's a lawyer for something called the Buena Suerte Group."

Leo shook his head in the negative but he did it too quickly. More like he was trying to shake the information off than deny knowledge of it. Cassie didn't say anything at first. She put her palms flat on the desk and leaned down, looking at him with a face that said she saw the move and wanted to know what he knew. Leo glanced out at his pool and Cassie followed his eyes. She could see the hose of the automatic vacuum moving slowly on the surface, the vacuum somewhere down below.

He looked back at her.

"I didn't know a fucking thing about this, Cass, I swear."

"I believe you about the money, Leo. What about Buena Suerte? Tell me what you know."

"It's big money. Cubans from Miami."

"Legit money?"

Leo hiked his shoulders in a gesture that suggested the answer could go either way.

"They're trying to buy the Cleo," he said.

Cassie dropped heavily into the chair opposite Leo.

"It was a payoff on the license. I stole a fucking payoff. "

"Let's just think about this."

"You keep saying that, Leo."

She laid her injured arm across her body.

"Well, what else are we going to do? We have to think this out."

"Who were these people you did this for? You wouldn't tell me before. But you have to tell me now."

Leo nodded but then stood up. He went to the sliding door and opened it, then moved out by the pool. He stood at the edge and looked down at the vacuum gliding silently along the bottom. Cassie came up behind him. As he spoke he never took his eyes off the water.

"They're from Vegas by way of Chicago."

"Chicago. You mean the Outfit, Leo?"

Leo didn't answer but in his silence was the answer.

"How the hell did you get involved with the Outfit, Leo? Tell me."

Leo started walking along the edge of the pool, his hands deep in the pockets of his robe.

"Look, first of all, I'm smart enough to know not to intentionally get involved with the Outfit, okay? Give me a little fucking credit, okay? I didn't have a choice in the matter."

"Okay, Leo, I understand. Tell me the story."

"It started about a year ago. I met these guys. I was at Santa Anita and saw Carl Lennertz over there, you remember him, right?"

Cassie nodded. Lennertz was a scout, always had an eye out for what he called a good book – a score. He sold tips to Leo, usually collecting a flat fee or ten percent of the gross taken out of Leo's end. Cassie had met him once or twice with Leo and Max several years before.

"Well, he was with these two guys and he made the introductions. They were just two guys who hung around the track and were looking to back a move here and there. They said they were venture capitalists."

"And you just took them at their word."

A truck with a bad muffler system roared by on the nearby freeway and Leo didn't answer the question until the noise had abated.

"I had no reason to doubt them and they were with Carl and he's good people. Besides, at the time things were drying up and I was scratching bottom. I needed setup money and here were these two guys. So I set up a meeting for later and we got together and I asked them to, you know, back me up on a couple things I had on my desk. They said sure, no problem."

He stepped to the side of the pool where a surface net at the end of a ten-foot pole was hooked to a fence. He took it down and used it to skim a dead hummingbird out of the pool.

"Poor things, I don't think they can see water or something. They dive right in. This is the third one this week."

He shook his head.

"Dead hummingbirds are bad luck, you know."

He flicked the dead bird over the fence into a neighbor's yard. Cassie wondered if maybe the three dead hummingbirds were really just the same one that the neighbor kept throwing back over the fence and into the pool. She didn't say anything. She wanted Leo to get back to the story.

Leo hooked the net back in place on the fence and came back around to Cassie.

"So that's how it started. I took sixty-five bones off them against a hundred when the jobs were paid out. I was thinking six weeks tops. One was diamonds and that's always quick. And the other was a warehouse – Italian furniture. I had somebody lined up in Pennsylvania on that and was probably looking at six weeks tops on the turnaround. My end was going to be about two and I'd owe these guys one. Not bad. Most of the money I needed from them was for the data. The people I was working with had their own equipment."

He was wandering, telling too many details about the plans and not what happened.

"You can skip all of this, Leo. Just read me the last page."

"The last page is that both jobs went to shit. The data on the diamonds was bullshit. A rip-off. I paid forty for it and the guy disappeared. And then the furniture turned out to have been made down in Mexicali. It was counterfeit designer stuff and the made-in-Italy tags were as bogus as most of the tits you see in this town. I didn't know it till I got the truck all the way to Philadelphia and my buyer took a look. Shit, what a fucking mess. I just had them abandon the truck on the side of a road in Trenton."

He paused as if trying to remember some other detail, then waved a hand in a resigned, dismissive gesture.

"And so that was it. I owed these guys a hundred grand and I didn't have it. I explained the situation to them and they were about as sympathetic as a night-court judge to a hooker. But when it was all said and done I thought I had bought some time. Only they just said that and turned right around and sold my fucking paper to another party."

Cassie nodded. She could finish the story herself now.

"These two new guys come around and say they represent the new holder of the paper now," Leo said. "They make it real clear that the new holder is the Outfit without actually having to say it. Know what I mean? They tell me that we have to work out a payment schedule. I ended up paying two grand a week just on the interest. Just to stay afloat. It was killing me. I still owed the hundred but I was never going to get out from under. Never. Until one day they show up with a proposition."

"What was it?"

"They told me about this job."

He pointed through the open slider at the briefcase sitting on the desk inside.

"They told me to set it up with their guy in Vegas and that if I did it, then they'd burn my paper and still give me a cut on the caper."

Leo shook his head. He walked over to the table and chairs near the shallow end and sat down. He reached over to a hand crank on the umbrella pole. He started turning it and the umbrella opened like a flower. Cassie came over and sat down. She cupped her left elbow in her right hand.

"So they obviously knew what was in the case," she said.

"Maybe."

"No maybes. They knew. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been so fucking magnanimous with you. When are they coming for it?"

"I don't know. I'm waiting on a call."

"Did they give you a name?"

"What do you mean?"

"A name, Leo. Whoever bought your paper."

"Yeah, Turcello. Same name that was on the package at the desk for you. He's supposedly the guy who picked up the pieces after Joey Marks went down."

Cassie looked away. She didn't know the name Turcello but she knew who Joey Marks had been. He had been the Outfit's brutal point man in Las Vegas – one in a long line of vicious enforcers. His real name was Joseph Marconi but he was universally known as Joey Marks because of the keepsakes he left on those of his victims he allowed to live. Cassie remembered how she and Max had spent a year living in fear of Marks, who wanted a piece of their action. After she was in High Desert she picked up a newspaper one day and read about how Marks had been killed in his limousine during a bizarre shoot-out with the FBI and police in a bank parking lot in Las Vegas. She had celebrated after reading the story – which in prison amounted to sipping a paper cup of applejack she'd bought with a pack of cigarettes.

She didn't know who Marconi's replacement, Turcello, was but she assumed he had to be just as viciously psychopathic as Marks had been in order to be named to the position.

"And now you've got me in the box with you and these people," Cassie said. "Thanks, Leo. Thanks for – "

"No, you're wrong. I protected you. They don't even know about you. I took the job and set it up. Like I told you before, nobody knows everybody in the caper. They don't know you and they never will."

Leo's promise was not reassuring. Cassie could no longer sit down while it seemed her life was passing in front of her. She got up and walked to the pool's edge and looked down into the calm, clear water. Her left arm hung at her side like a dead weight.

"What are we going to do, Leo? If I have this right, the Chicago mob used us to steal a payoff these Cubans from Miami were making to a third party on the buyout of the Cleo. We're sitting in the middle of what's going to be a war. Do you see that? What do we do?"

Leo got up and came to her. He pulled her into a tight hug and spoke calmly.

"Nobody knows about you. I promise you. Nobody knows about you and nobody ever will. You don't have to worry."

She pulled away from him.

"Of course, I do, Leo. Come back to reality, would you?"

The tone of her voice silenced Leo. He raised and dropped his hands in a gesture of surrender. He started banging a tight fist against his lips. Cassie paced along the side of the pool. After a long minute she spoke again.

"What do you know about Buena Suerte?"

"Like I said, nothing. But I'll make some calls about it."

After another long silence, Leo shook his shoulders.

"Maybe we just give the money back and say it was a mistake," he said. "We find a go-between who will – "

"Then we have Chicago after us, Leo. This Turcello person. Think, would you? We can't do that."

"I'll tell them that when you went into the room last night the briefcase wasn't there."

"I'm sure they're going to believe that. Especially, since the mark has suddenly disappeared."

Leo flopped back into his seat under the umbrella. A defeated look was overtaking his face. There was a long period of silence while neither looked at each other.

"Sometimes you can steal too much," Cassie said, more to herself than Leo.

"What?"

"Max used to say that sometimes you can steal too much. We just did."

Leo pondered the statement in silence. Cassie folded her arms across her chest. When she spoke her voice was resolute and strong. She now looked directly at Leo.

"Let's take the money. All of it. We split it and we run, Leo. One point three and change each. It's more than enough. Fuck Chicago and Miami. We take it all and run."

Leo was shaking his head before she was finished speaking.

"No way."

"Leo…"

"No fucking way. You think you can run from these people? Where are you going to run? Name a place where it's worth living and they can't find you. No place, that's where. They will hunt you down to the end of the fucking earth just to prove the point. Bring your hands back to Chicago or Miami in a shoe box and put 'em on display at the wise guys' Sunday buffet."

"I'll take my chances. I've got nothing to lose."

"Well, I DO! I'm set up here. I am dug in and the last thing I want is to spend the rest of my life changing my name every month and holding my Glock behind my back every time I open a fucking door."

Cassie came over to the table and crouched next to Leo's chair. She held the plastic armrest with both hands and looked up into his eyes but he quickly looked away.

"No, Cass, I can't."

"Leo, you can take two million and I'll take the rest. It's still more than I'll need. Two days ago I was thinking I'd be lucky to get a couple hundred out of this. You take the two. It's enough for you to – "

He got up and walked away from her. He went back to the edge of the pool. Cassie leaned her forehead against the armrest. She knew she wasn't going to convince him.

"It's not the money," Leo said. "Aren't you listening to what I'm telling you? It doesn't matter if it's one million or two million. What's the difference if you aren't around to spend it? Let me tell you, there was a guy a few years back. They tracked him all the way to Juneau-fucking-Alaska. Went up there, gutted him like a salmon from the river. I think every couple years they have to make an example. To keep everybody else in line. I don't want to be an example."

Still crouched like a hiding child, Cassie turned and looked at his back.

"Then what do you want to do? Wait until someone comes here and guts you? How is that different from running? At least if we run we have a chance."

Leo looked down into the pool. The vacuum moved silently along the bottom.

"Fuck…," he said.

Something in his tone made Cassie look expectantly at him. She began to think maybe she had convinced him. She waited him out.

"Two days," he finally said, still looking down into the pool. "Give me forty-eight hours to see what I can do. I know some people in Miami. Let me make some calls, see what I can find out. And I'll check on things in Vegas and Chicago. Maybe I can talk our way out of this. Yeah, maybe make a deal and even keep a piece of this for ourselves."

He was nodding to himself, getting himself ready for the biggest negotiation of his life – of their lives. He couldn't see Cassie shaking her head. She didn't believe they had a chance his way. But she stood up and came to his side.

"Leo, you have to understand something. Turcello isn't going to give you a cut of what's in the briefcase. He never was. You call his people and tell him you have it and you'll be saying, 'Here I am, guys, come get me.' You'll be this year's salmon."

"No! I tell you I can get us out. I can negotiate with these people. Remember, it's all about money. As long as everybody gets something, we can get out."

Cassie knew she wasn't going to convince him. She was resigned.

"Okay, Leo, two days. And that's all. After that we cut it up and we go. We take our chances."

He nodded his agreement.

"Call me tonight. I might know something. Otherwise, do what you do. I can only reach you at the dealership?"

She gave him her cell phone number, telling him not to write it in his book.

"I'm going, Leo. What do we do with the money?"

"The usual. It's still the perfect spot."

Cassie hesitated. She knew it was best for him to hold the money, but parting with it gave her pause. Then she remembered something that had completely slipped her mind amid the recent developments.

"Hey, did you get my passports?"

"All I can tell you is that I got word they're on their way. I'll check the drop again tonight. If they're not there tonight, they will be tomorrow. Guarantee it."

"Thanks, Leo."

Leo nodded. Cassie turned toward the sliding door.

"Wait a minute," Leo said. "Let me ask you something, what time was it when you went in the room?"

"What?"

"What time was it when you went in the guy's room last night? You must've looked at your watch."

She looked at him. She knew what he wanted to know.

"It was five after three."

"And what, it took five, ten minutes tops to do the job, right?"

"Normally."

"Normally?"

"He got a phone call, Leo. I was in the closet with the safe. The phone rang and he talked to somebody. I think it was about the payoff. He was going to make it today. Then after he hung up he got up and went into the bathroom."

"And you snuck out."

"No. I stayed in the closet."

"How long?'

"Until he was asleep again. Until I heard him snore. I had to, Leo. It wasn't safe. You weren't there. I couldn't leave until – "

"You went into the void moon, didn't you?"

"It couldn't be helped, Leo, that's what I'm trying to – "

"Oh, Jesus Christ!"

"Leo…"

"I told you. I only asked you to do one thing."

"It couldn't be helped. He got the call – a phone call at three in the morning, Leo. It was just bad luck."

Leo shook his head as if not listening.

"That's it then," he said. "We…"

He didn't finish. She closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Leo. I really am."

A buzzing sound near her left ear caught her attention. She looked around and saw a hummingbird suspended in air, its wings a blur.

It darted to the left and then swooped over to the pool, dropping to just a foot above the surface of the calm water. It seemed to be looking down at its reflection on the surface. It then dropped lower until it hit the surface. Its wings fluttered wildly but they were too heavy now for flight. The bird was trapped in the water.

"See what I'm saying," Leo said. "Dumb birds."

He started around the pool to get to the net so he could try to save the tiny creature's life.