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Chapter 19

Dodge and William waited by the Dumpster in the midnight-dark back parking lot of Union L.A. bank. The rear door had been shut and relocked, but a light shone through a high interior window. Despite the cold, Dodge wore his short-sleeved button-up open, revealing a clean white wife-beater. Eyes on the building, William shifted impatiently from leg to leg.

He cracked a sunflower seed between his front teeth and blew out the shell. ‘Cigarette,’ he said.

Dodge’s cheap plastic lighter flared, and then two cherries burned at his mouth. He removed one cigarette and handed it over. William sucked an inhale and closed his eyes, savoring it before letting white smoke trickle from the corner of his mouth.

Dropping the lighter into his shirt pocket, Dodge drew hard on the cig, the burn crackling down a third of its length.

The inside light clicked off, and a moment later William’s brother appeared at the back door with a nervous security guard, who glanced around before stepping outside.

Hanley scurried over to them, the guard on his heels. ‘It’s fucking empty.’ He tapped the safe-deposit key on his knuckles so hard it made a wooden knocking sound.

William drew back his lips, bit down on the cigarette. ‘Empty?’

‘He must’ve figured out the text was fake and cleared out whatever was in there.’ Hanley was bouncing from tiptoes to heels until Dodge blanketed his shoulder with a hand, firming him to the ground.

‘Listen…’ The guard fussed with his hands at the periphery of the triangle Dodge and the brothers had formed. ‘I did my job, right? I glitched the security recording, nothing written on the safe-deposit log – covered all the bases. So my sister’s cool? Accounts balanced and all that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She can’t go down again, man. She got three kids under the age of ten. I mean, she’s staring at ten to fifteen. Are you sure? You positive your guy can-’

‘Boss Man says he’ll square it,’ William said, ‘then he’ll square it.’

‘You guys are angels, man. Guardian fuckin’ angels.’

‘We didn’t get what we wanted here,’ William said. ‘So what do you say you take the party elsewhere?’ He flicked the cigarette over the guard’s shoulder, sparks cascading down the front of the uniform shirt.

The man’s face changed. He looked at Dodge, who had moved to stand apart, staring at the black edge of the parking lot with no apparent interest. ‘Okay.’ The guard held out his hands. ‘I never saw you. You never saw me.’ Shoring up his posture, he headed back inside, loop-de-looping his mass of keys on its retractable cord. The Plexiglas door closed after him. His pale face stared out at them as he turned the locks, and then he was gone.

‘Goddamn it,’ Hanley said. ‘All that and the fucking thing’s empty?’ He hurled the safe-deposit key into the darkness. It clicked off the side of the van, then skittered across the asphalt.

Dodge’s head turned. ‘Get it.’

‘Look, I-’

‘Now.’

Hanley went over and searched for a time on his hands and knees. Dodge lit two more cigarettes and he and William smoked them down.

Finally Hanley brought the key over to Dodge. Dodge dropped it on the ground, kicked it into a sewer grate.

‘Sorry,’ Hanley said.

‘Relax.’ William slung a hand over to cup the back of his brother’s neck. ‘We were a step late.’

‘I know this is a big job, and-’

‘No.’ Dodge’s gaze was cold and steady.

‘Well, now.’ William showed his teeth. ‘Is it a job or The Job? That’s what we have to find out.’

‘How?’ Hanley asked.

‘How do we always get answers?’ William said. ‘Slow, steady pressure, watch ’em crumble. We gotta poke at him and poke at him. Till he shows us the way. He’s on edge, right? Wingate? Well, guys on edge make mistakes. He’ll reveal who he is.’

Without Dodge’s hand weighing him down, Hanley was back to bouncing. ‘I say we just fuck it and handle’m now.’

‘We can’t take down a guy ’cuz he looks like a guy. We got standards. Every time you do a job, there’s a mess. We gotta make sure this is a mess worth making.’

Hanley turned and spit, hard, into the wind. Rolled his lips over his teeth and bit down. ‘Fucker beat us. He beat us to that safe-deposit box.’ He did a double take. ‘What? What are you smiling about?’

William started back for the van. ‘The night is young.’