$200 and a Cadillac

XXIII



Back at the Super 8, in the dim light of the motel room, Victor rifled through one of the bags he’d brought in from the car. Tom stood near the door, confused and watching with trepidation. Victor hadn’t been right since the seventh inning. Something about the coach had freaked him out. The way he kept staring at the guy, and then demanded that they tail him after the game, following him home, watching him get out of his truck and go into his little brick house. The source of this strange obsession? Victor wouldn’t say. “I can’t tell you anything, but trust me, we need to know what this guy is up to,” was all he would offer by way of explanation.

Now he was racing around the room, arranging the stuff from the car, assembling a small pile of gear—the night vision goggles, a flashlight, a small tool kit—and stuffing it into a bag. Victor stood in the center of the room and patted his pockets with his hands, as though he’d forgotten something. Then he rummaged through another pile, came up with a pocketknife and opened the blade. He grinned at Tom as the light from the metal glimmered off the ceiling and said, “Let’s go flush this animal.”

Then he bolted over to the nightstand, cut the cord on the telephone, and tossed the telephone and the knife into the bag. Victor slung the bag over his shoulder and threw the keys at Tom on his way out the door. “C’mon, let’s go. You’re driving.”

The keys hit Tom in the chest and fell to the floor. He checked his shirt for a mark and then snatched the keys up and followed Victor down the stairs to the car. Tom was nearly begging. “Look man, you’ve got to tell me what this is all about.”

When they were in the car, Victor spoke in a calm voice that resonated with his underlying exasperation. “There’s something you’ve got to understand. As a retired FBI agent, I’ve got a lot of secret information that I’m privy to and that you’re not.” Victor took the phone from the bag and unscrewed the mouthpiece, removing the speaker and screwing the cap back on. The tone of his voice became more controlled, measured, as though he was giving a lecture to the new recruits at the academy.

“The role of a federal agent is one of utmost responsibility. We are entrusted with a wide range of national secrets that we cannot divulge to anyone. This duty remains with us even after our tenure at the agency has ended.” Victor had retrieved the knife and was stripping the wires at the severed end of the phone cord. “If my hunch proves to be correct, I’ll be able to disclose what I know. Until then, you’ll have to trust me. After all,” Victor smiled at him as he twisted the loose ends of the bare wires, “I’m a professional.”

Tom sat in the driver’s seat with the car facing the street. “Where the hell are we going?”

“Back to the coach’s house.”

“Good God.” Tom shook his head and pulled into the street, resigning himself.

As they drove, Victor used the knife to pry the bell from the bottom of the phone casing. He held it up like a prize when it finally came loose. “Ah yes, now the little bugger is silent.”

“You’re destroying that phone. They’re going to bill you for it.”

“Tom,” Victor began, with an impatient huff. “Don’t you understand? We’ve commandeered this equipment. We’re going to be heroes by the time this is over. This is real law enforcement here. Not like that shit we spend our days doing back at the office. This is the real McCoy. We’re doing society a favor right now, and you don’t even see it. They don’t send heroes a bill for the phone, Tom.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re not in the FBI anymore.” Tom was nearly shouting.

“You see?” Victor shook his head, as though overcome by a sense of tragedy. “That’s the problem with people. That’s what’s wrong with society. Don’t you understand that we’re all charged with a duty to enforce and uphold the law? Did you know, Tom, that you and I can arrest people, just like the police? You know, that’s not just some kind of bullshit you see in the movies. When you see a crime, as a citizen, you have the power to arrest. I would go so far as to say you have a duty to arrest.”

Victor jammed the phone back in the bag and dropped the mangled bell on the floor of the car. He turned to Tom and continued. “Shit, man. Don’t you see these distinctions are meaningless? You’re in the FBI, you’re not in the FBI, you’re a cop, you’re not a cop. It doesn’t f*cking matter. We all owe each other an obligation to make society a better place, and we do that by upholding and helping to enforce the law. That’s what we’re doing here. I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. Just trust me about the coach, Tom.”

Victor went silent for a minute as Tom drove. Then he added, “Besides, we’ve got to do something. Did you see that sheriff? That hack couldn’t solve the Sunday crossword, let alone a murder. We’ll show him how it’s done.”

Tom listened and shook his head, squinting at the street signs in the darkness. The roads at the edge of town had no streetlights, and he hadn’t been paying close attention when they followed the coach home the first time. They’d had to linger far behind in order to avoid being caught. It was enough of a challenge just keeping their eyes on him, they hadn’t had time to memorize the roads.

Victor said, “I think it’s up here, on this next block.”

Tom slowed the car. The street looked familiar, but all the streets looked the same. Run down houses on oddly shaped lots. There were no sidewalks, and the lawns—which were mostly packed patches of dirt and debris—ended where the street cut through them. Many of the homes had old cars up on blocks, or strange pieces of machinery abandoned at the edge of their lots. Old oil equipment of some kind, Tom supposed. All in all, it was a poor neighborhood, in every sense of the word.

Tom thought he saw the coach’s truck at the house up at the end of the block. “Is that it?”

“Keep driving past it, we’ll see. Just go around the block like normal.”

They drove past and could see the truck parked out front. Inside, there were lights on, but they couldn’t see any movement. Victor studied the exterior of the house as they turned the corner and headed up the block. When they were fifty yards up the street, he told Tom to stop the car and shut it off. They were in a dead patch, between houses, with no one around and no light anywhere.

“Alright,” Victor whispered, as though there was a sudden need to be very quiet, even while they were still in the car. “Now I want you to follow me. Just go where I go. Once we get over to the house, the only thing I need you to do is stand guard. If anyone comes along, let me know—but be quiet about it—don’t yell or do anything stupid like a fake birdcall or nothing. Just a tap on the shoulder will be sufficient.”

Victor rifled through the bag again, feeling each item, ensuring everything was there. Then he slipped the night vision goggles on and peered into the darkness toward the house. Tom wanted to look through them too, but didn’t ask. When Victor was done he put them back in the bag. Tom could hear Victor pull the latch on the car door and start to open it. Tom did the same. Victor gave him a nod, “Let’s go.”

They slipped out and stood next to the car. Victor closed the door slowly, pushing it lightly until there was a soft click. Tom did the same. Then Victor was off, moving quickly through the darkness along the edge of the road. They stopped at the rear corner of the chain link fence that marked the outer edge of the backyard and stood for a second.

Tom looked around behind them and across the street. Everything was dark and lifeless. On the other side of the street the houses became scattered, as though the town officially ended and everything became dispersed and random, off the city grid. There were lights glowing in the desert, marking the houses, but they were all far enough away that they didn’t matter. Victor nudged him.

“Pay attention,” he whispered. “What we want is on the outside edge of the house, toward the street. We’ll have to be quick because we’re right out in the open.”

Tom asked, “What is it we want, anyway?”

“You’ll see.” Victor’s grin was visible through the night. “A little trick from the old days.”

Then Victor was off again, rushing along the fence line and then crouching at the corner of the house. He shuffled a few feet down the brick wall to where the electricity meter was, as well as the gas line and the telephone box. Tom stood at the corner of the house, trying to be the lookout, but watching Victor the whole time.

Victor dug through the bag and brought the flashlight and the phone out. He stuck the small aluminum flashlight in his mouth and shined it on the phone box as he popped it open. He studied the wires inside of it for a few seconds. Then he connected ends of the wires from the motel phone to the inputs in the box. He held the receiver up to his ear. Nothing. He moved one of the wires. Still no dial tone in the earpiece. He moved another wire. Paydirt.

The coach was in the middle of a conversation, saying: “I thought you told me yesterday there was no way you could get the money.”

A younger guy answered. “Ah, man, you know, we were just buying some time because we really didn’t know. But we made two runs today and we’re gonna make two tomorrow. We won’t have it all, but we’ll have about fifty grand.”

“But I told you a hundred.”

“Hey, it’s a gesture of good faith, man. We don’t need you thinking we’re slacking or anything, and I damned sure don’t need you freaking out like you did yesterday. We’re trying to run a business here. Who needs all that?”

There was a pause. Then the coach said, “How do I know you’re not just going to give me the fifty and then shut it down.”

“Shit, man, why would we do that? Fifty’s everything we’ve made so far. That would leave Eddie and me with nothing.”

The coach seemed to be thinking it over. Victor grinned at Tom and stuck his thumb up, motioning at the phone. He couldn’t believe his luck. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded a lot like the oil scam.

Finally, the young guy spoke again. “Look man, this isn’t a hard thing to understand. We’re trying to get you to relax a little, and we figure nothing is going to do that like a sack of cash. So meet us out at the property after work and we’ll have it for you.”

“Why out there?”

“Cuz that’s where we always meet, for one. And second, we gotta refill the trucks for Saturday morning. We’re working six days a week on this, Ron. It’s the only way we can get you the rest of the money and make a little for ourselves besides.”

“Alright,” the coach said, finally, “but you guys better have all fifty.”

The coach hung up, but the line was still alive. Victor could hear someone else in the background on the other end ask, “Did it work?” Then the young guy who’d been talking started laughing, “Dude, he totally—” Then the kid hung up the phone and the line went dead.

Victor could hardly contain himself. He held the receiver in his hand and stared at it for a second. Tom could tell something had happened, but resisted the urge to ask what it was. Then Victor hung up the phone, waited a second, and picked up the receiver again. Tom watched him punch three numbers and wait for a connection. Tom could hear a thin voice come over the line, muffled by Victor’s ear. Victor waited a few seconds, listening to it but saying nothing. Then he ripped the phone loose from the phone box, snapped the lid shut, and took off for the car.