Cold Shot to the Heart

There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

—Friedrich Nietzsche,

Beyond Good and Evil

 

Keep in mind, kid, until your dying day, the only crime anywhere in the world is being broke.

—“Oklahoma” Smith,

as quoted by Frank Hohimer

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Epigraphs

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Also by Wallace Stroby

Copyright

ONE

Three minutes after she walked in the front door, Crissa had the manager and two clerks facedown on the floor, their hands bound behind them with plastic cuffs.

She took away their guns—snub-noses in belt clip holsters—and dumped them in the flip-top trash can against the wall. All three had been wearing their guns openly, but they hadn't gone for them. She'd drawn the Glock, come around the counter fast, gesturing at the floor, and they'd knelt without protest, hands behind their heads. They knew the drill, valued their lives more than the money.

She put the Glock away, went back and locked the front door. Rain slanted out of the gray sky, ran down the plate-glass window. Only 4:00
P.M.
, but nearly night already. They'd turned on the neon sign that read
CHECK CASHING MONEY TRANSFERS PAY DAY LOANS
. She hit a wall switch and the sign buzzed, went dark. She flipped the old-fashioned door placard to
CLOSED
.

When she crossed behind the counter again, the men hadn't moved. All three were Latinos, one older and grayer, the manager. They were lying still, waiting it out.

She went through a door into the back room—desk, filing cabinets, a big green Honeywell safe. The safe door was ajar, as expected. She found the breaker box on the wall, clicked everything to
OFF
. The office lights blinked out; the computer on the desk hummed and died.

At the metal fire door, she listened, heard the sound of an engine outside in the alley. She rapped twice with gloved knuckles. After a moment, there came an answering knock from outside. She set her hand on the panic bar, paused. If the rear door alarm was connected to a separate breaker box—one she hadn't found—they were in trouble.

She took a breath, pushed. The lock clicked open, the door swung out. Charlie Glass loomed in the rain, in a gray trench coat like hers, baseball cap pulled low. She stepped aside to let him in, saw the Toyota SUV in the alley, wipers on, cargo door open, Smitty at the wheel.

Glass knelt in front of the safe without speaking, took a canvas bag from his coat and shook it open.

She went back out to where the men lay. One of the clerks twisted his face from the floor to look at her. The manager hissed something at him.

“Silencio,”
she said.
“No se mueva.”

She went to the window, looked out. The rain was coming down harder, bouncing off the sidewalk. No one walking around out there. Cars splashed by with their headlights on.

A short whistle from the back. She said,
“Relájese. Es casi sobre,”
to the men on the floor and went into the back room again.

The bag was open on the desk, half full of banded stacks of cash. Glass was using a screwdriver to pry open the tray of the DVR recorder on a shelf. It was fed by three surveillance cameras, two in the front, the other back here. She looked around, saw the second recorder on another shelf, in an opposite corner near the floor. She'd missed it the first time.

“Backup,” she said, and pointed. He nodded, popped the disc from the open tray. While he worked on the second one, she began opening filing cabinets. The third was full of silver DVDs in slim plastic cases, dates written on them in black marker.

“Got 'em,” she said. She'd been in the store a week earlier, would be on that day's surveillance disc. She took all of them to be sure, spilling them into the bag atop the money. He dropped the other two discs in, drew the bag's drawstrings tight, hefted it on his shoulder.

They went out into the rain. Glass tossed the bag into the rear of the SUV, got in behind it, and pulled the cargo door shut. She went around to the passenger side, climbed up. Smitty pulled away without a word. When they reached the end of the alley, he switched his headlights on and made a left onto the street.

“Any problems?” he said.

“No.” She slipped off the long dark wig, folded it carefully, put it inside the black plastic garbage bag at her feet. She flipped down the visor and looked in the mirror there, ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair where the wig had flattened it.

They were on a busy street, early rush hour traffic slowed by the rain. Smitty stopped at a red light, and they sat there, the only sound the clicking of the wipers. He began to tap stubby gloved fingers on the wheel, looked up at the light. He was a mechanic, had stolen the SUV the day before from a long-term lot at the airport. The theft likely hadn't been discovered yet, but she knew there was always the risk, the window of exposure before they were safe again.

She leaned over the seat. Glass lay under a blanket in back, the bag in there with him. He was black, bald, and six-four, hard to miss. He'd stay out of sight until they were clear of the city.

“You okay?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“A little longer.”

When the light changed, they went up a block, then turned onto the big yellow bridge that spanned the Monongahela. A cargo barge chugged along far below them, wake churning behind it. Rain swept the surface of the river.

She powered the window down halfway, felt the wet wind on her face, took her first deep breath since she'd walked into the store. She let it out easy, closed her eyes, willed her heartbeat to slow.

“Man, do I need to take a piss,” Smitty said.

When she opened her eyes after a while, they were in the hills, trees on both sides of the road. She rolled her neck to work the stiffness out, adjusted the dashboard vents so the heat blew directly on her legs.

“I mean a
serious
piss,” Smitty said.

She looked behind them, no cars. A sign ahead said
WELCOME TO MOON TOWNSHIP
.

Five minutes later, they pulled into the gas station, stopping alongside the cracked concrete isle where pumps had once been. She got out, the wind pulling at her, went to the closed bay doors. She caught the handle at the bottom of the right-hand door, heaved up until it was at chest level, then ducked through.

Inside was as they'd left it. Her rented Taurus and Glass's Acura were parked side by side in the other bay, noses out. She pushed the door up the rest of the way, stepped aside as Smitty drove in. When he shut the engine off, she caught the handle, using her weight to drag the door closed.

Smitty left the headlights on, got out. He'd found this place for them, the station abandoned for years, the lifts and hydraulic equipment gone, rusted parts and old tires left behind. She opened the back latch, and Glass climbed out with the bag. Smitty went to the far wall, unzipped, and began to urinate loudly against the concrete.

Glass thumped the bag onto the hood.

“Let's have a look,” she said.

He set the DVDs aside, and they counted the money together, passing it between them, lining up the stacks on the still-warm hood. Smitty came back, zipping up.

“Ninety-four five,” she said when they were done.

“I've got the same,” Glass said. “Shit.”

“Ninety-four?” Smitty said. “Are you sure? I thought we were talking close to three hundred?”

“That's what I was told,” Glass said. “I don't know what happened.”

Crissa looked at the money. Thirty-one five take-home. Hardly worth the trip. No wonder they'd given it up so easy.

“I could tell it wasn't three hundred when I started pulling it out of the safe,” Glass said, “but I didn't want to say anything until we counted it. They must have moved some money, made a deposit the night before.”

“Or they had another safe somewhere else,” she said, “and we missed it.”

“God damn it,” Smitty said.

“A Friday,” Glass said. “They should have been flush. I need to get with my guy, find out what happened.”

“Don't bother,” she said. “We're not going back.”

“God damn it,” Smitty said again.

“Come on,” she said. “Let's get moving.”

She disassembled the Glock, dropped the parts into an open fifty-five-gallon drum of waste oil against the wall, watched them sink. It was the only weapon any of them had carried.

Glass was dividing the money into three piles on the hood, using rubber bands on the loose bills. She popped the trunk of the Taurus, took out an overnight bag. Glass had gotten his own suitcase from the Acura and opened it on the floor. He began filling it with cash. Smitty was still looking at his share of the money on the hood.

“Count it all you want,” she said. “It's not going to change. Way it goes sometimes. Nothing for it.”

She put her share of the money into the bag, zipped it shut, and carried it back to the Taurus. It went into the trunk alongside another suitcase. Folded beside it was her thigh-length leather coat. She took off the trench coat, dropped it in, put on the leather, and shut the lid.

“It didn't turn out the way we planned,” she said, “but that was good work. Both of you.”

Smitty loaded his money into a canvas gym bag. Glass stowed his suitcase in the Acura's trunk.

“This got fucked up,” he said, “and that's on me. But this isn't a bad thing we got going.”

She looked at him.

“You going in front, all innocent like that,” he said. “It's under control before they even know what happened. You stick around out here, we can do some more work.”

She shook her head.

“You're breaking up a good thing,” he said.

“Some other time.”

She found a rusted brake shoe, got the bag with the wig out. She dropped the shoe in, tied the top of the bag, and sank it in the waste oil.

“I'll take the discs with me,” Glass said. “Burn them.”

“Good.”

Wind blew against the bay doors. Smitty had wedged the gym bag behind an empty tool cabinet and was stacking tires against it. He'd drop the SUV somewhere in the city, keys in the ignition, then come back for the money, was trusting them enough to hide it in front of them. But he and Glass were locals. If one stole from the other, it would get settled sooner or later. Their world was too small.

“I guess that's it,” she said. “See you both down the road.”

Glass went to the other bay door, unlatched it, began to push it up. She got into the Taurus, started the engine. As the door rose, she waited to see police cars beyond, flashing lights, men with guns.

The lot was empty. Trees swayed in the wind.