Lights Out!--A heist thriller involving the Mafia (5 page)

Saison's eyes widened. He came forward and lowered his voice. ‘What the hell are you saying, Smythe? You're going to rob a jewelry store?'

‘No, Paul,' Smythe said, ‘I'm talking about
you
robbing the store.'

Saison sat back and shook his shaggy head. ‘I don't rob stores, Smythe. You know that.' He forced a laugh. ‘You're making fun, huh? You like to make fun.'

Now it was Smythe who came forward and spoke softly. ‘What I'm asking, Paul, is whether you would pay to know that the power would go off at nine thirty –
if
you wanted to rob the store?'

‘Oh. This is like some game, some puzzle, huh? Well, let me see. Hmm. Maybe I would, but—'

‘OK,' said Smythe, ‘you agree that you would pay for that information.'

‘But how would I know before it happens, huh? How would I know the power would be gone, poof, at that time?'

‘Because someone will make sure of it.'

‘Who?'

Smythe looked down at his half-eaten salad. ‘You,' he said quietly.

‘
Moi?
'

Smythe nodded.

‘Why would I do that?'

‘So someone could rob the jewelry store.'

‘
Je ne comprends pas
.'

‘I'll help you understand, Paul. Just listen to me. And remember, I'm only saying what if? It's a hypothetical situation.'

Smythe had begun his what-if exercise during the massive blackout of 2003 that had plunged much of the nation into darkness. He'd been on a plane about to take off from Vancouver where he'd attended a Power-Can conference when the Air Canada captain announced that they were returning to the gate. ‘There's been a blackout that's affecting the eastern part of the country,' he said. ‘All flights into Toronto are cancelled until further notice.'

Smythe spent that night in a hotel near the airport. After dinner with other conference attendees, he returned to his room and watched TV coverage of the blackout. His mind wandered as reports from cities up and down the East Coast of the United States, the Mid-West, and the eastern half of Canada played. There was chaos in some places; looting was the big fear, and the police were out in force to prevent it.

What if?
Smythe conjured. What if it were possible to
arrange
for a blackout – not a difficult thing to pull off, provided you had an accomplice inside Power-Can – and sell the exact date and time the blackout would occur to someone? Initially, he'd thought in terms of what he'd proffered to Saison, a Toronto jewelry store. But as the months went by and his what-ifs multiplied, his thinking became more grandiose. If one person would pay to know when the power would be shut off to a jewelry store, why not offer the information to others? Find two people willing to pay and allow them to steal from two jewelry stores. Three. Four.

He'd found this fanciful scheme occupying more of his thinking as the years passed, although he'd never intended to put it into action. He was content to have conceived it; it satisfied a need to think in larger terms than what his daily life offered, to think outside the box, something engineers weren't supposed to be good at doing.

But two things happened that caused his flight-of-fancy to take on a more tangible dimension.

The first was meeting a man who was in the business of selling franchises for a chain of fast-food restaurants. He tried to interest Smythe in investing in restaurants in the Toronto area, which Smythe had no intention of doing. But as the salesman extolled the joys of franchising, Smythe found himself thinking not of greasy hamburgers and milk shakes, but how the concept of franchising something valuable – sharing the wealth, as the salesman put it – might fit into his notion of selling blackout dates and times.

The second event that spurred him into action was meeting and falling in love with the beautiful Gina Ellanado.

‘I have to get back to the plant,' Saison told Smythe as they topped off their lunch with strong coffee.

‘Of course,' Smythe said. ‘Thanks for coming and hearing me out.'

Saison looked around the near-empty restaurant before whispering, ‘You really want to do this, Smythe?'

‘I'm thinking about it, Paul. If I decide to go ahead, are you with me?'

Saison's face sagged into serious thought. ‘How much money you say I could make?'

‘I'm not sure, but if things were to go right, a quarter-million dollars.'

‘
Sacrébleu!
' Saison's eyes became moist. Despite his overt bravado, he was a sentimental man known to tear up without warning, and without apparent reason.

‘Perhaps more,' Smythe said.

As they shook hands on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, Saison said, ‘You know, Smythe, you're a crazy man.'

‘No, Paul, I'm not crazy. I'm just—' He was about to say ‘desperate' but swallowed the word. ‘This has been between us, not a word to anyone.'

‘Of course. You are going to do it?'

‘I'm still not certain, Paul, but I needed to know that if I do, you'll be with me.'

Saison slapped his former boss on the arm. ‘You
are
a crazy man, Smythe, but you know what?'

‘What?'

‘Do it!'

D
o it!

Those two words stayed with Smythe as he pulled from the restaurant's parking lot and headed home.

Do it!

Until that day, he'd taken comfort in knowing that he wasn't committed to what had begun as a whimsical bit of daydreaming. But that had changed. He'd made a commitment to Gina that he intended to honor, and that meant money, lots of it. He didn't have funds of his own. Yes, he managed Cynthia's inheritance and could, and had used a portion of it to finance his travels and the free-and-easy lifestyle he enjoyed while on the road. But there was no way he could raid her wealth beyond what he spent to absent himself from her and the house. Old man Wiggins's will, and the pre-nup he'd made Smythe sign prior to marrying ‘his little girl,' tied his hands. If he couldn't leave the marriage with big money,
really
big money, there was little sense in doing it. He'd promised Gina a life of opulence and he intended to fulfill that promise. If all went well, they would spend their lives together. That thought filled him with both twitchy joy and anxious dread.

He was terrified that he would lose her if he didn't act quickly. She was the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world. That this delectable creature would commit herself to him, Carlton Smythe, seemed outlandish. But she had made that commitment, and he'd pledged himself to her. Losing her to another man – there must be thousands of more handsome men pursuing her – was a deathly notion. He couldn't allow it to happen.

He stopped at a post office to mail the bills he'd paid, made a second stop at a branch of his bank where he withdrew two thousand dollars in cash, and went to a two-story office building in an industrial area. A large sign announced that it contained fully furnished and serviced office suites for lease. He'd become increasingly nervous about having sensitive materials and Gina's photograph in the pool house, and had decided to find space away from home.

‘I'm interested in renting office space for a limited amount of time,' he told the attractive redheaded sales representative.

She replied that there were two spaces available, one large, the other small.

‘I don't need much space,' he said. ‘I will need access to the Internet.'

‘That's provided,' she said. ‘The smaller office will probably be to your liking. Come, I'll show it to you.'

After the tour, he sat across from her as she prepared the rental agreement.

‘The name of your company, sir?'

‘Ah, it's a one-man consulting business,' he said with a wry smile. ‘MAD Enterprises. M-A-D Enterprises.'

‘All right,' she said, pointing out that the central phone number that came with the office would be answered in person during normal working hours and by voicemail out-of-hours. ‘Any mail will be posted to your box. May I have a credit card for billing purposes?'

‘I'd rather not use a card,' he said. ‘I'll pay cash in advance.'

She smiled and said that would be fine. Obviously paying in cash was not an unusual situation. He handed her eighteen hundred dollars, enough to pre-pay two months, and left the building fifteen minutes later with a copy of the month-to-month lease, and the keys to the building and his office.

Cynthia was meeting with members of the COC's board when he arrived home. He went upstairs, changed into casual clothing, and walked to the pool house where he loaded Gina's file, and papers he didn't wish discovered, into a briefcase. On his way back to his new hideaway he stopped at an office equipment store and purchased a laptop computer. He cheerfully greeted the redheaded sales rep as he entered the building, went to the leased space, placed the materials in a lockable file cabinet provided by management, and connected the new computer to the Internet.

‘I'll be back in a few days with other things,' he told her on his way out, ‘a printer and—'

‘We provide a printer, fax machine and scanner for our tenants,' she informed him, ‘as well as the free use of our conference room – you'll have to reserve it – and secretarial services for a fee.'

‘That's good to know,' he said, ‘really good to know. I'm looking forward to working here. You have a good day.'

‘You too, sir.'

That night over dinner, Cynthia brought up his next trip to Argentina.

‘How long will you be gone this time?' she asked, her tone indicating that any answer was unacceptable.

‘I'm not sure. It depends on how the meetings go. Four or five days.'

‘This has to stop, Carlton.'

‘Why are you saying that, Cynthia? It's a business trip.'

‘Your business is right here at home, in Toronto. I want you to give up this ridiculous consulting business of yours.'

‘I can't do that.'

‘You could if you wanted to.'

‘Look, I—'

‘Excuse me,' she said, and left him alone at the table.

‘Mrs Smythe isn't feeling well?' the housekeeper asked when she came into the dining room and saw that Cynthia had barely touched her dinner.

‘That's right,' Smythe answered. ‘She has a headache. I have to go out for a while. Sorry to leave such a fine meal, Mrs Kalich.'

The housekeeper's broad, pleasant face creased as she watched him leave. The troubles in the marriage were blatantly clear to her, and she wondered how much longer it would last. She silently sided with Carlton most of the time. Cynthia Smythe could be a difficult woman, terribly spoiled in Mrs Kalich's opinion. Her husband, on the other hand, was a fine man, a mild-mannered and kind gentleman. She hated to see Carlton leave on his business trips. For this housekeeper who'd worked for the family for more than fifteen years, his absences meant having to be alone with Cynthia and her mother, something she did not enjoy.

Smythe drove to a bar twenty minutes away and settled in a corner booth where he ate a cheeseburger and nursed a vodka gimlet. His nerves were on edge. Confrontations with Cynthia were always upsetting, and had become increasingly frequent over the past year. But his domestic situation was the least of it. He'd set into motion this day a grandiose scheme that was, at once, clear to him in its simplicity yet fraught with potential pitfalls.

He was certain that its core idea – that people would pay to know the exact moment in time when there would be a power outage – was sound, and he was confident that arranging for that power shortage was do-able. The problem was identifying and signing up those who would pay for the information.

It was like any other business plan, he thought. You can have the best idea, the best product in the world, but if you don't have paying customers it was all meaningless. He'd given this aspect of the project considerable thought, and felt he might have the answer.

He was well aware that such ‘customers' weren't likely to be the nicest of people, and he didn't know such individuals.

Think it out
, he silently told himself as he finished his drink, paid his tab, and drove home.
Be smart
.
You can make it work
.
You
have
to make it work!

T
he Canadian Opera Company's press reception for its upcoming production of
Carmen
was held in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, in downtown Toronto. Although most men attending were dressed in business suits, Cynthia had insisted that Carlton wear his tuxedo: ‘You're one of the company's representatives,' she explained, ‘because you're with me.' She'd bought a new gown for the occasion that looked nice on her in her husband's estimation.

Cast members in costume greeted invited guests as they arrived. Carlton and Cynthia walked in arm-in-arm and joined a knot of familiar faces, which included the production's director who was being interviewed by the opera critic from the
Globe and Mail
. Carlton eavesdropped on their conversation for a few minutes before wandering away in search of the man he'd hoped to see that night, Dominick Martone. He spotted him across the vast room talking with two couples, and sauntered in that direction.

Martone was one of COC's biggest contributors. His business holdings were extensive and wide-reaching, including Canada's largest trash hauling and recycling company, restaurants, clothing and leather goods shops, a printing plant, and an importer of wines and liquors. There was, of course, his ‘other business', heading Ontario's leading crime family from which most of his wealth was generated. That he'd never been indicted was testament to his business acumen, as well as to the expensive accountants and attorneys with whom he surrounded himself, to say nothing of having an uncanny talent for financially supporting the right politicians. Of course, those who benefited from his largesse preferred not to believe that he had a dark side. That included myriad charities, performing arts groups like the COC, and other non-profit organizations that had grown dependent upon his generosity. And generous he was, especially where opera was concerned. Those who claimed to know him well spoke of his breaking into tears at the first bars of a favorite aria, although it was doubtful that they broached the subject unless he brought it up. Carlton had once heard him boast that he'd been a baritone at
La Scala
in a previous life.