Lights Out!--A heist thriller involving the Mafia (8 page)

‘What?'

‘The info. The date, time, whatever.'

‘Wait a minute, Dom, why should I give it to you before I get paid?'

‘You don't trust me?'

‘You don't trust
me
?' Smythe countered.

Martone paused, then laughed.

Smythe returned it with a smile. A pervasive sense of control came over him. He met Martone's stare, unflinching, challenging.

‘OK,' Martone said. ‘We arrange for the swap, the money for you, the info for me. Tomorrow?'

‘No. I need more time to put things into place.'

‘How much time?'

‘I'll be out of town for a few days. I need … I need three weeks. It's not easy to set this thing up.' He fought to contain his glee at how easily things had fallen into place, and decided to press the money issue. ‘I need some start-up funds, Dom. Can you advance me a couple of hundred thousand against the million two-fifty?'

Martone laughed. ‘I figured you'd want some seed money, Smythe.' He motioned to Hugo, who left the bench and came to his boss's side. ‘Give him the envelope,' Martone said. Hugo handed Smythe a thick number ten envelope and walked away.

‘There's fifty Gs in there,' Martone told Smythe. ‘I'll deduct it from what we agreed on.'

‘Thanks, Dom,' Smythe said as Martone's grandson threw himself into his grandfather's arms.

‘Hey, big guy, easy, easy. Say hello to Mr Smythe.'

The boy grimaced and stuck out his tongue at Smythe. ‘You suck,' he said.

Martone put the kid on the ground and delivered a sharp slap to his rear end. ‘Hey, I told you, you don't talk fresh,' he said.

His grandson burst into tears and ran back to where the nanny now sat with Hugo.

‘Kids,' Martone said. ‘They don't learn respect these days. You go ahead, Smythe, leave. I'll stay awhile with the kid.'

Smythe walked away, a smile on his face. It was falling into place. He'd have a million dollars to take to Buenos Aires and enough to pay Saison.

Now all he had to do was decide what that date would be, and that meant meeting again with the big French-Canadian.

S
mythe was told when he called Power-Can that Saison had taken a personal day off. The Frenchman answered the phone at home.

‘Hung over?' Smythe asked pleasantly.

‘Too much wine, too much of the bitch. What do you want?'

‘We need to talk.'

‘So go ahead and talk.'

‘Not on the phone. I assume Angelique isn't there?'

‘Gone to work. She should stay away.'

‘Pull yourself together, Paul. I'll be there in an hour.'

Saison's apartment was a third-floor walk-up. The pungent odor of cooking, wine, and cigarette and cigar smoke greeted Smythe as he ascended the stairs. He found the aroma pleasant. Cynthia had an obsession about odors and their home smelled antiseptic, as though constructed of HEPA filters. Elaborate air-cleaning machines housed in decorative wood shells silently cleansed the air in every room.

Saison answered Smythe's knock. He looked as bad as he'd sounded on the phone. Smythe's call had obviously wakened him. His hair went in a dozen different directions and he hadn't shaved in days. He wore a stained white sleeveless undershirt, red boxer shorts, and sandals. His eyes mirrored his pain. Smythe declined an offer of a drink and sat at the small table in the kitchen. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes; a skinny black-and-white cat slept soundly in sun streaming through the window.

‘You remember that thing we talked about at lunch?' Smythe asked.

Saison rubbed his eyes and yawned. ‘That crazy idea of yours?'

‘Right, that crazy idea of mine. It's not just a crazy idea any more, Paul. I'm going to do it.'

‘You're going to do it?'

‘You told me to do it. I'm doing it – with you.'

‘Oh, I don't know, Smythe.'

Smythe stared at him. ‘You're backing out?'

‘No, no, but I thought maybe you were kidding, like daydreaming.'

‘It started as a daydream but now it's about to become a reality. Maybe I was wrong to think that you agreed to be part of it. I thought you wanted the money but it looks like I was wrong.'

Smythe stood.

‘No, Smythe, sit down. I'm, ah, I'm just waking up, you know, a little fuzzy. Tell me again about this idea of yours.'

Smythe slowly and carefully outlined the plan. At a specified day and time Saison was to create a glitch in Power-Can's generators. This disruption needed to last only a few seconds before the power company's antiquated mechanical switches, overwhelmed by the power surge, began to shut down the grid that provided power from Toronto southward and westward, cutting off the flow of electricity to Chicago and Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York, Washington DC, and Baltimore. The sudden blackness would be instantaneous. Smythe estimated that it would take a minimum of six hours for engineers up and down the grid to trace the cause back to the Power-Can plant, probably longer if past blackouts were any gauge.

‘Make sense?' Smythe asked when he'd finished going over the plan.

Saison had listened intently, his only interruptions an occasional belch or grunt. He got up from the table, went to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of French table wine and two glasses. Smythe watched with amusement as Saison filled both glasses and handed one to him. ‘How much you say for me?' Saison asked.

‘That depends on how many franchises I can sell,' Smythe lied.

On his way there he'd considered giving Saison a lower figure than the quarter of a million dollars he'd originally offered. The drunken Frenchman would probably be happy with half that amount. But Smythe also knew that as much as he found the Frenchman personally offensive, he needed him. Everything depended upon having someone inside Power-Can with enough knowledge of the complex electrical system to cause the blackout.

There was another dimension to Smythe's thought process regarding money. Now that he had a commitment from Martone for a million, two hundred fifty thousand, he'd begun to question whether it was enough to finance his escape to Argentina and to support the sort of lifestyle Gina would expect. Every additional dollar he could squeeze out of the deal would be that much more he had to finance the luxurious lifestyle he envisioned for himself and his lovely Argentinean lover.

‘A hundred thousand,' Smythe said.

Saison glared at him. ‘You said more, a quarter of a million.'

‘That was before I made my deal with the money man, Paul. He cut down on what I get, so I have to pay you less.' Saison started to protest but Smythe added, ‘Hey, Paul, when was the last time you saw a hundred thousand dollars in cash? Think about it. You can pay your debts, dump Angelique, and find a new and better place to live.'

Saison growled and pouted.

‘All right,' Saison said, ‘I'll make it a hundred and twenty-five thousand. All cash, upfront, in your pocket. That's a good payday for tripping a couple of switches.'

Another grunt from Saison.

‘OK,' Smythe said, ‘I'll sweeten the deal. The money man is paying me a percentage of the profits once they reach a certain level. Between you and me, Paul, I plan on leaving Toronto once the blackout occurs. You can have my percentage of the profits.'

‘How do I get that?'

‘I'll tell the money man who you are and have him pay my share to you.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘That's a secret.'

‘You're leaving your wife?'

‘Let's just say that I'll be starting a new life. Enough talk. Do we have a deal or don't we?'

Saison brought his glass down on the table with enough force to cause half its contents to spill over the top. ‘No, Smythe. You said a quarter of a million. You want me to put my neck on the line for less? No deal, Smythe. What good is what you say this money man will give me after it's over? You think you're the only one who'll take off, be gone? You think I'd be stupid enough to stay around. I'm not stupid, Smythe. You give me what you promised or you find somebody else for this crazy plan.'

Two things crossed Smythe's mind at that moment.

The first was what he knew from the beginning that without someone like Saison inside Power-Can there would be no blackout. He knew others who worked there but none of them were likely to go along with the scheme. Saison's discontent with Power-Can – with almost everything for that matter – and his perpetual state of being broke due to his gambling habit, gave him the right incentive. Two: Saison now knew of Smythe's intentions. If he became disgruntled enough he might decide to tell someone at Power-Can of the plot.

‘You drive a hard bargain, Paul,' Smythe said through an exaggerated sigh. ‘All right. A quarter of a million it is.'

‘What about the piece of the action from the money man?'

‘That, too.' Agreeing to that was easy. Smythe would be long gone before it became an issue.

Saison replaced what had spilled from his glass and raised it to Smythe. ‘You're a crazy man, Smythe, really crazy. But so am I,
oui
? Here's to becoming rich.
A votre santé,
Smythe. Cheers!'

T
wo days later, Smythe boarded a flight to Buenos Aires. Cynthia had complained about his taking another trip, and her mother weighed in, too, but Smythe kept his cool and avoided an outright argument with either woman.

Prior to leaving he'd taken the bills Martone had given him and divided them into groups of ten. Twenty thousand dollars was stashed in a small safe he'd purchased which he'd secured beneath his desk in the rented office. He put ten of the bills in his wallet and separated the remaining twenty thousand into two batches, each wrapped in clothing in the suitcase he'd be using for the trip. He knew that he was taking a chance on airport security personnel deciding to go through the suitcase but didn't see any other option. He'd never been singled out before at the airport, nor had Customs officials in Buenos Aires red-flagged him for a more thorough examination. He always dressed nicely for the flights, and his nondescript appearance, along with official-looking but out-of-date correspondence from the Argentine power authority inviting him to make a presentation meant that he'd never had any trouble. He knew that in the future he'd have to make other arrangements, but for now he would take his chances.

He'd sailed through security at JFK Airport, and was asked only a few cursory questions by Customs in Buenos Aires before being waved through. He'd instructed Gina to hire a car service and to meet his flight, which she did.

Seeing her waiting for him as he walked off the flight sent his heart racing. They engaged in a long embrace and sensuous kiss, much to the delight of other passengers, and were soon on their way to the Four Seasons Hotel where Smythe had reserved his usual executive suite. He couldn't keep his hands off her during the ride, causing her to giggle and to push him away, indicating the driver as her reason for warding off his advances. ‘Later,' she cooed, ‘later.'

But once ensconced in the suite, she welcomed his pent-up passion and they made love, first on the bed, and then when Smythe insisted that they throw caution to the wind, on a chaise longue on the balcony.

Back inside, Gina stood naked in front of a full-length mirror and complained that she was gaining weight. Smythe came up behind her and kneaded the modest roll of her belly. ‘I love every inch of you,
mi angel de amor
. I worship every inch of my Gina.'

They dressed and ordered room service. The waiter uncorked a bottle of 2004 Noeima de Patagoina, the most expensive red on the wine list, and poured two glasses before backing from the room. Smythe raised his glass to Gina and said, ‘To my wife soon to be, Mrs Carlton Smythe.' With that, he opened his suitcase, extracted the twenty thousand dollars in cash and tossed the bills into the air above her head.

‘What is this?' she asked gleefully, snatching bills as they floated down.

‘The beginning of our new life together,' Smythe said. ‘Listen to me, Gina. I have brought with me twenty thousand dollars US. At today's exchange rate that is more than one hundred thirty thousand Argentine pesos.'

‘You bring it with you on the plane?'

‘Yes. I brought it for you – for us. I must return home in a few days, but while I am gone I want you to find us a lovely home to rent in which we can live as man and wife, something in a pretty area with nice views, vistas,
si
? Maybe you can find something on a lake or a river, or the ocean. It must be on a hill and have large windows, very large windows to shine light on you. Later we will buy a home together.'

‘You want me to do this?'

‘Yes. This money is only a small amount. But I will eventually bring for us a large amount of money, a million dollars.'

Her already large brown eyes widened. ‘A million dollars?'

‘Yes.
Si
. I have been reading about buying property here in Argentina. The right real estate agent will not ask questions about where you have gotten the money.'

‘I have a friend in real estate,' she said. ‘I will call him.'

‘Good. We will also need a bank in which I can deposit funds. Take some of this twenty thousand dollars and open a joint checking account in both our names.'

She nodded and touched his hand. ‘I have a friend,' she said, ‘who is president of a small bank here in Buenos Aires, a private bank.'

‘“Private bank?”'

‘Yes. He will do what I say.'

‘Good,' Smythe said, wondering how close she was to these ‘friends' and wishing they weren't men. The thought of her being intimate with another man was excruciating.

‘I will come back with the million dollars. We will use what we must to purchase our dream house, and will have the rest to live together in bliss, sheer bliss. Do you understand?'