Devils in Exile (25 page)

Glade closed his player. Suarez set aside his pool cue.

“Now that I have your attention,” Royce said. “We’re gonna switch it up a bit. Get you guys back feeling frosty and alert. This is something big, and it’s come up suddenly.”

The others moved closer, leaning around the table, except Maven, a sour taste in his mouth.

“It’s a stash house. A currency drop. The wad one of the kingpins ships back to South America for payment. All his honey poured into one pot.”

Termino said, “Sounds lucrative.”

“Seven figures beginning with the number three.”

Glade said, “Bullshit.”

“I give you no guarantees, but that’s the word. Three days from now.”

Maven looked around for Royce’s trademark envelope. “Where’s the phones and intel?”

“This one’s a little different, as I said. We can’t go the usual route. I’m told there is some outside muscle being brought in to oversee this.”

Maven said, “So—no intel?”

“I’ve got enough to get us going.” Royce meant that to be the last word on the subject.

Maven said, “What about product?”

“Money cell is separate, you know that.”

“So this is more of a straight-up heist.”

“A raid,” said Royce. “A takedown.”

Maven said, “A robbery.”

Royce turned fully toward him, responding to Maven’s tone. “And what’s so unusual about that?”

Maven didn’t back down. “No product is a first.”

“This is a backbreaking amount. This is going-out-of-business money. And do I have to do the math for you on what a one-sixth share will bring?”

Maven scowled. He didn’t like having a cool half million dollars dangled in front of him. Plying them with easy money felt condescending.

“I don’t like it,” said Maven.

Royce looked at him, very cool. “You don’t like it.”

“I need to know more.”

Royce kept staring. “I need to know what the fuck has crawled up your ass.”

Maven took that, was braced for it, knowing it was coming. “You’re sending us out there to do a straight-out stickup job with no tech, with no backgrounds, nothing.” Maven looked at the others. “I think we need to know where this is coming from.”

A smile flickered on Royce’s face, energized by the anger aroused by Maven’s blasphemy. “That is the question you don’t ask.”

“I just asked it.”

The stillness of the others reflected the electricity in the room. They didn’t want to move for fear of getting a shock.

Royce looked at them. “What is this? He speaks for any of you?”

Termino made a face as if he were about to spit on the pool table. Glade and Suarez shook their heads.

Maven said, “It’s dangerous enough out there as it is. Now we’re rushing into this thing, dicks in hand, three days? Why can’t we know what you know?”

Royce was too flabbergasted to be furious. “Because I protect my sources. Is there some reason my word isn’t good anymore?”

“Your word is good. It’s just not enough.”

“What is this? You want out? Is that what this is, Maven?”

“Maybe it is.”

Royce looked at the others, registering their shock. “Well, you can’t. Not without our blessing.”

“Your … what?”

“Mutually assured destruction. Remember that? We’ve got a contract between all of us, written in crime. There’s no revolving door here. This ends when we all decide to walk away, and not before. And I mean walk away for good. From the life and from each other.” Royce looked at the others again. “You ready for that? I’m fucking not.”

Termino said, low and menacing, “Maven, what the fuck?”

Suarez was too stunned to speak. Jimmy Glade said beseechingly, “It’s half a million fucking dollars, Mave.”

Royce was finally coming around to anger, bolstered by the others’ support. “Why are you shitting all over my floor like this, Maven? What, I haven’t done quite enough for you?”

Maven said, “Come on.”

“You don’t trust me now? That it? Me, who’s held your hand and taken care of you every fucking step of the way?”

Maven was breathing hard, harder than he expected. It was the way Royce got inside you and figured out what mechanism needed to be pulled to make you work. That Maven’s sequence
was a little more complicated than the others’ only energized Royce.

“Where’d you get your religion all of a sudden?” said Royce. “‘A robbery.’ You’re awfully pure. You want to burn your share, that makes you feel better? Go ahead. But in the meantime, you will carry your fucking weight.”

Maven stood there and showed Royce he could take it.

Royce said, “Milkshake, you back on the inside. Maven’s losing his nerve.”

“My nerve?” said Maven, knowing Royce was trying to get to him, and letting it happen anyway. “I don’t see you out there with us.”

Royce stared, furious as ever, but now trying to figure out the reason behind Maven’s pushback. “What the fuck did I ever do to you? Except make your life
one thousand percent better
. All of a sudden, that’s not good enough. Well, fuck you again. What are you without me, Maven? What are you?”

Maven didn’t answer.

Royce looked at the others. “Where else could you guys live so well and make what you’re making? Let me know your prospects.”

No one spoke.

Back to Maven. “A guy makes some money and all of a sudden he’s smart. He must be smart to have all this money, right? Must be a genius. Money doubles your IQ and triples the size of your cock. You know what?” Royce made a hand motion as if he were waving off a second cup of coffee. “I thought I’d built up some credit with you guys,” said Royce. “Some goodwill—thought I’d earned that. Some respect, and some motherfucking courtesy. I even thought we were a unit. But there is a chain of command here, though I don’t like to bring it up. Questions go top down, they don’t come bottom up. I give the marching orders. And never have I sent you walking through a door ‘dick in hand.’ So fuck you.”

Termino said, “Maven, you’re being an asshole.”

Maven didn’t dispute that. He was acting out on his fury for Danielle, his guilt about screwing Royce’s girl, his fear of Lash and
the DEA—trying to blow up the crew rather than deal with these issues.

Royce said, “You know what? Walk if you want to. Go. Termino says you’ve been flaking off anyway. You’re a fucking mess to look at, you’re never around. Spending so much time with this girl, playing real estate agent. Go ahead.”

Suarez said, “You going to ditch us now? You’re leaving us a man down.”

“Biggest haul of our young lives, Mave,” said Glade. “Why you pick now to flake?”

Their words were nothing compared to what Maven saw in Royce’s face. Maven had ruined what they’d had, and he wondered what it would look like from here.

T
RICKY SAT ALL THE WAY TO THE LEFT IN BACK, UP AGAINST THE
tinted window so he couldn’t be spied through the windshield—so far over that he disappeared out of Lash’s rearview mirror altogether.

Lash took him down the street past the Black Falcon marine industrial park. The Edison plant was across the channel to the right, Logan Airport ahead of them across Boston Harbor. Lash said, “What about this blond guy here?”

The guy was well built, athletic, wearing a green tracksuit and jogging slowly with white speaker buds in his ears.

“Naw,” said Tricky. “Don’t know him.”

“He’s been hanging around. Did this loop three times yesterday.”

“This is still Southie right here. Lotta fools dope up and go exercise. White guys, mostly.”

Lash followed the road left around the turn. “We’re gonna unplug this thing today.”

“Today?” Tricky sat up a bit. “You sure?”

“Never sure. Never, ever sure.”

The light, repetitive thumping was Tricky’s fingers paradiddling on the back of Lash’s headrest. “Damn.”

“What?”

“Just … did I make the right decision, you know? For me.”

“You made the right decision.”

“If things go wrong, then what? Where am I then?”

“Nobody on my end knows about you yet. No one’s known this whole time, and there’s no point in bringing them in now. But people will know you after.”

“Fuck,” Tricky said. “That’s dangerous shit. They gonna put me and my money on a beach somewhere?”

“Not likely. But someplace safe.”

“Nowhere’s safe for a snitch.” Lash heard a sigh come out of Tricky. “I must be out of my Negro mind. You always said you wanted me out of the game.”

“And you better stay out.”

Foot tapping joined the thumping, a riff of nerves. “Where is this place anyway? I never been down here.”

“Just passed it.”

Tricky turned to look, his fingers stopping. “Bandits profit from inside info—why not me?”

“First smart thing you’ve done since I’ve known you. Just keep thinking about the money.”

“Exactly right,” said Tricky, his fingers resuming their patter. “You just read my damn horoscope.”

G
LADE CALLED IN
. “M
OVEMENT UP IN THE WINDOWS, BUT NOTHING
by the door. Guess I’m in for another loop.”

Maven thought that Glade’s jogging around the Black Falcon in a tracksuit was way too obvious, but couldn’t say anything to Termino and Suarez. They sat together inside a van in a lot at the
head of the loop. They were having trouble getting their eyeballs on the stash house—the “house” in question being the office of a seafood importer sandwiched between freight terminals.

Maven said to Glade, “What about that Sequoia that went by?”

“Didn’t see it.”

“Silver. Tinted windows in back.”

Glade said, “Lotta cars out here, Mave.”

Maven hung up on him. Over on Dry Dock Avenue, an Edison crew worked their second day on a streetlight, with no cop detail. Maven mentioned it earlier, but Termino only thought he was looking for a way out.

Maven said, “This loop is essentially a dead end. Only one exit.”

Suarez said, “We could go into the drink.”

Termino said, “First of all, and come up where? We’d have to swim two miles—and they’d still find us. Second—I, for one, don’t love that dirty water. Syphilis down there.”

Maven said, “We don’t even know how many doors we have to go through.”

Termino said, “So we have to get fancy. We’ve done it before. Stop shitting on this, Maven, and man up.”

The passing rumble was that of the Edison truck surging down the street, pulling up just out of sight—right about where the seafood importer’s office was.

Two SUVs followed it at a high rate of speed.

They heard the loud banging of a door being rammed open.

Termino said, “What in the goddamn—”

Maven picked up the ringing phone. Glade said, “Shit, I’m fucking bailing.”

Three gunshots—muffled, from inside the building—were followed by yelling.

“A setup,” said Termino.

Maven broke apart the work phone and reached for his backpack.

More gunfire. Glade went jogging past them, toward Summer Street. Suarez jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine, but Maven pulled on his arm. “Leave it. Bail.”

Termino was already out the side door and walking away. Maven went out the other door, then Suarez, heading off in different directions.

People exited the adjoining marine park buildings, fleeing toward Maven as he crossed onto Dry Dock Avenue. He saw the Edison truck and the SUVs with police lights flashing in their taillights.

Automatic gunfire blasted down from the second-floor windows, spraying the vehicles. Agents wearing body armor and DEA vests crouched behind them, pinned down.

Maven watched the action from behind a skinny, city-planted tree. The feds were taking heavy heat, outflanked and overmatched. Then he saw a long-limbed DEA agent ducking behind a vehicle’s front end, yelling into a mobile phone.

Agent Lash. Calling in more backup. He evidently couldn’t hear anything from his phone and took a chance, ducking and running behind a pickup truck.

It was a raid. It had gone wrong, and fast. This was an ambush.

Lash pulled a sidearm and peeked over the bed of the pickup, squeezing off shots at the building—ducking back when retaliatory rounds plunked the vehicle.

Maven dug into his backpack. He carried an all-black Beretta 92, an instrument of his paranoia. He slipped it out of its nylon bag and slid off the safety, holding it low against his leg, starting down the far side of the road, moving from car to car as more people fled past him.

One of the SUV’s gas tanks exploded. Not a spectacular ball of flame, but a concussive burst that lifted the back of the vehicle and threw back the men behind it. No one was on fire, but they were hurt, rolling from side to side in the road.

Maven came up beside a black guy sitting with his back against a blue Honda, biting the neck of his navy blue Champion hoodie and saying over and over, “Shit, shit, shit.”

Maven peeked through the cracked window glass and saw Lash reloading, the pickup not thirty yards away. He moved up one more car, not wanting to be seen.

In the second-floor window above, Maven saw a shirtless blond guy wearing a gun strap across his bare chest. The shooter aimed down at Lash. Maven straightened and fired over the Honda’s roof—too far away to be accurate, but enough to break the glass and send the shooter ducking for cover.

Maven spun back down and wondered what sort of insanity had caused him to do that. His lack of judgment turned him ice-cold, and he ducked away to the previous car as a hail of rounds came whistling near.

L
ASH FLATTENED OUT AND SLID UNDERNEATH THE PICKUP
. T
HEY
were surrounded. Lash heard fire behind him.

He looked up at the undercarriage of the truck and remembered the exploding SUV, and that made him slide partly out, enough to see the shirtless shooter in the window firing down into the street.

Lash’s first round cracked the rifle’s stock. The second burst red over the shooter’s neck. Shots three, four, and five struck the chest of the howling shooter, who was too dumb to fall.

Lash scrambled out from beneath the truck. Sirens in the distance, all the sounds combining in his head to form a machinelike roar.