The House That Death Built (8 page)

Looking at plans was something
anyone could do. Understanding them took practice. But Rob had had plenty of
that, and he zeroed in instantly – not just on general details, but on small
specifics. And not just what the specifics said outright, but what they
implied.

And, doing so, he had one
overwhelming thought.

It's even better than I hoped it
would be.

He actually giggled.

"Nice. Very nice." He
turned to a page, then squinted. "Indoor gym with a shower room and sauna
attached." He turned to a different page. "Custom-built
library." Another. "Master bedroom's the size of this building's
entire basement."

He looked up for a moment. Kayla
was grinning, and even Tommy looked less generally threatening than usual. They
knew what he was saying.
This house has money in it.

Rob looked back down at the
plans. Something drew his eye. He frowned for the first time, then looked back
at Tommy. "This the most up-to-date version of the prints?" he asked.
He'd never asked how Tommy got plans like this. Not only was it just generally
bad form, it was part of what made Tommy a valuable part of the group. And
people tended to look poorly on others' moves to render them unnecessary.

Tommy'd never gotten bad plans.
They'd always been current, they'd always provided the details necessary to
keep the group from going in blind.

But what Rob had just seen – it
didn't make sense.

Tommy didn't even glance at the
documents. He shrugged. "Should be. Why?"

"The dates on some of the
drawings don't match the engineer's approval stamp."

Tommy shrugged again. "This
is what my girl got me."

The term "my girl" was
more than Rob had ever heard Tommy say about his method of acquiring the
documents. Rob filed it away, just in case he might need it.

That's what you did if you wanted
to be successful – you
noticed
things. For that reason, Rob kept looking
at the dates for a moment. Most of them lined up fine, looked legit.

He finally sighed. People made
mistakes. This looked like it was probably one of them. It just made him
nervous because
everything
made him nervous. Especially now – when the
job was probably the last one this team would follow him for.

Except Aaron. The kid'll follow
me until I stop
telling
him to follow me.

Tommy actually pretended to
examine the plans for a moment. Then leaned back and said, "Yeah, it's
fine. Trust me."

Rob snorted. "I don't trust
my own mother, Tommy." He shook his head.

No choice. Gotta move on this
one.

He looked at the team, settling
his gaze on Tommy, then Kayla. He couldn't meet eyes with Aaron – the kid was
looking down, staring hard at the untouched beer in front of him.

Finally, he said, "I want to
hit this place. Tonight."

That got a reaction. Kayla
whistled. "Why the hurry?"

Rob's grin came back full force.
The stamps were forgotten, the crappy apartment disappeared from his mind. Even
the fear of bad luck fled before his next words. "Because he said tomorrow
was his Tefra payout."

Aaron actually looked up. Not in
surprise. Confusion. He frowned. "Tefra? What's –"

He was interrupted by Kayla. She
jerked forward, her feet flying off the table and landing on the floor with a
thud. "You sure that's what he said?" she asked.

Rob nodded.

Tommy looked from his sister to
Rob, then back again. Just as in the dark as Aaron was. "What's
Tefra?"

"Tefra," said Kayla.
"Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982." She smiled at her
brother and added, "Is it hard being the stupid one?"

He shrugged. "No harder than
it is for you to be the ugly one."

"So's your face," said
Kayla.

"Guys," said Aaron,
"I still don't get it. What's Tefra, exactly?"

Kayla looked like she was going
to reel off the words the acronym stood for again, but Rob spoke before she
could. "You know what a bearer bond is?" he asked.

Aaron nodded. "Sure. It's a
piece of paper that says whoever walks into the bank with it is entitled to its
face value in cash. But no one uses them anymore."

"Sure," said Kayla.
"Because the world is filled with dishonest people. Ain't it a
shame?"

"Kay," Rob said
warningly. But he wasn't really mad at her, or even irritated. This was too
good to get mad about.

It all changes. Tonight.

To Aaron and Tommy, he said,
"The use of bearer bonds was cut back by the Tax Equity and Fiscal
Responsibility Act in 1982. People – bad, bad people," he added, with a
grin to Kayla, "were using bearer bonds to launder money. So the
government basically got rid of them with the TEFRA act.
But
," he
added, "TEFRA also stated that outstanding bonds – especially ones that
got interest as they matured – could still be cashed."

Tommy's face showed confusion.
"So –"

"So some bearer bonds are
like certificates of deposit, bro," said Kayla. "People would buy
them, but they couldn't be cashed out before a certain date. The downside was the
bearer bonds were useless before that date. Upside was they got interest."

Rob nodded. "And even though
the government wanted to get rid of the use of bearer bonds, it wasn't going to
steal people's money if they had already invested their money in bonds that
hadn't matured yet. That'd be
illegal
." He relished the irony of
the last word.

Kayla was shaking her head. Not
in denial; it was the appreciative back and forth motion of someone who's
looking at something too good to be true. And going all in. "So the fact
that this guy said tomorrow is a TEFRA day means he's got long-term bearer
bonds that mature – with interest – tomorrow."

"Right," said Rob.
Again he caught everyone's eye. Even Aaron was paying attention at this point.
"So we steal it tonight, and tomorrow we leave the country. A quick flight
to one of about a dozen countries with lax money laws, cash the score, and
we're sitting pretty."

Kayla and Tommy were already
sold. Aaron….

Dammit, why do you have to screw
up
everything
.

"Did he even say for sure
that they were in his house?" asked Aaron.

Rob nodded. "Yeah. Said they
were in his safe."

"But that still doesn't tell
us if the score's even worth it. For all we know, he could have twelve dollars'
worth of bonds."

Rob laughed. Hard and loud. Donna
actually poked her head out of the back room, like she was worried he might
have a heart attack or something. Then she was gone as fast as she appeared.

It took him nearly a minute for
his laughter to die down enough to allow him to speak. "Are you kidding
me?" he said. "This guy was wearing a twenty-thousand-dollar watch, a
fifty-thousand-dollar suit, and he lives in a house with more bathroom space
than the Empire State Building." Rob looked back at the architectural
plans. Huge rooms, luxury appointments. "No, it's millions. Eight figures
at least. But we have to get it before he cashes it, which he said is happening
tomorrow." He pointed to a spot on the plans. "We go in here. And we
do it tonight."

He looked at Aaron. "The
safe?"

Aaron looked supremely
uncomfortable. "Like I said, the safe company I hacked showed installation
in the master bedroom."

"Just sitting out in the
middle of the room?" said Tommy. Aaron was being difficult, and the big
man knew it.

Aaron's eyes dropped back to the
beer before him. "The closet."

Tommy laughed.

Rob understood instantly what
Tommy was laughing about. "These rich bastards always do the same thing,"
he agreed. "Might as well stuff their money in a cookie jar." To
Aaron, he added, "Do the records say if the safe company wiped the
presets?" Custom safes always came with a company-installed preset
combination. And it was Rob's experience that a surprising number of people who
installed the safes never had the preset wiped. Made it easy to crack the safe.

"Yeah," said Aaron.
"The safe company wiped it, the owners put in their own combo." He
brightened a bit. "And it's a tough one, so maybe we shouldn't even
–"

Rob's face darkened in exact
proportion to the excitement on the kid's face. He cut him off with a slashing
motion. "No." Then he forced a smile to his face. "No, you can
crack it. I have faith in you."

He tried to make "I have
faith in you" sound more like "I will murder you if you botch this
job." And the total despair he saw in Aaron's eyes made the job worth it,
money or none.

Only that's a lie, Rob. You don't
need to see him beg, you don't need to see him cry.

You need this
job
.

Tommy and Kayla seemed to sense
this was the last word – not just for Aaron, but for everyone. They both rose
as one and headed for the door.

"Back in twenty." Kayla
tossed the words over her shoulder, almost as an afterthought. Then she and
Tommy rattled their way through the cruddy front door.

Aaron opened his mouth to speak
at the same moment Rob did – both of them hoping to get the first word in.

Both were interrupted by the
sound of Donna opening the bedroom door again. She must have heard the front
door shutting, assumed the "meeting" was over.

Rob's blood boiled in his veins.
"Get back in your room!" he screamed. Turned back to Aaron.

But Aaron was ready. He got in
the first word after all. "I think I'm gonna sit this one out, Rob."

Rob held himself in check. Kept
himself from –

(
killing him
)

– railing or ranting, even though
after repeated viewings of Donna's klutzy stupidity he was ready to scream.

But he didn't. He just stood
there. Watching Aaron fiddle with his beer. And as he did, he calmed. Aaron
was
going to do it. Not just because Rob was going to make it happen. The kid was
too weak to just get up and walk out, and that meant he'd never have the
strength to
not
do what Rob wanted.

"You said it yourself,"
he finally said. "They wiped the presets. So we need a safecracker or
there's no job."

"Still –"

And just that quickly, Rob got
sick and tired of this game. "How's that wife of yours?" he asked.

Another silence. This one filled
with a different kind of menace.

"We're… we're grateful,
Rob," Aaron finally managed. "
I'm
grateful. But I don't want
to do this anymore. I can't."

"One last job. For old
time's sake." Rob leaned in close. So close he could smell Aaron's sour
breath – the smell of a man held tight by fear. "Or maybe for the time I
gave you the money to get her treated."

For the time I gave you a good
life, right before you shafted me out of mine
.

Aaron didn't answer. Rob moved in
closer. Right beside the kid's ear. Whispered, "Okay, how about one last
job or I'll go and finish what the cancer started."

Aaron froze. Went so rigid it
felt like the air around him grew cold. He drew back. Looked at Rob and Rob
could tell he found no mercy there.

He shook his head. But it wasn't
a "no" to Rob, it was a sad plea to the universe.

The universe doesn't care, kid.
And the faster you learn that the better off you'll be.

"Promise me," he
finally managed. "Promise me this is the last."

Gotcha
.

Rob didn't move away from his
prey. But he smiled good-naturedly and raised his hand. "Scout's
honor."

"Like you were ever a
Scout." It was a last gasp. At dignity, at the man Aaron would never quite
manage to be.

Rob shrugged.

"What if I can't get it
open?" Aaron whispered. "Safe like this… it's a real
possibility."

"Then we'll use alternate
methods to get the combination."

Aaron knew what that meant.
Another shake of the head, another gesture that lacked both strength and
conviction. "No. Promise me no one gets hurt. Not again. I… I can't take
that again."

"Scout's honor," said
Rob.

And then he saw what he expected
to be the second-best payout of the night.

Aaron wept.

Rob let him.

Then Aaron left.

Rob let him.

Because he knew the kid would be
back. And that he'd do whatever Rob told him to do.

He watched the door slam behind
the kid.

Then he turned to the back
bedroom. Waited.

Of course
now
she doesn't stick her
fool head out, when I could actually use her.