The Perfect Crime (5 page)

Reader laughed. “Those’re leather, Eddie. Leather comes from cows and cows love the mud. Mud to a cow is like a bubble bath to a blonde. This’ll be a treat for ‘em, make ‘em think they’re back home down on the farm where the living was easy. Where they lived the dolce vita before they got whacked out and ended up on your smelly feet. C’mon, let’s go.” He opened the door.

“You carry it.” Reader jabbed a thumb at the paper bag on the seat.

“Me? Hell, no, I ain’t carrying it. It’s
your
shit--
you
carry it. I don’t even like sitting next to it. I don’t know why you couldn’ta left it in the trunk.”

Reader sighed and picked up the large grocery sack lying on the seat between them. He’d allow a little insubordination, but the little punk’d pay for it later. When he first decided whahe was going to do, he figured to use a gun, make it quick when the time came, but the bastard’d made him mad, acting like a cunt all the time, whining. Wonder what he’d say if he knew his method of execution had changed to a knife? Stuck in the stomach, at the right place, a man is paralyzed and dies slowly. You twist it just so, every so often, keep it up as long as you want and he cannot move. There’s something to that way of shanking a person that makes them think that if they can only keep completely still, they won’t die and so they sit stock-still and take it. Somebody knows what they’re doing can make it last a long time. Someone like himself.

“C’mon, chickenshit. Let’s go.”

He wondered if maybe he’d made a mistake bringing Eddie in on this job with him. Little shit, looked like a jockey ‘cept for his little pot belly. Only he’d never make the weight a jockey needed ‘less he quit drinking beer. He was your basic punk. Robbed liquor stores, gas stations, chump jobs like that. This would be the man’s first real score. His last, too, if things went according to Hoyle. Reader didn’t kid himself this would be his own last job. He was too old a pro. Scamming was in his blood. It wasn’t the money so much. What’d they say, the business guys, the straights? Money was a means of keeping score? The game’s the thing? The Donald Trumps, the Bill Gates, they were right. The score would be high, this one. The World Series, the Super Bowl of scores. The Masters. That’s the one. This would be the Masters of heists. He caught a picture of himself in a green jacket and golf cap sitting on a pile of money and smiled.

“Get the dog, Eddie. Put the leash on him and be sure you don’t let him get loose.”

Eddie glared at him, but didn’t say anything this time, only opened the door and snapped the leash on the German Shepherd. He yanked him out of the car and the dog yelped as his legs splayed and he hit the ground on his chest, then struggled to get up.

“Hurt that dog again and I’ll hook this shit up on you instead, Eddie.” Reader spoke in a low conversational tone, but cut glass was along the edges of the words. “That’s a dumb animal, never did anything to you.” Eddie started to say something, but thought better of it and did as Reader ordered, only tugging a little harder than necessary on the leash as he followed Reader down into the muddy cane field.

Reader remembered the little black-and-tan hound puppy he’d brought home the time he was seven years old. Stole him from a yard six blocks over. Took him away from a kid a full head bigger than he was. Big, soft-looking kid, but not big enough to cross the kid with the Barlow knife who wanted his pooch.

In his mind, he saw his daddy coming home that night, falling-down drunk and slipping on the pile of dog shit in the yard. He remembered his daddy kicking the dog, lifting it clear in the air to land against the far wall and then fall to the floor. Reader could see his puppy was dead from where he was, and then he was busy trying to protect his own ribs and stomach and head, all the places where his daddy’s work boots were trying to connect.

His mom came in and tried to stop the attack. His father turned on her, hitting her in the stomach with his closed fist. He left them both on the floor and stormed out, heading for a juke joint to pick a fight with someone else.

One thing Reader’d learned from his daddy. How to fight. His father gave him quite a few lessons on the right places to punch to inflict the most pain on the human body.

What’d he learn from his mom? Not much, unless it was valuable to know you never pay the price a whore quotes you. Only ministers paid the full freight. His mother, he remembered, loved miters, but she wasn’t the least bit religious. She thought fucking them got you somehow closer to heaven.

***

“Goddammit!”

Reader looked back and laughed. Eddie was keeping behind him through the rows of cut sugar cane stalks, trying to step in Reader’s footsteps to keep the mud off his shoes. He slipped and fell on his side once; slick brown slime covered not only his shoes, but one side of his Perry Ellis trousers as well. To his credit he still held on to the leash. The dog stood patiently to the side.

“Why th’ hell we got to do this? I’ll take your word it works. Fucking shoes are ruint. Lookit my pants.” He got up, cursing.

“Because. I want you to see what happens, how this works. I want you to understand this. You can buy a dozen pairs of shoes this time next week. Hundred, two hundred pairs, that’s what you want. Get ‘em all different colors. ‘Sides, I want to see if it works myself. This is the first one I made.”

Eddie was a punk, but if he rode him hard enough he’d do. Once the job was over he was history. A zero like Eddie would roll over the first time a cop slapped him hard or squeezed his nuts. In a way it was a good thing Eddie
was
a jive-ass punk. Anybody more hip would have known Reader wasn’t going to leave any loose cannons lying around. Eddie was too stupid to think of anything but the broads he was going to be able to buy and the top drawer booze he was going to drown himself in. And maybe the shoes he was going to stock up on. He was whacked over shoes. Reader guessed it was because he’d never had any when he was a kid.

They reached the spot Reader had in mind at the far end of the field. He’d spotted it a month ago, driving around out in the country. An ancient oak stump that went at least twelve feet around, three feet high, its roots sticking out of the ground. Perfect for what he wanted. Anyone who heard the noise while driving by on the main access road would think--no big deal--some farmer getting rid of stumps. Farmers were always blowing up junk in fields. He took the leash from Eddie and tied it around one of the exposed roots.

He knelt down, reached inside the grocery bag and took out the contents.

“What the hell’s that, Reader? Looks like something you make in art class in second grade!”

It
did
look weird. A rectangular blob of material with a length of ribbon cable coming out of one side, a connector at its end and the end of another connector peeping out of the other side of the blob.

“It’s a plaster of Paris mold, Eddie. All the goodies are in there, the bomb and the circuit. A remote control receiver. All we need to do is hook it around the guy, tight, so he can’t get it off without breaking the connection and we’re in business. Like this.”

He reached over and patted the German Shepherd on the head and bent down and let the dog lick his face. He picked up the contraption and strapped it on the dog’s back, snaking the cable under his belly and snapping the connectors together on the other side. The dog reached around with his head and tried to bite at the lump that was on his back. He sat down on his haunches and began to scratch at the cable with his hind foot. He couldn’t quite reach it.

“There. It’s all set. Slick, huh?”

“Jesus, Reader. What if the mutt breaks that thing loose?”

“He goes boom. Us too, if we happen to be too close. The wires come loose, get cut or broken, it sets it off, same as if you put the juice to it.”

Eddie backed away, his eyes wide. Reader saw red lines in the whites of his parer’s eyes and felt nothing but contempt.

“Let’s get the fuck up to the car, man! Look at him. He’s gonna break that thing. You’re crazy, Reader!”

Reader smelled the animal fear coming from him. Good. Eddie needed to get a little respect for this.

“You know, you’re right, Eddie. Let’s go back. We’ll set it off up at the car.”

“What’s in that mold, that gizmo thing? Dynamite?” Eddie asked, stepping over the drainage ditch alongside the road and walking over to the car.

“You never took high-school chemistry, did you, Eddie?”

Eddie fixed his eyes on the dog that was still digging with his hind foot at the contraption strapped to his back.

“Fuck no. I was a woodshop man. Fuck a bunch of chemistry.”

“I would have guessed that, Eddie. I would have picked you to be a woodshop man. Yessir, definitely a woodshop man. No, it’s not dynamite. It’s saltpeter and some other stuff.”

“Saltpeter! Isn’t that what they put in the beans in the joint, take away your sex drive?”

Reader laughed.

“Over to Raiford, cons claimed it was in the mashed potatoes. I guess in a way it might take away your sex drive. At least, when it goes off and you happen to be in the neighborhood. Some other things, too. Sulfur, crushed charcoal. You water it down, mix it up, bake it in an oven at two-fifty. You got to be careful. It’s packed in a six-and-a-half-inch galvanized pipe, half-inch diameter. Picture something twice the size of your willie, Eddie...”

“Fuck you, Reader.”

“...bit more powerful, though. It’s got a flashbulb in one end, wires running out a hole in one of the caps, hooked to the circuit. You saw the connectors. Dynamite’s not a good idea. Too easy to be traced. They put little pellets in dynamite. Color-coded. They can tell where it came from in six seconds.”

Eddie nodded like he understood, but it was plain he was not listening. His whole attention was riveted on the dog who was scratching at the cable with his other hind foot.

“Know anything about electronics, Eddie?”

Reader walked around to the back of the car and popped open the trunk from which he extracted another grocery sack and came back up to the front of the car where Eddie stood staring at the dog.

Eddie said, “Yeah. You ever unhook the VCR to take it in to the shop you want to mark the wires so you get it back right. I never remember how to do that. It’s easier to go out and steal another one hooked up to the TV. Get two for one that way, too. I remember one time...”

“Electronics are the future, Eddie. Computers, robotics. You can do anything with electronics. Like this.”

“If you say so.”

“How would
you
do this job? How would you take out three, four million from somebody who doesn’t want to cooperate? Stick ‘em up with a 12 gauge?”

“Works for me. Folks don’t argue with a sawed-off.” He sucked back phlegm and swallowed. “Look! That mutt’s goin’ nuts!”

“I guess they don’t, Eddie. Only what if they have a 12 gauge too? Tell me this--how many times you been in the joint, Eddie?”

“A few. Who hasn’t?”

“That’s right. Who hasn’t. How many times you using a gun when you got busted”
“Well, shit...
every
time, I guess. So what?”

“Ever do a bank job?”

“Naw. Thought about it though.”

“Know what happens on a bank job?”

“Sure. You go in quick, get out quick. Listen to that dog whine, Reader.”

“Get caught quick, too. How many people get caught doing bank jobs, do you suppose?”

“I dunno. Some.”

Reader reached in the bag and took out the Futaba and extended the antenna to its full length of a foot and a half. Next, he took out a video camera. He folded the bag and threw it through the open window onto the front seat.

“Not some, Eddie. Most of ‘em. Most bank robbers get caught. I’d say about all of them. What happens is a couple of guys go in with shotguns, pistolas under their coats. They hand the teller a note or just announce it, hold down on the guard, all the customers. That’s when their troubles begin. Electronic shit starts to go down. Shit, electronic shit’s
been
going down before they walked in. Cameras, trip alarms set up in cash drawers, you name it. Today’s average bank is a fucking electronic wonderland. Before they got the green in their mitts, helicopters are whizzin’ around outside and every cop in town is standing outside behind squad cars with a donut in one hand, .38 in the other, pissed off ‘cause they were compelled to leave their coffee and it’s gettin’ cold and they was halfway to first with Trixie, the waitress. And if you get out quick enough before all that happens they got a movie of you. Electronics, Eddie. The bank robbers are beat before they start. By technology. See what I mean?”

“I guess, Reader. We gonna do this or what? It’s gettin’ hot.”

Reader handed the Futaba to Eddie, who took it gingerly. He held it by his fingertips like he thought it might explode. The sun was bright, melting away the morning mist, but Reader didn’t think it was the heat that made little drops of perspiration pop out on his partner’s forehead. Guy truly was a punk.

Reader aimed the video camera at his partner, then found the Futaba in the viewfinder and zeroed in on it. In a smooth, steady shot, he swung the camera around and found the dog at the end of the field and turned the zoom control until the dog looked like it was ten feet away. He switched the camera off and turned and faced Eddie.

“So, bank robbers are Indians, Eddie. You’re an Indian. And you don’t have to be so careful with that. That’s the transmitter. The dog’s got the shit that blows up. The dog’s the one that ought to be nervous, but then the dog’s got balls.”

“What the fuck’re you talking about Indians t’me, Reader? I’m no Indian. I’m Acadian. Me, I’m Eddie Delahousie. Delahousie, that’s French, not Indian. And that dog’s got fleas, not guts.”

“Just some history, Eddie. History. Indian history. Besides, you’re not French-Canadian. You’re a coonass. An Indian coonass. Indians were in this country thousands of years before the white man came and getting along fine. That all got ruined. Indians tried to fight the white man with bows and arrows. The white man shot muskets.”

“Yeah?”