The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella) (11 page)

A shrill, grinding klaxon split the air, and Caitlin and I scurried to the far end of the aisle as the clerks jumped. Jennifer blinked with feigned surprise, looking up at the emergency light flickering on the tiled ceiling.

“Did they say they were testing the alarm today?” one of the clerks asked the other, shouting over the ear-splitting whine.

She shook her head and clasped her hands over her ears. “No! I’ll go check the back room.”

The first clerk herded us like cats, arms waving. “Ladies, sir, I’m sorry, we have to ask everyone to leave. I’m not—I’m not sure what this is, but we have to close up. I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t have to ask us twice. My eardrums were throbbing by the time we stepped out into the fading sunlight. I rubbed the side of my head, wincing, and led the way down the block. We found a nice little cafe a few doors away, grabbed a streetside table in the shade of a blue canvas umbrella, and ordered a round of lattes.

Soon we heard the distant roar of sirens, and the slow-moving traffic grudgingly parted for a fire truck. It rumbled to a stop outside the boutique, and a firefighter in a crisp uniform shirt jumped out to talk to the bewildered clerks on the sidewalk.

Caitlin thumbed the screen of her phone, pausing the stopwatch app. “Response time for a false alarm: twelve minutes and forty-eight seconds.”

A waiter came around with a tray, setting steaming paper cups in front of us. As soon as he stepped away, I raised my coffee in salute.

“Ladies, I suggest we treat ourselves to a light dinner and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, we get
paid
. And also ruin Dino’s life and lay the unhappy ghost of Monty Spears to rest. That too.”

“But mostly,” Jennifer said, “we get paid.”

*     *     *

Of course, nothing was that easy. The morning of the concert, I rose with the sun. Shambled to the bathroom, shocked my brain awake with ice water and black coffee, and got dressed in the thin blade of light that sliced around the corner of the curtained window. That old familiar nervous excitement curled its tingling fingers around my spine, like I was a boxer about to fight for the championship belt in front of a screaming arena. Tonight I’d put my skills to the test and either walk away rich or go down hard.

We had one last hurdle to deal with: transportation. Jennifer’s smuggler buddy was ready to help us out, but he wouldn’t go within five miles of the actual heist. We’d have to move the roadie cases out ourselves and meet up with him someplace private for the handoff.

“They’ll probably be hauling ’em in a bus or a truck or something,” Jennifer said. “We could just take
their
wheels.”

I shook my head. “Last thing I want is to get stuck in traffic driving a stolen bus. Gotta be another way to move those crates.”

“Must we?” Caitlin asked. “Move the crates, that is. The narcotics are concealed underneath the stage equipment, most of which will already be out and in use during the concert. It shouldn’t be too much trouble to open the crates, take what we need, and leave the rest.”

Jennifer nodded. “I like that. Heck, a key of coke is about the size of a brick. We could toss all ten in the Camaro’s trunk. Not the smartest way to travel, and we’re screwed if we get caught with it, but that’ll get us to the meet just fine.”

I took another look at Jennifer’s sketch of the concert hall. My fingertip traced the access road between the main parking lot and the loading dock around back.

“We’ll have to be fast,” I said. “Once we deal with Dino’s men, maybe we do it relay style. One of us brings the car around, one of us strips the roadie crates, and the third runs back and forth with the coke.”

“Obviously, I’ll be doin’ the running,” Jennifer said.

I gave her the side-eye. “Why ‘obviously’?”

“Because I ran a 5K in the Hoover Dam Marathon last year. The most athletic thing
you
do is—” Jennifer paused, glancing at Caitlin. “I’m not even gonna finish that thought.”

Caitlin smiled like a cat with a saucer of cream.

We got to the venue at five, two hours before the opening act was set to hit the stage. The sun had started its slow crawl downward, the sky shimmering like hammered brass. The brass faded and the shadows grew long as we hustled down back alleys, checking every approach to the loading bay behind the concert hall. East of the hall we found a fire escape bolted to the back of a two-story building. The old metal groaned as we zigzagged to the top, climbing up onto the flat, sunbaked rooftop.

The edge gave us a perfect view of the action. We lay flat at the lip of the roof, looking down at the small lot behind the concert hall. A fat double-decker Jumbocruiser bus sat out back, parked and silent near the loading-bay doors. The band and their gear were already inside. I figured they’d been there for hours, getting set up and doing their sound check long before the show. The bus might have been empty, but it wasn’t unguarded: a pair of bruisers hung out by the backstage door, wearing cheap jackets over their black T-shirts and their shoulder holsters.

“The rest have all gotta be inside,” Jennifer said.

I pointed to an overhang above the backstage door. “Cait, can you use that?”

“I can indeed,” she said.

Jennifer squeezed my shoulder. “It’s all on you, Danny. Get on in there and do your thing. We’ll be ready and waitin’.”

I’d scored a last-minute ticket at scalper prices. A terrible seat, but I wasn’t planning on sitting in it. I made my way around to the front of the concert hall, where a throng of people had lined up like a centipede outside the venue doors. It was a younger crowd, a sea of black clothes, thick black mascara, and black lipstick—on the women
and
the men—and I felt more out of place than a nun in a brothel. I slipped into line and joined the shuffling march to the doors, catching the occasional odd look from packs of teenagers half my age. Not hostile, though. For all the skull necklaces and death couture on display, the crowd had an upbeat, friendly vibe to it.

Then I realized, spotting a few other pained-looking thirty-somethings like me in the crowd, why I didn’t stick out as much as I’d feared.

Oh my god
, I thought.
They think I’m somebody’s dad, playing chaperone
.

Demons and gangsters I could handle.
That
was scary.

Once I finally made it inside, I floated along with the stream of people down a sloping walk upholstered in faded gold. The Hamilton was a vintage theater, with rows of stiff close-packed seats and a grand proscenium arch above the curtained stage. My target was the closed door to the right of the orchestra pit, where an elderly man in a rent-a-cop uniform sat on a stool with a clipboard in hand. Not one of Dino’s guys, I gathered. Probably on the venue’s staff.

I edged forward as he held his ground against a pack of teenage girls, calmly explaining all the reasons they were
not
getting through that door. Keeping it casual, I craned my neck and got a two-second glimpse of the list on his clipboard, then eased back a few steps. Once the fans backed down, trudging to their seats, I made my move.

“Hey there,” I said, greeting him with a nod and a smile. “Crazy night, huh?”

His whiskers crinkled as he grinned. “Tell me about it.”

“I’m Elon Harper, with
LA Weekly
. Mind if I head on back?”

“You got a press pass?” he asked, his sharp eyes darting to my chest.

I shook my head, letting out an exasperated sigh. “My pass was supposed to be waiting for me up front. They said, no, ask in back. I’m like, I can’t
go
backstage without a pass, so how’s that supposed to work? Anyway, I should be on the list. Could you check for me?”

He glanced at his clipboard, trailing his finger down the page until he found Elon’s name, but he didn’t budge from the stool.

“Yeah,” he said, “your name’s here, but I’m really not supposed to let anybody through without a pass.”

“C’mon.” I jerked my thumb back over my shoulder. “Do I
look
like I belong in this crowd? I’m not exactly in the fan demographic. Trust me, there’s a hundred things I’d rather be doing tonight, but if I don’t get a few words from the band, my editor’s gonna kick my ass tomorrow morning, and he won’t take ‘they lost your pass’ as an excuse. Help a working guy out?”

He took a long look in my eyes, found something he could trust there, and gestured to the door.

“Ah, go on back,” he told me. “Good luck with your article.”

Backstage was a cinderblock maze, a flurry of stage coordinators and lighting and sound people racing around like the floor was on fire. A man with a fat clipboard and a headset barreled past me, looking frantic. It was easy to tell the difference between the venue staff and Dino’s boys: Dino’s were the ones not doing any work, hanging out with crossed arms and sullen glares. No familiar faces from the fight on Tanesha’s porch, though, so they had no reason to recognize me. Still, I had to keep a low profile. Max was back here somewhere, and he’d
definitely
remember our last encounter.

I ducked into a staff washroom. Light from a flickering wall sconce cast shadows across the cheap fixtures and the cold concrete floor. The scent of industrial-strength antiseptic stung my nostrils, like the janitors had splashed buckets of the stuff around the room and let it dry. I stepped into one of the stalls and latched the door.

In position
, I texted to Jennifer. Then there was nothing to do but wait. I sat like a spider in a web, listening to toilets flush and the faucets flow, the door clattering as staffers came and went. I slipped on a pair of latex gloves. I wasn’t too worried about leaving fingerprints in the concert hall—they’d be mingling with hundreds of other people’s prints, a forensic mess nobody but the cops on television would want to tangle with—but better safe than sorry.

I wanted a drink. I always wanted a drink before a job, just one, something to cut the tension and keep me loose. I’d have to ride it out. My muscles clenched with nervous energy as the interminable wait became a countdown. I heard the swell of the audience from behind the concrete, getting pumped up for the band, their restless voices like the whisper of distant wind or water racing through rattling pipes. It grew into a muffled roar as the first note played out, a bow slashing across the strings of an electric violin to split the air. From this far backstage, I couldn’t even make out a melody; it was more the impression of music, played on the shore while I was a hundred feet underwater. The twisting, tangled chorus spinning on and on as the minutes crawled by.

My phone said
9:28
. Time to make my move.

I stepped out of the stall, sidled up to the row of sinks, and checked myself in the mirror. Eyes sharp, cards warm in my hip pocket, ready to roll. Behind me, another toilet flushed and the stall next to mine rattled open.

Max stepped over to the sink next to me and turned on the tap, giving himself a bleary-eyed look in the mirror. Then he glanced to his left, at my reflection, and froze.

“Hi there,” I said.

Max’s hand dropped to his jacket, going for his gun. I grabbed a handful of his hair, slamming my fist into his gut to shove him off-balance, and smashed his skull against the sink. The sink broke and so did his face, leaving a raspberry smear on the fractured ivory porcelain as he fell to the concrete. Blood gushed from the split in his forehead while I put my hands under his arms and dragged him back into the stall, propping him up on the toilet. With a bleeder like that, he wouldn’t last long without medical attention. And he wasn’t getting any. I shut the stall door as best I could—it hung open an inch or two, no way to latch it from outside—grabbed a paper towel, wet it down, and smeared away the blood on the broken sink. Anybody with two good eyes would know something bad had gone down here, but in a few minutes it wouldn’t matter.

I strode out of the bathroom and up a long cinderblock hall, eyes on the steel double doors at the far end. The loading bay. A fire alarm box hung on the wall to my right, a tiny square of bright cherry plastic in the middle of drab gray. I reached out, grabbed the lever, and yanked it down without missing a step.

This close to the end of the concert, most of the venue staff would be up by the band, close to side stage. Everybody but Dino’s guys, who were only there to safeguard their secret cargo. I paused by the double doors as a whirring klaxon went off, followed by a voice booming over the house PA system.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice said, “please evacuate the theater in an orderly manner, proceeding toward the closest lit exit sign. Ushers are on hand to direct you.”

I opened one of the double doors, just a crack. The roadie cases stood scattered across the loading bay like a pirate’s treasure, just waiting to be plundered. Not unguarded, though: a handful of Dino’s guys—skinheads with military tattoos, jackets off in the heat and shoulder holsters on open display—milled around in confusion.

“Get that loading door open,” one snapped. “And where the hell is Max?”

“Is there a fire?” another asked him, punching the button to ratchet up one of the truck-sized doors.

“Do you smell smoke? I sure as fuck don’t. I don’t like this. Let’s get the cases back on the bus, just to be safe.”

Two of Dino’s men ran out into the dark lot behind the concert hall, racing for the bus. They didn’t make it. Caitlin swooped down from the overhang above the door like a bird of prey, claws out, latching onto the backs of their necks and driving them to the pavement. Bones cracked and they stopped kicking. The nearest thug, the one who’d opened the door, stuck his head out to see. Then the air rippled and he staggered back, arms pinwheeling, a foot-long needle of Jennifer’s crystallized blood buried in his eye socket.

My cards riffled into my palm as I closed the jaws of the trap, hitting from behind. My fingertips rasped across the deck, once, twice, sending two aces soaring across the loading bay to slice wet grins into a pair of throats. Caitlin charged from a crouch, tackling another thug from behind, cupping her palm over his mouth as her teeth—the teeth of a great white shark now, and too many for any human mouth to hold—sank into the side of his neck and tore away flesh and glistening sinew.

One of Dino’s men spun, holster clear, framing me in his gunsight. Then Jennifer ran in through the open bay door, whispering a chant as she ripped her razor-blade necklace across the palm of her left hand and flung a fistful of blood droplets at him. Droplets that flew like a cloud of stinging hornets, the pistol tumbling from his grip as he slapped at the tiny attackers. He opened his mouth to scream and the droplets swarmed in, flooding his throat, nothing escaping but a strangled wheeze as he keeled over on the floor. Thrashing wildly as he suffocated.

“One’s gettin’ away,” Jennifer gasped, pointing. One of Dino’s boys ran like all of hell was on his heels, sprinting mad-eyed for a door marked
Main Stage Access
. I flung a card, the pasteboard slicing into his shoulder and drawing a grunt of pain, but it didn’t stop him from slamming against the door and barreling through.

Not good. With a quarter-million in coke up for grabs, the last thing we wanted were any survivors who could tie us to the heist and come after us later.
All
of Dino’s crew had to go. “I’m on it,” I said and ran after him.

I burst through the door and out onto an empty stage, pinned by spotlights hotter than the desert sun. In the vast dark beyond the footlights all I could make out were vacant seats and empty aisles, the whining fire-alarm still screeching over the PA system. The band had abandoned their electric cellos and high-backed chairs, arrayed in a semicircle before a backdrop of billowing purple velvet, and tall amplifiers stood like silent monoliths.

I saw the runner, a frantic shape scrambling for the nearest exit, but more pressing business had my attention: Koschei, the massive Russian stalking toward me like a lion moving in on a wounded gazelle. Jennifer shot past me, leaping from the stage and into the aisle. I didn’t see what she did to the runner, but a sudden, short and anguished yelp told me she’d taken care of the problem.

“Heard you know a little magic,” I told Koschei. I twirled one finger and one of my cards leapt from the deck, spinning in the air between us. “Guess what: I do too.”

I sent it lancing toward him, a perfect kill shot aimed straight at his throat. He didn’t even try to get out of the way. The card hit his skin—and
bounced
, crumpled and harmless, as if his flesh was forged from titanium steel.

His lips twisted in a crude smile as he closed the gap between us and shoved out his open palms. A billowing fist of black smoke streaked toward me, slamming into my chest with a peal of thunder. I flew off my feet, suddenly weightless, reeling from the jolt as I hit the stage on my shoulder and rolled hard.

“I am Koschei, the deathless,” he said. “No mortal hands can harm me.”

I clutched my deck of cards and clambered to my feet, tossing a pair of jacks straight up in the air as he spun into a steel-booted kick. Another arc of black smoke lashed out, blasting against the jacks with the sound of a hammer crashing down on an iron anvil. Even behind my shield I staggered back a step, concussive force hitting me like a punch to the gut as the cards scattered to the stage, dead and scorched black.

Koschei pulled one beefy fist back, drawing breath for a knockout punch, when a blur shot through the backstage door. Caitlin hit him like a truck, tackling him from the side and pulling him down to the boards in a frenzied tumble of bodies. He rolled, leaping to his feet, the grace of a ballet dancer in a juggernaut’s body. He charged at Caitlin and she met his force head-on, grabbing him by the shoulders, swinging him around and using his momentum to hurl him across the stage.

He flew, arms flailing, and crashed into a standing amplifier. The mesh screen buckled under his weight and the box fell onto its back, a ready-made black coffin. A coffin hooked up to the concert hall’s electrical mains. I caught my breath, watching as the Russian thrashed and seized, frozen by the raw current burning through his body. The air filled with the stench of smoking flesh, and wisps of sickly gray smoke rose from the ruins of the amplifier, even after Koschei’s corpse finally fell still.

“That should do it.” Caitlin dusted off her hands.

Jennifer clambered back up onto the stage, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “Y’all, we are
not
good on time. I’m hearin’ fire-truck sirens. We gotta
go
.”

“All right,” I said. “Cait, if you can grab the Camaro and bring it around—”

I paused as a groan rose at my back. We slowly turned to watch as Koschei—his skin seared by electrical burns, his undershirt and jeans scorched and torn—pulled himself to his feet.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

“I am Koschei, the deathless,” he said. “No mortal hands can harm me.”

Caitlin grinned, savoring the challenge. She stepped up, open hands ready at her sides, and they circled one another. Daring each other to make the first move.

Koschei lunged at her, throwing a brutal roundhouse. She ducked under him, dropping low and hammering his gut with three blindingly fast pile-driver punches. Then she swept his legs, spinning like a dancer, and grabbed his skull with outstretched fingers as he fell to his knees.

I gritted my teeth at the sound of a snapping spine as Caitlin wrenched his head a hundred and eighty degrees backward. He stared at us with wide, surprised eyes for just a heartbeat, before his lifeless body tumbled to the stage.

“
My
hands aren’t mortal,” Caitlin told him.

We ran for the loading bay. I hauled open the closest roadie case, ripped out the inner lining, and gazed down at the prize, two fat bricks of white powder wrapped in thick cellophane. I could hear the sirens now, fire trucks—and possibly cops with them—closing in fast.

“No time to bring the car around,” I said. The band’s dusty Jumboliner sat out in the back lot. “We’re stealing the bus.”

“I thought you said that was a bad idea,” Jennifer said.

I waded through the corpses of Dino’s men, crouching to pat down the one who’d acted like he was in charge. Dipping into his pocket and coming up with a ring of keys.

“It’s a terrible idea,” I told her. “And unless you get a better one in the next thirty seconds, we’re doing it anyway.”

We stripped the crates bare and raced to the bus. I fired up the engine while Caitlin and Jennifer stashed the score—ten bricks in all, the whole mother lode—in the bus’s bathroom. No time for elaborate camouflage. If we got stopped by the cops now, driving a stolen bus and leaving a trail of dead bodies in our wake, getting caught with a quarter-million in coke would just be another shovelful of dirt on our graves.

The bus groaned as I threw it into gear, the engine sputtering and spitting diesel fumes. I clung to the oversized steering wheel, leaning into it as the bus rumbled across the blacktop, fighting me every inch of the way. Getting it down the alley felt like wrestling a whale. We skirted the parking lot, looking out across a sea of strobing police lights, fans milling like a horde of displaced vampires while a row of fire trucks formed a wall out front.

We hit the boulevard, made a sharp left turn—the wheel kicking against me as I struggled to pull the Jumboliner into its lane—and put the concert hall in the rearview mirror. I hopped onto the first highway on-ramp we spotted, heading anywhere. Right now, “away” was the only direction that mattered.