Ready. Set. Psycho.

October 2, 2014

           

Solomon sat waiting at the diner counter eyeing a cup of coffee that cost him a dollar. He had been waiting for an hour. The waitress behind the counter was wearing a blue dress with a broad white apron. Her hair was gray and long, tied up in a high ponytail. She came up and asked if he wanted anything else. "Just waiting," Solomon said.

"Me too," she replied, eyeing him cautiously and then moving on.

Lisa arrived ten minutes later. She sat on the stool next to him and ordered breakfast before her ass hit the seat from the same waitress: "Two eggs once over hard with white toast and bacon as burned as the kitchen will allow. And so much coffee."

Solomon took a sip of his coffee. "You're late. I almost left."

"You have anything other than coffee?" Lisa asked.

"Not a damn thing," Solomon said.

"It's a dollar."

"And bottomless. Great place to wait for someone who might be an hour and a half late."

"Got it. Don't need the lecture. You know how it is, Sol."

"I get it."

"So what's happening?"

"We're set. You can pick the kids up on the New York side of the Lincoln tunnel around three in the morning."

"Vince?" Lisa asked.

"You're going to have to let him walk."

"I know. Know where he might walk off to?"

"A dumb kid like him with a quarter million dollars?"

"Vegas?"

"No, a dumb kid."

"AC."

"Yeah. Just watch him."

"I know, Sol."

"If you pick him up, Captain Klepto won't take delivery of the goods, and you'll never trace him."

"I know, Sol." Lisa's breakfast arrived, and she started eating quickly. "So where are the bags going?"

"We go in. We turn off the alarms. We break into the safes. We clear them out into the bags. We get into the car and drop the bags off with the skinny guy in black. He fences almost everything — the gold, the jewels, launders the money, takes his cut, and the rest flows back to the real boss."

"And what are we looking for? Does he touch anything?"

"One thing," Solomon said, sliding a picture across the counter, not looking at it as Lisa picks it up. "It's a Francis Bacon."

"I'll take your word for it," Lisa said, putting the picture in her purse.

"He wants it. It's the only thing he's wanted in the five jobs I've done for him. I'll slide the tracer into the tube carrying the painting. The skinny guy will find a way to get it back to our employer."

"If they find the tracer?" Lisa asked.

Solomon shrugged. "Then it is over. They'll come looking for the kids, Vince and I. They'll kill us. And he'll go back underground. But they won't find it. It is sewn right into the fabric, looks and works like a snap-button, and Kevin set it up so that it won't even turn on for three days. So if they do a scan, they'll find nothing. It'll work, Lisa."

"And you?"

Solomon raised his cup of coffee, and Lisa did the same, clinking glasses. "This is the last time you'll see me, kid."