His house backed up to a street that was outside the walls. And the walls were only chest-high and easily climbable. They could follow Harrelson home, and when he went on to the nearest gate Cox could drop them behind his house. They’d cross the wall and wait for Harrelson to pull into his garage and take him there.
If whatever they took from the house was too large to carry, they could always use one of Harrelson’s cars to get themselves back out of the complex. The gates on the outbound lane opened automatically as a car approached.
—
WHEN THEYleft O’Conner, Beauchamps asked Cole, “Tell me the truth: what do you think?”
“What I think is, these marshals are all over us. It makes me nervous that I’m not already on my way out of town.Wayout of town. But—”
“You need the money after losing your stash in LA. And my idiot brother, the cannibal, is already hinting that he might need a loan. Geenie... Geenie doesn’t have anything and never has.”
“Cocaine,” Cole said. “Blow and hookers and casinos. They’ll get you every time.”
“Not hookers. Dancers. But a lot of them,” Beauchamps admitted. “And the blow. But what are we going to do? None of us could work a straight job. Maybe Geenie could get a sales clerk job, but she wouldn’t.”
“If we’re going to hit Harrelson, I say we go tonight,” Cole said. “We know he keeps a bundle on hand. Even if we don’t get the five mil, we could get enough that we could all run somewhere else. We need to fly.”
“I wish we had more time for the research.”
“This isn’t LA, where we had to do the research, checking out his old lady and all that. We already know who we’re targeting and where he lives,” Cole said. “We don’t need any gate codes. We cross the wall, put a gun in his face, and take the cash. End of story.”
“Aw, God.” Beauchamps rubbed his forehead, up and down, then started the Cadillac and said, “You’re right. Let’s talk to Deese. See if Geenie thinks she can handle the driving and the timing again. I hate to be in a hurry. I hate it. But with the marshals here... As far as we know, every cop in town has our pictures.”
—
THE TWOAirbnb houses were a mile apart. They’d wanted two houses here for the same reason they’d had two in LA: if the cops found the one, the other could fast become a refuge. They’d hoped to get two closer together, but the ones they got were the ones the Airbnb lady could get in a hurry and they hadn’t wanted to do any house hunting personally. Even at a mile apart, in a suburb without traffic lights, they could drive between the houses in two minutes or walk it in fifteen.
When Cole and Beauchamps got back, they found Deese watching a cable TV hunting channel while Cox was sitting on a couch, pouting, as she flipped through a copy ofWomen’s Health. She was using a butcher knife as a bookmark. Beauchamps asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Your fuckin’ brother, is what’s wrong with me. What an asshole,” she said, standing up and pointing the knife at Deese.
“What’d he do?” Cole asked.
“The usual. Trying to fuck me behind Marion’s back,” Cox said. She’d started calling Beauchamps Marion because the TV news stories about the gang usually referred to him as Martin. “He said he’d give me fifty dollars, for Christ’s sakes. Fifty dollars?”
“Shut up, you fuckin’ whore,” Deese said, not bothering to turn his head away from the TV.
Cox, with her fists on her hips: “See?”
Beauchamps said to Deese, “I told you: keep your hands off her, goddamnit.” To Cole, he said, “You’re right. I don’t see thisworking long-term. We go tonight, we split the money, we get out of here.”
“I’m not going with the asshole,” Cox said. “If you’re going with him, I’ll ride with Cole.”
“She’s fuckin’ Cole,” Deese said, still not looking away from the TV.
“Oh, horseshit,” Cole said at the same time Cox said, “I amnot,” and Cole said, to Deese, “We had a pretty goddamn solid thing going until you showed up. We all got along.”
Now Deese turned to the others and said, “What’s this about tonight? Going?”
“We’re hitting Harrelson,” Beauchamps said. “We need to tool up and cruise the place. And we need to have our shit together when we do it.”
“My shit’s always together,” Deese said. “But this is sorta sudden, huh?”
“We got marshals all over us,” Cole said. “We need to get out.”
Deese nodded. “Okay.”
—
