unsubtle intent was to provide more incentive to do the job right-positive incentive.
He heard them move in the back, where the three guys were sitting on the floor and wheelwells, but still no one spoke. Eventually, someone-Black thought it was Cox-said, 'You think we can put this money right back into circulation, or are we going to have to sit on it awhile?'
Black replied, 'Well, I wouldn't try to open an account with it at Wells Fargo, and I wouldn't walk into the Bank of New England with a suitcase full of it tomorrow, but I think you can spend it if you're smart about it, buy plane tickets, maybe even a car, or whatever.'
'I'm heading to Vegas tomorrow,' Rocco said. 'I'm getting myself a suite at Bally's. I'm going to eat a nice steak dinner, and I'm going to get a beautiful hooker, one of those little seventeen-year-old girls. I'm going to give her a little taste of what I'm all about, until she's giving it to me for free. Then I'm going to leave her in my room and hit the tables.'
Black rolled his eyes in the front seat. How had he ended up with this farm animal? In another hour, he'd never have to deal with him again, and he never would. He made that promise to himself right there and then.
Black pulled his van off the bridge, looped around, and drove through the streets of Charlestown heading for the North End. The morning sun had given way to heavy afternoon clouds and the threat of rain, which all in all might be good. Clear the streets of passersby-each one a potential witness.
'About three minutes, and we're there,' Black called out to the men in back.
Everyone had fallen quiet again, which was just as well. Black had made his point, and he'd heard all he could stand to hear from Rocco.
Just pray to the good Lord he doesn't screw this up. Just get through the next half hour, and in every job in the future, he'd be more selective. He'd find better guys, pay them better money, keep them around longer. Maybe this guy Cox would prove himself today. Maybe he'd be someone to keep in the stable.
'Coming down Prince Street,' Black said. 'Two minutes.'
Black checked his watch. It was 4:44 P.m.' about twelve minutes until action. So many things to go wrong. But he had to remind himself: nothing ever did, not for him, not ever, not now. He was the most meticulous criminal strategist in Boston, a mastermind of bank heists and store holdups whose reputation within criminal and legal circles was held in virtual awe. This job, though, this job represented his most daring venture-a daylight armored car strike involving what he had already determined would be more money than he had ever pulled out of a single hit before. He was estimating the take to be anywhere from $600,000 to $1 million. This was a sleeper of a bank branch, a repository for Mafia money in the North End that was usually deposited every Tuesday afternoon after the weekend receipts.
'On Hanover Street. One minute to arrival.'
He scanned the street, looking for anything unusual, anything he hadn't seen there in the last couple of days, but he saw nothing extraordinary. He was starting to get that feeling he always got during a hit, that lightness of heart, the singular focus of mind, the surge of concentration, when thoughts and words and actions mesh seamlessly into one. It was just another mark that made him so good at what he did.
He pulled the van over to the side of the street, double-parking in the precise spot where he had for the past couple of scouting missions.
'Arrival.'
Pause.
'Standby.'
Pause.
'Ten minutes to action.'
A minute later, in his rearview mirror, Black saw the Lincoln pull up about two car lengths behind him and double-park, filling him with a sense of relief. Everything was running according to plan.
'Getaway car has arrived,' Black called out, keeping his guys informed, even if the intricacies were lost on them.
Now it was just a matter of waiting-waiting for the Wells Fargo armored truck to pull down the street, to park in front of the van, for the security men to get out, one of them to walk inside the bank branch and come back outside pushing a dolly with a duffel bag filled with money. They had a plan. They just needed to follow it, Black told himself.
Four minutes later, Black broke the tense silence again. 'Put your earpieces in place,' he said, and the three men in back reached into their pockets as one and inserted small wires into their ears. 'Test them,' Black said. Then he spoke very quietly into his cupped hands.
'Testing, one, two, three. Testing. Please acknowledge.'
'Gotcha,' Rocco responded.
'Fine,' Cox said.
Stemple, the third man in the van, added, 'With you.'
Black said, 'Car two, please hold up your hand if you can hear.' He looked in his rearview mirror and received the signal he wanted.
Suddenly, a problem. In the mirror, Black's eye caught something he didn't expect. A meter maid-a man, actually-walking purposefully down the street with his ticket book in hand and a look of annoyance on his bearded face. A fucking meter maid.
'Stay down back there,' Black said to the three men in the van. He cracked his window and watched in his side mirror as the man approached the getaway car behind him. He saw the meter man and his driver exchange words, then saw the meter man shrug, write out a ticket and carefully insert it under the windshield. Now the meter man was coming toward the van.
Black quickly processed this development through the calculator that was his criminal mind, and realized this wasn't necessarily harmful.
The van, as well as the car, had been stolen the previous week. A ticket, assuming that the meter man didn't call the vehicles in, would be meaningless. Of significant concern, though, was the fact that the meter man may have gotten a good look at his driver, Sanchez, and was about to get a good look at Black.
Approaching the van, the meter man said in a loud voice, 'Move it along. Move along.'
Black looked the other way and ignored him, hiding his face with his arm in as casual a way as he could. Even as he did this, the ramifications flashed through his mind. This meter man would place the robbers at the scene. He would be asked to help with composite drawings. Those drawings would eventually be published in the newspaper and broadcast on television.
Black refused to turn around.
The meter man stood at the cracked window. 'What's your problem? Move your van.'
Black still ignored him. So the meter man wrote out a ticket with a flourish, stuck it under the windshield wiper, and proclaimed loudly,
'That's fifty bucks right there, jerk.' With that, he walked on.
Black looked out the window, his hand still over his face. All he saw was the man's back.
At that exact moment, he also saw the armored car slowly, awkwardly, fill his side mirror, then lumber in front of him. His mind raced. It needn't be complicated. He had two choices. Pull the plug on the operation-drive away and forget the whole deal, at least for now. Or he could go on as planned and hope that the composite sketches looked nothing like anything that would matter.
In front of him, the armored car was backing up now, toward the van.
Urgently, Black kept asking himself, Stay or go? Stay or go? The smart money told him to go, to pull up stakes, to just revamp his plan for another time and place. Why take a risk he didn't have to take?
Shouldn't he take this as some sort of signal of a doomed operation?
But what about the work that had already gone into this plan, the time and effort just to find a group of guys to carry it off, and then to train them?
Stay or go?
Did the meter man see anything he shouldn't have seen? Did he get a good look at faces? Would he remember them? Would he make for a good witness?
The driver's side door opened slowly on the armored car, as if it were opening a door into Black's own mind. He looked inside for an answer.
