Gross?”
“Jon. Where’s the big man? We’re here to meet the big man, aren’t we?”
Jon leaned over the table. “Now look, Gross, let’s start cool and stay that way, okay? We’re lucky this guy’s even willing to sit down and talk with us. I mean, he’s been around a long time in a business where you don’t stay around a long time, unless you’re very, very good. And Planner says he’s the best.”
“You convincing me or yourself?”
“You’re going to blow it, Gross, I just know you are. One talk with you and he’ll be gone.”
“Okay, okay. So where is he, this guy we’re so lucky to be on the same planet with? Sees us by appointment only or what?”
Jon motioned toward the door. “In the car. Doesn’t want to talk in here.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Says we shouldn’t be seen together.”
“Christ. What does he think this is?”
“He’ll probably ask you the same thing, Gross.”
Shelly’s soothing touch to Grossman’s hand silenced his next response. She said, “Let’s go out and talk to this guy. If he’s as good as he’s supposed to be, we’ll profit by it, right, Gross?”
Grossman heaved a sigh, finally nodded.
Jon grinned. “Okay. Let’s go out and talk to Nolan.”
4
Nolan sat in Jon’s decade-old Chevy II while the boy entered the narrow brick building, the outward-hanging neon in front already on, crackling now and then, glowing the words “Junction Tavern” listlessly in the cold late-afternoon overcast.
Reaching over by the driver’s side to the dashboard lighter, Nolan punched in the button, stuck a cigarette between his lips and waited, trying to ignore his urge to laugh. Here he was, not forty miles from Werner and the Quad Cities where all this had begun, and scarcely more than two hundred miles from Charlie and Chicago, sitting in a beat-up old car in an Iowa village that consisted mainly of a tavern and a gas station, waiting for three punk kids to come out and tell him about the bank job he wasgoing to pull with them. Ridiculous. It was a laugh.
Only it was Charlie’s laugh: if Nolan fucked up, and died, or ended in stir, Charlie would just love it; and if Nolan did pull this off, Charlie would be a hundred grand ahead and would have saved face with the Family. Nolan would’ve appreciated the joke, but for the dull ache in his side from Charlie’s last attempt to kill him.
The lighter popped out, and he yanked it free and lit his cigarette. Okay, he thought, on the surface it looked pretty bad, but at least he would have complete control. In the past, working with pros, he’d always been forced to compromise over certain points in the planning, because every individual pro has his own thoughts on how a heist should run. Nolan usually preferred Nolan’s ideas, and when a job did go bad, he almost always could trace the failure to faulty, compromise planning.
Here he would be in charge, complete charge. Or else he’d just have to look for something different even if that something different was putting a bullet in Charlie.
The kid, Jon, seemed to have a good head. On the way to Junction from Iowa City they’d refrained from talking about the job, both of them thinking it best to wait for the other two. Nolan’s initial scare over the boy’s passion for such a triviality as comic books was gone now. A lot of people in the trade had crazy ideas; the business was full of unconventional dreamers who supplemented their dreams with heist money.
Jon had told Nolan of his plan to acquire a bookstore, where he would deal in rare comic books and strips while working on the side to get his start as a freelance cartoonist. His uncle Planner had heard of such a store in Waterloo, operated by an old guy whose health had started to fail. Jon wanted to buy the place and build it into a mecca for comic collectors.
It was a goal, and that reassured Nolan, because the best men in the business were men with goals. Cheap heisters, the kind who
“Jon. Where’s the big man? We’re here to meet the big man, aren’t we?”
Jon leaned over the table. “Now look, Gross, let’s start cool and stay that way, okay? We’re lucky this guy’s even willing to sit down and talk with us. I mean, he’s been around a long time in a business where you don’t stay around a long time, unless you’re very, very good. And Planner says he’s the best.”
“You convincing me or yourself?”
“You’re going to blow it, Gross, I just know you are. One talk with you and he’ll be gone.”
“Okay, okay. So where is he, this guy we’re so lucky to be on the same planet with? Sees us by appointment only or what?”
Jon motioned toward the door. “In the car. Doesn’t want to talk in here.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Says we shouldn’t be seen together.”
“Christ. What does he think this is?”
“He’ll probably ask you the same thing, Gross.”
Shelly’s soothing touch to Grossman’s hand silenced his next response. She said, “Let’s go out and talk to this guy. If he’s as good as he’s supposed to be, we’ll profit by it, right, Gross?”
Grossman heaved a sigh, finally nodded.
Jon grinned. “Okay. Let’s go out and talk to Nolan.”
4
Nolan sat in Jon’s decade-old Chevy II while the boy entered the narrow brick building, the outward-hanging neon in front already on, crackling now and then, glowing the words “Junction Tavern” listlessly in the cold late-afternoon overcast.
Reaching over by the driver’s side to the dashboard lighter, Nolan punched in the button, stuck a cigarette between his lips and waited, trying to ignore his urge to laugh. Here he was, not forty miles from Werner and the Quad Cities where all this had begun, and scarcely more than two hundred miles from Charlie and Chicago, sitting in a beat-up old car in an Iowa village that consisted mainly of a tavern and a gas station, waiting for three punk kids to come out and tell him about the bank job he wasgoing to pull with them. Ridiculous. It was a laugh.
Only it was Charlie’s laugh: if Nolan fucked up, and died, or ended in stir, Charlie would just love it; and if Nolan did pull this off, Charlie would be a hundred grand ahead and would have saved face with the Family. Nolan would’ve appreciated the joke, but for the dull ache in his side from Charlie’s last attempt to kill him.
The lighter popped out, and he yanked it free and lit his cigarette. Okay, he thought, on the surface it looked pretty bad, but at least he would have complete control. In the past, working with pros, he’d always been forced to compromise over certain points in the planning, because every individual pro has his own thoughts on how a heist should run. Nolan usually preferred Nolan’s ideas, and when a job did go bad, he almost always could trace the failure to faulty, compromise planning.
Here he would be in charge, complete charge. Or else he’d just have to look for something different even if that something different was putting a bullet in Charlie.
The kid, Jon, seemed to have a good head. On the way to Junction from Iowa City they’d refrained from talking about the job, both of them thinking it best to wait for the other two. Nolan’s initial scare over the boy’s passion for such a triviality as comic books was gone now. A lot of people in the trade had crazy ideas; the business was full of unconventional dreamers who supplemented their dreams with heist money.
Jon had told Nolan of his plan to acquire a bookstore, where he would deal in rare comic books and strips while working on the side to get his start as a freelance cartoonist. His uncle Planner had heard of such a store in Waterloo, operated by an old guy whose health had started to fail. Jon wanted to buy the place and build it into a mecca for comic collectors.
It was a goal, and that reassured Nolan, because the best men in the business were men with goals. Cheap heisters, the kind who
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