Eighteen
IMOVE TO THE WINDOW. THE ROOM IS HALF UNDERGROUND, THE rectangular panes level with the lawn. The grass is perfectly peridot in the daylight.
It’s funny—despite the subterranean situation, it doesn’t feel claustrophobic or constrained. Instead, it’s protected. The vantage point I need. My fortress of operations, with cocktail tables laid out in front of me like chessboard squares. I have optimal surveillance of the guests on the lawn, their cheerful cliques in the pleasant sun forming in the corridors of my favorite maze. I realize I’m practically writing real estate listings in my head. Expansive grounds. Perfect for polo, parties, and plotting.
From my viewpoint, I wait for Phase Three.
“You look kind of familiar,” Kevin says behind me.
“We’ve never met,” McCoy replies.
I glance over my shoulder, finding Kevin eyeing McCoy. “Do a lot of kidnappings?” he asks pleasantly.
McCoy swallows. I notice sweat starting to sheen his forehead.
“Kevin, leave him alone,” I say, scared McCoy is going to lose his nerve.
I turn back to the window. In my view is Mitchum Webber, easy to locate from his unsmiling solitude. Dude is practically wearing a sign saying least fun person here. Without his phone, without clients to email or news to half read, he looks uneasy, as if he’s imagining places he wishes he were instead of here, sipping four-hundred-dollar champagne in the middle of Rhode Island’s loveliest wedding.
Tom approaches Mitchum and holds out his hand as the final song is ending and people start to applaud. His demeanor is exactly right, winningly charming and high-school-valedictorian confident, with enough hints of humility for meeting one’s hopeful career prospects.
They shake. With Tom’s next words, Mitchum chuckles and claps my crew member on the shoulder. Knight has loosened up our mark’s miserable demeanor effortlessly.
I feel like fist pumping. Obviously, I don’t with Kevin and McCoy right here. I keep my eyes on the lawn, on the game I’m playing with the moves of others. Watching Tom is witnessing the clean magic of someone doing exactly what they’re supposed to.
“What are we watching?” Kevin whispers, coming up next to me to look out the window.
I dart him a glare.
“In order to make a ransom call, Mitchum needs a phone,” I say, knowing he’s going to want commentary on every step. I’m stuck with him now. “Watch.”
Okay, maybe I can’t help showing off. Maybe I don’t hate having a spectator. The point of a successful heist is for the audience not to realize what they’re seeing. But with Kevin, I can flex a little.
In fact, I decide, maybe I should. Feeling included is Kevin Webber’s kryptonite. If he considers himself “in on the scheme,” he’ll cooperate and will be less inclined to give us up later.
When Kevin leans forward, peering out the window, I leave him room. In front of us, my choreography unfolds.
Tom leads Mitchum to the table farthest from the crowd dispersing from the performance. It’s littered with half-empty glasses. Half-full, Kevin would probably say. Tom is unhurried, his loping stride giving away none of his mission’s imperative. While they chat, a server comes to pick up the glasses.
Only it’s not a server. It’s Deonte.
He sets his tray down to collect the glassware. He’s expressionless, his efficient cleanup designed to be ignored. Of course, Mitchum ignores him. It was, I realized early in my planning phases, one of the upsides of the day’s setting. The wedding came with ranks of people no one would remember—servers, chefs, security guards—into which I could insert my conspirators without notice.
When Deonte lifts his tray back up, he leaves behind the cloth napkin he placed on the table, using the tray for cover. The napkin looks forgotten, as if it was there when “the server” first came over, but it wasn’t. Now it is. Right in front of Mitchum.
“The waiter,” Kevin exhales excitedly. “Is he in on it?”
With stiff professionality, I nod. “Rook has made the drop,” I confirm.
“Shit, you have code names? What’s yours?” Kevin asks.
“King.”
Kevin rubs his mouth in awe. “That’s so dope.” His eyes going round, he whips his gaze from the window to me. “Can I have one?”
“No.”
While he deflates, I pay him no regard. Instead, I keep watching out the window. Tom laughs, shoving his hands in his pockets with rakish confidence.… The control freak in me wishes I could hear them. The silent cinema of Knight’s charade past the heavy glass pane of the private theater is getting on my nerves.
Concluding the conversation, Tom hands Mitchum a card pulled neatly from his jacket pocket. It’s a nice touch, not one I knew about.
“Knight is retreating,” I say. “Pawn, are you ready?”
When I face McCoy, though, he looks as if he might be sick.
He starts pacing in small circles, muttering to himself. “Just remember, they’re terrible people. Terrible. They deserve a lot worse,” he counsels himself with urgency leaning into fervor. “Really nasty people.”
He collapses onto the couch in dismay, evidently having not inspired himself.
I watch him with rising concern. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if McCoy can even pull off the call. The guy is nervous. I figured years of lecturing ninth graders would lend itself to defenses against stage fright, even when the stage is his former student’s opulent home and the monologue is a ransom demand.
Put gently, I may have misjudged him.
It’s enough for my mind to start constructing ramshackle contingency plans. The next step needs to happen now, which means I’m out of opportunities to cut in Pawn’s replacement. I guess I could—
“Oh yeah, my dad is awful! You really shouldn’t feel bad,” Kevin interjects reassuringly. “Just last week, he had a family evicted from one of his properties because their labradoodle was ten pounds over his dog size limit.”
McCoy looks up. His eyes brighten as if someone’s just requested his opinions on eighteenth-century poetry. I glance to Kevin, grateful for the unexpected help.
“What else?” McCoy asks.
“Um.” Kevin presses his hands together, looking like he’s scouring his memory for his father’s misdeeds. While he obviously wasn’t expecting to play such a pivotal role in his own kidnapping, the new straightness of his shoulders says the job exhilarates him. He snaps his fingers, seizing on something. “He made my sister change before the wedding because her first dress wasn’t, quote-unquote, flattering.”
“Asshole,” I can’t help saying.
“Perfect!” McCoy exclaims. He looks liable to hit Mitchum instead of calling him for ransom. Honestly, he’s welcome to if it doesn’t interrupt other plans. “One more,” he prompts Kevin.
“He’s never done pro bono legal work in his life!” Kevin says like he’s shooting from the three-point line at the buzzer.
McCoy stands up, full of righteousness. “I’m doing this,” he declares, staring out the window framing our field of combat, where the cocktail tables stand like soldiers.
Kevin exchanges a proud look with me. I don’t bother to scowl in return. Kevin actually helped, and maybe some of his distasteful personality can be blamed on having a shitty dad.
McCoy pulls out his phone. He selects the contact I programmed into it last night.
It rings while everyone holds their breaths.