Twenty-nine
The ding of Edie’s phone woke her the next morning. She pushed her eye mask to her forehead and picked it up. It was a missed call from Simon, followed by a text.
When are you coming home?
Edie pondered what the question meant. This was the second call from her husband she’d missed.
He wasn’t usually this interested in her whereabouts.
She and Simon had reached the stage of unfaithful marriage where they went for days out of each other’s orbit, neither communicating nor caring.
They always came back together in the end.
But why was he asking? Was he suspicious?
Had Stephen put him up to it because he was looking for Marcy?
Had Simon and Linda broken up? That would follow his usual pattern—he never lasted more than a few months in his affairs.
The surprising thing was that the women in Hunterville kept pursuing him.
It wasn’t as if his terrible history was a big state secret.
She got up and dressed, and when she came out of her room, she found Marcy dressed and rummaging through the box of disguises. “Where are you going?” Edie asked.
“I’m meeting Rocco.”
“This early? Where?”
“It’s not early, it’s past nine. I’m meeting him at the casino. He’s going to take me on a helicopter ride over Red Rock Canyon. We might do some hiking. And then he’s going to show me around the casino.”
“That sounds like a date. A real date,” Edie remarked.
“So?”
So? Edie didn’t have a good answer for that. This was exactly what they’d talked about, about Marcy reeling him in. “I don’t know. It’s just … it’s a lot and it’s fast. Like you’re really dating.”
Marcy found a wide-brimmed sun hat and tried it on. “I thought it was my job to reconnect with him.”
“It is. But I thought—”
“This is just the way it is with people my age, Nana. Everything moves fast. We’ve gone past the days of horse and buggy and courting once a week.”
“Okay,” Edie said dryly. “Thanks for the reminder that I’m ancient.”
“I’m just saying.” Marcy examined herself in the small mirror near the door. “I’ll take pictures of everything he shows me in the casino. Irene told me what I should look for.”
Irene. She and Joan had gotten married yesterday! Edie hadn’t dreamt it after all. As if this trip could get any crazier. “Where is the happy couple, anyway?”
“In that terrible backyard drinking coffee and making googly eyes at each other. Irene is about to head to her shift. Sorry, Nana, but I’ve gotta dip.”
“Wait—have you talked to your father lately?”
“Dad?” She paused at the door. “He’s in Panama.”
Right, right, he’d gone to Panama for business. So, Simon was calling for himself.
“Bye!” Marcy said, and sailed out the door before Edie could ask when she’d be back.
Her quick departure was followed by the sound of someone dragging a body across the floor; Edie jerked around. It was Joan, dragging the safe door they’d found into the living room. “That girl is a chip off the old block, my friend. Good job.”
“I don’t think ‘good job’ is the right term,” Edie said. “I never dreamed in a million years I’d be doing this all again, only this time, with my granddaughter. And then two of my best friends got married! Where did you get that?” she asked, pointing at the safe door.
“Skinner picked it up yesterday, very kindly took the door off the rest of the safe so it wouldn’t require two of us to move it around, and dropped it off when he picked up Fran today. Who looks like death warmed over, I might add. Have you noticed how pale she is?”
“I have.” Edie was worried about Frances.
“What about getting into the vault?” The set-up at the Pelican, they had learned, was that the old safe was embedded in a larger vault.
“It’s a digital door. Once we get past the motion detectors, we have to get past the vault door.
And once we get past that door, you get to crack the safe.
It’s insane how everyone at that casino is inordinately proud of the old safe.
Like Sammy Davis Jr. blessed it or something.
What did they say on the tour? Oh right—it’s completely hackproof.
Oh, and the vault door is rigged with a silent alarm as well.
The tour guide said the slightest wobble would set it off. ”
“Great,” Edie said. “Piece of cake. Why have I been worrying about arthritis in my fingers? This couldn’t be easier.”
Joan chuckled. “You’ll get in. You always do.”
“You mean I always did. But I’m old, Joan. My hands hurt, my eyesight is worse, I don’t know if I can hear it, and I can’t be on my knees very long without the right one locking up. What if I don’t get in? What if I fuck up and we all go down?”
“No one is going down,” Joan said with the calm authority she’d always possessed. “First, we’re all grown-ass women and we all agreed to be here. Second, if things get dicey, we get out.”
“We don’t die trying?” Edie asked with a wry smile.
“Just keep practicing.” Joan put her hand on Edie’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re still the best, Edie.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Joan pulled the hearing aid out of her ear. “I can’t hear you.” She got a tissue and cleaned it, then handed it to Edie. “Check it out.”
Edie put the hearing aid in her ear and then pressed the stethoscope Joan handed her against the door. She turned the lock and heard the ball bearings in the wheel tumbling.
“What do you think?”
Joan’s voice was so loud that Edie yipped and took it out of her ear.
“Good. It’s working. You’ll have to figure out how to juggle that with your earpiece when the time comes,” Joan said, as if suggesting Edie would have to figure out nothing more complicated than what shoes to wear.
“I’ll leave you to practice your dark magic,” she said.
“I’ve got a long list of things to do today.
” She disappeared into her room, leaving Edie with that heavy safe door and her hearing aid.
Edie worked at it all day. The actual “cracking” wasn’t as hard as one might think.
She remembered to keep her breathing even to better hear, and to be patient, because patience was everything in cracking a safe.
The door had a combination disk with long handles.
Most safes like it had three locking wheels behind the disk.
What set the Pelican safe apart was the existence of five wheels.
That meant she had to figure out how many turns to reach the first code, and how many between that wheel and the next for a total of five turns instead of three.
There were an endless number of ways to set it up.
She would be listening for the ball bearings to click into place through metal that would be thicker than this door.
And then use a turning mechanism that resembled a steering wheel.
This was why old man Vitali had believed his safe to be uncrackable—no thief would have the sort of time it would take to figure out the combination.
Edie had to be right the first time out.
It was important to remain calm, because nothing would interfere with hearing the turn worse than having one’s heart in her throat.
She and Frances would have a power drill on the slim chance they could simply remove the locking mechanism.
Edie didn’t think that was really a possibility—nothing was ever that easy.
Imagine, if they could just remove a few screws and use a saw through some metal.
No, she’d have to figure out the wheels.
She took a couple of breaks to soak her fingers in ice water. She managed to crack this door once, then had Joan reset it. She started again.
Irene showed up later that afternoon wearing her maid’s uniform and carrying a large bag. She dropped it on the coffee table as Edie struggled to gain her feet. Her legs felt like lead.
Irene pulled out some brown and black garments and tossed them at Edie’s feet. She followed that with a short, dark-haired wig and a hat.
Edie picked the things up to have a look. “You’re kidding,” she said flatly.
“Not kidding.”
“This is a security guard uniform. No one will believe I’m a man, Irene. Have you seen my hips?”
“Welcome to the twenty-first century, where women can be security guards, too, Edie. And no one is going to be looking when you have this on. They’ll all be groping for light switches.”
She had a point. “Do you have any idea how slim the chances are of me getting in that vault? Much less cracking the safe?”
“God, you’re such a downer,” Irene said. “We can worry about your crisis of confidence later, but right now, you need to get ready for the male revue show.” She pulled out another outfit from the bag and handed it to Edie. Jeans, a T-shirt, and white sneakers. “What’s this?”
“Use your context clues,” Mean Irene said, nodding at the T-shirt.
Edie held it out to better see the design. The front of the shirt had an illustration of a stack of books stenciled on it, with the slogan, SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME.
“We’re a book club, remember?” Irene said.
“Gosh, with nothing going on, how could I possibly have forgotten?”
“Then get changed. We don’t have all day.”
Edie was still dressing when Frances came in and sat heavily on the bed. She smelled of burnt metal smoke and something else that Edie realized was hashish. “Wow, I haven’t smelled hash in decades. Were you out getting high with the boys?”
“No. But everyone else was.” Frances rubbed her temple. Hard. “Apparently that’s all the rage at chop shops these days.”
“Are you all right?” Edie asked as she adjusted her red-haired wig.
“Yes. Stop asking. The van is ready, I think. Skinner was able to get some magnetic decals ready by tomorrow. And we have a vinyl cover for the panel doors if we make it out of the casino. It would take a few hours, but for a generous fee, the garage will be ready if we need it.” In the mirror, Edie watched Frances push herself up and walk stiffly to the bag that she kept on the floor near her bed.
She reached into it, withdrew two or three amber pill bottles, and looked at the labels.
When she found the one she was looking for, she opened it and shook one out, then looked inside. “Shit,” she muttered.
“Franny?” Edie turned away from the mirror. “What’s up with you?”
Frances’s head jerked up. “Huh?”
“All those pills—”
“I told you. Supplements.”
“No one takes that many supplements. Not even Irene. And not out of brown pill bottles you only get from the pharmacy.”
The front door suddenly slammed open and then shut. “I’m ho-oome!” Marcy sang out.
“Ooh, let’s go see,” Frances said, and slid the pill bottle into her pocket. She brushed past Edie on her way out of the room.
As if Edie hadn’t said anything.
Frances was not going to get away with that. But Edie was eager to see her granddaughter, too, and followed her out.
Marcy was grinning so stupidly that Edie felt a sink in her belly she always felt before disaster struck. That was not the smile of a con artist; that was the smile of a girl falling for a guy. For that worm Rocco? Really? “Don’t you look happy,” Edie said dryly.
“Who knew this could be so much fun?” Marcy said. “The helicopter ride was fantastic. I’ve never been in one. Have you?”
“Yes. We all have. Over Malta. Here,” Irene said, and pushed a stack of clothes at Marcy.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Your next gig. You are the junior member of a book club. Here’s your wig and your sensible shoes,” Irene said, stacking those two items on top of the clothes she’d just handed Marcy.
“Eww,” Marcy responded.
“Talk about a step down from the glam of last night,” Joan said with a snort.
“Don’t be a princess, kid,” Irene said. “Where’s Franny?”
“I’m right here.”
She was standing behind everyone else, and when Irene turned to hand her a stack of clothes, she hesitated. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
Edie hadn’t noticed it before, but something was indeed wrong with Frances’s right eye. It wasn’t swollen, exactly, but was drooping strangely.
“I got some metal dust in my eye. I guess I rubbed too hard.”
“We should get going,” Irene said, glancing at her watch. “He’s usually out of the club by ten.”
“Wait.” Edie turned her attention back to Marcy. “Did you learn anything useful on your helicopter ride?”
“I think so,” Marcy said. “One, only Rocco’s and Mark’s cards will work on the vault. He says that way, he or Mark must be there any time someone goes in.”
“That seems terribly inefficient,” Joan said.
“Also, he’s going to do the money transfer on Monday.”
That news was met with silence. “Three days?” Joan said. “I thought we had, like, more days than that.”
“So did I,” Irene agreed.
“Don’t panic,” Frances said. “We’re close.”
“Speak for yourself,” Edie countered. “I was only able to crack open that sucker once today,” she said, gesturing to the safe door. She rubbed her knuckles just thinking about it. Her fingers ached terribly. “The Pelican safe is more complicated.”
“Let’s all just keep a positive mindset,” Joan suggested.
“Joan, I swear to God, if you start that positive energy bullshit—”
“No fighting!” Irene said. “At least not now. Come on, you guys—we’ve got to get ready and go. We aren’t going to do anything if we can’t get access to the security information on Mark’s computer.”
“Agree,” Frances said, and she and her wonky eye retreated to the bedroom to change her clothes.
A half hour later, the “book club” walked to the Strip to hail a cab. Destination: The Midnight Cowboy.