The Interloper Read online

  Anyway, it was a moot point. Lowenstein had left the hotel minutes ago without incident, and Willis was back in the other suite packing up the laptop computer and other electronic equipment he had brought, and it would be two hours before they were scheduled to meet at an address in Queens. He finished packing up what he needed to, gave the suite one last check to make sure he wasn’t leaving behind any evidence that they had been there, then looked out the door’s peephole to make sure the hallway was clear. It was and he slipped out and moved quickly to a staircase. As the other members of the crew had already done, he used the stairs so he could take the elevator from a different floor. In his case, he walked up three flights. Once the elevator brought him down to the lobby, he casually made his way past the front desk, then out the building and to the street, all the while a pleasant and casual smile showing on his face. He didn’t lose the smile until he was a block away. It was only then that he let his expression harden with the knowledge that he had completed his first heist and that the new criminal chapter to his life was now fully underway.

  It was five weeks ago that he broke free from The Factory, leaving his handler, Tom Barron, dead in the process. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stay hidden for long, that no matter where he ran, The Factory would eventually catch up to him. But he also knew that regardless of how many foot soldiers they might employ, at its heart, The Factory was a government bureaucracy. If he were able to eliminate the top bureaucrats running the show, it would crumble apart, especially with how the government officials who brought it into existence had to be terrified of its existence and true agenda ever becoming known.

  Since leaving The Factory, Willis dyed his hair blond and grew it out longer, as well as growing a goatee and also dying his facial hair the same blond color. Even though he wasn’t what anyone would consider good-looking, beautiful women responded when he turned on the charm, his eyes crinkling good-naturedly and his lips flashing an amiable smile. Back when he was a liquor salesman, Willis met many beautiful women in his travels and had many affairs, some lasting only a night, others lasting much longer. The one thing they all had in common was they ended well with never any hurt feelings, and the women only having a warm fondness toward him. He was a rogue, and he never pretended otherwise and none of them ever begrudged him that.

  When Willis lost his job as a liquor salesman, his libido took a big hit, and after he was recruited by The Factory, it went missing all together. It bothered him when he thought about it, which wasn’t often since The Factory kept him busy, and his two years associated with them was mostly spent in a low level of depression where he was almost machine-like as he carried out his murders as ordered. At some level, he knew that the two were tied together; the loss of his sex drive and working for The Factory.

  After his loud resignation from The Factory, Willis left with Bowser to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He took along with him seventeen thousand dollars that he had been able to save up, a suitcase full of gear from The Factory, names of two other Factory handlers, as well as the name of The Factory’s head man, Colonel Jay T. Richardson. Once there, he rented a cabin in the town of Jackson, and spent his first three days in New Hampshire sleeping, thinking, and taking his bull terrier for long walks along hiking trails. His fourth night he drove to North Conway, and that was where he met Jenny Brislow, a dental hygienist on vacation from Iowa. Jenny was thirty-one, petite, with short blonde hair, a slightly upturned but very cute freckled nose, and a dazzling smile. Willis found himself turning on the charm, and before too long he and Jenny were heading back to his rented cabin. Within an hour, they were both out of their clothes and starting what would become a marathon five-day session in bed interrupted only by food, sleep, and taking Bowser for walks. During the time that Bowser was on his own, he mostly behaved himself, either sleeping by the foot of the bed or gnawing on a bone, and only occasionally getting up to walk around the room and let out little pig-like grunts to show his displeasure at being ignored.

  As much as Willis was making up for almost three years of lost time, Jenny matched him in intensity and desire. At the end of those five days, they were both worn out and satisfied, although Bowser was in a surly mood. Jenny had to head back to Iowa. After showering, she slipped on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt over her lithe and toned body that had been naked for most of those five days, and was a body that Willis had grown fond of. With her hair wet and an easy smile breaking over her lips, she kissed him on the tip of his nose and suggested with a note of melancholy that he could always look her up if he was ever out in Iowa. After she left, Willis took Bowser on a long four-hour hike in an attempt to make amends with the canine, then packed up and headed off to Ohio. There, he looked up several dodgy individuals he had met during his travels as a liquor salesman, and that led him to a guy who for ten grand was able to manufacture a fake cover identify, including a passport and social security card. Later, another contact led him to Hanley, who set him up with Lowenstein for the heist and his indoctrination into the world of armed robberies, although The Factory had already hardened him more than several lifetimes of knocking off poker games ever could.

  Chapter 3

  Lowenstein answered the door at the Queens apartment where they had arranged to meet. His eyes glinted as he both smirked and nodded at Willis. Then he began chuckling softly, a thin wheezing sound escaping from him. Willis didn’t bother asking what the joke was since his attention had been diverted elsewhere. Unfamiliar voices were coming from inside the apartment. A man’s and a woman’s, maybe more than that. Willis raised an eyebrow, his jaw muscles and body tensing. Lowenstein, still chuckling, indicated that it was nothing to worry about. He stepped aside to let Willis in. At that point, Willis realized the noises were coming from a TV and he followed the large man into the apartment. After the door was closed, Lowenstein fished a tiny GPS tracking device from out of his pants pocket and held it up between his thumb and forefinger for Willis to get a better look at. It was, in effect, the punch line to his private joke.

  “Guess what I found stitched into your ski mask?” Lowenstein said, shaking his head slowly and exaggeratedly to show his disappointment in Willis. All of them had stashed their ski masks in the same bag with the money before they left the suite. “Chrissakes, Burke, we’re not rank amateurs. If we were going to screw you over, we would’ve dumped the ski masks before taking off with the money.”

  Willis accepted the GPS tracking device from Lowenstein and dropped it into his coat pocket. He expected Lowenstein to find the device. A quick check with a bug detector would have found it easily. The GPS tracking device Willis counted on not being found was the one that he had hid in one of the surveillance cameras. That one transmitted at a frequency that most bug detectors failed to pick up, but he saw no reason to tell Lowenstein about that. While Lowenstein led Willis through the apartment, he explained why Willis had acted unnecessarily paranoid.

  “I understand how this is your first job with a crew and all,” Lowenstein said patiently, as if to a child. “But if you’re going to do more jobs, you need to trust your crew members. We don’t double-cross one another. We can’t. We’re finished in this business if any of us ever tries a stunt like that.” He smiled sadly at Willis. “It’s a small industry. Word spreads quickly.”

  Lowenstein had brought Willis into a small living room where Pruitt and Hack sat on a sofa sipping beer from cans as they stared at a TV across from them. A local news show was on. Hack looked away from it briefly to nod to Willis. Pruitt seemed more absorbed in it, but broke away from it to give Willis a sideways glance. He fished a beer can from a cooler and tossed it to Lowenstein, then tossed another one to Willis.

  Lowenstein explained, “We’ve got a bet, Charlie and I, on whether the heist makes the news.”

  “No way it does,” Pruitt mumbled, his attention back to the TV. “Not with that ballplayer involved. They’ll find a way to keep it quiet.”

  “We’ll see,” Lowenstein said.


  “Yeah, we will.”

  A commercial came on and Pruitt looked away from the set and fixed his stare on Willis. “You really pissed me off back there,” he said. “But I got to admit, you had some smart ideas. The job went smooth as butter thanks to you. Although don’t go thinking we wouldn’t have gotten the money without you. Twenty minutes with them, and I would’ve had them begging to give me the combination.”

  “Unless the guy who had it ends up going into shock or drops dead of a heart attack,” Lowenstein said.

  “Not likely.”

  “Not impossible, though.”

  Pruitt made a face at that possibility. “One in a thousand the guy with the combination croaks before I get it from him. I’d take those odds all day long.”

  “Very generous odds, Charlie. I’d put it more at one in a hundred.”

  Pruitt’s face reddened. “So one in a hundred jobs go south because of that,” he said through tightened lips. “I can live with those odds.”

  “Yeah, well, it was a lot more than just the possibility of the job busting up on us. We could’ve gotten shot up by the hired help if we went in blind like we had planned.”

  “With cop uniforms on? You kidding me?”

  “Could have happened,” Lowenstein said, barely able to contain his amusement at seeing the annoyed reaction he got from Pruitt. Before Pruitt could continue the argument the news came back. He looked away from Lowenstein and forced out in a tight and strained voice that Lowenstein was full of it. Lowenstein let out an exaggerated sigh to show Pruitt how his statement had injured him, and then grinning widely led Willis to a small kitchen area where a table was arranged with four stacks of money on it.

  “Final count was a hundred and twelve grand,” Lowenstein said. “Expenses totaled eight thousand four hundred, rounding up to the nearest hundred, and all itemized. Four-way split makes it an even twenty-five thousand nine hundred. Not bad for your first job. Take any of those piles. They’re all the same. Count the money if you’d like.”

  Willis sat down at the table, put down his unopened beer can and looked at a list of itemized expenses. It added up to what Lowenstein said it did and it didn’t appear as if any padding had been done. All four stacks looked about the same height, each made up of bundles of bills rubber banded together. Willis picked up one of the stacks. There was nine hundred in the top bundle, a thousand dollars in each of the other bundles he counted, with a total of twenty-six bundles. Willis thumbed through the bundles he didn’t count to get a quick estimate, then placed the money in a gym bag he had brought. While he did all that, Lowenstein drank the beer that Pruitt had tossed to him, and after crumpling the empty can, let it drop to the floor. As Willis got up to leave, Lowenstein asked him what his plans were.

  “Why?”

  Lowenstein pursed his lips, shrugged noncommittally. “Another job could be coming up very soon. I can’t promise anything, but this one could be worth you sticking around for a few days. If this job comes through, the take’s going to be seven figures.”

  “What can you tell me about it?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  Willis mulled it over. While Pruitt and Lowenstein appeared like clowns outside of the job, during the heist they bottled up their juvenile behavior and acted like cold-hearted professionals, and a seven-figure take had him interested. “An even split?”

  Lowenstein shook his head. “Among the crew, yeah, but the individual bringing it to me will be taking thirty percent off the top, if the job happens. It’s not definite yet, nor is the size of the crew needed, but seven figure takes don’t happen often.”

  From the other room, a loud burst of profanity erupted from Pruitt, then what sounded like an empty beer can bouncing off a TV. Over Pruitt’s swearing, Willis and Lowenstein could hear the news reporting on a robbery at a swank New York City hotel. Lowenstein’s round face lit up and he could barely contain his glee. Almost giddy, he yelled out to Pruitt that he was going to be helping himself to his winnings from Pruitt’s take.

  “The hell you will! They didn’t say nothin’ about that ballplayer being involved!” Pruitt yelled back. “You better not be touching my money!”

  Lowenstein picked up a packet of bills from one of the piles and thumbed through it for a quick count. “The bet was only that the robbery makes the news today,” he said happily, shoving the money into his pants pocket. “Not whether that ballplayer shows up in the story. You want to fixate on that, that’s your problem.”

  “I swear, if you touch my money, I’ll be cutting off your fat hands!”

  Lowenstein giggled at that. Willis was getting disgusted with these antics, but the temptation of a seven-figure payoff kept him from walking away. He asked Lowenstein more about the job. The large man looked at him distractedly as if he didn’t know what Willis was talking about, then remembered, and whatever amusement had been sparkling in his eyes dried up.

  “Let me give you a phone number to reach me at,” he said. “This will be for a disposable phone, and I’ll be changing phones every few days. Make sure you call me only from a disposable phone of your own.”

  Lowenstein scribbled a phone number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Willis. “Call me each day around ten in the morning,” he said. “If a deal comes together as I hope and I can use you, then we’ll see. If not, or you get tired of hanging around, then c’est la vie. But if you’re interested, stay in the area. And don’t worry, it’s safe to be here. None of those mob guys in that poker game have a clue who we are. The only ones who know we did the heist are us four.”

  Willis slipped the scrap of paper into his wallet. “How about you and Pruitt try not to kill each other before I call you, okay?”

  Lowenstein smiled thinly at that. “Ah, that’s nothing to worry about. Charlie and I are like brothers. We’ve been doing jobs together for seven years. Pushing each other’s buttons is only a hobby for the two of us. Don’t worry about it.”

  Willis didn’t bother responding to that. Lowenstein led him back to the door. As they passed through the living room, Pruitt once again warned Lowenstein that he’d cut off his fat hands if he touched any of his money. To that, Lowenstein dug out the packet of bills that he had shoved into his pocket and waved it at Pruitt, who in turn rifled a half-filled beer can at Lowenstein’s head, which Lowenstein barely ducked. If any of the beer had splashed on Willis, he would’ve dragged Pruitt off the sofa and kicked the hell out of him, but none of it had so he left it alone. Lowenstein seemed to especially enjoy the reaction he had gotten out of Pruitt and he began giggling like a school kid. He was near breathless as he told Willis to call him the next morning. Willis left without saying whether he would or not.

  Willis stuck around the next four days. He wasn’t happy doing so, and was tempted to leave New York and find a different crew to hook up with, but he was more tempted by a big score. His share from ripping off that poker game wasn’t going to go far. First, Hanley would take his ten percent bite, then another bite as he needed to pay rent for his cover identity, and then yet another large bite as he needed to have money funneled back to him as if it were coming from a legitimate job. Hanley, for a fee, helped set that up for him. He needed his cover identity to appear to be gainfully employed; both for tax reasons and so that Jack Connor wouldn’t show up on any list The Factory might come up with for out-of-work targets. Once all these bites were taken, there wasn’t going to be much left over from that twenty-five grand, and he needed money, both for living off the grid and to track down Colonel Jay T. Richardson and other Factory personnel.

  The apartment where he met up with Lowenstein and the rest of the crew was located in Long Island City. Willis first went back to a room he rented in Forest Hills so he could lock his money in the hotel safe, and then he went to Flushing to pick Bowser up from a pet sitter where he’d left him earlier. He could’ve left Bowser in the flat, but he wanted to make sure that Bowser would be looked after in case the job went badly and he ended up dead or was arrested
by the police.

  When he arrived at the pet sitter, Bowser at first gave him the cold shoulder to show how hurt he was at being abandoned for the afternoon. He took Bowser to Forest Park where they walked along a wooded path. It was mostly dark out without much light. Bowser had raced ahead of him, and when he passed a couple of ragged-looking guys who were there either to sell drugs or to mug someone, Willis slowed down, hoping it was the latter. He was keyed up and he would’ve welcomed the opportunity to work off his nervous energy on them, but they wisely kept their distance.

  An hour of walking in the woods didn’t help him any. He left and found a restaurant where they allowed Bowser to accompany him, and he ordered celebratory steaks for them both, but he was too distracted to enjoy his food, or even taste it much. A skinny Russian woman with tight curly black hair came over to his table to admire Bowser, her voice sultry and her accent thick as she told Bowser how handsome he was. She lingered by the table, making sure Willis knew that she was interested in him more than the dog. Somewhat half-heartedly, Willis ended up buying her dinner and leaving with her. He hadn’t noticed back in the restaurant the overly sweet perfume she wore, but he did when she was in the car with him and it made him think of hospital disinfectant. When they got to his flat, he considered asking her to take a shower to scrub some of that perfume off, but he didn’t bother and instead they sat on his bed and had a couple of drinks, then proceeded to get naked. As she squirmed her skinny ass out of a pair of skin-tight jeans, she complained in her thick accent that she didn’t want to do it in front of the dog, but her complaints were done feebly and mostly for show and Willis didn’t take them seriously. Desire flushed her skin a warm pink and he knew she would shed her clothes whether Bowser was in the room or not, or even if there had been a roomful of nuns sitting in attendance for that matter.