Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [55]
The money is piling higher and higher. I think I’ve done the twenties and fifties. All that’s left are the hundreds. The many, many remaining hundreds. By looking at those counted piles and comparing them to what’s left in the bag, I’m starting to get a better idea of just how much money is here. My hands are shaking a bit and I make tight little fists until they stop.
—So they stayed down there in Florida for a few years, but they, like, got into some kind of beef with the Cubans and it ended pretty ugly. I’m not really up on all the details and such, but from what I gather, it was one of those, like, scenes with a bunch of guns, piles of coke, and a machete. Scarface kind of shit. Mmmm. So they had to blow and some, like, time had passed and they decided to come home and headed back up here. They, like, gave me a call out of the blue and I helped ’em to get a pad. Mmmm. To get a pad and, like, all situated and stuff. They were cool for a bit, but then they started this gig doing stickups at, like, high-stakes poker games and drug deals. They figured they could keep a lower profile if they, like, restrained their activities to the criminal community. Like, who’s gonna give a fuck, right?
I keep counting.
—For a while I helped out a bit, being, like, a technical adviser on a few jobs. I’d, you know, pick a lock or whatever. But the action was really just too fucking hot for me. High returns, but the risks were, like. Mmmm. I didn’t like the odds. Normal crime, the cops catch you and you’re just busted. The kind of shit they were pulling, other cons catch you robbing them and they’re gonna just fuck you all up. Anyway. Mmmm. Anyway, that’s about when I hooked them up with Lum. The Chinese kid. The one with the, like, red hair.
Russ is still sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his eyes closed.
—I had met Lum through friends of, like, friends, and he was this kind of kid criminal prodigy. He wanted to be getting into heavier shit, so I set him up with Ed and Paris and they took him under their wing, sort of. Mmmm. So, at some point it all had to get, like, fucked up, and sure enough, it did. What happened was people, people in the life, got wind of what they were up to and some disinformation was floated their way through, like, usually reliable channels. They went in and hit this card game, thinking it was a bunch of bookies. Turned out it was a cop game.
And counting.
—Ed and Paris don’t even, like, blink. They just pull the job like it’s business as usual while all these cops are telling them how dead they are. Then, like, it gets messy, cuz one of the cops goes for his ankle piece. Ed and Paris aren’t fools. They, like, don’t want to kill any cops, but they bust the guy up bad and split with the kitty. Now they’re just red fucking hot and they’re trying to decide if they should blow town or, like, what, and that’s when Roman pops up. Mmmm. Roman, he was like this hotshot hero cop way back. Some kind of Serpico with a real hard-on for the law. ’Cept, story is, he had a bad gambling jones. So things happen, right? He makes a bet here and there, gets some debt, makes a couple small moves to clear it up and next thing you know, he’s a hard-core player. That’s the way the system works. Mmmmmm. At this stage, he’s a robbery dick and he’s already, like, dirty as hell. He tracks Ed and Paris down, I mean like a bloodhound. He just goes right to ’em. There’s this big Mexican face-off and he ends up showing all his cards. Turns out he’s been on to Ed and Paris