Chapter 26
“I can’t hear you,” said Cable.
“I said, let’s get down to business,” shouted Franklin.
“What?” shouted Cable.
Franklin led them toward the back of the store. He still had to raise his voice to be heard, but the construction noise wasn’t deafening.
“What have you got for me?” asked Franklin.
“What do you mean,” said Cable.
Jack and Quinn stood close, in order to hear, but were content to let Cable speak for them, for now.
Franklin spoke slowly. “What do you have for me?”
“I heard you,” said Cable, speaking just as slowly, “but I don’t know what you mean.”
If Franklin was frustrated at all, he did not show it. “You have plans or instructions or something that you got from his house,” he said. “I want them.”
“From Souvlakis house?” said Cable.
“Don’t play dumb,” said Franklin, “it doesn’t suit you. Vincent can get away with it. You, not so much.”
“Alright,” said Cable, “yes, we’ve got more information. From Souvlakis and from other sources. But we want out of this.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Franklin. “Brother, you should have heard the security intercom this afternoon. Here’s what I can do for you. Give me that stuff and I can tie up all your loose ends.”
“Can you be more specific,” said Jack, trying to follow the detective’s instructions.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact…” said Franklin. He stepped down the two steps separating the back of the store from the open front area. Near the desk, he picked up a duffel bag that Vincent had placed there. He unzipped it as he walked back to join the boys. “In here, I have personnel files in each of your names showing that you’ve been working for me since June. I’ve got pay stubs and ID cards and performance reports, just like I do for all my guys. I’ve also made up a series of letters from a guy I know on the inside requesting some repairs to the polar bear. Those are back-dated several weeks as well. Then there’s work orders and receipts and overtime requests. All the crap paperwork that they require of me.”
“So what?” said Cable.
Franklin put the duffel on the ground in front of them. “Look. No lie. They know you sprung the trap on that bear. They’ve got security footage of you entering the hall clean and leaving dirty—“
“What about inside the hall?” interjected Jack.
“Ah-ha,” said Franklin, “funny you should mention that. That footage is also in this bag. It somehow got removed from the security hard-drive.”
“But if they’ve got before and after video?”
“That’d be just circumstantial,” said Franklin, “and secondly, who’s to say their computers won’t crash and erase the data? Stuff like that happens all the time around there. Either way, I’ve got a paper trail that shows you were there on F & R business. And we’ll be the ones to clean it up. We installed the thing, after all. Who else are they going to hire?”
“There will still be legal fees,” said Cable.
“You’re right,” said Franklin, “and since each of you has been receiving weekly paychecks from F & R, you shouldn’t have any trouble covering them. If it even goes that far. I think the checks are in the bag as well, also back-dated.”
“So we give you our Souvlakis information and take this bag and we’re done?” said Cable.
Franklin nodded.
“What if we want more?” asked Jack.
“What more could a person in your position want?” asked Franklin. “I think it’s a fair offer.”
“Fair?” said Jack, “after smashing up our store and stealing the books?”
Franklin was unruffled. “It was terrible what happened to your store. As I said, I’m glad to be in a position to help you out with that.”
“And the books?”
A woman’s voice broke through the construction noise, “Excuse me!”
The four of them turned to see Cat standing in the front of the store, holding the door open with one hand.
“Excuse me!” she repeated. “Which of you is Franklin?”
The boys hearts beat fast. Could Deffenbaugh hear them over the noise, after all? Had they gotten enough out of Franklin already? Was this the big moment?
“I am,” said Franklin, “what can I do for you ma’am?”
“They said you were the foreman,” she said, “I live next door. It’s after eleven at night. Can you keep the noise down, please.”
“We’re almost done here,” said Franklin, “I’m sorry for the disturbance. The front window was smashed the other day.”
“But I can’t hear myself think,” said Cat. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry ma’am,” said Franklin, “this is the only time we could do it. We’ve all got day jobs. It won’t be but another few minutes before we’re done here, isn’t that right fellas?” He turned to the Bonney Boys for confirmation.
“You can’t hear yourself think?” asked Jack.
Cat fixed him with an inscrutable stare. “Can’t hear anything. Do I have to call the police?” She raised an eyebrow.
Jack looked at her. Had that been a signal? He waited for something else, but her face remained blank.
Franklin interjected, “that won’t be necessary ma’am. Give us ten more minutes and we’ll be done. It’d take that long for the police to get here anyway. Believe me, I understand what you’re saying. I didn’t realize there were apartments in these buildings. I thought they were all businesses.”
She turned to him and seemed momentarily at a loss for words. Then she said. “that’s fine then. Thank you. But after fifteen minutes, I am calling the police.”
“Understood,” said Franklin, “loud and clear.”
Cat left and the boys were left once again with Franklin and his men.
Franklin walked to the front of the store, pushed open the door, and said something to his guys on the street. Then he returned.
“Let’s make this quick, fellas. If she’s calling the police in fifteen minutes, I want to be out of here in five.”
The hammering and sawing continued. The plywood was down and a new window was leaning up against the front of the building. The men were framing the opening with two by fours. It was a long way from being finished.
“What about the front window?” asked Jack.
“That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee,” said Franklin, beginning to show some signs of anger. “Cut the crap. Do you have something for me? Otherwise I say we let the police come. You’re the ones they’re looking for.”
Jack’s cell phone rang. He moved to answer it, but a look from Franklin froze him. A moment later Cable’s rang. Quinn reached into his pocket and turned his phone off.
Franklin crossed the store again and picked up the duffel bag. “All this is about to disappear from the conversation,” he said. “If I don’t see some papers start to appear or some information emerge, the terms change.”
The store phone rang.
Jack started towards the phone.
“Don’t even think about it,” said Franklin, “no one calls a bookstore at this hour and expects someone to answer the phone.”
“I was just going over here to get the papers you wanted,” said Jack. “Quinn, where’d we put those papers, anyway?”
Quinn went behind the counter with Jack. Franklin moved to where he could see them. Quinn turned on the computer. Jack grabbed a random pile of books from the stairs and set them on the counter. Meanwhile the phone call went to the answering machine. Jack and Quinn were close enough to hear the message as it was being left, even over the noise of the construction. It was Chad.
When Cable heard Chad’s voice on the machine, he immediately started talking to Franklin. Jack and Quinn leaned in towards the answering machine, where the message was being recorded.
“Hello, I’m looking for a couple books. Do you have something called ‘There’s something fishy going on’ by, um, Franklin. Or something called, I think, ‘I just called 911’ by Carter. Or, ‘I got your back,’ also by Carter? It’s just some stuff for my reading group. That’s all. Just, um, call me when you get this. My number is—“
The machine cut him off again. Jack glanced up at Franklin to see if he had listened to the message, but Cable was still talking to him. Jack went over to the computer and disconnected the external hard drive that stored all the internet sales records. He put on the counter next to the books. That caught Franklin’s attention. Then Jack reached under the counter to the recycling bin and grabbed a handful of papers. He set that on the counter as well.
Quinn, who had been fiddling with the computer all this time, turned the monitor to face Franklin, opened the Natural History museum website and surreptitiously started recording with the built in camera.
“We don’t want any police involved,” said Jack, either acting panicked or showing real panic. “Here’s what we took form Souvlakis. Hard drive from his desk, with museum schematics, and blueprints for hidden compartments, along with his correspondence with you about your business relationship with him. Also Souvlakis journal that records everything he knew about your plan to steal the jewels.”
Franklin’s eyes went wide.
“These are hard copies of some it,” continued Jack, rifling the papers he’d pulled from the recycling.
“And the codebooks,” said Cable, pointing to the random novels that Jack had put on the counter.
“And a broken squirrel,” said Quinn, picking up the bottom half of Berkeley from the shelf behind the counter.
When Franklin saw the squirrel, his demeanor changed completely. He lost the little composure he had maintained after Cat’s visit. He snatched at the squirrel, but Quinn held it out of his reach.
“We want your duffel bag,” said Jack, “We want our window fixed. And we want one million dollars. The police might be looking for us right now, but we’ve got all this stuff that points to you.”
“I think it’s a fair offer,” said Cable, picking up the duffel bag from where Franklin had dropped it when he snatched for the broken squirrel.
Franklin leaned forward on the counter and glared at Jack. He raised a fist, and then pointed a finger directly at him.
“Listen to me,” he said, “I have worked too long and too hard to let a couple of penny-ante junk dealers like you get in my way.”
Outside the store, a police siren made a single whelp, and the construction noise stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, Quinn could see the workmen turn away from the store to face something out of sight. But Franklin had his back to all that, and didn’t seem to notice that the noise had stopped. With a finger ferociously poking the air between him and Jack, he continued, “It’s been a year and a half of my life infiltrating that corrupt, rat infested, stink-hole. And I am this close to pulling off the heist of the decade. If you think you can blackmail me with a pile of junk mail and the fracking book of the month club, you’ve got another thing coming. We’ll tear down this store one brick at a time and so fast you won’t even know what hit you. Then we’ll go after your girlfriends and your pets and everyone in your speed dial. If you don’t—“
He stopped suddenly, finally noticing that the noise had stopped. He turned and looked towards where his men had been only to find them gone, out of sight down the sidewalk.
Detective Deffenbaugh stood in the open window, and Cat stood at the front door.
“Time’s up,” she said, holding up her badge.
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