"What if we meet somebody in the hallway?" Cohn asked.

"Well, you peek first, see if there's anybody there. We're doing it right during all the big meetings and parties, so there shouldn't be a lot of traffic. There's a big party in the Mississippi Ballroom, so you may get somebody coming up to pee. If you do, well, you take them into the room with you. Holding them would not be a problem: you'll only be inside for five minutes."

They were headed around the block, and Cohn looked back at the hotel. "Two rooms."

"Two rooms." Cruz nodded. "After you take five-oh-five, Lane stays with the people there, freezes them. You and McCall go down to four-thirty-one. We do the lower floor second, so if anything goes wrong, we'll get out that much quicker. And four-thirty-one is closer to the staff stairwell. When you finish four-thirty-one, you call Lane on the cell and you all walk."

They were easing through the tangle of streets between the park and the downtown. Cruz pointed at a parking garage.

"Two blocks, around two corners," Cruz said. "If we have to ditch the car or if somebody gets caught on foot, we'll have one emergency car here, another one on the street down from the park. We'll have to position that one just before we hit. Everything like we've always done it: keys are with the car, magnetic box under the rear left bumper. Each car has a two-gallon plastic gas can in the back, half gas, half oil. If you have to ditch a car, try to burn it."

Cohn nodded: of course there'd be emergency cars. And, of course there'd be gas cans. There always were, on his jobs. He adopted any advantage, or possible advantage. That was why he'd survived, and why he worked with Cruz: they saw eye-to-eye on advantages, and survival.

"I want to see that layout again-we have to know which way to go however we get out, even if we have to throw a chair through a window," Cohn said.

"Yes," she said.

"Feels strange," he said, looking back at the hotel, busy, well dressed people flowing around it. "That much cash, with no protection. You're sure about the money?"

"Ninety percent. That's as good as I can get it. Not as good as with a duck, but pretty damn good," Cruz said. The group had its own slang, and referred to armored cars as "ducks," as in "sitting ducks." She added, "The thing that sold me was, it's so soft."

They stopped at the mouth of a short alley and she pointed down the alley to a loading dock. "That's the door, off to the left. I checked the key last week. If they changed the lock last night, well, you walk away."

Cohn looked at the door for a long five seconds, then said, "Back to Hudson." He glanced at his watch, leaned back in the passenger seat, laced his fingers across his chest and closed his eyes. "Check the layout one last time. I want to see the emergency car. Then, do it."

"You know what worries me the most?" Cruz asked. "What worries me is that the guy might not be there-you know, he goes out for a drink or something. Then you'll have to make some decisions right on the spot. Whether to wait or go, and if you go, whether to come back."

"You said there's always somebody with the money," Cohn said.

"That's what I was told," Cruz said. "There's always somebody with the money, until it's gone."

They called Lane and McCall, got them started back. At the motel in Hudson, Cohn got a cup of coffee, and then they began working over the drawings of the hotel's interior. "Don't want to meet a busboy carrying food up there," McCall said.

Cruz said, tapping the drawing, "They use the staff elevator, over around the corner, here. That stairway is mostly a fire escape. I walked it up and down, there's concrete dust on the treads, like it hardly gets used at all."

"Two weeks ago," Lane said.

"Nothing's perfect," Cruz snapped.

"Just sayin'," McCall said.

They talked about the uncertainties. As a unit, they'd always focused on scheduled money deliveries-ATM restockings, armored cars, credit unions in southern auto-factory towns, which carried heavy cash on paydays.

Of them all, they liked the armored cars the best, because they offered a choice of attack points, and if you found the right armored car, at the right spot, you were guaranteed a major payoff and a slow reaction by the cops. None of them had ever gone after individuals, for the simple reason that individuals didn't carry enough cash. If you're looking at the possibility of years in prison, then the payoff should be worth the risk, they all agreed.

With the earlier targets, the certainties were large. If the armored car wasn't at point X, and if the local cop cruiser wasn't at point y, then you rescheduled. Credit unions didn't move, and they always opened at the same time, and closed at the same time. If the factory passed out the checks at 10 a.m., then the first guys wouldn't sneak out to cash them before 10:05. Therefore, you had the hour between 9 a.m. and 10:05 to hit the place '

With this job, they weren't even certain that the money would be there. Cruz said it would be-ninety percent, anyway-but still: with this job, the uncertainties were larger than usual.

"The first guy, John Wilson, he's a little guy, but he's got a temper," Cruz told them. "He could give you some trouble. That's the way it is. There may be one or two other guys in the room with him. If there isn't anyone else there, handle it however you want. If there is, you crush him. McCall-use your pistol. Beat him up, get him on the floor, kick his head, kick his balls. Don't kill him, but hurt him. The thing is, downstream, the word is going to start getting out about these guys. If the later targets hear about it, they'll get worried. We need them scared. We need them backing away from us. Makes everything easier."

"What if they get security?"

"They won't. They can't have anyone else around when they're passing out the cash. What they're doing is a crime."

"But'"

"If they do get a guy with a gun, you'll have to deal with it. But they won't: that's the beauty of the whole thing. The cops finding out what they're doing is worse than getting beat up and robbed. Now, the room. I couldn't get into all the rooms, but I got into a few. I believe he'll have a sitting room with a bedroom off to your right as you go in…"

Cruz was about to go on, but there was a knock at the door. She froze. There was a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the doorknob.

"They're not using a key to knock," she blurted. "It's not the hotel."

"Answer the door," Cohn told Lane. He'd been lying on the bed, now was on his feet.

Lane went to the door, opened it just a crack, said, "Shoot," and opened it wide. A young blond woman carrying an old-style hard makeup case stepped through, spotted Cohn, cried, "Brutus," and threw herself at him. He picked her up, her legs wrapped around his waist. Cruz shouted at him, as Lane closed the door, "You fucker. You fucker, Brute. Goddamn you…"

"How are you, Lindy?" Lane asked, and to McCall, he said, "It's Lindy."

"I'm outa here," Cruz said.

"Rosie, calm down, okay?" Cohn said, over Lindy's shoulder.

Lindy said, "Yeah, calm down, Rosie. Jesus Christ."

"Lindy's just visiting. I'll put her on the plane home in a few days," Cohn said.

Cruz put her hands, in fists, on her hips, her face a hard clutch of anger: "Why the hell'"

"Because I couldn't wait," Cohn said. "That's why."

"Brute…"

"Y'all get out of here, back in an hour," Cohn said, "or we're all gonna be pretty embarrassed."