“We’re not doing this.” She straightened.

“No,” he said. “Not like that. I mean I need you to pull it off. If I try it alone, Johnny’s going to figure it was someone who works for him. But if all four of us do it…”

“Why four?”

“One keeping watch, two to do the robbery, and me on duty, looking perfectly aboveboard. But you’re the key. I know Ian is up for it. I think he’s got some sort of money trouble. That shiner, things he’s said. But Mitch.”

“You think he’ll do it if I do.”

“I know he will.”

“Even if you’re right, and I don’t know that you are, and even if I’d be willing to exploit that, which I’m not, why should I?”

“Because it’s an adventure. Because you don’t want to turn into your mother. Because you’re too hungry for life to pass up something this easy. Because you could help me keep my little girl. Because Johnny Love is a drug-dealing asshole. But that’s all secondary. You want to know the two best reasons?”

“Sure.”

“I figured out the perfect way. A way that no one, no one, will ever guess it was us.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“Because you want to.” He smiled at her, and she felt something in her stomach roll as she realized he wasn’t wrong.

CHAPTER 7

SOMETHING WAS UP.

Mitch couldn’t put his finger on it. On the surface, everything seemed OK. Ian deciding to host an impromptu dinner had been a surprise, but not a startling one. His building was a trip; thirty stories of gray brick and wrought-iron perched at the bend in the river and surrounded by skyscrapers. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city gleamed close and bright, the skeletal frame of the unfinished Trump Tower near enough to chuck a beer bottle at.

When Mitch had arrived, it was Jenn who opened the door, looking dynamite, pale arms glowing through the gauzy black sleeves of her shirt thing. He’d held up a bottle of red the guy at the liquor store had said was decent, then given her a hug, trying not to linger over the smell of her hair.

“Just in time,” she’d said. “Ian’s about to kebab Alex.”

As if in response, a jovial yell echoed down the hall. “Mitch, thank God. Would the two of you get this asshole out of my kitchen?”

Alex wandered out, smiled, shook his hand. “I swear, he’s an old woman. Just needs an apron.”

They poured the wine and moved to the living room, chatting in front of the windows. That was when the feeling first hit. It reminded him of the way his parents had acted in the months before they told Mitch they were getting divorced. A sort of forced cheer. Alex talked more than usual, laughed a little too hard at a joke Mitch had heard at work. Jenn nursed her wine and stared out the window. He was just about to ask what was going on when Ian announced that dinner was ready.

He may have been touchy about his kitchen, but the dude could cook. They started with a warm spinach salad with some sort of cured meat fried crispy, followed by a risotto with gorgonzola and then blackened swordfish. But Mitch noticed that while everyone else attacked the food, Ian mostly pushed his around the plate, restless to the verge of twitching. How much coke was the guy doing? Mitch had tried it once, years ago, liked it OK, but he couldn’t imagine being wired to want the feeling all the time, like drinking ten espressos while socking yourself in the mouth.

Still, the food was great and the wine was flowing, a second bottle empty by the time they finished. Alex pushed his plate back, slapped his stomach. “Damn. I guess all that stainless steel in your kitchen makes a difference.”

“It’s not the hardware. I’m just that good.”

“Modest, too.”

“How’s your eye?” Jenn asked.

“I’m starting to like it.” The swelling hadn’t lessened, and now shades of yellow and sickly green crept around the purple rim of the bruise. “Makes me look tough, don’t you think?”

She snorted. “Boys.”

They fell silent, one of those moments. Alex opened a new bottle and refilled their glasses, holding by the bottom and twisting professionally when he was done.

“I’ve got one,” Ian said.

“One what?”

“Ready-Go question. What would you do with fifty grand?”

“Foul. We did that the other night.”

“That was five hundred. This is different. Go.”

Alex spoke slowly and deliberately. “I’d make up the child support I owe so my ex-wife couldn’t take my daughter from me.”

“Your-what?” Mitch glanced back and forth. “Your ex is trying to take Cassie?”

“Yeah. To Arizona.”

“Can she do that?”

“Sure,” Ian said. “She’s the mother, providing a home, and with missed child support payments…”

“What about you?” Alex’s voice was hard. “What would you do?”

Ian gave one of his cryptic smiles. “Oh, just pay some bills.”

“I bet. The late fees look like a bitch.” Alex tapped his forefinger below his eye.

“I told you, I tripped. Jenn?”

“I’d start by quitting my job. Take some time to figure out what I want to do with my life.”

“What’s wrong with your life?” Mitch felt like he was on a cell phone with bad reception, his questions coming a second too late, the rhythm all wrong. There were undercurrents of meaning that he didn’t understand, agendas he wasn’t privy to.

“How about you, Mitch? What would you do?”

“What is this? What are you talking about?”

Ian cracked his knuckles one at a time. Alex kept his eyes steady, a challenge.

Fifty thousand. Did that mean something? Why would they be talking about-

“Are you kidding me?” His voice came out higher than he meant. “Fifty thousand. You saw a couple hundred in the safe. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? That split four ways. You’re talking about robbing the bar.”

Alex shook his head. “Not the bar. Johnny.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You know the difference.”

“You’re joking, right?” He looked from one to the other.

“No,” Jenn said. “No, we’re not.”

“I figured out a way to do it,” Alex said. “It’s safe.”

Mitch had a gentle buzz softening the edges of things, making him a little slower than he’d like. “You’ve been planning this? The three of you?”

“We weren’t keeping it from you. I just talked to Jenn last night. Ian this morning.”

“If you talked to her last night and him this morning, how exactly is that not keeping it from me?”

Alex leaned forward. “Listen, before you react, will you hear me out?”

Mitch stared, flushing from the wine and the old junior-high feeling of being an outsider, of everybody looking and pointing. He leaned back, set his napkin on the plate. Finally, he nodded.

“It was really your idea.”

“My idea?”

“You got me thinking the right way. I talked about quitting and taking the money, and you said it would be better to do it while I was working, so it wasn’t obvious.”

“I was kidding.”

“Still, you were right. But just being there isn’t enough. There has to be absolutely no way it can come back on us. If I’m at the bar, I’m a suspect like everybody else.”

Mitch rocked his chair back. Finally said, “OK. Against my better judgment.”

“We don’t do it any old night I’m working. We do it Tuesday. The night Johnny is doing his deal. The night I’m working as his bodyguard,” Alex said. “In other words, don’t just rob Johnny Love. Rob him while I’m protecting him. And rob me, too.”

“I get it. If we tie you up right next to him-”

“Maybe even hit you,” Ian interjected.

“Then it looks like outside people, thieves, heard about the deal.”

“You’re warm.”

Mitch paused, then got it. “Better. It looks to Johnny like the guys he was dealing with decided to rip him off. And the same in reverse.”

“Those books you read are paying off,” Alex said. “Exactly. The timing is tight, but it’s worth it.”

“Except for one thing.”