Thick as Thieves Read Free Page B

office.
    The plans tell him that this closet is a recent addition, built when the original office space was subdivided. It shares a wall with another, larger utility closet in the suite next door—a hastily erected wall of gypsum board hung on metal studs. Carr raps on the board and it makes a hollow sound. He pulls a tape measure and a pencil from his bag, checks the plan, and marks a rectangle, two feet wide by three feet high, on the closet wall. Then he takes a headset out.
    “You there, Vee?” he says.
    “Where else?” she answers. “Everything okay?”
    “Fine. Send them in.”
    Carr looks out the window and watches Bobby and Latin Mike emerge from a rusting blue van parked nose out in the lot across the street. Each has a nylon bag slung on his shoulder, and each is carrying a Dell computerbox. Even from six floors up Carr can see the tension in their strides. They wear jeans, dark T-shirts, and sunglasses, but neither really looks the part of IT geek. Bobby comes close—scruffy, freckled, pale, and slightly bloated, as if he lives on fast food—but Mike is a far cry. His heavy shoulders and battered, angry good looks transcend wardrobe and typecast him as a hardcase, a badass, a thief. Still, Carr knows they’ll pass muster with the listless guards in the lobby. They disappear into the Prairie Galleria, and Carr looks again at the van. He tries to make out Valerie behind the wheel but can’t.
    “Anybody else come in?” he asks.
    “The painters and the carpet guys,” she answers, “about five minutes ago.”
    “How many today?”
    “Five—same as last week.”
    The ever-hopeful owners of the Galleria have been painting walls and replacing the carpets in the building’s common areas, two floors every Saturday. Carr knows the schedule, and knows they’re working downstairs today, on four and five.
    “Nobody else?”
    “Not yet.”
    There’s a knock on the door and Carr opens it for Bobby and Mike. Bobby pulls on gloves, looks around, and shakes his head. “What a dump. I had to sit here all day, I’d shoot myself.”
    “That’s why it’s good you’re not an accountant,” Mike says.
    “Molloy’s a lawyer,” Carr says. He points at the closet.
    Bobby crouches at the wall, looking at Carr’s marks and rechecking the plan. He taps on the wall and shakes his head some more. “Sounds like quarter-inch. Cheap bastards.”
    Bobby takes a drop cloth from his bag and spreads it beneath Carr’s rectangle. Then he removes plastic goggles, a battery-powered reciprocating saw, a set of blades in a plastic box, and a rectangular strip of heavy felt. He’s humming softly as he selects a blade, locks it in place, and wraps felt around the saw’s motor. Carr doesn’t know the tune, but knows that Bobby is nervous. Carr himself is fighting the desire to pace. Bobby squeezes the trigger on the saw and smiles at the dull whirring sound.
    “Like a whisper,” he says. He wipes sweat off his forehead, sets the blade along a penciled line, and cuts. He’s quick and quiet and neat,and in less than a minute he hands Carr a two-by-three-foot panel of wallboard.
    “See—quarter-inch. I could’ve used my Swiss Army knife.” He takes a penlight from his bag and shines it in the hole he’s cut. He looks at the metal studs and the back of the wall in the utility closet next door. He taps the wall several times, then takes a Phillips-head screwdriver from his bag and punches a hole in the board. He turns to Latin Mike, who takes the screwdriver from Bobby and hands him the device he’s been assembling.
    It’s an under-door camera, a hand-held video unit with a tiny lens mounted on the end of a thin metal snake. This model has its own light source and an infrared attachment. Bobby powers it up, feeds the snake through the hole, and starts working the controls. Mike leans over his shoulder and peers into the monitor. Carr gives them room and goes to the window.
    The sky is yellow and greasy, and though