A Legitimate Businessman

  A Legitimate Businessman

  Dale M. Nelson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Author’s Note

  If you enjoyed A Legitimate Businessman you can make a difference.

  Also by Dale M. Nelson

  Aknowledgements

  About the Author

  One

  They had five minutes inside once they got through the wall.

  “Get ready,” Jack said in a low, steady voice.

  He looked across the lamp-lit space between himself and Gaston Broussard. The Frenchman simply nodded. Jack turned to the smallish, hunched-over man behind him.

  Jack said, “We go in,” but Enzo Bachetti jutted his chin and flashed a look of mild annoyance that said get on with it. As the clock ticked off to the start of a job, Enzo acted like a particularly unscrupulous electrician had wired his nerves.

  A large battery-powered construction lamp at Jack and Gaston’s feet illuminated the cinder-block wall in front of them. Gabrielle said this had once been a stockroom for the previous tenant’s coffee shop and therefore hadn’t had the additional plaster or Sheetrock that they would’ve found in a front room. Gabrielle Eberspach, the group’s front, rented this space under the guise of opening one of those trendy pastry shops that were so popular now. She’d signed the lease with a fake name, and the landlord had been so eager to sign Gabrielle, or her legs, he let her talk him down on the deposit to about five thousand Euros. Going in through the wall would give them more time on the inside since they’d bypass the alarms on the doors and windows. Shops like this never had seismic or motion sensors. With that extra time, they’d more than double their take, and the front money would be little more than a rounding error.

  Jack looked at his watch, a black and orange G-Shock that would get an acid bath along with his clothes once they were done.

  “Three,” he said in a stage whisper, feeling a surge of nervous energy.

  Gaston nodded and sucked in a heavy breath. The Frenchman picked up a concrete saw that sat next to the business end of a sledge. He sighted it against the masonry lines on the wall and then nodded to Jack. Burdette looked over at Enzo. Enzo Bachetti, the once-burley but still stocky safecracker hovered on one knee over the black leather satchel he used to carry his tools. Bachetti reviewed, again, the contents through the light of his head lamp, just on the off chance that they’d changed since the last time he’d looked.

  Jack said, “Two,” and they all pulled masks up over their noses and put on safety glasses. Gaston pulled the starter on the concrete saw, and its small motor coughed to life. The saw sputtered and dropped in pitch to a throaty chuckle, like a bartender at a biker bar. Jack opened his phone and typed the letter “x,” but didn’t send.

  They heard a distant pop outside, louder than a gunshot but less than thunder. Then another, followed by two more. Jack sighed. If you could count on the Spaniards for anything, and it was best not to make a habit of that, it was to be on time for a party. Fireworks exploded outside, announcing the start of the Fallas Fiestas, a five-day celebration commemorating St. Joseph. It was an explosion of light, wine, and sound. Lots of sound. Fireworks, music, and sangria-fueled revelry would blanket the streets for the rest of the night. Somebody would have to be sitting in the back room of the boutique to hear Jack and his crew coming through.

  “One.”

  Gaston jabbed the wall with the saw, and the pitch raised sharply to a crunching whine. Jack pushed “send,” transmitting the “x” to the driver’s disposable phone. Outside, Ozren Stolar would be reading it in their Fiat Doblò.

  Gaston traced the masonry lines on the wall with the saw, carving an outline of the cinder blocks. Once he reached the lowest line, Gaston cut a three-foot-wide swath and then pulled the saw back up. The air was thick with dust. Gaston completed his work, cutting the top part of their portal, holding the saw just above shoulder height. The outline complete, Gaston split it into three segments so that it could be pushed in more easily. The Frenchman powered down the saw and set it aside. Jack joined him at the wall, and they pushed. The sound of stone scraping against stone was quickly followed by a loud crash as the first segment fell against the floor on the far side of the hole. They followed with the second and third segments, the latter pulled into their room instead of the connecting room at Bulgari.

  Jack checked his watch again—nine minutes down.

  Motes of masonry dust still clung to the air. Gaston coughed once, despite the mask. The air was thick, and they could taste the masonry in their mouths.

  They stepped through. Jack and Gaston used penlights to guide their way to the front room. Enzo would be in back with the safe. When they first started working together, nearly twenty years before, Jack learned Bachetti came from a long line of watchmakers and had even apprenticed with Bulgari in his youth. Then, he discovered that the precise attention to detail, the exacting craftsmanship that he loved about watchmaking applied equally to safe construction—or more to the point, to opening them. A safe was like a woman, a deeply complicated and temperamental puzzle. The seduction required an engineer’s mind, a doctor‘s hand, and an Italian’s style.

  “Two minutes,” Jack said. He opened his phone again and texted Ozren two x’s, and then he set to work in the boutique’s showroom. The display cases were red herrings that professionals learned to avoid. Storefront displays were alarmed and almost always contained flashy costume pieces that were worth nothing, meant to draw potential customers in. The valuable pieces of finished jewelry and the watches would be locked in secured drawers beneath the interior display cases. Sometimes these drawers were alarmed as well, but typically only in the flagship stores found in major cities. Jack and Gaston worked opposite sides of the room. Jack knelt, penlight between his teeth and plied the drawer’s lock with his picks. These were uncomplicated locks and Jack had them open in a few seconds. Bulgari obviously relied on whatever precautions they’d made on the exterior doors.

  Jack had nearly finished emptying the contents of the second drawer into the velvet-lined pouch when his phone vibrated. Jack set his tools down, uttering a hushed curse. Jack opened the phone, finding a text message of a single letter—“P.” That meant Ozren spotted a pedestrian near the van.

  Jack went to the next drawer, moving a little quicker than before.

  Jack looked down at his phone a few minutes later, but there wasn’t another update from Ozren. “Enzo, how are we doing on the safe?” Though the safecracker was in the other room, Jack knew the look that would be on his face, the lemon-suck expression he always gave when questioned about his progress.

  “I’m already through,” he shot back in a harsh, clipped whisper that made Jack smirk.

  Jack looked up from his case, seeing only the wraith-like outline of Gaston working the other side of the room. Display cases ringed the outside wall of the boutique’s main room, with two larger ones in the center. Jack moved from the third case to the fourth. It was open in thirty seconds. He took the penlight out of his mouth for a moment and resisted the urge to spit the mass of metallic-tasting saliva onto the floor. Jack s
hined the light into the drawer he’d just opened. Watches. Watches were easier to fence because they didn’t have to be broken down for their components like the jewelry pieces did. You just had to be mindful of serial numbers.

  He emptied them into his backpack and moved over to the last case.

  “I’m done here,” Gaston said softly.

  “Okay. I’m just finishing up. Go see if Enzo needs anything.”

  Jack finished his work in another ninety seconds and moved back to the safe where he found Enzo and Gaston emptying trays of stones, large pieces, and stacks of Euros into bags.

  Enzo leaned back, and Jack heard the safecracker’s knees pop. He gingerly set the last black velvet bag into his backpack, zipped it, and stood. Light from his glasses-mounted head lamps splashed his companions.

  They quickly repacked their gear and made their way back through the wall and into the dark and empty corridors of the coffee shop. Some of the remnants of the building’s prior owners still haunted the place—half-filled cardboard boxes, a random poster, a trampled flyer, a stack of to-go cups still in their plastic wrappers. Jack was last out of the store and closed the door behind him. He walked across the small garage and tossed his bag into the back of the idling Doblò in the alley.

  He’d just finished pulling the slatted garage door down when he saw the body. The form was slumped over in the alley across from the van. Jack wouldn’t have seen it…him—he hoped it was still a “him”—but for the red glow of the brake lights. He took a tentative step toward the body when Ozren must have spotted him in the side mirror.

  “Jack, for fuck’s sake, let’s go!”

  Jack spun his head around and shot his driver a hard glare through the red glow of the brake lights. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s fine. He’s just a drunk.”

  Jack walked up the side of the van. “It’s not fine, Ozren. What the hell happened?” he said through the open driver’s window, jabbing the air between himself and the body with his finger.

  “He’s just some guy that was out walking around and started hanging out in the plaza,” the driver motioned with his hand, “fucking around with his phone. He wouldn’t leave, and then he saw the van. I thought he was going to get suspicious, so I knocked him out.”

  “Jesus Christ, Ozren,” was all Jack said. He couldn’t read the Serb’s expression in the instrument panel’s reflected half-light. His eyes were little more than black pits.

  Jack disappeared from the side and went to check on the man. He was still wearing his gloves, so Jack chanced touching him. He lifted the man’s chin and moved his head to the side. The man groaned painfully. He was still alive and was starting to come around. Jack stood and ran back to the van, closing the door behind him. “Go!”

  Ozren put the Doblò into drive and pulled right into the connecting alley that led to Calle de la Universidad, gradually making his way west. “You’re lucky he’s alive,” Jack said.

  “Then it is as you say, ‘No harm, no foul.’”

  Two

  “Would you like another, Mr. Fischer?”

  Jack looked from his Kindle to his Omega Speedmaster. They had another forty-five minutes or so before landing at SFO. “I thought you’d never ask.” The flight attendant smiled and departed, returning with a glass of the ‘09 G.D. Vajra Barbera d’Alba, replacing the empty one on his tray.

  “Thank you, Ann,” he said. She smiled.

  The flight attendant was a warm but tired mid-forty something with tall and lithe figure that she apparently worked very hard to maintain. She was attractive, though not without the evidence of hard-earned miles around her eyes. She had no obvious signs of attachment beyond the United wings on her blouse and an American flag pin. Ann wore her blonde hair in a bun that had gradually been unraveling despite her best efforts on the long flight from Frankfurt. Somewhere over the Midwest, she’d given up and accepted the inevitable. “When are we going to see some of your wines onboard, Mr. Fischer?” As she spoke, Ann lowered herself into that yoga chair-squat pose that only flight attendants could pull off in heels, resting her arm on the Jack’s armrest for balance.

  Jack smiled. “Soon, I hope. We’re talking with a company that services some of the airlines and a few cruise ship companies. We name all of our wines after birds so it seems like a perfect fit for you.” Jack flashed a charming smile.

  Ann smiled. “Well, I’ll have to come by your winery the next time I have a layover in San Francisco.”

  “We’d love to have you. Here.” Jack reached for the bag he had stashed in the small cubby in his first class suite. After a few seconds of casual searching, he removed a card case. Jack opened the case and handed Ann his card. “Give me a call anytime you want to drop by. I’ll make sure we take good care of you.”

  “I will,” she said with a long smile. “Enjoy your wine.” She slid her arm from his armrest and tapped the base of his wineglass with her index finger. The blue fingernail polish matched her uniform. “And let me know if I can get you anything else.”

  Jack smiled up at her as she stood and went to see to the other passengers in first class. Jack pushed back into his seat and stretched his legs in front of him before taking another sip from his glass. What he’d told Ann wasn’t quite true. They were nowhere near landing an account with a distributor that handled the airlines. He was only in a few restaurants in Napa, fewer in San Francisco, and none of the ones that mattered. In fact, Jack hadn’t heard from the distributor’s buyer in about two weeks, and they were supposed to have had another meeting before Jack went to Europe. He made a note to go over to their offices when he got home. Another thing to add to the never-ending list of things demanding his attention. This was something that he should have Megan handle for him, but no, Jack needed to do this himself. He needed to own the negotiations. He drank again and tried to push those thoughts from his head. He wasn’t ready for the “Frank Fischer” problems yet. There was still much to sort out from the Valencia job.

  Their take was about nine hundred thousand dollars, very good for a jewelry store. Because the store was in a fashion center, the jewelers sold heavier and flashier products to cater to their high-end clientele. They had a bigger inventory of expensive items thanks to the festival. Their fence—a Turkish gang that Jack had worked with often—bought the pieces and the watches at forty-five cents on the dollar. That was above standard, but one of the benefits of working with a fence you knew. Most fences wouldn’t go higher than thirty.

  The Turks bought the the jewelry mostly for the stones, so they could resell them on the gray market in Europe and the Middle East. A lot of otherwise reputable jewelry makers bought gray market stones because they could get them so much cheaper than they could from the conglomerates or the wholesalers. The watches would go for a little more for because those could be sold as is.

  The Turks paid Jack four hundred five thousand. Reginald LeGrande, Jack’s fixer, would get five percent of that for setting up the job, fronting the money, and hiring the crew. The remainder was split evenly five ways, around eighty-five thousand to each member of the crew, including Jack, who never took more than anyone else. Double-crosses happened when people got greedy or felt they didn’t get their share. When law enforcement agencies infiltrated burglary rings, it was almost always through a crewmember who felt they weren’t getting what they deserved. Either they started doing sloppy work on the side, or worse, they volunteered information out of spite. Jack avoided this by giving everyone an equal stake in the job. Over time, he built up a reputation. There was nothing egalitarian about it, and it forced him to take more jobs, but it also reduced his exposure to law enforcement.

  The other way Jack avoided law enforcement was being extremely selective about whom he worked with.

  Setting the crew was Reginald’s responsibility, and he would need to sort out the situation with that lunatic Serb. Their usual wheel was a Welshman named Bart and was a semi-pro rally driver when he wasn’t idling in front of jewelr
y stores. Bart passed on the Valencia job because he was actually racing, and they’d needed Ozren to fill in.

  Jack hated violence and didn’t tolerate it with his crews. It was one thing to steal from a company that paid insurance to be protected, but Ozren had beaten that guy to within an inch of his life. He was no threat, and Ozren had done it without hesitation or remorse. He was practiced in violence. If Reginald wanted to use the guy on other jobs, fine. It was better for Jack that the Serb continued to get work. There was nothing more volatile than a thief with an ax to grind. Jack just didn’t want Ozren on his crews.

  Jack took another sip and held the glass in front of him, absently studying it. He watched the red liquid shift its position in the glass, slowly climbing up one side as the 777 banked. The pilot announced they had begun their final descent into SFO. Jack drank again, savoring the Barbera. Most people hated air travel, particularly international, but Jack enjoyed the solitude. Most of the time when he was on an aircraft, Jack was transitioning between his life as Jack Burdette and his life as Frank Fischer. He came to appreciate the few hours of isolation and sanctuary where the dividing lines between those lives were clear and easily parsed. There was a kind of peace and freedom in that transition between lives even though he was trapped on a plane with a fixed destination.

  Jack felt a subtle shift in how his body pressed against the seat. He finished his wine and set it on the tray built into his chair. Then, he removed the cognac-colored leather travel wallet he kept his Frank Fischer passport in. He thumbed through the passport and recommitted the details to memory. Frank Fischer was born on May 18, 1967 in Chicago, IL. Then, he rehearsed the conversations he was likely to have clearing customs. Business or pleasure? Business, but I try to have a good time. I was visiting some Italian winemakers in a similar climate. I’m thinking of planting Sangiovese in my plot and wanted some advice. At which point the customs official stamps Jack’s passport, wholly uninterested in his viticulture plans.