Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

“Help, please! My rig’s burning and my buddy’s in there! Oh, man, help! Anyone, please! He’s dying!” Honcho yelled at the security guard on the other side of the glass-and-wrought-iron door.

Honcho had his hands on the side of his head, his face a perfect mask of agonized concern. Sometimes when he was in the groove, even Slick and Beast, who damn well knew better, found themselves believing the bullshit Honcho was slinging.

The guard was a big, mean-looking old white guy with a silver flattop, a crackerjack Clint Eastwood type. His name was Terence Francis Burns, Honcho knew from his research. The sixty-two-year-old hard-ass was an ex-marine and ex-NYPD cop who still ran five miles a day.

“Dude, help, please! He’s dying in there! Oh, shit! It’s on fire now! Buddy, GET OUT!” Honcho yelled, hopping around and waving his arms frantically at the truck as the smoke billowed at his back.

You had to hand it to the cynical old bad-ass, Honcho thought as he watched the guard trying to check out the situation using the security cameras on the outside of the building beside the awning.

That was when Slick, waiting a little ways off in the street with Beast, initiated phase two. He hit the clacker that set off the half stick of dynamite in the back of the dump truck.

Honcho knew it was going to be loud. But good golly, Miss Molly! he thought, biting his lip to keep from laughing. It sounded like freaking artillery!

Finally, Terry F. Burns, who had been in Nam during Tet and at the base of the burning, swaying Twin Towers on 9/11 saving people, leaped to his feet and pulled open the door.

“What for the love of Pete is going on out here?” the guard said, sticking his head out.

When he turned wide-eyed toward the blazing truck, Beast hit him hard in the back of the neck with the electric stun gun.

The geezer went down per the plan. What wasn’t part of the plan was the way he went straight down, tangling his power-forward-long arms and legs around the now-closing big, heavy door and blocking the threshold.

The lanky old bastard couldn’t even fall without being a pain in the ass, could he? Honcho thought, kicking at the dope as he wrestled to keep the Fort Knox–style door open.

Improvise! Honcho commanded himself.

He took out his big SIG SAUER 9-millimeter as he hopped over the guard like a malevolent Jack Be Nimble and put three—blamblamblam!—into the high-end jewelry store’s coffered ceiling.

“Down, down, down!” he yelled, pointing the gun in the faces of the three shock-struck clerks at the end of the plush mahogany-paneled retail space.

Beast finally got the door unblocked, and quick as spit, Slick went from the front to the back of the golden-lit store, popping one after another of the floor cases.

Instead of using a sledgehammer like on their last job, he used their latest toy, a compressed-air-powered captive-bolt pistol, the same cattle-killing device the security-glass industry used in its testing labs.

It worked like a charm. In twenty seconds, the five display cases were shattered to bits, and he and Beast and Slick were scooping and bagging and scooping and bagging, not individual diamonds but whole huge black-velvet display boards dripping with them.

Forty seconds from entering, they were out the door. They went north up Trinity, walking, not running, not turning around, taking it easy, trying not to draw attention to themselves. They completely ignored the flame-engulfed dump truck parked to the store’s south. It was stolen, after all.

Up the block on both sides of the street, people were standing on the sidewalks, emptying out of the stores and buildings to see what was going on. The looky-loos looked even more perplexed when the jewelry store alarm finally went off.

Honcho wasn’t worried about it. They would just think it was a fire alarm. Keeping calm, never breaking his easy stride, Honcho led his dream team to the alley at the near corner and turned west.

The hair on his arms stood on end as he heard a fire truck’s cranking siren blat in the distance behind him. As always, the mayhem he had just caused made him feel suddenly high, suddenly holy. Like a tightrope walker over the Grand Canyon. Like a barefoot guru over a bed of hot coals.

Now for the fun part, Honcho thought, hardly feeling the sidewalk under the soles of his boots as he walked shoulder to shoulder with his boys down the dusty old alley.

Now for the part where they disappeared.

CHAPTER 56

BRUNO SANTANELLA FINE JEWELERS was on Trinity Place in the downtown Financial District a block west of Broadway.

It was exactly five to one when I shrieked up to the crime scene tape and joined the squad cars sealing off the street half a block away.

It had taken me less than ten minutes to fire over here from nearby One Police Plaza after I’d gotten the call. But one glance out the window at the slowly milling police personnel and gathered crowds was enough to tell that I was too late. I was looking at a cold trail.

I showed my shield to a First Precinct sergeant by the tape and parked my Crown Vic alongside the brownstone wall of Trinity Church’s famous graveyard, where Alexander Hamilton was buried. As I tucked a fresh notebook into my jacket pocket and clipped my shield to my lapel, I did a double take at the completely scorched dump truck peeking out from between two fire trucks half a block north.

So the garbled first reports were true, I thought with a groan. There had been a burning truck and maybe even some sort of explosion. When I turned, I saw a Channel 2 camera van pull up at the perimeter behind me. I shook my head. I’d wanted a Major Crime, and it sure as hell looked like I’d just gotten one.