The Downside Read online

  As a reward, he was released five years earlier than Finn.

  “Come on in, man, sit down.” Jake pulled some metal chairs from the computer table. “I wrote you a letter when I got out, that’s how you found me, right?’

  “They weren’t real good about passing on the mail.”

  “I felt bad.”

  Finn nodded. “Not your fault.”

  “I know what you said, but still.”

  Finn always told them, if something goes wrong, you do what’s right. We don’t shoot anybody, we don’t knock people around, we’re just picking stuff up. No one’s getting thirty years for a pile of scrap metal. The authorities want you to talk, go ahead and talk.

  “You only gave them the one job,” Finn said. “And I was the one in charge, so fair enough.”

  “Seven years.” Jake sighed. “I’m sorry, man.”

  He found some Stewart’s Root Beer, popped the bottles open off the edge of the desk. Rain drummed on the roof.

  “Shop looks nice,” Finn said.

  “There’s a reentry program.” Jake handed him a bottle. “This volunteer used to come into the pen, help us write résumés and shit. She told me about it. They helped me get the licenses, all that.”

  Starting the business would have taken cash, too. Jake had always been careful with his money, putting some aside after every job. Planning ahead. No surprise he’d done a better job than Finn hiding it from the law. Sure.

  Or maybe Jake had gotten paid on the side for turning them in. Finn still couldn’t figure out why he would have done it, but the suspicion nagged.

  It blunted the pleasure of the reunion.

  “Gone straight, then,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  “Aw, you know.”

  “Who’s Perricona?”

  “Guy I bought the building from. Easier to leave the sign up.”

  “You’re doing good.”

  The shop wasn’t busy, though. Stock shelves in the rear had bar and plate steel, but Finn didn’t see half-finished projects anywhere. The welding table sat empty. And Jake was alone, on a weekday afternoon.

  “Getting by.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Not much manufacturing around here anymore. Everything’s gone off to China or Vietnam or some fucking place.”

  “Hard to make the rent, huh?”

  “Some months.” Jake drank some soda. “Okay, most months.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nah. So what are you doing now?”

  “Not sure yet. Looking at things.”

  “It’s tough.” Unexpectedly, he grinned, taking Finn back—Jake, always the devilish charming one, always ahead of the joke. “We’re old, man.”

  “You? And I’m not even forty.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Fuck you.” Finn laughed. “Getting close to forty, I admit, but not over the line yet.”

  “I dunno.” Jake’s grin faded. “What’d you think about it?”

  “Think about what?”

  “Being inside, all those other fuckups all around you every minute? You ever seen so much plain stupid in one place before?”

  “You got a point there.”

  “I ain’t going back.”

  “Uh-huh.” Finn looked away, studied Jake’s rack of shaping tools. “That go for your customers, too?”

  “Huh.” Jake took a long pull at his Stewart’s and set the bottle on the floor by his chair. “Sitting outside awhile, were you?”

  Finn’s turn to shrug. “Whatever bit of tooling you made for him, he wasn’t taking it back to a worksite. Not in that car.”

  Jake laughed. “I know, man, I know. I told him that, too, but he says it’s perfect camouflage everywhere else. Park anywhere and no one looks twice.”

  “And where does he park?”

  “Here and there.” Jake leaned his chair back. “Down the street from rich people’s mansions, sometimes.”

  “Ah.” Finn nodded. “Special tools, then.”

  “Custom work. You can always charge a good premium for custom.”

  Finn thought about it. “You’re not making picks, are you? Housebreaking tools? Because, I mean, even seven years ago you could get all that stuff on the internet. No reason for someone to come all the way out here, you can just order it from Amazon.”

  “Sure, you can do all that. Of course, you have to know how to hide your tracks online, in case the cops go looking for some reason. Plus you need a mail drop. Plus a credit card, preferably with a fake name.” He picked up his root beer. “Guys like Joey, it’s easier for them to come here.”

  “Uh-huh.” Finn thinking, hard to get much more small-time than that. Jake couldn’t be more than scraping by.

  “Anyway, he’s a good kid.”

  “Wouldn’t sell you out, would he, this Eagle Scout?”

  “Course not.”

  The steady drum of rain on the roof had eased, and Finn could hear a heavy engine starting up next door. A front loader, maybe, moving scrap metal around. The smell of the machine shop had worked its way into his subconscious, a familiar tang of oil and metal. He felt … at home. Back where he belonged.

  “They did a good job rehabilitating you,” Finn said.

  “Yeah, well. How about you?”

  “Put it this way: No one’s hiring.”

  “No shit.”

  “I thought I was done.” Finn sighed. “But it’s not that easy.”

  “What have you got?” Jake was serious now.

  “One last job,” Finn said.

  The shop was on the cold side. Okay for work but not for sitting. Finn shifted deeper into his jacket.

  “What is it?” Jake’s interest was undisguised.

  “It’s impossible. It’s the hardest target you can imagine, protected by unbreakable security. No one’s worried because infiltration is literally inconceivable. You’d need a million dollars and a James Bond arsenal just to get started.”

  “Do you have a million dollars?”

  “Nope. The arsenal, though …” He gestured slightly at the machines.

  Jake stood up, not saying anything, and walked back to his bench. He moved a few tools, straightening up, then turned and leaned against the edge, arms crossed.

  “A big one,” he said.

  “It could be.”

  “Risky?”

  Finn couldn’t help smiling. “It’s the destination not the journey.”

  The door rattled and a pair of men ducked inside, their coats dark with rain. One carried a plastic blueprint tube, the other a scuffed leather folder.

  Maybe Jake wasn’t quite at rock bottom. The tiny nagging suspicion … Finn couldn’t read him, not like he used to.

  “Hey, Jake,” the first man said. “Brought the plans over.” He looked at Finn. “This a good time?”

  “Sure.” Finn was already standing, and he set his root beer on the desk. “We were just wrapping up.”

  Jake came over for a departure handshake. “Good to see you, man.”

  “You busy tomorrow morning? Early?”

  “Not sure.”

  “We’ll take a look at the job site. You tell me what you think.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No harm in it.” Finn nodded to the newcomers. “Still raining, huh?”

  “All day long.”

  “It’s that time of year.” He looked back at Jake. “Early, like I said.”

  “Okay, man.” The grin. “Can’t hurt to look.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  At dawn, the industrial park lay quiet, none of its hardscrabble manufacturers working a third shift. Security lights flickered off as the sky lightened. An inland breeze picked up, bringing the smell of salt marsh and the cawing of waking birds. Chemical plants and tank farms
ran right to the edge of the wetlands, a porous barrier of asphalt and chain link between them.

  David had arrived an hour earlier, slipping noiselessly to his chosen vantage and easing his ballistic carryall to the ground. Since then, sipping broth from a black thermos, he’d seen only a few vehicles drive past. None entered the park. He was careful not to look east, where the sun’s first rays might dazzle his eyes. The previous day’s rain had cleared the air, and the day was forecast bright and cloudless.

  Fifteen minutes beforehand, he extracted his equipment from the padded case, softly clicking it together with practiced ease. By habit that probably revealed his age, he sighted in with the optical rangefinder before activating the digital readout. A hundred and fifty meters, close enough. He ran through the rest of his checklist automatically, every step critical.

  You only get one shot.

  He looked at his watch—another old guy’s habit, since the digital screen carried a min-sec stamp in the corner—and capped the thermos. He knew the schedule as well as the operators themselves. In the distance, a train whistle sounded, clear in the dewy air, and David nodded to himself. The grade crossing at Route 16, exactly on time. He bent to his eyepiece, breathed out, and focused. His hands, resting lightly on the controls, were perfectly still.

  A few wisps of predawn fog remained in the shadow of the nearest chemical tank. The single-track feeder curved from around back. Just as the lead locomotive thundered into view, a flock of wading birds rose, squawking and flapping around it. It was an extraordinary sight—a dark blue SD70M in full roar, banked on the curve, a dozen pink, black, and white herons caught in midflight above it. In that split second, David knew he had the shot of his life … Then a pickup slammed over the curb behind him, spraying gravel as it skidded to a halt, one door ricocheting open. David fumbled, his fingers slipping off the grip. He straightened up and began to swear, loudly.

  “I knew you’d be here!” The driver was a young guy, military haircut, big grin. He came over as the locomotive hammered past, the train making so much noise that neither man tried to say more. David shook his head, looking sadly at the camera in his hand.

  When the train had gone and silence returned, David said, “This better be good, Sean.”

  “The CEO’s coming in this morning.”

  “So?”

  “So you have to be there. They’ve been calling all around trying to find you. Where’s your phone, anyway?”

  “In the car.” David glanced at his gray Interceptor parked farther down. Three antennas and a lightbar made it look police, but the door logo was Penn Southern’s. “Didn’t want the interruptions.”

  “I figured.”

  “It’s so important, they could have told me yesterday. What’s the big meeting about, anyway?”

  “Dunno. Too secret for me.”

  “Really?” David felt a stirring of interest. “Who’s in?”

  “You and Boggs. Don’t know more than that.”

  “Is there a problem someone forgot to tell me about?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “All right.” David packed up the camera, careful with the lenses but not wasting time. “I’ll follow you back. They waiting now?”

  “Boggs is with the dispatchers, making everyone nervous.”

  “I bet.” He stood up, case in one hand, tripod in the other. “Call ahead and send someone over to Tip Top Donut. Boggs likes the ones with cream inside.”

  “Will do.”

  At the car door, he paused. “You really have no idea?”

  Sean shook his head. “Something big.”

  “Of course.” David slung the camera gear into his passenger seat, next to the shotgun. “But Boggs doesn’t always get the priorities right.”

  David Keegan loved his job because, first and last, he loved trains. And always had. He’d grown up so close to the New York Central, he could watch the signalmen in their tower next to his backyard. At ten years old, he recognized the reporting marks of a hundred railroads and could distinguish a GP7 locomotive from a GP9 with one glance at the radiator screens. In high school, he built a Heathkit scanner, mounted it in his Dodge, and soon knew as much about operations as the yard’s trainmaster. Unlike many railfans, a mostly law-abiding and conservative lot, he even hopped freights, hoboing around the country during summer breaks.

  But for all that, he never wanted to be an engineer. You could go deaf rattling around on your bedroll in a freezing boxcar, and fifteen-hour shifts in the cab didn’t seem like enough of an improvement. So he avoided drugs and hippies and the counterculture generally—albeit not without an occasional wistful glance—and joined the police academy straight out of high school. An occupational exemption from the draft was a bonus. In 1972, while his friends went to love-ins and Vietnam, David became a special railway agent on the Pennsylvania Southern.

  Four and a half tumultuous decades later, through mergers, abandonments, deregulation, the collapse of most major roads and the consolidation of the rest, Penn Southern somehow survived—and so did David. Almost at retirement, he was now special agent in charge for the railroad’s busiest district, centered on Newark. He and a few dozen officers patrolled eight yards, two thousand miles of track, and more vandals, thieves, vagrants, criminal rings, and white-collar fraud than anywhere else in North America. He had solved murders, broken up gangs so organized they could strip a container bare in fifteen minutes, and recovered three million dollars stashed in a Caribbean bank by a bent procurement executive. He had saved lives and, once, killed a drug-addled squatter who attacked him with a bowie knife under a trestle.

  His phone buzzed. It took a moment to find it on the seat, under the camera case. Driving one-handed, he swiped open the connection.

  “I had a call from the yard.” Sean’s voice. “Wondering where the hell you are.”

  “Guess we better step on it.”

  “Code three?” Sean’s voice perked up.

  “What the hell.” David found the dashboard switches without looking and flicked on his lightbar. “Skip the siren for now, though, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  Sean’s truck accelerated, his own blue lights strobing. Morning traffic was heavy with commuters, but they got out of the way fast enough when they saw his big grille in their rearviews. He used the air horn at intersections, clearing a path. David stuck right behind, content to let the kid have his fun.

  They drove through the Ironbound, the old industrial docklands. Huge freight cranes loomed in the distance, trundling stacks of containers on and off cargo ships. Less than a minute later, Sean turned onto Caleb Street, which ran alongside the southeast perimeter of Penn Southern’s yard.

  Halfway down the long block, he noticed a cluster of people standing in front of one of the industrial buildings across the street. It was an old warehouse, empty since a freight forwarder went broke in the last recession. Two men and a young woman were on the truck lot in front, looking up at the building. A shiny, old-fashioned Land Rover was parked alongside. The males wore unremarkable work jackets and boots, while she was dressed for business—nice skirt and coat—and a looker to boot. No doubt she was the real estate agent. The other guy was on his cell phone.

  David thought it would be nice to see the economy finally picking up again. Railroad traffic had been holding its own, but the customers were always hurting.

  Sean had gotten way ahead, already turning the corner a quarter mile down. David put his attention back on the road, making a mental note to see who ended up leasing the warehouse.

  Keeping track of the neighbors was all part of the job.

  When the two police vehicles disappeared into the rail yard, Jake looked at Finn.

  “Code three,” he said. “Wonder what that was about.”

  “Just a reminder.”

  “What?”

  Finn put his ha
nds in his pockets. “Not to relax. They’ve got a decent-size police force in there.”

  “That wasn’t police,” Emily said. “Just railroad security guards.”

  “They have guns and radios. Makes the question of arrest authority kind of moot, in our case.”

  The sun was up, illuminating the sides of the buildings in a golden glow. The contrast of the deep blue sky above, barely tinged with Newark’s inevitable smog, looked like a nineteenth-century romantic’s oil painting. The breeze, which had started out light, began to rise.

  Finn turned back to peer at the rail yard. “Like I was saying, it’s that cinder-block bunker all by itself there. Just inside the fence.”

  “Doesn’t look like much.” Jake fiddled with the small laser rangefinder he’d pretended to be making a call on when the prowl car drove past. “I’m getting … one hundred seventeen meters.”

  “Plus another ten or so this side, into the warehouse.”

  Jake studied the building. The wind blew scraps of paper from the road’s curb.

  “Hard to say anything from here,” he said.

  They walked over. The business door was solid metal and solidly locked. Around the side, three truck bay doors were actually welded shut, but two had small safety-glass windows at eye level. Jake squinted through one.

  “Can’t see shit. Wish we had a key.”

  “The broker can show us, but we don’t really need to get inside yet. You know what it’ll be like—empty.”

  “Concrete floor?”

  “I assume.”

  Emily was on her phone, swiping through email. “You don’t need me anymore, right?” she said.

  “No, we’re good.”

  “Nice meeting you,” Jake said.

  Emily walked to the Land Rover. They watched her back out, wave once, and drive down Caleb Street.

  “That is one fine-looking young woman,” said Jake.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Why, are you—?”

  “Because this is a job, you moron.”

  “Just saying.” He paused, a slow grin starting. “You reacted kind of strong there, man.”