Remember When

then Myers hadn't done anything more than be stupid enough to believe he was entitled to a quarter of the take. And greedy enough to meet him alone, in a closed construction site, in the middle of the night when promised a bigger cut.
    Really, the man hadn't deserved to live if you thought about it.
    In any case, he'd been a loose end that required snipping. The trail would have led to him eventually. He'd have bragged to someone, or would have thrown money around, squandering it on tasteless cars or women or God knew what that class of people considered desirable.
    He'd blubbered and begged and sobbed like a baby when Crew held the gun to his head.
    Distasteful display, really, but what could one expect?
    He'd also handed over the key to the mailbox locker where he'd stashed the Raggedy Andy doll with a bag of gems in its belly.
    Genius, really, he had to give O'Hara credit for that little touch. Tucking millions of dollars'
    worth of gems into innocuous objects, objects no one would look at twice. So when the alarms went off, the building locked down, the cops swarmed, no one would consider all those pretty stones were still inside, tucked into something as innocent as a child's doll. Then it was just a matter of retrieving the extraordinary within the ordinary while the search went on elsewhere.
    Yes, he could give Jack credit for that amusing detail, but that didn't negate all the debits.
    They could hardly be trusted to hold millions of dollars' worth of gems for the year they'd agreed to. How could he possibly trust thieves to keep their word?
    After all, he'd had no intention of keeping his.
    Besides, he wanted it all. Had always intended to take it all. The others had merely been tools.
    When a tool had served its purpose, you discarded it. Better, you destroyed it.
    But they'd deceived him, slipped through his fingers and taken half the prize with them. And cost him weeks of time and effort. He had to worry that they'd be caught pulling one of the pitiful scams Big Jack was so fond of, and end up confessing to the heist and losing half his property.
    They should be dead now. The fact that one of them continued to live, to breathe, to walk, to hide, was a personal insult. He never tolerated insults.
    His plan had been simple and clean. Myers first, execution style to make it seem as if one of his gambling debts had caught up with him. Then O'Hara and Young, bumbling idiots. They should have been where he'd told them to be, but they were too stupid to follow instructions.
    If they had, he'd have contacted them as he'd planned, planted seeds of worry over Myers's demise and arranged for a meet in a quiet, secluded location not unlike the one he was dining in now.
    There, he could have dealt with them both with little effort as neither had the stomach to so much as carry a weapon. He'd have left enough evidence to link them to the New York job, and set the scene to look, even to the most moronic cop, like a matter of thieves falling out.
    But they'd vanished on him. Scuttled his careful planning by attempting to go underground. Over a month now, it had taken over a month to finally pick up the trail and track Willy back to New York, only to miss him by inches and be forced to spend more time, more effort, more money to chase him to Maryland.
    Then lose him to a traffic accident.
    Shaking his head, Crew cut another bite of bloody steak. He'd never be able to collect directly from Willy now, so that account would be transferred to Big Jack-and the rest.
    How to do it was the question, and the possibilities entertained him through the rest of his meal.
    Did he go after the girl directly at this point, sweat her father's location and the whereabouts of the gems out of her? But if Willy had died before giving her any salient information, that would be a wasted effort.
    Then there was this Maxfield Gannon to factor in. It might be wise to do a bit of research there, find out just what sort of man he was. One amenable to a bribe, perhaps? Obviously, he knew something about the girl or he wouldn't have been sneaking into her shop.
    Or, and the thought struck him like an arrow in the heart, she had already cut a deal with Gannon.
    And that would be too bad, he thought slapping his fist on the table again and again. That would be too bad for all involved.
    He wasn't going to settle for half. It was not acceptable. Therefore, he would find a way to get back the rest of his property.
    The girl was the key. What she knew or