Roses Are Red

flickering votive flame and into my eyes. “Oh, Alex, I’m so sorry. You don’t need any more tests.”
    “I’m all right,” I told her. I didn’t want to get into it now, not even with Adele.
    “Oh, Alex, Alex.” She shook her head back and forth. “You know better than that. I know better.”
    “I’m fine, really.”
    Adele looked completely exasperated with me. “Fine, then. That will be one hundred for the visit. You can put it in the collection basket.”
    Adele walked back to her family, who were already seated about halfway down the center aisle. She turned, and looked at me. She wasn’t smiling now.
    When I got to our pew, Damon asked me who the pretty lady was that I’d been talking to in the back of the church.
    “She’s a doctor. A friend of mine,” I said, which was true enough.
    “Is she your doctor? What kind of doctor is she? She looks like she’s kind of mad at you,” he whispered. “What did you do wrong?”
    “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered back. “Don’t I get any privacy?”
    “No. Besides, we’re in church. I’m hearing your confession.”
    “I don’t have any confession for you to hear. I’m all right. I’m fine. I’m at peace with the world. I couldn’t be happier.”
    Damon gave me the same look of exasperation that Adele had. Then he shook his head and turned away. He didn’t believe me, either. When the collection basket came, I put in a hundred dollars.

Chapter 51
    THE MASTERMIND was keeping everything on a tight schedule. The clock inside his head was ticking loudly, always ticking.
    The best of the bank-robbing crews, the crème de la crème, was scheduled to meet with him in his suite at a Holiday Inn near Colonial Village in Washington. They were on time, of course. He had made it a formal condition of the meeting.
    Brian Macdougall swaggered into the suite ahead of the others. The Mastermind smiled at the absurdly cocksure way Macdougall carried himself. He knew that Macdougall would lead the way into the room. He was followed by his subordinates, B. J. Stringer and Robert Shaw.
The three of them look like anything but high-level thieves,
he thought. Two of the three wore royal-blue-and-white T-shirts from the same Long Island softball league.
    “Mr. O’Malley and Mr. Crews?” the Mastermind asked from behind the screen of lights that prohibited them from seeing him. “Where are they, might I ask?”
    Macdougall spoke for the group. “They have to work today. You gave us kind of short notice, partner. Three of us took off this morning. It’d look suspicious if we all called in sick.”
    The Mastermind continued to observe the three New York men sitting behind the lights. Each looked like your average Joe. In truth, they were the most dangerous of the bank-robbing crews he’d used. They were exactly what he needed for the next test.
    “So this is what, an audition?” Macdougall asked. He had on a black silk shirt, black trousers, and loafers. He had slicked-back black hair and a goatee.
    “An audition? No, not at all. The job is yours, if you want it. I know how you work. Know all about you. I know your track record.”
    Macdougall stared ahead at the bright lights, almost as if his gaze could penetrate them. “This needs to be a face-to-face meeting,” he said stonily. “That’s the
only
way we’ll do the job.”
    The Mastermind rose quickly. He was stunned and angry. The legs of his chair made a loud scraping noise against the floor. “You were told from the beginning that wasn’t possible. This meeting is
over.
”
    A heavy silence filled the hotel room. Macdougall looked over at Stringer and Shaw. He scratched his goatee a few times, then he laughed out loud. “I was just testing, partner. I guess we can live without seeing your face. If you have our payment with you?”
    “I have the money, gentlemen. Fifty thousand dollars. Just for meeting with me. I always keep my promises.”
    “And we walk away with the payment if we don’t like your plan for the job?”
    Now it was the Mastermind’s turn to smile. “You’ll like the plan,” he said. “You’ll especially like the part about your share. It’s fifteen million dollars. I’ll contact you later.”

Chapter 52
    “DID HE SAY FIFTEEN MILLION?”
    “That’s what the man said. What the hell are we supposed to rob?”
    Vincent O’Malley and Jimmy Crews weren’t at work that day. They were waiting inside a Toyota Camry and an Acura Legend, respectively.