The Heist

The Big Adventure, Wilma was finding it hardto get a job driving heavy equipment what with the economy in the toilet and her not belonging to a union. She’d had a short stint flying tourists over the Everglades until she crashed her plane in the swamp and it was discovered she wasn’t licensed to fly. Ditto the job she wrangled flying a helicopter, spraying toxic chemicals over mosquito-infested Port Charlotte.
    It was while Wilma was recovering from the helicopter crash that she got the idea to be a contestant on
The Amazing Race
. She figured she was a cinch to win, since she’d be good as new as soon as they took the pins out of her broken ankle. She’d win
The Amazing Race
, and she’d be rich and famous. She’d buy a sweet piece of land somewhere with her winnings, and maybe she’d buy a backhoe to drive around. And it might have happened too if Wilma hadn’t had a stroke of bad luck.
    Wilma and her best friend, Loretta Sue, were inches from making the last cut for
The Amazing Race
when it was discovered that Wilma had “borrowed” a freight train to make the tryouts on time when her Ford crapped out. Loretta Sue was let go on a technicality, being she wasn’t the one driving the borrowed train. Wilma was arraigned in Solano County court, where she was represented by a public defender. Bail was set at $35,000, but it might as well have been $350,000. There was no way Wilma could raise the cash, so she was remanded to a cell at the Solano County jail in Fairfield to await trial. It would be an enormous understatement to say that she was stunned when a deputy came to her cell, where she’d been sitting for six weeks, and told her that her bail had been posted and she was free to go.
    Two days before, Nick had been in Cape Girardeau. Now here he was on a bench outside Solano County’s Romanesque courthouse,which was set back from the palm-lined street behind a large crabgrass lawn. He watched Wilma walk out of the courthouse and knew he’d made a good choice. She’d be perfect for his purposes. She was another natural grifter. She was fearless. She had talent. She was desperate.
    He recognized her from her picture in the paper. Average height and average weight except for the boobs. The boobs weren’t average. She was wearing skintight jeans, a poison-green tank top, and platform raffia-wrapped wedge sandals that had about a five-inch heel. She had bleached-out blond hair pulled into a haystack ponytail. She was in her mid-fifties, but thanks to her boob job and either good genes or some nip and tuck she looked younger. If the light was dim enough and her date was drunk enough, she might even pass for late thirties.
    Nick stood and waved to her, and she walked over to him.
    “Hey, hon,” she said. “Were you waving at me? And is that a bag of candy you’re holding? Isn’t that kind of a cliché?”
    “They’re jelly beans fresh from the Jelly Belly factory here in town. While I was waiting for your bail to be processed, I took the tour. They’ve got a portrait of Ronald Reagan made out of jelly beans. Just think, if jelly beans had been around in Leonardo da Vinci’s time, the
Mona Lisa
might look very different today.”
    She looked him up and down. “So you’re the one who bailed me out?”
    “Yep.”
    “Well, you’re cute as a button and you got a bag of jelly beans. A girl couldn’t ask for much more. I’m guessing you’re a Hollywood producer sent by
The Amazing Race
. They changed their minds, right?”
    “Wrong.”
    “Then what’s the deal?”
    “I want you to drive cars and fly airplanes for a project I’m putting together.”
    “My driver’s license was revoked and I don’t have a pilot’s license,” she said.
    “A license is just a piece of paper. It means nothing to me. What I care about is that you’re a quick learner, you can steer anything, and you’re willing to take chances.”
    “And I’d want to drive these cars and airplanes for you why?”
    “I got you out of jail, and I can make the criminal charges against you go away.”
    “How can you do that?”
    “I have friends in very high places in law enforcement,” Nick said.
    “What if I decide to walk away right now?”
    “I lose thirty-five thousand dollars,” Nick said.
    “And I’ll have you chasing me? Not that I’d mind, being you’re a little hottie, but still …”
    Nick shook his head. “I don’t chase people. I do, however, swindle them. That’s what this is all about. I want