The Heist

victories. Burnside cared about the money. And federal prosecutors didn’t make much money. So Burnside had no regrets or moral qualms about leaving the Justice Department and becoming a criminal defense attorney, trading his Men’s Wearhouse suits for Tom Ford, his Chevy Malibu for a Maserati Quattroporte, and his two-bedroom Culver City apartment for a secluded Bel Air mansion.
    As far as truth and justice goes, he’d decided those were flexible concepts that depended entirely on a person’s social and political standing, and how much money they earned. That’s why he didn’t represent accused murderers, child molesters, kidnappers, or rapists unless they happened to be movie stars, major sports figures, or CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
    Burnside’s sleep aid of choice was a big steak dinner washed down by a bottle of excellent wine with a chaser of sex. Tonight he was presently about to move on to the chaser stage. He was at Mastro’s in Beverly Hills with a woman he’d “friended” on Facebook and was seeing in the flesh for the first time. And there was a lot of flesh to see because she was wearing a skintight, very low cut, slit-sleeve little black dress that might as well have been painted on her knockout body. She’d devoured her steak, lobster mashed potatoes, and a whole side of mushrooms like a mountain man and hadn’t gone slinking away to the bathroom to cough it back up, which Burnside took as a very good sign. In his experience, a woman with a voracious appetite for food also had one for sex. Okay, maybe she was a little older than he’d expected, but she was hot all the same, and he wasn’t in the mood to start over searching out a good time at this hour.
    The older woman happened to be Wilma Owens, off and running on her first assignment. Willie was full of steak and lobsterand looking forward to rounding out her night by getting behind the wheel of Burnside’s Maserati and delivering Burnside to Nick.
    “Well, my goodness, will you look at this car,” Willie said, jiggling her double-Ds in the excitement of the moment, almost giving Burnside an on-the-spot stiffy, as the restaurant valet pulled up with Burnside’s Maserati Quattroporte. “I’d do anything to drive this car,” Willie told Burnside.
“Anything.”
    “Sounds like a good deal to me,” Burnside said, taking the shotgun seat. “Just be careful. This is a high-powered car.”
    “Sugar, I’m a high-powered kind of girl. Hold on to your hat. We’re gonna have fun.”
    Willie put the pedal to the floor and Burnside sucked air as she blasted through the streets of Beverly Hills, down Sunset Boulevard, and up into Bel Air like she was racing in the Monaco Grand Prix, hugging the curves, weaving through traffic, and never slowing for anything.
    “Sweetie, this is just like being back on the dirt tracks in Texas,” she said to Burnside. “I’m lovin’ this. I’m downright moist.”
    Burnside was approaching moist too, but he was trying to control himself. By the time the car came to a screeching, sudden halt at the end of the long circular driveway in front of his house, he felt like he’d already run the bases and was ready to slide home. Apparently his date felt the same way, because she turned, grabbed his face in her hands, and gave him a kiss that nearly set his clothes on fire.
    “I like the way you drive,” he said.
    “I’m just getting started.”
    Burnside would have dragged her across the console and done the deed without even unbuckling his seat belt, but Willie was already halfway to his front door.
    “Come on, hot stuff,” she said. “I can’t wait much longer. If you don’t hurry up and get out of the car, I’m gonna have to start without you.”
    Burnside’s sprawling one-story home, with its white-gravel roof, floor-to-ceiling windows, and Jet Age angles, was set back far from the street. Designed by some once-beloved, now-dead architect, it was considered a classic example of early 1960s modernism. Burnside had bought the house and saved it from the wrecking ball not because he believed in the preservation of historic architecture but for the publicity and the stature of living in a famous property. The truth was, he hated the house, which was dated and poorly designed, and he often regretted not leveling it when he had the chance. Tonight his thoughts weren’t of the house when he punched his code into the security panel and unlocked the front door. His thoughts were about burying