The Heist

pool. And now he stood in his mansion looking out the living room window at the black Suburban driving into the compound, and he knew it was showtime. He was Diego de Boriga, and he would slice Neal Burnside into bite-size pieces if that’s what it took to get his money back.

Burnside woke up in an eight-by-ten-foot cell. He was on his back, on a thin foam mattress, on a cinder-block shelf. He looked straight up at a large black spider that clung to a web strung across the ceiling and was waiting for some unlucky insect to come along and get stuck. Or maybe, Burnside thought, he’s been waiting for me. A shaft of sunlight came through a recessed barred window about the size of an iPad. The light made the stainless steel toilet and sink shine. At least it was clean. The air was heavy and hot, pushed around by fans that Burnside could hear struggling in the corridor outside his cell. He didn’t hear any voices or sounds to indicate the presence of any other human beings.
    He’d been changed into a T-shirt and loose-fitting sweatpants. The clothes were more comfortable than those he’d worn on the plane, but he was creeped out that someone had stripped him and dressed him. There was a pair of rubber sandals on the floor beside the bed. He stood and slipped his feet into them.
    On top of the sink he found a tin cup and an American Airlines toiletry bag, the kind the flight attendants routinely hand out to first-class passengers on long flights. He opened the bag and surveyed the contents: a travel-size toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, a disposable razor, a tube of shaving cream, a comb, a pair of socks, rubber earplugs, and a mask to put over his eyes to block out the light. He figured since there was nothing in the bag that could be used to hijack a plane, it was probably also useless as an escape kit.
    He climbed up on the toilet, which had no seat, balanced his feet on both sides of the rim, and got on his tiptoes to peer out of the tiny window. He saw a sun-bleached stone wall four feet from the window. The wall was topped with embedded shards of broken glass and razor wire. He craned his neck and got a glimpse of the clear blue sky above. It wasn’t a suite at the Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Cabo, but it could have been a lot worse, he told himself. He could be tied naked to a chair, being beaten with a baseball bat and kept conscious by having buckets of ice water poured over his head. Of course, it could still come to that.
    Tom Underhill walked across the yard to the pool house–turned–stockade, wearing camouflage fatigues and carrying an AK-47 loaded with blanks. He’d never acted before, and was terrified to attempt a speaking role, so his performance was simplified: Look mean and bad-ass, like Samuel Jackson. And pretend that Burnside was George Pogue, that sniveling worm of a banker who’d tried to take his house away from him.
    Burnside heard footsteps in the hall outside his cell. He stepped down off the toilet and turned to face the cell door, which was iron mesh over iron bars with a slot at the bottom for sliding in a mealtray. The footsteps stopped at Burnside’s door, and Burnside looked out at someone he sized up as a guard. The man was wearing fatigues, carrying an assault rifle, and looked like he ate ground glass for breakfast. The guard unlocked the door with a set of keys that were chained to his belt, and motioned Burnside out by swinging his weapon. Burnside stepped out slowly into a narrow corridor with three ceiling fans. There was an open door to the yard at the far end. The guard jabbed him in the back with his rifle to get him moving.
    Burnside walked past an empty cell and went outside. What he saw looked like a two-story Spanish Mediterranean mansion built in the middle of a prison yard. The lush landscaping and pool were in stark contrast to the razor wire, the K-rails, and the guard tower. Everything was clean and orderly. Even the brown sand looked as if it was regularly raked.
    The guy in camies poked him again with the rifle, herding him toward the house. Burnside looked up at the guard tower that stood outside the wall. He had to squint into the sun, but he could make out two men with rifles up there, both with their backs to him.
    Another man in camie fatigues was unloading wooden crates marked EXPLOSIVOS from a black Suburban and carrying them into an armory filled with similarly labeled crates. The man was linebacker big and carried a gun in a shoulder holster.