The Heist

soliloquy for a week, hoping I could find an opportunity to slip it in.”
    “I almost messed my pants when you told him about the corpse flower,” Tom said. “How do you think of stuff like that? And man you’ve got to have a lot of guts to take it for a test drive.”
    “I thought it made everything more visceral and, therefore, more memorable,” Boyd said. “Now every time Neal Burnside smells that stench, or sees that painting, it will send a tremor of fear through him that only reinforces my character and the illusion of this set.”
    “Very true,” Nick said.
    “I wish I could have heard it,” Chet said.
    “You can watch the footage,” Boyd said. “I’m eager to see it myself.”
    “What footage?” Kate asked.
    “The playback from all of the cameras,” Boyd said. “No need to edit it together. We can pick my best angles from each one as we go along. I was careful to hit all of my marks.”
    “You had marks?” Kate asked.
    “I studied where each camera was placed, then I hid little markers that only I’d recognize to show me where I should sit or stand to guarantee that I would be in focus, and showing my best angle, wherever I happened to be in the house or outside. Something I picked up from my work in three-camera sitcoms.”
    “You were on a sitcom?” Chet asked.
    “A little show called
Friends
,” Boyd said.
    “I loved that show,” Tom said, “but I don’t remember you being in it. What part did you play?”
    “I was the barista who served the friends coffee for a few episodes. But I was let go over creative differences.”
    “What were they?” Chet asked.
    “I thought my character should have a name,” Boyd said, “and that he should have a few lines. And that Matt LeBlanc shouldn’t block my face from the camera with his enormous head whenever I set down their coffees.”
    “We didn’t record it,” Kate said.
    Boyd looked at her in disbelief. “Are you saying my performance of a lifetime is lost?”
    “It was never going to be kept. We can’t leave any evidence of what has happened here,” she said. “Don’t forget, we kidnapped Burnside and are holding him prisoner. That’s a felony.”
    “But Burnside is a crook,” Tom said. “He helped Griffin escape with all of that stolen money.”
    “That’s true,” Kate said. “What we’re doing is for a good cause. But it’s still a crime, and the last thing we want is a recording of it. The reason we have the cameras and microphones is for surveillance and security, not posterity.”
    Boyd took a seat on a bar stool, his shoulders slumped, his head hung low. “No one will ever know what occurred here today.”
    Nick took a seat beside Boyd. “This was like your stage work. Your searing performance as Stanley in
A Streetcar Named Desire
at the Starlight Lanes and Lounge wasn’t filmed, either, but that didn’t make it any less meaningful.”
    “The difference is that on stage I have an audience,” Boyd said. “They remember my performance and it lives on in everyone they tell about it. Who will tell the tale of Diego de Boriga’s corpse flower?”
    “This performance lives on, too, not in a mere retelling but in the stunning revelations that your performance evoked and the life-changing events that will follow for so many people as aresult,” Nick said. “In many ways, this performance will have a more lasting and indelible impact than any you’ve ever given before.”
    “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Boyd said.
    Nick’s good, Kate thought. Full of crap, but he sells it so well. And he looks amazing in those jeans.
    “And it’s not over yet,” Nick said. “You’ve got to stay in character until we come back with Derek Griffin.”
    “You all do,” Kate said. “But in small doses. You need to interact as little as possible with Burnside from now on.”
    “She’s right,” Nick said. “The more you say, the more opportunity you have to slip up. The same goes for this set. We have to limit Burnside’s exposure to it, what he sees, how much of it he sees, and how long he sees it. We want him to get only the big picture, not the telling details. He shouldn’t be allowed out of his cell for more than a few minutes each day, and even then his movements on the property must be very limited and constantly supervised.”
    “I’ll switch out the mannequins up in the tower,” Chet said. “And stand watch up there a few times myself. I’ve got some great sound effects lined up for