Page 33

It’s Always About the Money

“Are you done with that?”

Hank picked up the small earthenware dish that held the last of the best salsa he’d ever tasted.

He’d ask for the recipe if he thought his high school Spanish would be understood. Perhaps the sweet se?ora would let him watch the next time she made it. The salsa, and those things she called pupusas. Almost a quesadilla, but better. A thick corn tortilla, stuffed with a mixture of meat and spices and cooked in a hot iron skillet. Hank had a new favorite food. He ran a damp dishcloth across the rough-hewn table, wiping up the spills from dinner, and nudged the laptop out of the way. The news headline filled the screen:

Funeral Held for Local Men Following Gas-Leak Boat Explosion

Andre pushed his bifocals up his nose. “I can’t believe they spelled my name wrong. A-n-d-r-e. Journalism these days. They can’t even fact-check the simplest thing.”

Hank was reaching past Larry for the hot sauce bottle when there was a knock at the door. He froze. Andre and Larry quietly pushed their chairs away from the table. Another man came from down the hall and approached the door with caution. Hank, Larry, and Andre shrunk to the wall and edged back around the corner. Hank rotated the hot sauce bottle in his hand in case he needed to use it as a weapon. He tightened his grip. The man listened at the door and then put his eye to the peephole. In one movement he stood straight and flung the door open.

“Hector!”

The two men embraced and spoke a stream of Spanish.

Hector’s mother rushed out from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel, and threw her arms around her son, who folded over her. Hank felt Andre’s breath of relief on the back of his neck and relaxed his grip on the hot sauce bottle. They came forward to greet Hector.

“Everything okay?”

Hector extended his hand and pulled each of his customers in for a hug and a slap on the back.

“Yes. Good to see you, man.”

Hank meant it. A lot of things could have gone wrong since they’d last seen their barber, as they slipped quietly off the side of Hector’s boat into the swells of the dark, choppy Atlantic, a hundred yards offshore. Standing in the living room of Hector’s mother’s home in San Salvador, where every square inch of the walls was covered with family photos, alongside Larry and Andre, meant they had made it. They still had to be careful, but they were almost done.

In the six days they’d been here, there’d been no intruders, no menacing knocks at the door, no shady people lurking about. The first morning, Hank had peeked through the front curtains, in between the bars that ran vertically over the windows, and had found the other homes on the tidy street had similar security measures. The small back garden was rimmed by high cement walls, and at night when they closed the patio door, they first drew a metal gate across the opening and secured it in place. Larry had sat under the ceiling fan and checked the news on their host’s laptop. There had been nothing online about anything being amiss at the casino, no indication of a theft investigation.

Their plan was working.

Hector stood back from them and smiled. “You found the keys okay?”

“Yep. On the rear tire, just like you said.”

Hector nodded. “How were your flights?”

“Mine was good, no problems. Larry got delayed a bit in Chicago, and Andre flew in from Dallas and had a bit of a scare here at immigration, but we made it.”

Hector looked at Andre. “What happened at immigration?”

“They examined that passport really well. Took it into a back room. I was sweating buckets. And I was hot already. But I stayed cool. I remembered what you said. I just waited, and after a few minutes they came out and gave me the go-ahead.”

Hector nodded, took his jacket off, hung it on the back of a dining table chair, and gestured to Hank, Larry, and Andre to sit down. Hank chose an armchair to avoid the plastic tucked around the cushions of the bright, floral sofa. He’d learned the hard way that the protective covering sticks to the bare skin and he didn’t think he had much hair left on the backs of his legs. He was sure Larry and Andre shared the same thought but given there weren’t many seating options in the neat home, they scooched forward so the plastic only hit their cargo shorts. Hank guessed the sofa was Mrs. Chavez’s prized possession. It looked relatively new, and he suspected it was most likely purchased with Hector’s earnings from his apparently lucrative sideline of doing “whatever needs doin’.”

Hector’s mother carried in a tray of what Hank had learned was chichas, and after a week of drinking the sweet, fermented-corn beverage, he was developing a taste for it. She set the glasses on the table before them, and Hector passed one to each of them.

“Salud,”

Hector said.

As they raised their glasses, Hank thought back to a similar toast, when he, Larry, and Andre had touched their beer cans and agreed to pivot to a new plan.

* * *

After Hank had overheard Padma confirm that three hitmen were coming from India in two days, on Saturday, blood had surged through his veins. His tires had squealed as he’d peeled out of the casino parking lot; his vision blurred with flashbacks to online images of other Indo-USA Gaming Inc. associates hanging from bridges. There was only one sure way out of the situation that was rapidly closing in on them. He’d given Hector the heads-up so he could get the arrangements in motion, then he’d met Larry and Andre at the marina, and they’d taken his boat out to the open water.

Hank had leaned forward from the captain’s seat; music played low on the speakers to baffle their voices should the sound carry across the water in the stillness of the late morning. “We have to change the plan.”

“Why?”

Andre had bolted upright, defensive.

Hank had answered in an even voice, “Because now that the casino knows who we are, they’ll keep coming after us until they get their money.”

Andre shook his head. “But Hector will kill those guys.”

Hank said, “We can hope, but then more will come. They won’t quit after one try, especially when there’s millions on the line.”

Andre took his bifocals off and rubbed his hand across his face. “Okay, this is getting way too wild. Are you even sure the casino knows about us?”

Fuck. Hank went over it again. “I heard what Padma said. She said, ‘the big, bald one.’ That’s me. And ‘the banker.’ That’d be Larry. Then she said, ‘all three.’ That’s you. The third guy. She knows. You didn’t see Dave’s body, Andre. I did. Someone did that to him and left that thousand-dollar chip behind as a message. They may as well have left a note saying, We know you stole our money and we’re coming for it. And Padma lined up those chips on her desk, so I’d know that’s where that thousand-dollar chip had come from. That was her warning me. Do you want to stick around and fact-check? Do you want to end up a smashed pumpkin on your garage floor?”

Larry and Andre had considered that a moment, and then Larry asked, “What are you thinking?”

“The only way they’ll stop looking for us is if they think we’re dead. We’re gonna have to fake our deaths.”

Andre’s head snapped back. He looked from Larry to Hank. “You’re joking, right?”

Hank shook his head. “Dave’s dead. No jokes.”

Larry nodded slowly, then said, “Hank’s right. If they’re coming, I don’t want to be here when they arrive. I think we’ve got to run. And as crazy as it sounds, the best way to not be chased is to be dead.”

Larry took a long draw on his beer, then asked, “What about the girls?”

Hank shrugged.

“What? What’s that shrug mean?”

Andre imitated Hank’s shrug. “This whole thing was supposed to get us back to our wives. For four years I’ve gone along with this so I could get my queen back. And now what are you saying?” Andre shrugged again.

Hank answered, “We don’t have a choice. What else are we supposed to do? Stay here and get killed? Our wives are on their own, either way. But if we run, at least we’re alive. If we stay, we’re putting them in danger. This is best for them too.”

“Can’t we take them with us? If we’re faking three deaths, what’s six?”

Andre asked.

Hank shook his head again. “We don’t have time. Hector has an idea. He’s working on our fake passports now.”

He held up a finger. “Oh. Andre, we’ll have to get photos done at your shop and get them to Hector. First thing tomorrow.” He lowered his hand. “We’d never be able to get the girls on board, and keep them quiet, and get out of here in time. We’d all be killed first.”

“We don’t tell them anything?”

Larry asked.

Hank said, “Absolutely not. For this to work, they have to believe we’re dead.”

Larry exhaled. Then sat back.

Andre threw his hands up in the air. “How is that even possible? Faking your death. Fuck me. Do you hear yourselves?”

“I know. But it’s worked before,”

Hank said.

Andre scrunched his face in doubt.

Hank brought out his phone and tapped away. He turned the screen to show Andre the list of search results. Snippets of text told the tale of John Darwin, the British former teacher who’d taken his canoe for a paddle, disappeared, and been declared dead. He turned up five years later and was arrested and charged with fraud.

Hank said, “There’s a TV show about it too. It was pretty good. The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe. Four parter. I’ll email you the link.”

Andre looked over his bifocals at Hank. “It says he was arrested.”

“Not for disappearing or for faking his death. Believe it or not, it’s not illegal to disappear. He was arrested for fraud. For claiming the insurance money. If we cancel those million-dollar life insurance policies and any other policies, there’s no fraud. Plus, if there’s no payout, there will be less of an investigation. We only got those policies so the girls would have something to fall back on if anything happened before we made it to ten million. But we’re close enough now, we don’t need the insurance.”

Andre said, “But if we leave with the money, and they don’t have the insurance, they’ll have nothing.”

“We’ll get money to them. Electronically. Larry can work that out.”

Andre looked at Larry. “Can you, man? Can you get them money? I don’t want us to be living with millions and Shalisa to be struggling.”

Larry nodded. “I’ll find a way. I’ll get all their bank account information. I can transfer amounts to their accounts and fake email correspondence and make it look like some kind of pension or payout. We can be sure they’re taken care of.”

“This is some crazy shit, man.”

Andre looked toward Larry. “What do you think of all this?”

Larry said, “I know. My head is ready to explode. Sorry. Bad choice of words. But I don’t want to end up like Dave. I think we’ve gotta run. I think for right now we just need to dodge these guys from India, and the best way to do that is to die in some kind of accident before they get here. Then, I think we lay low until we see if the police are involved. If they connect us to the casino theft, and if it looks like we’ll get arrested, then we’ll have to stay on the run. Assume different identities. I don’t know. I haven’t thought that through. But maybe they don’t connect us. Maybe we just live a quiet life as ourselves, somewhere else. But there are a lot of ifs.”

Larry counted them on his fingers. “If the casino figures out for sure they were robbed. If they figure out how. If they figure out it was us. If they figure out we’re still alive. If they find us. Those are five ifs in our favor.”

Andre brought his fingertips to his temples. “How did this get so complicated? We were supposed to cash out. Pretend we got an inheritance, won the lottery or some shit. Then retire and move to Florida like regular people. Now you want us to get into spy-movie shit. This is spiraling out of control.”

Hank said, “Look. It’s a complication and we have to roll with it. We have no other options. We have to stay alive. We have to work fast to get our ducks in a row. Are we in agreement?”

Larry said, “I don’t think we have a choice. Andre?”

Andre bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He looked up at Larry. “You have to guarantee if we cancel the insurance, you can get money to our wives.”

Larry nodded.

Andre said, “Okay. Agreed.”

Larry rummaged in the cooler. He looked at Andre. “We’re outta light beers. You okay with a regular?”

Andre offered a small smile. “That’s the one upside about this—dead men don’t count carbs.”

Larry tossed him a can, they cracked them open and clinked them in a toast, then Andre asked, “How the fuck are we going to pull this off?”

Hank took a swig, then said, “Hector’s already on it.”

Andre sat straight and said, “But Rule Number Four was tell no one. Not ever. We can’t let him know we’re running from the casino. He’ll figure out the kind of money we’re talking about, and he might kill us for it.”

Hank smiled to himself; he’d already thought of that. He and Larry nodded. “Agreed.”

Andre continued, “So, what do we tell him?”

Hank said, “He doesn’t ask a lot of questions, and I don’t think we have to give reasons when you hire people to do crazy shit like this. They just want to be paid. But if we ever have to tell him anything, we tell him our wives are trying to kill us.”

“Wh-at?”

Andre and Larry said together.

“Think about it. People are always getting killed for insurance money.”

Larry said, “It’s true. It’s always about the money.”

* * *

Now, sitting in Hector’s mother’s living room, Hank smiled at his barber, relief washing over him. Every step of the way they’d hoped Hector wouldn’t double-cross them. From when Hank handed over the first payment, to when he had changed the plan and placed the bulky envelope that would cover faking their deaths on Hector’s barbershop workstation. As surprised as Hank had been when Hector had passed the envelope back and then suggested his wife, Brenda, should be the casino’s new director of security, Hank had also been relieved.

Because now Hector had skin in the game too.

Hank was happy to hire Brenda. She would have been a top contender he’d have interviewed that week if he hadn’t been otherwise preoccupied with staying alive. So, Hector’s offer to blow up their boat that Friday night and get them out of the country, as long as Brenda got the job, was a deal Hank was good to make. But now that card was played: Brenda was working at the casino and Hank was seemingly dead—his leverage was gone.

Hank was back to square one with the barber—hoping he didn’t double-cross them.