The Mastermind rose quickly. He was stunned and angry. The legs of his chair made a loud scraping noise against the floor. “You were told from the beginning that wasn’t possible. This meeting is over.”
A heavy silence filled the hotel room. Macdougall looked over at Stringer and Shaw. He scratched his goatee a few times, then he laughed out loud. “I was just testing, partner. I guess we can live without seeing your face. If you have our payment with you?”
“I have the money, gentlemen. Fifty thousand dollars. Just for meeting with me. I always keep my promises.”
“And we walk away with the payment if we don’t like your plan for the job?”
Now it was the Mastermind’s turn to smile. “You’ll like the plan,” he said. “You’ll especially like the p
art about your share. It’s fifteen million dollars. I’ll contact you later.”
Chapter 52
“DID HE SAY FIFTEEN MILLION?”
“That’s what the man said. What the hell are we supposed to rob?”
Vincent O’Malley and Jimmy Crews weren’t at work that day. They were waiting inside a Toyota Camry and an Acura Legend, respectively. They were in contact with each other by headset. Their cars were parked on opposite sides of the Holiday Inn in Washington. They were watching for the Mastermind to appear outside, so that maybe they could follow him, find out who the hell he was.
O’Malley and Crews listened to the meeting through Brian Macdougall, who was wired for sound. They heard fifteen million mentioned and they wondered what the hell the job could be. The guy who called himself the Mastermind was something else. He talked, or rather lectured, and he made the mind-boggling job sound like a walk in the park. Six to eight hours of work; thirty million to split. The most impressive thing of all was that he answered all of Brian Macdougall’s tough questions.
O’Malley stayed in contact with Crews in the other car. “You listening to this shit, Jimmy? You believe it?”
“He has my rapt attention. I’d love to see the fricking look on Macdougall’s face right about now. This asshole has his number. It’s like he knows everything about Brian. Hey, I think the meeting’s breaking up.”
O’Malley and Crews remained silent for the next few minutes. Then O’Malley spoke. “He’s outside the hotel. I see him, Jimmy. He’s on foot. He’s walking south on Sixteenth Street. Doesn’t seem concerned about being followed. I got him!”
“Maybe he’s not so fucking smart, after all,” Crews said.
O’Malley laughed. “Shit. I was kind of hoping he was this smart.”
Crews said, “I’ll go parallel down Fourteenth. What’s he look like? What’s he wearing?”
“Tall, over six feet. White guy. Beard, maybe a fake one. Long hair. Pretty nondescript clothes: dark sport coat and slacks, blue shirt . . . He’s picking up the pace. He’s starting to jog now. He’s going off the main street, Jimmy. He’s headed back through a yard. He’s running! Son of a bitch is on the run! Here we go!”
Vincent O’Malley jumped out of his car and followed the Mastermind. He ran close to the maple and oak trees that lined the street. He continued to report in to Crews. “He’s going into the woods off Shepherd Park. Motherhumper is trying to get away from us. Imagine that.”
O’Malley followed the Mastermind as best he could, but he couldn’t keep up. The guy was a runner. He didn’t look like it, but he could move real well.
Then O’Malley lost him! “He’s gone. Fuck me in the heinie. I lost him, Jimmy. I don’t see him anymore. This is not good.”
Crews picked him up again. “I got him. I’m on foot, too. He’s still running like some pickpocket with my wallet.”
“You keep up with him?”
“Hope so. We’ll see. For fifteen million dollars I’ll keep up with him somehow.”
The Mastermind finally came out of the woods and onto a side street filled with brick town houses. Crews was panting as he spoke into the mike on his headset. “Thank God I run every day. He runs, too. He’s out on Morningside Drive. . . . Awhh shit, he’s heading back into the goddamn woods. He’s picking up the pace again. The bastard must train on the Appalachian Trail.”
It became an incredible game of cat and mouse. Even though they were good at it, O’Malley and Crews lost their prey twice more in the next twenty minutes. They were miles from the Holiday Inn, somewhere south of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Then Crews spotted him on a narrow side street called Powhatan Place. The Mastermind had turned into a back driveway or something. Crews followed. He saw a metal sign, and he almost couldn’t believe what it said.
Crews reported back to O’Malley. Then he talked to Brian Macdougall, who’d joined the merry chase.
Crews couldn’t keep the irony out of his voice. “I know where the hell he is, fellas. Get this — he’s inside a nuthouse. He’s on the grounds of a mental institution called Hazelwood. And now I’ve lost him again!”
Chapter 53