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“That is the man who will be there before us. His particular sense of humor and justice is well outside anything your minds could begin to comprehend. I am glad today’s meeting happened though. I finally found the bastard who stuck me with Henry. What I didn’t find out was why.”
“To have him kill you obviously” said Stretch.
“He’s had ample opportunity over the past year” I responded. “No. There was some other reason when it first happened. Regrettably, Pretty Little Thing will probably be dead before she can speak with us again.”
“We are increasing the chance of that by not picking up burner phones and letter her know the numbers” offered up Slim.
“Buy yours here if you want” I stated. “I ain’t buying nothing traceable in this city.”
“We aren’t going to get the rental?” queried Giant.
“We can’t walk all the way to where we are going” stated Slim.
“We could, but I’m not up for that either. Are we going south of Richmond?” I asked.
“Yes” answered Slim.
“Anyone care to risk taking Amtrak to Richmond then using one of their ID’s to rent a car that won’t attract attention?” I asked.
“How much do you have in that envelop?” asked Stretch.
“I don’t know. Never bothered to count it. Given the source, every serial number is probably flagged somewhere. That’s why I didn’t mind using some of it at the restaurant. I wanted them to know we stopped for a meal a block away from where I was supposed to be retired.”
“If you have a couple thousand, I know a place in the Bronx where we can buy an old car without many questions and it will come with real plates. Technically we may be leasing it. I knew these people before I joined this life. We just have to take the subway there” said Stretch.
“Need to be something big like a minivan or a Toyota Avalon. Old enough to not have GPS, a navigation system or anything like that” I responded. “We would also need to purchase subway tickets and that will have surveillance cameras.”
“Not if you are willing to burn a hundred dollars” said Giant. “One prepaid smart phone and an Uber account they don’t know about linking to a credit card they don’t know about. There is a little store front up ahead. We can turn the phone off and toss it once the ride is here.”
I reached in my pocket for my loose cash and handed it to him. He gave me a funny look. “I’m not pulling my wallet or that envelop out on the street” I said. Stretch and Slim saw the logic in that, fishing out their loose bills too. It was more than enough. Twenty minutes later we were on our way to the Bronx and Giant had the burner turned off.
The real problem with drivers is they want to be chatty. The guys already had a cover story they didn’t tell me about. They were a traveling mime troupe and I was their manager. Heading out to the Bronx to meet up with a mime show going on. As cover stories went it was golden. There really was a mime show going on where they had the Uber driver drop us off. It was only two blocks from the lot where Stretch would get us the car. Once the driver was gone I handed Stretch the envelop and said “Just bring back what it doesn’t take. Remember. We are going to have to pay for gas and food without using credit cards and big bills attract attention.” He fished out a small stack of bills without looking at them and said “Hang onto that then.”
He went to the lot to find his friend and we walked up to a small neighborhood bar. I told Giant before we went in “Since you hung onto whatever the phone didn’t cost, you’re buying.” Slim laughed. He noticed that too.
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