Page 81 of The Alibi Club

The bartender came over with a shot glass and the bottle. He poured it out while Cliff stared at the brown liquid filling the glass. Ott pulled out another smoke and lit it up, a rare show of patience.

Cliff downed the bourbon, savoring the sweet oaky flavor, gritted his teeth as it slid over his tongue. He held the empty shot glass to his lips while he looked up at the rafters above. He could break this cycle, he knew he could, if he could only get far enough away from his old life so he could disappear.

Finally, Cliff looked Ott in the eye and said quietly, “What do you need?”

One week later, Cliff stood in the shadows of his own garage, arms crossed, a stopwatch in one hand. A sour sweat permeated the dank air. Cliff waved at the odor and finally said, “Time.” He clicked his stopwatch.

“Fuck!” One of Ott’s gorillas rolled away from a small, sturdy safe, a failure.

“Not good enough. You’ve got to get in it in under forty-two seconds,” Cliff said. He turned his attention to Ott, who was sitting right next to him. “He’s not great at this.”

Ott rolled his eyes. “Leonard, Tony, let’s take a break. Go out to the car. I need a few minutes.” Leonard and Tony left Cliff and Ott alone in the garage.

Cliff walked over to the dart board, pulled three darts out of the cork, walked back and aimed for the bullseye. He missed. But only by a little.

Ott ambled over, lit a smoke, and said, “There’s nobody better than you, Weston.”

Cliff threw another dart. This time he hit the green ring outside the bullseye. “I think he’ll get it.”

Ott exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, “Remember our last gig?”

Cliff remembered it all too well. Everything was going according to plan. They got in, got the loot, and got out, until Melvyn decided to leave a signature. He set the place on fire.

“I still don’t know how that psychologist figured me out.”

“Who?”

“That little hot number, worked at the LA Superior Court. You didn’t meet with her?”

Cliff squinted in the distance. “I never met with any psychologist.”

“Ah, that’s right, you cut a deal before you went to trial. Must have been why. Anyway, she’s the reason I got pinned.”

Cliff knew that this was not true; they had plenty on Ott to put him away for the heist and the fire he set that burned the building to the ground, but he acquiesced and let Ott tell him the rest of his story. “You let the shrink into your head?”

“That’s the thing, I didn’t think I did. But she figured me out, saw something in me, she said. Testified to it.” Melvyn took a drag and then chuckled. “But she got hers. I crawled in that bedroom window and I had her, I had her! One more tight squeeze, and she would have been at the gates of Saint Peter.” Melvyn raised his right hand and squeezed it hard.

Cliff stopped throwing the darts and turned around to face Ott. “Are you telling me you nearly strangled a forensic psychologist to death who worked for the court?”

“Almost is the key word there.” Melvyn looked down at the floor and under his breath he said, so quietly Cliff almost didn’t hear it, “I’ll tie up that little loose end as soon as this gig’s over.”

Cliff turned back toward the dart board, fiddled with the dart in his hand. “Melvyn, why don’t you give the safe a try.”

“Why don’t you do it, Clifford,” Ott said.

“I could easily, but so can you. I suspect you have hidden talents, my friend.”

Cliff knew that Ott was a sucker for flattery. Ott seemed to brighten at Cliff’s compliments. He shrugged, seeming to weigh the pros and cons of the opportunity.

Ott started nodding and finally said, “Not a bad idea. I’ll give it a shot. But if I can’t pull this off, and my guy can’t pull this off, someone’s going to. And that somebody’s you.”

Cliff grimaced and threw the last dart.

He missed.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Haunted