About the Benjamin - The Wheelman

THE CLOTHES WERE SNUG ON LENNON. ANDY HAD APPROXIMATELY the same height and build, but not quite the same muscle development. But it was better than being naked. Or wearing those ridiculous Cavariccis.

If Lennon had been thinking clearly, he would have stripped Fieuchevsky of his clothes first. Because even though Lennon had the guy’s wallet, he didn’t have his truck keys. They were most likely in the front pocket of the dead guy’s dress pants. And Lennon wasn’t one of those criminal types who knew how to hotwire any car—just a few select makes and models. This wasn’t one of them. Besides, he usually stuck to bank stuff, and the cars he used in getaways always had keys. So now he had to walk back into Philadelphia.

The only visible option was the big blue bridge: the Benjamin Franklin, built in 1926 to connect Camden with Philadelphia. Why they wanted to do that in the first place remained a mystery to Lennon. Camden was a bigger shithole than Philadelphia.

Lennon pressed two fingers to his neck. Not good.

He spat in the right-hand lane and walked across the bridge. Halfway across, he noticed how much the bridge swayed and bucked. He never knew bridges did that. He’d never had to walk across them before. The jittering under his feet pissed him off.

Now that he’d had some cold air in his lungs and time to think, the real pain set in. Clearly, today’s job had been sold to somebody. Guessing from the appearance of Mr. Fieuchevsky, it was Russian mob. Somebody had told them what they’d be hitting, how much, and plotted the exact getaway route. Which enabled them to stash a ram van along Kelly Drive, then rob the robbers, dispose of the bodies, and move on with life. Somebody had told them all of this.

The problem was that somebody.

Bling knew the heist details, and knew a bit of the getaway strategy. But nothing exact. No schedules, no maps, nothing.

Holden didn’t know shit. Lennon had insisted on that.

So even if Bling and/or Holden had gotten hopped up on H one night and decided to spill their guts to a hooker, they wouldn’t have been able to tell anybody shit about the Kelly Drive portion of the getaway plan. That, Lennon had kept to himself. He had told nobody else about it, not about his timing, his mapping, and his practicing.

Except for one person.

Katie.

And Lennon didn’t want to think about that.

He didn’t want to think about how weird she’d been acting lately.

Secretive.

Quiet.

No.

Rest first. Then thinking and planning. It pained him not to be able to call Katie right away, give her the code, let her know what had happened. Ordinarily, Lennon would be sick that she’d be worried sick. But he couldn’t do that now. He had to rest and heal. Then think.

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge spat Lennon out just above Old City Philadelphia, a former slum that had been rehabbed in time for the 1976 bicentennial celebrations and was now enjoying a turn-of-the-century renaissance of hip restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and art galleries. Lennon didn’t care about any of that right now. He was consulting the Philly map he’d stored in his brain. There was supposed to be a subway terminus at Second and Market, which he could take to City Hall and transfer to another subway line, which in turn would spit him out in the north part of the city, near La Salle University.

Once he found Second Street, the rest was easy. Lennon hopped the turnstile just as a steel train rocketed into the station. The Market-Frankford El. He boarded it, avoided all stares, and rode it thirteen blocks to City Hall, where there was the free transfer—exactly as the maps had said—into an even grimier subway line. The printed map on the train wall told him that the correct stop for La Salle was Olney, just a few stops from the end of the line.

He emerged from the station and saw a white and blue painted bus with a thick “L” painted on the side. Campus bus. Lennon showed Andy’s ID card to the driver, who gave him a funny look but didn’t say anything. Like he gave a shit. The bus wound its way around rough-looking streets, which quickly turned into trees and dark fields. A passing sign read ST. NEUMANN. Lennon stood up and the bus driver let him off in front of a three-story gray slab of a building.

The front entrance was guarded by two turnstiles and a sleepy-eyed student hunched over a thick literature anthology. No campus guards anywhere. Lennon slid the ID card through the turnstile; it clicked. The student didn’t look up. Past the lobby was a main hallway, and tacked to one of the bulletin boards was a directory.

A. Whalen was in Room 119. The hallways were deserted. After all, it was a Friday night in March. School was more than two months under way, and so were the parties. The room Lennon wanted had a push-button combination lock on it. Lennon lifted his foot—clad in one of Andy’s Sketcher boots—and pounded the door to the right of the lock. The door opened. Lennon didn’t bother to turn on the lights, or check the phone machine, or undress. He flopped onto the bed and closed his eyes.