Blake - The Ways of Wolfe

Dallas, Texas. 1984

Axel Wolfe stole a white Ford Fairmont out of the zoo parking lot, then followed Duros black Mustang up to I-30 and then eastward a few miles to an exit near a shopping mall. They left the Mustang in the next-to-last row at the rear of the malls outdoor lot, then took a busy street north for several miles before turning off into a small commercial plaza consisting of a single L-shaped one-story building housing a dozen small businesses, including a jewelry shop. It was twenty past nine and the bright morning was heating up fast on a day predicted to hit the high nineties and maybe break a hundred.

They parked next to a row of shrubbery near the jewelerswhich stood in the middle of the long side of the L layout, its venetian blind down and the slats closedthen went to the Mexican caf at the end of the short side of the L and sat in a window booth. All three of them wore light sport jackets. Axel and Billy also wore plain-lens eyeglasses, Axel a false mustache, Billy a plastic-strip bandage across the bridge of his nose. Duro wore sunglasses he did not remove.

They had a clear view of the jewelers, about sixty feet from the caf on a diagonal line through the parking lot. They ordered coffee from the young waitress and when she brought it they insisted on paying the tab and tipping her then and there. To save time, Duro told her, because they were waiting for a pager notice from a client and would have to hurry off as soon as they received it. He withdrew a laminated bar graph from an expandable attach case and they affected a relaxed review of it as they chatted in low voice.

The case also held eight sets of plastic flex cuffs, a wide roll of duct tape, and a pair of loaded 9mm Browning pistols fitted with suppressors. Brandished indoors, such accessorized pistols look the size of small cannons, the better to induce unhesitant cooperation. A third Browning, sans silencer, lay under a folded newspaper on the front seat of the Fairmont. Each man carried two extra fully loaded magazines.

They sipped their coffee. No one entered or exited the jewelers, and its blinds stayed down. A few minutes before ten a yellow Camaro pulled into the lot and parked a few cars over from theirs. The two men in it got outboth in sunglasses, jeans, boots, loose baggy shirts, one of them carrying a slim black document pouchand went into the jewelry shop.

They slid out of the booth and exited the caf with casual dispatch, Billy and Duro bearing toward the jewelers, Axel toward the Fairmont. At the shops door, Duro unzipped the briefcase and he and Billy furtively withdrew the Brownings, then went inside. Axel got in the Fairmont and cranked it up and turned on the air conditioner. He took off his jacket and tossed it on the backseat, then lowered the car window and removed his mustache and flung it into the shrubs. He broke the fake glasses in two and wiped the lens on each half with his shirt and flung the glasses into the shrubs too and raised the window. A station wagon pulled into the lot and parked and a man got out and went into a locksmiths shop. A trio of gesticulating girls came out of a nail salon and got in a small sedan and departed. Now there was no activity at all in the plaza. No one in view. Time seemed arrested. He fingered the pistol under the newspaper.

Then out they came, Duro in the lead, the briefcase under an arm and hiding his gun hand, Billy right behind him and shutting the door as he exited, holding his gun under his jacket, both of them moving with the same cool briskness as before. Billy got in the back and Duro slid into the shotgun seat. Axel backed out, drove up to the exit, and melded into traffic.

Were rich! Billy Capp cried, flinging his mustache and glasses out the window and then closing it. God damn if we aint!

Theyre standing and talking at the counter, and you shoulda seen their faces, all of themthe old jeweler and his guard and the two carriers! Their eyes got this big when we come in pointing the pieces at them. Billy was telling Axel about it as they headed back to the mall. Duro says hands up, and every hand just flew up. I keep them covered and Duro takes their pieces and sticks them in the briefcase. Pouch was right there on the counter and he checks to see the bonds are there, sticks it in the briefcase too. Tells everybody get on the floor and for me to shoot anybody even looks like hes thinking to try something. Cuffs them hands and feet, and then zip-zip-zip, gags them with the tape. Tells one of the carriers hes left his wrist cuffs loose enough he oughta be able to work free in ten, fifteen minutes if he puts his mind to it, And we were out of there! Man, oh man, went like clockwork! Feel like goddamn