Ready. Set. Psycho.

Chapter Two: Solomon

           

Three days before Lisa first spoke to Reg and Sham, Solomon stepped to a desk at the Harlem YMCA. A woman with short, curly gray hair smiled at him.  Her nametag said "Phyllis." "How can I help, honey?"

"I need a room," Solomon replied. He was wearing his taupe suit and had a small nylon duffle bag with him that was filled mostly with air.

Phyllis smiled. "How long will you be staying with us?"

"Two weeks."

"Okay," she said as she typed the reservation into her computer. It had a CRT screen. "Hundred dollars a night, so that will be thirteen hundred, plus taxes."

Solomon shook his head. "Isn't this the Y?"

"We've come a long way, honey," Phyllis said.

Solomon paid the entire amount in advance in cash. Phyllis gave him a plastic card for his room key. He walked straight toward the elevators, between two ferns in the opposite direction of the lobby. He took the elevator to the second floor and found his room quickly. He got in and emptied his duffle bag into the drawer. There was ample room for his extra shirt and three pairs each of underwear and socks, his gun, three clips, his badge, and six packages of ramen.

He sat on his bed. It smelled like fish. He took his phone out of his pocket and made a call. "Lisa?"

"Sol?" Lisa replied. "Where are you?"

"The Harlem Y."

"Jesus, Sol," Lisa said. "You have no idea how to be poor, do you?"

"I'm trying," Solomon said.

"You might as well be staying at the Ritz. The Y isn't what it used to be."

"Oh, it's close. Prices are up. Still smells like fish..."

"I'm not driving to Harlem."

"Dog and Duck?" Solomon offered.

"Sure."

Solomon made his way to the bar. Lisa had arrived first. She was taller than Solomon, himself taller than everyone else in the bar. She was lean with red hair, and she looked young, fit, healthy. She was drinking something green. She stood to welcome him. They embraced briefly, and she went to sit. "Nah," Solomon said. "Not here."

He held her elbow and pulled her with him gently. He let go, and she continued following. He nodded at Sean behind the bar and took Lisa to the back room with the purple felt table.

"Sol," Lisa said. "Tell me you didn't take me to an underground poker room?"

"It's just a room. I don't see no poker," Solomon said. "I've bought it out. Just for a few weeks."

"For the operation?" Lisa said.

Solomon nodded.

"So, what was enough for Minister Moneybags to reach out?" Lisa asked.

"It's not a big score," Solomon said. "Two million in cash and fencible goods. Private home in Short Hills. Old man living alone. One of those guys whose parents lived through the crash, and he was raised not to trust banks. But he's got a painting. Worth a few million."

"Which one?" Lisa asked.

"Not sure. Some new guy. Don't really follow that stuff anymore."

"I don't get it, though. He robs a bank, clears out god-only-knows in safety deposit boxes while leaving all the cash — leaving everything that we could have traced. Most of the box owners wouldn't even tell us what they had in there. He knew, he must have known, he was stealing something that wouldn't be traced. We can't track goods that aren't reported stolen, Sol. Next, he gets a man inside the Federal Reserve and takes precisely two hundred one-kilo gold bricks. We don't even know when he took them. Might have been yesterday, might have been the day after the last visual, manual audit. But he takes just two hundred. Not one more. The dedication, the discipline, to resist all that temptation, it is downright religious."