Ready. Set. Psycho.

Chapter Five: Reg

           

Reg was coming out of the bodega in the apartment building next to his own when his phone rang. He shifted the coffee from his left hand to his right and then took the phone out of his pocket. He briefly considered taking the Bluetooth headset out of his pocket but muttered under his breath, "I'm not that guy, I'm a criminal," and answered the phone.

"Lisa?" Reg said.

Lisa told him to meet her at a greasy spoon not far from Reg's Williamsburg home. The seats were vinyl, the coffee was cheap, and a whole breakfast cost eight bucks. When he sat, he asked if they had espresso. The waitress twisted her face and stepped back on her heel before he realized it was a stupid question. "We have coffee," she said in an accent he could not place. "Want coffee?"

"Yes." She turned over the mug already on the table and poured from the carafe she kept on her hip, ready to sling at a moment's notice. As she walked away, she topped up four more customers, barely slowing her walk as she went.

Lisa arrived thirty minutes late. "Only thirty minutes," she said as she sat. The waitress followed shortly behind her, and Lisa flipped over her mug and tapped on the lip. The waitress poured the cup full, and as she pulled back Lisa emptied in a small disposable container of cream. The exchange took on the professional deftness of the ballet that Reg had watched the year before at the Lincoln Center.

"So what did you think?" Lisa said.

"Professional opinion or personal?"

"You're going to be a cop," Lisa said. "So one needs to be the same as the other."

Reg shook his head and hoped Lisa did not notice. "Sol got fucked," he said, shrugging. "That's it. Had his whole life, lost his family's fortune, then his dad disappears. Chases down this serial killer and gets caught in his web. Partner killed, watched that girl die. If that doesn't break a person, nothing will."

"Think he is the head honcho?" Lisa asked, using another of the many names she assigned to the person Sol insisted was running the heists. "I've wondered. Sol goes off the grid — at least, leaves the force, goes incommunicado, and then comes back with insider knowledge of all these crimes, insists they are related — something we did not think ourselves — and tells us he can get us the ringleader. Suspicious, no?"

"No," Reg said.

"Why not?" Lisa asked.

"Because I spoke to the ringleader."

"You spoke to him? When?"

"When I met Sol. He handed me the phone and told me to speak to the guy. It was part of the interview process."

"What did he say?"

"A lot, without saying much. Didn't tell me anything about the score. Just told me a few stories of him coming up in the world — almost certainly none of them were true. And then he kept telling me the only way to get longevity is not to be greedy. To know when enough is enough. Stick to the plan. That sort of thing. Crews live and die on each person sticking to the plan, and he made it clear I'd die if I fucked up the plan. He likes Sol, too. Thinks he has what it takes to stick around for a long time."

Lisa turned up the side of her head and winked, then put her hand in the air. The waitress glided by and refilled her cup, while Lisa added more cream.

"And how do you know it was really the Man?" Lisa asked, stirring her coffee and cream together.

"I don't, I suppose."

Lisa nodded. "Sure don't. It could be an interesting ruse to put us off the case. Could be you spoke to the Jackal himself, or just one of his associates. Either way it tells us something."

"Sure does," Reg replied.

"What?"

"Pardon?"

"What does it tell us?"

Reg paused. He did not actually know what it told them but had agreed with Lisa because it felt like the right thing to do. Still, he guessed at an answer. "That Sol's willing to lie to us."

"Good. So what's the score?"

"Rich old people," Reg said.

"Where?"

"He didn't give me any details beyond that. Said we are robbing a house with as much money or valuables in it as a bank. Called it another perfect score because it is just a house. Not a bank. Something that is made to allow people in and out, not to protect valuables."

"Dumb mark," Lisa said. "But he's right. It amazes me what people keep in their homes. When you find out where it is?"

"Let you know."

"Yeah."

"Has Sham done this yet?"

"Sure did."

"He in?"

"Yup," Lisa said, throwing a five-dollar bill onto the table between them.

"That's it?" Reg said.

Lisa stood for a moment. "You sound disappointed. Don't. These will be brief. Mostly, they'll be by phone. This is probably the last time we will be seen together for a while."

Reg nodded as Lisa turned and left. He waited five minutes, watching the digits change over on his phone, and then left when he felt enough time had passed. He had not touched his coffee, but the idea of coffee gave him a craving. On his way home he went into Blue Bottle on Berry Street and ordered a Cortado. It was his standard drink. If a shop did not know how to make it, he did not drink there. So he never drank at Starbucks. And he sure as hell did not drink at Dunkin' Donuts like the rest of the world.

He sat on the patio. It was a cool September morning, and he wondered how many more times this fall he would be able to sit on a patio. He hoped a lot. As he sipped his drink, he thought about how much danger he might be in. It occurred to him that he rushed into the assignment for ego as much as anything else. He was pulled out of the academy, singled out, and recruited for a specific dangerous assignment. He thought about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. His parents would not understand — why a cop? they had asked. It was not the danger of the job, and it was not the lack of prestige that turned them off. It was the pay. "You won't make any money," they said. "Not for that level of danger. It's not worth it."

But they did not understand why he climbed mountains or ran marathons, either. They never understood why he would turn his nose up at being a lawyer, doctor, or Wall Street banker. "I could have opened any door you wanted," his father said. Reg had never walked through a door his father had opened and was not about to start.

He chose Columbia over Yale, which his father would take as an insult to his grave, Reg was certain. And now this. "Why?" was all his mother asked when his father eventually walked out of the conversation, giving his blessing as meagerly as only a truly a disappointed father could.

Reg was back in his apartment. He picked up the tablet and started to read through the file again, and there it was, the feeling that he had to solve a puzzle, and that the solution mattered. That was key. Could he make a trade that made a billion-dollar ROI? Sure. Could he win a court case that got a criminal off? Of course.

But now he was the thin blue line. He had always known how fragile civilization was. His family had always been wealthy, but like every other young black man in New York, he knew prejudice when he saw it. He had been randomly pulled over by cops. And when his white friends complained about racism and threatened to have all their lawyer fathers sue those cops into bankruptcy, Reg knew that same cop wore a bullet-proof vest, and racist or not, when shots were fired and all his friends ran away from the shooter, these cops would almost universally run to the shooter, and that was the difference.

Yes, the system sucked. It stacked the deck against him, and he had enough privilege and money to overcome it, but that did not motivate him. He knew people like Psycho were out there in the cracks and corners, and he knew that he wanted to be one of the people who caught him.

He went back to Sol's file feeling a little disappointed. He would have preferred to be chasing Psycho, but he would settle for the case he had.