In Plain Sight

Keeley nodded, go on.

“The worst thing about him, or the best, depending on how you look at it, is that when he thinks he’s right, there isn’t anybody that can change his mind. The son-of-a-bitch might even act like he’s going along with you, but deep down, he’s already set his course. And nothing, I mean fucking nothing, will get him out of it. He’s a man who thinks he’s looking at everything for the very first time, like no one else has ever looked at it before so he’s got to figure it out for himself. You know what I mean? There’s some real arrogance there, but he’d never admit that.

“Once you set the hook in him,” Wacey said, “he won’t shake it out. Even if he knows you set it. He’ll see it through to the bitter end, no matter what happens. Just realize that. Once you start with him, you better be prepared to hang on.”

AFTER ANOTHER TWENTY minutes of talking, Keeley slipped the can of tobacco through the slot, and Wacey grabbed it before it was all the way through. Keeley watched Wacey twist off the top and plunge his nose almost into the black tobacco and breathe in deeply, his eyes closed. Without another word, he put the lid back on and stuffed the can in his pocket, then reached up and hung up his phone. His part of the conversation was over.

Keeley couldn’t detect the chew in his side of the room, but he tried to imagine it. He also tried to imagine the other odor, the one that was overpowered by the tobacco. The smell of almonds.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Wacey said soundlessly.

Keeley smiled through the glass. Wacey didn’t smile back, but stood and knocked on the door so the guard would let him out.

AS HE RODE in the van back to the Administration Building, John Wayne Keeley thought over what Wacey had told him.

“Good visit?” the driver asked.

“Good enough,” Keeley said.

WHEN HE PASSED back through the security area, he fished the large can of Copenhagen he had brought out of the garbage can, and slid it back in his pocket. The guard saw him, and winked. They didn’t care a whit what you took out of the place, Keeley thought, only what you brought in.

At the desk he retrieved his driver’s license from a guard who had replaced the woman. He quickly cleaned his wallet and keys out of the locker, while noting that number 16 was locked. The old couple were still inside, visiting.

IN THE PARKING lot, he wiped down all the surfaces in the SUV with a soft cloth, then removed his duffel bag from the back seat and the sock of valuables from the glove compartment of the SUV. He carried them across the pavement to the old yellow Ford pickup and tossed the duffel into the back beneath the camper shell.

As he guessed, the cab of the truck was unlocked. He opened the door and tripped the hood latch. After a glance toward the Administration Building to make sure no one was coming, he leaned under the hood. It took less than a minute to locate the red coil wire, strip it, run half of it to the positive side of the battery coil and tie it off, and trigger the starter solenoid. The engine roared to life. These old Fords were easy to hot-wire, and he’d had plenty of practice on his own when some dumb-shit camp cook lost the keys. That’s why he’d targeted the truck right off, rather than any of the other vehicles in the lot that were nicer. He slammed the hood shut and slid behind the wheel. The steering wheel unlocked as he jimmied the locking pin on the column with the flat screwdriver blade on his knife. Easy.

He peered over the dashboard to make sure no one had watched him. No one had.

John Wayne Keeley backed up and drove out of the parking lot, up the service road, beneath the NO TRESPASSING sign. He steered with his left hand while he threw the old couple’s belongings out the passenger window: a thermos, some women’s magazines, sunglasses, cassette tapes of polka hits. Before he took the entrance ramp to the interstate, he pulled the can of Copenhagen out of his pocket, the one of two he had laced generously with potassium cyanide stolen from a jewelry store in Kansas, and tossed it out the window.

That was the difference, once again, between those stupid convicts in there and John Wayne Keeley out here. If one of those jokers had broken into a jewelry-restoration shop he would have walked right past the chemicals used to refurbish diamonds and gold—cyanide—and straight to the jewelry itself. And then he’d have had a bunch of worn trinkets to try and fence. Not John Wayne Keeley. Not J.W., as he liked to be called. Keeley stopped when he found the cyanide in a locked drawer of the little workroom. And he only took as much of the white powder as he needed, before reshelving the bottle. The proprietors would know they’d been broken into, of course, but would be flummoxed by their good fortune that the thieves had stolen nothing of value. They probably wouldn’t even notice the small amount of missing chemical.