How to Rob a Nice Old Lady

Bill Mooney

Description

In this exciting novel, a group of men launch a complicated operation with the potential to either make them very wealthy or send them to prison forever.
Steve Wheeler has just sealed a deal with four men, each with their own unique strengths and talents to contribute to the clandestine operation. With Steve’s guidance, Luke, Johnny, Mark, and Matt begin unfurling a plan that propels them down a dangerous path to rob a nice old lady.
It has been three years since Steve first became enamored with the beautiful former actress, Kate, after rescuing her from a con artist’s crafty scam. In her previous life, she mistakenly fell in love with a man willing to do anything to fulfill his desire to become a Hollywood legend—including destroying their relationship and her career. Now in love with Steve, Kate is fully intertwined in his plan. As Steve and his comrades slowly inch their way through an underground tunnel toward the Montague Bank of Boston where a treasure awaits in the vault, now only time will tell if Kate can put on the best performance of her life in order to help them achieve their mission without being caught.
In this exciting novel, a group of men launch a complicated operation with the potential to either make them very wealthy or send them to prison forever.

Sujets

• Crime
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663223357
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

How to Rob a Nice Old Lady
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bill Mooney
 
 
 
 

 
HOW TO ROB A NICE OLD LADY
 
 
Copyright © 2023 Bill Mooney.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
iUniverse
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.iuniverse.com
844-349-9409
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-2336-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-2337-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-2335-7 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915506
 
 
iUniverse rev. date:  08/18/2022
CONTENTS
Chapter 1     It Begins
Chapter 2     Time and Motion
Chapter 3     Kate: More than Just Good-Looking
Chapter 4     Mr Hawkins
Chapter 5     A Train, a Bus, and a House
Chapter 6     The Boston Water-Pumping Station
Chapter 7     Zero Hour Minus Fifty Hours
Chapter 8     Hurray for Hollywood
Chapter 9     Who Are You? Who Am I?
Chapter 10     Roy Delahunt
Chapter 11     The Man from the East
Chapter 12     La Felin
Chapter 13     Viva Mexico
Chapter 14     Zero Minus Forty-Three Hours
Chapter 15     A Few Laughs
Chapter 16     Zero Minus Thirty-Eight Hours
Chapter 17     Zero Minus Twenty-Nine Hours
Chapter 18     Martha Brady
Chapter 19     Zero Minus Thirteen Hours
Chapter 20     Rupert’s Plan
Chapter 21     A House by the Sea
Chapter 22     Zero Hour Minus Twenty-One Minutes, Thirty Seconds: Are You Ready?
Chapter 23     Zero Hour Minus Four Hours, Thirty Seconds
Chapter 24     Relax, It’s Done
Chapter 25     Kathy and Raggedy Anne
Chapter 26     What Could Go Wrong?
Chapter 27     Merry Christmas
Chapter 28     New York
Chapter 29     Sun and Surf in the Bahamas
Chapter 30     Surprise!
Chapter 31     Steve and Kate
 
She is a a fine researcher and a great friend.
With admiration and affection, this work is
dedicated to
Maxine Stone hill
CHAPTER 1
It Begins
It was just a tick after seven thirty in the morning when he emerged from the Sixty-First Street apartment building and took up a position on the stoop. He inhaled a couple deep breaths and smiled. It was going to be a good day. He moved quickly down the twelve steps to the pavement and looked skyward. The unusually late fall that had seemed to be so reluctant to give way to the onset of winter had disappeared now. It was cold, yet it still gave the city one of those brilliantly sunny, frosty days that New Yorkers are justified in bragging about.
He drew in a couple more breaths of the cold air, and in a few brisk strides, he reached the sidewalk. He stood there for a moment, looking for any sign that a taxi might be coming his way.
He was a good-looking man in his mid-thirties with well-trimmed brown hair and blue eyes. His movements were deliberate and precise. But at the same time, he conveyed an impression of calm and self-confidence, together with a look about him that indicated athleticism. Yet there was no sense of self.
The slim briefcase he carried and his clean-cut appearance confirmed the attention to the trimmings of a city businessman.
He was neatly turned out in a medium-grey suit with a white shirt and blue necktie. He had decided against the tie matching just-for-show top pocket handkerchief that Mr Markham frequently sported. He wore polished black shoes, and over one arm, he carried a lightweight topcoat. He was on his way to set in motion events that would change his life forever.
The janitor was busy attaching something to one of the lower windows.
‘Morning. Cabbing it today, eh?’
‘Hi, Tim. I was going to, but maybe I’ll walk it. There won’t be too many days like this from now on.’
‘You know it.’
‘Oh, well, yeah. It’s cold, but it’s like, like a champagne day.’
‘Champagne, huh?’ Tim said, wondering what the hell that meant. ‘Kinda early for you today, ain’t it, Mr Wheeler?’
‘Little bit.’ He smiled. ‘You know, Tim, it’s not really like winter at all.’
‘You think so? Well, maybe today ain’t so bad, but don’t worry,’ Tim said, adding a brrrr sound. ‘It’s comin’, cold, cold, and very cold. Oh, yeah, it’s comin’ all right.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Next week, we’ll all be shivering. You can bank on it.’
‘Well, it’s nice today, and that’s what matters.’
‘Big day?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ he said and laughed. ‘I’m banking on it!’
Steve Wheeler donned the topcoat and called over his shoulder, ‘See you, Tim.’
He strode off towards Fifth Avenue and onward, heading towards mid- and lower Manhattan. A few blocks later, however, he did flag down a cab that took him closer to his destination. He got out, paid the cabbie, and walked the rest of the way.
Steve stood, looking at what appeared to be an abandoned building site. It was—or was planned to be—an office block on the lower south side of Sussex Street, near Delancey, close to what might be the outer limits of Lower Manhattan. It was to be a relatively small building when compared to the massive skyscrapers not much more than a block away. It was planned to be only nine stories high when completed, somewhat similar to other buildings in the vicinity.
Work stopped some months before, and it didn’t seem likely construction would restart anytime soon. The reason, as is so often the reason, was that the property developer, due to unforeseen circumstances, had run out of money. They—the developers—were looking for financing or someone to buy the property. Until something of that nature happened, it would stay as it was, dormant, and, to say unfinished would have to be an understatement, with major construction barely started. Since even vandals would have little interest in such a place, it was left unattended, security apparently unnecessary. It was just one of a number of other building sites dotted around several parts of the city that had suffered the same financial woes and were pretty much in the same incomplete state.
The site was surrounded by the usual high, wooden contractor’s fence, but there was easy access at the rear. The work had only progressed as far as the basement and a steel and concrete skeleton of two floors above that. Right now, it looked as though the whole thing would have to start over if it were ever going to come to anything. No doubt it would stay as it was for some considerable time. It suited Steve’s purpose perfectly.
He went in through the opening of the fence at the back and walked forward across the rough ground until he came to another opening with stairs that took him to the basement. Steve stepped gingerly downwards, placing one foot carefully in front of another to avoid the cement rocks and other building debris scattered on the unfinished stairway.
As he neared the basement floor, he noted that two deep holes had been dug in preparation for the elevator shaft machinery yet to be installed. And several other holes awaited slabs of concrete to be placed over them. There were a number of those concrete slabs heaped unevenly with several others of the same stacked against the wall.
Thin streaks of light crept through the cracks of the floor above, and there was a smell that only a building in that particular unfinished state can produce: wood, cement, and damp earth.
Four men were in the basement quietly watching him as he stepped downwards and all the way until his arrival at the basement floor.
The four men were separated from each other as much as seemed possible in such a small space. One of them, a big man but in no way a fat man, was leaning back easily on a stack of building blocks. In contrast, one or two of the others moved a little, shuffling their feet around on the cold unfinished floor.
Steve moved towards them with the same careful steps as when coming down the stairs. He looked at them, and they looked at him, creating an atmosphere of anticipatory stillness in the already noiseless below-street level chamber. The man who outsized the others stood and moved closer to Steve. The others, as though taking his lead, walked over to form a group of five. Steve took a moment before speaking.
‘Good morning,’ he said quietly, smiling. ‘It’s good to see that you are all here as agreed.’
An awkward few moments of silence followed. Steve looked at the four men, varying in age, stature, and character. The big man, around the mid- to late-sixties in age, was about to say something. But it was one of the others, Johnny, who spoke first. ‘So, what now?’
‘Of course.’ Steve nodded. ‘The four of you showing up here today constitutes the sealing of the deal. What I have planned cannot be accomplished without each of you and all of you. If any of you didn’t appear today, the deal would be off.’
He took a moment as though organizing his thoughts and then continue