Page 21 of Baker

Adventurous?

Yeah, I’d say I’m adventurous.

SEVEN - Baker

Tito scratched the light scruff that peppered his jaw. He held my gaze for an instant, and then lowered his eyes to my desk. His boyish features made it easy to assume he was immature or inexperienced.

He was neither.

Although he was in his early thirties, he could easily pass for a high school senior. A true genius and self-taught electrician, he was a wealth of information about everything. His areas of expertise, however, were computer hacking, anything to do with numbers, and the manipulation of high end alarms.

I arched an eyebrow. “Well?”

He continued to rub his jaw. “Eighty-six percent.”

I laughed. “Eighty-six, huh?”

He looked up and nodded. “Eighty-six.”

Standing off to the side, Cash crossed his arms and then gave Tito a look. “You’re a fucking weirdo. Why not ninety?”

Tito glared back at him. “Because ninety would be a lie.” He looked at me. “It’s eighty-six,” he said dryly.

In the few days it took me to recover from having my brains fucked out by my new daytime neighbor, Tito had been researching Pat’s Gold and Diamond Exchange in detail. In his survey of the premises, he learned the alarm system included motion activated cameras and an emergency power supply that automatically energized as soon as electrical power was lost. It was outdated, which made the once state-of-the-art system and easy one to disable. If he was eighty-six percent sure he could manipulate it, I was willing to plan the job.

I rubbed my hands together. “Eighty-six is good with me.”

Cash waved in Tito’s direction and then turned away. “Eighty-six is the same as a hundred. He just makes this shit up. This deal’s for sure. I’m telling you. We’re gonna be fucking rich.”

Tito pushed himself away from my desk and gave Cash a shitty look. “Nothing’s certain, so that gets me to ninety-eight. This place is in a strip mall off of Main Street, and Rainbow has a police force. So, the possibility exists that the town cop gets bored and drives past while I’m trying to kill the alarm and cut the power. Now, we’re at ninety-two. There’s six of us involved. The odds of--”

Cash turned around. “Why do you do you always do this in two percent increments? If you’re so fucking smart, why not one percent? Or a half? Or tenths. Yeah, why not tenths, Mister Brainiac?”

“No one can guess within one percent. A tenth is ludicrous. If I claimed to be able to, it’d be a lie. You’re the only one in the club who’s prone to tell lies.”

“Fuck you, Tito.”

Tito looked Cash up and down. “Truth stings, doesn’t it?”

Cash’s eyes thinned to slits. “What are you talking about?”

“Back in May. When you almost shot that girl in the bank and called it an accident. It was the most blatant lie I’ve ever heard.”

Cash huffed out a heavy sigh. “It was a fucking accident.”

Tito formed a gun with his fingers. “You had it pointed at her face the entire time she was gathering up the money. Miraculously, when it accidentally went off, you missed her. You can tell Baker whatever you want. I’m not interested in listening to your bullshit, Cash. It wasn’t an accident.”

Cash alternated glances between Tito and me. “When are we going to find something else to talk about?”

“It was a fifty-thousand-dollar mistake,” Tito said. “I made an extra ten grand because of your accident. I’ll be talking about it for a long time.”

“It was an accident, and it was eight months ago.” Cash looked at me. “What day is it?”

“Seventh, why?”

“No, not the day of the month. What day of the week? Is it Tuesday?”

“Monday,” I said.