A Pure Double Cross Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cover my ass in case you had another source inside the gang? Someone who could keep an eye on me?” I wiped my brow. “Whew. That’s more thinking than I’ve done in a month.”
    I paused to see how my act was going over but it was hard to tell. Schram’s watery blue eyes had gone glassy. “Sir?”
    Schram came to. “How are you going to work your way up to Mr. Big if they know that’s why we sent you?”
    â€œI’ll make myself indispensable. Mr. Big will come to me.”
    Agent Schram turned back to his desk and keyed the intercom. “Get Gilliam,” he barked. “
With
the plans.”
    Schram sat down and shuffled through papers. This was it? The green light? At the very least I had expected to be braced by Chester Halladay about my unauthorized change in strategy. Not to mention the twelve grand I had left over after I bought myself a meeting with The Schooler.
    Joe Gilliam announced himself from the other side of the door. I opened it on a corn-fed linebacker with a boyish face and thick reddish-blonde hair that came to a peak halfway down his forehead.
    â€œMeet Harold Schroeder,” said Schram from behind his desk. Gilliam’s mitt swallowed mine whole. “Lay it out.”
    Agent Gilliam pulled diagrams and timetables from his briefcase and spread them out on a glass drafting table against the far wall. He turned a switch, the table lit up. Gilliam ran it down. The job was an armored car robbery, and not just any armored car, the armored car that collected citizen donations to the city’s Help the Needy Christmas Fund!
    â€œThat ought to get the attention of the
Press
and
Plain-Dealer,
” said Gilliam. Schram grunted from his desk.
    Good Lord. My suspicion that the higher ups at the Cleveland District Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had bats in their belfry was, officially, confirmed. They wanted to conduct an undercover sting operation that garnered maximum publicity.
    I should have walked out there and then. I didn’t. Too stupid, too stubborn. I examined the documents on the light board instead. Someone had a done a lot of work. The diagrams were precisely drawn. But they ignored a key concern.
    â€œAnd federal agents will be posing as the armored car guards?” I said to Gilliam.
    â€œOf course. Didn’t I make that clear?”
    â€œSure you did Joe, it’s just this.” I looked the question to Schram. He nodded curtly. “I told the mob I was working for the FBI.” Joe Gilliam’s bovine face froze in mid-grin. “It’s okay, we’re still in the driver’s seat, but it gets complicated.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œWell, on the face of it this armored car job should be a cakewalk. The crooks know the heist is FBI-approved, the FBI now knows that the crooks know. But - and here’s the tricky part - the crooks
don’t
know that the
FBI knows
that they know. The mob will think they have the advantage, but it’s your agents who will have superior knowledge.”
    Joe Gilliam’s eyeballs ping-ponged around the room, looking for answers. Agent Schram, who was busy wrestling a sprung paper clip back into proper alignment, ignored him.
    â€œAnd I’m supposed to do what?” said Gilliam.
    â€œConvince your guys to sell their roles,” I said, patting his lamb shank forearm. “Because once they know that the
crooks
know that this heist is just a charade, your guys will want to leer at them, taunt them, pinch their cheeks. And then all hell will break loose.” I patted Agent Gilliam again. “Got that?”
    â€œUh huh.”
    I unwound the maze of corridors, rode the lift to the lobby and walked down the stone steps of the Standard Building with a queasy feeling. Joe Gilliam was a good egg, he would do his best. It wasn’t that.
    My foot gave way on a patch of ice and I rode my duff down the final four steps to the