The Wheelman Read Online Free PDF Page A

was all Lennon needed to know.
    He jammed the pen into Andy’s neck, aiming more toward the back so the blood wouldn’t spray all over him. Andy looked genuinely surprised, up until the point his eyes fluttered shut and he passed out.
    Years ago, Lennon would have felt bad about something like this. During high school, he’d devoured the biographies of guys like Willie Sutton and Alvin Karpis, gentlemen bank robbers who never fired a shot unless absolutely necessary—and civilians were absolutely hands-off. And that was still the way Lennon liked to run his bank jobs. The threat, but not the kill.
    However, there was a truth that had eluded Lennon in high school. Something that guys he knew called “human law.” It wasn’t God’s law, moral law, or even the government’s law. It was a law as old as mankind itself, and law number one was this: If someone fucks with you, it is imperative you fuck them back. Andy Whalen seemed like a nice college kid. But he had also taken a two-by-four and tried to stuff him, naked, down an industrial pipe.
    Andy Whalen had fucked with Lennon.
    That’s what he thought about as he stripped Andy of his clothes, then dumped his body down the pipe, followed by the body of his semipro buddy. First, he fished the wallet out of the black Cavariccis. Mikal Ivankov Fieuchevsky was the name, with a Philadelphia address.
    About the Benjamin
     
    T HE CLOTHES WERE SNUG ON LENNON. ANDY HAD APPROXIMATELY the same height and build, but not quite the same muscle development. But it was better than being naked. Or wearing those ridiculous Cavariccis.
    If Lennon had been thinking clearly, he would have stripped Fieuchevsky of his clothes first. Because even though Lennon had the guy’s wallet, he didn’t have his truck keys. They were most likely in the front pocket of the dead guy’s dress pants. And Lennon wasn’t one of those criminal types who knew how to hotwire any car—just a few select makes and models. This wasn’t one of them. Besides, he usually stuck to bank stuff, and the cars he used in getaways always had keys. So now he had to walk back into Philadelphia.
    The only visible option was the big blue bridge: the Benjamin Franklin, built in 1926 to connect Camden with Philadelphia. Why they wanted to do that in the first place remained a mystery to Lennon. Camden was a bigger shithole than Philadelphia.
    Lennon pressed two fingers to his neck. Not good.
    He spat in the right-hand lane and walked across the bridge. Halfway across, he noticed how much the bridge swayed and bucked. He never knew bridges did that. He’d never had to walk across them before. The jittering under his feet pissed him off.
    Now that he’d had some cold air in his lungs and time to think, the real pain set in. Clearly, today’s job had been sold to somebody. Guessing from the appearance of Mr. Fieuchevsky, it was Russian mob. Somebody had told them what they’d be hitting, how much, and plotted the exact getaway route. Which enabled them to stash a ram van along Kelly Drive, then rob the robbers, dispose of the bodies, and move on with life. Somebody had told them all of this.
    The problem was that somebody.
    Bling knew the heist details, and knew a bit of the getaway strategy. But nothing exact. No schedules, no maps, nothing.
    Holden didn’t know shit. Lennon had insisted on that.
    So even if Bling and/or Holden had gotten hopped up on H one night and decided to spill their guts to a hooker, they wouldn’t have been able to tell anybody shit about the Kelly Drive portion of the getaway plan. That, Lennon had kept to himself. He had told nobody else about it, not about his timing, his mapping, and his practicing.
    Except for one person.
    Katie.
    And Lennon didn’t want to think about that.
    He didn’t want to think about how weird she’d been acting lately.
    Secretive.
    Quiet.
    No.
    Rest first. Then thinking and planning. It pained him not to be able to call Katie right away, give her the code, let her