George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

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“And I again assure you, Mr. Crenson,” said Tesla, repeating himself for the third time. “There is not an enormous trove of illegal narcotics locked away in an underground vault beneath the headquarters of the New York City Police Department.”

“Biggest motherfucking stash in the world,” said Crenson. Sometime in the last half hour, he had begun to sweat profusely.

Braun was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking on with what Tesla guessed was amusement. He was smiling at least, even if the smile had a hint of nastiness about it.

“Think, Mr. Crenson. Why would they store everything they seized in one place? Why would they keep it at all? There are regularly scheduled burnings in secure locations!”

Tesla wasn’t telling everything he knew about how the NYPD disposed of the drugs that came into their possession—their methods were not dissimilar to those of the federal government or of any other large legal authority in the West—but neither was he, strictly speaking, lying. There was no reason to let Croyd Crenson know where the drugs were stored, even if they were only stored there temporarily.

Not that that would necessarily be worse than the situation Tesla found himself in. Because in his deepening delusion, Crenson was absolutely convinced that he was right about his fantasized “stash.” And even more alarmingly, he was absolutely convinced he had the perfect scheme to retrieve “as much of it as super buddy there can carry.”

Here was the plan, as Crenson had laid it out.

“We go down there, see? We roll up and you use that magic password you used in Central Park, 221B or whatever. They let us in, we make our way down into the sub-basements, brawny rips the doors open, we stuff our bags”—(somewhere, bank bags were to be obtained)—“and out we go!”

And as for the escape plan: “There’s always cabs around there!”

Tesla began working on his own plan. He carefully studied the blueprints. He considered what he knew of Jack Braun’s powers and what he guessed of the man’s motivations and willingness to participate. He listened to Croyd Crenson and watched him closely.

Finally, after Crenson had gone over his scheme once more, spittle spotting the blueprints, Tesla said, “I think we’ve got it. Let’s go.”

Braun made a choking noise and raised his eyebrows so high, they nearly made contact with his perfectly coifed hair. Tesla caught his eye and gave him a subtle nod. Braun, in return, gave a none-too-subtle shrug of his shoulders. Crenson noticed nothing of this.

“All right! All right! Let’s go! I’m driving!”

“You have a car?” asked Braun.

“How hard can it be to find a car?” asked Crenson.

“I’ll call a service,” said Tesla.

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