Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen

STOOD IN his model train room, watching a long freight wind its way through the mountains. It was long past midnight by now; the house was silent above him. The little electric motors in the model locomotives sounded like diesel engines as the train rolled across the layout.
    Tomlin’s body was tired. His mind, though, couldn’t slow down. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Eat Street robbery, a few days ago now but still fresh. He could feel the big assault rifle explode in his hands as he fired that burst into the ceiling. Could still see the pretty young teller trembling as she emptied her till, her eyes pleading with him not to shoot her.
    The money’s good,
Tomlin thought.
The money buys the whole family a couple months, worry-free. The bank teller, though, and the gun?
    Tomlin shivered.
    He parked the freight train in the Minneapolis yard and started up a passenger express for another loop. Thought about Tricia as the train picked up speed. For all of his misgivings, his spiky-haired punk-rock princess had come through as advertised. Brought him to her apartment a few days after the deal with Javier, introduced him to Dragan, a quiet Serbian kid with acne scars and a close-cropped haircut.
He looks like a basketball player,
Tomlin thought.
Or a rebel soldier in some woebegone Baltic state.
    “How do you know him?” Tomlin had asked her, when Dragan had ducked out, his mother on the phone.
    Tricia shrugged. “I just know him,” she said. “You ask so many questions.”
    “I’m hiring him to rob banks,” Tomlin told her. “I’m allowed to ask questions.”
    Tricia glanced after Dragan. Then she sighed. “We went to the same high school,” she said. “He used to drive for his big brother’s crew. They took down a bunch of liquor stores in my neighborhood before they got caught. Dragan was young, so they let him out early. He’s cool, boss. You can trust him.”
    “Are you two together?”
    She gave him her funny smile. “Sometimes,” she said.
    He’d watched her eyes go wide when he’d brought out the guns. Frowned when she picked up the shotgun. “Careful with that,” he told her.
    Tricia scoffed. “You be careful,” she said. “I’m no virgin.”
    “It’s a big gun.”
    “My dad’s a gun freak,” she said. “Used to take me hunting. You ever want any pointers with this baby, let me know.”
    He let her keep the shotgun—or, rather, she claimed it, leaving Tomlin to get used to the rifle. The thing made his stomach churn, its purpose explicit and its menace undisguised. He’d stared at it for hours, almost afraid to hold it. Then he’d carried the gun into the First Minnesota branch and fired that first burst through the ceiling, and instantly his misgivings vanished. The building seemed to shake on its foundation. The bank tellers cowered, and he felt like a god. A god with a really big gun.
    Tomlin watched the passenger train come speeding out of the mountains, toward the city. It passed the munitions factory, where he’d hidden the shotgun shells, and slowed for a stop at the big Saint Paul station.
    Tomlin parked the train and turned off the engines. He shut off the lights and went upstairs and slipped into bed beside Becca, listening to his wife’s breathing and forcing himself to wipe the robbery from his mind. Forcing himself to stop thinking about the money and Tricia and the terrified bank teller. He imagined he was on a train somewhere, in a sleeping car speeding through the night, and soon he was drifting off, picturing in his mind a late-night station stop, the clatter of the wheels on the tracks, a munitions factory dark in the distance.

24
    S TEVENS STARED AT the snow-covered hulk. Brushed more snow from the trunk, his gloves coming back rusty. The car had been here awhile.
    He pulled off one glove and reached into his pocket and came out with a photocopy from the Danzers’ case file. Glanced at their Thunderbird’s registration and then knelt at the rear