On the steering wheel, he pressed the small button that showed the cartoon headshot of a little man with three tiny parentheses coming out of his mouth. There was a loud beep. Voice command.
“Go home!” Wojo announced.
The center screen lit up and an address appeared. 2678 Ocean Avenue. Wojo grinned. Like anyone else in middle age, Captain America was too old to realize nothing good comes from putting your home address into your car’s GPS.
“Start Guidance,” Wojo said, hitting the button again.
“Plotting a route to . . . home,” the female computer voice replied.
Nine minutes away. Not bad at all. Lucky, lucky.
Wojo thought again of the seven-thousand-dollar watch. Good sign. So was the address on Ocean Avenue.
Even now, as he turned off Route 1 and passed the golf course that marked the edge of Elmswood’s oldest suburb, Wojo told himself he was a good person. He didn’t think of himself as a thief. But he was. His rationalization was his daughter, of course, and that he was always a gentleman about it. When it came to picking marks, he only chose the snobs, the ones so caught up in their own self-importance, they couldn’t muster a simple hello or, God forbid, a thank you.
Manners. Decency. What the hell was wrong with the world these days?
More important, Wojo was smart about it. He wouldn’t run in and rob people blind. If he did, it wouldn’t take long for the police to figure out that all the victims had eaten dinner at the same restaurant.
He had rules and he stuck to them. Trips like this were only once a month （twice during that month when his sister was going through her divorce）。 And instead of grabbing everything in sight, he only took one item: A ring. A bracelet. On his best night, a sapphire necklace.
When a single piece of jewelry goes missing, people don’t call the cops. They blame themselves and assume it’s lost.
Seven months in, with eight jobs done, Wojo still hadn’t been proven wrong.
“In one thousand feet . . . make a right,” the computerized female voice announced as he blew past the white painted-brick colonial where he’d grabbed that four-carat heirloom ring a few months back.
Four minutes left to live.
Pausing at a stop sign, Wojo glanced around at the black leather interior of the BMW. His stepdad was wrong. This car was nice. So was the neighborhood, though that wasn’t a surprise. With a menu that had a $145 tomahawk ribeye chop, Barron’s Steakhouse attracted the best around.
“Destination ahead . . . on the left,” the female voice added.
Cul-de-sac. Naturally. The mainstay of every suburban ecosystem.
Wojo shifted in his seat, feeling that tingle in his crotch. This wasn’t better than sex. And certainly wasn’t better than sex with Darla, the energy drink sales rep who he’d met in the elevator and did that thing with her tongue. But it was close.
Pulling into the driveway and squinting through the dark, Wojo took a good long look at the tasteful yellow ranch-style house—four bedrooms at least, maybe five. Nothing breathtaking, but that inlaid brick front path and the freshly planted flowers out front? Captain America was doing just fine.
As Wojo shut off the car, he waited a few seconds, double-checking that all the house lights were out. No one home.
Clipped to the sun visor was a small gray remote. Garage door opener. He pressed it with his thumb. If Wojo was really lucky . . .
Rrrrrrrrrrr.
The garage door yawned open, revealing storage boxes, bicycles, a spare freezer, and a workbench that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. If Wojo had looked closer, he would’ve spotted the empty gun safe along the back wall.
Ducking into the garage, Wojo pounded the Door Close button on the right-hand wall, and suddenly, he couldn’t get the song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler out of his head. Turn around, bright eyes!, he mentally sang as the garage door lowered, swallowing him whole.