by Thomas Perry
“And Hatcher didn’t know what he was doing?”
“Never,” said Foley.
Salateri said, “He might have suspected that the money that started the corporation came fresh from the casino tables. There were a couple of times when he told us the numbers on the official slips were lower than the count that night. Max told him that it was because we needed a lot of cash in the vault in case somebody hit the million-dollar jackpot on the big slot. That way we could take publicity pictures of the guy up to his ass in hundreds. The money only gets reported when it’s taken out of play.”
“He bought that?”
“Maybe for a while, maybe never. He stopped asking. The worst he would have thought was that we were still skimming cash and mixing it in with the take on the parking lots.” Salateri shook his head. “Can you imagine that, after all we did for him? He turned his back on us because we were taking money out of our own casino—our own money! I still can’t believe it.”
Buckley shrugged. “We should make it clear that the corporation with the parking lots and so on wasn’t the problem. There was nothing wrong with it but where the money came from, and there’s no way he could have traced it. I think he resented the fact that he was the one who signed the slips with a short count on them.” He gave a puzzled little smile. “You see, that was enough to cost him his virginity.”
Seaver stared at the floor for a moment, then looked up at the row of three faces. “So the problem is that he can say he’s pretty sure that at one time, money was being diverted from the games and put into his own corporation. Then he paid it to a lot of people he didn’t know? I’d say let him.”
“Let him?” Foley looked troubled.
Seaver said, “When I was a cop, we needed evidence of a crime.”
Peter Buckley looked at him kindly, sympathetically. “I’m afraid you’re missing the problem. Pete Hatcher doesn’t know anything. If he somehow strained his capacities and figured out the names of the people in New York State who ultimately received the money, he never heard of them. They’re state legislators and bureaucrats and party functionaries in a distant place. People in their own state wouldn’t know who they are. But the F.B.I. would. And if they heard the little that Pete Hatcher could be assumed to remember—say, four or five names, dates, and amounts—they could trace the money backward to the accounts Hatcher controlled, and then forward to find out where the rest went.”
“But even if they did, the most they would be able to prove was that Pete gave money to politicians. Maybe that it came from here, but not who took it. If he signed for it, then he took it. And half the equation is missing. You have no interests in their state, and they aren’t doing anything in return for the money.” When he saw that the three men were looking at him without changing their expressions, he said, “You abandoned the project, right?”
“No,” said Max Foley. “Unfortunately, it isn’t right.”
“Why not?”
Salateri’s impatience made him look as though he were swelling up. “There are people in New York State who are already in the gambling business. They are big, scary people. In the twenties, if they didn’t like you, they mixed a tub of cement and put your feet in it. Now, if they want cement, they make a phone call and five hundred cement trucks arrive, with fifty government building inspectors to certify they did it right.”
“What have they got to do with this?”
Salateri’s eyes narrowed. “You think we can go into their front yard and set up a business they’ve been in for a hundred years and expect them not to notice? They needed to be consulted, mollified.”
Seaver was beginning to sense the gravity of the partners’ predicament. “Did Hatcher pay them too?”
“He doesn’t know that either,” said Foley. “The Justice Department would take about thirty seconds to figure it out. And what Hatcher paid them wasn’t to buy them out. It was to buy them in. Without their help we wouldn’t have known which politicians could be paid off, how to approach them, where to put the money.”
Seaver frowned and considered. “I know I’m being slow, but let me be sure I understand where we are—”
“For Christ’s sake!” Salateri shouted. “Hatcher doesn’t know he knows anything! But if the F.B.I., the New York State Police, the Nevada Gaming Commission, or the fucking dog-catcher hear a word of it, they’ll know everything!”
“It seems to me that if we could somehow separate the issues—”
Salateri was white with rage. “What did they teach you in the police academy—how to shake down doughnut shops? We have one deal that connects a Las Vegas casino, half the politicians in New York, and the Mafia. In one deal! That blows the politicians, who might have to go get a job. And that blows seven or eight fat old grandpas, who have to spend their last few years locked up with friends and relatives. But not us. We’re not going to jail with them. They’re not going to let us make it up the courthouse steps to hear the charges.”
Buckley looked at Seaver with gentle regret. “It seems to us that we can’t pull out of this and tell them we managed our business badly. We can’t let them get an inkling that anything is wrong. We’re staying alive one day at a time by convincing them that we move slowly, cautiously, prudently.”
“This is something they respect,” said Salateri. “For five generations they’ve been nibbling away at the world like termites, until now you can’t pull a board off a toolshed without finding them behind it. The problem is, the longer we bullshit them, the harder they’re going to take it.”
Seaver squinted down at the carpet.
Peter Buckley said, “You’re thinking we should tell them the truth and ask them to find Hatcher for us.”
“Well,” said Seaver, “I was considering it.”
“Very alert of you,” said Buckley. “They could certainly do it.”
“Sure,” said Salateri. “They have people in every city in the country. He couldn’t run to Europe, because they had that sewn up before Great-Grandpa got on the boat to come here. In South America, Southeast Asia, North Africa they have drug suppliers with armies to protect the crop. I never heard of them having anybody at the South Pole, but I wouldn’t rule it out. They’d find him. But he doesn’t know much, and we know a lot. Who’s the biggest threat? And they don’t have to hunt around and find us to end it.”
There was a moment of silence to give Seaver’s mind a chance to catch up, to understand. “What would you like me to do?”
Foley said, “We’re thinking of hiring a second team. Maybe a third. Pay all of them. Whoever succeeds gets a bonus. How does that strike you?”
“It makes me nervous,” said Seaver. “Earl and Linda are good. Most likely, by now they know where he is, or at least what region. If they find him and there are other people nosing around, they’ll notice them. They’ll have to assume those people can only be bodyguards for Hatcher, or police of some kind. They’ll kill them. Or try to.”
“So what?” asked Foley.
“Then it’s not a clean hit where an anonymous newcomer came quietly and went quietly and nobody notices. It’s a fight between professionals with lots of gunfire and unburied bodies and blood.”
“And?”
“And, as Bobby pointed out, no matter where this happens, it’s in the middle of some Mafia family’s territory. They’re going to want to know who these shooters were, who they worked for, who they were after. It would be hard to imagine them not turning up Hatcher. If he’s killed or wounded, he’ll be identified. If he gets very lucky and escapes while our own shooters massacre each other, somebody will survive, and the local family will hear Hatcher’s name.”
Buckley stared at Seaver with interest. “Any ideas that would get around those problems?”
“Not offhand. I’ll think about it.”
“How about if we had somebody at least as good as Earl and Linda, somebody they know by sight, whose interest in Pete Hatcher won’t require any explanation? Somebody they’ll see as an ally?�
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Seaver’s collar tightened and he began to sweat. “I don’t think they’d see it that way. I don’t know where they are. There’s no way to call them off, or warn them.”
“But they wouldn’t shoot you, would they? How could they expect to get paid the three hundred thousand if they killed their employer?”
“They couldn’t, but—”
“Good,” said Foley.
Seaver flailed hopelessly. “But what would happen here? Who would run security for the hotel? The casino?”
Salateri blew out a breath in a mirthless chuckle. “Your errand boy, Bennis, or somebody. Who cares? If you don’t get Hatcher before he talks, we won’t have a hotel and casino,” he snapped. “There’ll be a bunch of U.S. marshals in here running the place for the government, or a bunch of paisans running it for the ones we screwed in New York.”
Buckley’s voice became avuncular. “I think it’s rightly your responsibility now, don’t you?”
Seaver sat in the chair, helpless.
Foley scribbled on the pad at his elbow. “Give this to Eddie downstairs.” He tore off the sheet and held it out.
Seaver glanced at the small note. “Give Seaver whatever he wants. M.F.” Seaver stood up. He took a step, then paused and looked at the three men. He knew that there must be an answer, but he could not bring his mind to stop racing long enough to concentrate and find it.
“Good luck,” said Buckley. His cheeks constricted to bring up the corners of his lips in a false smile, then went slack again.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out,” Salateri muttered.
11
Tonight was a sort of birthday, because David Keller was three months old. He had spent the time cautiously, patiently finding out who that was. He had spent the previous thirty-three years acquiring a working knowledge of Pete Hatcher, and now most of that work had been wasted. Any quality that David Keller shared with Pete Hatcher would probably get him killed. That was the most distinctive characteristic that David Keller had been able to establish about himself, and it determined all of the others. David Keller was a suspicious, fearful person. He lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of an old brick building in downtown Denver that had no elevator and overlooked a triangle of grass that wasn’t big enough to be called a park. It looked like a spot where the surveyors had not been able to make three roads intersect and had to leave a scrap.
In the evening, when David Keller cooked his simple dinner and washed the dishes at the small, scratched porcelain sink, he could look out the window, across the tops of trees, and see the side of a topless bar with a turntable contraption over the door that had a female mannequin dressed in a sequined outfit revolving around and around like a mechanical dervish. The apartment was small and dark, built at a time when lumber must have been cheap, because everything was old, varnished wood—a built-in sideboard in the dining room and cabinets in the living room and, everywhere, ten-inch baseboards.
David Keller lived in his little apartment like a man holding his breath under water. In the two conversations that Pete Hatcher had with Jane Whitefield he had memorized a few lessons that David Keller now followed mechanically. “Most people who don’t make it get caught right away,” she had said. “If you can put a break in the trail that lasts three months, they won’t have much to work with, and there won’t be as many people looking.”
He had asked, “If I last for three months I’ll be okay?” and she had shaken her head. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to make a mistake, don’t do it before then.” Pete Hatcher had been the kind of person who had wanted to know all of the limits—where can I go and what can I do?—but David Keller was not.
David Keller carried the limits in his mind with a shuddering sense of awe that he should ever have considered going near them. It was lucky for him that he had somehow come to his senses before he had made some impulsive mistake.
Women had always taken up an enormous portion of Pete Hatcher’s thoughts. He loved to look at them, to smell the scents that hung in the air close to their hair, to touch their smooth skin, to hear their soft, high voices. He savored the unconsciously graceful little movements they made with their hands. But Pete Hatcher had no philosophy. He had never set aside the time to sit by himself, wondering why things were the way they were. That never seemed to get anybody else anywhere, so how could he be so unrealistic as to think he, of all people, could figure it all out? He had simply known the obvious—that the standard, plain, no-frills human being was a man. There could be no purpose for women to be so radically different from men unless they were created to be enjoyed and cherished.
One afternoon nearly two months after David Keller had arrived in town he had gone to a supermarket on a Sunday afternoon. A pretty woman in her early thirties wearing a Denver Nuggets baseball cap with a long chestnut ponytail stuck out through the back walked past him, and their eyes met. A couple of times after that, when he went up an aisle, his eyes lingered on her again—on the black, skin-tight spandex bicycle shorts that the oversized sweatshirt didn’t hang low enough to cover the way she pretended to think it did, because women bent at the waist to reach the lower shelves, instead of at the knees. Once, she had caught him appreciating her, and she gave a little smile of acknowledgment.
Suddenly, without warning, Pete Hatcher had struggled to come to life. The opening lines had begun to rise to his throat automatically: “Do you ride a bike?” he would say, just in case she didn’t, and he had to talk about something else. “Riding in Denver traffic is taking your life in your hands. I guess I’m not as good as you are.” She had been reading the label on a jar of wheat germ, so he could say, “I heard that stuff is good for you, but is there any way to get around the taste? What do you put it on?” There was nothing to saying the first words. It usually took him five or six syllables to see in the woman’s eyes whether she was pleased that she had attracted him or startled that some creep had been drawn to her. He had never made a mistake after a whole sentence, because women were much more alert and aware of the people around them than men were. He knew that if he noticed a woman, she had noticed him first. She had already decided what she would do if he spoke.
He knew he had to push Pete Hatcher down, strangle him before he got David Keller into some kind of trouble. Then he met the woman again on the far aisle, which was lined with wine bottles. It was a bad place, because it was out of the way, almost private. He had to look at some labels and put a bottle in his cart to assert his right to be here.
But she came to him. She said happily, “I guess you don’t like football either.”
David Keller was startled. Football? Then he remembered. It was late summer, and preseason games must be on television already. He hadn’t owned a television set in months, and what might be on it had slipped his mind. He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve been known to watch a game now and then, but it’s such a beautiful day.”
“Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it? I’ve been out riding my bike.” Her voice was high and cute, and she moved in little explosions of excess energy that reminded him of the quick, abrupt dartings of a little bird. He was fascinated. He caught himself wanting to see her do things—any things, but he was already allowing his imagination to form preferences as to what they might be.
“Riding a bike?” he said. “Riding in the traffic around here is too much for me. I guess I’m not as good as you are. You’re in better shape, too.”
She gave him the hint of a smile. It said, “That already? Be patient.” But her voice said, “It’s not bad on Sundays. If you like off-road, you’ve got Bear Creek, Cherry Creek, Chatfield …” Her bright brown eyes narrowed. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
He felt suddenly scared. “Yes.”
“One more southern California refugee, right? Someplace hot and low altitude.”
“Los Angeles.” He lied with the best smile he could manage. She had instantly known he was a stranger and picked up the quarter
of the country he had come from. What was wrong? What was he doing wrong?
She lifted her sweatshirt a few inches so she could reach the pen stuck in the waistband of the tight pants. The flash of white skin forced him to weather a flood of wishes. “Here,” she said as she wrote something on her shopping list and tore it off. “If you need directions, just give me a call.”
It was all right. She could hardly be less threatening. He took the paper. Above the phone number it said “Kathy.” He smiled again and said, “Thanks, Kathy. I’m David … David Keller.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look like a David.”
His heart stopped.
“Maybe a Mike … maybe a Jim.”
He desperately reminded himself of all of the times when women had said things like this. She thought it was fun to nudge men off balance just a little. He smiled. “I’ll give my mother a call and see what she can do.”
“You might give it a try,” she said. “I guess moms all want their babies to grow up to be Davids. Most of them grow up to be Buck or Ace or something.” She was giving him a chance, buying him time to notice that he liked her and think of a way she could be with him that would preserve her self-respect.
It wasn’t difficult for Pete Hatcher to think of an invitation. She would like to go pay for her groceries and meet him next door at the health-food place for one of those fruit drinks they made in blenders. She could even have been persuaded to meet him for another ride at one of those creek places she had mentioned and show him the bike route, if they went in different cars. Dinner would have made her feel at a disadvantage because it would mean she had picked up a man and made a date with him. But David Keller was not Pete Hatcher, could not afford to be.
“Well,” he said, “I’d better get the rest of my stuff and get home. Thanks.” He put the slip of paper in his pocket.