Plugged Nickel

by Eric

  "Did your girlfriend carry the thousand?"

  "When I got it from Jackson, I put it in my money clip. She wanted to see it, then she wanted to hold it. So I let her take it with her."

  "How about the second thousand?"

  "It was waiting for me in a coin locker at the railroad station just like Jackson said it would be if we pulled it off."

  "When Cara didn't turn up at home, did you report her missing?"

  He tossed me a look full of contempt. "You mean to the police?"

  "Yes. To the police."

  "We take care of our own."

  I didn't say anything, but maybe he could see the foolishness of that contemptuous remark mirrored in my eyes, because he started crying and couldn't stop for a long time.

  After he quieted down, I said, "So you went out looking for her on your own?"

  "All along the route from McCook to Denver. Back and forth. Looking for something. Looking for somebody who'd maybe seen her. Nobody'd seen her."

  "Jackson call you to meet him?"

  "No. I've been here in McCook since this morning. He just showed up."

  "Since when this morning?"

  "I came on the train."

  "From Denver? That means you've been hanging around here since two o'clock this morning?"

  "There's people live at night even in a town like McCook. I thought I could talk to some of them and find out things ordinary people wouldn't know."

  "You talked to many?"

  "Some. They didn't know anything about Cara."

  "You say Jackson didn't contact you?"

  "I went to the diner to get some coffee and he came in five minutes later."

  "What did he want to see you about?"

  "He wanted to know if we took anything else off the mark that we didn't tell him about."

  "Had you?"

  "We were going to do the 'stumble and switch' and let it go at snatching just the satchel. But the mark was coughing so hard and so long that Cara thought she'd just vacuum his pockets as long as she had the opportunity."

  "She didn't get everything because we found some junk in his pockets."

  "But not his wallet."

  "She got that."

  "Yes. She even got his pocket change. She was showing off for me."

  "She pass that to you along with the briefcase?"

  "Yes..."

  "But you didn't leave it with the briefcase in the toilet."

  "That wasn't part of the deal."

  "What was in the wallet?"

  "About two hundred and some dollars in cash. Driver's license. Some credit cards. A gate pass."

  "You remember the name on them?" He shook his head.

  "You remember the company name on the gate pass?"

  He shook his head again.

  "You keep the wallet and the credit cards?"

  "I kept it all."

  "Is that what you just sold to Jackson?" He nodded his head this time.

  Nick looked at me with eyes that had aged twenty years. "Where you taking her?"

  "To the morgue in Denver."

  "Are they going to . . ." He didn't have to say the rest for me to know what it was be couldn't ask.

  "When you get your friend back, she'll look almost like you remember her," I said. "I'll get her things back for you too, as soon as I can. The book. Her comb. Even the money. Just give me a telephone number where I can reach you. I'll take an arrangement when I get permission to return her things. I'll bring them to you or I'll have somebody bring them to you."

  He gave me a number, looking at me sideways as I wrote it down, having more than an inkling that I intended to use him some way, but wanting his sweetheart's possessions back bad enough to go along with anything I wanted without asking questions.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Bosley wasn't very glad to see me. I guess even a medical examiner gets to the point where he starts to lose his immunity to horror.

  "I hope this is the last of these packages you're going to bring me, Hatch."

  "So do I."

  Potter came out to get the bundle from the trunk of the car, the crazy little smile flickering around his mouth.

  He carried it inside as Bosley and I stood out in the cold.

  "I haven't had any lunch and it's on to supper. She'll have to wait."

  "Don't you go home to supper?"

  "I did for twenty years. When I was married."

  "Are you a widower?"

  "My wife left me. After twenty years she left me. Said she just couldn't stand to smell the stink on me a minute longer."

  "Why didn't you quit pathology?"

  "I offered but it was too late. You married?"

  "No. Never been."

  We thought about our mutual solitary condition.

  "Well, we could stand here feeling sorry for ourselves or we could go have a meal."

  He went to get his topcoat and hat. Then we walked over to the same restaurant we'd eaten in before.

  "You know anything new about this mess?" he asked when our plates were in front of us.

  I gave him the whole opera word for word, on the off chance something in it would trigger a notion that might prove useful.

  "This coroner? This fella Freeman who calls himself Jackson around the gypsies?" Bosley said.

  "I've got my best eye on him."

  "How'd he know this Nick Kemp was in McCook?"

  "Somebody told him when they saw the gypsy boy arrive on the morning train?"

  "Lots of people looking for such things in the wee hours of the morning over in McCook?"

  Bosley destroyed half his steak before he spoke again. "There's only a few outfits can afford that kind of manpower, Hatch."

  "Which one did you have in mind?" I said.

  "Well, decide which side you think Freeman is on and take your pick." He looked at me for a long minute and said, "I'm sure you've already thunk it. You've got an interesting technique."

  "What's that?"

  "You go around acting dumb and letting people spout off showing how smart they are. Then you pick the ripe berries out of the box."

  "It hardly does any good to ask right out what somebody thinks about something," I said. "Even if they haven't given the matter any thought at all, when you ask them, they'll surely tell you something—anything—just so they won't look dumb."

  It wasn't much surprise to either of us when we got back to the morgue and found the Feds waiting. That's one of the outfits both of us'd had in mind.

  I knew one of the G-men.

  Bess McGilvray would say nobody calls them that anymore. I wish she wouldn't do that—remind George and me that we're moving up closer and closer to the head of the passing parade.

  I knew him because he worked out of the Omaha office and we'd met on one case or another maybe three times during the last three years.

  His name was Barry Trask. He had an easygoing grin and a trick of looking half asleep that covered up a very hard nature. He was an efficient man who hated to make a mistake and hated to be wrong.

  He introduced the other agent, Martin Janosky, who turned out to be a higher-ranking agent working out of the regional office in Denver. You could tell at a glance that nobody ever called Janosky Marty. He was wearing a shiny gray suit, a lighter gray shirt, a gray satin tie, and shoes with a high polish. He had prematurely gray hair and wore steel-rimmed Photogray glasses. He looked like a dressed-up automation made of steel, chrome, and platinum.

  I introduced Bosley. Janosky smiled briefly and asked him to please leave for a few minutes, but to keep himself available since they'd want to speak to him by and by. Bosley bristled like an old porcupine and said, "Don't let matters of protocol get in our way here, Mr. Janosky. There's no reason why we shouldn't sit down around the coffeepot and do this the easy way."

  "I don't want the interrogation of one possible witness tainted by the interrogation of another," Janosky said.

  Trask grinned at me from behind Janosky's back and rolled his eyes up
to the sky.

  "Witnesses? Witnesses to what?" I said.

  "Well, we don't know yet, do we?" Janosky said.

  "We're all working the same side of the street, son," Bosley said. "At the moment you're in my neighborhood, so, unless you want to go about this in a more official manner, we'll do it my way. I expect you're smart enough to figure out that anything that comes out in any conversation between you and me would soon be known to my old friend, Jake Hatch, anyway. And vice versa."

  "How's that?"

  "Because I'd tell him."

  Janosky turned to Trask and nodded. That was the signal for us all to sit down. Bosley poured out coffee for everybody without asking, more a peace offering after Janosky's capitulation than a gesture of hospitality.

  Janosky asked all the questions. Trask just sat there smiling lazily and taking it all in.

  Janosky ran me through the events on and off the train: the discovery of the severed body, McGilvray's assumption of interim jurisdiction, Bosley's discovery that the pieces belonged to two people not one, the later search for and discovery of the man's lower half and my transport of that part to Denver and the morgue. And then the search for and discovery of the head and torso of the girl and my arrival with it in the back of a rented car. That's where I stopped. I mentioned nothing about McCook and the gypsies.

  He wasn't the sort who charmed you into wanting to make his job easier. If the FBI was taking jurisdiction, they could sort the evidence and figure out for themselves what it might mean. I remembered the nickel still in my pocket, tied up in the corner of my handkerchief. I didn't tell him about that either.

  He turned to Bosley and got all he'd given me over lunch and a little more. Details that only another pathologist would care to know about. The only time Janosky's expression changed is when he tightened up a little when Bosley mentioned the way the teeth had been filled with gold and the stomach with sausage and sauerkraut and the assumptions Bosley had drawn from those facts.

  "What can you tell me about the other body?" Janosky said.

  "Female Caucasian. Latin or Mediterranean" I'd say five feet one when I get to measure all of her. A hundred and five pounds . . ."

  Janosky turned his gray eyes to me. "How could you think half a woman weighing a hundred and five belonged to half a man weighing a hundred and seventy?"

  "In the driving rain along a pitch-black track humping along a wooded mountain ridge?"

  "Afterward. Back at the depot in Akron."

  "Looking at two human parts, a top and a bottom, who could imagine there was more?"

  For the first time he made a little smile, saying that he would've thought, he would've known, he would've been unmoved and unshaken. He passed a hand across his face, wiping the smile away, almost shuddering at the realization that he'd smiled in the first place.

  "This is our status as of this minute," he said. "The bodies will remain with you here at this morgue. They're to be put into adjoining drawers and the drawers are to be locked—"

  "They don't lock," Bosley interrupted. "We don't have many body snatchers around Denver."

  "A federal agent will arrive sometime today to seal them. If he has doubts about the security of this facility, he'll post himself on site until such time as a decision is made about the disposition of the subjects. Dr. Bosley, you are hereby officially on notice that you are not to discuss this matter or any of your findings with any other person unless they carry specific authorization. The mere showing of a shield or government identification should not be considered enough to give anyone access. Anyone must show evidence that they have been informed of this matter and are privy to what is presently known. You may ask questions to satisfy that requirement."

  "While the unauthorized person is punching me around the face and neck, kicking in my ribs, or putting a knife to my esophagus?" Bosley said "What the hell's going on here, son? The least you can do is tell us who the dead man and woman are."

  "I can't tell you about the man and don't know about the woman."

  Bosley shrugged his shoulders, sighed, and looked at me as though I might have a clue about dealing with this robot. I gave a little shake of my head.

  Janosky turned his attention to me. "You're under the same injunction. Talk to no one about this."

  "You've cleared this with my boss, Silas Spinks?"

  "We will."

  "How about Sheriff McGilvray in Akron?"

  "He's been informed." Janosky stood up. "Now, I'd like to officially take possession of the property found on the bodies."

  Bosley and Janosky left the office. Trask and I were alone.

  "That your boss?" I asked.

  "No, but he's senior on this."

  "He's got a way about him."

  "He's an asshole, but if you ever say I said so I'll call you a liar and a communist sympathizer." Trask grinned and batted his lazy eyelids as though he were about to fall asleep on the spot. "But what the hell, you know and I know that you're going to do what you damn well please, talk to anyone you damn well feel like talking to, stick your nose in where you damn well feel like."

  "A man doesn't trust me enough to offer me his confidence, I don't believe myself constrained by his rules."

  "While you're telling him to go to hell by doing whatever it is you intend to be doing, just keep me personally informed if you come up with anything."

  "You want to ace him?"

  "I don't want to step on any toes, but the name of the game is save your own ass. And if I can come out of this assignment one up on Janosky, why the hell not? So, you'll do me the favor?"

  "Tit for tat?"

  Trask thought that one over. We could hear Bosley and Janosky in the corridor coming back to the office.

  "Where you staying?" Trask said. "I'll call you."

  I didn't know what to say, having made no plans to remain in Denver any longer than I had to. "When'll you be calling?"

  "Probably not until after seven tonight."

  "I have a friend, Harriet Lawry, lives in town," I said, writing down her name, address, and telephone number in my notebook and tearing off the page. "If I'm not there when you call, she'll know where you can reach me. If you get no answer at all, call back here at the morgue. I'll leave a message if I don't connect with Harriet and tell you where else we can meet."

  He took the slip of paper just as Janosky walked back in. Trask folded it once, put it in his pocket, and stood up. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Hatch," he said.

  We shook hands all around and they left.

  As they walked down the hall, I heard Trask murmur, "We'll keep an eye on that bird," just loud enough for me to hear.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Harriet was glad to see me. "Twice in one week, that's something."

  I kissed her and told her that seeing how skinny she was made me take pity on her, so I'd brought along the makings of a truly great mulligan stew the way I'd learned to make it from the boys in the camps along the Burlington Northern right of way.

  Trask called just as we were sitting down to dinner. "Where'd you like to meet?" he said.

  "Where are you?"

  "Downtown in a bar near Union Station."

  "You taking a train?"

  "No. I'm just having a beer. I'll be driving back as far as Akron with Janosky. He wants to personally inform Sheriff McGilvray that we're taking jurisdiction. Funny. McGilvray's been hard to get on the phone, just like you."

  "I could get over to you in about forty minutes. I'm finishing my dinner."

  "Well, I can cab it over to you in twenty. By the stockyard, isn't it?"

  "You know Denver?"

  "I've got a map."

  "All right, do that. I'll give you exact directions."

  "Will your friend be there?"

  "Yes."

  "That's no good then. I don't want what we've got to talk about broadcasted all over town."

  "She wouldn't be interested. But you could be right. She lives in a loft and there aren't any wal
ls or doors, except for the bathroom, and I can't ask her to go sit on the pot until we're through."

  "We could ask her to take a bath and then go in and wash her back after we finish our business. I'm making smart remarks, Jake, because I'm still not sure I should go through with this."

  "I'm not going to twist your arm, I said. The line was silent for a long minute.

  "I'm checking my map again," Trask said. "I can meet you at the entrance to the cemetery or at the Elyria Park swimming pool."

  "Cemetery's better for me," I said.

  "Twenty minutes. Go finish your dinner," Trask said, and hung up.

  Twenty minutes later, I passed up a second cup of coffee, kissed Harriet, and told her I'd be back for it in no more than half an hour.

  A cab was parked outside the cemetery with its sidelights on. The driver glanced at me once, then looked away.

  Trask was sitting on a tombstone halfway along the path before the first turning past the entrance gate.

  His eyes were closed and, at first, it looked as though he didn't even hear me coming. Then he turned his head a couple of inches, opened his eyes, and smiled. "I was sitting here thinking about how it's going to feel when I'm dead."

  "It's not going to feel," I said.

  "Let's hope not."

  I looked up overhead. The city-shine wasn't as bright in the sky over the dark patch of the big cemetery. The stars seemed brighter.

  "Why are you hanging on to this one, Jake?" Trask said. "You'd think two people falling under a train and getting cut in half would be the sort of action you'd just as soon do without."

  "Why are you taking jurisdiction?" I asked right back. "You'd think the same two people would be of little consequence to the FBI."

  "We developed an interest."

  "What took you so long? How come you let it lay in my lap for three days?"

  He eyed me like a poker player holding cards in a last-hand, everything-in-the-pot showdown.

  "You've got a ride to catch," I said. "If you're going to tell me, tell me."

  "The man's name is Bela Mazurky. He traveled on a passport under the name Benjamin May. We think he was a Czech, though he could've been Romanian, Hungarian, or East German. The citizens of the countries under Soviet domination are different from the Russians but their intelligence services are pretty much the same and all of them are run from Moscow."