Dirty Money

by Richard Stark

  “A dangerous arena to walk into.”

  “I know that much.” McWhitney gave Oscar an impassioned look. “I’m not talking about killing anybody, Oscar. I’m not talking about a double-cross.”

  “No.”

  “You said it: a dangerous arena. If I have to defend myself I will.”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s three of us.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe three of us come out with the money, maybe one of us comes out, maybe nobody comes out.”

  “You’re determined to know which.”

  “Oh, I am,” McWhitney said. “And so are the others. If at the end— If at the end, I’m clear of it, and I’ve got the money, and it’s just me, I want to be able to think you’ll be there for the export part.”

  “You won’t be mentioning me to the others.”

  “No.”

  Oscar considered. “Well, it’s possible,” he said. “However, one caveat.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you come out trailed by ex-partners,” Oscar told him, “I do not know you, and I have never known you.”

  “That’s one thing I can tell you for sure,” McWhitney promised. “I won’t be trailed by any ex-partners.”

  4

  Terry Mulcany couldn’t believe his good luck. He’d been in the right place at the right time, that’s all, and now look. Here he was in the exact center of the manhunt, hobnobbing with the major headhunters. Well, not exactly hobnobbing, but still.

  Mulcany knew he didn’t belong here. He wasn’t at this level. A young freelancer from Concord, New Hampshire, he had two trade paperback true-crime books to his credit, both to very minor houses and both milking, to be honest, very minor crimes. A few magazine sales, a whole drawerful of rejections, and that was his career so far.

  But not any more. This is where it all would change, and he could feel it in the air. He was an insider now, and he was going to stay inside.

  If only he could remember where exactly he’d run into that robber and his moll. Outside some B and B around here, that’s all he could bring to mind. A white-railed porch, greenery all around; hell, that described half the buildings in the county.

  But even if he could never finally pinpoint where he and the robber had met, what he did remember was enough. He had come to this temporary police HQ just in time to end a disagreement between two of the top brass, and since it was the top top brass his evidence supported, he was in.

  Apparently, it had been the local honcho, Chief Inspector William Davies, who believed one of the men they were looking for had left this area, pulled another robbery in New York State, and then come back here with the cash to finance the gang while they were hiding out. The other honcho, Captain Robert Modale from upstate New York, had insisted the robber, having safely gotten away from this area, would never dare come back into it. It was Mulcany’s positive identification of the man that proved the chief inspector right.

  Fortunately, Captain Modale didn’t get sore about it, but just accepted the new reality. And accepted Terry Mulcany along with it. As did all of them.

  The woman artist had left now, to have many copies made of the new wanted poster, and the others had moved into that office. Chief Inspector Davies sat at the desk where the artist had done her drawing, while Captain Modale and Detective Gwen Reversa—there’s a picture for the book jacket!—pulled up chairs to face him, and Terry Mulcany, with no objection from the others, stood to one side, leaning back into the angle between the wall and the filing cabinet. The fly on the wall.

  At first, the three law officers discussed the meaning of the robber’s return, and the meaning of the woman who’d been seen with him, and the possibility the man was actually bold enough to be staying at one of the B and Bs nearby.

  But what the sighting of the robber mostly did was put new emphasis on the whereabouts of the stolen money. “We probably should have done this before,” Inspector Davies said, “but we’re sure going to do it now. We’ll mobilize every police force in the area, and we will search every empty house, every empty barn, every empty garage and shed and chicken coop in a one-hundred-mile radius. We will find that money.”

  “And with it, with any luck,” Captain Modale said, “the thieves.”

  “God willing.”

  “Inspector,” Mulcany said from his corner, “excuse me, not to second-guess, but why wasn’t that kind of search done before now?” He asked the question with deference and apparent self-confidence, but inside he was quaking, afraid that by drawing attention to himself he was merely reminding them that he didn’t really belong here, and they would rise up as one man (and woman) and cast him into outer darkness.

  But that didn’t happen. Treating it as a legitimate question from an acceptable questioner, the inspector said, “We were concentrating on the men. We were working on the assumption that, if we found the men, they’d lead us to the money. Now we realize the money will lead us to the men.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Detective Reversa said, “Captain, I don’t understand what happened last weekend over in your territory. What was he doing there? Did he have confederates?”

  Captain Modale took a long breath, a man severely tested but carrying on, “It really looks,” he said, “as though the fella did the whole thing by the seat of his pants. If he ever had any previous connection with Tom Lindahl, we have not been able to find it. Of course, we can’t find Tom Lindahl either, and unfortunately he’s the only one who would know most of the answers we need.”

  Detective Reversa asked, “Tom Lindahl? Who’s he?”

  “A loner,” Modale said, “just about a hermit, living by himself in a little town over there. For years he was a manager in charge of upkeep, buildings, all that, at a racetrack near there. He got fired for some reason, had some kind of grudge. When this fellow Ed Smith came along, I guess it was Tom’s opportunity at last to get revenge. They robbed the track together.”

  Detective Reversa said, “But they’re not still together. You don’t think Lindahl came over here.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Modale said, “I thought we’d pick up Lindahl within just two or three days. He has no criminal record, no history of this sort of thing, you’d expect him to make nothing but mistakes.”

  “Maybe,” Detective Reversa said, “our robber gave him a few good tips for hiding out. Unless, of course, he killed Lindahl once the robbery was done.”

  “It doesn’t look that way,” Modale said. “They went in late last Sunday night, overpowered the guards, and made off with nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash. None of it traceable, I’m sorry to say.”

  Inspector Davies said, “One hundred thousand dollars would be a good motive for the pro to kill this Lindahl.”

  “Except,” Modale said, “his car was found Tuesday night in Lexington, Kentucky, two blocks from the bus depot there. People who travel by bus use more cash and fewer credit cards than most people, so he won’t stand out. If he’s traveling by bus and staying in cheap hotels in cities, spending only cash, he can pretty well stay out of sight.”

  Detective Reversa said, “How long can he go on like that?”

  “I’d say,” Modale told her, “he’s already got where he wants to go. Anywhere from Texas to Oregon. Settle down, get a small job, rent a little place to stay, he can gradually build up a new identity, good enough to get along with. As long as he never commits another crime, never attracts the law’s attention, I don’t see why he can’t live the rest of his life completely undisturbed.”

  “With one hundred thousand cash dollars,” Inspector Davies said, sounding disgusted. “Not bad.”

  Oh, Terry Mulcany thought, if only that could be my story. Tom Lindahl and the perfect crime. But where is he? Where are the interviews? Where are the pictures of him in his new life? Where is the ultimate triumph of the law at the very end of the day?

  No, Tom Lindahl was safe from Terry Mulcany as well. He would stay with the tr
ue crime he had, the armored car robbery, with bazookas and unusable cash and three professional desperados, one of them now an escaped cop killer. Not so bad, really.

  THE LAND PIRATES; working title.

  5

  Oscar Sidd’s car was so anonymous you forgot it while you were looking at it. A small and unremarkable four-door sedan, it was the color of the liquid in a jar of pitted black olives; dark but weak, bruised but undramatic.

  Oscar sat in this car up the block from McW after his meeting with Nelson McWhitney. Some time today the man would set out on his journey to get the Massachusetts money. Oscar would trail him in this invisible car, and McWhitney would never know it. Out from beside the bar would come McWhitney’s red pickup truck, and Oscar would slide in right behind.

  Except it wasn’t the pickup that emerged, it was McWhitney himself, from his bar’s front door. He paused in the open doorway to call one last instruction to his bartender inside, then set off on foot, down the sidewalk away from Oscar Sidd.

  That was all right. Oscar could still follow. He put the forgettable car in gear, waited till McWhitney was a full block ahead, then slowly eased forward.

  McWhitney walked three blocks, hands in pockets, shoulders bunched, as though daring anyone or anything to try to slow him down. Then, taking his hands out of his pockets, he turned right and crossed the tarmac to a corner gas station that was also a body repair and detailing shop. He went into the office there, so Oscar stopped at the pumps and filled the tank, using a credit card. He expected to make a long drive today.

  McWhitney was still in the office. When he came out, surely, he would be getting into one of the vehicles parked around the periphery here; but then which way would he travel?

  The Belt Parkway was down that way, several blocks to the south; Oscar was going to guess that’s where McWhitney would head, if his final goal was Massachusetts. Therefore, when Oscar left the station, he drove half a block north and made a U-turn into a no-parking spot beside a fire hydrant. He sat there and tuned his radio to a classical music station: Schumann.

  Oscar Sidd was not as important in the international world of finance as he liked to suggest, but the reputation itself sometimes brought useful opportunities his way. This cash of McWhitney’s now; that could be useful. In fact, he did have ways to launder hot money overseas, mostly in Russia, though the people you had to do business with were among the worst in the world. You were lucky to come away from them without losing everything you possessed, including your life. Still, McWhitney’s money might be worth the risk. Oscar would trail along and see what opportunities might arise.

  It was nearly ten minutes before McWhitney emerged, and then Oscar nearly missed him, it was so unexpected. A small battered old Ford Econoline van, a very dark green, with holy redeemer choir in fairly rough white block letters on the door, came easing out of the gas station and paused before joining the moderate traffic flow.

  It took Oscar a few seconds to realize the driver of the van, hunched forward to look both ways, was McWhitney, then the van bumped out to the roadway and turned right, just as Oscar had expected. He let one other car go by, to intervene between himself and the van, then followed.

  The van up there was old, its bumper and the lower parts of its body pockmarked with rust, but the New York State license plate it sported was new, shiny, and undented. That name he’d seen on the door, Holy Redeemer Choir, that was also new, and must be the reason McWhitney had left the van at that shop.

  Why would McWhitney use a name like that? What would it mean?

  He wasn’t surprised, several blocks later, when the van signaled for a right and took the on-ramp to the Belt Parkway, heading east and then north. We’re going to New England, he thought, pleased, and the radio switched to Prokofiev.

  6

  The police meeting in the bank building was breaking up, and Gwen walked out to the main bank lobby with Captain Modale from New York State, saying, “I want you to know, Bob, I’m glad you made the trip over here.”

  “Somewhat to my surprise,” the captain told her, with a little grin, “I am as well. All the way over here yesterday, I’ll have to tell you the truth, I was in quite a sour mood.”

  They’d stopped in the lobby to continue their conversation as the others left. Gwen said, “You thought it was going to be a big waste of time.”

  “I did. Mostly, because I was convinced my Ed Smith was likely to be anywhere on earth except this neighborhood right here.”

  “I’m almost as surprised as you are,” Gwen told him. “When I talked with my John B. Allen, he just didn’t seem like somebody who’d take unnecessary risks.”

  “I imagine,” the captain said, “two million dollars could be quite a temptation.”

  “Enough for him to make a mistake.”

  “We can only hope.”

  “But now we’ve got a better likeness,” Gwen said, “we maybe have more than hope. Which is the main reason I’m so glad you came over. We’ll have the new poster up this afternoon, and if he’s still in this general area we’ll definitely scoop him in.”

  “I almost wish I could stay for it,” the captain said. “But I’m sure you’ll let us know.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Gwen promised him, and laughed. “I’ll e-mail you his mug shot.”

  “Do.” The captain stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Gwen.”

  “And you, Bob,” she said, as they shook hands. “Safe trip back.”

  “Thank you.” The captain turned. “Trooper Oskott?”

  The trooper had been seated at a loan officer’s desk, reading a hunting magazine, but he now stood, pocketed the magazine, and said, “Yes, sir.”

  The two men left, and Gwen paused to get out her cell phone and call her current boyfriend, Barry Ridgely, a defense lawyer who spent his weekdays in court and his Saturdays on the golf course. When he answered now, in an outdoor setting from the sound of it, she said, “How many more holes?”

  “I can do lunch in forty minutes, if that’s what you want to know.”

  “It is. You pick the place.”

  “How about Steuber’s?” he said, naming a country place that had originally been very Germanic but was now much more ordinary, the Wiener schnitzel and saurbraten long departed.

  “Done. See you there.”

  Leaving the bank building, putting her cell phone away, Gwen turned toward her pool car when someone called, “Detective Reversa?”

  She turned and it was Terry Mulcany, and it seemed to her he’d been waiting on the sidewalk specifically for her to come out. “Yes?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come out,” he said. “I have two questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Go ahead.”

  “Well, the first is,” he said, “I know my publisher, when the book comes out they’re going to want pictures, and particularly the detectives who worked on the case. So what I was wondering is, if you’ve got a picture of yourself you especially like.”

  And have you, she wondered, asked the same question of the other detectives on the case? Of course not. Smiling, she said, “When the time comes, your editor can call me or someone else at my barracks. I’m sure there won’t be any problem.”

  “That’s fine,” he said, with a hint of disappointment. What had he been hoping for? That she would suddenly hand him her Playboy playmate photo?

  Wanting to get to Steuber’s, she said, “Was there something else?”

  “Yes. The other thing,” he said, “is, I’ve been trying to remember where I saw that guy.”

  “My John B. Allen.”

  “Yeah.” He twisted his face into a Kabuki mask, to demonstrate the effort he was putting in. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but there’s something about a pear it reminds me of. The place where I saw them.”

  She did her own Kabuki mask. “A pear?”

  “You know this area,” he said, “a lot better than I do. Is there someplace around here called like the Pear
Orchard, or Pear House, or something like that?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Oh, well,” he said, and elaborately shrugged. “If I figure it out, I’ll give you a call.”

  “You do that,” she said.

  Barry’s current client was a veterinarian who either had or had not strangled his wife. A jury would answer that question very soon now, probably early next week, and at lunch Barry was full of the problems besetting a poor defense counsel merely trying to put his client in the best possible light. “The judge just isn’t gonna let me show the video in my summation,” he complained, crumbling a roll in vexation. His client, in happier times, had won a humanitarian award from some veterinarian’s association, and Barry insisted that no one who watched the video of the man’s acceptance speech would ever he able to convict him of anything more nefarious than littering. “He’s not even gonna let me show a photo of it.”

  “Well,” Gwen said, being gentle, “that is kind of far from the subject at hand.”

  “Which of course is what the judge insists. But if I were to just mention it, the award, that could be even worse than—”

  “Bartlett,” Gwen said.

  Barry frowned at her. “What?”

  “Bartlett pear,” Gwen said, “Mrs. Bartlett. Bosky Rounds.”

  “Gwen,” he said, “is this supposed to be making sense?”

  Beaming at him, Gwen said, “All at once, it does.”

  7

  When Trooper Louise Rawburton signed in at the Deer Hill barracks at three fifty-two that afternoon, she was one of sixteen troopers, eleven male and five female, assigned to the four-to-midnight shift, two troopers per patrol car, doing this three-month segment with Trooper Danny Oleski, who did most of the driving, which was okay because it left her more freedom to talk. Danny didn’t mind her yakking away, so it made for a happy patrol car, and if it wasn’t for the system of rotation she knew she and Danny would have been happy as a team on their tours of duty forever.