“So you got it out of Massachusetts.”
“That’s right.”
“And now you’re ready to trade. This was north of two mil? How can I be sure?”
“Read the news reports. Look, Meany, I’m saying ten percent on the dollar. You can’t get a steeper discount than that. If the final number’s a little off, one way or the other, who’s gonna complain?”
Meany thought about it. “And you’re gonna want cash.”
“Real, unmarked, and unstolen.”
Meany laughed, “That’s what we usually deal in. I’m gonna have to consult.”
“With Mr. Albert.”
Meany didn’t like the reminder. “That’s right, you had that phone call with Mr. Albert. He didn’t like it I let you get that close to him.”
“No choice.”
Meany nodded, “Well, Mr. Albert’s a sensible man,” he said, “He understood I didn’t have any other choice either.”
“Good. So he might like this.”
“He might, I might not mention the vendor’s you.”
“That’s all right with me.”
“I thought it would be,” Meany said. “So where do I get in touch with you?”
Parker looked at him. “I like the way you never give up,” he said. “When should I call you?”
Meany grinned. He was liking the conversation more than he’d thought he would. He said, “You got any time problems on your hands?”
“No. Where it is it’s safe for as long as we want.”
“Too bad. I’d rather you were under the gun.”
“I know that.”
Meany thought it over. “Call me Thursday,” he decided. “Three in the afternoon.”
“Good.”
Meany waved a hand over the sandwich remnants. “We don’t have to do lunch,” he said.
Massachusetts
Two and a half weeks after the big armored car robbery, and still neither the robbers nor the money had been found. No one would admit it, but law enforcement was no longer completely committed to the hunt. The track was cold, and so was the case.
On that Monday afternoon, troopers Louise Rawburton and Danny Oleski were nearing the end of an eight-a.m.-to-four-p.m. tour, when they passed St. Dympna United Reformed Church. Louise happened to be driving at that moment, Danny every once in a while insisting she take a turn, so she braked when she saw the church and said, “There it is again.”
Danny looked at it. “So?”
“I wanna see it,” she said, and pulled off the road to stop beside the church. “I’m sorry we didn’t go in there last time.”
“Well, we were kind of busy last time. And we had to report that broken window across the road.”
“Well, we’re not busy now. Come on, Danny.”
So Danny shrugged and they both got out of their cruiser, adjusted their belts, and went up to the broken side door. It was early twilight here at this time of year, still plenty of light, but it would be dark inside the church, so they both carried their flashlights. They pulled the door open and stepped in, their light beams shining across the rows of pews and, near the doorway, three of the hymnal boxes squatted on the floor.
“Looks like,” Danny said, “they couldn’t fit them all.”
“Suppose we should take these? Donate them to somebody.”
“We can take them back to the barracks anyway,” Danny said.
“Good idea.”
Aiming the flashlight this way and that, he said, “It’s a real shame. This building’s still in good shape.”
Louise bent to one of the boxes and tugged. “These things are heavy,” she said.
“Well, yeah, they would be. Books.”
“Maybe we should just take some of them now,” she said. “Be sure there’s anybody wants them.”
“Just take one book,” Danny said. “They’re not going anywhere.”
Louise lifted the top off the box she’d been trying to lift, and they both looked in at the rows of greenbacks. The two flashlight beams trembled slightly, converging on all that money.
“Oh, my God,” Danny whispered.
“Oh, Danny,” Louise wailed, “Oh, no, Danny, it was them.”
“We talked with them,” Danny said. He was wide-eyed with shock. “We stood out there and we talked with them.”
“That goddamn woman gave me a hymnbook.”
Danny’s flashlight suddenly spun around, to fix on the basement door. “Why was he down there?” he asked. “What was he doing down there?”
Bitterly, Louise imitated the guy who’d come up out of the basement. “Oh, there’s nothing down there. Appliances all gone, everything gone.”
“Louise,” Danny said, “what was he doing down there?”
She had no answer. He walked over to that door and pulled it open and shone the flashlight down the stairs. Then he uselessly clicked the light switch a few times. Then his nose wrinkled and he said, “Jesus Christ. What’s that smell?”
Detective Gwen Reversa knew there were times she received an assignment only because she was a woman, and was thought therefore to be of a more sympathetic nature than the average male cop. She didn’t disagree with the assessment, but it irritated her anyway. She would have preferred gender-blind assignments, but when the woman’s touch was wanted, she knew she was always going to be that woman.
In her current case, for instance, she was clearly the only one in the office even considered to take the squeal. It was a wrongful death emerging out of a long-term case of simple slavery. The perps were a middle-aged Chinese couple named Cho, early beneficiaries of the Chinese economic miracle. The Chos designed toys, which were made in their mainland factories and sold worldwide. So successful were they that five years ago they’d bought an estate in rural Massachusetts, less than three hundred miles from either Boston or New York, and now split their time between China and the United States.
Their staff in the Massachusetts house was five Chinese nationals with no English, illegally brought in, mistreated, and paid nothing. The finale came when the Chos’ cook died of a burst appendix. The Chos, unwilling to risk exposure by seeking medical assistance, had preferred to believe the cook was malingering and could be cured with a few extra beatings. When they’d tried to bribe a local mortician to keep the death quiet, he instead went to the police.
So now Gwen was here in this stately New England country house filled with bright-colored Oriental decorations, sitting with a woman named Franny from Immigration and a translator named Koh Chi from a nearby community college. The four remaining staff/slaves, frightened out of their wits, were haltingly telling their stories in Mandarin, while Koh Chi translated and a tape recorder stood witness. The Chos themselves were at the moment in state holding cells, and would be questioned when their attorney arrived from Boston tomorrow.
This particular job was slow and tedious, but also heartbreaking, and Gwen wasn’t entirely displeased when the cell phone in her shoulder bag vibrated. Seeing it was her office, she murmured to Franny, “I have to take this,” and went out to the hall to answer.
It was Chief Inspector Davies. “Are you very tied up there?”
“Pretty much, sir.”
“They found some of the money,” he said.
It had been too long. She said, “Money, sir?”
“From the armored car.”
“Oh, my gosh! They found it?”
“Some of it. Also a body. We’re working on ID now.”
“I’ll be right there,” she said, and went back to explain to Franny and to make her promise to send a tape after the interviews.
It was the conference room at the state police barracks this time. In addition to Chief Davies at the head of the table, there were a pair of state troopers sitting along one side, a man and a woman, who introduced themselves as Danny Oleski and Louise Rawburton. Both looked very sheepish. It wasn’t a usual thing to see a state trooper look sheepish, so Gwen wondered, as she took a chair across from them, what was going on.
> Introductions over, Inspector Davies said, “Let the troopers tell you their story.” He himself was looking grim; “hanging judge” was the phrase that came to Gwen’s mind.
The troopers glanced at each other, and then the woman, Rawburton, said, “I’ll tell it,” and turned to Gwen. “Out on Putnam Road,” she said, “there’s a church called St. Dympna that was shut down some years ago. My family went there when I was a little girl. The week before last, when we were told to forget the roadblocks and concentrate on empty buildings instead, St. Dympna was in our area.”
“When we got there,” the male trooper, Oleski, said, “two men and a woman were unloading boxes of hymnals from the church into an old Econoline van. It had the name Holy Redeemer Choir on the doors.”
“We looked in a couple of the boxes,” Rawburton said, “and they were hymnals. When I said I used to go to that church the woman even gave me one of them.”
Oleski said, “The minister’s house was across the road. Also empty. Upstairs, we found a back window broken out, looked as though it could have been recent. When we went back to our car to report the broken window, the van was gone.”
Gwen said, “I think I know where this story is going. You went back to the church. Why was that?”
“We happened to go by it,” Rawburton said, “and we didn’t go inside last time, and I realized I just wanted to see what it looked like.”
Gwen said, “You didn’t go in last time?”
Oleski said, “The three people were very open. I looked at license and registration, all fine. One of the men was in the basement when we got there, and he came up and said everything was stripped out down there, appliances and all of that.”
“They were happy to have us search,” Rawburton said. “They seemed happy. There just didn’t seem to be any point.”
Gwen said to Oleski, “You looked at his license. Remember the name?”
Oleski twisted his face into agonized thought. “I’ve been going nuts,” he said. “It was Irish or Scottish. Mac Something. I just can’t remember.”
“I Googled Holy Redeemer Choir in Long Island, just now,” Rawburton said. “There is no such thing.”
“When you went in there today,” Gwen said, “what did you find?”
“Three boxes of hymnals on the floor,” Oleski said. “But when we opened them, it was all money. And when I opened the basement door, the smell came up.”
“It was Dalesia,” Davies said. “We’ve got a positive ID now.”
“I keep thinking,” Rawburton said, “we should have done more, but what more? We checked the driver’s ID, the car registration, looked in boxes.”
“That you opened?” Gwen asked. “Or that they opened?”
Oleski said, “One I opened, two they opened, the second one when the woman gave Louise the hymnbook.”
“That’s a nice touch, isn’t it?” said Davies, the hanging judge.
Gwen said, “And the two men? Any idea who they were?”
Rawburton, looking and sounding more sheepish than ever, said, “They’re the two from the posters.”
“But that new one, of the guy that was in the basement,” Oleski said, “we didn’t get to see that until after we’d met them. And it was a lot closer than the first one.”
Gwen shook her head and said to Davies, “Nine days ago. They were here, just the way you said, and so was the money, and nine days ago it all left.”
“There’s no trail,” Davies said.
“When I think how many times,” Gwen said, “they just slid right through.” The idea she never would be calling Bob Modale over in New York to describe the arrest of John B. Allen and Mac Somebody grated on her, but she’d get over it. “Inspector,” she said, “I should get back to my Chinese slaves. At least there, I think I can deliver a happy ending.”
FOUR
1
Tuesday afternoon, Parker tried calling the phone number in Corpus Christi that had once belonged to Julius Norte, the ID expert, now dead. Had his business been taken over by somebody else?
No; it was a Chinese restaurant now. And when he looked for Norte’s legitimate front business, a print shop called Poco Repro, through information, there was no listing.
So he’d have to start again. The guy who’d given him Norte’s name in the first place was an old partner named Ed Mackey, who didn’t have a direct number but did have cutouts, where messages could be left. Parker used the name Willis, which Mackey would know, left the gas station phone booth number, and said he could be called there Wednesday morning at eleven.
He was seated in position in the car at that time, when the phone rang, and got to it before it could ring again. “Yes.”
“Mr. Willis.” It was Mackey’s voice. “I guess you’re doing fine.”
“I’m all right. How’s Brenda?”
“Better than all right. She doesn’t want me to take any trips for a while.”
“This isn’t about that. Remember Julius Norte?”
“Down in Texas? That was a sad story.”
“Yeah, it was. I wondered if anybody else you know was in that business?”
“Time for a new wardrobe, huh?” Mackey chuckled. “I wish I could say yes, but I’ve been making do with the old duds myself.”
“Well, that’s okay.”
“No, wait. Let me ask around, there might be somebody. Why don’t I do that, ask some people I know, call you tomorrow afternoon if I’ve got anything?”
“That would be good.”
“If I don’t get anything, I won’t call.”
“No, I know.”
“Three o’clock all right?”
“I got another phone thing at three tomorrow. Make it two forty-five.”
Again Mackey chuckled, saying, “All at once, you sound like a lawyer. I hope I have reason to call you tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
On Thursday afternoon, he was parked beside the phone-on-a-stick a few minutes early. At quarter to three the phone did ring and it was Mackey. “I got a maybe,” he said.
“Good.”
“It’s a friend-of-a-friend kind of thing, so there’s no guarantees.”
“I got it.”
“He’s outside Baltimore, the story is he’s a portrait painter.”
“Okay.”
“You call him, it’s because you want a picture of yourself or the missus or the dog or the parakeet.”
“Uh-huh. What name do I use?”
“Oh, with him? Forbes recommended him, Paul Forbes.”
“Okay.”
“Here’s his cell.” Mackey gave him a phone number. “His name, he says his name, is Kazimierz Robbins. Two Bs.”
“Kazimierz Robbins.”
“I don’t know him,” Mackey warned. “I only heard he’s been around a few years, people seem to trust him.”
“Maybe I will, too,” Parker said.
“Hell-lo.” It was an old man’s voice, speaking with a heavy accent, as though he were talking and clearing his throat at the same time.
“Kazimierz Robbins?”
“That’s me.”
“A friend of mine told me you do portraits.”
“From time to time, that’s what I do, although I am to some extent retired. Which friend told you about me?”
“Paul Forbes.”
“Ah. You want a special portrait.”
“Very special.”
“Special portraits, you know, are special expensive. Is this a portrait of yourself, or of your wife, or of someone close to you?”
“Me.”
“I would have to look at you, you see.”
“I know that.”
“Are you in Baltimore?”
“No, I’m north of you, but I can get there. You give me an address and a time.”
“You understand, my studio is not in my home.”
“Okay.”
“I use the daylight hours to do my work. Artificial light is no good for realistic painting.”
“Okay.”
“These clumpers and streakers, they don’t care what the color is. But I care.”
“That’s good.”
“So my consultations are at night, not to interfere with my work. I return to my studio to discuss the client’s needs. Could you come here tonight?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“That is also good. Would nine o’clock be all right for you?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. And when you come here, sir, what is your name?”
“Willis.”
“Willis.” There was a hint of “v” in the name. “We will see you then, Mr. Willis,” he said, and gave the address.
Five minutes later, Parker called Cosmopolitan Beverages and was put through to Meany, who said, “Mr. Albert said, if I want to deal with a son of a bitch like you, it’s okay with him.”
“Good.”
“The price is acceptable, and we’ll work out delivery.”
“Good.”
“One step first.”
“What’s that?”
“We have to see what we’re getting. We need a sample.”
“Fine. It’s still ten for one.”
Meany sounded doubtful. “Meaning?”
“We give you ten K, you give us one K.”
Meany laughed. “I love how we trust each other,” he said.
“Or,” Parker said, “you could just give me your cash, and hope for the best.”
“No, we’ll do it your way. How do you want to work this?”
“I’m busy the next couple of days,” Parker told him. “A guy I know will call and set up the switch.”
“I’ve probably seen this guy.”
“Maybe.”
“In a red pickup?”
Parker waited.
“Okay,” Meany said. “This guy will call me. What’s his name?”
Parker thought. “Red,” he said.
“Red. I like that. You’re easier to deal with,” Meany said, “when you’re not trying to prove a point.”
“Red will call you.”
Hanging up, Parker dialed McWhitney’s bar, got him, and said, “I’m on a pay phone,” and read off the number. Then he hung up.
It was five minutes before the phone here rang. Parker picked up and immediately reeled off Meany’s name and phone number, then said, “Ten grand for one. They need a sample, I’m busy, so you work out the switch. Your name is Red.” When he hung up, McWhitney hadn’t said a word.
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