by Joseph Flynn
DeWitt chuckled.
“What?” John asked.
“I like the way you think, that’s all. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Good.”
The two feds ended the call.
With John thinking this was the second case in a row he was working well with the FBI.
He wondered what the world was coming to.
Of course, if cyberwarfare was the answer, cooperation was a good thing.
Yo Mama’s Bar & Grill, French Quarter
John ate alone that evening and decided to dine within the bounds of his per diem. Just to show Marlene Flower Moon that he wasn’t solely responsible for the federal budget deficit. He had a burger, the specialty of the house. His waitperson asked if he’d care to try one of the establishment’s eighty-nine varieties of tequila. He went with a ginger ale.
Told the waitperson it was a religious thing.
She said, “Cher, New Orleans is where people come to break a commandment or two.”
“I know.” John said. He showed her his badge. “You know anyone who rides an Indian Chief Dark Horse motorcycle?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. My ex. We fought over who’d get what, the house or the bike. He won. Headed off to L.A. Thought he would get into the movies, but five years later I ain’t seen him onscreen at the cineplex. I just keep having this nightmare. That he had to sell that beautiful ride for a song because he ran through all his money. The bastard.”
The waitperson’s story made John think the robbers might have bought their motorcycles used. He said, “If you don’t mind my asking, what did your ex do for a living?”
“He was a weekend sports guy for a TV channel in town, but his real claim to fame was he used to be a second-team All-America tailback at LSU.”
“Did he buy his bike new?”
“He didn’t buy it at all. It was a gift from a booster. Honest booster, though. He gave the bike to my ex after his college football eligibility was used up. Of course, back then we all thought his pro football days would be right around the corner, but that never happened either.”
“Why not?”
“Dumbass went zip lining. Line snapped. He broke both legs. Worked like hell at his rehab but he never got his old speed back.”
“He didn’t sue?” John asked.
“He tried. Company that put up the line went bankrupt. Tough luck, dude.” The woman shook her head and said, “Damn, now I need a tequila.”
John laid out the cash for a drink. Told her to keep it off his bill.
Then he added some more money for a taxi.
“Get home safe,” he told her.
Mississippi Riverfront, New Orleans
The burger at Yo Mama’s tasted great but it sat heavily on John’s stomach. He decided to go for a walk along the riverfront. Aid his digestion and burn some calories. The night was pleasantly cool for August in the Big Easy, but John had little company on the footpaths he chose.
He didn’t know the city, wasn’t sure if he was walking through areas where the more knowledgeable feared to tread. Places where a tourist might get mugged. He had no illusions of immortality, but he knew he was big, fit, armed and a federal officer. He’d use his gun if the need arose. Use of his weapon, if that was what happened, would be backed up by the BIA.
The federal government had a long history of standing by its agents in the matter of “justifiable shootings.” The FBI, in fact, was batting 1.000, going back as far as John knew. Other agencies did their best to keep up.
John set his own standards. He would have no qualms about protecting himself. But he would also make sure his actions were defensible to a jury more objective than other people on the same payroll he was.
Unmolested, he stopped to look out at shipping on the Big River. He saw barges headed upstream and cargo ships moving out to sea. It was another way of looking at the activity he’d seen at the Port of New Orleans. Without having the benefit of any evidence, he felt that the motorcycles used in the robbery of the Thibodeaux State Bank hadn’t left town by water.
Making use of marine shipping would have involved too many other people, both on departure from one port and arrival at the next. Any criminal with a three-digit IQ — though that was far from all of them — would want to limit the number of people with knowledge of their crimes. The fools, on the other hand, boasted to their friends and sometimes perfect strangers about what they’d done.
They were the easy ones to catch.
The guys who robbed the bank hadn’t shown any sign of being morons.
Catching them was going to take a sustained effort.
Still, their disappearance after the robbery continued to suggest they’d shipped their bikes out of town by some means. A new insight hit John. The helmets Marcellus Darcy had seen the robbers wear? They’d have been packed off with the motorcycles.
So would the stolen cash. The “Indian” hair styles? Wigs, extensions and feathers? Put them in the traveling kit, too. Wipe off the warpaint and makeup and …
These guys weren’t fools by any means.
They could have left town by any legitimate means of travel.
No one would have paid them any special attention.
John turned his back on the river and looked at the city. The robbers might still be in town. They could be watching to see how the feds chasing them were conducting their investigation. Learning whatever they could and making their plans accordingly.
John was sure they intended to hit again.
Somewhere else probably.
Following a timetable that made sense to them.
John’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He thought it might be Byron DeWitt calling. Or Nelda Freeland. Maybe Marcellus Darcy or Edmee LaBelle. Even Marlene Flower Moon.
He was wrong on all counts.
He made the connection and heard Rebecca Bramley’s voice.
“So have you solved the case?” she asked.
John laughed, glad to hear her voice. “Not yet. Might be a while.”
“Then I’m going back to work tomorrow. I’ll bank the unused vacation day.”
“That’s what I’m doing with my time.”
“Can you tell me where you are or is that a secret?”
“I’m in New Orleans.”
“Hey, cool. I’ve never been there, but I always thought I’d like to go. Mardi Gras and all.”
“This is my first time, and I’ve thought it would be a great place to see with you. What do you say the next time we can scrounge even four days off, I bring you here?”
“Merveilleux.” Marvelous.
Like many Canadians, Rebecca was bilingual.
John had learned French in college.
Rebecca said, “I can’t wait, but once I get back to work, I won’t be so needy.”
“This is the first time in three days that you’ve called me.”
“For a Mountie sergeant, that’s practically hysterics.”
“Well,” John said, “at the risk of making you swoon, may I ask a favor?”
“What?”
“I don’t have a picture of you. Will you email one to my phone?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Rebecca?”
Her voice was choked with emotion when she first tried to speak.
Clearing that impediment, she asked, “Would you like one where I’m clothed or nude?”
“Well … to quote Randy Newman, you can leave your hat on.”
Rebecca laughed. “My dress uniform hat, of course. I’ll call a photographer.”
“Can’t wait,” John said.
Renaissance Arts Hotel, New Orleans
The living room window in John’s suite faced north. He looked out, pivoting his point of view to the west by the number of degrees he estimated would put his gaze in line with Calgary. The curvature of the earth and the limitations of the human eye kept him from seeing Rebecca’s house, but neither his imagination nor his spirit was so constrained.
Instructed in the Lutheran faith of his father and the Catholicism of his mother, John had also learned the mystical beliefs of people around the world. That was what happened when your mom taught cultural anthropology and both of your parents believed they could travel in planes of existence beyond the physical.
John had yet to experience anything like that for himself.
But he knew of his parents’ expeditions into domestic and foreign wilderness areas.
Each time they came back they were both familiar and new to him.
As if they’d seen such things as he couldn’t begin to guess at.
Right now, he was attempting something that would never be proven in a laboratory. Trying to let Rebecca know his spirit was with her. That she might not always be at his side or even at the front of his mind, but she was always at the center of his heart.
With luck, he’d dwell in her heart as well.
He finally turned from the window and got back to work. He sat with his laptop in front of him and felt an impulse to review Louis Mercer’s video of the bank robbery. He did his best to block the memories of what he’d seen before. He tried to see it as if it was his first time.
To a degree, he succeeded. Last time, the first things he’d noticed were the automatic weapons the robbers brandished. That was a conditioned reflex. He was a cop who carried his own firearm. The quick, accurate use of his gun might be the difference between life and death.
Now, though, the first thing that registered was how the robbers communicated.
Both with the bank customers and staff and among themselves.
The large flash cards they directed at the civilians were easy to read and used very basic English. They were unlikely to be subject to forensic linguistic analysis. They just got the job done. Even if there had been people in the bank who couldn’t read English, it would have been completely natural for a foreign visitor to imitate the actions of everyone else.
No subtitles necessary.
Again, a sign of intelligent planning.
Among themselves, the robbers communicated with hand signals. No, not quite. There was only one of them who gave the signals; the others just followed his directions. They’d been well trained, and they all had the eyesight not to misinterpret any of the signs.
None of them wasted so much as a step that John could see.
The man directing the others stood near the entrance to the bank. He was just a bit taller than his accomplices. John pegged the man as nearly of a height with him. He was a bit broader and deeper in the chest than John. His forearms stretched his shirtsleeves as if they were knotted with dense muscle that been developed to generate great power.
John reversed the video and reviewed the signs the man gave to see if he might decipher them. There was something familiar about them, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. He didn’t try to force it; his subconscious didn’t like to be hurried.
He closed the video and checked for messages on his computer. He found an email from Deputy Director DeWitt: a further roster of bank robbers who had used motorcycles in the commission of their crimes. The list was lengthier than John had suspected. He appreciated the fact that DeWitt had been so thorough in completing the task.
His eyes were heavy with fatigue by the time he reached the last item.
A criminal named Carl Gugasian had developed a highly successful technique for robbing banks. He entered a bank five minutes before it closed. He wore a mask from a horror movie and carried a gun. He jumped the teller counter and took everything he could from the cash drawers. He exited the bank less than two minutes after he’d entered it.
He used a dirt-bike to make his getaway.
But he traveled only a short distance on the motorcycle.
Then he hid it inside a windowless van and drove off.
John sat back in his chair, thinking you’d need more than a delivery van to hold eight large motorcycles. You’d need … He looked up the weight of a Chief Dark Horse: 746 pounds. Multiply by eight and you had almost six thousand pounds, three tons. That’d take a pretty big truck. Big enough to …
John made an intuitive leap. Smart robbers like these guys wouldn’t want a truck that was just big enough. They’d want extra room. So they could hide the bikes, helmets, cash and everything else behind a wall of other goods. In other words, a fifty-three foot trailer pulled by a powerful rig.
Something that would blend in with all the other long-haul brutes on the road.
He returned to reading about Carl Gugasian. Damn, the guy was an Ivy League graduate, had a master’s degree in systems analysis from Penn. After each robbery, he cached his stolen loot, his guns and masks — all of which bore his fingerprints — so they wouldn’t be found in his possession if his van was pulled over by the police.
He didn’t worry about hiding the dirt-bike. It hadn’t had any plates on it when he made his escape, but he put the tags on once the bike was tucked into the van. The title he held on the bike was legal. The thing was even insured.
All that meticulous planning didn’t matter in the end. Bad luck brought Carl down. Two kids playing in the woods not only found one of his caches, they told their parents, and the grownups called the cops. Neither the kids nor their mother and father had been seduced by the prospect of easy money.
The police were waiting when Carl came to collect his bundle.
He was convicted of five bank robberies.
But only after he’d gotten away with forty-five others.
An advanced degree paid off, John thought, but it went only so far.
Which brought another half-formed thought to mind.
He was too tired to grasp it, though, or do anything but go to sleep.
Hoping to dream of Rebecca.
— Chapter 17 —
Tulane University, New Orleans, Friday, August 23rd
The fall semester had yet to begin, but when John called to ask Louis Mercer to join him for breakfast, Louis said they could get together, but only if John came to campus. They met at the Bruff Commons Dining Room. Louis had a black coffee and a glazed donut with sprinkles. John started his day with a bowl of whole grain cereal, a container of Greek yogurt and a glass of fresh orange juice.
Louis had kept John waiting, but only for a minute or two. That had been time enough for John to develop one of the two fragmentary ideas he’d had the night before. The story of Carl Gugasian, the Ivy League bank robber, had prompted the first notion. There might not only be a ninth Indian — the one who drove the truck with the motorcycles inside — but a tenth Indian.
A really smart guy.
A computer hacker par excellence.
Maybe someone from MIT or Caltech. Someone who’d long ago noodled the notion of turning all the traffic lights in a big city green at the same time. High-end techies loved their practical jokes. Played them on each other all the time. Coming up with something that topped your peers was a badge of honor.
And if you could walk away with bags of cash, too, why not?
Just because you were a whiz at writing code, though, didn’t mean you knew how to start a business. Or — John liked this idea a lot — maybe some number crunching savant had started a business and a sly bastard had come along and stolen it right out from under him. Suckered the book smart kid but good, gotten his signature on legally binding contracts that left the guy with the bright idea with only a pittance from a digital gold mine.
Someone like that would be seriously pissed, wouldn’t have any trouble rationalizing the theft of someone else’s money. Then Louis arrived and they sat down to eat and talk. John wanted help with the element of the bank robbery that was still inches beyond his grasp.
How the robbers communicated with each other during the robbery.
“The bank robbers,” John said, “did you notice how they moved?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did they seem to know what they were doing? Were they … efficient?”
“Yeah, seemed like …”
Louis caught up with John. “They knew right where to go.”
That dovetailed perfectly with John’s thought about the gang having one smart cookie at the top of the pyramid. Somebody had to scout the bank, let the guys doing the heavy lifting know what the layout of the crime scene would be. That might have implied an eleventh Indian, but John didn’t think so.
The more links in the chain there were, the better the chance one of them might break. Made more sense to think the smart guy had two tasks, the scouting and the hacking. Visiting the scene of the crime would also be a thrill for the mastermind, give him a greater sense of participation. Of ownership.
Louis filled John’s silence, “You think the robbery was an inside job?”
“No. From what I saw, the people who work at the bank are a close-knit group. The next thing to a happy family.”
The sole exception, of course, was Harold Murtree, the chicken-hearted guard who’d ditched his uniform shirt and gun, and hadn’t shown up for work the next day. The NOPD hadn’t been able to find him at home. Maybe it was time the FBI started looking for the guy.
“Anything else you want to know?” Louis asked.
The wait-person at Yo Mama’s popped into John’s head.
She’d said her ex, the one who’d been a football star, had a Chief Black Horse.
John said, “Besides being efficient, did you notice anything else about how the robbers moved?”
“How?”
“Yeah. You’re a writer. Characterize the way they moved for me.”
Louis peered into his memory. Something that caused him to squint.
“They moved like they work out. Strong and sure. A couple of them almost glided. The ones that jumped the teller counter had some real hops, too. That good enough for you?”
John thought of a word to sum up such movement: athletic.
“One more thing. There was a robber by the door giving hand signals to the others. I’m sure that was part of the reason they were so efficient. What did you think of that?”
Louis gave John a blank look. “Never noticed.”