by Tony Wiley
“Isn’t it supposed to work like this? Last time I checked, it was called capitalism.”
“How many employees do you have?”
“Depends on the time of the year. But usually six or seven.”
Morrison whistled. “Must cost a fortune to keep that operation running.”
Cowgirl raised herself up on her elbow. “It’s not cheap. I’ll grant you that. That’s why I was anxious for you to get out of prison so we could think about making some good money again.”
Very nicely played, he thought, very nicely played. But if you’re the one who pocketed the four other banks’ money, you can afford to lie down in bed all day for the rest of your life without a worry in the world.
“So you haven’t burned through all your war chest yet?”
“What’s the matter, Morrison? You want to become my business manager now?”
“No, it’s just that I would’ve thought you’d be more active. That’s all.”
“I told you, I’ve been enjoying the good life. I mean, what’s the point in living the life we do if you’re going to work your ass off? I’m leading this life precisely so I do not have to work my ass off. Aren’t you?”
Morrison nodded. “That’s not a bad way to put it,” he said.
“Well, now that you’ve made me feel guilty for lying around in bed, I’m gonna get up and take a bath.”
She inched closer to him and landed a warm kiss on his mouth. “Stick around, OK? I’m gonna cook us a nice breakfast. You’re in for a real treat.”
“I’m not moving an inch. Promise.”
He watched her beautiful naked body saunter away from the bed and disappear behind the bathroom door. Heard the water start running in a muted splash. The ceiling fan started whirring away in a hushed buzz. Good, he thought. Before he got down to work, he decided to stay there a couple more minutes. Just long enough for her to settle down in there.
He raised himself and reached for the tablet she had left on the nightstand. Cowgirl had it open on a browser page from the local newspaper website. It displayed a short piece on the previous night’s motorcycle accident. It stuck to basics. There was the name of the dead rider that Morrison indeed knew. A brief profile of his past deeds. The dead rider was a small-time fry who had a knack for getting into trouble. The sheriff’s department knew all about him. The piece said nothing too specific about the circumstances of the accident, just that after being chased at high speed, the motorcycle had crashed into Sheriff Sanford’s patrol car and that the rider had met with an instant death. It also added that Sheriff Sanford had suffered a slight shock but had been able to gather herself and leave the scene unattended. Morrison browsed the rest of the site to kill some time. Then he heard the water stop running, followed by some mild splashing. Cowgirl would be in there for a while now. He could get right down to business.
First, he wanted to get a hold of her mobile phone. Earlier that morning, when he had called her on that number, she had answered reasonably fast, with a sleepy voice. So it had to be somewhere in the bedroom. Morrison opened the two drawers in the nightstand next to him and found nothing besides the small gun and a box of ammunitions. Caliber .22, like he had guessed. He rolled to the far side of the bed and checked out the other bed stand. In the top drawer was a small pile of fashion magazines and a couple of paperbacks. In the bottom one was her smartphone, next to a box of tissues. Morrison picked it up and pressed a button to bring the screen back up. It wasn’t password protected. He started looking into it.
First thing he checked was her phone call logs. There weren’t many of them. Either Cowgirl was not a big chatter or she used her landline for most of her communications. Morrison couldn’t say.
The log ran back approximately one week. During that time, she had exchanged barely a dozen calls. Most of these displayed a name in addition to the number, so they tied back to contacts she maintained in her address book. But two of them simply referred to plain numbers without any further identification. The last one was his own prepaid number. And the last but one, late the previous night, was a number he didn’t know. Crucially, there was no phone exchange with any of the other partners in their failed deal during that period. No trace of Mike or Harris. And obviously none of Tommy since he was still stuck in prison.
After that, he opened her email account. There was a deluge of messages. Apparently she never cleaned or sorted them into subject-related folders. Everything was in the inbox. Morrison checked the first few of them.
Most were related to her horse business. Pedestrian emails exchanged with customers and service providers. Setting up appointments. Sending and receiving invoices. And through them all, a few that looked more personal with friends and family members. Morrison scanned the list over a six-month period and found nothing special. Again, no trace of Mike, Harris or Tommy.
Next, Morrison opened her agenda and perused the last couple of weeks. Most of the entries he saw were related to some of the emails he had just read. Morrison spent long minutes looking for something, anything that would seem out of the ordinary. But there was nothing. No big surprise there either.
He decided to put the mobile back in the bed stand and switch his gears to the rest of her bedroom. Starting with the chest of drawers. He got up and started sifting through the top left one. It was full of all kinds of underwear, piled up one on top of the other—as messy as her email inbox had been, come to think of it. The items were all mixed up together. Nothing was folded. It was just there. Lacy, cotton and sporty all in a big tangle. Morrison patted through them but suddenly felt ridiculous about it. What could he possibly hope to achieve going through a beautiful woman’s underwear? That’s when the idea struck him. The mess. He stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of his search. Pushed back the drawer.
He’d just had an idea. A crazy idea. That was so long ago. But maybe, just maybe, there was still a trace.
He trotted back to the bed stand, pulled open the drawer and picked up her mobile again. Revived the screen. Then he opened Cowgirl’s email account. This time, he didn’t focus on the last couple of months. Instead, he wound his way back through the mess of emails three years in the past.
Cowgirl’s messages were all still there. She hadn’t cleaned them up. Morrison went all the way back to the exact day of his arrest.
Of course, during their operation, they hadn’t used their personal emails or phone numbers. But Morrison hoped he could still pick up something. Anything.
And he was not disappointed.
During the days preceding their failed operation, her email log had run thin. This was normal. She had been pretty busy working on the operation. Didn’t have time to chitchat virtually. But the exact day of Morrison’s arrest, she received an intriguing email. Late at night, so it was definitely after Sheriff Sanford had handcuffed him and taken him into custody at the county jail.
It had come from an airline. A ticket-booking confirmation.
It contained all the details of her flight. One way. Due to take off from JFK at 6:20 a.m., probably the earliest flight available. And it was going to LAX. Los Angeles. It even displayed her seat number, 16A.
This is major, he thought. If she had flown to LA the day after he was arrested, that alone would disqualify her as a potential suspect. Because this was before the other four banks had been skimmed, in New York City. If she had engineered that covert operation after his arrest, she would never have left before it was actually carried out. Never would have left without the money. You didn’t leave that kind of amount in somebody else’s hands, especially if you were already double-crossing your partners.
So maybe Cowgirl has nothing to do with this after all, he thought.
But on the other hand, it could also be a smart move. A very smart move. If you wanted to build up an alibi, pretend that you were away, all you had to do was buy a plane ticket and lay low. That way you left a trace. You could argue that you had boarded that plane and left the city before that nasty second ope
ration had ever taken place. Morrison could see Cowgirl thinking this through easily. She was one smart cookie. So right there and then, Morrison knew that he absolutely needed to establish if Cowgirl had boarded that plane or not.
He raced to the spot where his jacket lay on the floor. Lifted it and fished his own mobile from one pocket. Then he punched a text message for Johnson with all the details of that flight, followed by a simple question. Can you verify if she actually boarded that plane? This is real important.
Chapter 32
The head of IT security at Candela Bank called up his counterpart at a huge telecommunications company. After years of dealing with him for work, they had become buddies. And buddies could ask favors of one another, right? Even on a bright Saturday morning. His buddy was enjoying a nice round of golf. Was shooting for par after the first nine holes. So he was in a great mood. He had returned the head of IT security’s phone call on his break before heading off for the back nine.
The head of IT security hadn’t specified which IP address interested him, just that he needed to access their logs for a few minutes. Of course, there were official ways to do that. He had been through them on countless occasions. But now, he didn’t have the time. So could he just forego all the official demands and cut through the red tape? It was important. A personal matter. Could he just give him a user ID and a password? This wouldn’t take more than four or five minutes, promised. Nobody would hear about it. The buddy was happy enough to comply. He owed him anyway. Thanks to the head of IT security’s internal contacts at Candela Bank, he had just signed a mortgage renewal at very favorable terms. So what was it to give him his personal password for a few minutes? He would change it later on that day, that’s all. After his golf game. It was the least he could do. Between buddies.
As promised, the head of IT security didn’t spend too much time logged into the telecom servers. Took him all of four minutes and he had a physical address to match with that IP address. He googled it: it was an apartment building on the periphery of downtown Acton. The intruder lived in a three-story brick building divided into six to eight individual apartments. Having this information in hand emboldened the head of IT security. He was beyond tired, but this would soon be over.
He left his house and drove his luxurious German sedan all the way to the disgusting phone booth in the abandoned gas station lot. Now that it was broad daylight, he felt exposed, unlike for his previous call when he had enjoyed the cover of night. But he figured he wouldn’t be there too long. So he stepped into the booth and called the same number.
“Took you some time,” the respected citizen said at the other end of the line.
“You try it yourself,” the head of IT security said. “We’ll see how long it takes you.”
“In these matters, time is of the essence.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. You got pen and paper?”
“My head will be fine. Go ahead.”
“The hacker’s name is Robert Walter. He lives here in Acton at 49 Fowler Street, apartment 5.”
The respected citizen repeated the name and the address and said, “OK, got it. I’m going to arrange to send somebody down there. Right now.”
*
After Cowgirl had finished taking her long bath, Morrison hopped into the shower stall and spent a long time under the hot and steamy stream. Then he got dressed again and trotted down the stairs to join Cowgirl.
A pleasant waft of sizzling bacon welcomed him into the kitchen. She looked very busy but totally in control behind the gas stove. She jockeyed two frying pans, one for the bacon on her left, one for the pancakes on her right. Above her, the hood sucked in the fumes at full blast. The room was very noisy.
“Can I do something?” Morrison shouted loud enough to be heard.
Cowgirl turned and nodded toward the espresso machine. “Why don’t you make us some cappuccinos?” she said.
Morrison gave a nod and headed for the fridge to pick up a carton of milk. Then he grabbed a stainless steel cup on top of the espresso machine, filled it halfway with milk and hit the steam button. It was a good machine. A genuine one, made in Italy with solid brass, like they have in bars and restaurants, not some cheap plastic knockoff made in China. This was the real deal. Probably cost as much as a small Japanese car. It worked great, but it also added a lot to the ambient cacophony. On top of that, a phone started ringing. Morrison turned his head. It came from Cowgirl’s mobile lying on the kitchen island’s marble countertop.
“Gotta take this,” Cowgirl shouted. “Do you want to take over here for a minute?”
“Sure,” Morrison said, “no problem.”
He had just finished frothing the milk, so he turned off the steam knob, set the hot stainless steel cup on the white marble counter and moved toward the stove while she picked up her mobile and left the room.
One pancake was ready to be turned over. Morrison flipped it with the spatula without making a mess of it, which made him happy. It was golden brown, with lots of blueberries in the batter. It looked real good. Cowgirl was an organized cook. She had a cup nearby with a wide spoon to drain the bacon fat from the frying pan as she went, so it didn’t explode all over the stovetop. And she had the oven on at medium temperature to keep the pancakes warm. When he pulled the oven door open to slide a new one in, he saw that she had already made a stack of them.
All this cooking kept Morrison pretty busy. After a while, the bacon looked just about ready. Morrison turned down the knob to put out the flame under that pan and drained another couple of spoonfuls of bacon fat out of it. Then he got to the bottom of the pancake batter bowl. When he finished frying the last one, he dropped it on the stack in the oven, put out the flame on the stovetop and then turned off the hood fan. It was suddenly a lot quieter in there.
Cowgirl came back to the kitchen with her mobile in hand.
“Sorry, I really had to take this and it was just too noisy in here. It was my vet, for the horses. These guys are so hard to get your hands on. When they call back, you just drop everything and run to them.”
“No sweat,” he said. “I managed to take care of things in here.”
She looked around the room, noticed the cup of milk with a thick foam top in front of the espresso machine. The crisp bacon strips lined up on a clean plate. The dirty bowl and utensils discarded in the sink.
“You look good enough to marry, Morrison,” she said with a smile. “Let me finish off the cappuccinos.”
While she operated the machine, Morrison brought the plate of hot pancakes to the table. Then they sat down to eat.
She had brewed some lean and mean coffee, with a devilishly strong kick. The rest of her breakfast was as she had promised—really awesome. She had buried the pancakes under an avalanche of fresh fruits and smothered them with her neighbor’s maple syrup, freshly boiled just a few weeks before.
This was a pleasant and leisurely breakfast. But while he ate, Morrison couldn’t get the thought out of his head.
He still didn’t know if Cowgirl was the real deal, just the charming and relaxed gal that she appeared to be. Or a ruthless, conniving, calculating bitch who had robbed him blind and was making a fool out of him by faking this casual charade to perfection.
He couldn’t wait to finish breakfast and then go to Johnson’s.
Hopefully, his hacker would have some answers for him.
*
The demand was unusual, even for a professional hitman. Killing was what he did for a living. Somewhat ironic, but the dichotomy didn’t trouble him in the least. What was unusual was the swiftness asked of him. The assignment had to be carried out immediately.
Usually, the hitman had a few days to stake out his prey. Get to know its habits. Get comfortable with its surroundings. But in this case, time was of the essence. The killing had to happen right now. Of course, this sense of urgency put the killer in a strong bargaining position, and he used the leverage wisely to impose very favorable terms.
After
putting down the phone, the hitman immediately started his preparation. Blending in would be paramount. He had to be anonymous. Physically, he didn’t display any features that could single him out. Didn’t have a beard, mustache, sideburns or goatee. His face was clean shaven, his hair cut short. Didn’t have any tattoos or peculiar physical marks.
For his clothes, he decided to go with simple blue jeans and a white shirt. The trick was to choose what you really wanted to show. Focus people’s attention on one or two details. In his case, he went for a black jacket and a Yankees hat. Because on the far-off chance that anyone he encountered while executing his mission was asked to describe him, he wanted that person to first mention that it had been a guy with a black jacket and a Yankees hat. For the rest, well, he was a regular guy, you know, medium height, nothing special about him. To blend back into the crowd, all he would have to do would be to shed the jacket and the baseball cap and he would be virtually undistinguishable from his next-door neighbor. Nobody he would just pass by briefly would ever recognize him.
His physical appearance settled, the hitman switched his focus to the tools he would be using. Again, simplicity was called for. He decided to take a 9mm Beretta with a silencer. As a backup, he would use a snub-nose .38, a messier weapon for sure, but it always got the job done. And of course, he would need his lock pick set.
He knew how to get to his target’s place. 49 Fowler Street, apartment 5. A fifteen-minute drive from his own.
He drove his car cautiously and rolled by the apartment building once, just to take in the surroundings. There was nobody outside. A few cars were parked in the street. Nothing special. So he pushed on his way, pulled up at the curb of a side street, three blocks down from his victim’s place, and walked to the apartment building.
He didn’t know how many people would be in there. Or if his target would be there at all. As time was of the essence, this didn’t really matter. If there were other people with his target, he would have to take them out too. If his target wasn’t home, he would just stay in there, wait for his return and kill him as soon as he put his foot through the door. When you didn’t have time to plan, you stuck to the basics. Didn’t make things more complicated than they were.