by A. W. Gray
Inside the cage, the woman turned onto her side and drew up her legs. Her eyes were closed. Christ, Basil thought, in them shorts you can see the cheeks of her ass, then felt like slapping himself, having thoughts like that about a woman with the class this one had. Christ, though, he was getting a bulge on. He reached inside his pants and touched himself, then quickly withdrew his hand. Basil couldn’t stand guys who couldn’t control themselves. Guys out of control made Basil sick to his stomach.
Basil wondered if he’d have to kill this woman, the way he and Money had talked on the airplane. If it came down to it he’d have to. The thought saddened Basil, and a tear formed in one corner of his eye.
18
Agent David Turner didn’t like sleeping in the Carpenters’ guest house, but he supposed it was part of the job. The bed was too short for him, and his feet hung over the end. He woke up stiff and sore, showered and shaved, microwaved a ham, egg, and cheese Border Breakfast he found in the freezer, and wolfed down the concoction. He didn’t feel much better but decided he’d live.
Turner came out of the guest house in clean jeans and a short-sleeved yellow shirt, wearing his FBI jacket. He ducked underneath ferns in hanging baskets as he approached the pool, stroking his freshly shaved cheek. The scent of Brut was on his hands. A cool spring breeze sent ripples over the surface of the water. He walked on rough stone tile, skirting wooden chaise longues and round tables on his way to the back door. A Mexican in overalls was pruning roses near the porch; Turner nodded as he went by. Early on in the investigation—within an hour of the time he’d responded to Morgan Carpenter’s call and come to the house, in fact—Turner had questioned the gardener. The gardener had spread his hands and said, “No sé. No English, señor.” Turner didn’t know whether to believe the guy.
He went inside and through the kitchen, and entered the library. AUSDA Felicia Tate was seated behind the oversized desk, wearing a navy blue suit along with a white silk blouse buttoned up to her throat. She had company, Morgan Carpenter in the flesh, along with a couple of lab guys from downtown whom Turner recognized. The forensics guys were off to one side, hovering over a suitcase. One man dusted for prints while the other poked around inside the case, feeling the linings. The suitcase was brown alligator with red leather inlays. High-priced item if the ‘gator hide’s real, Turner thought. He hello’d the lab guys and went over to the desk.
Morgan Carpenter wore slacks and a golf shirt, and was slumped down in one of the easy chairs. As Turner approached, Carpenter said, “Christ, I’ll have to borrow it.” He looked about to throw up. Turner sank into the other chair and crossed his legs.
Tate acknowledged the FBI man with a nod, and used a pair of tweezers to lift a sheet of typing paper from the desk. “We’ve got our note here, Dave.”
Turner bent closer for a better look. The note was the standard kidnap message, words clipped from magazines and glued to the page. The forensics guys would dust the paper and do DNA tests on the glue. Their tests wouldn’t reveal a fucking thing, which was always the case with perps who knew what they were doing. “Came with the suitcase, huh?” Turner said.
“FedEx.” Tate dropped the note, took off her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Delivered by hand to the Fort Worth office, paid for in cash. Phony name in the sender blank on the airbill. The FedEx clerks see a lot of people, you know how that goes. One seems to think it was a big guy. Really precise description.”
Morgan Carpenter ran his fingers through silver hair and muttered, “Christ,” again.
“These people have rather high aspirations,” Tate said. “They’re asking for nine million six hundred thousand dollars.”
Turner’s jaw slacked. He muttered, “Christ,” along with Morgan Carpenter.
“Brand-new hundred-dollar bills,” Tate said, “twenty to a wrapper, all out of numerical sequence. They claim the money will just fit into the suitcase. From what we’ve seen of these folks so far, it will.”
Turner studied Morgan Carpenter, the good-looking, fiftyish man worried, now mopping his face with a handkerchief. “Your call, Mr. Carpenter.” Turner said. “Your money.”
“I’m not even sure I can raise that kind of…” Carpenter said. “The bank, I’ll have to talk to this guy.”
“Does that mean,” Tate said, replacing her glasses on her nose, “that if you can, we’re going ahead with this?”
Carpenter shrugged. “It’s my daughter. I’ll have to.”
“If it was my little girl,” Turner said, “I guess I’d do the same thing.” Turner didn’t have a little girl, and wondered if he’d pony up nine million six if he did. What a fucking fortune, Turner thought.
“Not much I can see unusual about this,” Tate said, “except that they’ve provided their own carrier. I’m wondering about that.”
“Something about the bug we use?” Turner said.
Tate ran her little finger across her upper lip. “That’s the first thing that crossed my mind. But no. In all cases we’ve got to assume they’ll know there’s a tracer. Anyone who watches television. It’s something else. That suitcase is too distinctive. We’re scouting the stores right now, but I’ll bet a month’s pay we can’t find a duplicate.”
“Christ,” Carpenter said.
I wish he’d stop saying that, Turner thought. He said, “I think we’d better withdraw our guys following Frank White, at least where he knows they’re there. Now they’ve made their move, he’s going to have to get in touch with somebody. My way of thinking is, we want him to. We’ll have to start watching him from afar.”
Tate looked at Carpenter, then said to Turner, “That won’t be necessary.”
“I can’t go along with that, Felicia,” Turner said. “The Frank White guy, he has to be the key. Lose sight of him and we’re liable to blow the whole deal.”
“Oh, I agree with you. It’s just that keeping up with Mr. White isn’t going to require all that cloak and dagger.”
Turner frowned. His chin moved slightly to one side.
Tate used the tweezers to pluck the note up from the table. “The instructions say that Mr. Frank White’s the one that’s going to deliver the money. No one else. Seems as if your man Frank has got a starring role.”
Part III
Reward
“‘You testified earlier that you hadn’t received any offers of leniency from the prosecution, is that right?’
‘It’s what I said. I didn’t get any, either.’
‘Is it possible, sir, that your views could be tainted by the fact, that you didn’t get your share of the booty?’
‘Objection.’
‘I’ll rephrase, your honor. Your share of the loot, or whatever you want to call it.’
‘That’s nothin’ to do with what I’m sayin’, sir. But it’s true Ronnie never gave me my part. He never had no intention of splittin’ that money, not the way he was s’posed to.’”
—from trial transcript,
State of Texas v. Gilbert Wayne Arrington
and Ronnie Louis Ward
19
There were three pairs of FBI agents working Frank in eight-hour shifts; he’d nicknamed the eight-to-four couple Jack and Jill, the four-to-eight duo Frick and Frack, and the night-shift guys Two Live Crew. At the moment Jack and Jill were on the job, sitting across the lobby and trying to stay awake, watching through half-lidded eyes as their subject scraped the residue from a drum of cherry vanilla, mashed the residue down into a full container, and rolled the new drum into line alongside the rest. Frank wiped his hands, then held up a scoop and cone in the agents’ direction, questioningly raising his eyebrows. You want some? Jack looked away. Jill licked her lips. Frank dropped the scoop into milky water.
It was ten-fifteen, a quarter hour since Frank had opened up, and the Loew’s Anatole lobby was practically deserted. Except for the FBI, there were only two groups the entire width and b
readth of the mammoth enclosure: four women window-shopping across the way and what looked to be a grammar school field trip, a harried-looking lady and twenty or so giggly kids down at the far end, looking at the fountain. As Jack watched, the fountain spewed a cone of mist thirty feet into the air. One of the kids moved forward and seemed about to dive in. The teacher grabbed the kid’s arm and pulled her back. A second kid headed for the fountain. Jack supposed that the field trip’s next stop would be the ice-cream stand and added extra drums of rocky road and fudge ripple.
Over where Jack and Jill lounged, an irritating beep-beep sounded. Frank shifted his gaze in that direction. Jill fumbled in her handbag and switched the beeper off, then produced a cellular phone and punched in a number. She listened intently, said a few words, then listened some more. She shoved the antenna down with her palm, motioned to her partner, and the two agents headed across the lobby in Frank’s direction.
This must be it, he thought, his throat suddenly dry. His arrest in the police station basement had been a total surprise, but even though he’d halfway expected this one, the helpless feeling now was even worse than the first time. For a fleeting instant he considered making a run for it. Jill led the way, walked up and leaned her elbows on the counter.
She was around twenty-five, with straight brown hair clipped in a line at her collar, a not-unpleasant young lady who would have been pretty good-looking with a little makeup on. She said deadpan, “We’re going to have to ask a favor of you, Mr. White.”
Frank did a double take. Her words hadn’t sounded like making-the-collar talk, and neither agent had the handcuffs out. He choked out, “Well, sure.”
She wore a gray business suit and medium heels. “We’d like you to go with us now. Some people want to see you.” Her partner stood alongside her, maybe even younger than she was, a just-out-of-college type, still with the frat-rat look and a suit off the rack from JCPcnney.
“I’m not under arrest?” Frank said.
“We don’t have any instruction to do that. Just to bring you to a certain location.”
Frank’s anxiety subsided, in its place a dogged mad-on. “Well, then,” he said, “I can’t.”
The agents frowned at each other.
“Hey, I want to help all I can,” Frank said, gesturing around.
“But I can’t just walk off. What about my job?”
The agents’ look said they hadn’t thought of that one. “Course,” Frank said, “if one of you could spell me.” Jill’s expression said she thought that might be a good idea. Jack squinched his nose up like a man who’d just realized he’d stepped in dog manure. “That’s not in my job description,” Jack said. Frank couldn’t tell if the guy was pissed off over the prospect of serving ice cream, or over having to take orders from a female. Could be either one.
“Not that much to it,” Frank said, undoing his bow tie, unbuttoning his Sidewalk Humor uniform shirt. “You want to watch those kids when they get here, and go easy on the Reddi Wip. They’ll have you squirting all your profits off, if you aren’t careful.”
Ever since his incarceration Frank had made it a point to steer clear of banks. Just over two years in the joint had ruined his credit, and it had been less than a year since he’d been able to pay off his prejail pile of bills. Even though his record was clean now, his computerized credit report still reflected some slow pay, and the idea of a bank turning him down for a loan made him cringe. He’d rather do without than ask and be refused, so since he’d been a free man he’d made a practice of paying cash for things.
Yet here he sat, just before noon on a Wednesday morning, in a plush-carpeted office at the downtown main branch of Lone Star Bank & Trust. Directly in front of him, an entire wall was tinted safety glass. A mile or so in the distance, the glistening ball atop Reunion Tower was at eye level, surrounded by a halo of springtime smog. To the right of the tower were the somber roofs of Frank Crowley Courts Building and the Lew Sterrett Justice Center. Frank recalled the months he’d spent in the justice center awaiting trial, and a slight quiver traveled the length of his backbone.
The banker seated behind the half-moon desk was named Davis Boyle; Frank had met the guy just moments ago. Boyle’s sandy hair was conservatively short, whitening at the sideburns, and his suit was charcoal gray with a Kiwanis pin attached to the lapel. His handshake had been limp and dry, his disapproving glance at Frank’s knit sportshirt appropriately fleeting. His lips were thin and pliable, ready to twist into a panicked expression, which they probably did if anyone mentioned a sum over five thousand dollars. After his brief acknowledgment, Boyle had pointedly ignored Frank and concentrated on the other men in the room.
Boyle now said, “Sure it’s feasible, Morg. The collateral, the trucks and the building, those are primo. You’ve been with us a long time. Financial statements up to date and up to snuff. It’s the conditions the board’s going to worry about. Cash, for Christ’s sake, plus turning the money over to an ex-con.”
Morgan Carpenter, seated across the banker’s desk in a conservative gray suit of his own, regarded Frank with an open sneer, then returned his attention to the banker. “Once you make the loan, what difference it make what I do with it? Flush it down the toilet, piss it off at the racetrack, what’s it matter?”
“We have a right to know,” Boyle said, “what’s going to happen to the money.”
FBI Agent Turner, seated on a couch underneath a desert landscape print, pointed in Frank’s direction. “Mr. Boyle, if you’re worried about this guy,” Turner said, “then don’t. We’ll be watching him so close he’ll have a telescope up his ass, excuse the expression.”
“The choice of words may be bad,” Assistant USDA Felicia Tate said, “but the sentiment is right on line. Where our friend Frank goes, we go with him.” She was alongside Turner on the sofa. Light from the window wall reflected from Tate’s reading glasses.
Frank started to say, “Hey, you guys called me,” but thought it over and closed his mouth. He and Jill sat close together on a leather love seat, a matching piece to the couch. The picture above them was another desert scene, this one a jackrabbit with rugged mountains in the background. Jill glanced in Frank’s direction, batted mascara-free lashes once, then looked away.
Morgan Carpenter said, “If a deal this size requires a meeting of the board, when’s that supposed to happen? Look, I got to have an answer today.”
Boyle rubbed his palms together. “You’re in luck there, we’ve already got one scheduled for two o’clock. What I’ve got to do is, between now and then, is have a feasible presentation. My assistant’s on that, putting together your info. Not that it’ll take a lot, the board for the most part is familiar with your transactions here.”
“Well, they fucking well ought to be,” Carpenter said, crossing his legs.
“I can see a problem,” Tate said, “with how much to tell these board members.”
Boyle’s lips twisted in a fleeting look of panic. “It goes without saying, I have to make full disclosure.”
“That’s up to you,” Tate said. “Here’s what’s up to me, the U.S. Attorney’s office. To protect the victim, none of this can be leaked out to the newspapers. The cheese will get really binding if that happens.”
“These are businessmen,” Boyle said. “Discretion is all a part of it.”
Tate exchanged a look with Turner, then said, “Well, just to be certain, let’s make these gentlemen aware that anyone talking, anything coming out on the newscasts, that’s going to be obstruction of justice. It’s a broad statute, and we can make it stick.” In addition to her suit and blouse, she wore navy blue spike heels, and now hooked the toe of one shoe around behind her shin, her calves bunched as she crossed her legs.
“You’re threatening the board of directors of Lone Star Bank & Trust,” Boyle said, “with a criminal indictment?”
“We indicted the Attorney General of t
he United States once.” Tate said. “Why would we worry about someone’s board of directors?”
Boyle stared at the prosecutor, who stared back. Boyle nervously cleared his throat. “Once we lay the groundwork and fund the deal, what are the nuts and bolts of getting the money to this guy?” The banker pointed at Frank without looking at him. Agent Turner did look at Frank, the FBI man’s eyes narrowing. Frank stared at the floor. Jill flattened her hands on either side of her hips, raised up and scooted forward on the love seat.
Tate reached down to the floor and moved a suitcase around to sit before her shins. Frank looked over the suitcase, alligator inlaid with red leather. Tate said, “The cash goes in here. And here’s a copy of”—reaching inside her briefcase for a piece of paper, laying the paper up on the banker’s desk—“the packaging instructions. Twenty bills to a bundle. No two bills in numerical sequence.”
Boyle held the paper up and leaned back against his credenza. “Christ, this is a tall order. It’ll take some overtime, these tellers.”
Carpenter yanked on his lapel in irritation. “That’s not our problem.”
“I’m not too sure about that, Morg,” Boyle said, laying the paper aside. “I’ve got to do something to justify the expense factor to the board.”
“Tell ‘em if they don’t,” Carpenter said, “there’s other banks.”
“I don’t know if that’ll swing it, by itself. What I’m thinking is, maybe an increase in the loan origination fee.” He raised his hand in what looked like the “V for Victory” sign. “Two. Two points.”