by A. W. Gray
Carpenter scowled. “Two points?”
“Point and a half, then.”
Carpenter’s upper lip curled. “You fucking bloodsuckers.”
Boyle spread his hands in apology. “Hey, Morg, I don’t make the rules. I’m not the manager, I just play in the infield.”
“All that,” Tate interrupted, “is between you and your customer, Mr. Boyle. All we’re interested in, once the money is packaged we’ll meet down here and our Mr. White will take possession.”
Boyle’s chin moved slightly to one side. “Not in this bank, young lady.”
Both Tate and Turner stared at the banker. Jill’s eyes widened slightly with interest. Frank continued to watch the floor.
“We’ll package your money for you,” Boyle said, “and you can check the contents however you please. But the suitcase is leaving these premises via our security service. No way is Lone Star Bank & Trust accepting responsibility for any transfer of money to this man.”
Tate thoughtfully expelled a breath. “I suppose Agent Turner can wait with Mr. White outside the building. I’ll check the contents in Mr. Boyle’s office, then your, what, Brink’s men, can bring it out. You see any problem with that, Agent?” She swiveled her head to look at Turner.
Turner scratched his cheek. He looked at the banker, then at Tate, then over at Frank. “I don’t suppose I do,” Turner said. “Me and old Frank here will be waiting for you. You don’t be wearing no track shoes, Frank, you hear me? Anything happens to this money, you can’t run fast enough to get away.”
20
At twenty-three minutes after two by the reception area clock, Davis Boyle came out of the board meeting on the fifty-second floor of Lone Star Tower. His mouth was set in a rigid line, and he carried two thick file folders. He dropped one in front of the receptionist, set the other off to one side, and fiddled with the Kiwanis pin on his lapel. “That one’s approved.” he said, “and ready for processing.”
The receptionist, a matronly, thick-set woman, opened one folder and glanced at the other. “That one’s declined, or…?” She had perm-curled strawberry-blond hair.
Boyle quickly scooped up the remaining file. “No, it’s been okayed. Requires personal attention.” He hustled out into the hall like a man on a mission from God. The receptionist wrinkled her nose at Boyle’s back and went on about her business.
Boyle shared the elevator down to the twenty-sixth floor with two young women from the personnel section. One lady remarked, “You look awfully sad, Mr. Boyle. You should brighten up, it’s a beautiful day.”
To which Boyle testily replied, shifting the folder from one arm to the other, “I don’t have time for beautiful days. Pressing matters. So damned pressing.” The elevator halted abruptly, sinking the passengers’ feet deeper into plush carpet. The doors hissed open. Boyle goose-stepped out of the car. After he’d gone the young woman rocked her head from side to side, hoity-toity fashion, and stuck out her tongue.
Serita Mayes was a former Dallas homicide detective now in charge of bank security. She was flaxen-haired, salty-tongued, and a high finisher each winter in the White Rock Marathon. An executive VP had once remarked in the lunchroom that he thought Serita might be a butch; when she’d heard about the off-the-cuff statement, she’d climbed fourteen flights of stairs and barged into the exec’s suite in the middle of a staff meeting. In front of fourteen astonished loan officers she’d told the guy that for his information she was currently fucking one of his male superiors, and that if he ever said anything like that again she’d sue his ass. Boyle breezed past Serita’s assistant and walked into her office unannounced. She was eating a chicken salad sandwich, which she pushed aside. “You’re maybe wanting some dental work,” she said, “blowing in here like you’re the potentate.”
Boyle didn’t answer. He sat down across from her, fished inside the folder and handed her a typewritten sheet of paper.
Serita read over the instructions. Her green-flecked brown eyes widened. “Great fuck. How long have we got to do all this?”
“It’s going to take an armored car trip over to the federal reserve,” Boyle said, “to come up with these denominations. While you’re doing that, I’ll have my girls type up the collateral documents.”
Her plucked eyebrow arched. “Your what?”
“My…people. The young women in my office.”
“That’s better.”
“Here’s the order to the fed.” Boyle whipped out a federal form and floated the page over to land in front of her. “As quick as you can. Top priority. We’ll use the vault to package the money, the long table.”
“How many people is it going to take?”
“Fourteen girls, I don’t think there’s any room downstairs for more than that. Your pick, Serita, tell them there’s overtime in it for them.”
“Fourteen what?’
“Fourteen young women, okay? Fourteen bodies is what we need.”
She testily put the papers away. “Well, if you’re going to help me supervise this,” she said, “then I’ll bring along a few prissy little boys. They’ll be more your type, Davis.”
After the Brink’s men stacked the money in the center of the vault’s long counting table, the group Serita Mayes had put together went to work assembly-line fashion. There were seven female and seven male workers, including two recent-graduate management trainees. The Joe Colleges were both men, and neither seemed thrilled. They situated themselves at the head of the table and tried to look as important as possible, middle-management moguls helping out the secretarial staff in a pinch. Serita Mayes, however, had other ideas. She pointedly stripped open the first bundle of hundred-dollar bills and handed them to one of the trainees, and pointed to the far end of the table. “Down there, Junior,” she said. “You, too, Andrew Carnegie. We’ll do our best to have you two big shots out of here before sundown, okay?” With the downcast trainees muttering about their job descriptions, the assembly line then got into gear.
The lead worker broke open the bundles, one at a time, and handed them to the next person down. The money was then divided into four equal stacks, the next bundle split into fours as well, and each person at the table grabbed a pair of stacks from different bundles and shuffled them card-deck fashion. On down the line, more young men and women divided the piles even further, while others shuffled three and four more times. The next-to-last people on opposite sides of the table—a Hispanic woman from personnel and a Filipino girl from the Trust Department— made the final checks, thumbing through the piles to be certain there were no two serial numbers in sequence, and finally handing the stacks to the two Joe College trainees for rebundling.
Davis Boyle hovered over the workers like a man at a crap game with money on the line, while Serita Mayes stood in the corner, arms folded, and kept a watchful eye on Boyle. Once during the packaging process he walked up behind the Filipino girl, bent over her shoulder, and said, “Utmost care. Life or death here, utmost care.”
The young woman exchanged a what-a-prick glance with Serita Mayes, then offered a stack of money to Boyle. “Tell you what, Mr. Boyle,” she said, “you want to do this, be my guest.” Boyle harrumphed and retreated, while Serita Mayes laughed aloud.
At fifteen minutes after five, Boyle huffed and puffed into his office reception area lugging the suitcase. He was mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. His secretary had her pens, pencils, and spiral pads in perfect alignment on her blotter, and as Boyle came in she picked up her purse and pushed back her chair. “Good night, Mr. Boyle,” she said.
“No, hold it.” Boyle reached inside his coat and produced a wrinkled slip of paper. “Get this lady on the phone for me. Mrs. Tate, U.S. Attorney’s office.”
The secretary’s smile seemed frozen in place. “It’s after five.” Boyle testily shook his head. “Just get her, will you?” He carried the case through the entry into his office and close
d the door. The secretary watched Boyle’s door for a moment through slitted eyelids, then picked up the phone and punched in the number as if she might break a nail.
When his intercom buzzed, Boyle had opened the suitcase and was staring at its contents as if in a hypnotic trance. His mouth twisted as he eyed the neatly stacked bundles of hundreds. His eyes bugged. He gulped in air. The intercom buzzed again. Boyle picked up the receiver and averted his gaze from the money. “Mrs. Tate?”
“I’m here.” There was a slight crackling over the line. The prosecutor’s tone was all business.
“It took some doing.” Boyle said, “but I’ve gotten it done. Handled it personally to avoid the possibility of a screwup.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that. What’s the drill for us getting our hands on…?”
“At straight-up six,” Boyle said, “I’m coming out the alley exit, ground level. I’ll have two security guards in tow, and another will be parked nearby in an armored truck. He’ll be holding a rifle on us, just in case. I’ll have the suitcase in my possession. I want you to check out its contents.”
“We don’t have time to count all that.”
“It’s not the count I’m worried about,” Boyle said. “The money’s there, the exact sum, our people have counted four times. It’s up to you if you want to trust us on that.”
“We’ll have to,” Tate said. “We all trust each other, don’t we?” The edge in her voice said she didn’t trust Boyle as far as she could throw him, and knew the feeling was mutual.
“I just want you to be sure,” Boyle said, “what’s in the suitcase.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Mr. Boyle. We will be.”
“Oh, by the way, Morg’s going to have to be with you.”
“Who?”
“Morgan Carpenter. To sign the loan documents and receipt for the cash. Once Morg signs and the suitcase is gone from our premises, what you do with the money is your problem. I’m bearing no responsibility for transfer to your convict person. That’s between the FBI and the Lord on High, as far as Lone Star Bank & Trust is concerned.”
• • •
Frank stood in the alley behind the bank in straight-up six o’clock cool spring air, a big green dimpster-dumpster directly behind him and federal people on both sides, Agent Turner and Assistant USDA Tate lounging alongside Turner’s Taurus with both left-hand doors open. It was an hour before sundown, blue sky overhead, thunderheads on the horizon headed in from the west. A dirty white Brink’s armored truck was parked twenty feet away; the driver squinted through the bulletproof windshield from under his billed cap. An over-and-under riot gun lay across the dash. It occurred to Frank that if any shit were to start, the guy might open fire, hit the windshield, and die from the ricochet.
Frank had showered, shaved, and changed into dark clothes: a black cotton crewneck, dark blue Levi’s, and black high-top Nikes. He’d stood before his closet for a few minutes, making up his mind what a guy delivering a ransom was supposed to wear, and had finally decided he might need to blend in with some shadows or something. Now he felt a little bit silly, like a guy in a movie playing Murf the Surf, some character like that. He briefly wondered if he should’ve put soot on his face. He decided that would be carrying things too far.
The same four-door gray Jag Frank had seen in the Carpenters’ driveway was parked at the far end of the alley. In it sat Mr. and Mrs. Morgan Carpenter, Sis Carpenter with her hair fluffed out around her head like the Liberty Bell, a slim bare arm over the seatback, her eyes hidden behind Kool-ray shades. Morgan Carpenter was hunched down over the wheel. The steel bank door groaned open. Frank and the federal people turned as one.
A tall, thin Brink’s man with pimples on his neck led the way, fingering his holstered automatic Gary Cooper fashion. Davis Boyle followed close behind, canted slightly from the weight of the suitcase, carrying papers on a clipboard in his free hand. A second guard followed Boyle. The three men stopped halfway to the Taurus, and Boyle motioned in the direction of the Jag.
Morgan Carpenter came out of the Jag wearing baggy shorts and an oversize blue knit shirt. He went up to Boyle, read over the papers on the clipboard, said gruffly, “Point and a fucking half,” and signed his name three different times. Boyle then came the rest of the way to the Taurus and handed the suitcase over to Felicia Tate. Tate had changed into a jogging suit and white canvas Keds. Her hair was tied up with a white strip of cloth whose ends hung below her shoulders.
Carpenter took a step toward the Taurus and pointed a finger. “Just so it’s clear, I’m holding you responsible for that money, Mrs. Tate. If this guy”—jabbing his finger now in Frank’s direction—”loses it, that’s the federal government’s problem.”
Tate exchanged a glance with Agent Turner, who now stepped forward. “No need to worry about old Frank here. He’s not making a move we don’t have monitored.”
Frank bit his lower lip. He closed his eyes, then opened them. Keep your mouth shut, he thought, then couldn’t help himself and spoke up anyway. “I’ll tell all you people something,” he said. “Every one of you. All I’ve heard is, this convict and, that convict, and who’s responsible for the convict if he loses the money, and I’m sick of it. I didn’t volunteer for this.”
Tate stared open-mouthed. Turner watched Frank like a man seeing a horror movie. Carpenter and Boyle seemed paralyzed. Frank went on.
“I’m the only one here, and I mean the only one, that seems to care about what all this is supposed to be for. The kidnap victim, remember? And I care one helluva lot about that part of it. The money, I don’t care about the money, understand? Now give me the suitcase.” He walked over and yanked the suitcase out of Tate’s hand, then returned to the Taurus. “Now let’s get going, okay? First thing you know the vice squad’s going to show up, thinking we’re having a dice game back here.”
As Frank reached out for the door, Sis Carpenter blocked his path. She’d alighted unnoticed from the Jag and now removed her sunglasses to look Frank squarely in the eye. She smiled sadly. “You’re just almost right, about who cares. You left out me and Meg’s daddy, but I think you’re right about these other folks. I’m still countin’ on my daughter’s instincts, Frank. You just prove them all wrong and get my little girl home. I’m dependin’ on you, you hear?” A sudden tear rolled down her cheek.
Frank watched her for a minute, then lowered his gaze. He gave Sis Carpenter’s arm an affectionate squeeze, then lifted the suitcase into the Taurus’s backseat and climbed on in.
21
At five minutes after four West Coast time—at almost the exact instant, in fact, when Frank White delivered a piece of his mind in a Dallas, Texas, alleyway at 6:05 by Big D clocks—a Delta Boeing 737 Stretchliner floated in on smoggy currents, bounced once, twice, and then laid stripes of rubber on Los Angeles International Airport’s tar-veined runway. The pilot braked, braked again, made a sweeping left turn, rolled the plane past tractor-pulled baggage cart trains and single- and twin-engined private aircraft, and finally halted alongside the terminal. The accordion walkway extended and clamped onto the airliner.
Passengers inside the cabin stretched, yawned away the popping sensations in their ears, stood up in the aisle and opened overhead baggage compartments, and formed a line in front of the gangway. The young lady in Seat 14C took her sweet time. She scratched her leg through the stylish rip in her jeans, dangled L.A. Eyeworks sunglasses from one corner of her mouth, and smiled at the gentleman on her left. “Hope you’re not in a hurry.” she said. “I don’t understand people, breaking their necks to get in line and wait. I’m more laid back than that, aren’t you?”
The man beside her, thirty-fiveish with curly hair, wearing a suit with his shirt collar unbuttoned and his tie pulled down, agreed with her. “I don’t have any fires to put out,” he said. “When’d you say your next audition was?”
There was a quick, getting
-interested tightening in one corner of her eye. “I don’t think I did. It’s next Tuesday, though. You going to be in L.A. that long?”
The lady in the window seat, slender and wearing a gray business dress, twisted her mouth into an irritated smirk. “Do you mind?” she said. “I’ve got someone waiting.”
The man ignored the woman on his left and continued to smile at the girl in the ripped-look jeans. “Afraid I won’t be. I’ve got to hustle back to Houston, darlin’, Saturday mornin’. Actin’, that must be, hey, one great way to make a livin’.”
She examined her L.A. Eyeworks, huffed fog onto one lens, and poked the glasses inside her shirt, polishing the lens with the shirt fabric held between her thumb and forefinger. “Just like any other job. The work’s not as steady. Get to meet interesting people, like you. This is a flight to remember, right?”
His grin broadened, became wolf-hungry. “Gotcha there, darlin’. Look, you got a number I can…?”
The other passengers moved up the aisle. The window-seat woman twisted in her chair. “Excuse me, but my husband’s—”
“Oh, why don’t I call you?” Miss Ripped-jeans-look said. She reached inside her purse, and came up with a pad and pen. “Charley, right?”
“Reasor, yeah, Charley Reasor. I’ll be at the Century Plaza.”
“Ooo, uptown, I like that. Listen, if I did call, you probably wouldn’t even remember me.” Her lips circled into a Monroe pout.
He winked at her. “You kiddin’?”
“Well, just so you don’t forget,” she said, “I’ll write it down. Darla, that’s me, and this is Flight”—she checked her ticket— “three forty-two, Wednesday afternoon.” She bent her classic neck and began to write.
The window-seat woman fidgeted even more. As the passengers cleared out, a man with blond, shoulder-length hair paused beside Row 14 and touched Darla on the shoulder. She glanced up as he nodded to her. He wore slacks and a skin-tight knit shirt and had bulging pectorals. She said, “Oh, hi,” and went on with her writing as he moved on up the aisle.