by A. W. Gray
“Not without a warrant,” Rankin said.
“—any inconvenience. I beg your pardon?” She held a cigarette in a holder clamped between her teeth, the hot end glowing, smoke rising, trapped underneath her rain hat, drifting up around the edges of the brim.
“I know my rights. No tickee, no laundry.” Rankin trembled slightly. The truth was that he didn’t know his rights from Adam’s ass, but he’d seen a lot of TV.
The glow under the rain hat illuminated glasses with tiny lenses. Felicia Tate held the cigarette off to one side as she sniffed the air through the partially open door. She smiled. “You have a right to ask for a court order, sir. But I’ll make you a proposition. You give us some slack on the procedures and I’ll forget about that strange-smelling tobacco you’ve been smoking in there. You help us, we’ll help you, is the way it’s done. The guys on Law and Order aren’t telling it like it is, in case you’re wondering.”
25
Frank squinted over the hood through the rain as he drove away from the lakeshore. His clothes were soaking wet, rivulets of water running over the seats and dripping on the floorboard. Two hundred yards from the lake, where the mesquite forest opened into a clearing, the gravel road became blacktop and forked in opposite directions. The interstate highway was to his right, the pathway leading behind the condos to his left. Frank turned the wheel toward I-30; as he did, a figure loomed in the headlamp beams, arms waving. Frank reached instinctively under the seat, then remembered that he hadn’t carried a pistol since his conviction, something like nine years ago. He straightened and put on the brakes.
The figure wore a yellow slicker and a floppy hat and sprinted around to the passenger door to knock on the window. Frank hesitated, then flicked the doorlock switch. The door opened, and Agent Turner stuck his head inside. “You’re going the wrong way.” he said. As he turned to sit down inside the car, the blue letters “FBI” showed on the back of his raingear. “Over there, Thurman, toward them condos.” Turner gestured with his head. Drops of water flew from his hatbrim.
Frank made a U-turn and inched his way toward the cluster of rooftops, winding down the lane until rows of zero lot-line houses were on both sides. Recognition flooded over him as the white Doran Cleaners panel truck came into view on his left. Parked in front of the truck was a dark four-door Ford Taurus, interior lights on, two people in the front seat. Frank halted as the Taurus’s left front window slid down, then nodded in acknowledgment as Jill smiled at him. Falling drops spattered the shoulder of her raincoat. Jack sat beside her. He formed a pistol with his thumb and forefinger, and grinned as he shot Frank with an imaginary bullet. Turner said, “You know those two, huh?”
Frank sighed and hung his wrists over the steering wheel. “Seen ‘em before.”
“Yeah? I think they look heavier, must have been tanking up on that ice cream you sell.” Turner rose on his knees, produced a penlight, and shone the beam into the Cherokee’s backseat. “Where you got the frogman costume, Frank? You doing the diving, or somebody else?”
Frank kept his wrists draped over the wheel, stared ahead, and didn’t say anything.
Turner picked up the drop instructions and slid them into a plastic evidence bag. “That soaked-down money’s going to be heavy, Harold. Ruined a pretty good-looking suitcase dumping it in the lake. I was planning on buying that fucker myself, once we used it for evidence to help convict your ass. Why you want to fuck up my suitcase, Frank?”
Frank said, “Look, Turner.”
Turner twisted around and sat. “Look at what? You were in a helluva hurry back there, you think we’re going to let you dump nine million dollars in a lake someplace and then drive the fuck away? You got no frogman suit in here, so I guess you do have help. Tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking along maybe it was just you, until the phone calls tonight. Who’s your buddy? I guess you’re going to tell me it’s the Money guy you were telling us about.”
“The guy on the phone is named Randolph Money. I recognized this expression he uses a lot.”
“Yeah, what expression is that? ‘One for you, one for me’ when you assholes are splitting the money? I already got a sheet on the guy, Frank, we got this cute little printer in the truck. Lives in Newport Beach, California. Come on, this guy’s no kidnapper. He was doing time for some pissant false statement on a loan application. First you talk the broad, now another guy. You got a hard-on for California people, you keep pointing the finger?”
“Randolph Money’s been into a helluva lot more than bank fraud,” Frank said. “And Darla’s in on it, too.”
“Sure she is. From Los Angeles”—Turner pronounced it, Los Angle-eez—”fucking California, which is where she landed this afternoon around four o’clock. You’re going to have trouble convincing people, these folks two thousand miles from here are doing all this. Come on, you mad at this woman ‘cause she quit giving you any pussy when you were in the joint?”
“Randolph Money’s not in California,” Frank said, “unless he was calling long distance. The guy on the phone was him.”
“I’ll give you this much credit, you’re forcing us to check the guy out. Which I think is a bullshit waste of time.”
Frank turned his head to the left. Jill continued to watch him from the Taurus. Frank looked straight ahead.
“So here’s the drill, Donald Duck,” Turner said. “You drive straight to your place, and your friends over there are going to follow. Then you’re going to be a good boy and go to bed, or whatever you do at home. We’re going to stay here and wait for your buddies to haul the money off.”
Sudden tears stung Frank’s eyes. He said, “Do me one favor.”
“Sure,” Turner said. “I’ll tell them to let you keep a couple of extra people on your visiting list. Maybe even get visits twice a week, you like that?”
“I just want to know,” Frank said, “the minute there’s any word on Meg. Whether she’s…” His grip on the wheel tightened.
Turner looked at him. He took off his hat, then put it back on as he opened the door. “You know what, Frank?” Turner said. “I think you already know the answer to that one. I’ll bet you could tell us right where her body’s buried, if you weren’t so busy fucking us around.”
26
The storm had petered out by two in the morning, leaving fresh, rain-washed air, stars twinkling at intervals in a blue-black sky, and a mirror-still lake bathed in the light of the moon. In the condo’s upstairs bedroom, Special Agent Weir watched the computer terminal as if hypnotized, the stationary cursor blinking, blinking, blinking, in abject monotony. “Froggy-man, Froggy-man, where you be?” Weir said. “I got to tell you, this doesn’t make any sense.”
Felicia Tate stood up from a rocking chair, removed her coat, folded and dropped the coat on the bed, and sat back down. “My husband suspects me of screwing around, being out all night. This case is ruining my happy home. Really getting after it, weren’t they?” The bed looked like a cyclone survivor, the fitted bottom sheet yanked down to expose the mattress, pillows wadded and jammed against the headboard. “You can tell they’re not married, my husband and I barely wrinkle the covers. A couple of times a week when I’m lucky.”
“Even if they’ve got a plan to get it out of the lake,” Weir said, “they’ve got problems. They’d have to spread that money out to dry, and that many bills’d take some major space. They can’t go around spending wet money, especially where it smells like lake water.”
“You notice the fanny on her?” Tate said. “Twenty-four, twenty-Five maybe. What wouldn’t I give. I could tell her, Give it a few years, hon, but she wouldn’t believe me. I had one like that at her age, though you’d never know it. You ever notice I allow plenty of room in the rear, when I wear pants?”
“You know what I think?” Weir said.
“Same thing I do. That he’s not the only one she’s doing it with. A man his age…”
“I’m thinking,” Weir said, “that the suitcase may be empty already. That we may be sitting up here expecting somebody in a submarine, and all the while the guys are a thousand miles away, counting their loot and laughing their asses off.”
“Turner inspected the Jeep before our man Frank went home. We watched him lock the money in the back, it’s got to be either there or in the lake. It’s not in the jeep, so…”
“Whole thing’s just too corny, Felicia. All these kidnappings, I never heard of having the ransom money sunk in a lake before”
Tate wistfully patted the bed, looking at the rumpled sheets. “So maybe they’re breaking new ground, okay?”
Weir rested his chin on his intertwined fingers and watched the dock, the cabin boats still as painted pictures. “I’m betting the money’s gone, Felicia. Five bucks, that’s as high as I’m going. How ‘bout it, you taking me on?”
In the downstairs sitting room, Chester Rankin’s secretary asked Agent Turner, “You think he did it? I don’t.” She adjusted her position on the sofa, curling up her legs, six to eight inches of milky thigh showing beneath a skirt made of shiny black stretch material.
Turner stood, walked over and adjusted the color knob on the television, Sally Jessy Raphael’s dress changing instantly from pink to cardinal red, Sally Jessy walking among a sea of raised hands in the audience, people just dying to say something on national television. “Sure, he was buying all that poison,” Turner said. “Look, the guy gets home at five in the afternoon, seven-thirty his wife’s got cramps and diarrhea, the next morning she’s like, adios. He’s just going on TV, trying to get sympathy.” Turner went back and sat beside the secretary. Chester Rankin was seated on her other side, Rankin still in his robe, rolling his eyes and looking nervous. The scene on television switched to the stage, an earnest young brown-haired man explaining to the studio audience that the indictment was full of shit, that he didn’t do it, no way.
“He looks so sincere,” the secretary said, chewing gum.
“All these guys do,” Turner said. “You should see some of ‘em I talk to.” He’d shed his rain slicker.
“Listen,” Rankin said, standing up and pacing back and forth, “we’ve got to get going from here, pretty soon.”
“I wish I could let you,” Turner said. “But what we’re doing up there, it’s pretty top secret. If word gets out what we’ve got going, a life could be in danger. Under the circumstances we’ve got to keep you-all here.”
“So? We won’t tell anybody.” Rankin tightened the belt on his robe.
“Too critical for that, sir,” Turner said. “If this operation should blow up, then somebody finds out we let two people walk out of here with knowledge…”
“Christ,” Rankin said. “My business…”
“Shh.” The secretary uncurled her legs and leaned forward. “They’ve got an outside caller. They usually ask the best questions, people that’ve been following the case.”
“I’m afraid your business’ll have to wait, sir,” Turner said. “But really, it’s a long time before your office opens.”
“What he’s worried about,” the secretary said, “is that his wife’s due home in the morning. She’s shopping down in Houston.” She squinted at the TV, then said to Turner, “You get what the caller was asking? Something about arsenic being easy to get.”
“Naw, I missed it,” Turner said. “You want me to turn up the volume?”
Rankin rubbed his eyes. “Christ, you people are going to ruin me.”
“I can’t let you leave.” Turner said. “But if you should have wife problems, maybe we can cover for you. We don’t want to cause trouble.”
“My God, man, you’ve already…”
“You may be right,” the secretary said. “That time, when he said he bought the poison to kill fire ants, you see him? Looks like he’s hiding something, you catch that?” She nudged Turner with her elbow.
Rankin spread his hands to Turner in supplication. “Christ, can’t you be human?”
“That could be a nervous twitch,” Turner said to the secretary. “Some people have ‘em, the main thing you want to watch for is, does his story stay the same? If he tells it exactly the same every time, he’s memorized it. Everybody, if they’re on the square, their story changes some.”
Rankin sank down on the couch, pushing his robe down between his knees. “Jesus…oh Christ, I’m…”
The secretary touched Turner on the shoulder. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Turner said. “It’s what I’m here for, to help.”
She lowered her lashes. “Look, are you married?” she said.
At nine in the morning, Felicia Tate finally said, “I don’t know what’s blown up in our faces, but something has.” Overnight her makeup had faded, her eyes slightly red as she looked down from the second-story window. The wind had picked up during the morning, the boats now rocking in little wavelets, a row of tall grass rippling over near the mesquite grove. The sun was twenty degrees above the horizon and climbing.
Weir rose painfully from his seat before the computer screen, yawned, and stretched. “It went wrong last night, like I said. That has to be it. The suitcase hasn’t moved, just drifted some on the bottom.”
“Well, order us up a couple of divers.” Tate said. “I suppose we have to bring it up.”
Weir sat down, rattled the keys, and brought his menu up on the monitor. “The money’s gone, Felicia. I can’t help it, I’ve just got that feeling.”
As Weir loaded his monitor, disk drive, and software into the panel truck, a cab pulled up to the curb in front of the condo. The driver went around and held the door for a plumpish woman who stepped down and headed up the walk, high heels clicking. The driver opened the trunk and hauled out two big suitcases, then huffed and puffed his way in pursuit of the woman.
The woman stepped up on the porch just as Chester Rankin came out, followed by Agent Turner and Assistant USDA Felicia Tate. Rankin was still in his robe, and bent to kiss the woman on the cheek. “Hello, dear,” he said. “Nice trip?”
The woman had bleached blond hair and wore rings on four fingers of each hand. Her eyes widened as she looked from Tate to Turner, and back again. “Who are these people?” she said.
“They’re federal agents,” Rankin said. “Been using our place to conduct a stakeout. I’ll tell you all—”
“Your husband,” Turner said, “has been a tremendous help to us, ma’am. Something we won’t forget.”
The woman’s mouth opened in astonishment. She gaped at Rankin.
Tate said to Turner, “I suppose we’re ready to move along.”
“Sure are,” Turner said. He went back to the door and said to someone inside, “Come on, agent, we’re going now.”
A small figure came through the entry, wearing an FBI rain slicker and a yellow hat pulled low over the eyes. As the figure went down the step in a rapid, hip-slinging gait, the raingear dragged the ground.
Mrs. Chester Rankin regained her composure, saying to Turner, “Someone should tell that person it’s not raining anymore.”
Turner grinned. “You just have to know us federal gumshoes, ma’am. Some of us are crazy as loons.”
Felicia Tate stood on the dock, weaving in place, halfway afraid she’d fall asleep and tumble headlong into the water. All night, sitting up in that bedroom watching the godforsaken cursor blink, she’d be seeing it, blink-blink-blink, in the back of her mind for days. Her pink jogging suit hung limply from her body, her hair a stringy mess, the white bandanna’s ends drooping around her shoulders. A film of dust covered her glasses, but she was too tired to so much as clean the damn things.
There was a splashing noise as a head broke the surface Five yards from the dock, smooth rubber covering the head, the face obscured behind a diving mask with water running down the lens. The diver paddle
d over to grip the edge of the pier, then raised his mask up on top of his head. His skin was pasty white. “I’ve separated ‘em,” he said loudly. “Which you want first, the suitcase or the iron? That hunk of iron’s going to be a problem, heavy as it is.”
Tate bent from the waist and rested her palms on her knees. She was suddenly dizzy, and stood to keep from toppling over on her face. Oh God but she needed sleep. “The money. We’ve got to have the money.”
Ten minutes later Tate stood beside Turner as the FBI agent turned the crank to raise the grappling chain. The links clanked and straightened, coming up from the depths in slow, steady progression. The suitcase followed, swinging from the hook, filthy water dripping from its side and pouring from its interior through the crack. Turner reached out from the end of the pier and drew the cargo in, flopping the suitcase soggily onto its side. Beads of water flowed on the planks.
“Get the damned thing open.” Tate said, picturing toilet paper stuffed inside, picturing herself explaining to the Big Man himself what she’d done with nine million dollars. She swallowed.
Turner squatted down and clicked the latches. There was an odor of wet moss, accompanied by the stink of dead fish. Bile rose in Tate’s throat. Turner raised the lid and stood, and the two looked down on rows of sopping wet hundred-dollar bills, bundled in wrappers. Tate breathed a loud sigh. “Get Mr. Carpenter,” she said, then cleared her throat and said, “Get Carpenter on the phone and tell him to meet us at the bank. Tell him we don’t have his daughter but we’ve still got his money. Ought to make him half happy, anyway.”
Turner inflated one cheek in thought, then expelled air between his lips. “Something blew our cover, Felicia. Our boy Frank, I thought we had him covered pretty good, but…”