by A. W. Gray
“Someone knew we were watching, all right,” Tate said. “Nothing we can do about what’s happened. It’s what they’re going to do next that I’m wondering about.”
Turner lugged the suitcase into Lone Star Bank at Five minutes before ten, with Felicia Tate on his heels like a woman walking in ankle-deep mud. The agent still wore his T-shirt, Dockers, and boots. Tate had fixed her makeup as best she could and brushed out her hair, but her jogging suit and white bandanna were grimy and limp. Turner sported a heavy overnight beard. They rode the elevator up to the twenty-third floor, and trudged down the hall to enter Davis Boyle’s reception area. Boyle’s assistant eyed the suitcase, sniffed the air, and wrinkled her nose.
Morgan Carpenter rose from the couch, wearing an off-white summerweight suit, yellow tie, and two-tone shoes. He said, “If I find out calling you people in was a screwup…”
“We followed security procedures to the letter,” Tate said, raising a hand. “There’s nothing to say we won’t get another chance. What I think, I think our messenger found a way to tip off his friends.”
Carpenter stared, hands on hips. Tate dropped her gaze. The receptionist came around to usher the three into Davis Boyle’s inner chamber, with Turner bringing up the rear.
Boyle was behind his desk in a dark blue suit, his Kiwanis pin neatly in place on his lapel. Across from him was a muscular, flaxen-haired woman of around forty, wearing slacks and a pullover. As Turner closed the door behind him, the woman eyed the suitcase with open interest. She reminded Turner of a character in a James Bond movie, a tough-looking broad who’d snapped poisoned blades out from the tips of her shoes and tried to kick 007 in the shins.
Boyle stood and looked at Carpenter in sympathy. “Condolences, Morg.”
“Those aren’t in order,” Tate said quickly, “until the cards are all played. We’re returning the money and we’ll need a receipt. I’d suggest you don’t unpack the suitcase, ‘cause we’ll likely be needing it again. I’ll confess it could stand some drying out.”
“You don’t get any receipt,” the muscular woman said, “until it’s all counted. Every dollar.” Her voice was gravelly, like Ma Barker’s.
“Serita Mayes, gentlemen,” Boyle said, extending a hand toward the woman. “She’s our main security person. With this much cash I thought I needed…”
Turner lifted the suitcase and set it on Boyle’s desk. “We’ve been up all night. How long’s the counting going to take?”
Serita Mayes favored the FBI agent with a bored blink. “Until it’s done,” she said.
Turner snapped open the catches and lifted the lid. “Well get after it, then. If you can stand the wait, so can we.”
“We’ve got a lounge downstairs, with coffee and whatnot,” Boyle said. “Maybe we’d be more comfortable…”
“We’re staying with the money,” Tate said, “until we get the receipt.”
Morgan Carpenter sat down and folded his arms, watching Boyle. “I’m not paying any interest as long as the bank’s got the money. Let’s get that clear.”
Boyle spread his hands, palms up. “That’d take paying off the loan, Morg. Along with the interest it’s already earned, and returning the money to our asset account. Then if you need it again there’ll be another board meeting, new collateral documents…you sure you want to go through all that?”
“What I want to go through,” Morgan Carpenter said, “is not paying you bloodsuckers any more interest than I have to.”
“Well, if you insist,” Boyle said, “then we’ll—”
“You’re not expecting a receipt for this shit, are you?” Serita Mayes said. She was standing, holding one of the damp packets of hundreds out in Turner’s direction.
Carpenter sat forward, his lips parted. Turner cocked his head. Boyle bent over his desk and looked closer at the money. Tate gave a nervous laugh and said, “I know it’s a little wet, but…”
“Wet,” Serita Mayes said, riffling the money with her thumb, “and phony as hell. I don’t know who’s trying to pull what, but, you know.”
Carpenter stiffened as if poked from behind. Tate said weakly, “You’re joking, right?”
“If I am, the joke’s on somebody else. Not me.” Serita held the packet up and ran her thumbnail over the top bill’s surface. A gray streak appeared above the serial number. “It’s not even good counterfeit.” She dropped the bundle back into the suitcase. “We send out the real stuff and you bring us back funny money, guys. What, they don’t teach you federal people how to spot it?”
27
After the confrontation with Agent Turner outside the condos, Frank decided that he had to do something even if the something was wrong. He’d seen these investigations before, where one guy was “it,” and was pretty sure that nothing he could say was going to change his situation with the feds. He could give them Darla Bern and Randolph Money until the cows came home, but he was wasting his breath. Even if the FBI bothered to check those people out, the agents would only be going through the motions.
Getting rid of Jack and Jill was fairly easy. Halfway to his apartment, Frank steered the Cherokee off of I-20 and under the awning in front of a convenience store, and stopped beside the self-service super-unleaded gas pump. Right on cue the unmarked Taurus cruised in out of the rain and halted behind him, leaving two wet tire tracks on the pavement. Frank got out, shivering in his soaked clothing, went back and told Jill, “You got to pay inside first.” He pointed at a sign on the pump. She nodded. Frank jogged across the neon-lit driveway and entered the store.
Once inside he went down aisles of shelves exhibiting Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese Dinners, liquid Tide, and every brand of candy bar known to man. He selected a toothbrush, toothpaste, a bar of Dial soap, Gillette lime shave cream along with a pack of Bic disposable razors, and approached the counter. A Hispanic woman in a red uniform smock rang up his purchase, gave him change, and sacked his order. Frank then said, “Listen, you have a restroom?” She nodded and pointed to the rear of the store. Frank followed her directions, carrying the items he’d bought in a small paper bag.
The men’s room was down a ten-foot corridor that opened up beside the beer coolers, and halfway down the hall was a door on Frank’s left leading to the storage area. Frank tried the door and gently pushed it open, then looked for a second at stacked cardboard boxes holding Snickers and Mars bars. He glanced quickly toward the register; the clerk was nowhere in sight. Frank went into the storage room, skirted the boxes and a broken Slurpee dispenser, and went out through the back exit into the rain. The deluge beat down on a metal dimpster-dumpster and four large garbage cans. Frank wiped water from his eyes, stuffed the sack underneath his shirt, and sprinted around to the east side of the store.
There were more gas pumps on that side, and a six-foot hedge separating the driveway from the street beyond. Frank’s breath came in gasps as he passed the pumps, skirted and then ducked down behind the hedge, and squinted through the leaves and tiny branches. On the north driveway, the Taurus was still parked behind the Cherokee, both cars blocking the super-unleaded pump. The Hispanic woman was visible through the store’s side window, piling something on an overhead shelf above the register. Frank blew water from his nose and mouth and waited.
In a couple of minutes the Taurus’s passenger door opened and Jack got out. He walked three quarters of the way across the drive, stood on tiptoes, and peered inside the store through the window. Then he went in, approached the counter, and talked to the clerk. The clerk gestured toward the restrooms, and Jack took off in that direction. He returned within seconds and said something else to the clerk, who gestured some more with chubby hands. Jack charged out into the drive, yelling at Jill and waving his arms. Jill hit the pavement at a trot, her heels clicking and her tan raincoat swirling around her calves. Both agents hustled into the store, where Jack dashed off in the direction of the restrooms while Jill showed h
er shield to the clerk and began to speak a mile a minute. Frank rose into a crouch, ran ducked down to the far end of the hedge, sprinted across the drive and dived behind the wheel of the Cherokee. As he started the engine and drove away he glanced to his left. The clerk was now talking while Jill took notes on a pad. Neither woman looked in Frank’s direction.
Frank stopped off in a twenty-four-hour Tom Thumb Supermarket, prowled the sporting goods section until he found a pair of shorts that fit, then checked into a motel in South Dallas whose sign read, “Nite-Nite Courts,” in flickering, about-to-burn-out neon. He accepted one towel and one washcloth from the desk clerk, then made his way around to the back and found his room. There was barely enough space in the room for a double bed and a small table, and the wallpaper sagged. A window air conditioner blew frigid air. Frank shivered and switched the unit off.
He stripped to the buff, put on the shorts he’d bought, then drove out and found the nearest laundromat. Midnight found him watching dull-eyed through a round window as his pants, shirt, socks and underwear tumbled dry. Finally he managed four hours’ sleep on a mattress whose innersprings creaked, faintly listening to giggles and squeals from a couple of hookers who’d set up shop in the room next door. Around Five o’clock he switched on the light, groped in the nightstand for his wallet, and fished out a small photo. The picture was of Meg, seated on the bank of the pool at his apartment, a pose he’d shot less than a month ago. He stared at the photo until dawn.
He showered in water the temperature of day-old coffee, shaved, brushed his teeth, then dumped all of the items from the convenience store into the wastebasket. He dropped the key off in the motel office, dawdled over coffee in a Denny’s Restaurant until around eight-thirty, then drove a couple of blocks until he located a pay phone in front of a grocery store. After first dialing Information to get the number, he placed a call. As he listened to a series of rings over the line, a couple of black guys with their hair in dreadlocks stopped to peer inside the Cherokee, then moseyed on. A pregnant black woman came out of the grocery store carrying a sack, climbed into a fifteen-year-old Buick, and chugged away. There was a click in Frank’s ear, then a bored female voice said, “U.S. Probation Office.”
“Yeah, this is Patrolman Willis, Dallas Police Department. I need to speak to whatever probation officer handles a parolee named Wilbur Dale.”
The operator told him to hold. For a full minute he listened to a recording of Bill Clinton talking about health care. Then there was a final click, and Marjorie Rapp’s husky voice said, “Rapp.”
Frank’s throat constricted. Jesus, of all the…He very nearly hung up, then forced his tone to be calm and matter-of-fact as he said, “Patrolman Willis, Ms. Rapp, Dallas Police. I need a current address for one of your parolees. A Wilbur Dale.”
“You’re law enforcement? We don’t give out that information to just…”
“Yes, ma’am, Dallas Police.” Frank pictured Marjorie Rapp, her mouth puckered with authority, likely hoping one of her co-workers was listening as she told the Dallas Police Department how the cow ate the cabbage.
“I’ll need your badge number, Officer, and your supervisor’s telephone number.”
Frank gave his old badge number, from back when he’d been on the force, and the number and extension for his former shift captain, which he hoped hadn’t changed in the past few years. If Marjorie Rapp put him on hold to check his story out, he was going to hang up and make a run for it. Instead she said merely, “Who’s the parolee, sir?”
“Wilbur Dale.”
“Wilbur? He’s one of our better ones. Does this involve some sort of crime he’s…”
“No. No, ma’am.” Frank swallowed, giving himself time to think. Jesus, Wilbur Dale a model parolee. The idea made Frank sick. Frank said, “This is just an investigation where we think Mr. Dale might have some information on one of his former associates. Has nothing to do with anything he’s done.”
“I’m really not supposed to give this out over the phone, unless I’ve checked you out, Officer,” Ms. Rapp said.
Frank held his breath, started to hang up.
“But I’ve got a lot going myself,” she said. “A parolee ex-cop I’m handling, seems he’s really gone off the deep end, and that fine gentleman’s taking up all my time right now. So I’m willing to bend procedures if you’re willing to promise you didn’t get this information from me.”
Frank blinked. He was now a few rungs lower on Marjorie Rapp’s list than Wilbur Dale. He almost laughed aloud. “I’ll give you my word, ma’am,” he said.
She gave the address and phone number, which Frank scribbled hastily on the back of one of his Sidewalk Humor business cards. “Thanks, Ms. Rapp,” Frank said officially. “And good luck with your ex-cop. Anything I hate to see it’s a fellow officer doing something wrong. Makes us all look bad, you know?”
The address was in Garland, in northeast Dallas County, and on the drive out Frank was suddenly nervous. He was on Central Expressway, stuck in crawling traffic due to the construction barriers, when it occurred to him that by now he was probably wanted. Would definitely be the subject of a warrant if he wasn’t already, and here he was driving a sore-thumb Jeep Cherokee whose license plate might be on a hot sheet. He spent the rest of the trip with one eye on his rearview mirror.
He found the house, a wood frame job on a block of unkempt yards with pickups and campers parked in the driveways. The house needed painting in the worst way, but so did the other homes up and down the street, so Wilbur Dale’s place blended right in. Frank left the Cherokee at the curb, crossed a lawn strewn with crumpled cans and little piles of dog shit, stepped up on the porch, and knocked. He stood first on one foot and then the other, then knocked again. He put his ear to the doorcrack. From inside the house came the whup-whup of running machinery.
Frank checked both ways up and down the block, making certain that no one was watching, then double-timed it to the back of the house. He vaulted a hip-high cyclone fence into a backyard with patches of dirt showing through a blanket of weeds. A doghouse was against the western fence, and a fox terrier came out and yapped at him. Frank went to the back door and opened the screen. The whup-whup sound was louder.
The door was locked; Frank slid his library card into the crack and pried the plunger out and slipped on into the kitchen. There were dirty plates and saucers in the sink, part submerged in soapy water. A buzzing came from the refrigerator, and an odor of grease-cooked meat hung in the air. Frank walked over yellowed linoleum toward the whup-whup sound.
He inched open a swinging door, and looked into what was once a formal dining room. A cracked chandelier hung from the ceiling. On a scarred long table a printing press chugged, spitting big sheets of paper out into a stack. A man with hunched shoulders and a bowed back was making an adjustment at the top of the press. Frank tiptoed on in and used a stiffened forefinger to poke the guy’s shoulder. A screwdriver clattered on the table. The man turned; Frank looked at a hooked nose, shaggy gray brows over narrowed eyes, and a thin mouth twisted in fear. Recognition showed in the eyes, and the mouth relaxed. The man reached up and flicked a switch. The press turned over a couple of times, spitting two more sheets onto the stack, then was still.
“Hi, Wilbur.” Frank said.
Irritation replaced the frightened expression. “Scare the shit out of a man.”
“That’s good,” Frank said. “I was trying to.” He rested a hip on the edge of the table and folded his arms.
“You could get shot.” Wilbur Dale had a cracked sixty-year-old voice with a heavy East Texas drawl.
“You don’t come by for ice cream anymore,” Frank picked the top sheet from the stack, looked over rows of twenty-dollar bills, ten across, twenty down. The brand name “A.B. Dick” was on the press’s engine cover “Jesus, Wilbur, what if your probation officer comes by?”
Dale wiped his hands on his apron. His
fingers were stained with printer’s ink. “That don’t happen except end of the month. The fuck, you back to being a cop?”
Frank patted the press, and gestured toward a photographic plate maker in the corner. “You rent this stuff, right? Make up a batch, then take the machinery back. Need some more money you just rent it again .”
Frank watched Dale’s face, remembering the expressions he’d learned doing time with the guy, the slight shift in the gaze as Wilbur Dale got ready to lie. “I was just, you know, doing a little practicing.” Dale said.
“You can do better than that. I’m not going to snitch you off, Wilbur, I’m just trying to find out what you’re up to. In addition to helping some people screw me.”
Dale sagged into his broken-old-man routine, which impressed Frank about as much as the about-to-lie expression. In the penitentiary, Dale had become a broken old man each time the hack had tried to hand out yard-mowing duty. “I had a square job,” Dale said. “I lost it is all.”
“Or quit it.” Frank tossed the fresh-printed counterfeit money back on the table. “I don’t give a shit about all this, Wilbur. I’m just interested in why you told Randolph Money all about my private life. Or Darla Bern—one’s the same as the other.”
Dale’s wrinkled forehead wrinkled even more. He had stiff brown hair, showing a few gray streaks, and a round bald spot at the crown of his head. “Seems like I remember a Randolph Money,” he said.
Frank expelled a long sigh, went over to the window and pulled the drape aside. Next door a woman in Bermuda shorts was mowing her weeds, heavy legs pumping along behind a Briggs & Stratton hand-propelled. Frank let the curtain fall back into place, whirled, and grabbed Wilbur Dale by the shirtfront. He yanked, the older man wheezing as Frank held him nose to nose.
“I don’t have any time to screw around,” Frank said. “And if you think acting hurt’s going to stop me from beating the shit out of you, you’re wrong. You came by my place. You talked to me, I was dumb enough to tell you this girl’s name I’m dating. You told all this stuff to either Darla or Money. I want to know which, why, and for how much.”