Wheelman, The

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Wheelman, The Page 14

by Duane Swierczynski


  The third Wachovia suspect, Harrison Crosby, was also still at large.

  Saugherty lowered the paper, and for the first time all night and morning, was filled with a gleeful kind of hope. The kind of hope that made the runny eggs and industrial-rubber sausage on his hospital tray seem edible.

  The money was still out there.

  Lennon wouldn’t be going through all this shit if the money wasn’t still out there, somewhere. Richards obviously didn’t know where it was, because his dumb white ass was now in the Gray Bar Hotel. This Crosby guy might be holding the loot bag, but even so, he still had to be in the city. Because Lennon was still in the city.

  And the money was still in the city.

  Saugherty decided maybe it was worth getting out of bed after all.

  The Closet and the Mattress

  THE DOOR SLAMMED. LISA JOLTED AWAKE IN THE CLOSET. Somebody else was here. Probably the doctor they had called a few hours ago.

  At long fucking last.

  Lisa had heard the whole thing.

  She had been asleep on the mattress the night before when they came back in the early hours, the mystery guy and his girlfriend. Lisa thought she would just be confronting the guy, asking him what the hell he was doing here, but it didn’t turn out that way. Besides, it sounded like both of them were hurt; she could hear it in their quiet gasps and moans.

  When Lisa heard them walking up the carpeted staircase, the wooden floor beneath them creaking from the weight, she came to her senses and scrambled across the floor and into the bedroom closet.

  They entered the room just as she was easing the closet door shut.

  “Take it easy,” someone said. The mystery guy.

  “I’ll be okay.” His female companion. “Where are you hit?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Wait … there’s a mattress here on the floor. Ease down onto it. Keep pressure on your belly.”

  “It’s just grazed,” she said.

  “You have an M.D. now? Lie back.”

  “Don’t worry. The baby is fine. I can feel that much.”

  “It’s not the baby I’m worried about.”

  Lisa cracked open the closet door a fraction of an inch. The room was dark, but she saw the outline of a man lowering a woman onto the mattress on the floor.

  She could tell they were a couple—aside from the fact that the woman was apparently pregnant—because they bickered so much. Neither wanted to admit they were hurting, and both wanted to attend to the other’s wounds. The mystery guy seemed to have the upper hand, though, because he had the number of a doctor scribbled on a napkin. The tide turned when Lisa heard that the woman was the one with the cell phone, and she insisted on making the call.

  “He won’t know you,” the guy said.

  “Who is he, anyway?” she asked.

  “He came with the house.”

  “And where did the house come from?”

  When Lisa heard the mystery guy tell the abbreviated story, she almost put a foot through the drywall in the closet.

  The mystery guy didn’t mention names, but he said that an Italian gentleman had agreed to let him use the house in exchange for half of “the take.” The house came with guns, a set of clothes, and an unlicensed doctor to take care of injuries.

  “Wait—you needed a doctor before tonight?” the woman asked.

  “Not really.”

  “What do you mean, not really?”

  “We were ambushed in the getaway car, then stripped and thrown into body bags. I woke up as two assholes were trying to shove me down a pipe, down by the river. Later I was shot. But I’m feeling much better.”

  “You were shot? By the Russians?”

  “No. But the guys from earlier … one of them was Russian. The other was a college kid. Not Russian. American.”

  “Are they still out there?” the woman asked. “Will they be coming after us?”

  “No,” the guy said, quietly.

  Lisa turned this over in her brain. A Russian. And a college kid.

  Mikal. And Andrew.

  This is why she almost kicked the wall in.

  “So let me call the doctor. Have him look at us both. And then we can get the fuck out of this city. We need to regroup.”

  “We need to talk,” the woman said. “I have a lot to explain.”

  There was no torture greater than Lisa’s hours in that closet, trapped, enveloped with rage. Right out of her closet door was the man who had killed her boyfriend. And the salt on that particular wound was the fact that her own father was this guy’s partner in crime. Her dad had given them the use of this house! Her house! Her and Andrew’s house! And guns. And clothes. And a doctor.

  Lisa seethed as she listened to the phone call. She even knew the doctor they were calling. It was Dr. Bartholomew Dovaz, her own pediatrician. She had grown up afraid of Dr. Dovaz—he had an awful bedside manner, sticking you with needles when you weren’t ready—until his wife got sick, and he started doing drugs. Lisa had assumed her family had severed all contact with Dr. Dovaz after a messy arrest in Lower Merion back in 1993, but apparently, her father had kept in touch with the man.

  Her father had kept him on hand for special occasions. Like treating murderers he was hiding.

  Had Lisa a weapon of any kind, she would have bolted from the closet and used it. Repeatedly. A gun. A baseball bat. A knife. A chainsaw. A nail gun. And then she’d confront her father later.

  But she had nothing, and she had no idea what this couple was packing. They were professional criminals of some kind, and most likely had guns. Which made sense. They were talking about gunshot wounds. It would do no good to pop out of the closet and get shot in the head.

  Lisa decided to wait for Dr. Dovaz to arrive, and then she’d figure out her move from there. There would be time to sneak away, to run back to her house and talk to her father.

  She repeated things to herself, in her mind, so she could remember them later. They were important.

  Getaway car.

  Stripped, and thrown into body bags.

  A pipe, down by the river.

  A while later, Lisa fell asleep.

  Am I Blue

  SAUGHERTY FELT WOEFULLY UNDERDRESSED TO BE calling on the Rittenhouse Towers on a Sunday morning.

  He’d scraped together what he could. The clothes on his back from yesterday were ripped and blood-soaked; his house—and his pitiful wardrobe inside it—had probably burned to the ground. That left one choice. Doctor’s lounge. Saugherty knew his way around hospitals from his cop days, especially this one: Pennsylvania Hospital. He knew the ER. He knew the ER lounge, and how nobody really paid any attention to people popping in and out of it.

  He found a pair of khakis and a nice black Eddie Bauer mock turtleneck in one of the lockers. He kept his own shoes, but glommed a shabby-looking black blazer from another locker. Didn’t they pay these docs anything?

  The Rittenhouse Towers were only twelve or so blocks away, across town, but since Saugherty had a busted arm, a sack full of broken ribs, and various other oochies and ouchies, he opted for a cab.

  Getting in was not a problem; he knew the acting chief of security, Al Buchan, from his working the Fifteenth District. Saugherty fed him some line of bull about working a freelance bank robbery consulting thing for Lt. Earl Mothers, which Al swallowed without complaint. Let him up to 910, where a couple of uniforms told him he should check out 1809, where they hid out for a while.

  “They” = Patrick Selway Lennon plus an unidentified female companion.

  Saugherty got what he could from the guys on the scene; eyewitnesses weren’t much use coming up with a name. The description was hazy, too. “Hot as balls,” one guy had said, describing the unidentified female companion. “But an ice queen.” Yeah, that helped. Saugherty poked around the condo, marveling at the appliances and utensils. The owner of the place, some guy named Feldman, even had a set of Tenmijurakus sitting on the counter. Swank.

  It was getting to be that time, an
d the Percocets he got at the hospital were starting to lose their luster, so Saugherty found the appropriate cabinet, appropriated the appropriate bottle, then sequestered himself in the guest bathroom, near the entrance. Nothing fancy—just a bottle of Johnnie Walker. But when he closed the door behind him, Saugherty realized he’d hit the fucking lottery. It was Johnnie Walker Blue. He’d never tasted it; only read about it in the storybooks and musty volumes of Greek and Roman fables. Saugherty took this surprise as a good omen. With $650,000, he’d be able to enjoy J.W. Blue on a regular basis.

  He unscrewed the cap and breathed in the smoky aroma through his nose. It was almost a contact high.

  There was a dispenser of small plastic Dixie cups on the bathroom sink. Saugherty plucked one off the stack and poured himself a tall one, almost to the brim. This was not something to be sucked from the bottle, nor cut with tap water. Presentation was one thing.

  The taste was everything else.

  Saugherty sat on the closed toilet, in a frayed blazer not his own, drinking some incredibly fine Scotch that was not his own, either. For having woken up in a hospital bed and been grilled by humorless jackasses from Internal Affairs, he thought he was doing all right.

  He let the liquid pleasantly burn down into his stomach, and felt the attitude-adjustment mechanisms turning in his brain. He lifted his face to heaven, by way of thanking God.

  As his head returned to its usual forward-facing position, Saugherty spotted it.

  The bathroom closet door, slightly ajar.

  Saugherty didn’t go to it right away. He wanted to finish the Scotch in his Dixie cup first, because he knew what he was going to find in there. The lead he needed. And once he found it, he would be leaving the bathroom, and tracking down more leads, and eventually, tracking down his money.

  The morning had been so charmed, how could it be otherwise?

  Ten minutes later, the bathroom closet yielded a small black suitcase. Which yielded a set of women’s clothing and toiletries. And beneath that, identification and a passport.

  Hiya, Katie Elizabeth Selway.

  Paterfamilias

  “SO WHO’S THE FATHER?”

  “Mary, Mother of God,” she said, sighing.

  “You’re not gonna tell me?”

  “Yes, I’m going to tell you. But this isn’t how I’d planned it.”

  “Ah. Right. Puerto Rico. He supposed to meet us there?”

  “He’s there right now.”

  “And why aren’t you there now?”

  “I got worried.”

  Lennon leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. Katie was a few feet away, reclining on the mattress.

  He didn’t want to say it, but he’d told her a million times: no matter what, even if I’m arrested, don’t come looking for me. I can take care of myself. That was Rule Number One. That had always been Rule Number One, ever since Lennon had reunited with his sister, and confessed to her what he did for a living. But Katie wasn’t much for rules.

  “Do I know him?”

  “No … not really.”

  “So I fookin’ do know him. What’s his name?”

  “Oh, Patrick.”

  “His first name, at least.”

  “You know, this really isn’t the way I imagined this. I had Vueve Clicquot. I had reservations. I had it perfectly planned.”

  “Yeah, so did I.”

  They sat there in silence. Mulling things over. Waiting for the doctor to arrive. Sunlight was starting to creep around the cheap fabric window shades.

  “I’m going to have to find that money,” Lennon said, at long last.

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to need a crib.”

  “Michael has … shit.”

  “Michael? Fucking Michael who?”

  Lennon spun through his mental Rolodex of pro heisters, but nothing came to mind. Common enough name, Michael. But he really didn’t know any. At least, he hadn’t worked with any Michaels in the past few years. Had he? Unless it was that … nah. Couldn’t be.

  “Okay. Last name.”

  “Never you mind. Keep your mind on the money. You hate being distracted in the middle of a job, remember?”

  “Too fookin’ late for that.”

  “Come on, Patrick. Don’t be a shithead. We can just walk away. Last time I balanced the checkbook, we were doing okay. This money was for the future.”

  “I have more immediate needs.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I need $350,000 to pay for this house and torn-up suit I’m wearing.”

  “It’s a nice suit, but I think you paid too much for the house.”

  Lennon chuckled, in spite of himself. It broke the dam. He could be himself with his sister. She was the only person in the world he felt comfortable around.

  So he told her everything that had happened since Friday morning—the double cross, the attempted burial at the pipe down by the river, the dorm, the car theft, the rogue cop, the gunshot wound, the threats, the black guys with guns, the burning house, the 7-Eleven heist, the parking lot, the meeting with the junior-grade Mafioso, the deal, the trip to Wilcoxson’s condo … .

  Lennon lapsed into Gaelic every so often, but Katie understood enough to follow. She had grown up in the U.S., and had a faint New England accent. Lennon had spent most of his time in Listowel, and then Dublin, before emigrating to the U.S., mostly to find his sister. Their parents had died years before.

  “If you want the money, there’s one thing you have to do.”

  “What’s that?” Lennon asked.

  “Go back to the pipe, and see who’s buried there.”

  “You’re thinking of Bling.”

  “I’m thinking of Bling.”

  Lennon sighed. “I’m not sure what I want more—to find his body, or not to find his body.”

  “I think you want to find his body.”

  That’s when the doorbell rang. Dr. Bartholomew Dovaz was back for the second time in a twelve-hour period.

  “I’ll get it,” Lennon said. “But as soon as he leaves, you’re telling me which Michael defiled you.”

  Back to the Pipe

  WHEN DR. DOVAZ TOOK THE WOMAN INTO THE BATHROOM, and the guy, Patrick, went downstairs to use the half bathroom, Lisa took the opportunity to split.

  Things happened quickly after that.

  Lisa’s dad kept trying to yell at her, trying to be the father—What the hell were you doing in that house? Is that your house?—but Lisa wasn’t hearing that. She kept pounding him with what she’d learned, over and over again. The guy is a murderer. He killed Andrew. He killed Mikal. He stuffed their bodies in a pipe down by the river. The guy is a murderer! He killed Andrew! He killed Mikal! He stuffed their bodies in a pipe down by the fucking river!

  Eventually Lisa’s dad saw the light of reason and assembled a team. It wasn’t hard to find the pipe Lisa was talking about. There was only one major construction project down on the Delaware River. The new children’s museum. Lisa’s dad’s team took shotguns, baseball bats, and baling hooks. They didn’t need the first two items. Everybody inside the pipe was dead. They recovered six bodies before reaching mud and clay at the bottom of the pipe. Two of the faces matched a photo they were given, a black-and-white promotional photo of a band called Space Monkey Mafia. It was the bass player and the keyboard player.

  The team knew the keyboard player. It was Lisa’s boyfriend, Andrew.

  Andrew didn’t look too good. He had a black Bic pen sticking out of his neck. Blood had caked and dried all around it.

  They called it in to Lisa’s dad, and he told them to dump all the bodies down the pipe again. No questions; just do it. So they did.

  “But before you do,” Lisa’s dad said, “take the pen out of the boy’s neck. And bring it to me.”

  SUNDAY P.M.

  I want you all to know that I don’t take no orders.

  —“BABY FACE” NELSON

  Ink and Blood

  WHEN LENNO
N WOKE UP AGAIN, HE WAS TIED TO A chair, and his throat was sore.

  Other people were in the room. Which was not the room he’d fallen asleep in. The last thing he knew, he had been given a shot of painkillers. He didn’t want the doctor to give him something that would render him unconscious. “Don’t worry,” the doctor had said. “This’ll just take the edge off.”

  Lennon’s vision focused a bit. He saw Katie in the corner of the room. Her hands were behind her back. She was wearing stark white lipstick, and her eyes looked puffed shut. Somebody held a gun to her head.

  Now somebody slapped him in the face.

  “Hi, Dillinger,” a male voice said. He had said it the correct way—Dill-ING-er. Most people thought it was dill-IN-jer, like the pistol. “Glad you could join us.”

  Lennon tried to count the people in the room. Aside from his sister. He got up to five before somebody slapped him again.

  “Stay with us,” said the same voice. “This is important. This concerns you, and your pregnant girlfriend there.”

  Pregnant girlfriend my arse. Lennon wanted to shout it at the top of his lungs. He was tired of the charade. It was a handy charade—people assumed they were a couple, so let them think that. It made tracking them down all the more difficult. But that didn’t really matter now, did it? They were already tracked down.

  “What the fuck did you give him, Dovaz? Horse tranks?”

  “I gave him what he required.”

  “Jesus. The guy’s a fucking zombie.”

  “I’m not sure that’s entirely the fault of my medication.”

  Another slap—harder this time. Lennon felt his teeth vibrate in his gums.

  “You see this, Dillinger?”

  Lennon focused. He saw a beefy hand holding a pen.

  “You stuck this pen in a kid’s neck a few days ago. You remember that?”

  The hand clenched the pen tighter. Lennon could make out the crimson glaze that still caked it. Holy Jesus. This guy had been down in the pipe.

 

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