happened on Thursday.'
'Why does that worry you?'
'Like I said, I really hope I'm wrong, but with the amount of money we're talking about, hope don't count.'
'I'm not sure where you're going, Joey. You think the manager has something to do with the drugs?'
'What I'm saying, Phil, is that we don't pay him a whole hell of a lot of money. I don't really know what I'm talking about here. But drugs in a Howard Johnson motel?'
'What are you thinking?'
'I don't have any idea how it could have gotten started, but hear me out. You got a guy making peanuts, like Leonard Hansen. He finds out that he can pick up a couple of hundred tax-free by loaning somebody a motel-room key for a couple of hours. You beginning to see where I'm coming from?'
'Yeah.'
'And all of a sudden, it comes out-I have the highest respect for the detectives who work Narcotics-that my Howard Johnson motel is a no-tell motel. Not hookers, but much fucking worse-as far as the Howard Johnson people are concerned-drugs. That's all Howard Johnson would have to hear. So long, franchise. They'd pull that franchise so quick…'
'I see your point. So you want me to check this Leonard Hansen out?'
'I really hope you find him as clean as a whistle,' Joey said. 'But you understand, Phil, why I have to know?'
'I understand your problem, Joey.'
'And discreetly, Phil. Like I said, he's a brother-in-law of one of my partners. He would get pissed in a second if he heard I'd asked you to check this guy out.'
'I understand.'
'I'll give you fifty an hour, plus all your expenses, if you can get on this right away, Phil.'
'I told you, Joey, I'm up to my ass-'
'This is important to me, Phil, but I would hate to think you're trying to hold me up. We have a good relationship here…'
'I wasn't talking about money. I was talking about other jobs I have, Joey.'
'No offense, Phil.'
'No offense taken, Joey. I'll get on it as soon as I can.'
'I appreciate that, Phil,' Joey said.
He got up behind his desk and put out his hand.
'You get me something on this guy I can take to my partners, something solid, and there'll be a bonus in this for you, Phil.'
'If there's something there, I'll find it,' Phil said.
'Jesus, I just had a thought,' Joey said.
'What?'
'Let me throw this at you. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.'
'Think of what before?'
'If anybody knew if my Howard Johnson motel is being used as a fucking drug supermarket, it would be the narcotics cops, right?'
'Maybe.'
'Maybe, my ass. They did one drug bust there. They had to have a reason, a suspicion, that something was going on there.'
'So what?'
'Could you ask them? You know any of them?'
'No, and no. I don't know any of them, and if I did know one of them, and asked him something like that, he'd tell me to go fuck myself.'
'I thought you cops got along pretty well,' Joey said visibly disappointed.
'I'm a retired cop, which is the same thing as saying, so far as they're concerned, that I'm a civilian. They don't tell civilians anything. So far as that goes, they don't tell other cops anything.'
'If they knew-even suspected; we wouldn't need any proof-about something going on at my motel, that would settle this thing in a hurry. Which is what I'm after, Phil, finding out yes or no in a hurry.'
'I told you, Joey, if the Narcotics Unit knew that drug deals were going on every hour on the hour at your motel, they wouldn't tell me.'
'You couldn't explain the situation to them?'
'Jesus, you don't know how to take 'no' for an answer, do you?'
'Not when I'm about to lose a lot of fucking money, I don't,' Joey said. He paused. 'The bonus I was talking about would kick in, of course.'
Phil shook his head. 'No.'
'Well, how about this? Get me a couple of names of detectives in the Narcotics Unit. Get me two names of the detectives who did the drug bust at my motel last Thursday. I'm a very reasonable guy. I can talk to them, explain my problem.'
'I'll see what I can do,' Phil said. 'No promises.'
'One promise. You get me two names, I pay you for ten hours of your time, and throw in the bonus.'
'I'll see what I can do, Joey,' Phil repeated.
From the glass-walled office that had been loaned to him by Vice President James C. Chase of the First Harrisburg Bank amp; Trust Company, Detective Matthew Payne of the Philadelphia Police Department devoted a good deal of his attention throughout the morning to the bank's employees and customers.
He was looking for someone who might be an FBI agent, on surveillance duty, and charged with keeping an eye on the safe-deposit box leased by Miss Susan Reynolds, who was aiding and abetting the Chenowith Group in their unlawful flight to escape prosecution for murder and their participation in a series of bank robberies.
It had been agreed between them that in the event Matt saw someone who might be the FBI, he was to signal Susan cleverly-with a negative shake of the head-on her arrival in the lobby. If he gave such a signal, she was not to go to her safe-deposit box but, instead, come directly to his office, from which they would go to lunch.
If he did not give her a negative shake of the head, she would go to her safe-deposit box, take out the bank loot, and then come to Matt's office. After transferring the money to his brand-new hard-sided attachй case, they would then go to lunch.
The only person he saw who even remotely looked like a police officer of any kind was the gray-uniformed bank guard, who was about seventy years old and had apparently learned to sleep on his feet with his eyes open. Matt didn't think he would notice if someone walked into the lobby and began to carry out one of the ornate bronze stand-up desks provided for the bank's clientele.
There was something unreal about the whole thing, starting with the fact that someone like Susan would even know someone who robbed banks, now with a homemade movie-style machine pistol. And it was, of course, absolutely unbelievable that, in violation of everything that, before the Hotel Hershey, he had believed was really important to him, he was actively involved in the felony of concealing evidence in a capital criminal case.
Or as unbelievable as what had happened-or at least how many times it had happened-in his hotel room that morning, before Susan finally got out of bed and put her clothes back on just in time to go to work.
But that was true, and so was the fact that he was a yet-undetected criminal.
He wondered, idly, once or twice during the morning if this detachment from reality was the way it was for real criminals-he changed that to 'other criminals'-and might explain the calm, I don't give a shit behavior many of them manifested.
And then, at ten to twelve-Susan said she would probably be at the bank at 12:05-he spotted a familiar head walking across the marble floor to the bronze gate to the safe-deposit room door.
The familiar head needed both a shave and a haircut. The man was wearing blue jeans and a woolen, zippered athletic jacket.
Not what one expects from the usually natty FBI. Which means that not only are they surveilling the safe- deposit boxes, but using an undercover agent to do it.
He felt bile in his mouth.
