Laundry Man

“Barry Gale scammed our operation for a great deal of money and we want it back,” John said. “On the other hand, we don’t want some fucking Congressman going on CNN someday and claiming we got the wrong guy, so we’re doing this by the book. Look over there, Jack.”

I looked where John was pointing and saw one of the guys in an FBI jacket was holding a video camera on us.

“If you’ll just look into the camera, smile real nice for the folks, and formally identify Gale, we can grab this bunch and it will all be a wrap. Now why can’t you just be a good boy, stop fucking around with something you don’t understand, and do that for us?”

“You a spy, John?”

“Nah, Jack, I’m just a guy who has to account for the money.”

I looked at Barry lying there helplessly on his stomach. I hated to be the one to finger him, but I knew it didn’t really make any difference. They had Barry, and although I almost felt sorry for the little shit now, the plain fact was they should have him.

I looked at Phony Frank and pointed to Beth and her people.

“They’re just hired hands,” I said. “Let them go and I’ll give you your ID.”

“No problem,” he said.

Phony Frank raised his right index finger and rolled it in a tight little circle. The men in FBI jackets started pulling the security guards to their feet and the rest of us watched in silence as they loaded most of them into the jeep and the two Toyotas. Then the guys in the police uniforms got in with the prisoners and closed the doors.

Two of the men in FBI jackets got into one of the Cherokees with the last three guards, then the one holding the video camera handed it to Jello and got in another Cherokee with the remaining FBI jackets and Beth. She nodded her thanks to me, but she didn’t say anything. One by one all five cars started and moved out in a convoy, the two Cherokees at the rear.

The compound was empty now except for the last black Cherokee and our own strange little tableau. Just John, Phony Frank, Jello, and I stood silently around Barry who was still facedown in the dirt with his hands cuffed behind him.

The wind off the ocean rose a little and more dust spiraled into the air.

FIFTY

“Are you positively identifying this man as Barry Gale?” Phony Frank asked again, pointing to Barry.

I looked at Jello who now had the video camera trained on me.

“Please just answer the man, Jack.”

Just John’s voice had a pleading tone in it that didn’t really sound like him.

“Okay.” I took a breath. “Yeah, this is him. This is Barry Gale.”

Phony Frank turned slightly and nodded, holding out his hand to Jello. Jello clicked off the video camera and passed it to him.

Then John took a slow step toward Barry. Before I realized what he was going to do, he swung his right leg in an extended arc like a football kicker going for a long field goal. He caught Barry squarely in the left ear with the steel-capped toe of his heavy leather boot and Barry’s head lifted off the ground. It reached the limit of the length of his spine, then it rebounded into the dirt. Barry screamed.

“Whoa, whoa!” I yelled at Just John. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m giving this piece of shit a taste of what’s coming unless he tells me what he did with our money.”

“They’re going to kill me, Jack!” Barry screamed again. “They’re going to kill me!”

“Shut up, Barry!” I snapped. “They’re not going to kill you. The government doesn’t kill people. They just arrest you, put you in prison, and somebody there kills you.”

Then I turned on John. “You don’t have to rough up the poor bastard. I can tell you how to find the money.”

Phony Frank perked up his ears. “You can?”

“Say pretty please.”

“Fuck you, asshole.”

“Okay, close enough.”

I was starting to get to this guy, whoever he really was, and I liked that a lot.

“Everything’s on the ABC computer system,” I told him, “and I know how to log into it.”

Phony Frank looked skeptical.

“That’s not enough,” he said. “You’d need to have the address for the right part of the bank’s network.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Then you’ve got to have the current access codes.”

“I’ve got them, too.”

“Gale gave them to you?”

“Nope. I found them on Dollar’s computer.”

“Weren’t they encrypted?”

“Yes, but I got someone to take care of that for me.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you that.” I cut Just John the biggest wink I could manage without hurting my face. “There’s a lot of top-secret shit involved. But I’m sure you understand, don’t you, John?”

Phony Frank didn’t seem amused. “Are you just jerking me off here, you little shit? If you are, I’m going to be one unhappy son of a bitch.”

“If I had a laptop and a data line, I could show you what I mean. But I don’t.”

“As luck would have it,” Phony Frank said with a nasty smile, “you do.”

He pointed at the Cherokee that was still standing in the compound and gave me a little push in its direction. Frank, John, and I walked toward it, but Jello stayed where he was.

“Do you roll over and play dead, too?” I called back over my shoulder.

“Look, Jack, stop being an asshole,” Jello shouted at me. “I’m just a local cop and these guys are making the rules. Everybody takes orders from somebody.”

When we got to the Cherokee, Phony Frank opened the passenger door and gestured for me to slide in. He pointed to an IBM ThinkPad clamped into a bracket mounted over the console between the front seats.

“You know how to use that?”

“I think I can manage.”

“It’s running a standard Windows communication package through a satellite hookup. Just put the address into the browser and you’ll be in business. Unless you’re completely full of shit, of course. Then you’ll be just plain fucked.”

I booted up the ThinkPad, opened the browser, and typed in an address. Phony Frank and John bent into the Cherokee and watched over my shoulder.

The host computer’s identifiers started rolling across the screen and I brought up the login box. I shifted my head just enough to block their view as I typed an access code, then quickly hit Return. When the main screen opened, I began clicking through menus.

“What the fuck is all that shit?”

Phony Frank’s mouth was so close to my ear that I could feel his breath when he spoke.

I stopped typing and twisted my head toward him. “Do you want me to stop and give you a lesson on the structure of commercial banking databases, or do you want me to get you the information you’re looking for?”

Frank didn’t bother to answer, so I turned back and resumed typing. After a few more moments a large spreadsheet opened and I pointed to the first column of numbers.

“There it is. Those are the dates of every transfer out of the ABC that Barry Gale personally ordered and the Fed wire number for each of them.”

Then I opened another file, this one a plain text document with three long columns.