voiced some inclination to make a killing, somehow. And that he was fired, and he was pissed about it. According to the Polaris computer guy, when they fired him, he threatened to shit in their revolving door.”
“Another Dillinger, no doubt about it,” Del said.
They were at the apartment by eight-thirty. Most of the parking around Kline’s apartment was on-street, but they found a space without much trouble. They walked around a corner past a basement-level mystery bookstore, and Del asked, “You read that stuff?”
Lucas nodded. “Sure. We’ve got a bunch of detective novels up at the cabin. I read them on rainy days. They’re mostly full of shit.”
“That’s because they have to combine Hollywood and the cops. An author told me that,” Del said. “He said if a book described what the cops really do, everybody would fall asleep. So they have to stick in some Hollywood. Maybe a lot of Hollywood.”
“What about true-crime books? Those sell pretty well.”
“Yeah, but … those aren’t about the cops,” Del said. “Those are about the criminals, and what they do. The bloodier the better.”
“You ever read that book about Ted Bundy?” Lucas asked, as they waited by the door to the apartment.
“No, but I saw the movie. He was cute as a button, Ted was.”
A guy came out of the apartment and Del hooked the door while it was open. The guy turned and looked at Del, frowned and asked, “Do you live here?”
“Would I be going in if I didn’t?” Del asked.
Lucas pulled his ID and said, “It’s okay, we’re cops.”
The guy nodded and took another look at Del, and went on his way.
“People are just too goddamn suspicious,” Del said.
According to the building directory, Kline was in 204. They took one flight of steps, turned right, and were looking at the door, one of twenty or thirty running down a long dim hallway. Lucas knocked. They waited. No response, so he knocked louder. No response, so he knocked louder yet, and they heard what sounded like a groan from the apartment, and heard somebody call, “I’m coming.”
They could tell before he got to the door that he was barefoot, from the soft footfalls. A chain rattled on the back of the door, and the man opened it. He was as tall as Lucas, or maybe an inch taller, white, with a curly black semi-Afro. He had thin, wispy whiskers on a face that probably wouldn’t need much shaving. He was wearing a pair of jockey shorts and nothing else. He said, “I don’t want any.”
“We’re with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Lucas began.
“I don’t want any of that, either,” the man said.
“Are you Mr. Kline?” Del asked.
“Yeah. I think so. I was last night.” He pulled on the top of his underpants, peered into the opening, then looked up and said, “Yep. Still am. What do you want?”
“We need to talk to you,” Lucas said.
“Oh, right,” Kline said. “I let you in, you toss my apartment, take my stash.”
“Not interested in your stash,” Del said. “We don’t have a search warrant, so we won’t toss the apartment. We just need to talk to you about a problem at Polaris National.”
Kline snorted, “They got more than one problem.”
A young blond woman came out of her apartment down the hall, wearing what might have been a churchgoing dress, and as she pulled her door closed she called, “Jacob, you put some pants on or I swear to God I’ll call the cops.”
“These
The woman was coming along the hall, slowed, and said to Lucas, “I was joking. He plays with it, but he never wags it.”
“Doesn’t necessarily qualify him for an honorary degree,” Lucas said. She was pretty, and he was always up for a chat with a pretty woman.
“No, but … he’s not actually a pervert,” the woman said. “Well, he
“They say they’re not looking for my stash,” Kline told the woman.
“Then they must not be,” she said. “The police never lie. It would be against their ethics.”
“You’re my witness,” Kline said to her. Then, to Lucas and Del, “You can come in, but you can’t search the place.”
“Okay, I’m your witness,” the woman said, and went on her way.
“Good-bye,” Lucas said, and she twiddled her fingers over her shoulder, but didn’t look back.
Kline’s apartment stank of tomato-based food-like products, ramen noodles, pepperoni, and maybe some spilled Two-Buck Chuck with an underlying whiff of ganj. Two wooden chairs faced each other across a tiny table in the compact kitchen; in the living room, a couch faced a huge television that was wired into three different game systems, the consoles of which sat on a plywood coffee table; and straight through, they could see the foot of an unmade bed.
Kline flopped full-length on the couch and said, “So, get the kitchen chairs.”
Del picked them up, handed one to Lucas, and they put them in the living room facing the couch, their backs to the TV, and Lucas asked, “Did you steal twenty-two million dollars from an account at Polaris National Bank through a back door you put into the system before you were fired?”
Kline looked from Lucas to Del and back, then said, “Noooo … Do they think I did?”
“Some of them do,” Lucas said.
“That’s right, blame it on the handicapped guy,” Kline said. Then, in what seemed a genuine question, “They lost twenty-two mil?”
“They didn’t exactly lose it,” Del said. “Somebody took it. We thought maybe it was you.”
“I confess, Ossifer, it was me,” Kline said. He waved his arm at his living quarters. “The first thing I did when I got the money is, I went out and rented this beautiful apartment, so I could live a life of leisure and luxury with a lot of high-price hookers.”
“If you didn’t do it, who did?” Lucas asked.
Kline pushed himself up, looked under the coffee table, came up with a pack of cigarettes and a Bic lighter, lit one, and blew smoke. “Good question. I mean, I didn’t do it, so it must be somebody else. But they’re all so fuckin’ straight … on the surface, anyway. I suspect Angela … have you met her?”
“No.”
“Blond chick, big headlights.” He cupped his hands on his chest, to indicate the size of the headlights. “One of the analysts down there. I suspect her of being a secret rubber freak. She denies it. Anyway, I don’t know who would take it. The money. I sort of can’t believe that anybody did. If
“Yeah, but we’ve got a pro checking it out, and it doesn’t look like that to her,” Lucas said. He hadn’t known about the other entries, and that worried him. “It looks like it took a pretty heavy programmer, who really knew the system. This wasn’t some casual hack from a secretary who took a college course in C.”
“Her?” Kline blew more smoke. “Would I know her? Your pro?”
Lucas said, “Ingrid-”
“ICE. Well, well.” Kline blew more smoke, and then laughed up at the ceiling. “They let little ICE into the security section, huh? Fuckin’ morons. They’ll be missing a lot more than twenty-two million before she gets out of there. She’s not gonna build in a back door, she’s gonna build in a fucking Holland Tunnel. How’d you ever hook up with a crook like ICE?”
“She used to work for me,” Lucas said.
“Oh, yeah,” Kline said. He shook a finger at Lucas. “Now I know the name. Davenport Simulations, right? Nice
