I shook my head. “The lady has more integrity than I have,” I said.
“Well, Lark hasn?t got any such notions,” Stick said, with that strange smile of his. “Here?s the rest of
the good news.” He reached into his shirt pocket, took out a slip of paper, and handed it to me. There
were two numbers written on it. Lark had drawn a smiling face behind the second one.
“Are these the bank?s computer access numbers?” I asked excitedly.
“And the numbers for the Tagliani account.”
“This is incredible! Are you sure they?re correct?”
“I trust the lady all the way.”
“The lady?s got one hell of a memory,” I said.
“There?s a little more to it than that. Guess who the computer operator at the bank is.”
“You?re kidding!”
“She has a master?s degree in mathematics and computer technology from Emory University. I may
be in love. A dame looks like that with all those smarts, shit, I might even think about early
retirement.”
I was impressed with the information, but even more impressed that he had asked for it.
“How the hell did you know I was after these numbers?” I asked him.
“Lark told me you went to Casablanca to meet DeeDee, so I figured you must be after something,” he
said. “It wasn?t hard to figure out what it was. Hell, I can put one and one together and get two almost
every time.”
“Now that I?ve got them, I?m not sure what to do with them,” I said.
“Have you forgotten I spent six months slaving over a computer when I joined the Freeze? I know
what to do with them.”
“Can you access the code and get into the bank?s main terminal?”
“I can hack into anything,” he said with a grin. “I?m the magic man, remember?”
My palms got sweaty thinking about what we could come up with. For the first time since arriving in
Dunetown, I felt we were getting close to something important. The information wouldn?t stand up in
court, but it could lead us straight to the bad seeds.
“You want to tell me what you want, specifically?”
“I?m not sure. But I am sure Cohen?s the bagman and he deals only with Seaborn at the bank. DeeDee
did tell me that. They?re using the bank for a washing machine, I know it. That bank account should
tell us something.”
“I agree with you about Cohen. Lark says he usually makes cash deposits once a day. Big ones.”
“Does she know how much?”