“When were they emptied?”
“September seventeenth, 1994,” he said. “Both. Same day.”
“Can you tell who did the cleanout?”
“In a moment,” he said.
He tapped some keys and waited.
“Both by check for ten dollars short of the balance,” he said, and tapped again.
“So they wouldn’t overdraw and call attention,” I said.
“I presume so,” Coombs said.
Tap, tap.
“We photograph the checks,” he said.
Tap, tap.
“Both checks are signed Bradley Turner,” he said. I nodded.
“And you’ve heard from neither of them since?” I said.
“Not a word.”
“Did he take the proceeds of his two accounts in cash?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Seventy-seven hundred from his money market account. Eight thousand and fi fty dollars from checking.”
“Would you just hand him the cash at the counter.”
Coombs smiled.
“No, we’re not that big a bank. I’m sure he gave us a couple days’ notice.”
“You didn’t work here then?”
“No,” he said. “I was living in Omaha at the time.”
I stood and shook hands and slipped into my topcoat. Outside would be cold. Coombs’s office had a fireplace. With a wood fi re burning.
That’s status.
54.
I’m not at all sure what Perry Alderson is up to,” Susan told me on the phone.
“He’s still coming.”
“He’s coming and he’s talking,” she said. “He’s asked me to dinner once, and I made it clear that socializing would not be possible. But still he comes for his appointments.”
“He’s been very successful with women,” I said. “He probably thinks, with you, it’s only a matter of time.”
“Probably,” Susan said. “But there’s more than that. He likes talking to me. He likes being with me.”
“Me too.”
“He may even like it that there is no romantic agenda available,” Susan said. “A chance to relax.”
“And a chance to talk about himself,” I said.
“Yes.”
“His goal is still to use you.”
“I am well protected,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“I feel like Hawk and I have become a couple,” she said. “He sleeps in the spare bedroom. We have breakfast together in the morning. If you turn me down, I may marry him.”
“If he’ll have you,” I said.
“There’s that,” she said.
It was dark out, and when I looked out the window all I could see was my own reflection. I didn’t look old, exactly, maybe a little weathered, sort of. Like a guy who’d seen too many bodies. Heard too many lies. Fired too many shots. Swapped too many punches.
“He talk about stuff that would interest me?” I said.
“He talks mostly about his father,” Susan said.
“What’s he say?”
She was silent for a time. I could almost hear her sorting through what she thought she had a right to tell
