Dirty Money

“Sure,” Claire said. “But why do you want to do the driving?”

“Because you are,” Sandra told her. “And you are because he isn’t sure his license would play nice with cop computers. Me, I’m so clean they give me a gold medal every time they see me.” She cocked a brow at Parker. “Ready?”

Parker looked at his watch. Nearly ten. He said to Claire, “I’ll be back late tonight.”

She nodded. “I’ll be here.”

12

Sandra was not so much a speeder as permanently aggressive, taking what small openings the road and the traffic gave her. It wasn’t yet three-thirty in the afternoon when she parked diagonally across the street from McWhitney’s bar, named in neon in the front window MCW. “Surprise,” she said, and gave Parker a twisted smile.

“Not too many surprises,” Parker said.

Three-thirty on a Friday afternoon McW was a lot livelier than last time, about half full but with the clear sense that a greater crowd was on its way. McWhitney had a second bartender working, though he didn’t really need him quite yet. McWhitney was busy, eyes and hands in constant motion, but he saw Parker and Sandra come in and immediately turned away, saying something to his assistant. Stripping off his apron, walking away, he pointed leftward at an empty booth and came down around the bar to join them at it.

“The lion lies down with the lamb,” he said, not smiling.

Sandra grinned at him. “Which is which?”

“You got your Harbin,” McWhitney told her, not hiding his dislike. “We got no more specials.”

Sandra turned to Parker. “Tell him.”

“She’s in on the church with us,” Parker said. “For half of Nick.”

“In on the church?” McWhitney was offended. “She’s been there?”

“Don’t know where it is,” Sandra said. “He won’t tell me. But I think I can help you get the money out.”

McWhitney frowned at Parker. “I don’t like this.”

“It isn’t what any of us had in mind,” Parker agreed. “But that neighborhood up there is still a hornet’s nest, and the hornets are still out.”

“There’s a cop up there can make him,” Sandra said, “And almost did.”

McWhitney looked at Parker. “The woman cop?”

“Her.”

McWhitney leaned back as his assistant bartender brought three beers, then left without a word. Taking a short sip, McWhitney said, “So we all just gotta go away for a while.”

“Until what?” Parker asked him. “Until they get Nick again? Until Nick gets in there on his own and cleans it out? Until some kids fool around in there one night and find it?”

McWhitney nodded, but pointed a thumb at Sandra. “So what’s she doing in it? She just happens to be this place, that place, and every time we see her we give her money? Half of Nick? What if Nick shows up?”

“You’ll kill him,” Sandra said.

McWhitney shook his head. “I still don’t see what you’re doing in here.”

“I’ll help dig,” Sandra said, and nodded at the floor. “Probably in that basement of yours.”

“Never mind my basement.”

“Also,” Sandra said, “I have a way to get your money.”

Parker said, “You didn’t say that before.”

“I wanted to see how this meeting was gonna go, do I want to go through the trouble, or just screw you people and score it on my own.”

“Listen to this,” McWhitney said.

Parker said, “You’ve figured out a way to get the money out.”

“I think so.” To McWhitney she said, “You pretty well know the business operations around this neighborhood.”

“Pretty well.”

“Do you know a used-car lot, maybe kind of grungy, no cream puffs?”

McWhitney grinned for the first time since he’d laid eyes on Sandra. “I know a dozen of them,” he said. “Whadayou need?”

“A truck. A small beat-up old truck, delivery van, something like that. Black would be best, just so it isn’t too shiny.”

“A truck.” McWhitney sounded disgusted. “To move the stash.”

“That’s right.”

“What makes this truck wonderful? It’s invisible?”

“Pretty much so,” she said. “Whatever color it is, and I really would like black, we use the same color to paint out whatever name might already be on it. Then, on both doors, in white, we paint Holy Redeemer Choir.”

“Holy shit,” McWhitney said.

“We’re the redeemers,” Sandra told him. “It’s okay if the name on the doors is a little amateurish, but we should try to do our best with it.”

McWhitney slowly nodded. “The choir’s coming to get their hymnals.”

“And we’ll get some, too,” Sandra said, “in case anybody wants to look in back.”

“Jesus, you always gotta insult me,” McWhitney said. “Here I was thinking you weren’t so bad.”

“I was used to dealing with Roy,” she said, and shrugged.

Now McWhitney laughed out loud. “You should thank me for breaking up the partnership.”

Parker said, “Can you get this truck? Fix it up about the name?”

“It’s gotta be me, doesn’t it,” McWhitney said. He didn’t sound happy.

“You’ve got the legal front,” Sandra said, and gestured at the bar around them. “This needs to be a truck with clean title, because you will be stopped, once you get up in that area.”

Parker said, “Can you do all that this afternoon, or do we have to wait till Monday?”

“If I start now and find it in the next hour,” McWhitney said, “the dealer can still deal with Motor Vehicles today, and I can come up there tomorrow. Maybe with dealer plates, but all the paperwork.”

Taking out a business card, Sandra wrote the Bosky Rounds name and phone number on the back. As she pushed it across the table, she said, “Call us when you get there, we’ll go out to the place together. I’m looking forward to see this truck you get.”

“What you’re looking forward to,” McWhitney told her, “is what’s in that church.”

Sandra smiled. “Answered prayers,” she said.