Dirty Money

“He’s not staring,” the captain said. “He’s just looking.”

The artist sighed. “Very well,” she said, and opened her large sketch pad on the bank officer’s desk in this small side office next to the main HQ room. “Let’s begin.”

* * *

The three had been working together for little more than an hour when Inspector Davies came to the doorway and said, “You two come listen to this. See what you think.”

The larger outer room now contained, in addition to everything else, a quick eager young guy with windblown hair and large black-framed glasses like a raccoon’s mask. He mostly gave the impression of somebody here to sell magazine subscriptions.

The inspector made introductions: “Captain Modale, Detective Reversa, this is Terry Mulcany, a book writer.”

“Mostly fact crime,” Mulcany said. He looked nervous but self-confident at the same time.

“That must keep you busy,” the captain commented.

Mulcany flashed a very happy smile. “Yes, sir, it does.”

The inspector said, “Mr. Mulcany believes he might have seen your man.”

Surprised, dubious, the captain said, “Around here?”

“Yes, sir,” Mulcany said. “If it was him.”

The captain said, “Why do you think it was him?”

“I’m just not sure, sir.” Mulcany shrugged in frustration. “I’ve been talking to so many people in this neighborhood this past week, unless I make notes or tape somebody it all runs together.”

Gwen Reversa said, “But you think you saw one of the robbers.”

“With a woman. Yesterday, the day before, I’m not really positive.” Shaking his head, he said, “I didn’t notice it at the time, that’s the problem. But this morning, I was looking at those wanted posters again, just to remind myself, and I thought, wait a minute, I saw that guy, I talked to him. Standing . . . outdoors somewhere, with a woman, good-looking woman. Talking to them just for a minute, just to introduce myself, like I’ve been doing all week.”

“And he looked like the poster,” the inspector suggested.

“Not exactly,” Mulcany said. “It could have been, or maybe not. But it was close enough, I thought I should report it.”

Gwen said, “Mr. Mulcany, would you come over here?”

Curious, Mulcany and the others followed her into the side office, where the artist was still touching up the new drawing. Stepping to one side, Gwen gestured at the picture. The artist looked up, saw all the attention, and cleared out of the way.

Mulcany crossed to the desk, looked down at the drawing, and said, “Oh!”

Gwen said, “Oh?”

“That’s him!” Delighted, Mulcany stared around at the others. “That’s what he looks like!”

3

Nelson McWhitney liked his bar so much that, if the damn thing would only turn some kind of profit, he might just stay there all the time and retire from his activities in that other life. His customers in the bar were more settled, less sudden, than the people he worked with in that other sphere. His apartment behind the place was small but comfortable, and the neighborhood was working-class and safe, the kind of people who didn’t have much of anything but just naturally watched one another’s backs. About the only way anybody could get hurt really badly around here was by winning the lottery, which occasionally happened to some poor bastard, who was usually, a year later, either dead or in jail or rehab or exile. McWhitney did not play the lottery.

McWhitney did, however, sometimes play an even more dangerous game, and he was planning a round of it just now. When he got out of bed Saturday morning, he had two appointments ahead of him, both connected to that game. The second one, at eleven this morning, was a three-block walk from here to pick up the truck he’d bought yesterday, which would have the Holy Redeemer Choir name painted on the doors by then, and be ready for the drive north. And the first, at ten, was with a fellow he knew from that other world, named Oscar Sidd.

Because of the meeting with Oscar Sidd, McWhitney had only one beer with the eggs and fried potatoes he made in his little kitchen at the rear of the apartment before going out front to the bar, where he put a few small bills in the cash register to start the day.

He had the Daily News delivered, every morning pushed through the large letter slot in the bar’s front door, so he sat at the bar and read a while, digesting his breakfast. He had some tricky moments coming, but he was calm about it.

Oscar Sidd was a frugal man; at exactly ten o’clock, wasting no time, he gave two hard raps to the glass of the front door, wasting no energy. A dark green shade was lowered over that glass, but this would be Oscar.

It was. A bony man a few inches over six feet, he wore narrow clothing that tended to be just a little too short for him. He came in now wearing a black topcoat that stopped above his knees with sleeves that stopped above the sleeves of his dark brown sport coat, which stopped above his bony wrists, and black pants that stopped far enough above his black shoes to show dark blue socks.

“Good morning, Nels,” he said, and stepped to the side so McWhitney could shut the door.

“You okay, Oscar?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“You want a beer?”

“I think not,” Oscar said. “You go ahead, I’ll join you with a seltzer.”

“I’ll join us both with a seltzer,” McWhitney said, and gestured at the nearest booth. “Sit down, I’ll get them.” He wouldn’t be introducing Oscar Sidd to his private quarters in back.

Oscar slid into the booth, facing the closed front door, opening his topcoat as McWhitney went behind the bar to fill two glasses with seltzer and ice and bring them around the end of the bar on a tray. He dealt the glasses, put the tray back on the bar, sat across from Oscar, and said, “How goes it?”

“Colder this morning,” Oscar said. He didn’t touch his glass, but watched McWhitney solemnly.

“You keep up with the news, Oscar,” McWhitney suggested.

“If it’s interesting.”

“That big bank robbery up in Massachusetts last week.”

“Armored car, you mean.”

McWhitney grinned. “You’re right, I do. You noticed that.”

“It was interesting,” Oscar said. “One of them got picked up, I believe.”

“And then lost again.”

Oscar’s smile, when he showed it, was thin. “Hard to get reliable help,” he said.

McWhitney said, “Did you notice how it was they got onto him?”

“The bank’s money is poisoned, I believe,” Oscar said. “Traceable. It can’t be used.”

“Well, not in this country,” McWhitney agreed.

Oscar gave him a keen look. “I begin to see why we’re talking.”