Dirty Money

Bs nearby.

But what the sighting of the robber mostly did was put new emphasis on the whereabouts of the stolen money. “We probably should have done this before,” Inspector Davies said, “but we’re sure going to do it now. We’ll mobilize every police force in the area, and we will search every empty house, every empty barn, every empty garage and shed and chicken coop in a one-hundred-mile radius. We will find that money.”

“And with it, with any luck,” Captain Modale said, “the thieves.”

“God willing.”

“Inspector,” Mulcany said from his corner, “excuse me, not to second-guess, but why wasn’t that kind of search done before now?” He asked the question with deference and apparent self-confidence, but inside he was quaking, afraid that by drawing attention to himself he was merely reminding them that he didn’t really belong here, and they would rise up as one man (and woman) and cast him into outer darkness.

But that didn’t happen. Treating it as a legitimate question from an acceptable questioner, the inspector said, “We were concentrating on the men. We were working on the assumption that, if we found the men, they’d lead us to the money. Now we realize the money will lead us to the men.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Detective Reversa said, “Captain, I don’t understand what happened last weekend over in your territory. What was he doing there? Did he have confederates?”

Captain Modale took a long breath, a man severely tested but carrying on, “It really looks,” he said, “as though the fella did the whole thing by the seat of his pants. If he ever had any previous connection with Tom Lindahl, we have not been able to find it. Of course, we can’t find Tom Lindahl either, and unfortunately he’s the only one who would know most of the answers we need.”

Detective Reversa asked, “Tom Lindahl? Who’s he?”

“A loner,” Modale said, “just about a hermit, living by himself in a little town over there. For years he was a manager in charge of upkeep, buildings, all that, at a racetrack near there. He got fired for some reason, had some kind of grudge. When this fellow Ed Smith came along, I guess it was Tom’s opportunity at last to get revenge. They robbed the track together.”

Detective Reversa said, “But they’re not still together. You don’t think Lindahl came over here.”

“To tell you the truth,” Modale said, “I thought we’d pick up Lindahl within just two or three days. He has no criminal record, no history of this sort of thing, you’d expect him to make nothing but mistakes.”

“Maybe,” Detective Reversa said, “our robber gave him a few good tips for hiding out. Unless, of course, he killed Lindahl once the robbery was done.”

“It doesn’t look that way,” Modale said. “They went in late last Sunday night, overpowered the guards, and made off with nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash. None of it traceable, I’m sorry to say.”

Inspector Davies said, “One hundred thousand dollars would be a good motive for the pro to kill this Lindahl.”

“Except,” Modale said, “his car was found Tuesday night in Lexington, Kentucky, two blocks from the bus depot there. People who travel by bus use more cash and fewer credit cards than most people, so he won’t stand out. If he’s traveling by bus and staying in cheap hotels in cities, spending only cash, he can pretty well stay out of sight.”

Detective Reversa said, “How long can he go on like that?”

“I’d say,” Modale told her, “he’s already got where he wants to go. Anywhere from Texas to Oregon. Settle down, get a small job, rent a little place to stay, he can gradually build up a new identity, good enough to get along with. As long as he never commits another crime, never attracts the law’s attention, I don’t see why he can’t live the rest of his life completely undisturbed.”

“With one hundred thousand cash dollars,” Inspector Davies said, sounding disgusted. “Not bad.”

Oh, Terry Mulcany thought, if only that could be my story. Tom Lindahl and the perfect crime. But where is he? Where are the interviews? Where are the pictures of him in his new life? Where is the ultimate triumph of the law at the very end of the day?

No, Tom Lindahl was safe from Terry Mulcany as well. He would stay with the true crime he had, the armored car robbery, with bazookas and unusable cash and three professional desperados, one of them now an escaped cop killer. Not so bad, really.

THE LAND PIRATES; working title.

5

Oscar Sidd’s car was so anonymous you forgot it while you were looking at it. A small and unremarkable four-door sedan, it was the color of the liquid in a jar of pitted black olives; dark but weak, bruised but undramatic.

Oscar sat in this car up the block from McW after his meeting with Nelson McWhitney. Some time today the man would set out on his journey to get the Massachusetts money. Oscar would trail him in this invisible car, and McWhitney would never know it. Out from beside the bar would come McWhitney’s red pickup truck, and Oscar would slide in right behind.

Except it wasn’t the pickup that emerged, it was McWhitney himself, from his bar’s front door. He paused in the open doorway to call one last instruction to his bartender inside, then set off on foot, down the sidewalk away from Oscar Sidd.

That was all right. Oscar could still follow. He put the forgettable car in gear, waited till McWhitney was a full block ahead, then slowly eased forward.

McWhitney walked three blocks, hands in pockets, shoulders bunched, as though daring anyone or anything to try to slow him down. Then, taking his hands out of his pockets, he turned right and crossed the tarmac to a corner gas station that was also a body repair and detailing shop. He went into the office there, so Oscar stopped at the pumps and filled the tank, using a credit card. He expected to make a long drive today.

McWhitney was still in the office. When he came out, surely, he would be getting into one of the vehicles parked around the periphery here; but then which way would he travel?

The Belt Parkway was down that way, several blocks to the south; Oscar was going to guess that’s where McWhitney would head, if his final goal was Massachusetts. Therefore, when Oscar left the station, he drove half a block north and made a U-turn into a no-parking spot beside a fire hydrant. He sat there and tuned his radio to a classical music station: Schumann.

Oscar Sidd was not as important in the international world of finance as he liked to suggest, but the reputation itself sometimes brought useful opportunities his way. This cash of McWhitney’s now; that could be useful. In fact, he did have ways to launder hot money overseas, mostly in Russia, though the people you had to do business with were among the worst in the world. You were lucky to come away from them without losing everything you possessed, including your life. Still, McWhitney’s money might be worth the risk. Oscar would trail along and see what opportunities might arise.

It was nearly ten minutes before McWhitney emerged, and then Oscar nearly missed him, it was so unexpected. A small battered old Ford Econoline van, a very dark green, with holy redeemer choir in fairly rough white block letters on the door, came easing out of the gas station and paused before joining the moderate traffic flow.

It took Oscar a few seconds to realize the driver of the van, hunched forward to look both ways, was McWhitney, then the van bumped out to the roadway and turned right, just as Oscar had expected. He let one other car go by, to intervene between himself and the van, then followed.

The van up there was old, its bumper and the lower parts of its body pockmarked with rust, but the New York State license plate it sported was new, shiny, and undented. That name he’d seen on the door, Holy Redeemer