creases around the shoulders of his blue suit and wearing a face that said he was expecting someone.
“Mr. Guernsey-” Max began while Guernsey’s expression wavering somewhere between polite tolerance and Do I know you? Max laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and Guernsey immediately stood four inches taller and smiled like Max was the long-lost cousin who hit Lotto.
“Can we talk privately?”
Guernsey ushered us into his office, bubbling over with good to see you and all that fizz.
The office dated to when a bank officer was a big man, having built half the town or at least paid for the building. A mahogany desk hovered on shiny brass feet in front of a brand-new untouched-by-man puffy black leather couch, four guest chairs, three large file cabinets and a safe. No cubicles for Mr. Guernsey, nossir-he was landed gentry. He settled behind the desk and affected a look that suggested he was actually interested.
“So how can I help you gentlemen?”
“Your trust in Ms. Rand is misplaced,” Max told him brusquely.
“Ms. Rand is in the back at the moment,” Guernsey replied and it was obvious that he wasn’t interested in hearing what Max had said. “I asked if I could help you?”
Max leaned forward in his chair; Guernsey did the same in response.
“Ms. Rand has been holding back several commercial deposits half a day and investing the money on her own behalf,” Max announced in a stage whisper. “She’s chosen to loot accounts with heavy activity, where it’ll take time for anyone to notice. She’s also been skimming currency transactions in several — ”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Guernsey demanded, standing up like someone had goosed him.
“Here are the accounts she’s set up for herself and her balances in each,” Max said, pulling a piece of scratch paper from Guernsey’s desk blotter, scribbling some numbers and handing it back to him. “She’s been at it for eight months. If you check, you’ll see she’s into you for almost a quarter-million.”
“This is absurd,” Guernsey flushed. “I trust Ms. Rand with-”
“Your job?” Max asked and that shut the fat goose up for a moment. He threw Guernsey his heat-your-skull look and all the sharpness in Guernsey’s expression disappeared. “Check the accounts.”
“Check the accounts,” Guernsey mumbled a half-second behind. We waited while he tapped away at his computer, his eyes widening and collar getting tighter by the minute.
“This started when you two got back from Atlanta,” Max said quietly while Guernsey seemed to be calculating the odds of killing himself jumping off a three-story building. “You’ll have to explain that weekend trip to your superiors, but it’ll play a whole lot better if you catch her before the auditors do.”
“Before the auditors…” Guernsey mumbled on a one-second lag. He’d turned the color of the diploma on the wall. “George-get me a bank check for ‘Cash’, would you? No, no, discretionary expenses-just bring it for my signature.”
About halfway through, I realized I heard another voice echoing behind Guernsey’s; I looked over and Max was mouthing the words, again a half-second ahead of him. I would have sworn no sound was coming out of his mouth, it was just in the air somehow.
George came through in a minute, very green and obsequious, bearing the check. Guernsey filled in the figure and signed it. “Cash this for Mr. Granville here, will you?” Guernsey ordered.
George just stood there, staring. I got the feeling maybe this was a little irregular.
“ID?” George squeezed through tightly pursed lips.
“Obviously, he’s provided me with adequate ID. Get going!” Guernsey said heavily and George rushed off, returned with the money neatly folded into two envelopes and disappeared just as fast.
Guernsey sat staring at his desk blotter, the morose look deepening on his face. “I trusted her,” he said helplessly, to no one in particular.
“Remember that when you confront her,” Max answered. “Our fee is half the interest on her bogus investments-not unreasonable.”
Guernsey mumbled ‘not unreasonable’ behind him but he was slurring now.
“If you only tell them about her first two accounts, the money you recover should cover our finder’s fee,” Max said, touching Guernsey on the forehead again. “This way, we’ll stay anonymous.”
“Mr. Anonymous,” Guernsey mumbled, “and his brother, Mr. and Mr. Anonymous.” He checked to see if we were smiling at his little joke.
It was all I could do to keep from running to the car. Once we got inside, I collapsed in the passenger’s seat, puffing like a tugboat. He started talking to me about the route, and I thought, he’s trying to keep my mind off — off what? Off something. Of course, once that occurs to you, the next thought is to try to figure out what.
“We’ll want to turn West just past Richmond-once we get closer, keep your eye out for signs.”
My mind was working as fast as it was able, not that that’s saying much.
“So now we’re bank robbers?”
“We prevented major embezzlement by a bank officer.”
“And extorted money for it.”
“We got a finder’s fee-a modest one, under the circumstances.”
“Which you forced him to pay.”
“He would have lost his job and found out about the woman at the same time, and probably after she’d pulled him a whole lot deeper into it than he is now. I did him a favor.”
Which might really have been true, but it didn’t make look any less sneaky. Those old feelings were creeping back around the edges. I liked it better when I thought he was nuts.
“Why didn’t they trust you?” I asked. “Fine said you were the greatest of them all but she wanted you captured. And Tauber stayed with her. When she called you…?”
“Renn,” he smiled again. “I’ve had lots of names over the years. It’s just a label.”
“When she called you that, Mark acted like you were…I don’t know what.”
“Spies are not notoriously trusting people.”
“They trust each other-”
“They know each other a long time, since Stargate.”
“Stargate?”
“That was the last name for the program-Fine joined up near the end. There were other names before that- Center Lane, Grill Flame. But Stargate was the last.”
“Dave was part of it?”
“He was a high-ranking officer. But he quit-he caused a bit of a stir.”
“Why?”
“After Stargate, the program was getting serious-it was moving past research, the tactics were going to become more…direct, let’s say. Dave didn’t agree with it and he said so. He realized how destructive psychotronic war could be. And,” he frowned, “he knew the price we pay who practice it.”
He went quiet but he still hadn’t answered my question. At least, he hadn’t answered the one I hadn’t asked yet.
“But you were in the program, until you got kicked out,” I continued. “Is that why they didn’t trust you? Because you got kicked out?”
He didn’t reply for a while. He was driving fast, passing cars left and right and we both saw the sign for Richmond Beltway. We merged into the westbound lanes and he took a quick look at the map as the dark clouds followed us, squeezing the sun from the sky.
“That,” he said finally, “that was a lie.”
“What was? You weren’t in the program? Or you didn’t get kicked out?”
“Neither.”
“But you’re the mindbender extraordinaire. She said so.” He nodded. I was baffled. “You said Stargate was the mindbender program.”
“It was the American mindbender program,” he said, without taking his eyes off the road. “I never said I worked for America.”
Six
