might draw attention to what was going on. I already had two security guys staying with the money.”
Slosser said, “Well, you just have to excuse me for asking. When a company does things differently for just one night and there’s a killing, I have to wonder if somebody’s making himself an alibi.”
“Is there some reason why I should let you drive me all over the county and ask me questions? Or are we going to stop and pick up my lawyer?”
“The lawyer I met? Gerald Ospinsky? Jesus, why would you bother?”
“To protect my rights.”
“You had a business hit by armed robbers last night. You called the police. We didn’t call you. How’s this? While your club was being robbed last night, were you at home?”
“I don’t know exactly when that happened yet. I know it was after two, because I had the managers of my clubs bring their cash to Siren after closing time. I was at Temptress watching the money count, said goodbye to Skelley, the manager, when he left to drive to Siren with the bank deposits. That makes it, like, two-thirty or so.”
“What about the rest of the night?”
“I went home with a lady friend who works at Temptress.”
“Dancer?”
“No. Waitress.”
“Name?”
“Sherri Wynn. I was there until Skelley called me around six-thirty to tell me about the robbery.”
Nick Slosser sat in silence as he drove, studying and memorizing the details of the story, comparing each part of it with what he knew about the club business, Kapak’s habits, and human nature. The time of the fire in Malibu was pretty well established at 1:10, because neighbors heard the noise of a gas tank blowing up, saw the fire, and called 911. But that didn’t mean that was the time of death for those three men. They might have been dead a bit earlier. He considered Kapak. He was a man in his mid-sixties, strong but not used to physical labor anymore. If he had killed those three, he almost certainly wouldn’t have done it alone. Probably he would have sent people. He glanced at him. “It takes a lot of guts to sleep with your own waitresses.”
“Only if they don’t want to,” said Kapak.
“You know—you’re rich, they’re not. They can file sexual harassment lawsuits, maybe a reprisal suit, and claim just about anything. It’s safer to go down the street and date somebody else’s employees.”
Kapak shrugged. “I’m old. I can’t live like I’m afraid all the time. She’s a nice, respectable, grown-up woman.”
“Been going together long?”
“No. But she’s worked for me for six or seven years, so I know her pretty well.”
They drove up the San Diego Freeway and then turned to the Ventura Freeway and got off in the northeastern industrial part of the Valley. It was full of warehouses of every description, auto wrecking yards, machine shops. They reached the parking lot of Siren, where there were more cops and technicians, white vans, and plain sedans. The building was set off by yellow crime-scene tape.
Slosser and Kapak got out and ducked under the tape, crossed the small stretch of parking lot that was taped off, and entered the building. “Shit,” said Kapak. The office wall was lying on the floor in what used to be the rear loading area for deliveries. The place was a mess. There were white and blue insulated wires dangling from the ceiling where they used to meet the wall that had been torn out.
He saw his day manager, Kearns. “Kearns, this is Lieutenant Slosser from the police. He’s been looking into all the robberies and things.” Kearns nodded, and the two shook hands.
Slosser said, “I’m sure the other officers have gotten your story, but let me try to catch up. Do you have any idea who did this?”
“The guys said it was a man and a woman, both carrying guns. They got our two security guys to open the door, then took off with the safe in an SUV that belonged to one of our guys.”
“Have you looked at the surveillance tapes yet?”
“No. They were smart. They disconnected the whole box and took it with them.”
“We’ll see just how smart,” said Slosser. “If the box turns up for sale, then they were dumb.” He walked outside to talk to the other cops for a few minutes, then came back in. “They’re just about finished out there. They’ve got all they can from the scene. No fingerprints, but a couple of brass casings. You can probably clean the place up and open by happy hour.”
Kearns said, more to Kapak than to Slosser, “I called a carpenter already. They should be here within an hour.” He looked at his watch.
“Want to stick around here, or you want a ride home?” Slosser stepped toward the door.
“My guys can handle this,” Kapak said. “I’ll go with you.”
“Okay.”
The two men walked across the parking lot. The tape had already been taken down, and Kapak could see deep marks on the pavement that he supposed were gouges made by the heavy safe.
Slosser said, “Are you ready to tell me who’s at war with you?”
“It’s a guy. I don’t know much about him, but his name is Joe Carver.”
“I’ll check that out,” said Slosser. He’d had detectives looking into it since the shootout at the bank. The problem was that there were lots of Joe Carvers, all over the country. Given a year or two of solid work, it was possible to check on each one—even call them all on the phone and talk with them. And the detectives were doing that. But so far there was no clear connection between any of them and Manco Kapak, and no evidence that any of them had a history of bank deposit robberies.
23
CARRIE SAID, “What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.” Jeff knelt in front of the safe, held the flour in the palm of his hand, took in a slow, deep breath, and blew. The fine white cloud flew from his palm and covered the keypad of the locked safe. “See? Look closely.”
She knelt beside him and leaned close to the keypad. “Oh my God. Fingerprints.”
“Right,” said Jeff. “There are prints on the one, the seven, the eight, and the four. No prints on any of the other keys. If you have ten digits, then there are a billion possible combinations. But if you have a ten-digit keypad with fingerprints on only four numbers, then the combination has to be an arrangement of those four numbers. That’s, like, twenty-four possible combinations.”
He took up the paper and pencil, wrote 1478, then pushed those keys. Nothing happened. He tried 1487, 1748, 1784, 1874, 1847. “Okay. Now we start with 4.” He tried 4178, 4187, 4781, 4718, 4817, 4871. “Now eight.” He punched in 8147.
“I’ll go make some coffee.” Carrie got up and stepped toward the back door.
“Got it.”
“What?” She turned to see him swing the safe door open.
“It’s 8147.”
She moved closer to him as he looked inside. “Four bags this time. Does that mean what I think it means?”
He pulled the first bag out and handed it to her. She opened it and looked inside. “It’s money, all right.” She pulled out the deposit slip. “Twenty-six thousand from Temptress.” She set the bag down and picked up the next. “Twenty-two from Siren. Only sixteen from Wash. This one doesn’t say what it’s from, but it’s got over eighteen in it.”
“I guess we paid for last night’s dinner.”
She put her arms around him and squeezed, rocking him from side to side. “I can’t believe you. You’re so dumb and so smart at the same time. You always surprise me.”
“Then at some point you’ll expect to be surprised, and so you won’t be. Still want this safe?”
“I don’t know. Should I?”
“There are pros and cons.”
