“It isn’t typewritten?”
“Goldie don’t know how to type.”
“Nanette, if I just knew how to thank you.”
“Go on, Mr. Malone!”
A hundred yards shy of the turnoff from the Hollow road to The Pike, Malone pulled the Saab over and killed his engine.
The envelope was cheap supermarket stuff but the note-paper was heavy and had a gold
From bitter compulsion he read the letter. It was full of news that couldn’t be pinned down: her “job” (without specification-and what sort of job would it be that spanned Jersey City and Boston?-that wasn’t very smart, Miss Vanderbilt), her “loaded boy friend” (no name), the glamorous nightspots, the marvelous clothes, the great times, and so on and on, no mention of a Furia or a Hinch or the grimy life the threesome must lead… all of it a fairy tale to impress the yokel kid sister (like the elegant stationery) and maybe get her to follow Goldie Vanderbilt’s example and split from the old family homestead out of some vicious need to corrupt Nanette and break what was left of the Vorsheks’ hearts.
The bitch.
The only good thing was that she wasn’t fooling anybody but herself. Maybe Nanette once felt envious, swallowing the fairy tales, but not any more; she knew it was all made up. She probably looked forward to the perfumed letters the way she did to a rerun of
Malone put the letter carefully away, started the Saab, and drove on into town.
He waited on the three-seater leatherette bench outside the steel railing while Wally Bagshott turned down a nervous young couple for a personal loan. Wallace L. Bagshott was president of The Taugus County National Bank, founded by his great-grandfather in the days of the granite quarry and the hitching post. A Bagshott had settled New Bradford; the old Bagshott house, dated 1694, still overlooked the Green, a historic showplace opened to the public one day a year. The double statue on the Green of Zebediah and Zipporah Bagshott, known to the town as the Zizzes, was the favorite privy of the starlings.
“Wes, boy.” Bagshott had ushered the young couple out and was smiling over at Malone. “You want to see me?”
Malone jumped up. The banker was tanned halfway up his scalp, a result of spending all his free time hacking divots out of the New Bradford golf course. His employees called him “Smiley” behind his back and his customers “Wally the Knife,” on explosive occasions to his face.
“Hey, you look like you’re in line for a couple of Purple Hearts. What happened to you?”
“Believe it or not, I fell down the stairs. Wally-”
“What you doing out of uniform? John fire you I hope I hope? You know my standing offer-”
“I’m off duty,” Malone said, going through the gate. “Wally, I have to talk to you.”
“Squattee voo.” The banker sat down, still smiling. “Though if it’s about a personal loan, Wes, I’ve got to tell you right off-”
“It’s not about a loan.”
“That’s a load off. The way things are we’re having to tighten up. Well! Sit down, Wes.” Malone sat down. “How’s the better half? That’s one damn fine piece you grabbed off. Every time Ellen comes in my tellers get all worked up. And not just my tellers if you know what I mean. Haha.”
“Look, Wally,” Malone said.
“No offense, Wes, no offense. Share the wealth is my motto. Talking about that, terrible thing about Tom Howland, isn’t it? They say he was in on it.”
“I wouldn’t know. Wally, I need a favor.”
“Oh?” Bagshott immediately stopped smiling.
“I’d like to inspect your safe deposit records.”
“What for?”
“I can’t tell you anything about it. Except that it’s important.”
“Well, I don’t know. You’re out of uniform-”
“Let’s say it’s undercover work.”
“No kid?” The banker leaned forward eagerly. “It’s about this stickup, isn’t it?”
Malone was quiet.
“Well, if you can’t. Okay, Wes, I don’t see why not, seeing you’re an officer of the law.”
“One thing, Wally. I’ve got to ask you to keep this absolutely to yourself.”
“You knew me, pal.” Bagshott winked. “Tightest snatch in town.”
He waved his Masonic ring and led the way to the rear of the bank. He dismissed the woman on duty in the Safe Deposit Department and unlocked a drawer.
“Here’s the check-in card.”
“The one they sign when they want to get into their box?”
“Isn’t that what you want to see?”
“Yes. But I’m also interested in your latest applications for box rentals.”
“How far back you want to go?”
“Yesterday.”
The banker looked startled. “Yesterday?”
Malone nodded.
“You mean to say-?”
“I’m not meaning to say anything. Just let me have them, would you mind?”
Bagshott took out three cards. He was so conscious of the hot breath of crime that he broke his own rule about never allowing himself to look worried. “Three new boxes rented yesterday,” he said with a careful look around. “They haven’t even been put in the master file yet.”
“I’d like to take these into one of the rooms.”
“Good idea. Sure thing.”
“Alone.”
Bagshott frowned. Then he walked quickly away.
Malone went into the nearest unoccupied cubicle and shut the door. He sat down at the desk and pulled the light chain and spread the cards and took Goldie’s letter from his pocket.
He spotted it at once. “Georgette Valencia, The Cascades, Southville.” The Cascades was a twenty-year-old housing development straddling the town line, in an unincorporated village policed on contract by the New Bradford department. Malone knew every family in the Southville district. No one of that name lived there. So the “Georgette Valencia” was a phony.
For confirmation, the
No doubt about it, Georgette Valencia was Goldie Vorshek, alias Goldie Vanderbilt.
So I doped it right. Goldie hijacked the stolen payroll and stashed it in the one place where nobody else could get to it, a safe deposit box in the bank.
So now I’ve got the money back.
Well, not exactly got it back, but I know where I can lay my hands on it.
Not exactly lay my hands on it, unless…
