Wheelman, The

There was a full bathroom just off the main hallway. Katie and Lennon went inside; Lennon locked the door behind them.

“You don’t mind if I shower, do you?” Katie asked. “I had a series of accidents this afternoon and this evening.”

Lennon turned his back to her and busied himself with her luggage.

“Want anything pressed, dearie?”

“Just hang the black Vera Wang on the back of the door. The steam will take care of the rest.”

“Will do.”

Katie took a brief shower. Brief for Katie meant ultra-brief; she never took more than five minutes anyway. It was Lennon who usually took his time under the hot spraying water. He always did his best thinking in his shower at home, among other personal hygiene locations.

She toweled off and looked at Lennon. “Where’s the money?”

Lennon was secretly relieved. He didn’t want to discuss the elephant in the room just yet. The eight-ounce elephant, tucked away in Katie’s uterus. He was worried they would start discussing that, and who put it there, instead of how they were going to get their money and get out of there.

“I’ll be fucked if I know,” he said.

“The Russians don’t have it, obviously. They wouldn’t have bothered with me and that tape and everything else if they had. And it’s fairly clear their coconspirator, your former partner, doesn’t have it, either.”

Lennon had been playing around with this in his head all night. Nix the Russians, and Holden. Who had the loot?

“Wilcoxson,” he said.

“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. He’s involved because I led the Russians here. Accidentally.” She looked at him. “I might have been a bit careless this morning.”

Lennon considered this, stared at Katie’s belly. Nothing really showed yet. “I’ve been careless, too. I don’t even want to tell you what the fuck I’ve been through.”

“Your face certainly paints an interesting picture. As does the suit.”

“Again with the suit?”

“It’s awfully impressive,” she said, drying her hair. “And here I thought you were lying dead in a ditch all this time.”

“It was a pipe, but I’ll save the wild stories for another night. We have three priorities: getting the fuck out of this building, getting our money, and getting the fuck out of this city.”

“Don’t you want to see the Liberty Bell?”

“Right. Almost forgot about that.”

Forensics

LISA WOKE UP AND STARED AT THE BLOODIED SWEATSHIRT again.

It had been balled up and pitched into a corner, along with a pair of wrinkled dress slacks, socks, and underwear. The underwear was definitely not Andrew’s. When they’d first started dating, Andrew had worn tighty-whiteys—Fruit of the Loom. Gross! Old-man underwear. No matter how tough the guy, it made his legs look like little froggy legs poking out of a diaper.

Andrew loathed boxers; they were too baggy to wear under jeans, he said. So Lisa promptly escorted her American Express Gold card and Andrew to Boscov’s, at the Franklin Mills Mall, where they settled on the next best thing: Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs. Lisa vetoed anything close to white; Andrew went home with a half-dozen three-packs of navy blue, black, and dark gray. The tighty-whiteys went into the weekly garbage.

The underwear balled up in the corner was a pair of blue-green plaid boxer shorts. Definitely not something Andrew would wear.

So whose were they?

The sweatshirt was a gray deal with navy blue letters: FATHER JUDGE HIGH SCHOOL emblazoned on the front. That wasn’t Andrew’s either—he was a St. Joe’s Prep boy. Even more disturbing were the bloodstains, which were more black than red, and still wet to the touch (gross!), near the left shoulder. The sweatshirt reeked.

Lisa took another look at the dress slacks, at the label. Slates, size 34L, 30W. Andrew’s size exactly. And Andrew’s preferred label. He had two pair, which he wore Friday and Saturday nights alternately when he had gigs. Were these Andrew’s pants?

And if so, why were they rolled up in a ball along with somebody else’s clothes?

Off Gardai

THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE AT THE PARTY WERE the drunk crime writer and the drunker chief of detectives. It was a writers’ party. The host was new to Rittenhouse Towers, and new to money. Apparently he had written a surprise bestselling coffee-table book called Barbers. Page after page of black-and-white photographs of old South Philly barbers, posing with their customers, with tiny write-ups under each photograph telling each barber’s life story in about 175 words.

For a reason known only to the American public, it was a runaway smash hit, spawning a calendar, date books, posters, an ABC television special, even a line of home hair-care tools. (Which seemed to negate the very job of the old-fashioned barber, but what the hell.) The forty-something writer sat back and watched the Brinks truck pull up and shovel bales of money into his living room. He traded in his dumpy Bella Vista one-bedroom for this five-bedroom spread in one of the city’s most prestigious condos. Now he was preparing to compile a sort-of sequel, Bartenders, and had decided to show off to the rest of his old writer pals, many of whom were scraping by with $25,000-a-year gigs—if they were lucky—at one of the two competing weeklies.

All of this Lennon gathered in about twenty minutes of cocktail-conversation eavesdropping. The only thing flowing more freely than booze was the jealousy. The condo was absolutely lousy with it.

“You believe that? Six figures just for the calendar rights,” said one guy in a threadbare jacket and brand-new jeans.

“It’s a fucking racket,” Lennon replied, laying on the thickest brogue he could muster. He sipped his drink, which was Sprite.

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Ah, me?” Lennon asked. “Donal. Donal Stark.”

Donald Westlake was one of Lennon’s favorite crime writers, but he enjoyed Westlake’s pseudonym, Richard Stark, even more.

“What happened … if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Auto wreck. My face took the worst of it.”

“It looks painful.”

“You know, after a few of these motherfookers, it feels just fine.”

“That accent … you from Galway?” Trying to sound all worldly-like.

“Listowel, actually.” Fucking Galway?

“Yeah, I thought so. You must be new at the Welcomat.”

Lennon nodded. “Ah, yeah.”

“I’ve been at the City Press for two years. They still got me stuck fact-checking restaurant listings. You know, if I had graduated five years earlier, dot coms would have been lining up to suck my dick.”

“Terrible times, these are.”

Despite the accent, Lennon tried to be boring enough to make his new friend seek conversation with someone else. Someone with ovaries, presumably. Women seemed to be at a premium at this gathering.

Speaking of which.

Lennon strolled over to check on Katie’s progress.

Katie had spotted the drunk kid in the kitchen right away, and a plan was formed. She had gone over, made