“A lady at the bank.”
“Reliable?”
“Maybe.”
Ollie raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“But for the moment, let’s say the two hundred grand isnot counterfeit, okay?” Carella said.
“Okay. Two hundred large in nice clean money.”
“That leaves only theten grand she got as a tip.”
“Only?”Ollie said. “That’s bigger than the weekly collection from Riverhead.”
Cops were always joking about payoffs from Riverhead or Calm’s Point being short or being late or withheld for one reason or another. Some of the cops weren’t joking. Meyer figured Ollie for an honest cop, though. Only a cop with a clear conscience could eat the way Ollie did.
He watched him as he washed down the third slice of pizza with a huge swallow of beer, thought What the hell, and bit ferociously into his own pizza wedge. With his right hand, Ollie signaled to the waitress for another pie. With his left hand, he was reaching for a fourth slice. Meyer wondered what he would look like if he had three hands.
“A ten-grand tip from the boys in Mexico,” Carella said. “Which Cass keeps around the house to use for incidentals while she’s distributing thebig money in her various accounts. Okay. Struthers breaks in, finds eight thousand—or maybe more—sitting in a shoe box or wherever, and swipes it. He tries to spend one of the hundreds, but gets nailed by the Secret Service, who tell him they’re investigating a kidnapping …”
“Bullshit,” Ollie said.
“I agree. In any case, they return the bills and send him on his way.”
“Why?”
“Good question. Now here’s what’s troubling me …”
Ollie bit into the fourth slice of pizza. Chewing, he looked across the table at Carella. Meyer was looking at him, too.
“Struthers tried to cash another bill earlier today. Which makes me think he originally swiped more than the eight G’s. But never mind. We take the bill to the bank, lady there thinks it’s a phony— something called a super- bill the Iranians are running off on presses they …”
“Bullshit,” Ollie said again.
“I’m not so sure. But forget the Iranians for a minute, okay? Maybe thatis bullshit, who knows? Let’s just say, for now, that the billisphony. Let’s say everyone of those hundred-dollar bills Cass Ridley got as a tip were phony. Ten thousand bucks in fake hundreds. Can we say that for a moment?”
Meyer was frowning.
“What?” Carella asked.
“If that ten grand was fake …”
“Right.”
“And Struthers stole it …”
“Or what was left of it.”
“And the Secret Service checked it out …”
“Yes.”
“How come they didn’t recognize it as fake?”
“That’s just what’s troubling me,” Carella said, and nodded, and bit into his cold slice of pizza.
“I must be missing something,” Ollie said.
“If the Secret Service had its hands on eight thousand bucks in bad money,” Carella said, “why didn’t they just confiscate it? Why’d they return it to Struthers?”
“I’ll bite,” Ollie said, and bit into another slice of pizza. The waitress was arriving with the fresh one. He ordered another round of beers from her. Now, two-fisted and ham-handed, he began lifting slices of pizza from both trays, some hot, some cold, all disappearing with remarkable rapidity into his briskly energetic mouth. “Whydidthey return the money to him?”
“All I can figure is they didn’t,” Carella said.
“You just said …”
“They returned eight thousand dollars to him, yes, but it wasn’t the eight thousand they’d taken from him earlier. They returnedgood money to him. Even the lady at the bank said it was good.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they didn’t want anybody making waves down the line. Take his money from him, he might start trouble later on, who knows? Might even come squawking tous, who knows?”
“An ex-con?” Ollie said.
“Who knows? But give him back eight grand inreal bills …”
“They probably got a slush fund,” Meyer said. “Same as us.”
