The Banker, page 23
I watched her walk away and was not exactly sure of what I had or hadn’t done wrong. The only thing that I was certain of was that my luck with women was still lousy. I know, I should have gone after her, told her it was true love or at least it could be. The guy she had killed deserved it, but that wasn’t the only reason I had reinterpreted events for the cops. For the first time in a long time, I had met someone, and it had felt like there was a possibility of it turning into something.
The bartender was good enough to pour a shot of bourbon and then another in exchange for my cash. He was a professional, he didn’t ask any questions or offer any advice. He’d seen a guy get dumped by his girl more than a few times. It wasn’t a new show for him. I appreciated his quiet professionalism almost as much as I appreciated the bourbon. I left him a five-dollar tip and went home to get drunk by myself. It was a lot gentler on the bank balance.
I woke up at six with a headache. The bright sun of mid-May was streaming through the window, and Sir Leominster was walking on my chest and meowing. This morning he decided I was an early riser. He was hungry and was not sympathetic to my romantic misadventures. I got up and opened a can of his foul-smelling food. Then and only then did he leave me alone.
I had come home and had a few drinks, but alone in the apartment, I just didn’t have it in me to get polluted. I went to the faucet and poured myself a big glass of Boston’s finest tap water. It probably wasn’t the healthiest, but I was more concerned with dehydration than fluoride or lead.
I opted for a run instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself. When I got outside, regardless of what happened last night, I had to admit it was a beautiful morning. It was cool but not cold, sunny and everything was in bloom. I ran down Commonwealth Avenue, listening to the birds chirping, which were audible only because it was early and traffic was light.
Running over the Smoot-annotated bridge, I thought about the case. It was possible that Lintz was playing me, and it was also possible that Brock was more involved in this than I thought. I had kicked at some hornets’ nests enough to get a couple of reactions but nothing that broke the case wide open. I had been knocked out and almost burned to death but nothing that put me any closer to solving things.
By the time I was running in Cambridge, heading back toward my apartment on the wrong side of the Charles River, I had a thought. Maybe it was time to do what recon men do best … surveil the target. I needed to go back to Amesbury and watch the bank. Watch Lintz, see what he was up to. Or should I watch Clark? He was up to his neck in this whole thing.
I couldn’t be in two places at once. The problem was that Clark was probably jumpy, and he might be on the lookout for a certain handsome, big city private eye. Plus, I wasn’t sure about the bank. I needed help, and there was only one person who I trusted to ask. Chris.
I trusted Chris with my life. He was a recon man and was already trained in surveillance. I knew he was tough enough to deal with any bullshit that Clark might try and pull. Also, I wouldn’t have to bring him up to speed on the case. Hopefully Carney could spare him for a couple of days.
By the time I walked up the steps of my building, I was feeling generally better. The bruised muscles had loosened up. When I stopped, I had a coughing fit and coughed up some black crud that I assume had to do with the smoke from the basement trash fire. I had sweated out much of what I had to drink last night. More importantly, while I wasn’t thrilled about Angela breaking up with me, the weather had been sufficiently beautiful to take my mind off it. Also, I had, for what felt like the first time in this case, a plan.
Upstairs, while the coffee was bubbling away in the stove top machine, I called Chris. He answered sleepily, after a few seconds.
‘Hey man, I was hoping you could help me out for a couple of days,’ I said after he had woken up enough to understand what I was asking him.
‘Doing what?’
‘I was hoping you could tail Clark for me. He knows me and obviously knows what I am driving. A different face and car, though …’
‘Why don’t we just go down there and beat the shit out of him until he talks?’
‘Because we’re not a bike gang. Also, I will be following Lintz.’
‘I could just do it. Seems a lot easier than just watching him all day.’
‘It probably would be, but this isn’t that type of job.’
‘OK, but he’s the one who tried to kill you in the burning building, right?’
‘Yeah, most likely.’
‘So why not off him and be done with it? He’s earned it.’
‘Because I don’t operate like that.’
‘Anymore,’ he said, with emphasis.
‘Right, all that law of the jungle shit went out the window when I came back to the world. I have to work mostly within the law.’
‘OK, I get it. I’m just sayin’.’ His Southern drawl became a little more pronounced.
‘Get a pen. I’ll give you his details.’
‘Andy, I’m bringing a gun.’
‘I would expect nothing less.’
‘OK, send it.’
I told him what Clark was driving, where his office was and his home address. I told him to stop at a bank and get two rolls of quarters then gave him the number of a pay phone near the Merrimack Community Bank. We would touch base every hour, on the hour. It sounded hokey saying it. I had been a solo act my entire time in business and wasn’t used to working with a partner.
After I hung up the phone, I ate my usual, uninspiring breakfast of wheat toast and yogurt. At least the coffee was strong and flavorful. Then I showered and dressed, my mind alternating between the case and my meeting with Angela last night. I made a thermos of coffee which went into a nylon backpack, along with a paper bag with a couple of apples, a plastic-wrapped block of cheddar cheese and a package of those flat crisp breads from Scandinavia.
I dressed in old blue jeans, running sneakers and a Lowenbrau t-shirt that they were giving away as a part of a promotion one night in a bar I was in. I tucked the shirt in and threaded a leather pancake holster on my belt. Things had been getting weird lately, with arson and Tec-9s being introduced. When things get weird like that, my response is to get a bigger gun. The 9mm Browning Hi-Power was in the safe where I left it. I slapped a thirteen-round magazine into the grip and chambered a round. I flicked the safety up and on. I popped the magazine out and topped it off with a single round before slipping the full mag back into the pistol. Then I holstered it and snapped the retaining strap over the gun.
I had a nifty magazine pouch that held two spare magazines. I snapped the matching leather pouch on my belt and put two thirteen round magazines in the pouch. I put a faded plaid shirt over it all. It wasn’t as heavy as my leather duty belt when I was a cop, but it was a lot heavier than a .38 snubnose and five spare rounds. That was the price of prudence. I pulled on a lightweight, green nylon L.L. Beans anorak over my t-shirt. It hid the gun, and the kangaroo pouch in front was very convenient for things like car keys and cigarettes.
I was about to close the safe when my eye fell on the 12 gauge Ithaca Model 37 shotgun. It was an old police surplus gun that held four in the tube and one in the chamber. It was a lightweight model, and if you held the trigger down and kept pumping it, it would fire. It wasn’t a Tec-9 bullet sprayer, but it might level the playing field if I had to go up against one.
I took the Ithaca out and slid it into a soft, zippered canvas case that I had picked up somewhere. I threw in a box of buckshot and, as an afterthought, a box of one ounce shotgun slugs. I wasn’t expecting to need them, but I also hadn’t expected the flaming basement treatment, either. It would most likely spend the day in the trunk of my T-Bird, but it was a comfort to know they were there just in case.
I put out some extra food and water for the cat. I locked the apartment door behind me and headed downstairs. One of my neighbors was just leaving his apartment at the same time. He saw the canvas rifle case and his lip curled.
‘Is that a gun?’
‘Fishing rods,’ I answered flippantly.
‘Fishing rods?’ he said dubiously.
‘Sure.’
‘It looks like a rifle case.’
‘I get that a lot.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘That I don’t get that a lot? Nice talking to you. Have a good one,’ I said cheerfully.
I left him standing there with his mouth open. Outside the sky was still blue but there were clouds nibbling around the edges of an otherwise nice day. It was one of those cool May mornings that could go either way – chilly and raw or a near approximation of summer.
I opened the trunk and put the shotgun in, then got in the car and started the now familiar drive north. I wasn’t looking forward to more surveillance, but I had stirred up so much shit I had to think that something was going to happen in the next day or two. It might be a hunch, but I had learned to trust my instincts.
I drove north out of the city, the same route that I had taken many times now. I was whistling to J.J. Jackson’s ‘But It’s Alright’ playing on the radio. The sky was clear as I crossed the bridge and watched the city skyline grow smaller in my rearview mirror.
The now familiar to the point of being boring drive up to Amesbury passed quickly. I pulled into the parking lot of the Merrimack Community Bank and parked near the pay phone. Lintz’s almost ten-year-old Mercedes was parked in its spot. Brock’s car was also parked in its assigned spot. The only person we were missing was Clark.
When the change of the hour was close, I got out of the T-Bird and walked over to the pay phone. It rang on the hour, and I picked it up.
‘Hello.’
‘Red, it’s me. Your guy is in his office chatting up his secretary.’
‘OK. Nothing much on this end. Give me the number of the pay phone in case I have to call you.’ He did and we agreed we’d only call if something came up. I went back to the T-Bird and settled in. The Allman Brothers’ ‘One Way Out’ was on the radio.
The morning crawled by, and I was reminded again how tedious surveillance was. I tried to smoke sparingly and got out of my car when I did. I wasn’t too concerned about Lintz seeing me. He knew I was on the case and my watching the bank wouldn’t shock him. By the time the hands on my Seiko dive watch showed me it was noon, I had finished one apple and half of the thermos of coffee. I was contemplating the second apple with some cheese and crisp bread when Brock walked out of the bank.
He walked over to his big American-made car and got in. He fired up the domestic land yacht and, easing into traffic, left the bank. In all the weeks off and on that I had been doing surveillance here, I had never seen him leave before three-thirty in the afternoon. I thought about tailing him, but I decided to stick with Lintz. He was, after all, an embezzler by his own admission, and he might have spun all that stuff about Brock being blackmailed to throw me off the trail. He had a couple million reasons.
At one, I made a quick run to the nearby deli to pick up a couple of bottles of blueberry flavor New York seltzer and to use their men’s room. Back in the T-Bird, I used my Buck knife to open the block of cheese and cut off several slices, then I carefully cut the apple into thin wedges. I put pieces of cheese and apples on one of the crisp breads.
It wasn’t a Reuben, but it was still pretty good. I repeated the process, washing it all down with one of the blueberry seltzers. I ended up eating four of them when all was said and done. There wasn’t much crisp bread. By the time I was brushing crumbs off my shirtfront, it was only an hour from the bank’s closing time.
Brock still hadn’t come back. Either it was a late lunch, or he had split early for the day. I couldn’t blame him; the weather was beautiful. It was a perfect day to play hooky or go fishing or just not be in a stuffy bank. I drank more coffee and stopped in the deli one last time for more seltzer. The bathrooms were only for customers. I was back in my spot by three fifteen, which was good, because if I missed Lintz because I was in the restroom, I might have to surrender my license.
A few minutes later, Clark came walking up to the bank from up the street. He was wearing jeans and an untucked button-down shirt. He had a gym bag in his left hand, and the way he nervously tapped his waistband with his right hand, I was pretty sure he had a gun tucked in it. People carrying guns in their waistbands have to worry about them shifting or working their way out. They tend to tap them nervously. That’s why holsters were invented.
I hunched down in my seat so that Clark wouldn’t see me if he looked over. He wasn’t that interested in much except for Lintz’s car. Clark went over to it and leaned against it. He put his gym bag on the hood, and I wondered what was in it. A Tec-9? He certainly wouldn’t stuff that in his waistband and walk around with it.
A little after three thirty, the bank employees started to trickle out and make their way home. I recognized a few of tellers, but there were a couple of newer, younger faces mixed in with them. Ten minutes after they left, Lintz walked out and made his way to his car. He stopped in front of Clark, they had a short discussion and then Lintz unlocked the car. They got in, Lintz driving and Clark riding shotgun. They looked pretty chummy from my vantage point thirty yards across the parking lot.
I started the engine and was about to put the T-Bird in gear when Chris tapped on my passenger side window. I hit the button unlocking the door and he slid into the seat. He winced as the Magnum revolver he was wearing in a shoulder rig under his arm collided with the bucket seat and dug into his armpit.
‘I was wondering where you were.’
‘I trailed him down here but I didn’t want to draw attention to you, so I had to work my way around a couple of buildings to the back of the parking lot.’
‘No worries. Anything interesting going on with him?’
‘Other than a Tec-9 and bunch of stick magazines in the gym bag?’
‘Yeah, other than that.’
‘He’s got a piece in his waistband, and I couldn’t see what else is in the bag.’
‘That’s a lot of artillery.’
‘Yep, somebody’s gonna be in some deep kimchi if he opens up.’
I smiled; I hadn’t heard the term ‘deep kimchi’ since I left Vietnam. I pulled out of the lot and picked up Lintz’s car as they made their way out of town.
‘Where do you think they’re going?’ Chris asked.
‘Not sure. It seems like a meet of some sort. Why else would Clark have a piece in his waistband and a Tec-9 in the bag?’
‘He’s expecting trouble.’
‘Sure, just like we are. You’ve got that hand cannon in your armpit, I’ve got a Hi-Power and a twelve gauge in the trunk.’
‘No rifle?’
‘I don’t have one right now and didn’t think to call Carney to see if he had anything laying around.’
‘Well, at least you’re carrying something better than that snubnose .38.’
‘Listen, that’s an upgrade, I used to carry a Colt .32 automatic.’
‘Wow, were you hoping whoever you shot would die of infection?’
‘It was flat and carried well.’ I didn’t bother to point out that I had killed a man with it four years ago.
I followed them out of town, heading generally north and occasionally turning to the west.
‘I think I have an idea where they might be going.’
‘Where?’
‘I think we’re going to an abandoned quarry.’
‘The one you followed Clark to.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘That’s an out of the way place for a meeting.’
‘Might be a good place to divvy up two million dollars.’
‘Might be a good place for someone to get greedy.’
‘And double-cross their partner.’ I said what we were both thinking.
‘Sure, criminals aren’t known for their loyalty.’
‘Not with that much money on the line.’
‘It is a lot of money … there is nothing to say that we couldn’t …’
‘There isn’t, but I can’t.’
‘Cause of the FBI lady?’
‘No, not that she isn’t important.’
‘Then what? Angela? You don’t owe anyone anything. You did three tours in-country and for what?’
‘No, she broke up with me last night.’
‘Shit. I’m sorry, you seemed like you liked her.’
I shrugged noncommittally. I didn’t really want to talk about how much I had liked her or thought that maybe we might have the makings of something that had potential.
‘If it isn’t her, then what is it?’
‘For the same reason that I can’t take any of the money if it’s up there. For me. A man has to stand for something, and money isn’t the thing I want to stand for. Don’t get me wrong, I like the stuff and never seem to have enough of it, but every morning I have to look at myself in the mirror. Money isn’t a good of reason to make that any harder to do.’
‘OK, John Wayne, OK. I get you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Red?’
‘Yeah, Chris.’
‘That loot would buy you a pretty nice fucking mirror.’
We both laughed and, like the moments after a thunderstorm had passed, everything was right again.
We crossed into New Hampshire, following Clark and Lintz at a distance. I explained the layout of the quarry to Chris, the parking area and the high ground around it, and the shelf of steps. Terrain was important to guys like us who had lived and died by its idiosyncrasies in the war.
‘So, the parking area is basically the low ground.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘And if there’s gunplay there, that doesn’t leave a lot of options to run to or take cover.’
‘Nope, not many.’
‘The water’s not an option.’
‘Not on a month of Sundays. It’s deep and cold and water isn’t cover.’
‘And if there’s anyone up in the high ground, anyone in overwatch with a long gun, you’re sincerely fucked.’
‘Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound good.’
