by Dan Willis
“It’s crazy,” he said after a moment. “But you’re right, whoever stole the trucks has everything they’d need to dig a tunnel. Callahan is not going to like this.”
Alex knew Danny was right, but he pressed on anyway.
“He’s going to like a Manhattan bank getting robbed a whole lot less,” he pointed out.
“True,” Danny said, flipping his notebook closed.
“So, are you with me on this?” Alex asked with a smile.
Danny rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“I must be out of my mind.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Callahan roared at Alex. The usual look of casual disdain he wore when Alex was around had been replaced by something perilously close to naked hatred. “It’s bad enough you’re sneaking around behind Detweiler’s back and feeding information to the tabloids, but now you drag my detective in here to sell me some cock and bull story about a bunch of penny-ante gangsters tunneling into a bank? Get out of my office.”
“Lieutenant,” Danny began but Callahan silenced him with a look.
“If you keep listening to this guy, he’s going to drag you down with him. I’m not going to let that happen to me.”
Alex forced himself not to blush under Callahan’s tirade. Truth be told, he did worry that sooner or later he’d steer Danny wrong and cost his friend his job. Or worse, his life.
“Lieutenant!” Danny interrupted. “I know how this sounds, but you should know by now, I wouldn’t have brought this to you if I didn’t think there was something to it.”
Callahan swelled up with fury and Alex wondered if he’d pop his collar button. After a long, pregnant moment, however, he sat back in his chair and folded his hands in front of him.
“Do you have any idea what bank these guys are planning to hit?” he asked, his voice calm and even.
“No,” Danny admitted.
Alex just shook his head when Callahan looked at him.
“Do you know how many banks there are in Manhattan?”
“No,” Danny was forced to admit.
“Do you know?” Alex asked, speaking before he thought better of it.
Callahan glared at him.
“I know it’s more than fifty,” he said. “And since you don’t know which bank is the target of this master plan, you’re asking me to send out officers to look in the basement of every adjacent building for some lowlifes digging a tunnel.”
Alex had to admit, it sounded crazy when put like that.
“Forget the fact that the Captain will never go for this,” Callahan said. “Just tell me how, in your little scenario, these bank robbers are going to power that electric train motor?”
“Most of the banks worth all this trouble are in the Inner and Mid-rings,” Danny said. “Power shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Except when you dig a tunnel, you do it underground,” Callahan said. “Radiated power doesn’t do well underground, that’s why magelights have to be wired to the building in most basements.”
“Very good, Lieutenant,” Alex said. “The field generated by Empire Tower is based on magic and magic doesn’t penetrate the ground well.”
“I don’t care how big Barton’s missing motor is,” Callahan said. “It’s not going to drill anything without power.”
Alex turned to Danny.
“Can I borrow your notebook?” he asked. “I think I can narrow down the search for your boss.”
Callahan ground his teeth loud enough for Alex to hear as Danny passed over the notebook. Alex flipped to the page where Danny had catalogued all the stolen items that were missing from the recovered trucks.
“See here, Lieutenant,” he said, putting the notebook down on Callahan’s desk. “Three one-hundred-foot spools of heavy copper wire were stolen.”
“So?”
“So,” Danny said, picking up on Alex’s train of thought. “All the robbers have to do is patch the wire into the building’s etherium receiver and run it to the motor.”
Callahan looked like he wanted to object but couldn’t find a flaw in that argument.
“And,” Alex jumped in, eager to maintain what little momentum he’d garnered. “The only buildings you need to search are ones adjacent to banks with underground vaults.”
Callahan jumped up out of his chair and got right in Alex’s face.
“It doesn’t matter how many banks have underground vaults,” he growled. “What matters is that if I manage to convince the Captain that there’s something to this and it turns out to be a bust, I’m going to be jackass of the century around here. And that’s if they let me stay on as janitor or something.”
“What happens if it’s not a bust but you don’t look?” Alex pointed out, locking eyes with Callahan. “These guys have spent too much time planning and digging to waste that effort on some little, no-name bank. They’re going to hit the biggest, fattest target they can find, and what happens when they do?” Alex picked up a newspaper from the Lieutenant’s desk with an article about the ghost killer. The headline declared that the city was in panic.
“You think people are panicking now,” he said. “Wait until there’s a run on a major bank because all their money’s gone.”
“He’s right, Lieutenant,” Danny said. “One run is likely to cause others. They’ll be rioting in the streets before it’s done.”
Callahan swore and flopped down in his chair. Alex could tell that the Lieutenant was facing the reality that he really didn’t have any choice. Alex’s evidence was circumstantial, but it fit, and Callahan couldn’t afford to let a major bank get cleaned out. Alex resisted the urge to smile out of sheer relief.
“You told me you became a cop to protect people,” Alex reminded him. “Now’s your chance.”
Callahan chuckled and shook his head.
“If this blows back on me, Lockerby, then you’re done,” he said in a cold, even voice. “You’d better leave the state, because if I catch you, I’ll make sure you get twenty years breaking rocks, you got me?”
Alex nodded.
“That’s fair,” he said. “One more thing, though. When you have your boys search for our tunnel diggers, tell them that one of them is a hostage. A guy named Leroy Cunningham.”
“Hostage?”
“Yeah, they grabbed him because he used to work in a mine and they think he knows how to shore up a tunnel.”
“Does he?” Callahan asked.
Alex shrugged.
“Maybe,” he said. “In any case, tell your men it’s probably best if they stay out of any tunnels they might find.”
“That’s just great,” Callahan sighed. He stood up and put on his suit coat.
“You’re with me, Pak,” he said to Danny. “You,” he said, waving his finger in Alex’s face. “Get lost, and don’t come back till this is over, got me?”
“Loud and clear, Lieutenant.”
20
The Company
“Back again, Mr. Lockerby?” Edmond said from behind the reception desk of the Hall of Records. He looked better today; the dark circles under his eyes seemed faded and his hands weren’t shaking. He’d even slicked back his white hair. He wore a broad smile that showed off a dimple in his left cheek and straight, if yellow, teeth.
“They’ve got you working up here today?” Alex asked.
“No,” Edmond said with a laugh. “I’m just filling in for our receptionist while she’s at lunch. We all have to chip in around here.”
His smile was easy and friendly. Alex was surprised the man remembered him. Most government desk jockeys couldn’t be bothered to remember anyone. It was refreshing.
“I can take you downstairs if you need some more permit records,” Edmond continued. “It’s not very busy during the lunch hour.”
“That’s okay,” Alex said, leaning on the counter. “I’m looking for business records today.”
Edmond looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head.
“You need to have record or application
numbers if you want to look up business records,” he said. “We don’t store permit records by business name.”
“I’m not looking for permit records,” Alex explained. “I need the paperwork a company has to file in order to do business in the state.”
Edmond’s brows furrowed for a moment. Alex had hoped someone in the office would be able to tell him exactly what he was looking for. He knew companies had to file paperwork so they could open a bank account and pay taxes, but he’d never had to do it himself.
“Is there someone here who can help with that?” he asked.
Edmond’s look of concern melted away and he began smiling and nodding.
“You want to see their articles of incorporation,” he said, then he shook his head. “For a minute, I couldn’t remember what they were called.” He looked around as if he were suddenly afraid of being overheard and leaned in, conspiratorially. “I must be getting old,” he said with a wink.
Alex laughed at that.
“So companies have to sign articles?” he asked. “Like pirates.”
He’d read Treasure Island enough to know that pirates did that. It seemed eerily coincidental that companies had to do it too.
Edmond laughed.
“Just like pirates,” he agreed. “You want the office of business filings.” He pointed at the vaulted ceiling. “Third floor.”
“Thanks,” Alex said, starting to turn away.
“Wait,” Edmond said, reaching out to grab his sleeve. “They’re at lunch.”
Alex wasn’t really surprised; it was a government office after all.
“If everyone’s at lunch, why are you still here?” he asked. “Why not just hang a gone-to-lunch sign on the door like everyone else?”
Edmond laughed. His smile was infectious, but Alex noticed that there were dark spots on his gums where they met his teeth. No doubt a symptom of his illness. Alex had almost forgotten that the vital man across the counter was under a death sentence.
Just like me.
Alex reminded himself that if Edmond could soldier on with a smile on his face, so could he.
“Too many politicians come in here on their lunch break,” Edmond explained. “They get cranky if they have to wait, so half the building goes to lunch at noon, the other half at one.”
Alex pulled out his pocketwatch and checked the time. It was over half an hour until one.
“I guess I’ll go get some lunch myself, then,” he said, replacing his watch. As he slipped his hand into his pocket, however, he remembered that he only had about two bits on him and he needed that for crawler fare.
“On second thought,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Maybe I’ll just wait here.”
“Oh you don’t have to wait,” Edmond said, looking around with his conspiratorial grin. “I can help you.”
“What if someone comes in?”
He shrugged and pulled up a paper tent from under the counter that read, back in ten minutes.
“The only people who come in at this hour are either lost or they’re the politicians I was talking about. They know their way around plenty good enough.”
Edmond led Alex past the wide stairway that led up to the second floor, down a hall to the elevator.
“You’ll have to pardon me,” he said, pushing the button to call the car. “I’m not up to two flights of stairs these days.”
Alex mimicked his conspiratorial grin.
“Me neither,” he said in a low voice.
The car was one of the new kind, without an operator, so Alex pushed the button marked three.
The Office of Business Filings was enormous, taking up the entire north wing of the building. Edmond simply twisted the handle of the darkened door and opened it. Alex filed away the knowledge that the clerks didn’t lock the office during lunch for possible later use.
Inside there was a large waiting area with tables under magelights that lit up when Edmond flipped a switch by the door. A long counter ran along one side of the area with rows and rows of shelves running off into the dark behind them. A ticket dispenser stood on one end of the counter, and a sign invited patrons to take a number, just like at the deli.
“You know how to find things in that?” Alex asked, pointing to the towering shelves stuffed with file folders, boxes, and folios.
“Sure,” Edmond said, lifting up a hinged part of the counter to step behind it. “It’s just like downstairs except things are filed alphabetically by company name instead of by permit number. So what are you looking for?”
“Anything you can give me on North Shore Development,” Alex said, leaning on the counter.
Edmond turned back toward the files, but stopped after a step, leaning heavily on a desk.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked, lifting the hinged counter and moving to where Edmond stood. Before he could grab the older man’s arm and help him to a chair, Edmond waved him off.
“It catches up with me every once in a while,” he said. “I’m all right.”
Alex wanted to ask if he was sure, but Edmond straightened up to his full height. All traces of the weakness that had affected him a moment before were gone.
“Go wait out there,” Edmond said, pointing back to the waiting area. “I’ll catch hell if anyone sees you back here.”
Alex wasn’t happy about leaving, but Edmond was a proud man and Alex didn’t want to insult him.
Retreating to his side of the counter, Alex lowered the moving piece into place and leaned on it. He considered smoking his last cigarette. Since he had a dinner date tomorrow, he resolved to save it for then.
Absently he wondered where he would take Jessica. He supposed there were still a few dollars of emergency money in his safe, the hollowed-out book he kept on the shelf right next to the Archimedean Monograph. If they went to a diner, he might have enough for a decent meal, but what would Jessica think of that? She’d told him to take her somewhere nice. He suddenly realized he didn’t have the faintest clue what she might like to eat.
Some detective you are, he chided himself.
“Here you go,” Edmond said, coming back with a heavy looking folio. He dropped it on the counter, kicking up some dust from inside, then took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He looked paler than he had before.
“You should go home,” Alex said, turning the folio around and removing the elastic band covering the cardboard flap on top. “Spend time with your family.”
Edmond smiled at that, but it was wistful rather than happy. He didn’t have any family. Alex instantly felt like a heel.
“Don’t be sorry,” Edmond said, reading Alex’s expression. “My wife and I had a good run before she passed.”
“No kids?” Alex knew he shouldn’t ask, but his curiosity got the better of him.
“A son,” Edmond said with undisguised pride. “I lost him in the war.”
Alex had heard that story before. A lot of people lost sons in the war, but it never got easy to hear about it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“And I said don’t be,” Edmond admonished. “I miss my family, but I’m grateful for the time I had with them. Besides, I’ll be with them soon enough.”
Alex looked down at the folio. He missed his father, of course, and now Father Harry, but he still had Iggy and Leslie. If he played his cards right, he might even have Jessica in his life. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose them all. To be alone.
“You got lucky,” Edmond said.
“What?”
The old man pointed at the paper tag on the outside of the folio.
“According to that, North Shore Development went out of business about ten years ago,” he explained. “These records are scheduled to be moved to storage in a couple of months.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, talking just to ensure the awkward silence didn’t come back. “Lucky.”
He opened the folio and pulled out an inch-thick stack of papers. Some were stapled together into packets, but others were loose and
none of them seemed to be in any kind of order.
“Here it is,” Edmond said, reaching into the stack as Alex fanned them out on the counter. He pulled out a yellowed packet of papers that had been stapled together. The cover had the name North Shore Development on it and several official-looking stamps.
Alex turned to the front page and found a mass of legal phrases and clauses. Skipping that, he turned to the back and found what he was looking for.
A slow smile spread across his face as he read down the list of names of the partners in the company. There were eleven all total. All were names that Alex recognized.
He laughed out loud and Edmond looked confused.
“Something funny?” he asked.
“No,” Alex said, still grinning. “Definitely not funny.”
He copied down the names, then wrote down the index number on the folio.
“That’s all you needed?” Edmond asked, somewhat incredulous. “Who are those people?”
“If I’m right,” Alex said, stacking the papers neatly and returning them to the folio, “they cheated someone out of a fortune a long time ago.”
Edmond looked shocked, then sad.
“Some people,” he said. “Did they get away with it?”
“For a while,” Alex said with a sigh. “But as near as I can tell, the man they cheated is killing them one by one.”
“So, you’re going to stop him?” Edmond wondered. “The killer I mean.”
“That’s the plan.”
“What about the people who cheated him? Are they going to keep getting away with what they did?”
Alex gave Edmond a determined smile.
“Not if I can help it,” he said.
Alex walked Edmond back to the reception desk, then went to the pay phones near the door.
“It’s me,” he said as Leslie picked up. “Did you get an address for Duane King?”
“Yes,” Leslie said in a worried voice, “but we’ve got bigger problems. Did you see today’s issue of The Midnight Sun?”
Alex groaned.
“Don’t tell me,” he begged.
“They printed that entire list of names you gave the cops,” she said, ignoring Alex’s entreaty. “That Lieutenant over the case called here and raised hell. He wants you to call him right away.”
