Ghostman

by Roger Hobbs

  I walked briskly to close the distance between us. Harrison took a few steps and leaned against the trunk of his Montego, placing the bag of crisps on the hood and giving me a little smile as I came within talking distance.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I want you to clarify something for me.”

  “I don’t offer refunds, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Nothing like that.”

  I kept walking forward until I was uncomfortably close to him. He held his ground. “Hey, man, I thought we were cool.”

  “Just one question,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. “What is it?”

  “How’d you know I was carrying a passport?”

  I didn’t wait for him to respond. Before he could even think about it, I lunged forward and pulled the revolver from his belt. We were less than a foot apart at this point, so I could see the look in his eyes as I turned the gun on him. He tried to grab it back, but it was too late. I cocked the hammer, pushed the barrel into the spot where his gut met up with his ribs and squeezed the trigger. He was close enough that I could smell his breath as I shot him.

  Bam.

  The bullet took him off his feet. His body dropped and rolled away from me, all the way down the small storm gulch at the side of the road. I could smell the gunpowder and the smoke rising up from the barrel of the gun. The birds took off from the nearby trees.

  It happened just like that. One second Harrison was leaning against his car, and the next he was face down in the creek with a bullet in his stomach. He twitched a few times, then stopped. I could see the runoff turn red around him.

  It didn’t take long for my partners to respond. Mancini opened our trunk and grabbed a shotgun in one fluid motion. One hand pried a shell loose from one of the boxes and shoved it into the loading port while the other hand worked the action by the forearm to chamber the round. By the time my hearing returned, he was ten feet behind me with the gun shouldered in a cross-arm stance, and the foresight was trained at my exact center of mass.

  Hsiu took longer. She scrambled from the car and came to a stop a few feet behind Mancini. She said, “What the hell was that?”

  I let the .44 Magnum hang loose around my finger by the trigger guard, so they knew I hadn’t gone berserk. With my other hand I took the soy crisps off the hood of Harrison’s car, turned around slowly and raised a finger to my lips.

  Don’t say another goddamn word.

  Then, as they watched, I pulled a wireless microphone from the crisps bag.

  I was wondering why he’d never put a crisp in his mouth, and now I knew why. Inside was a recording device the size of a wallet that had been secured to the inside of the bag with scotch tape. It wasn’t the most high-tech device in the world, but it was good enough. At such close range, it probably transmitted every word we said. I dropped it to the ground and crushed it underfoot. Hsiu and Mancini looked on with growing unease.

  I said, “We just got made by an undercover cop.”

  33

  ATLANTIC CITY

  As I drove, I could see the first rays of light peeking over the skyscrapers. The sunrise wasn’t like those big majestic ones they show in travel brochures. It was like a dim lighthouse well offshore whose beam kept getting brighter and brighter. The early-morning fog had settled in and covered everything with salty dew.

  My skin was beginning to smell like dried blood.

  Lakes’s Bentley was a new Continental with a black-on-black paint job and a cream leather interior. It was a fast, expensive toy, with a computer screen in the center of the console that controlled everything. Lakes’s music came on when I started the engine. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The engine sounded like a house cat purring.

  I refreshed my makeup in the parking lot of the Chelsea Hotel. If Lakes had noticed the difference, Blacker would see through it in a second. It doesn’t take long to do this though, once you’ve put on the disguise. All the big changes were still there from the day before. The hair, the eye color, the glasses, the walk, the voice. I only needed to brush up the age lines and color on my face. When I was done, I looked as good as new. It wasn’t quite as convincing without the suit, but I did the best I could.

  Ten minutes later, I parked on the street across from the hotel and paid for half an hour in quarters. The coffee shop in the Chelsea lounge was just getting ready for the morning rush. Rebecca Blacker was waiting for me by the bar in one of those plush leather chairs, legs crossed, facing the hotel door like she expected me to be late, which, of course, I was. The cigarette in her hand was burned down to the filter. She saw me right away. Put her hand up like she thought I might not see her.

  She dropped her cigarette butt in her coffee cup. “I have to say, Jack, I’m surprised you came.”

  I didn’t say anything, just took the chair opposite her.

  She said, “No suit this time?”

  “It’s at the cleaners,” I said. “Isn’t there a law against smoking inside?”

  “There’s one against armed robbery, too, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it.”

  She gave me a look and took out another cigarette. If I didn’t know she’d been up all night, I would never have guessed it. Her jacket was wrinkled around the elbows and her shirt was open down to the second button, but her eyes were as sharp as ever and her eyeliner was fresh, as if she’d just put it on. The waves in her hair cascaded smoothly down to her shoulders. The man working at the counter started to come over, but she waved him away.

  “I went out to the spot you mentioned on the highway,” she said. “You have a nasty habit of running into bad people, you know that? That car you burned belongs to Harrihar Turner.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m getting damn tired of you saying that.”

  I shook my head. She wasn’t going to get an answer out of me.

  Blacker sighed. “Do you have any idea who Harrihar Turner is?”

  “He’s the one they call Wolf, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “The Wolf, like it’s some title of nobility. The man likes to pretend he runs this city, and he might well. At one time or another we’ve had him on murder, meth, heroin, child prostitution and a dozen other things, but nothing ever sticks. He parades around town like he’s the mayor.”

  “Scum, by the sound of it.”

  “Yeah, but scum with deep pockets. I’ve lost witnesses to that guy.”

  “The justice system at work.”

  She snarled.

  “You should see if he’s connected to that heist you were talking about,” I told her. “A guy like that could easily have tried to knock over a casino.”

  “You have any basis for that claim?”

  “Just the amateur opinion of an interested citizen.”

  “Come on.”

  “I didn’t promise you anything,” I said. “If you think I’m going to hand you this thing on a silver platter, wrapped up just for you with a bow on top, you’ve got another thing coming. I’m just saying what I’d do, if I were you. Give you a reason to keep me around.”

  “You’re trying to give me a reason not to lock you up.”

  I nodded. “That too.”

  Blacker leaned back in her chair. “From my position it looks like you’re trying to shift the heat. You’re giving me this garbage about Harry Turner so I won’t go after Marcus Hayes, but you know I will.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve got that all wrong. I hope you catch both of them. I hope you catch everyone involved in this heist and put them in jail forever. If this Wolf guy is half as bad as he sounds, a life sentence is better than he deserves.”

  She sniffed. “Sure.”

  “You’ve got to look in the right place, though. You told me before that you didn’t care if Marcus Hayes robbed Fort Knox. Now, the Wolf’s somebody you do care about. If you can get him for this, it’ll be a big score for you.”

  “Where should I be looking,
then, Mystery Man?”

  “Find the third shooter,” I said. “That should give us something to talk about.”

  We were quiet then for a moment. Blacker stared right at me and blew smoke. She knew she wasn’t going to get much more out of me. I was walking a fine line, after all. She knew I was involved, but I wouldn’t say anything that might incriminate me. I had to keep my cool. She understood that. If she wanted my help, she had to play the game. She didn’t have to be happy about it, though. She was looking at me the way mothers do when they want their children to shut up.

  Then she said, “Who are you, really?”

  “We’ve already been through this.”

  “Sure we have.”

  “I told you already.”

  “No, you told me a story,” she said. “Which was bullshit, by the way.”

  “I am what I said I am. I’m just a guy on vacation.”

  “I don’t have to take this from you, you know.”

  “No, you don’t. But I’m here, and you’re here, and that has to mean something.”

  “It does. It means I know what you’re trying to do,” she said. “And that’s not all I know.”

  “What else might that include?”

  “I know you’ve got a hidden agenda here. One that you’re not telling me. Maybe one that you’re not even telling Marcus. You know more than you let on. I think a whole lot more.”

  “I already told you who I am.”

  She nodded as if she’d had enough of that line to last a lifetime. I was playing her, sure, and she was playing me right back. For the shortest instant I could see the exhaustion in her eyes.

  She tossed the cigarette in her coffee cup and it sizzled. “I know you’re not Jack Morton, and I can prove it.”

  34

  Her gaze—fixed directly on me—resembled that of a poker player desperately searching for a tell. She wanted to flush me out, to see if I was lying. The coffee machine made a sound and a group of people came out of an elevator carrying bags. The hotel was beginning to come to life. A guy in leather took the table across from ours and opened up a copy of The Wall Street Journal. The morning staff were changing the flower arrangements on the front desk.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “The Seattle office sent over a couple photographs of the man they saw meeting with Marcus Hayes yesterday,” Rebecca said. “He looked like you. He looked a lot like you. Maybe a little too old to be your son, but he could’ve been a nephew or younger brother. So I ran the number on your driver’s license to see if you had a relative around that age. I didn’t find any. In fact, I didn’t find you. Washington State never issued a license to a man with your name and photo, and the home address on your license is an empty lot near Tacoma. So it’s a fake. I think your whole identity’s a fake.”

  “You must’ve got the license wrong.”

  “I remembered it right,” she said. “And you’ve got a fake ID. That’s a felony in some states. And worse, you used that fake ID to lie to a federal agent. People get twenty years for that sort of thing.”

  “Yeah, but not me.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because you still don’t have anything on me.”

  She didn’t even blink.

  “The way you remember it,” I said, “I showed you my license. But that’s not how I remember it. I don’t recall showing you anything. In fact, I don’t think the license you’re talking about ever existed. You can search me. You’re not going to find it anywhere. You’re crazy if you think I’m going down for this.”

  Rebecca was quiet. She took her pack off the coffee table and patted out another cigarette. I looked in her coffee cup. There must have been a half a dozen butts in there already.

  “So I suppose there’s no reason for me to ask who you really are,” she said.

  “If I were to tell you my name, you wouldn’t believe me in a million years.”

  “Try me.”

  I shook my head. “You wanted to see me face-to-face for a reason, and it wasn’t just to tell me about some car that caught on fire.”

  “I want to offer you a deal,” she said.

  I leaned forward.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I think you’re after the money. And you know what? So far, you’re the closest one to finding it. But if you do, there’s nothing you can do with it. Do you know why? That cash is wired with enough explosives to kill anybody who tries to open it. Did Marcus tell you that?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The money’s useless, Jack. Unless you have the right codes, there’s no chance in hell you can take even a single bill without ruining the whole load. So you might be closest to finding the money, but it won’t do you any good. If you try to use it, you’re fucked. So let’s make a deal. If you find it, call me and tell me where it is. Once I’ve retrieved it, you can disappear like you were never here. I’ll leave you out of the investigation. I’ll say I found the money from an anonymous tip. You won’t even be mentioned. This way I’ll get the evidence I need, and you’ll get a chance to walk away with your life and reputation intact.”

  “I don’t have a reputation,” I said. “Somebody just told me that.”

  “At your age, with your skill? I’d bet anything you do.”

  I shook my head. It was the main paradox of my profession. I was known as the best in the business, but not at all otherwise. I smiled and let her think what she wanted.

  “There’s one other thing,” she said. “Something I’ve been thinking about nonstop since you flew in yesterday, but every time I try to reason it out, I get nowhere.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why did you take Marcus’s jet into the airport?” I was silent.

  “After a high-profile heist like this one, you must’ve known there would be hordes of cops watching all the flights. If you’d wanted to get here anonymously, you would have told your pilot to take you to Philadelphia—or, hell, even Newark. Then you could have driven in or taken the train. It would have taken a few extra hours, sure, but nobody would’ve blinked an eye once you got here. You’d be totally alone and anonymous. Instead, you took a plane right into the middle of everything. Why’d you do that?”

  I kept silent.

  “I think you wanted to be seen. You wanted someone to know you were here. No, not just anybody, you wanted the FBI to know you were here. You wanted us to know of your presence. I just can’t figure out why. What could you possibly have gained from that?”

  “You,” I said.

  She gave me a puzzled look.

  “I gained you,” I said. “I got you thinking about Marcus. Once that plane landed, you’ve been thinking about how Marcus is involved. Now you’re thinking about the Wolf. You’re connecting the dots.”

  “Why would you want that?”

  “Because I already told you,” I said. “I’m not here for Marcus.”

  “Then what are you here for?”

  “The same reason everybody comes here,” I said. “I love to gamble.”

  35

  I was light-blinded when I walked out of the Chelsea. The sun had come up hot and fast and the fog was burning off. The whole Boardwalk was coming back to life and the tourists were just hitting the beach. I made my way down the boards until I came to a small breakfast place that was already open. It was a hole in the wall with specials scrawled all over the windows and door. I ordered four eggs and coffee and sat outside, watching the people pass by. I drank four cups and tried to think.

  Angela and I used to go to cafés on busy streets and watch people all the time. We’d sit there near a crowded intersection and watch them go through the crosswalk. We’d make notes, sometimes, so we could talk later about the ones we’d noticed. We’d come up with lists of things we observed. We’d pay attention to how people moved their hands when they talked. How they walked. How they wore their clothing. The goal was to see them as they really were, when they didn
’t know they were being watched. “A person in a café’s invisible,” she used to say. “Everybody sees, but nobody really looks.”

  I was looking for the Wolf’s men.

  It was only a matter of time before they found me again. The Wolf wasn’t stupid. Even an idiot would’ve figured out what had happened to Aleksei and Martin by now and sent a crew out to get me. I took a look around to make sure there wasn’t anyone within earshot. The Boardwalk was full of sounds that would drown out aural surveillance. Pedicabs clacked on wooden boards. Amusement rides wailed with sirens. Storefronts blasted their radios out the front door at maximum volume.

  I flipped open a new phone and dialed Alexander Lakes. He answered on the first ring.

  “I got you access,” he said, in lieu of a greeting.

  “Yeah?”

  “I have a phone number that will put you in contact with someone in the police department. Dirty as hell, cautious as can be. This guy likes to meet on his own terms. He’s just as careful as you.”

  “Does this contact have a name?”

  “No.”

  “Not even an alias?”

  “You sound surprised. Half the people I work with don’t use their real names, including you. This one just doesn’t use a fake—he uses no name at all. The way he works, he doesn’t need an alias. He’s too quick and clean for all that.”

  “How do you know he’s a cop, then? How do you know he really has the access to the things he claims to?”

  “He’s come through before. You’ve got to trust him.”

  “I’ve never been one for trust. How does he get paid?”

  “I dead-dropped the money for him half an hour ago. He’ll pick it up when he feels ready.”

  I looked at my watch. I must have taken a longer breakfast than I thought, because it was almost 7 a.m. already. Definitely late enough to call a cop on the day shift. I said, “So how does he want to do this?”

  “You’re going to call a number. He’ll let it go to voice mail. Once he’s checked you out, he’ll send you a text message. The text message will give you another number to call, which will hook you up to his phone-over-Internet protocol. Very difficult to trace. He’ll give you what you want right there, right then. You’ll speak only on the phone. Don’t ask about meeting him. For this amount of money, he’ll give you about five minutes. After five minutes he’ll hang up, whether you’re done or not.”