by Pete Lister
She had listened attentively to everything that had been said. They had taken a break while Dianne fixed snacks, and now all four were back in her living room, settled into her massive overstuffed furniture.
“Dianne,” Drew said. “I could happily spend the rest of my life in this chair.”
“Well, I’m glad you like it, and God knows you’re always welcome, but that’s not why we’re here.” Dianne laughed and it lightened the mood for them all. “Okay, now, if I understand what you’re telling me, some bad guy stole fourteen and a half million dollars and some drugs from another bad guy, and hid it on your bus while you were parked at a casino. The other bad guy’s bad guys caught him. You suspect that he was killed, but you don’t know if he told them where he hid the stuff, right?”
“That’s right.” Drew acknowledged.
“How much are the drugs worth, on the street?”
“That stuff’s worth about $130,000 a kilo, give or take,” John said.
“Wow. But,” Dianne continued, “if you turn in the money and drugs, the bad guy’s bad guys will still come after you, and you think they won’t let you go because then you’d be able to identify them. Right?”
“Right.” Drew nodded assent.
“And if you keep the money and drugs, the bad guy’s bad guys are still going to come after you, for even more obvious reasons, right?”
“Right.”
“And if you turn in or return the drugs, but keep the money, even part of the money, they’re still going to come after you, right?”
“Right.”
“So the way I see it, with the first option, turning it all in, you lose, bad guys lose. With the second option, keeping it all, you win, bad guys lose, but you have to decide what to do with a hundred and sixty pounds of drugs AND they’ll still be looking for you, so you could still lose. Finally, with the last option, you turn in the drugs and keep the money, you win, bad guys lose, but you’ll still be on the run, right?”
“Right.”
“But at least you’re on the run with fourteen and a half million dollars.”
“Right.”
“Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Where are we going first?” The general laughter around the room lasted only a minute before John cut it short.
“Guys, this is one of those deals with serious upsides and serious downsides. I don’t want you to lose sight of something here. This sounds like a grand adventure, millions of dollars in found money, but if you two do this, we have to do it. If this guy has fourteen and a half million dollars to lose in the first place, he can afford to find out who and where your family is. And if we all do it, we have to stick together. That said, I’d rather stay and hide here than go without Dianne.” He and Dianne smiled at each other, and she reached out and took his hand.
“And if we do this, we’re all in the same amount of danger. Remember, these are not nice people. These are people who will publicly execute people they don’t like, and they are damned sure not going to like us.”
“Okay, John,” Dianne said, “but don’t you lose sight of the fact that we’re a pretty clever group of individuals. We know where we are and they don’t, and with this much money, we can pull a lot of strings and buy a lot of fake IDs. This would change our lives forever. We can go from one end of the country to the other in hours without leaving a trail. Quite frankly, since the prospect of pissing off a drug lord doesn’t seem to scare any of us enough to deter us, instead of doom and gloom, we should be planning our next move.” Looking around the living room, all Dianne saw were smiles and heads nodding.
“There is one other thing I’d like to suggest,” John said. “Drew and Ashley found this money. I think we should acknowledge their primary role in this project.”
“I agree.” Dianne said.
“So, since every outfit needs a leader, I think the kids should take the lead here. Dianne, you and I can certainly offer advice, but I think this should be the kids’ show.”
“I agree with that, too,” Dianne agreed.
“I appreciate that,” Ashley told them. “But, I have more faith in Drew to make the kind of snap judgments this could call for. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll follow him.”
“I’ll take it,” Drew said. “But I want it understood that I don’t intend to call the shots alone. Pop, you and Dianne have been around longer than I have. If you and Lee had been milkmen, I might agree that you should follow me because of my combat experience and military leadership training, but you’ve been in combat, too. You and Lee, and by extension, Dianne, certainly had the experience to be equal partners here. I’ll take the lead if you want, but this has to be a team effort. I’ll look to each of you. This is a major lifestyle change we’re talking about here. None of us is going to be able to safely walk away, and for that reason alone, I think that any one of us should have the authority to veto anything the group is planning. I think we have to do it as a team.”
“I would agree with that,” John said. “but, I’d like to clear up something. You refer to the fact that Lee and I had ‘been in combat, too.’ Then you refer to the fact that Dianne certainly has the experience to be an equal partner, ‘by extension’. I think you should know that Dianne is fully qualified to be a partner in her own right. Back when she and Lee were first dating, Dianne owned her own business. She was a free-lance software developer, and quite successful, too. She was living in California and was home for the holidays, visiting family, when she and Lee met at a party. After they’d dated for a couple of weeks, she moved her business back here and they got serious. At one point, she thought about joining the force.”
“You did?” Drew asked. He was staring at Dianne, now. “I’ve known you my whole life and never knew that.”
“There are all kinds of things you never knew about me.” Dianne smiled at him and winked.
“Like the fact that she can probably outshoot you.” John told him. “I know for a fact she can outshoot me.”
§ § §
Lee and Dianne Massey had been to the movies, some romantic comedy, and were walking back to their car, hand in hand. When they’d arrived, the closest open parking spot had been in the back row, near the alley, but now the stores in the area were closed and they were crossing an almost empty parking lot.
As they passed a rusty pickup truck, a small man with a gun stepped out from behind the truck.
“Hold it right there,” he told them. Lee put his hand on Dianne’s hip and guided her behind him.
“There’s no need to do anything rash,” Lee told the mugger. “We’ll give you whatever you want.”
“That’s good,” the man told him. “Then I won’t have to use this. Now, give me your wallet. You too, lady.”
Dianne had pressed her .32 into Lee’s back to let him know she had it out, and handed him her purse. Lee tossed it onto the ground in front of the man and stepped aside as he bent down to retrieve it. Dianne fired two shots into his right knee and the man dropped, screaming. Lee kicked the gun away and cuffed him quickly and efficiently.
“You okay?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Sure, I’m not the one who got shot.” She replied. “If you’ll hand me my purse, I’ll call it in.”
§ § §
“Good grief,” Drew said. “It doesn’t look like we’ll have to teach you anything. You can already swing your own weight here.”
“I’m guessing she’ll more than swing her own weight, buddy.” His father put in.
“I just want to go on the record here, saying that while I’m very pleasantly surprised, this doesn’t alter the fact that I’ve been thrilled at the idea of Dianne joining us, right from the gitgo. It also doesn’t change my mind about this being a democracy, and every one of us still holds a veto over the group’s actions.”
“Well said, young Sherry.” Dianne told him. “We’re right behind you. So, what’s our first project? What are you thinking?”
Drew looked at Ashley and his father, then back
to Dianne “Dianne, this could get dangerous. These guys aren’t going to be playing with us. Are you sure you’re up for this?
“Drew, my husband was a cop his whole career, and your father’s partner for over a decade. I think I know what we’re in for. This isn’t my first rodeo.” She looked at John and they both laughed.
“I think Dianne can hold up her end of this adventure.” John took her hand and they smiled at each other, again.
After refilling his coffee, John turned to his family. “Well, first of all, we have to assume this drug dealer knows who the kids are by now, and where they live. Ashley’s car is in their garage, and Drew’s truck is safe in my other garage. Dianne, the whole stash of cash and drugs is in my trailer.”
Dianne stood up and walked to her front window. Pushing aside the drapes, she looked up and down the block before concentrating on John’s van and trailer.
“You parked fourteen and a half million dollars on the street in front of my house? Oh, John, you shouldn’t have.” They were all laughing now. “But, seriously, Drew, what do you see as our first move?”
“Well, first thing is the drugs. I don’t think we should turn them in quite yet, and we sure don’t want to carry them around the country. They could give us some leverage down the road, when we might need it.”
“I agree,’ his father said. “My suggestion would be to rent a storage unit, pay for it a year in advance, and leave the drugs there. To be safe, we should rent it under a false name. That means we have to get some fake IDs before we do that.
“Now, credit cards,” Ashley added. “We have to be careful about how and when we use them, once we leave Milwaukee. We can’t use them here in any way that would point to where we are or where we’re going. We can use them on our way out of town, but we have to think ahead and not travel in a straight line. Anyone tracing our card usage would be able to anticipate our next move, if we did. We’ll have to hole up somewhere for a couple of weeks to get started. I think we should find someplace in another state first.”
Dianne spoke up, “Why don’t we take the Lake Express across to Muskegon and start in Michigan? I’ve never ridden it before, but I’ve wanted to. If this drug lord knows you live in Milwaukee, and suddenly you disappear, he won’t have a clue which way you might have gone. Michigan’s a big place, and you could just as easily have driven to Minnesota, Illinois, or Iowa.”
“To be on the safe side,” Ashley added, “we could use a debit or credit card and buy two Amtrak tickets to someplace like Florida or Arizona. That would throw off anyone trying to track us.”
“Good idea. Okay, does that work for everybody?” Nods all around. “Pop, I think we don’t go near our banks. Just leave anything you have in the bank where it is. It might come in handy in the event of an emergency, and it’s not like we need the money.”
“Same with the plastic,” John said. “Stick them in a suitcase, but don’t use them unless it’s an emergency or we discuss it, first, as a team.”
“We do have one problem, Pop,” Drew added. “We have a trailer full of hundred dollar bills, but we can’t go through life dropping hundreds like rain. How do we convert those things into money we can use? We can’t very well go around the country walking into banks with thousands of dollars in hundreds.”
“Yeah, I thought about that. We actually could, you know. Banks are more interested in reporting transactions over five grand than asking where it came from. It’s actually none of their business. I have an idea that will get us started, though. We pay for the ferry with cash. When we get to Michigan, we find a casino and rent a place nearby. Then we find a bank near the casino, and I’ll open an account with cash. Anybody asks, I tell them I won at the casino, but I don’t think they’ll ask. Anyway, I’ll do the test run. If that works, then using different banks, we each do the same. We’ll give the banks that address. That’ll get us started. We’ll have an address to use until our new debit cards come in the mail. Then, we’ll hit the road.”
“You know, to be on the safe side, I don’t think we should go back to our houses tonight. But, there’s no way these guys could know about Dianne, yet. I think we should stay here, tonight,” suggested Ashley. “Can we find the ferry schedule?”
Dianne turned to her laptop, still sitting on her dining room table. After a few keystrokes, she said, “There are three ferries a day, and the last one leaves at seven.”
“I think we better try to hit that one, at the latest,” Drew told them. “Okay? Let’s call it a night. We have a lot to do tomorrow.” But none of them slept much.
§ § §
They spent most of the next morning in Shorewood, near the UWM campus, getting fake IDs from a guy who supplied them to the students. Drew rented a small self-storage unit, paid a year in advance, and stashed the drugs, making sure to wipe down each brick to eliminate fingerprints. After finishing at the storage unit, they stopped at Benji’s Deli on Oakland for a sack of pastrami sandwiches and pickles.
The 12:30 Lake Express ferry slipped smoothly out into the lake from the East Michigan Street terminal, offering a great view of the art museum’s vented sunshade, looking for all the world like a huge white whale’s tail coming out of the roof of the building. The weather was what pilots call severe clear, not a cloud in sight, with a gentle breeze over the deck. The catamaran trip was smooth and Benji’s pastrami sandwiches, accompanied by his enormous dill pickles, washed down by bottles of ice cold beer, were the perfect accompaniment to the views from the deck of the big cat.
After leaving the ferry in Muskegon, the drive up U.S. 31 to Silver Lake took less than an hour. The family found and rented a two-bedroom lake-front cabin, then made four stops in Mears to open accounts at four different banks and credit unions. Each of them opened an account with four thousand dollars in ostensible winnings, claiming to be in the process of moving there, and using the address of the cabin they had rented. As the sun settled over the far shore of the lake, the group settled in with a pizza on the deck.
“This is nice, Pop,” Drew told his father. “We can stay here until we get our debit cards, but then I really think we should take off. I think tomorrow we should rent another place, like that one three doors down, using another name. That way, we can keep an eye on this place, in case anyone shows up to stake out the place. It would be good for spotting tails. As soon as the mail comes, we can move on. If we’ve overlooked anything that might make us easy to find, I’d sure like not to be here when they arrive.”
“I agree,” Dianne added. “If we stay on the move for at least a couple of weeks, moving every couple of days, I think we should be safe.”
“You know,” Ashley told them, “if we use a different state for each of the first couple moves, and we never leave forwarding addresses, I just don’t see how anyone could track us.”
“Honey,” John said, “you’re probably right, but let’s err on the side of caution. You know, better safe than sorry. Anybody got a problem with that?” They all shook their heads. “Good, then I have a suggestion for our next step. How about an RV, so we can travel comfortably?”
“I love it!” Drew agreed. “How about one of those big motor coaches, with kitchens and bedrooms?”
Picking up the laptop, Drew googled ‘RV sales Michigan’.
“The closest one’s just south of Grand Rapids.”
“Then why don’t we go over there tomorrow?”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Dianne said. “In the meantime, we’ll need more cash. John, remember Lee and I had a Class A for years. You can drop a bundle on one of those things. We’re going to have to sacrifice at least one of those accounts. If we’re going to get a nice RV, we’re going to need at least a hundred thousand dollars, maybe more. If we deposit that much in a bank, they’ll have to report it to the IRS, and our IDs won’t hold up under much scrutiny. If we deposit the money in the morning, then go right down and buy the RV, we can abandon that account and open another one somewhere else.”
; Drew nodded his agreement, so she continued. “I think we should look for a late-model one. The new ones always have bugs that you have to deal with. With one that’s at least three or four years old, the bugs should be pretty well worked out or repaired already.”
“Then, if we’re going shopping tomorrow,” Ashley put in, “before we hit the road, I’m going to run in to a bookstore and stock up. If we’re going to be rolling like we’re on vacation, I’m going to catch up on my reading.” Ashley smiled. “This ‘being on the lam’ business might not be so bad.”
§ § §
9
Shiv Thompson was at his desk when the two detectives sauntered in.
“Hey, Shiv, what’s up?” di Stasio asked.
“Sherry was a no-show this morning,” Shiv reported. “You said he was scheduled out on another three-day casino run with the girl, but they never showed, neither of them. And there’s nobody home at their house, neither. Her car is locked in their garage, but there’s no sign of Sherry or his girlfriend. Either of them have family?”
“We checked.” Scott told him. “We looked at his employment application with the bus company. He listed the girl and his father as emergency contacts. We’re running the father’s name through Wisconsin DMV, so we should know something soon. We’ll keep you posted.”
“What about the girl? Don’t she need an emergency contact, too? What if she’s hurt on their bus? Don’t they gotta know who to contact?” Shiv asked.
“Yeah,” Scott said. “It’s all part of their standard charter contract. We asked them, and they said she’d listed Sherry and Sherry’s old man. I guess they’re engaged or something. She told them she didn’t have any living family.”
“Okay. You guys go on back to work. I don’t want to raise no suspicions about what you’re doing for me. Keep me posted.” The two detectives stood up without a word, and walked out of the office.
Shiv had just turned back to his computer when Scott hurried back into the office. “We just heard from Wisconsin, Shiv. Here’s the old man’s name and address.”
