Dirty Money

by Richard Stark

  2

  Captain Robert Modale of the New York State Police was a calm man and a patient man, but he knew a whopping waste of time when it was dumped in his lap, and he’d been given a doozy this time. Irritation, which is what Captain Modale had to admit to himself he was feeling right now, had the effect of making him even quieter and more self-contained than ever. As a result, he had ridden in the passenger seat of the unmarked state pool car, next to Trooper Oskott at the wheel, all the way across half of New York State and probably a third of Massachusetts with barely a word out of his mouth.

  Trooper Oskott, looking awkward and uncomfortable in civvies instead of his usual snappy gray fitted uniform, had tried to make conversation a few times, but the responses were so minimal that he soon gave up, and the interstates merely rolled silently by outside the vehicle’s glass while Captain Modale contemplated this whopping waste of time he had to deal with.

  Which was going to be a two-day waste of time, at that. The captain had to travel these hundreds of miles on a Friday, but he would reach Rutherford too late to meet with his Massachusetts counterparts until Saturday morning. In the meantime, the plan was that he and Trooper Oskott would bunk in a motel somewhere.

  At first, though, it had looked as though no accommodation would be available, since it was the height of the fall foliage season over there in New England, and most inns of any kind were full. Captain Modale had been counting on that, the whopping waste of time called off for lack of housing, but then somebody made an early departure from a bed and breakfast with the disgusting name of Bosky Rounds, so the trip was on after all.

  Bosky Rounds was not as repulsive as its name, though it was still not at all to the captain’s taste. Nevertheless, the proprietor, Mrs. Bartlett, did maintain a neat and cozy atmosphere, steered the captain and the trooper to a fine New England seafood dinner on Friday night, and furnished such mountains of breakfast Saturday morning that the captain, indulging himself far beyond his normal pattern, decided not to mention the breakfast to his wife.

  Mrs. Bartlett, in a side desk drawer in her neat office, seemed to keep an unlimited supply of local maps, on one of which she drew a narrow red pen line from where they were to the temporary unified police headquarters in the Rutherford Combined Bank building, that being the rightful owner of the money stolen last week.

  When they went out to the car, they were preceded by another guest here, a brassy-looking blonde in black, who got into a black Honda Accord festooned with antennas. With just a quick glimpse of her profile, the captain found himself wondering, have I seen her before? Possibly in here last night, or at the restaurant. Or it could be she’s just a kind of type of tough-looking blonde, striking enough to make you notice her, but also with a little warning sign in view.

  Whatever the case, she was none of the captain’s concern. He got into the pool car, and Trooper Oskott drove him over to the meeting.

  What was normally a loan officer’s space, a fairly roomy office with neutral gray carpet and furniture and walls, had been turned into the combined police headquarters, crammed with electronic equipment, extra tables and chairs, and easels mounted with photos, chain-of-command charts, progress reports, and particularly irritating examples of press coverage.

  While Trooper Oskott waited at an easy parade rest out in the main banking area, still shut down since the robbery with all necessary bank transactions handled at another branch twenty-some miles away, Captain Modale went into the HQ room to be met by several of his opposite numbers, brought here at this hour specifically to meet with him.

  What the captain read from those solemn faces and strong handshakes was a frustration even deeper than his own, and he decided to give up his bad temper at having his time wasted like this, because he knew these men and women were clutching at straws.

  Three strangers had come into their territory, armed with antitank weapons illegal to be imported into the United States, and they’d made off with just about an entire bank’s cash assets. One day later, the law had managed to lay its hands on one of the felons, but the very next day they lost him again, and lost one of their own as well. Now, in the nearly a week since, there had been no progress, no breaks, no further clues as to where any of the three men had gone.

  One of the brass here to greet him, a Chief Inspector Davies, said, “I’ll be honest with you, Captain, this reflects on every one of us.”

  “I don’t see that, Inspector.”

  “Yes, it does,” Davies insisted. “The one man we got, and I’m afraid lost—”

  “We lost him,” said the tight-lipped FBI agent Ramey that the captain had been introduced to. “We’ll be changing some procedures after this.”

  “The point is,” Davies said, “we know who he is. Nicholas Leonard Dalesia. He’s not from the Northeast at all. He has no friends here, no associates, no allies. He hasn’t stolen a car. He’s been loose for almost a week in the middle of the biggest manhunt we can muster, and not a sign of him.”

  “He’s gone to ground,” said the captain.

  “Agreed. But how? The feeling is, around here,” the inspector told him, “the feeling is, the other two are with him.”

  “I don’t follow that,” the captain said.

  “We know they had to leave the money behind, hide it somewhere,” the inspector told him. “Are they with it now? One of them, the one you met, went over to New York State to engage almost immediately in another robbery. Did he do it for cash to tide the gang over while they’re hiding out?”

  “You’re suggesting,” the captain said, “the one that came to us managed to escape your manhunt, did that second robbery, and went right back into the search area.”

  “You don’t buy it,” Inspector Davies said.

  “I know I wouldn’t do it,” the captain said. “If I got my hands on some different money, I’d just grab it and keep going.”

  “Then where’s Nicholas Leonard Dalesia? It just doesn’t— Oh, Gwen, there you are. Come over here.”

  A very attractive young woman in tans and russets had just entered the HQ room, and before the captain could show his bafflement—what was somebody like that doing here?—Inspector Davies all unknowing rescued him by saying, “Detective Second Grade Gwen Reversa, this is New York State Police Captain Robert Modale. You’re the two law officers who’ve actually seen and talked to that second man.”

  After a handshake and greeting, Detective Reversa said, “John B. Allen, that’s who he was when I met him.”

  “He called himself Ed Smith in my neighborhood.”

  She smiled. “He doesn’t go in for colorful names, does he?”

  “There’s not much colorful about him at all.”

  “Tell me,” Detective Reversa said, “what do you think of the drawing?”

  “Of Mr. Smith?” The captain shook his head, “It works in the wrong direction,” he said. “Once you know it’s supposed to be him, you can see the similarities. But I had a conversation with the man after I saw those posters, and I didn’t make the connection.”

  Inspector Davies said, “While you’re here, Captain, I’d like you and Gwen to sit down with our artist and see if you can improve that picture.”

  “Because you think he’s come back.”

  Detective Reversa said, “But you don’t.”

  “I think,” the captain said carefully, not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings, “the third man could very well still be here, helping Dalesia hide out. But the fellow I talked to? What do you think?”

  “He’s a cautious man,” she said, “and not loud. No colorful names. I think he’d be like a cat and not go anywhere he wasn’t sure of.”

  Inspector Davies said, “So the two of you could improve that drawing.”

  The captain bowed in acquiescence. “Whatever I can do to be of help.”

  The artist was a small irritable woman who worked in charcoal, smearing much of it on herself. “I think,” Gwen Reversa told her, “the main thing wrong with the picture
now is, it makes him look threatening.”

  “That’s right,” Captain Modale said.

  The artist, who wasn’t the one who’d done the original drawing, frowned at it. “Yes, it is threatening,” she agreed. “What should it be instead?”

  “Watchful,” Gwen Reversa said.

  “This man,” the captain said, gesturing at the picture, “is aggressive, he’s about to make some sort of move. The real man doesn’t move first. He watches you, he waits to see what you’re going to do.”

  “But then,” Gwen Reversa said, “I suspect he’s very fast.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The artist pursed her lips. “I’m not going to get all that into the picture. Even a photograph wouldn’t get all that in. Are the eyes all right?”

  “Maybe,” Gwen Reversa said, “not so defined.”

  “He’s not staring,” the captain said. “He’s just looking.”

  The artist sighed. “Very well,” she said, and opened her large sketch pad on the bank officer’s desk in this small side office next to the main HQ room. “Let’s begin.”

  The three had been working together for little more than an hour when Inspector Davies came to the doorway and said, “You two come listen to this. See what you think.”

  The larger outer room now contained, in addition to everything else, a quick eager young guy with windblown hair and large black-framed glasses like a raccoon’s mask. He mostly gave the impression of somebody here to sell magazine subscriptions.

  The inspector made introductions: “Captain Modale, Detective Reversa, this is Terry Mulcany, a book writer.”

  “Mostly fact crime,” Mulcany said. He looked nervous but self-confident at the same time.

  “That must keep you busy,” the captain commented.

  Mulcany flashed a very happy smile. “Yes, sir, it does.”

  The inspector said, “Mr. Mulcany believes he might have seen your man.”

  Surprised, dubious, the captain said, “Around here?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mulcany said. “If it was him.”

  The captain said, “Why do you think it was him?”

  “I’m just not sure, sir.” Mulcany shrugged in frustration. “I’ve been talking to so many people in this neighborhood this past week, unless I make notes or tape somebody it all runs together.”

  Gwen Reversa said, “But you think you saw one of the robbers.”

  “With a woman. Yesterday, the day before, I’m not really positive.” Shaking his head, he said, “I didn’t notice it at the time, that’s the problem. But this morning, I was looking at those wanted posters again, just to remind myself, and I thought, wait a minute, I saw that guy, I talked to him. Standing . . . outdoors somewhere, with a woman, good-looking woman. Talking to them just for a minute, just to introduce myself, like I’ve been doing all week.”

  “And he looked like the poster,” the inspector suggested.

  “Not exactly,” Mulcany said. “It could have been, or maybe not. But it was close enough, I thought I should report it.”

  Gwen said, “Mr. Mulcany, would you come over here?”

  Curious, Mulcany and the others followed her into the side office, where the artist was still touching up the new drawing. Stepping to one side, Gwen gestured at the picture. The artist looked up, saw all the attention, and cleared out of the way.

  Mulcany crossed to the desk, looked down at the drawing, and said, “Oh!”

  Gwen said, “Oh?”

  “That’s him!” Delighted, Mulcany stared around at the others. “That’s what he looks like!”

  3

  Nelson McWhitney liked his bar so much that, if the damn thing would only turn some kind of profit, he might just stay there all the time and retire from his activities in that other life. His customers in the bar were more settled, less sudden, than the people he worked with in that other sphere. His apartment behind the place was small but comfortable, and the neighborhood was working-class and safe, the kind of people who didn’t have much of anything but just naturally watched one another’s backs. About the only way anybody could get hurt really badly around here was by winning the lottery, which occasionally happened to some poor bastard, who was usually, a year later, either dead or in jail or rehab or exile. McWhitney did not play the lottery.

  McWhitney did, however, sometimes play an even more dangerous game, and he was planning a round of it just now. When he got out of bed Saturday morning, he had two appointments ahead of him, both connected to that game. The second one, at eleven this morning, was a three-block walk from here to pick up the truck he’d bought yesterday, which would have the Holy Redeemer Choir name painted on the doors by then, and be ready for the drive north. And the first, at ten, was with a fellow he knew from that other world, named Oscar Sidd.

  Because of the meeting with Oscar Sidd, McWhitney had only one beer with the eggs and fried potatoes he made in his little kitchen at the rear of the apartment before going out front to the bar, where he put a few small bills in the cash register to start the day.

  He had the Daily News delivered, every morning pushed through the large letter slot in the bar’s front door, so he sat at the bar and read a while, digesting his breakfast. He had some tricky moments coming, but he was calm about it.

  Oscar Sidd was a frugal man; at exactly ten o’clock, wasting no time, he gave two hard raps to the glass of the front door, wasting no energy. A dark green shade was lowered over that glass, but this would be Oscar.

  It was. A bony man a few inches over six feet, he wore narrow clothing that tended to be just a little too short for him. He came in now wearing a black topcoat that stopped above his knees with sleeves that stopped above the sleeves of his dark brown sport coat, which stopped above his bony wrists, and black pants that stopped far enough above his black shoes to show dark blue socks.

  “Good morning, Nels,” he said, and stepped to the side so McWhitney could shut the door.

  “You okay, Oscar?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “You want a beer?”

  “I think not,” Oscar said. “You go ahead, I’ll join you with a seltzer.”

  “I’ll join us both with a seltzer,” McWhitney said, and gestured at the nearest booth. “Sit down, I’ll get them.” He wouldn’t be introducing Oscar Sidd to his private quarters in back.

  Oscar slid into the booth, facing the closed front door, opening his topcoat as McWhitney went behind the bar to fill two glasses with seltzer and ice and bring them around the end of the bar on a tray. He dealt the glasses, put the tray back on the bar, sat across from Oscar, and said, “How goes it?”

  “Colder this morning,” Oscar said. He didn’t touch his glass, but watched McWhitney solemnly.

  “You keep up with the news, Oscar,” McWhitney suggested.

  “If it’s interesting.”

  “That big bank robbery up in Massachusetts last week.”

  “Armored car, you mean.”

  McWhitney grinned. “You’re right, I do. You noticed that.”

  “It was interesting,” Oscar said. “One of them got picked up, I believe.”

  “And then lost again.”

  Oscar’s smile, when he showed it, was thin. “Hard to get reliable help,” he said.

  McWhitney said, “Did you notice how it was they got onto him?”

  “The bank’s money is poisoned, I believe,” Oscar said. “Traceable. It can’t be used.”

  “Well, not in this country,” McWhitney agreed.

  Oscar gave him a keen look. “I begin to see why we’re talking.”

  McWhitney, having nothing to say, sipped his seltzer.

  Oscar said, “You are suggesting you might have access to that poisoned cash.”

  “And I know,” McWhitney said, “you do some dealings with money overseas.”

  “Money for weapons,” Oscar said, and shrugged. “I am a . . . junior partner in a business trading weaponry.”

  “What I’m interested in,”
McWhitney said, “is money for money. If I could get that poisoned cash out of the States, what percentage do you think I could sell it for?”

  “Oh, not much,” Oscar said. “I’m not sure it would be worth it, all that trouble.”

  “Well, what percent do you think? Ten?”

  “I doubt it.” Oscar shrugged. “Most of the profit would go in tips,” he said. “To import officials, shipping company employees, warehousemen. You start playing with those people, Nels, many many hands are out.”

  “It’s an awful lot of money, Oscar,” McWhitney said.

  “It would very quickly shrink,” Oscar said, and shrugged. “But since it’s there,” he went on, “and since you do have access to it, and since we are old friends”—which was not strictly speaking true—“it is possible we could work something out.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Oscar looked around at the dark wood bar. “Do you have this money with you now?”

  “No, I’m on my way to get it.”

  “The police theory,” Oscar said, “according to the television news, is that the thieves hid their loot somewhere near the site of the robbery.”

  “The police theory,” McWhitney said, “is, you might say, on the money.”

  “But you believe,” Oscar said, “you could now go to this area and retrieve the cash and bring it safely home.”

  “That’s the idea,” McWhitney said.

  “And are you alone in this endeavor?”

  “Well,” McWhitney said, “that’s the complication. There’s other people involved.”

  “Other people,” Oscar agreed, “do tend to be a complication. In fact, Nels, if I may offer you some advice . . .”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Leave the money there,” Oscar said. “The little profit you’d realize from an offshore trade becomes ridiculous if you have to share it with others.”

  “I may not have to share it,” McWhitney said.

  Oscar’s thin face looked both amused and disapproving. “Oh, Nels,” he said. “And do you suppose your partners have similar thoughts?”

  McWhitney shook his head, frowning for a stressful instant at the scarred wood tabletop. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Could be. I don’t know.”