“James is quite dark,” Richards said. “He’s six-three, goes about two-ten, two-twenty. Supposedly very handsome, and not stupid, either. Apparently had some difficulty, though, deciding just exactly what the hell he was. Collegiate prep school in New York. Pretty good athlete, pretty good student, but never really distinguished himself, either line of work. Kind of kid everybody looks at and they’re so impressed maybe their expectations for him’re just impossible. So they’re always just the littlest bit disappointed by what turns out.
“Anyway,” Richards said, “James went to Columbia College for two years, starting in Sixty-two. Did indifferently. Dropped out. Bummed around, apparently, until Sixty-five, when he turns up on the coast. How he did that, without getting drafted, nobody seems to know. Establishes residence and then applies to San José State, where he graduates in Sixty-seven, degree in mathematics. Heads for Berkeley where he gets into the graduate program for high school math teachers. Fiddles and diddles around, just scraping by on his grades, getting involved in all the demonstrations and stuff, probably doing some drugs. Getting laid a lot. And that’s where he is when Sam Tibbetts arrives the next year. A natural follower, looking for a natural leader. Natural second-in-command, who has found his commander.
“Now,” Richards said, “there are at least two, perhaps three, other white males about the same age as these two monkeys that’ve been involved with them in the past. One of them’s a kid whose last name’s Mackenzie, we think. Reports we’ve got of some disturbances Sam and James were involved in on the campus at San José State have this kid named Mackenzie, Glenn Mackenzie, supposedly from Boston, listed on the arrest forms. But somehow the little bastard, if he’s ever had his prints taken, they don’t show up. Didn’t register the draft, I assume — we’re checking that as well. And when he was arrested, he wasn’t carrying any ID. So all we really know’s that a kid with blond hair and kind of a scraggliassed beard was seen and arrested with Sam Tibbetts and James Walker at San José in May of Nineteen-sixty-nine. And that he jumped bail. And we also know, as I say, that there’s at least one and maybe two other white males whose names we do not know.
“Then we got the broads,” Richards said. “I’m expecting verification that their names are Jill Franklin and Kathie Fentress. When I get it, I’ll go to work on them. It is possible there’s another one, name of Andrea Simone. And we understand there’s one, name of Emma Handley, same status as far as we’re concerned. We’re working on them.
“The problem we’ve got here,” Richards said, “well, there’s several of them. Inna first place, these folks’re cute. Banks have cameras inside. No cameras outside. Your normal bank robber goes in and either has his picture taken with a mask or without one, and we’ve got something to go on. But these people stay outside, so the only way we can get descriptions of them’s by talking to civilians that were terrified, and guards scared out of their wits, as to what the bastards look like. So we’re always piecing things together, never sure we’ve got them right.
“Then there’s the other problem. None of the regular people we’ve got who hear things hears things about this group. They’re not part of the underworld network. They’re hermetically sealed off. They’re ideologues. We think they’re common criminals, but they think they’re revolutionaries. We can’t nail down locations. The only thing we ever get is old, stale news about where they used to be, some time ago. Not where they might be now. It’s damned hard work, I can tell you. Very frustrating. It’s taken us four years to get even this far. We’ve made some progress, sure, but it’s awful time consuming. That’s what the problem is, and that’s why your man’s lying in the hospital today.”
Mackiewicz cleared his throat. “How can we help?” he said.
Foster cut in. “Let me see if I can expedite things,” he said. “Our three companies have discussed, and we’re prepared to offer, a reward in the total amount of fifty thousand dollars to the person or persons coming forward with information leading to the arrest and conviction of these bandits. You think that might help?”
“It’s worth a try,” Richards said. “It certainly won’t hurt. These buggers’re crafty, but they’ve also been lucky. Could be one of the rascals that was in one stick-up but not the others might get talkative for that. Maybe there’s one of them, feels left out. Might like some revenge. Especially if he got paid. These’re not professionals. Not all of them, at least. They don’t understand the rules. It could help a lot.”
“All right,” Foster said, “then we’ll do that.” He glanced at Green and Boyd. “When we came in here today, what I hoped to do was have the Attorney General announce the reward offer.” He looked at Keane. “Now I feel differently,” he said. “Those punks nearly killed one of our men and stole four hundred thirty-eight thousand dollars from our truck last Thursday in the South Shore Plaza. Since Mister Mahoney can’t be here today, and Mister Osgood isn’t, and they’re the other DAs whose jurisdictions are involved, I’d like you, Mister Keane, to announce this reward tonight.”
Keane looked worried. “Graham,” he said, “look. I’d like to do it. But a day won’t make any difference, will it? Don’t you think it might make more sense to wait until I can round up Dave and Peter, and have a joint appearance?”
“In other words,” Foster said, “you’re afraid your colleagues’ll think you’re grandstanding.”
Richards was watching Green and Boyd. Green was frowning, turning a pencil end for end, over and over, on the table top. Boyd’s face was set. “Andy,” Richards said, “you’ve been awful quiet. Let’s have some input from you here, you and Paul as well. How would you rate the chances that when Colin gets back from his ceremony and finds out about this, he’ll call a press conference this very afternoon to announce this big reward? You wanna tell me that?”
Boyd looked at Green and grinned. “Couldn’t speculate, John,” he said. “You wanna take a shot, Paul? Tell him what you think?”
Green stared at Foster. “Everything you got today came from John Richards,” he said. “John Richards works for the AG, coordinating this investigation. If Mister Keane, Mister Osgood or Mister Mahoney with their investigators or local police, if one of them cracks one of these things, Mister Reese will not interfere with that prosecution. But if Lieutenant Richards puts it together before any of them does, then Mister Reese’s office will prosecute.”
Foster cleared his throat. “You understand that, John?” he said.
“Certainly do,” Richards said. “What Paul means is that if your companies want maximum exposure of your good news to your employees, and the families of employees, you’d better stand up beside Colin Reese on tonight’s news. And if you don’t want that, I do, because Colin gets coverage. The more drifters, longhairs, and other bums that get a chance to hear what he’s got to say, the better the chances something will come out of it.”
Foster looked at Green and Boyd. “Makes sense,” he said with distaste. “When’ll the bastard be back?”
Green looked at his watch. “I told the media this morning,” he said, “we might have a thirty-second bite for them at four. If you can wait until then, I think he will be back.”
SEPTEMBER 19, 1974
4
In the early morning, Lawrence Badger in a dark blue suit nipped at the waist was escorted by a captain in the bar of Boston’s Ritz Carlton Hotel to Florence Walker’s table at the southwest corner window. She had a martini and small carafe in front of her, and was nibbling salted peanuts. She stood up, smoothing the rose silk of her dress over her hips, and offered her cheek for his kiss. He sat down, glancing at the captain and nodding toward her drink. The captain went away.
“I rapped at you on the window,” she said. “I forget about the dark glass — some see out but none sees in.”
He smiled. “And no one sees through clearly,” he said. “How’ve you been keeping, lady?”
She shook her head. “Fairness is lacking,” she said. “I suppose it’s the sins of my sc
arlet past, but somehow it seems unjust to me that the older I become, the more problems I seem to have.”
“You and time,” he said. “You remind me sometimes of Alton. When he was a little boy, and used to visit me, every night before bedtime, had to chase the bears away. And I finally said to him: ‘Alton, not to make fun of your game. But there aren’t any bears in here, you know. Never have been, never will. Is it really necessary for me to get under the bed and shine a light like this? We’ve never found a single bear, and I’m getting old, you know.’ And he said: ‘That’s why we haven’t, Uncle Larry — they know we’re watching out.’ And that’s how you are with the ravages of the years — you think if you talk about them all the time, none will ever come.”
She smiled. “Your hair seems darker than I recalled it,” she said. “And I notice you’re thinner, as well.”
He returned her smile. “Well,” he said, “each of us deals in our own way with time. And I must say, on what I see, your methods seem to work well. You look all right to me.”
“Well, I don’t feel right,” she said. “I do not feel right at all.” A waiter delivered a second martini and poured it from the carafe. She pushed the peanuts away from her. “I don’t know why I eat these things,” she said. “Take them away from me.”
Badger put the nut dish on the window ledge. He sipped his drink. “All right, tell me,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You’re sure?” he said. “Jet lag and all, it won’t bother you?”
She made a dismissive gesture. “Not coming this way,” she said. “I was exhausted, the first day in London,” she said, “but after that I was all right. Of course Clayton’s upstairs, snoring away, else he’d never be able to have dinner tonight. But I feel well enough.”
“Maybe I should wait ’till Clayton’s up,” he said. “No use going through all this twice.”
“Larry,” she said, “spare me this elaborate charade of including Clayton in on everything. Why do you think I asked you for drinks? So he wouldn’t be here, of course. You tell me what you’ve got to tell me. I’ll decide what Clayton needs.”
“He’s well?” Badger said.
“Clayton’s Clayton,” she said. “He had a lovely time for himself, posturing and prancing all over London, half the English doctors fawning on him, half the Americans looking pained. Claire and Neville came up from Ipswich, and of course we had a lovely time with them, and then Carl Oates, whom I cannot stand, came through with this year’s bride, and so of course they joined the group.”
“Which one is this?” Badger said. “I think I’ve lost track.”
“Yes,” she said, “well, easy to remember — you’ve had two, so double that. And if you don’t hear from Carl for another year, well then, triple it. That’s how you can keep track. If only they didn’t keep getting younger. This one can’t be more than twenty-five. I’m sure she’s a perfectly delightful child, but my goodness, when she joins the ladies we just have an awful time. She must be younger than his son. Surely he wouldn’t bring Tom along, and expect him to join Clayton and Neville for cigars. It really isn’t fair, not to her or us.”
“I heard he and Tom were at odds,” Badger said.
“ ‘Odds’?” she said. “ ‘Odds’? They were at daggers’ points. We saw Carl in Paris last year — he was on his way to cover something at Geneva, or he’d just come back, or something — and so of course nothing else would do but that we get together at the Lipp for dinner, and Carl and Clayton got positively stinking drunk, as they always do, and they went through all that boring rot you people like to do about the good old days of war, brave comrades in arms, and then when that was finished, Carl … well, Clayton said something, I don’t know what it really was, and somehow Tom’s name came up. And I gather, well, apparently Tom’d still not made his peace with his father about their views on Vietnam. And Carl was perfectly awful. Yelling and screaming about this cowardly son he’d had, ‘never speak to him again,’ all that sort of thing. Although from what I could gather, it did seem to me that Carl’s anger was more that Tom’d contradicted on his show what Carl’d been saying on his show — that it was more one of those old-stag, young-stag battles than what Carl made it out to be. Which was patriotism. So, when we got to London, naturally I saw Claire, and asked her, and she said he’d been the same way, out in San Francisco when the orchestra was there. So, yes, they had a falling-out all right. But that at least didn’t come up, at least not this time. This time it was just Carl and his fresh wife, and the other four of us.”
“You and Claire had time to talk?” Badger said.
“We were hampered by the showgirl,” Walker said, “but yes, we did find time.”
“Because I wasn’t sure how to reach you,” he said, “and not wanting to take chances, I thought the best thing to do was just brief Claire enough so she could alert you, and see you when you got back.”
“Yes,” Walker said. “Well, that was nice, and right, of you. It’s the police, I take it? They’re finally after James?”
“Put it this way,” Badger said, “if they’re not today, if they weren’t when I briefed Claire, then they will be very shortly.”
She grimaced. “I’ve been expecting this, of course,” she said. “But it doesn’t make it easy, just the same.”
He looked worried. “You understand,” he said, “it wasn’t anything we volunteered. Anything like that. That we have to cooperate with the cops.”
“I know that,” she said. “Up to a point, at least.”
“Up to a point,” he said. “Which point they haven’t reached, as yet, so we’re cooperating.”
“But you’re still free to talk to me,” she said. “You can still tell me.”
“Up to a point,” Badger said, “up to a point, I can. And I can certainly tell you things that I might not tell them. Nothing that will hinder them — that’s too dangerous. But things that wouldn’t help them, really, that might be embarrassing? Those I hold back, best I can.”
“Like what?” she said.
“Well,” he said, sipping again, “like the Ensemble. The minute that my friend the cop opened up his mouth, I could see it hanging there like that old blue banner with the gold Neville used to cart around. So I told Alton, when he was making his runs, to purge any files he got. Keep the Ensemble out.”
“I don’t see,” she said, “I don’t see what the Ensemble’s got to do with anything. It was years ago when Sam played, and James never did. I don’t see it in there.”
“I don’t either, “Badger said. “That’s just what I meant. Lieutenant Richards is looking for some armored-car robbers.”
“One of whom is James,” she said.
“That’s right, and one is Sam,” he said, “but they don’t know where they are. They will, of course. Depend on that. John Richards will find out, just as he should do. That we cannot prevent.”
“But still,” she said, “the Ensemble — how are they related? I mean, by now I’m certainly resigned to it, what James has been doing. And if he’s caught, well, then he’s caught. Nothing I can do.”
“Christina,” Badger said. “We cleansed the Ensemble Year from Sam’s profile. It reeks of CIA. We hadn’t done that, first thing the cop would want to know is what the hell it was. And if we didn’t tell him, well: A, he’d know we lied; and B, he would find out what it is, because they have computers, too; and C, he would be angry at us, telling misleading stories. Because if he ran the Ensemble through one of his own banks, or perhaps the FBI’s, he would get Christina’s name, and start tracking her at once, see if she’d lead him to Sam. And also to dear James, of course — let’s not forget him. And how far would they have to look? Right in their own back yard. You’d have more cops cruising around the Conservatory than patrol the Combat Zone.
“Now,” he said, “now that she’s back in school, finally, and may be getting straightened out, I assume that you and Clayton, that you’d probably prefer that she was not disturbed.”
Walker shuddered. She drank some of her martini. “Absolutely,” she said. “If we can at least salvage Christina out of this horrible mess, well, that would be something. Something more than I feared we had — a total disaster.”
“Well,” he said, “that was my theory, and that’s why I did that. Let the cops find them — sure, of course, but keep her out of it.”
“Then you don’t think,” she said, “you don’t think she was mixed up? In spite of James and Sam?”
He shook his head. “I can’t say that,” he said. “I think she was, if we still deal in facts, as we have these many years. Question’s whether they can prove it. That I tend to doubt. Nothing in the descriptions I saw puts her on the scenes. But: did she know? Was she around? You bet your life she was. Her brother and her boyfriend, but she stayed innocent? She would’ve had to be, to be in on it. I don’t think the cops’ll chase her, unless they decide she’s bait. I do think they’ll decide she’s bait, though, if they do find out.”
Walker shivered. “We’ve got a lot to answer for,” she said. “What we’ve done to our kids.”
“Oh,” he said. “I don’t know about that. We had good intentions. Happens Alton’s turned out well. So have most of them. ’S too bad that one who didn’t was your James, and also Sam.”
“I was to blame for that,” she said. “I was to blame for James, and then I was to blame for just sitting idly by, while he took up with Sam.”
Outlaws (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Page 4
