The Liar

by Steve Cavanagh

  “It’s safer, for everyone, if you’re not involved in the drop,” said Lynch.

  “I think what Mr Howell means is that he’s agreeable to this happening if I accompany the ransom money to the drop and I ensure that it’s in my sight until the exchange. That fair enough with you, Special Agent Lynch?” I said.

  Howell’s hand locked around the grip of the pistol sitting at his back. Across the table, McAuley dragged the left lapel of his jacket to one side, exposing the butt of a handgun in a shoulder holster.

  The gun at McAuley’s side was a silent question for Howell. Do we take the money now by force?

  Decisions like this cost lives.

  I gently, but firmly drew Howell’s fingers away. I silently mouthed the words, trust me.

  Lynch extended the handle on the case. The chain was maybe a foot long, so Lynch couldn’t fully extend the handle. He collapsed it, took hold of the leather grip attached to the body of the case and picked it up.

  “I’ve no objection. But Mr Flynn will have to ride with us and, of course, once we’re inside the rail station he can’t be with me – it’s a single man drop. Those are the kidnapper’s terms,” said Lynch.

  “That’s up to you, Agent Lynch,” said Valter, handing him the key to the cuffs. I watched Lynch take the keys with his right hand and place them into his pants pocket.

  “Again, I’m sorry,” said Valter to Howell.

  Howell didn’t shake Valter’s hand. I doubt he even saw the Swede extend the courtesy. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. Valter gathered the signed papers together, folded them and placed them in the pocket of the iPad cover and made for the door.

  “I’ll wait in the corridor,” said Lynch.

  He left along with Valter, and they shut the study door behind them.

  “We’re screwed,” said McAuley, in a wet hiss.

  “No we’re not,” I said.

  Both men stared at me like I was dumb. I couldn’t blame them. My father had taught me how to be a cannon: how to pick a wallet, or dip for a purse in a bag and more besides. With practice I’d gotten pretty good and my father guessed that I had a natural talent for it. He called it the touch. Said it was the same kind of thing that great golfers, or great pool players, or great magicians had too – they all had smart hands. It was a deftness; a light, sure, blindingly fast movement that can’t really be learned. You’re born with it, and you nurture that talent to get the best out of it. With practice, you get the synapses firing faster, the muscles grow memory and become stronger, and the technique, the speed and form improve.

  At one time my father told me he thought I was one of the best pickpockets he’d ever seen. I was older now, and I guessed I was also a lot slower than I’d been at thirteen or fourteen when I had practiced every day.

  I wondered how any of that would help me now. Picking a wallet out of somebody’s jacket without them noticing was one thing, but switching a briefcase with another that’s handcuffed to a federal agent?

  Well, that’s something else.

  “What’s your cell number, Leonard?”

  He looked at his phone and said, “I’ll send you the contact.”

  “Don’t bother – just tell me the number. I’ll remember,” I said.

  He rhymed off his cell phone number.

  “Don’t you want to key my number into your phone?” he said.

  “No need. I’ve already memorized it. I’ll call you from the fed’s car. Follow me.”

  “What are you going to do?” said McAuley.

  I picked up the briefcase from beneath the desk and said, “I’m going to get your ten million.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lynch was as good as his word. He’d waited for me in the corridor outside Howell’s study. He held the briefcase in his left hand. His eyes met the case in my hand, but only for a moment.

  “Ready?” he said.

  I didn’t answer at first. My mind was running all kinds of calculations. I guessed there was around a hundred and twenty feet of carpet and marble tile between us and the front door. Add another forty feet from the front door to the car. The average person walks at five feet per second. That gave me thirty two seconds to get the key to the cuffs from Lynch before we got into the car. Once we were in that vehicle I wouldn’t have a hope of taking the key.

  The FBI man started walking.

  I started counting.

  The corridor was by no means narrow, but it wasn’t wide enough for two men carrying bulky cases to walk side by side without having to occasionally fall back and step to the side to avoid knocking over a table or vase in the hall.

  We got to the lounge fast.

  Twenty-six seconds left on the clock.

  Lynch stayed ahead of me even though I picked up my pace. He nodded to Agent Washington who sat in the kitchen off the lounge. He was sending a text on his cell phone. He put the phone away and put on his jacket. It was time to get moving.

  Twenty-three seconds.

  At the alcove that led into the lounge, I drew level with Lynch and walked on his right-hand side. The chain on the cuffs beat out a dull rattle against the leather case. The sound of the chain on the case matched the rhythm of Lynch’s feet.

  Eighteen seconds.

  I listened harder as we walked. Far as I could tell, Lynch didn’t have change in his pocket. At least that was one blessing.

  “Is your car outside?” I said.

  He turned to the right, then looked ahead and said, “Should be. Let me just check.”

  The pace slowed as he raised his left arm instinctively to reach for his cell, and remembered that his wrist was chained to a heavy case. The two million in my case wasn’t light either. He reached his right hand inside the right side of his suit jacket. It was an unnatural reach. One which caused him to slow and twist his torso slightly. I stepped in and my right made a sweep for his pocket, but I couldn’t get my hand inside. Not with him walking. Fortunately I’d been light enough in the attempted dip for him not to notice.

  Fifteen seconds.

  He made a call.

  “We’re coming out,” he said.

  Turning into the entrance hall I heard the engine from a large sedan outside. Even with the front door closed I could hear the rumble of the tires on the gravel and the low muttering from a three-and-a-half liter V6.

  Nine seconds.

  I fell back to let Lynch get ahead. Suddenly I was conscious of someone behind me. I turned around and saw Howell and McAuley bringing up the rear. They’d stopped to talk to Washington, distracting him for the final few seconds. Even though I turned, I didn’t stop walking.

  “Are you going to follow us to the drop point, Mr Howell?” I said, walking straight into Lynch. My case hit him in the back of the knees and I saw his head bump the door.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Agent Lynch. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “It’s fine,” said Lynch, through gritted teeth. “Doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re not coming into the rail station,” he said, opening the front door.

  I remained in the entrance hall and watched him make his way to the car. I needed to see which door he was going to use to get into the Ford. With a case in your left hand, a sensible person would get into the rear passenger side of the car so they could set the case in the middle of the seat, instead of the driver’s side, which would mean having the case between them and the car door.

  I was right. Lynch entered via the rear passenger-side door. There was one other cop car behind Lynch’s vehicle. And I saw Marlon revving the Lincoln behind the second Ford.

  Susan Howell came out of a side door in the hallway.

  “Goddamn it, Susan,” said Howell, behind me.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, facing the open front door, my back to Howell and McAuley.

  Slowly, I opened my hand, letting Howell and McAuley see the small key that nestled in the cleft of my middle fingers. The pocket dip had been smooth and fast. If he’d only put the key in h
is jacket pocket or hip pocket I wouldn’t have had to hit the damn fool in the back of the knees to distract him. I closed my fist and looked out at my shadow which now covered the lawn, just as Susan Howell’s and Marlon’s had done earlier.

  For some reason the sight of my shadow made me feel uneasy. My eyes closed and I told myself to slow down. I’d crossed the line with this case, early. The image of Caroline Howell was bright and clear in my mind’s eye and I knew it would remain that way for a long time. Doing something illegal, so long as I believed it was right, normally didn’t bother me. This bothered me. If I came out of this in the next ten minutes without being arrested I promised myself I would take a step back for my own good. I needed some distance on this whole thing, especially if I was going to defend Howell.

  “Be ready with your phone. I’ll call you or text when I need you,” I said.

  I enjoyed the sight of my shadow growing smaller and smaller the closer I got to the fed’s car. In the distance I saw a flash in the sky, followed seconds later by the low grumble of thunder. The air was a fever and the storm was about to break it.

  The darkness had a different quality now. Somehow it felt dense and taut. The rear driver’s side door was unlocked and I got into the seat immediately behind the driver. I set the large suitcase in the middle of the seat, on my right. The leather scraped and squealed as it rubbed against the case that Lynch had brought with him.

  I closed the car door and we set off.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was only me, Lynch and the driver in the Ford Taurus. The car was obviously federal law enforcement transport; it smelled of fried food and gun oil – the two basic food groups of the Bureau.

  The driver took us past the house, headed for the single-lane road.

  “You must’ve got a pretty big retainer if you needed a case this size,” said Lynch, his left arm resting on top of his case, tapping the leather with his fingertips.

  “I earn every cent,” I said.

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Soon as the driver turned onto the single lane, I remembered my earlier ride along this road with George and I knew this was my chance. I typed out a text to Howell.

  Call me, right now.

  The Ford lurched forward and back as the front tire hit the first pothole. My cell rang.

  “What do you need?” said Howell.

  I pretended to listen to Howell saying something on the other end of the line. In reality I listened to his breath, fast and full of nervous energy.

  “I’m glad you’re reconsidering attending the drop. I’ll put you on to Agent Lynch so you can discuss it further,” I said, handing my cell to the fed.

  He raised his left hand to take the phone, felt the weight of the cuffs and switched hands. At first, he listened, then began preaching to Howell, telling him why it would be safer for his daughter if he wasn’t there when the exchange went down.

  Rain began to fall, hard, fat and fast. It was a blessing. More lightning, close this time. Thunder too. Lynch looked out of his window and raised his voice so that he could be heard on the phone over the noise of the downpour on the roof.

  With the cases in the back, side by side, separating us, there wasn’t too much room left, so he planted his left arm back on top of the case. He held my cell phone in his right hand. I palmed the key in my right hand and placed it on top of Lynch’s case.

  The second pothole rocked us in the back, rattling the chain on the handcuffs and almost threw the key out of the lock. Lynch was too busy trying to reassure Howell that everything would be fine.

  One more twist and the catch would release.

  I needed to be quick.

  Leaning to my right, I looked out of the windshield. The wipers were a blur and still they only managed to sweep off sheets of water from the windshield for half a second before the glass was filled with rain again. It was like driving through a swimming pool.

  Another blink of brilliant light in the sky. Lightning was getting closer all the time. Up ahead I could see two small lakes had already formed in the largest potholes. The first was forty feet away and its larger twin a good ten feet beyond that.

  We would roll over both of them quickly.

  Lynch’s gaze remained fixed out of the window, his head turned away from me.

  I didn’t have to pretend to be thrown around in the back with the first pothole of the pair – it genuinely hurt and I heard a metallic scrape from the underside of the car hitting part of the road on the way out. At this moment I popped open the cuff that had been attached to the handle of the case. The other end was still safely locked to Lynch’s wrist.

  Gently, slowly, I took the cuff off the handle, holding it open and ready.

  Second pothole – the Grand Canyon – and I felt my whole body pitch forward. The seat belt caught me before I put my face into the seat in front. And at the same time my right hand reached around and tipped the ten million dollar case off the seat, and my left slapped the cuffs on the case beside me.

  The fed didn’t notice. His head had smacked off the window and he’d dropped my phone.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Larry. Slow down – it’s like driving on the surface of the moon around here,” said Lynch, picking my cell phone off the floor.

  “Sorry,” said Larry.

  Between the two of us, we gathered up the ten million dollar case and I set it beside me. I grabbed the handle of the two million dollar case, and shifted it closer to Lynch, making sure he saw my hands touching the cuffs on the handle. I needed an explanation for my fingerprints being on the case and the cuffs.

  “Mind if I talk to my client for a moment?” I said.

  He didn’t object, and told Howell he was passing him back on to his lawyer.

  “Mr Howell,” I said, “I think it’s time to let the professionals do their job. How about you and I sit this one out?”

  “Did you really get it?” said Howell.

  “I think that’s fair to say.”

  I turned around in my seat, looked out the back window and I could see a couple pairs of headlights behind us. One of those cars was Howell’s.

  “Okay, I’ll get out. Come pick me up,” I said.

  The call disconnected.

  “My client wants to see me. Can you pull over?” I said.

  Lynch ordered the driver to pull over beneath an oak tree on the corner of the private road. The rain beat down on the car like machine-gun fire.

  “Do you have a spare umbrella?” I asked.

  A satisfied look appeared on Lynch’s face. “I do, as it happens, but it’s federal property. Sorry,” he said.

  When I opened the door the interior light came on. Before I swung my legs out I turned to Lynch and was about to wish him good luck anyway when I saw something sitting on the passenger seat.

  “Those potholes sure shook a lot of stuff loose,” I said, nodding toward the seat.

  Agent Lynch leaned over the case attached to his wrist, with two million dollars inside, and saw the handcuff key sitting on the seat. I picked it up for him, letting him see me touch the key.

  “Shit!” he said, retrieving the key. “Thank you. If I’d lost that God knows what I would’ve done.”

  “Good luck, Agent Lynch,” I said. I closed the door and ran beneath the tree, almost slipping on the wet grass.

  Even underneath the huge branches of the oak, the short time I stood there was enough to completely soak every item of clothing I wore. My feet were engulfed in water, and rain poured off my head.

  The second FBI car passed me by and I got into another Lincoln, driven by Marlon this time. McAuley sat up front alongside him. I got in the back beside Howell and he took the case from me before I could close the door.

  He popped the catches.

  “Jesus. Ten million. How did you …”

  “I didn’t do anything, Mr Howell, remember?”

  McAuley craned his neck to stare at me, just as Howell did. Both men were appraising me anew.

 
“I can’t even begin to thank—”

  “Then don’t. Drop me off somewhere and go get your daughter.”

  “I can call George to come pick you up and take you back to the house?” said Howell.

  I blew rainwater from my lips. It was running out of my hair, down my face. I really wanted a change of clothes, but I didn’t want to go back to my apartment, and I sure as hell didn’t want to go to Howell’s place. It was a gorgeous house, but the atmosphere was thick with sweat, tension and loss. And I didn’t want any more of that tonight.

  “There’s bound to be a coffee shop or something around here. I can’t sleep until I know you’ve got her, and I don’t want to go home. Let me out at an all-night diner and I’ll dry off, get some coffee and you can call me when it’s over. Then we start negotiating with the feds,” I said.

  “Do you think they’ll negotiate?” said Howell.

  “Lynch won’t want to admit that he lost ten million dollars of ransom money that was handcuffed to his Goddamn wrist. That kind of thing is a career killer. Somehow, this will all work out. Don’t worry, just get her back,” I said.

  “I will. Look, there’s a truck stop just off the freeway. We’ll stop there. It’s on our way,” said Howell.

  I didn’t ask what way he was headed. Part of me wanted to know. Part of me wanted to keep myself out of this. The line I’d crossed was a blur now, and I wanted to begin drawing it again.

  After we left through the security gates of Premier Point, and the photographers got their shots, we found the freeway and Marlon floored it. Howell didn’t say anything more. His eyes seemed lost in total concentration.

  McAuley was punching numbers into the satellite navigation system built into the dash. Before the screen returned to a map of the freeway with a blue arrow for direction, I saw the destination. It was one of those places that you know, that you recognize, even if you’ve never been there.

  The navigation system would bring the car to the gates of Sleepy Hollow cemetery in up-state New York. Travel time to the destination was forty-two minutes.