by Noah Boyd
AS SOON AS VAIL walked into the lobby of his hotel, two agents he recognized from the office came up and announced with forced authority, “The SAC wants to see you.”
Vail laughed. “You do know that I no longer work for the FBI?”
“He still wants to see you,” one of them said nervously.
“How long have you been waiting here?”
“A couple of hours.”
“Then the SAC can wait a little longer. I’m going up to shower and change clothes. You can come up and make sure I don’t escape, or you can wait in the bar.”
The two agents looked at each other, not sure what to do. Vail turned to go. “While you two figure it out, I’ll be in my room.”
They hurried after him.
When they got to the FBI office, the agents took him directly to the SAC’s office and waited inside the doorway like guards. Mark Hildebrand was sitting at a small conference table at one end of the room. Seated across from him were a couple of older agents who Vail assumed were supervisors. “Steve, have a seat,” Hildebrand offered. Vail sat down. “Coffee?”
“Half a cup. I’m not going to be here that long.”
One of the agents who had escorted him from the hotel filled a mug and brought it over. “We need to get a statement from you as to exactly what happened last night.”
He took a sip. “Why?”
“Because this is an FBI investigation, and we don’t know what happened.”
“Normally I wouldn’t interrupt a ruse as clever as this, but I’ve had very little sleep. So if I fast-forward this a bit you’ll have to excuse me. Kaulcrick isn’t here, so I’m supposed to assume that you no longer have any loyalty to him or interest in your own career? You’re asking for my statement about what happened last night. That isn’t what this is about. You don’t have a clue where the money is.” Vail searched the faces around the table. “No, there’s something else. You think I found something last night, and I’m keeping it from you. That’s it, isn’t it?” He looked around the table again. One of the supervisors diverted his eyes, confirming Vail’s suspicions.
“Steve, try to look at it from our side. We have to consider the possibility that you might have found something.”
“Where are Kaulcrick and Kate?”
“Kate’s in her office.”
Vail waited a few seconds. “Since you’re not saying where Kaulcrick is, I’ll have to assume…he’s searching my room, isn’t he?”
Hildebrand’s face reddened. “We have a warrant.”
Vail roared with laughter. “When I was first an agent, I used to wonder if there was someone in a secret room watching everyone in the office who would feed management the answers to make sure that they got everything completely wrong. There had to be because how else could you guys get everything perfectly backward?” He looked around at the walls. “Come on, you can tell me, where are the cameras?”
“Would you be willing to take a polygraph to clear yourself?”
He smiled. “I’ll be glad to take a polygraph. On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You take one first.”
“Me? About what?”
“Kaulcrick wouldn’t have waited for a warrant to search my room, especially if he knew I wasn’t going to be there. You knew I was with Tye Delson at the hospital. Even though you did a quickie yesterday to lift my handgun, somebody had to go back to my room after the shooting for a little prewarrant reconnaissance. A little light lifting of the pillows to look for large chunks of money. Nothing that I’d notice. Just pass the box on that one question, Mark, and then you can hook me up.”
“So you’re saying no.”
“Sounds like you’re the one saying no.”
“Would you mind waiting out in my secretary’s office.”
“Listen, if you want me to help look for the money, just ask. If not, I need a ride back to my hotel. Please call and ask them to have the courtesy of being out of there by the time I get back.” Hildebrand hesitated for a few seconds, considering the advantage of joining forces with Vail, but knew that Kaulcrick was the surest route back to Washington. There was an old saying among managers: Contacts trump competence. The SAC nodded to the two agents at the door to take him back to the hotel. “Oh, two more things,” Vail said. “First, I assume you’d like to know the identity of the body in the elevator.”
“You know who that is?”
“A federal parolee named Benjamin Lavolet. He had an apartment on Sistine Lane.”
“How do you know that?”
“Actually, Radek told me when he called with the ransom demand.”
“Why would he tell you that?”
“He couldn’t help himself. He was rubbing it in my face how smart he was. Also because, at the time, he knew I couldn’t tell anyone. And he planned to kill me before I had the chance. Which brings me to the second thing, something he was even more proud of. Pendaran is innocent,” Vail lied. “They set him up as a fall guy in case someone saw through their Bertok ruse. Go to Pendaran’s lawyer and offer him an immediate walk if he passes the polygraph. I suspect you’ll have better luck with him than you did with me.”
Vail smiled enigmatically, almost as if to himself. He had bluffed them out of his taking a polygraph because he knew he couldn’t have passed it regarding the whereabouts of the money.
EVERYONE WAS GONE from Vail’s room when he got back. There really wasn’t much they could disrupt. The bed linens had been removed and were piled on a chair. A copy of the search warrant lay in the middle of the mattress. He checked the return: nothing had been taken as evidence.
He pulled a sheet off the chair and arranged it across the bed. He considered sleeping for a couple of hours, but knew he wouldn’t be able to. It was true what Kaulcrick had said, that he would have little success finding the money without the Bureau’s resources, but he had something none of them did. There was a good chance that the answer to everything was in his pocket. He pulled out the ring of keys he had taken off Radek’s body. “That’s the sound of freedom,” he had told Tye. Since the handcuff key was not among them, it had to be his freedom he was referring to—the money. And an assistant director of the FBI had told Vail that if he found it, he could keep it. Had he done three million dollars’ worth of work for the FBI? Everything considered—he just may have.
One of the keys, cut on a manufacturer’s blank, was for a car. There was only one place Radek’s car could be.
AS VAIL PULLED UP to the Lindbergh Hotel, he let what had happened there the night before replay itself. All the little details that still didn’t make sense kept forcing their way into his thoughts.
He still had the bartender’s master key, which no one had thought to ask for. He let himself into the building and found the door to 3C sealed with plastic ribbon and an FBI document affixed to it warning that the premises were officially under the jurisdiction of the FBI and any entry would constitute a federal offense punishable by five years in prison and/or a twenty-five-thousand-dollar fine. He smiled. If he found the money, he decided he would FedEx the twenty-five thousand dollars to Kaulcrick in the original, recorded hundred-dollar notes. A South American postmark would be the crowning touch.
Vail peered through one of the shotgun holes in the door and then took out Radek’s key ring and compared each to the manager’s master. One of them appeared to be a match. He slid it in the lock and turned the cylinder partially before it seized up as it had the night before. He took a step back and kicked the door open.
A copy of the search warrant had been left on the couch in the small living room, listing everything that was taken. There were more than forty items. He quickly read them, looking for anything that might give a hint as to where Radek’s car might be. “Miscellaneous documents” were listed without any specifics, and inexplicably the handcuff key hadn’t been located. Maybe Radek never had one, which could mean only one thing: he was going to dump Tye’s body still cuffed. Most of the items taken were
clothing from the bedroom closet. No forensic reason existed to confiscate them, but experienced investigators had all sooner or later had a case where, staring at crime-scene photos after the fact, they wished that one small, seemingly insignificant item at the time had been collected. So they took almost everything, whether they could see its potential or not. After all, they knew that Radek wouldn’t be demanding their return. The area rug that Radek had died on had been taken. His handgun, and even Vail’s Bureau shotgun, had been tagged and removed.
The chain and handcuffs were listed, reminding Vail of their purpose. He went into the bedroom and stared at the radiator that Tye had been anchored to. Looking out the window, Vail recognized the downward angle to the building with the extended window casings. It was something he hadn’t taken the time to do the night before, and it now gave him a sense of order. Then he quickly stepped back. Something had unknowingly caught his eye when he came into the room but was just now registering.
It was the radiator. He stepped back another couple of feet and examined its symmetry. Squatting down, he looked at it from a more direct angle. The small domed cap that housed the steam valve had been painted many times over the years. At the cylindrical valve’s base, Vail could see a couple of brass threads. The cap had been put back on crookedly and twisted, cross-threading it.
Vail wrenched it off. When he saw what was inside, he collapsed onto the bed. His thoughts raced backward through the entire investigation, through every turn and dead end, ticking off every little inconsistency that, unknown to him, his mind had been collecting.
Everything now made sense.
As he walked back down the stairs, Vail checked his watch. It was almost noon and there was moderate foot traffic along the street. Because of the limited parking in the neighborhood, he had parked illegally directly in front of the hotel. He examined the car key on the ring he had taken from Radek’s pocket. It was for a Chrysler product, the older type key without lock and trunk buttons.
Since the car had been used to transport a kidnap victim to the hotel, logically it wouldn’t be parked far away. For the next half hour he searched the surrounding blocks. He found only one older Chrysler. As discreetly as possible he tried the key in the door lock but it didn’t fit. A closer inspection of the key revealed that none of the plating had been worn away, indicating it was new. As deceptive as Radek had been, Vail wondered if he hadn’t had another manufacturer’s key duplicated onto a Chrysler blank. If so, it most likely would still have been for an older car.
He started back toward the hotel looking for any vehicle that the key might fit. At the end of the block was an overnight parking zone. As Vail approached it, he spotted an older Chevy sedan. On the windshield was a parking ticket suggesting it might have been parked there since the night before. To avoid suspicion, he stabbed the key into the lock as if he had done it countless times before. It turned in the lock. Pulling the ticket from under the windshield wiper, Vail got in. The interior had the odor of air freshener, the kind sprayed at a full-service car wash. It smelled the same as Radek’s stolen Honda had, minus the gasoline odor.
He didn’t think Radek would chance leaving three million dollars in the trunk of a car parked on the street, but stranger things had happened. As much as Vail wanted to look in the trunk, he knew that this was not the place. He was unarmed and had no idea who might be around. He put the key in the ignition and started the car. The glove compartment was empty. Between the two front seats was a deep console storage compartment. The only object it contained was a garage door opener. Feeling around inside, he found some kind of matting covering the bottom, but it was cut a little too large and bunched at the edges, suggesting the manufacturer had not put it there. He pulled it back and underneath was a California driver’s license in the name of Terry A. Frost. The address listed was in Inglewood.
The man in the photo was Victor Radek.
THIRTY-FOUR
THE INGLEWOOD ADDRESS TURNED OUT TO BE A MODEST RANCH IN A neighborhood of similarly unpretentious homes. Other than the residence’s grass being a little more brown than green, the lawn and the few shrubs edging it were recently and precisely trimmed. It had an attached one-car garage. After using the door opener, Vail drove into the uncluttered garage, pushing the button again to close it.
He got out and opened the trunk. Inside were two large suitcases that looked new. He opened one and found it was empty. He took it out and placed it on the floor. As soon as he hefted the second bag he knew it was also empty. The only other items in the trunk were the spare and a pair of jumper cables. “That would have been a little too easy, wouldn’t it, Vic?” he said out loud. He took a closer look at the suitcases and estimated that they were large enough to carry the entire five million dollars. Vail tossed the bags back into the trunk and closed it.
Of the remaining four keys only one appeared to be a house key. It opened the door leading from the garage. The kitchen was clean and the sink free of dishes. There was a small living room and no dining room. The first bedroom was apparently where Radek slept. The bed was made and everything was put away. In the closet, the little clothing that he had was hung in an orderly row. The bathroom had a tub shower. Vail searched the medicine cabinet for multiple residents. There was only enough inside to indicate a single male occupant.
The other bedroom had been turned into an office. A secondhand metal desk sat beneath a small shaded window. The top right-hand drawer of the desk was locked. There were two keys on Radek’s ring that were not house or car keys. The first one he tried opened the drawer. The only thing inside was a round plastic object that appeared to be an old distributor cap. It had been wiped down but engine grease and grime were still embedded in its recesses. He searched the rest of the drawers and, other than some cheap pens and a pad of paper, found nothing.
He turned on the desk light and held the plastic cap up against it, turning it slowly. It looked clunky, old clunky, made when things were built to last. Inside was a series of numbers stamped into it. He set it down on the desk and stared at it. Did it have any significance, or was it simply a new level of Radek’s red herrings? After all, he had already used a key to mislead the FBI. Was he taking it one step further by adding some mundane object and locking it away as though it were an extortionist’s Rosetta stone?
On the ring there were still two unidentified keys. One was cut on a generic blank and from its length and shape was most probably for a car. The other was short with a cylindrical hole in the head that fit over a pin in the center of a lock. If the long one was for a car, maybe it was the same vehicle that the distributor cap fit. There couldn’t be any more than a million cars in the Greater Los Angeles area. That sounded like a typical piece of Radek misdirection, so why not? But why a distributor cap? The car key was certainly enough. Vail ordered himself to complete the search of the house before wasting any more time with pointless theories.
When he had driven up to the house, he noticed that the roof was so flat that any space between the roof and the first-floor ceiling would be too small to allow someone to crawl through. That left the basement. Back in the kitchen he found a door leading downstairs. He flipped on the light switch and walked down.
At one end was a furnace and hot water heater partitioned off. At the opposite end was a fairly elaborate collection of weight-lifting equipment: dumbbells, bars, plates, and a bench similar to the ones at the steam cleaners where Radek had stored the two million dollars. The walls were painted concrete, eliminating the possibility of false compartments. The ceiling was unfinished, exposing the joists supporting the first floor. Unlike the cleaners, there was nothing covering the concrete floor where the weights were sitting.
Returning to the bedroom, Vail picked up the distributor cap and again considered its possible significance. He also had an unidentified car key. At this point he had no choice but to assume that the two items were connected to the money. He went to the kitchen and called the FBI office, asking for Tom Demick.
&n
bsp; “Steve, I was sorry to hear about what happened. Nobody around here can believe they let you go.”
“Tom, I need one last favor.”
“Just promise me it’ll make Kaulcrick look like an idiot.”
“I don’t think you can improve on perfection,” Vail said. “Can you get the radio room to run a Terry A. Frost for all vehicles?”
“Hold on.” Vail heard him get up and go to another phone. Hopefully there would be more than the Chevrolet registered to Radek under his alias. If so, it might reveal the make and model of the car that the key and distributor cap fit. Demick came back on the line. “Just one car, Steve. A Chevy Caprice. Do you want the plate and VIN?”
“No, Tom, that’s not the one I’m looking for. Thanks for the help. All your help.”
“It’s been a pleasure.”
In the cabinet over the phone, Vail found the Yellow Pages and looked up auto parts stores. There were several, so he decided to take the book. The closest one was less than half a mile away. It was a national chain and the counterman was young. He looked at the distributor cap briefly before asking, “What kind of car is it for?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. There are some numbers stamped on the inside.”
The door opened and another customer came in. “Sorry, I got no way to look them up on something that old,” the employee said, and then to the man behind Vail asked, “Can I help you?”
The next store, another national chain, met with almost identical results. Vail scanned the Yellow Pages looking for a smaller store. He found one that was about a forty-five-minute drive away, which advertised “in business for four decades.” When he walked in, the counterman, in his mid-sixties, was reading a newspaper. His greeting was an unhurried “hi.”
Vail said, “Are you the owner?”
