Walking Money

by James O. Born

  IT had been the best day he’d spent with his kids and former wife since the divorce. Things had been light and easy and the girls giggled nonstop from the first minute he tossed them in the air, through lunch and a long session on the trampoline, which almost cost Tasker his chicken sandwich.

  Playing the girls’ favorite game, super-bounce, Tasker had caught Donna out of the corner of his eye.

  “What are you grinning about?” he asked.

  She talked through her smile in that quiet cracker drawl that she could turn into a laser when provoked. “Just nice to see you and the girls together.”

  “And not feel like killing me?”

  “Yeah, that, too.” The easy shrug with the smile could stop any man.

  He bounced Emily, the younger, to the side, then flopped onto his butt. Scooting to the edge of the trampoline and next to Donna, he said, “Why now?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe knowing you’re in trouble and knowing you’re basically a good guy who doesn’t deserve all that’s happened to you.”

  “Thanks, Donna. You didn’t deserve what happened to me either.”

  She gave him a weak smile this time, then said, “What’s gonna happen? I mean, they’re not saying this was an accident or poor judgment, like the Jack Sandersen incident. They’re calling you a crook.”

  “I know. And they’re way off the mark. The problem is...”

  “What?”

  “There’s a couple of problems and I should be able to work them out.”

  “That sounds like the man I married,” Donna said, reaching a hand behind his neck and planting a long, deep kiss right on his mouth.

  I could get used to this, he thought.

  TASKER’S ride back seemed like a dream. He’d almost forgotten that someone was trying to ruin his life. Now he felt like he had a reason to fight back. He turned into Kendall, feeling almost good. Coming up his street, he was surprised to see Tina Wiggins’s FDLE-issued Monte Carlo in front of his town house. He found her spread out on a lounge chair on his patio, shirt lifted to her midriff and jean shorts rolled high on her perfect, long legs, soaking up the sun.

  She said, “Sorry, didn’t think you’d mind if I made myself comfortable while I waited.”

  “Not at all.” He fumbled with the keys so badly he barely managed to open the door, feeling her smirk behind him as he tried to concentrate. He said without turning his head, “What brings you out this bright afternoon?”

  “Maybe I was lonely. Needed some companionship.”

  “Yeah? That mean you’re convinced I’m not a bank robber?”

  She smiled, following him into the house. “Means I don’t care. Honest cop with a good job. Rich bank robber. Both have their advantages.”

  He looked at her bright face framed in that light brown hair and couldn’t tell whether she was serious or jerking him around. Her look now said something else. This time he was the one who kissed her, only briefly thinking about his kiss with Donna less than two hours earlier. Tina showed no surprise, as she pulled him to her and their lips met. Her hands fell to his butt and squeezed as their kiss became deeper and more involved. He pulled her with him and they tumbled together, still kissing, onto the couch in his living room. He almost thought he’d black out, the feeling was so intense, then Tina pushed away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She said, “Not one thing,” then pulled her white polo shirt over her head, displaying two round breasts pushing out along the edges of her white bra. The color difference between the bra and her bronze skin was striking. Tasker felt light-headed but maintained. Why couldn’t he have more days like this? Vaguely, he was aware of the sound of a phone somewhere, almost like it was muffled. Then he was startled to reality by Tina’s voice.

  “You gonna answer that?”

  “Let the machine catch it.” He pulled her to him and kissed her again.

  The machine in the kitchen clicked on after the fourth ring and he was prepared not to listen to it, but Tina hesitated as the message started. He cringed when he heard the voice and fought the urge to spring up and kill the machine.

  On the machine, Donna was chattering on about what a good afternoon she’d had and that she’d never thought about reconciliation until this afternoon. She ended with, “If we’d spent a little more time like we did this afternoon and less time judging each other, things would have been a lot different. Maybe it’s not too late.”

  Tina had now backed away from him and listened intently as he tried to come up with an explanation. Before the machine had clicked off, she had her shirt back on.

  Tasker said, “Tina, wait a second.”

  “Billy, there’s nothing to explain. I don’t own you. I just thought we had something different. Don’t you see you can trust me? You don’t have to hide things from me.”

  She was up and out the door before he could speak. Looking up at heaven, he said, “One thing, just let one thing work out for me and I’ll be a happy man.”

  TOM Dooley sat at his desk in the robbery task force, acting like he was working when, in fact, he just liked being at his desk because no one bothered him there. The solitude and being near the cash kept him calm. To avoid an ugly situation with Bema after they’d stolen the cash back from Cole Hodges, he’d agreed to store the money in one of the office’s temporary evidence lockers. It was safe inside a small, locked cubbyhole and it couldn’t be opened unless you had both keys to it. This way, with Dooley holding one key and Bema the other, neither could access the cash alone. Like having control of a nuclear missile silo. Dooley thought this arrangement was better than splitting the money because it kept Bema from spending it, and now Dooley had more time to figure how to screw the young Metro-Dade detective out of the cash.

  The office had been pretty quiet since the riots, with only Derrick Sutter ever giving him a dirty look, as much because he didn’t like him as because Dooley had ratted out a fellow law enforcer. For all Dooley knew, the Miami cop had his mind on the cash and was pissed someone else had taken it. Dooley was starting to see that this town was full of crooks.

  Dooley had migrated back to the task force office, too, because he didn’t want that hotshot Mac Nmir noticing him too much now. He’d accomplished what he needed to and now Nmir was on only one scent: Bill Tasker. He’d let the little dark agent keep digging and maybe make a decent case against the FDLE agent.

  As Dooley finished some calculations on how long he could live on different amounts of cash, he glanced out the window at the front of the squad bay and almost stopped breathing. As he stood to walk toward the window, he faintly heard Derrick Sutter say, “Damn, would you look at that shit.”

  Dooley was speechless. Staring out the window at the parking lot, right in front of the building, he saw Rick Bema, a twenty-eight-year-old thirty-nine-thousand-dollar-a-year still-living-at-home cop, getting out of a brand-new fire-engine-red Corvette convertible. The detective had on a new tailored suit and paused by the car to chat with some of the guys from the stolen car task force, who looked at the car with envy both personal and professional. What had this stupid son-of-a-bitch shit-eating faggot done?

  Dooley waited in the office, trying to act uninterested until Bema walked in.

  Bema said, “Hey, guys, ask me what’s new?”

  Sutter said, “The car and the suit.”

  Bema smiled. “Correct both times.”

  Dooley, controlling himself, said, “What gives, Rick? Why the new stuff?”

  “Well, Tom, when I moved into my new place over on South Beach, I decided I needed a new car and look. Know what I mean? A new image.”

  “Yeah, new image.” Dooley smiled and said in a lower tone, “Rick, could I see you back in the conference room a minute?”

  ONCE in the room, Dooley paced a few moments before confronting his partner in crime.

  “What were you thinking, Rick?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You know what I fucking mean. The car, the apartment.
Jesus, Rick, we’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.”

  Bema gave him a surprised look and dug out a key hooked to a small green square. “The money is safe. I used my own savings for this. Even you can’t tell me how to spend my own money.”

  “You wouldn’t have spent it, you cheap bastard, if you didn’t know you were about to have a windfall. You gotta use your head or we’re gonna get nabbed.”

  “You gonna mind your own fucking business, my friend, or I’ll have a little chat with Agent Nmir. What you think ’bout that?”

  Dooley bit his tongue, watching the young cop tuck the key back into his left front pocket. His head snapped up as Sutter peeked in the door.

  Sutter said, “What’s this, a private meeting? Comin’ up with a case you don’t need me for?”

  Dooley said, “This don’t concern you.”

  Sutter completely ignored him and said to Bema, “Nice wheels, Rick.”

  “Thank you, my friend.” He turned to Dooley and said, “Now, that’s a man who appreciates the finer things.”

  Sutter went on. “You move out of your folks’, too?”

  “I did.”

  “What about meals? I know you Cuban boys are awful particular about your food.”

  “I moved out, that’s all. I still visit my mama for breakfast and dinner. She miss me otherwise.”

  Dooley couldn’t stand it anymore. “You fuckin’ guys can talk about Rick’s puberty, but I got work to do.”

  Sutter said, “Like what? Blaming Bill Tasker for shit he didn’t do?”

  Dooley froze. He turned to eye the Miami detective. He couldn’t get a read on the lean, muscular black man. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Sutter smirked. “It means that he’s the only straight guy around here and I think I’m the only one around here not getting rich and I may start to resent it.” Without warning, he spun on his heel and headed out the door.

  Dooley watched him disappear around the corner, then looked at the grinning Rick Bema. He thought, Is everyone on the make?

  TASKER’S heart rate was steadily increasing as he negotiated traffic on U.S. 1, headed toward the ramp for northbound I-95 in Kendall. The smaller residential town had somehow kept its quiet appeal through the explosive growth of Miami. When he was suspended, he’d been told not to go to the FDLE office, but no one had told him to stay away from the task force office. He still had some things in his desk and he had to prove to himself he could see his old partners without his legs shaking.

  After his twenty-minute ride north, he headed east on Miami Garden Drive and into the parking lot of the business plaza that housed the FBI-sponsored task forces: robbery, telemarketing and stolen cars. Sliding into a spot next to a beautiful red convertible Corvette, Tasker’s heart was racing as he slowly made his way toward the front door. Just inside the entrance, he almost ran head-on into Tom Dooley. They both froze, assessing each other silently for a minute.

  Dooley looked at him, clearly not as friendly as he’d been during their last conversation. Dooley said, “What brings you up here again? I figured you’d been indicted by now.”

  “Thought you were in my corner.”

  “Shit, I thought you were innocent until they found that cash at your apartment. So I’ll help in the investigation if they ask me, but young Mac Nmir made the case hisself.”

  Tasker clenched his fist. “He had a little help with the evidence.”

  Dooley took a second and said, “How do you figure?”

  “The cash they found in my grill came from someone.”

  “Like anyone’ll ever believe that bullshit. Tasker, this is Miami, not Hollywood.”

  Tasker raised his fist and Dooley threw both hands up to block the punch. As soon as he saw the opening, Tasker threw his knee into Dooley’s hip. The heavy man took a step back and lowered his hands. Tasker popped him right in the face. As he grabbed the older FBI man, Tasker felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.

  Rick Bema said, “Hold on, Billy. If everyone hit him who wanted to, he’d never be out of the hospital.”

  Tasker relaxed his grip and backed away.

  Dooley spit out some blood. “Shit, the day this ass-licking faggot can kick my ass is the day I retire.”

  Without saying a word, Tasker popped him in the face again, then walked inside.

  ACROSS the street from the task force, FBI Special Agent Slayda “Mac” Nmir lowered his binoculars and made some notes. Maybe Tasker had some balls after all. Hitting that guy didn’t mean you were a bad person, just one that was around Dooley. Nmir couldn’t count the number of times he’d wanted to do that himself. He’d been following Tasker in his Bureau Ford Taurus for an hour when he’d stopped at the task force. That surprised him, but not as much as the Metro-Dade cop Rick Bema stopping the fight, then polishing a new Corvette in the lot. Maybe he’d been hasty in his initial assessment of the case. Tasker could have partners. He had to line up an interview with Bema just as soon as possible and without any warning.

  IN the corner of the plaza’s parking lot, behind the wheel of a new stolen Ford F-150 pickup truck, Cole Hodges adjusted the bandage around his head. The Jackson Memorial emergency room physician had made him look like a goddamn Pakistani convenience store clerk. The beating that Cuban cop had laid on him was bad enough, but right now he didn’t have ten dollars to his name. He was pissed off, had a headache and was ready to handle his business. Now.

  FIFTEEN

  IN the task force bathroom, Tasker rinsed the blood off his knuckles, wishing he’d used his elbow instead. It felt right to slug that tub of lard but he didn’t know what repercussions it might have with the FBI investigation. He looked at his face in the mildewed mirror, realizing how much this mess had taken out of him. He let out a little cry, thanking God no one else was in the two-stall, two-urinal rest room. He opened the small head-level window to let some air circulate and then splashed some cool water over his face. As he dried off, the door behind him swung open and a smiling Derrick Sutter appeared.

  Sutter said, “Well, well, if it ain’t John Dillinger.” Tasker didn’t know how to take that, so he kept staring at him in the mirror.

  “Relax, Bill, I’m just joking. Shit, the FBI jerk-offs are the only ones who believe any of that bullshit. Besides, after what I just saw through the window, you’re more of a Gerry Cooney. The great white hope.” The thin black detective smiled.

  “I shouldn’t have hit him.”

  “Why not? Most times I wonder why I didn’t smack him sometime during the day.” He smiled as he eyed Tasker. “Shit, I had your kind of money, I’d never come back to this dump.”

  Tasker jerked his head up.

  Sutter held out his hands. “Calm down, slugger. I was joking again. Don’t hit me, too.” He paused for effect, then said, “Really, no one thinks you did it.”

  Tasker let out his breath and smiled. “You think?”

  “Maybe a few. Mainly ’cause they like the idea of a crooked FDLE agent. You guys don’t usually get hooked up. You do the hooking up and lots of locals get jealous.”

  “I’m only gonna say this once: I had nothing to do with any of the things they’re trying to lay on me now.”

  Sutter smiled again. “I believe you, I believe you. That still doesn’t answer a big question.”

  “What’s that?” asked Tasker.

  “Where’s the CCR’s cash?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Bill, I always care when there’s more than a million dollars in cash floating around my city and no one knows where it is.” He paused, eyeing Tasker. “You got any ideas?”

  “You know, for everyone saying I’m innocent, a lot of people think I know where the cash is.”

  Sutter kept him in a sideways glance. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Tasker paused and said, “I got some weak ideas, why?”

  “Because I got some good ideas.” Sutter smiled. “You go first.”

  Tasker paused, assessi
ng the sharp-featured black detective. Was this just another guy on the take? Something told Tasker no. They were in a ten-by-ten bathroom with one window. It was as good as the cone of silence.

  Tasker started slowly. “I been looking around.”

  Sutter broke into a grin, his gold-rimmed front tooth shining. “I can see by the scab on your eyebrow you’re the one the Eighth Street Boyz thumped.”

  “You heard?”

  “Everyone heard.”

  “I also went by the bank and talked to the new manager.”

  “And?”

  “This CCR attorney, Cole Hodges, keeps popping up all over the place.”

  Sutter’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

  “Yeah. What do you know about him?”

  “Not much. He’s a bigwig and I know a lot of cops are scared of him and I never knew why.”

  “Can you see if you can find out? I mean, discreetly?”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  Tasker looked at him. “No cash, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I was hoping for...”

  Tasker waited for him to finish, then decided not to push it and said, “What about your ideas?”

  “This is nothing official, mind you, but I’ve been keeping my eyes open, too.”

  “And?”

  “And I didn’t even get my ass kicked.” His eyes glowed.

  “Funny.”

  Sutter nodded. “You’re the only one I wouldn’t suspect if someone from this task force kilt that bank manager and stole that money.” Occasionally, Sutter’s Miami roots overtook his college English classes.

  Someone from the hallway tried to push into the tiny bathroom.

  Sutter held the door and said, “Occupied, come back in five minutes.”

  A voice said, “There’s more than one stall.”

  Sutter said through the door, “Trust me, there is some shit flying in here you don’t want to see.”

  Tasker held his anxiety to push Sutter to his point. Finally, he said, “Okay, I’m hooked. Keep going.”