Walking Money

by James O. Born

  “This better be good,” Tasker said, with surprising power. “I got an attorney now and you know that.”

  “You’re not in custody and don’t have to talk to me. Tell me to leave and I’m gone.”

  Tasker thought over the proposal.

  Mac said, “But then you’ll never know why I came by.”

  Tasker gave it another ten seconds, then said, “Okay, talk, but it better be good.”

  Mac began, nonplussed by the attitude. “First, I’ll say I have my doubts about your guilt.”

  “Finally.”

  “Let me finish. I didn’t say I thought you were innocent, I’m just curious about a few things. But I have to warn you, I’m under big-time pressure to take what I have to the grand jury, and you know what they say about the federal grand jury.”

  “A prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if he wanted to.”

  “Right. If I don’t come up with anything else in the next few days, you’re it. I go with what I have, which includes a couple of witnesses, no alibi and of course the cash we recovered from your grill. I’d say that’s plenty.”

  Tasker’s legs lost their stability and he sat quickly in a chair near the dining table. It was hard to act calm in the face of that statement. “Then why are you here?”

  “Ask a few questions and give you a chance to refute my findings. Just man to man. No official court documents. No reports. Just us, talking.”

  Now Tasker could only nod.

  “I’ve been watching a few things, and I saw Rick Bema pull into the task force lot in a new Vette just before he was hit by the truck.”

  Tasker stared at him silently, waiting to see where this was headed.

  “Where’d he get the money for a Vette?”

  Tasker shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

  Mac kept going. “Why’d you go by the office yesterday?”

  Tasker said, “Left my checkbook and a couple of bills.”

  “You see the truck that hit Bema?”

  Tasker shook his head.

  Mac, clearly getting frustrated, said, “Look, I know you don’t like the Bureau and don’t think I’m a real cop, but I really just want to hear your side of things.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. You’re one of the few people I’ve never lied to. I don’t know how the cash got in my grill. I didn’t have anything to do with the bank robbery. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  Nmir nodded and then asked, “Why’d you hit Dooley yesterday?”

  “Because he’s an asshole.”

  Nmir said, “Now that, I believe.”

  TASKER felt shitty. He’d been ordered not to go to Rick Bema’s funeral because he might come in contact with witnesses in his case. That meant two things: He was still a serious suspect in the bank robbery, and Mac Nmir hadn’t told anyone he’d seen Tasker at the task force the day before, otherwise he’d have had his ass chewed for that, too. He couldn’t complain, because FDLE had given no indication his pay was about to be cut off and his bosses had gone out of their way to say what a decent guy he was. All that gave him hope.

  After his encounter with Mac Nmir, Tasker had to get out and do something, even if it was only working on his fitness. The way things were going now, he’d need all his strength to fight off the other inmates at MCC or wherever they intended to hold him till trial. He headed down toward the bay near downtown because of the ocean breeze and the beautiful women who were always strolling from one shop to another or over to Trader Vic’s. Plus the causeways substituted for hills in the dead-flat South Florida landscape.

  He parked his Jeep in the lot for Bayfront and trotted slowly toward the water. Quiet day without many tourists. After a few minutes, he picked up the pace into a nice trot and cruised north along the water. Separated from the traffic and running away from his problems, he tried not to focus on any of his current trials. As his Nike Air running shoes hit the ground, the sea breeze hit him in the face and he picked up his pace, his feet gliding over the cement sidewalk, sweat beading on his forehead.

  TOM Dooley had hardly started his surveillance of Tasker in his wife’s brown six-year-old Ford Taurus station wagon, which was as long as a boat and twice as hard to handle, when Mac Nmir showed up and the blond lady with the two kids left. Within two hours, Dooley found himself trailing a jogging Tasker along the water in Miami. The surveillance was easy but now he didn’t have any plan. He was winging it, hoping something popped into his head. He didn’t even want to think why Mac Nmir had gone to see Tasker alone. This was only half his problem; he still had Hodges, fresh from his hit-and-run of Bema, running around. As long as he had the money, Hodges wasn’t much of a concern.

  Dooley could park along the waterway and still see Tasker jogging up to four blocks away. It really didn’t matter if he lost him, because Dooley knew where the Jeep was parked and no matter how good a runner this guy was, he still had to drive home. Dooley was content to watch and bide his time, with no real plan to follow. It would definitely be to his benefit if Tasker bought the farm before anyone started looking too closely at him, or his attorney had the opportunity to spill out any of the defense’s theories. Dooley pulled back out into traffic on Bayshore when Tasker turned toward a small secondary causeway over to one of the residential islands in the bay.

  As he slowly maneuvered the clunky station wagon to close the gap, it came to him like a bolt of lightning. He’d take a page right out of Hodges’s playbook. Just a nudge with the car on this quiet little bridge and Tasker would be fish food or roadkill. Either way, that left only one obstacle for Dooley to deal with, and Hodges was hiding himself.

  Dooley eased the road yacht a little faster and checked for other traffic or pedestrians. This could work out.

  BILL Tasker, former marathon competitor, former husband, former West Palm Beach cop, pushed it up the incline of the short, empty bridge, heading for a small foot trail he remembered just to the right at the end of the bridge.

  This was nice, he thought. No traffic, no hassles. He could hear one car come onto the bridge as he pressed on.

  TOO easy, that’s all Dooley could call it, checking for witnesses, then, seeing it was all clear, hitting the gas. He barreled after Tasker, who was against the guardrail on the right side of the bridge with no sidewalk. The key was to minimize damage to the car and, if there was any, get it fixed up in Fort Lauderdale, where no one would think to trace it. Tasker was near the end of the bridge when Dooley came on him with the giant car.

  With a few feet left on the bridge, Dooley gave up any doubts and gunned the Ford’s eight-cylinder engine, closing the gap in seconds.

  TASKER heard the car as he approached the end of the bridge and saw the foot trail breaking right. The two-lane bridge was wide enough for both pedestrian and vehicle traffic, so Tasker didn’t even look over his shoulder when he heard the car coming up behind him. It sounded like the car was moving pretty fast, so he moved as close to the short guardrail as possible and picked up the pace so he could make it to the end of the bridge before the car.

  As Tasker took the last two steps, on the bridge, he realized the driver was being a prick about it and hadn’t moved to the other lane. These rich people could be very territorial about their community. This guy was obviously making a statement about joggers on his island.

  Tasker took the last two steps, then, without even looking, took the big jump to the right and landed squarely on the foot trail. The car passed by, still on the fast side, to whichever estate it belonged. As he resumed a steady pace on the trail, Tasker thought, Rich people are a pain in the ass.

  TOM Dooley wasted little time dropping that tank of a car at his house in South Miami, so the old lady could do her shopping. The whole trip down to the house and then back in his Bureau-issued Century, he fumed about his fuck-up. Not only had he managed to miss Tasker with the car, he’d dinged the old land yacht, first on the bridge, then on a sapling on the island as he came off the bridge and onto the side of the road. Both d
ents were small but still reminders of how out of control this whole fucking plan had gotten. Jesus, he went from a simple theft of cash from a safe-deposit box to all this shit: framing someone, planting stories in the media, planting the good reverend and Hodges’s assistant, Ebbi Kyle, in the Miami River. Was it worth this much trouble? He could just wait out his time with the Bureau and try to live on that fifty-percent pension. After a moment, he realized he’d better stick with his plan to keep the money.

  He pulled into the task force lot from Miami Gardens Drive and managed a spot two rows from the front door. He knew exactly what he intended to do: grab the money, leave it in an inconspicuous box, packed inside an old refrigerator he’d been too lazy to move out of the storage bay he’d rented two years ago. Once the boys had started accumulating things, there’d seemed to be less and less room for his stuff, so, rather than fight with the old lady about it, he’d just rented a storage area. After showing his badge and muscling in on the manager a little bit, he’d gotten it for twenty-five bucks a month for at least five years. No one even knew where it was. He should’ve thought of it sooner and avoided all the heartburn of the past few weeks.

  Fast-walking past the offices, hardly noticing a soul, he did a quick once-over of the evidence area and plugged in both keys to the locker he’d secured with the late Rick Bema and twisted. He paused to admire his trophy, sitting crumpled in the locker. He reached in and pulled out the sack, instinctively looking back and forth. He reached in his baggy front pocket and pulled out a black plastic yard bag he’d borrowed from home and tossed the CCR’s satchel in it. Perfect.

  As he made his way to the front door, he froze at the sound of his name. Spinning on his heel he saw Derrick Sutter in another suit strutting toward him at a fast gait.

  “Dooley, wait up.”

  Dooley stopped without answering.

  “Where you been?” asked Sutter.

  “Who’re you, my boss?”

  “Nah. I figured you’d go to Bema’s funeral, that’s all.”

  Dooley winced. “Shit, when was that?”

  Sutter stared at him. “This morning, ten o’clock. Pretty good crowd there, but not you.”

  “You’re right. I shoulda gone, but I got backed up. Now I got other things to handle.” He headed back toward the front door, turning once to see Sutter eyeing him and the bag carefully.

  AS Dooley reached his car, he tossed the bag in the front passenger seat and took a quick look across the street to make sure Mac Nmir wasn’t watching the lot again; then as he was about to close his door, a young woman on foot asked Dooley a question.

  Dooley’s head snapped up and he had to concentrate on what the girl had said. To say she was stunning was like saying Ross Perot was crazy. She stood at least five-ten, with the most perfect, large boobs sticking out of a white cut-off T-shirt. Her midriff revealed a circular tattoo with a flaming ring around a tight belly button. The painted-on blue jean shorts just made it to her hips. Dooley took a deep breath and said, “Excuse me?”

  She smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. “I was wondering where the Aventura Mall might be.”

  Dooley returned her smile and casually moved out from his Buick to meet her in the next row of cars. “That’s easy, my dear. Just head east on this road to U.S. One and head north less than a mile.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned in close. “I’m so sorry, I’m bad with the whole north, south, east and west thing. Can you just point out the way for me?”

  Her touch and voice combined to give Dooley a pretty good woody. “Sure,” he said, following her gentle pull to the edge of the lot so he could look down Miami Gardens Drive. He raised his hand. “Drive down this road to U.S. One. It’s a big intersection and you can’t go any further this way. Then turn left.” He pointed to the north. “The mall will be on your right after a few blocks.”

  The girl smiled again and gave him a half-hug, saying, “Oh, thanks very much.”

  “My pleasure,” Dooley said, watching her slowly saunter away. A work of art.

  He walked back to the car, reflecting on how nice a package the girl was, and didn’t realize until he was backing the car out of the spot that the bag of money was gone. He frantically checked under the seat and around the car. In his rearview mirror, he noticed Derrick Sutter pull out into traffic in his FBI-issued Buick Century. This could get ugly.

  NINETEEN

  BILL Tasker had spent the evening on edge, waiting for Tina to show up. He had felt like a teenager after she’d called around six, asking if it was all right if she came by for a little while this evening. Three days ago, he’d have shouted for joy, but things were more complicated now. Donna had come on strong and even though she’d been scared off by Mac Nmir, she’d called that afternoon to make sure everything was still okay. It sounded like she was surprised Tasker had answered the phone and was not in jail. He hoped it didn’t come to that.

  He was excited Tina was coming over, no matter what feelings for his ex-wife were whipping around inside him. Donna knew he was seeing someone and tried to be open-minded about it, but that would change if she ever actually got a look at Tina. After Nmir’s little intrusion that morning, there wasn’t much risk of Donna just showing up unannounced. He scurried around making sure everything was in its place, especially the three-pack of condoms he’d bought on his way home from jogging at Bayfront.

  He almost bounded to the door when he heard the chimes, then opened it casually. Her smile blinded him.

  Tina said, “How’d you spend your day?”

  “Wondering what happened to you this morning.”

  “Sorry, but you were asleep and I needed to run by my place before I met my sister for breakfast.”

  “What time did you leave?”

  “Not too early. Maybe eight.”

  He did the math, trying to figure the odds that she had seen Donna and the girls pull up and was just playing it cool.

  He finally said, “Any problems with traffic or anything on the way to your sister’s?”

  “No, why?”

  He didn’t know why, he just wanted some kind of reaction. “Because I had a visitor after you left.”

  “Who?”

  “Mac Nmir, the FBI agent investigating the bank job.”

  “What’d he want?”

  “He gave me another chance to explain my side of things.”

  She brightened. “Billy, that’s great. I knew they’d see you were innocent.”

  He held up a hand. “Not so fast. He gave me the chance, but I couldn’t come up with anything new.”

  She stared at him. “I know you didn’t take the cash, Billy. He’ll figure it out, too.”

  Tasker just looked at the floor.

  “You think he’s locked on you because of the past?” He nodded.

  She led him to the couch and sat close to him. Real close. Her perfume filled his nostrils and the smooth skin of her arm felt warm against his neck as she gave him a hug.

  She said, “Isn’t it about time you told me about it? I mean, exactly what happened in West Palm?”

  He shrugged, trying to think of a reason not to tell her. Jesus, he’d told her everything else, even Derrick Sutter’s secret hunches about the case and the cash, and that shit was much more sensitive than a four-year-old shooting incident.

  She squeezed him again and said, “C’mon, I’m listening.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath. “It’s not really a long or complicated story.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I’m right here for the duration.”

  He looked into her eyes, fighting the urge to decline the chance to tell his story and just go to bed, but instead started.

  “You know I was a West Palm Beach cop before coming to FDLE.”

  She nodded.

  “I’d compromised with my dad, who wanted me to go into his dry-cleaning business. He had a store off Glades in Boca Raton and paid my way through Florida State thinking I’d just work for him, but it didn�
��t last a year. I wanted to move away to try police work. Finally I decided to stay in the area and go to work for the West Palm Beach PD. I was in the area and I got to be a cop. It was the only thing I wanted to do.”

  She agreed. “I was the same. I think a lot of cops view it as a calling more than a job.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, to keep the peace with my parents, I stayed in West Palm.”

  “And that made it all right to be a cop?” She seemed captivated.

  “No, but it lessened the disappointment. Plus everyone knows that West Palm Beach is one of the best departments in the state. Even my dad was proud when I came home in uniform the first time.” He looked into her eyes. “So I have a few good years at West Palm and start thinking about bigger and better things. I know FDLE is a great outfit and can be pretty exciting, so I take the chance, and after all the interviews and all the background checks I get hired and, incredibly, assigned to the West Palm Beach field office.

  “I had it all: great job, two beautiful little girls, and a wife who still spoke to me.” He stopped to catch his breath.

  Tina said, “I know your trouble had to do with another cop.”

  “Yeah, Jack Sandersen. He’d been a vice cop with me at the PD and we’d been friends since I was a rookie. I guess I was with FDLE about three years at the time. Turns out there was a corruption investigation going on in the office against him. Pretty serious stuff—skimming money from dope dealers, shaking down prostitutes. They had a solid case against him, too. When it came time to arrest him, they sent me and a brand-new agent to make a low-key arrest while the case agent directed a search warrant at his ranch in Loxahatchee.”

  “Like a horse ranch?”

  “Typical little ranch for out in the western county. Three acres, one horse and a couple of dogs, but the house was first class, with a pool and Jacuzzi.” He stopped, deciding how to phrase the story. “Anyway, the new guy, Tony Bitello—we called him ‘Bitchalot’ because he was always bitchin’ about something. Anyway, we met Jack at the front door and he was cooperative right from the start. Bitello came on a little strong because he was new, and that’s how they did it in New York where he’d come from.”