Wheelman, The

by Duane Swierczynski

  Which gave him about an hour.

  Shit. He’d barely recovered from the shock of the first fax and gotten another few sips of Early Times in when the scanner said something about a 211 down on South Street. Which made no sense whatsoever, but the last place Saugherty had seen Lennon had been only a few blocks south of South, at the Italian joint. So it did make a kind of cockeyed sense. Plus, his gut twitched the same way it had before. This was something.

  He’d have to leave this tumbler of Early Times behind. Breakfast would have to wait.

  Saugherty hopped in his borrowed car and drove down Cottman, hooked a left onto Princeton, hopped on I-95, and hoped the morning traffic snarls had figured themselves out. The roundhouse was all the way downtown, and he couldn’t be late. He had another quick stop first. He had a bag to pick up.

  MONDAY p.m.

  To a few, it’ll be grief

  To the law, a relief

  But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.

  —BONNIE PARKER

  Any Goodly Amount

  “FIRST OF ALL, YOU CAN CUT THE SHIT ABOUT BEING mute. I KNOW you’re not, okay?”

  Saugherty had tap-danced like Fred Astaire on uppers to get inside this interrogation room. And this mick bastard was still playing the Shields and Darnell shit.

  “Just say hi, you asshole. We don’t have time for this.”

  The bank robber stared at him, his eyes opened wide, as if he was trying to mentally communicate with Saugherty. His hands were cuffed behind his back, looped through the chair. Go ahead and threaten to detonate a bomb in the U.S., see what happens. Saugherty still couldn’t believe he was in here.

  Now the guy was trying to mouth something.

  “I can’t read lips, so quit it. Do-you-know-where-the-money-is?”

  The guy sighed.

  Saugherty wanted to crawl up the side of the room and shit nickels. But then he stopped. Had he made a mistake? Was it possible the guy didn’t actually speak before firing that gun and blowing up Saugherty’s garage? Did he imagine the whole thing? No. He had heard it. That Irish brogue, the word “arsehole,” as if asshole needed the extra consonant. So what was going on here?

  “Let me make it plain. I-know-where-your-sister-is.”

  The bank robber’s eyes snapped to attention.

  “Yeah, I know she’s your sister. Katie Selway. I know she got caught up in this whole thing, and I know she’s in trouble. And I can help you get to her.”

  Of course, Saugherty was completely fumbling around this one. And he had left out an important detail or two, but that could be ironed out later.

  “That got your attention, didn’t it?”

  The guy nodded. Slightly. As if to say, go on.

  “I need to know you’re going to help me out at the end of this, then. We need to recover that money, and then I’ll help you recover your sister. Do we have an agreement?”

  Lennon, the bank robber, actually seemed to be thinking it over. He knew where the money was, alright.

  He nodded again. Just once.

  “You know, we have the most revealing conversations, you and I,” Saugherty said. “I love that about us. In this business, it’s really hard to meet people you feel a connection with. Do you feel the same way? Okay. Get ready.”

  The two men sat there in the soft pink room with the wire mesh on the opaque windows, getting ready.

  “It’s about to go off.”

  Silence.

  “What’s about to go off, you ask? The suitcase nuke I put in a locker over at the bus station at Tenth and Filbert. Let’s go.”

  I-95

  THE EX-COP WAS A LUNATIC LOSER. BUT THEN AGAIN, Lennon had been sitting in a cell, plotting an escape, a way out, a way back to Katie, and he’d come up with nothing better.

  Lennon needed to reach Katie if he did nothing else on this earth before he left it. So let the ex-cop’s greed lead the way. Lennon didn’t know where the Wachovia money was any more than he knew the location of the Holy Fucking Grail. But this ex-cop, Saugherty, didn’t need to know that yet. And dealing with one ex-cop was better than a stationhouse full of full-time police officers.

  Besides, an extra man would come in handy when he went to the drop-off point and made those Italian fucks tell him about Katie. He could always just tell … or write, that is … Saugherty that this mob capo, Perelli, had the money. And they had to go through Perelli to get it back. Problem solved. Saugherty could be dealt with later.

  Amazingly, no one gave a fuck when they just walked out the front door. Saugherty fed them some bullshit about “transferring the prisoner,” and that was it. No fuss, no muss. No one had identified him as the same guy who was taking shots at some cops over at Rittenhouse Square two nights before. Nobody blinked. Was this city for real? This guy Saugherty just flashed some old piece of plastic ID and they were out of there. Into a car. A blue Chevrolet Cavalier. They both climbed in without a word. Saugherty took them up one street, then turned right, blurring past some brick buildings with historical designations on them, then they were on I-95, headed north. America.

  “Okay, you’re officially sprung. You can cut the shit and start talking.”

  Oh Jesus. Here we go again.

  “Look, you mick bastard. I know you can speak. I heard you. Right before you blew up my fucking house. You said something about arseholes. Which I really fucking love. The extra ‘r’ in there. Why not just say asshole? No fucking idea.”

  Lennon, of course, said nothing. He couldn’t. Not that this cop would understand that. Just let him keep flapping his gums. It was more time to figure out a next move.

  “Still the tough guy, eh? Look, really, cut it the fuck out. We need each other, otherwise you wouldn’t even be here. Here’s the deal. I’m taking us up to my hotel room. Now don’t get that look on your face. I’m not a fag. You’re not my type, anyway. I like men who can moan when I fuck them up the ass. Most you could do is scratch on the mattress. And frankly, that wouldn’t do it for me. It’s all about the audio.”

  The white lane markers whizzed by at seventy miles per hour.

  “Christ, you’re a humorless fuck.”

  Lennon saw the city receding behind him and realized they were headed north. Or northeast. To the Northeast. Where this ex-cop used to live. If Katie were anywhere, she’d be south of the city, where those Italians operated.

  He opened the glove compartment and a .38 snub-nosed revolver popped out. Lennon saw Saugherty’s eyes bug for a moment, but Lennon put up his palms to say, easy, now, not going for the blaster. With two fingers, he picked the gun up by the trigger guard and placed it on his lap. Then he rooted around until he found what he wanted: a pen and a stack of fast-food napkins. Well, the napkins weren’t exactly what he wanted, but it would do.

  Find my sister, he wrote, and showed it to Saugherty.

  “No, sorry,” the ex-cop said. “We gotta go back and get ready. We need hardware, and you need a fresh set of clothes. I need to finish my Early Times, even though the ice is probably all melted. Then we talk about the money.”

  Lennon put the .38 to Saugherty’s head.

  “It’s not loaded,” Saugherty said.

  Lennon dry-clicked.

  “See?”

  Carrying Charge

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO THE HOTEL, SAUGHERTY had to change his tighty-whiteys. He hadn’t actually known if that .38 had been loaded or unloaded; he’d borrowed the Cavalier from his bookie after his own car got torched. Could that Irish bastard tell the gun was unloaded from the weight? Who knew.

  Lennon sat down in a chair by the window while Saugherty fished around in the black bag under his bed. He knew he had a spare set of clothes here somewh … yeah, here they were. Something he had filched from a drug dealer in Kensington. He threw the white bundle in Lennon’s lap.

  It was a white tracksuit with gold piping. The logo on the front read, “I’m the Daddy.”

  You’ve got to be fucking joking, said the look on Lennon’s face.r />
  “Hey, least it doesn’t smell funny. Go ahead. Take a shower while you’re at it—you need one. I’ll get us some food. You want a drink?”

  Lennon nodded and stood up.

  “I’ve got Early Times, some fancy vodka, a bottle of Jack—”

  Lennon nodded on the “Jack.”

  “Jack? Coming right up. Neat or on the rocks? You’re probably a neat guy. I’ve got some liverwurst here, too. You in the mood for a sandwich? Probably. You don’t get a meal in the clink until late evening. I’ll make you one, hold the onion. You don’t need onion.”

  By that time, Lennon was already in the shower.

  Saugherty did some hard thinking. There were a lot of fancy ways around this; make this bank robber guy play along until he dug up the heist money. But why? Saugherty was honestly tired of thinking so damn much. His life usually ended up in shambles when he tried to get too cute. He looked over at the dresser and fished the faxed photo of the dead woman out of the pile.

  The dead woman named Katie Elizabeth Selway.

  No, no time to be cute. Let’s give honesty a spin, see where it takes us.

  Right?

  Hmm.

  No.

  No fucking way.

  We gotta keep lying.

  Saugherty pushed the faxed photo back into the stack. He scooped a handful of ice from the cooler to freshen up his Early Times, swirled it around, and drained the tumbler. Then more ice, more Early Times. He could use some coffee with this, to even things out. Food, too, though suddenly, he wasn’t in the mood for liverwurst sandwiches. Saugherty craved a Big Mac and large fries—cop food, his old drive-thru favorite. He knew he was somewhere in the twilight between a hangover and the next good hard drunk, and he had to stay there for a while. Maintain. Food would help him do that. Wait until this stuff was settled.

  He needed to think.

  “I’m going out for five minutes,” he called through the bathroom door. “I’d ask if you needed anything, but what would be the point, right?”

  Stacks o’ Fax

  LENNON SAT DOWN AT THE DESK AND IGNORED THE LIVERWURST sandwich. Instead he sipped his Jack. Not his usual drink—he enjoyed a good single malt when he was kicking back off the job. Even a little Jameson to cap off an evening. But it would do. Jack was in the same liquor family. And as far as being on or off the job, who knew? At some point he had crossed a line. The job had formally ended. This was recovery.

  On the desk was a stack of file folders. Lennon took the top one and flipped it open. A police report. Interview with a suspect, a thermal fax of fingerprints, then pages of typed transcript. What was this stuff?

  Saugherty was a cop—or an ex-cop. He knew that much. Was this stuff freelance? He started thumbing through the pages to kill time. A lot of stuff on drug dealers. Transcripts, evidence photos. Not just one case, either. A bunch of them, scrambled together.

  There was a photo here. A guy in dreadlocks with scars all over his forehead and cheeks. Looked like Seal’s uglier cousin.

  Another photo: a young woman with mousy hair and a weak chin. Even though the picture was black and white, her eyes looked like they glowed.

  Another photo still: an older man. Bony and gray-haired. Looked like Terence Stamp. If Terence Stamp needed a shave and a hug.

  Another photo …

  Target Bag

  SAUGHERTY KEYED BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM, mouth full OF Mickey D’s French fries, then for the second time that day nearly defiled himself.

  The image before him unpacked itself in a fragmented, Dick-and-Jane style in Saugherty’s brain. See Lennon. See Lennon look at faxed crime photos. See Lennon look at dead Katie Elizabeth Selway photo.

  See Lennon snap Saugherty’s neck.

  The mute looked up at him. And while he didn’t smile, the way he curled his lip indicated to Saugherty that all was cool. Lennon didn’t know yet. If he had, it would have been obvious in his eyes. What’s more, Lennon would have probably gut-shot him where he stood. Saugherty would have bled to death with a face full of fries.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Lennon nodded, then turned back to the stack of papers.

  “Got you a grilled McChicken sandwich. Figured you were into this Atkins shit, from the looks of you.”

  Pause. Maybe he wasn’t Atkins after all. Maybe he should’ve bought the guy a Quarter Pounder. Or a Happy Meal.

  Spin, Saugherty, Spin.

  “What you’re looking at there is the sad remnants of a career in law enforcement. Yeah, it’s true. Took it right from the filing cabinets down at the roundhouse. No one cared. Everything fit into a plastic bag from Target. Walked them right out of there.”

  Lennon was still flipping, idly.

  “Thing is, my ex-partner was crooked. What you have in front of you there is the remnants of hundreds of broken lives.” Huh. That sounded good, Saugherty thought. “Planted evidence. Rigged trials. You name it. And the day he painted the inside of his Ford Explorer with his brains was the day I swore I’d try to set things right.” Damn, boy! You’re on fire! Hot-cha! I have to remember this shit for when I retire with the 650K. Sit down there in Cancún and write a police novel. Bank robbery loot, that was one thing. But write a cop novel? Being a retired Philly cop with some scandal behind him? That was like printing money.

  Saugherty looked down.

  Lennon was holding the photo of his dead sister, naked and smeared with peanut butter.

  But he didn’t look down. He was studying Saugherty. Probably trying to figure how much of this was bullshit.

  About ninety-nine percent, buddy, Saugherty thought.

  Confessions of a Bank Robber

  DEEP DOWN, LENNON KNEW HE COULDN’T TRUST Saugherty. And here he was, telling some story about crooked cops and helping people. Please. Who the fuck did this guy think he was talking to? But since the guy was in a soul-baring mood, maybe it was time to play along.

  At the very least it would be a way to get out of this hotel room. Back into the city proper. Find Katie, shoot everything that moved, then light out of Philadelphia forever.

  Lennon pushed the police reports back on the desk and …

  (Slight Return)

  THANK YOU OH MY GENTLE JESUS HOLY FUCKING SHIT

  Confessions (Cont’d)

  … MADE THE BY-NOW FAMILIAR PANTOMIME. PEN. PAPER. Bring them to me. Saugherty was a quick study. And he seemed awfully relieved that Lennon wasn’t flipping through his precious case files any longer. Probably enough police corruption in there to make a hundred investigative journalists cream their pants. Who cared? Not Lennon.

  They made an odd-looking pair at the front desk: Lennon, with his beat-up face and white hip-hop tracksuit; Saugherty, with his high-school-math-teacher sport coat and wrinkled-beyond-redemption button-down shirt. Saugherty looked like a suburban dad with a nasty secret. The age difference was about right. Lennon looked like he enjoyed it rough. Whatever.

  The request for the key to the hotel’s word-processing center seemed to take the clerk by surprise. Probably thought they wanted to surf for man-on-boy porn.

  Again: whatever.

  Once they were in the room and the busted-up looking Dell had booted up, Lennon started typing furiously. He’d learned to type by e-mailing Katie. It was the ideal way to communicate whenever work separated them, which was often. Granted, Lennon wasn’t going to win any typing awards. He used two fingers in a modified hunt-and-peck fashion, occasionally bringing the thumb and middle fingers into play.

  Saugherty read over his shoulder. “Ah. Yeah. That I know. Wachovia.”

  Lennon shot him a look.

  “Sorry. Go ahead. Do your thing.”

  So Lennon continued his rundown of the weekend, from the heist itself to getting arrested this morning. It wasn’t an emotional account. Pure business. Because that was what Saugherty wanted to hear, right? About the money. Because he knew that Saugherty just wanted Lennon to lead him to the money, at which point he’d be arrested or killed. Nothing
had changed since Friday night. Actually, in a long weekend of turnabouts and backstabs, Saugherty’s consistency was refreshing.

  “No kidding! Shit, your own partner? That son of a bitch.”

  More typing.

  “Yeah, the Russians. No surprise there. But how did the wops get involved—”

  More typing.

  “Ah. Gotcha. Which is why I got the shit kicked out of me when I followed you down to that restaurant. Somehow, knowledge diminishes the pain, don’t you think? Guy walks up to you out of nowhere, pops you in the kisser, you think, What the fuck? The question hurts just as bad as the punch. But say you find you were giving his baby sister the ol’ sloppy push from behind. Now it makes sense all of a sudden. Am I right?”

  Lennon ignored him and continued typing. He wished the ex-cop would shut the fuck up and pay attention to what he was writing.

  More commentary:

  “Unfuckingbelievable.”

  And:

  “A cop—right there at the party?”

  On and on.

  The other reason Lennon was spilling his guts? He needed Saugherty’s help figuring out this shit. Where was the money? Maybe there was still a spark of a keen analytical mind somewhere in that ex-cop’s booze-addled brain. Maybe Saugherty could spot something Lennon had overlooked.

  When Lennon finished, Saugherty let out one long whistle.

  “Man. I almost feel bad shooting you in the shoulder and strapping you to a table. You’ve had one hell of a weekend, haven’t you boss?”

  Lennon typed:

  help me rescue my sister. we find the money, split it … deal?