A Welcome Grave

37

It was Joe who came up with the scenario we needed.

He’d joined us in the apartment after Thor dragged Reed back out to the living room. I said I wanted Joe with us, and Thor didn’t object. When Joe came through the door his eyes went right to Reed, sitting there in his underwear, his body still damp with sweat and steam, his face dripping blood. Joe looked at him for a long time and then at me.

“We’ve got the name,” I said.

Joe didn’t say anything. He walked down into the sunken living room to join us, and he kept his face away from Reed. I knew what he was thinking—that he’d gotten a lot of information out of a lot suspects over the years without putting any of them in Reed’s sort of condition. This was a different game, though, and that was why I’d gone to Thor. We were in a darker world now, and the clock was running. The time for rules was gone.

Joe sat down, and I told him that Reed was in charge of the money transaction, that I wanted to use him against Gaglionci and Doran.

“If we can get them here, we’re halfway done. To do that, we need a reason for them to see Reed in person. They’re going to call me in a few hours with instructions on how to move the money. We need a change in that plan, something that seems like it came from Reed but will disrupt them enough that one of them will actually come here.”

Joe frowned. “Gaglionci’s got a kidnapped woman with him. It’s not going to be easy to convince him to come in without making the trap obvious.”

“He wants that money, Joe. Wants it bad. He’ll come in if he feels like he has no other choice. All we need is an excuse to bring one of them down here, but everything I’ve thought of is too simple—signing a transaction document or some shit like that. That won’t work. Not for a computer transfer like this.”

If Reed had any ideas, he wasn’t volunteering them. Thor was silent, watching us with his gun in his hand, and I didn’t know the first damn thing about money transfers.

“How will you do this, Reed? Once the money is ready to go, how do you make it disappear?”

Reed was sitting on the floor, holding what was left of his shirt against his chin to stop the blood. He took the shirt down when I spoke and looked at the crimson stain on it as if reminding himself why candor was the way to go.

“I’ll ricochet it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ricochet—that’s the term we use. When the money moves into the account I’ve designated, I cycle it out immediately, keep doing that through a series of accounts. I use numbered accounts, offshore banks . . . there are a million ways to do it with computers. It’s called a ricochet because it bounces off a number of accounts before finally landing. That makes it harder to trace.”

“These accounts exist only for the ricochet?”

He nodded. “They’re dummy accounts. I’ve already got them set up.”

“What’s a reason you’d need to see these guys in person? It doesn’t have to be real, it just has to sound real.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you’d better start thinking, asshole. Because either we get them to come here, or—”

“Fingerprints,” Joe said.

I turned to him. “What?”

“I saw something on TV . . . maybe it was in the paper, I don’t remember. About computer security. How there’s a move to use fingerprints for identification now. They’ve got these readers, fingerprint scanners, that you can hook up to your home computer. There’s a whole brand of laptops that have them built in.”

I looked back at Reed, who was nodding.

“Biometrics,” he said. “That’s what it’s called. A lot of offshore banks are using biometric security for computer transactions now.”

“That’s what it was,” Joe said and then turned to me. “They used fingerprints to burn you. Let’s throw it back at them.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Better than anything else I have, at least. Reed calls Gaglionci and tells him he needs a print for one of the accounts. Convinces him it’s added security.”

“Gaglionci won’t want to use one, obviously,” Joe said. “So we have Reed tell him he needs somebody’s print, and maybe Gaglionci will offer up Doran. I’m guessing he’ll like that idea—it attaches Doran to the money, and not him.”

“But I don’t have a fingerprint reader.”

“They don’t know that, Reed,” I said. “All they need is to believe you have one. Think you can make them do that?”

He looked unconvincing as he nodded.

I made him use the speakerphone on his desk. That way we could hear both ends of the conversation and know for certain whether Gaglionci was buying his pitch.

“You screw this up,” I said, “and they’ll know we got to you. They’ll know we’ve got Gaglionci’s name. Then they’ll panic, and innocent people will get hurt. If that happens, I will hold you responsible, Reed.”

He was sitting in the big chair behind his desk. When he leaned forward, his fat back peeled off the leather and left a moisture stain behind. He was still in his underwear, and there were dried drops of blood on his pale, hairy chest. I reached over and hit the speakerphone button. The dial tone hummed.

“Call him.”

Reed punched in the numbers and sat hunched over the phone, the rest of us standing above him. Thor had his Glock out, hanging against his leg right in Reed’s field of vision.

“What do you need?” The voice that answered after the third ring was not Doran’s but that of the man who’d told me they had Amy. I looked at Thor, and he nodded once. Gaglionci.

“Um, hey, look, had a little bit of a problem,” Reed said, and his voice was too high, too fast. Thor moved the gun maybe a fraction of an inch, and Reed’s eyes went to it and he got himself under control.

“It’s not a big deal,” he continued. “I’ve got this thing almost set up the way we want it, but I—”

“Problem? There’s a problem?”

Gaglionci’s change in tone seemed to unnerve Reed more than Thor’s gun, but he swallowed and pushed on.

“No, no problem. It’s just that . . . I’ve got a system here that I think is perfect for what you want to do. A system that will let us bounce right into a South American bank. We can move money from that into a numbered account in another country. Makes it tough to trace, and American law enforcement doesn’t have the same access.”

“Good.” Gaglionci bit the word off, heavy with intimidation. “So make it happen.”

“Right, that’s what I’m going to . . . I mean, yeah, we’ll get it done, but this system, see, to start it off with the first account, I need a fingerprint.”

A long pause. “Fingerprint.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a scanner that’s hooked right into the computer. You press your thumb on it, I click a few buttons, and we’ve got an account set up on this thing. It’s the perfect way to start this move. Increases our protection level right away.”

“I don’t want to use a fingerprint. Are you kidding me with this shit? A fingerprint?”

Reed looked up at me, then back at the phone. There was sweat on his brow, and he had his hands clasped together, squeezing his fingers.

“Okay. You don’t want to use it, okay, but what I’m telling you is, this helps. It’s the safest way to do this. The fingerprint lets us set up with a safer account, and the money will just float through and disappear. The banks look at the fingerprint as added security, so the accounts are actually better protected.”

“And I’m attached to them. I don’t want that.”

“I need a fingerprint from someone. I’m not using my own. Find somebody else to give me one.” Reed’s voice was rising in pitch.

“You moved half a million for me and didn’t need one then. What the hell changed in a week?”

I’d been watching Reed, but now I turned to Joe and saw the same look in his face I felt in my own. Half a million? A week ago?

“This is more money,” Reed said, and I refocused on him. “A lot more, man. At least that’s what you told me. I’m trying to help you, that’s all. This much cash, it’s harder. And you said the cops could be tracing it, or trying to. I’m not going to jail for you. If I move this, I’m going to do it as safely as possible. That takes the fingerprint.”

He was doing better now, his voice edging away from nervous and toward argumentative, the way it should have been.

“You use a fingerprint to get it started, and then it ends up in the same account we’ve discussed?” Gaglionci said. “Is that it?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Using the fingerprint lets us set up a different sort of account to get everything moving. A more secure account. They feel protected, but it really helps us.”

Gaglionci was silent. The speakerphone hissed softly, and Reed licked his lips and stared at the glowing blue light on the display as if it might come to life.

“You need one thumbprint,” Gaglionci said. “Mine or anybody else’s, and then we’re ready. Then we can make this happen.”

“Yeah. Yeah, man, absolutely. We’ll be all set then.”

“All right. You stay there.”

The blue light blinked off.