Cops and Robbers

Vigano

Vigano watched the visitor leave with his escorts. He waited thirty seconds, brooding, sipping at his Michelob, and then pressed the intercom button on the scoreboard.

Waiting for Marty to come in, he thought back over the conversation. Could the guy have been on the level? It was hard to believe, and yet anything else was even harder to believe. What other reason could he have for pulling a stunt like this, coming here cold with such an off-the-wall idea? There was no profit for any law-enforcement agency in it, and nothing to be gained by any potential competitor.

After all, he wouldn’t ever have anything else to do with the guy unless there really was a multi-million-dollar bond theft on Wall Street. Which would get into the papers and onto the television news, no doubt about it. Anybody calling up and claiming to be Mr. Kopp and claiming to have stolen bonds would be given the brush-off right away unless there had been a robbery to match, one that Vigano knew about from his own sources.

So assume the guy was on the level. What was the likelihood he’d actually go through with a robbery and get away with it? Very very thin. And if he didn’t do it, Vigano wouldn’t have lost anything.

But if he did really pull it off, Vigano would stand to gain a hell of a lot.

It was a nice position to be in. Vigano toasted himself with Michelob, and Marty came in, saying, “Yes, sir, Mr. Vigano?”

Vigano turned to him. “The guy that’s going out now,” he said. “I want his name and address and what he does for a living.”

“Yes, sir,” Marty said, and left again.

It would probably come to nothing. But just in case something good did come out of it, Vigano wanted to have his homework done. It’s the details, he thought, that make the difference between a winner and a punk.

He got to his feet, selected a ball, and bowled a strike.