Dirty Money

1

One week earlier, just two days after the big armored-car robbery, Dr. Myron Madchen’s week of horror began in earnest, and just when he’d thought his near-connection to the affair was buried and gone as though it had never been.

In a way, it had never been. He had not after all provided an alibi for one of the robbers, and he had not shared in the proceeds of the robbery. In fact, when the time finally came, he had had nothing to do with the matter. Everything had resolved itself with no action from him, and he was home free. Or so he’d thought.

That Sunday evening, two days after the robbery, he and Isabelle shared a fine dinner in a roadside restaurant called the Wayward Inn, where they cemented their plans for the future. A little patience was all they’d need. After all, the doctor was now a recent and unexpected widower, and it would be unseemly if he and Isabelle were publicly to make much of one another so soon.

So they’d driven to the Wayward Inn in separate cars, dined together, laughed together, gazed into each other’s eyes, and parted with a chaste kiss in the parking lot. All the way home the doctor, a heavyset man in his fifties with thick iron-gray hair combed straight back and large eyeglasses, sang at the wheel, loud and off-key, a thing he’d never done before.

His house when he entered it seemed larger than before, and warmer. Also, it was empty, since he’d given Estrella a week off, with pay, feeling he’d rather be unobserved until he became more familiar with the new situation.

He’d forgotten to turn lights on when he’d gone out this evening. It hadn’t been dark yet, and he wasn’t used to the house being empty in his absence. Now he wanted light, all the light there was, and he went through the large house room by room, switching on lamps and track lighting and wall sconces and chandeliers everywhere, until he reached the small room off his bedroom, laughably known as his office — he’d be moving now to a larger space — and when he pushed the button for the ceiling light the voice in the corner said, “Turn that off.”

He very nearly fainted. He clutched to the doorjamb so he wouldn’t fall over, and stared at the robber.

One of the robbers, the one who’d been caught and then escaped, one of the two who’d threatened him last week when they were afraid he’d let something slip about their plans for the robbery. Which he was never going to do, never; it was important to him, too, or it had seemed vitally important before Ellen... had her heart attack.

“Off.”

“Oh! Yes!”

He’d been staring at the man, not even listening to what he’d said, but now he hit the button again and the room went back to semidarkness. The light from the bedroom behind him still showed his desk and chair, his filing cabinet, his framed degrees and awards, and in the darkest corner that hunched man in Dr. Madchen’s black leather reading chair, just watching him.

“What—” He shook his head, and started again: “You can’t be here.”

“I can’t be anywhere else,” the man said. Dalesia; the television news had said his name was Dalesia.

“You can’t be here.”

“Well, let’s look at that, Doctor,” Dalesia said. He was tense but in control, a hard and capable man. He said, “Why don’t you go over and sit at your desk there, swivel the chair around to face me. Go ahead, do it.”

So the doctor did it, and then, in a low and trembling voice, said, “I can’t let anybody even know I know you.”

“If I leave here, Doctor,” Dalesia said, “I’m gonna be sore. I’m gonna be sore at you. And then, in a couple hours, a couple days, when the cops get me again, guess who I’m gonna talk about.”

The doctor felt as though invisible straps were clamping every part of his body. He sat tilted forward, feet together and heels lifted, knees together, hands folded into his lap as though he were trying to hide a baseball. Slowly blinking at Dalesia, he said, “Talk about me? What could you say about me? I didn’t do anything.”

“You killed your wife.”

The doctor’s mouth popped open, but at first all he did was expel a little puff of air. But then, needing to have that accusation unsaid, never said, he protested, “That’s— Nobody’s even suggested such a thing.”

“I will.”

The doctor shook his head, still feeling those invisible bonds. “Why would anybody believe you?”

“They didn’t do an autopsy, did they?”

“Of course not. No need.”

“I’ll give them the need.” Dalesia was much more comfortable in this room than the doctor was. “If I stay here until the heat dies down,” he said, “your wife had a heart attack. If I leave, you stuck her with a hypodermic needle.”

“They won’t believe you,” the doctor insisted. “There’s no reason to believe you.”

“Doctor,” Dalesia said, “we had our very first meeting about the robbery in your office. Your nurse and your receptionist saw me. You told us the money you’d get from us was your last chance, you were desperate, you had serious trouble.” He shrugged. “Wife trouble, I guess.”

“I was going to run away.”

“Now you don’t have to.”

The doctor’s mind filled with regrets, that he had ever involved himself with these people, but then regrets for the past were overwhelmed by horror of the present. What could he do? He couldn’t force the man to leave, Dalesia really would take his revenge. Let him stay, and somehow find a way to stick him with a hypodermic needle? But Dalesia was tough and hard, he’d never give Dr. Madchen the opportunity. So what could he do?

Dalesia said, “There’s a little bedroom downstairs, by the kitchen. Whose is that?”

“What? Oh, Estrella.”

“Who’s that, your daughter?”

“No, the maid, she’s our maid.”

“Where is she?”

“With her family in New Jersey. I gave her the week off.”

“Well, that’s good, then,” Dalesia said. “I’ll stay down there. I’ll take off before this Estrella gets back, take your car, and that’s the end of it.”

“Oh, no,” the doctor said. “You can’t take my car!”

“I gotta have wheels.”

“But you can’t take my car.”

“Why not? You report it stolen.”

“But that would be the same thing,” the doctor told him. “I’m safe because nobody’s looking at me, that’s what you said. I just had the one patient who was in the robbery with you, that’s all. But if you tell them about me, they’ll look at me.” Dr. Madchen leaned earnestly forward. “Mr. Dalesia,” he said, “this has all been an emotional nightmare for me. I’ll let you stay, but when you go, steal someone else’s car.”

Dalesia nodded at him. “I could just kill you, you know.”

Humbly, the doctor said, “I know you could.”

Dalesia shook his head, as though angry with himself. “I’m not a nutcase,” he said. “I’m not gonna hurt you unless I don’t have any choice.”

“I know that,” the doctor said. “You can stay. Use Estrella’s room. But please don’t take my car.”

“We’ll see,” Dalesia said.

The next week was harrowing, Dr. Madchen lived his normal life by day, doing his office hours in downtown Rutherford, seeing his patients, but always aware of that lurking demon waiting for him at home. If only he could just stay all night in the office, sleep on an examination table, eat at the luncheonette up at the corner.

But he didn’t dare do anything outside his normal routine. Get up in the morning, eat breakfast with Estrella’s closed door seeming to shimmer with what lay behind it, then go off to his office and return as late as possible at the end of the day.

He took Isabelle out to dinner twice that week, but the strain of this new secret was just too much for him. He couldn’t possibly tell her what had happened. All he could do was wait for this horror to end.

At least the man Dalesia didn’t intrude too much into the doctor’s life. Estrella had her own television set and Dalesia seemed to spend most of his time in there watching it. From the sound, it was mostly the news channels. The doctor bought bread and cold cuts and cans of soup, and steadily they were consumed, but not in his presence.

The few times he did see Dalesia that week were unsettling, because it soon became clear that Dalesia was becoming more and more disturbed by the fix he was in. He’d gotten this far, to this temporary safety, but it couldn’t last, and where could he go next? He had killed a US marshal, and every policeman in the Northeast was looking for him. The doctor began to fear that the man would eventually snap under the strain, that he would do something irrational that would destroy them both.

But it never quite happened, and on Friday evening, when Dr. Madchen got home and knocked on Estrella’s door, Dalesia appeared in the doorway more haggard than tense, as though now the strain were robbing him of strength. “Estrella’s coming back tomorrow,” the doctor said. “I’m picking her up at the bus depot at three. You’ve been here almost a week. You really have to go.”

“I know,” Dalesia said, and half turned as though to look at the television set still running in the room behind him. “They’re not letting up,” he said.

“I’ve been stopped at roadblocks three times this week,” the doctor told him.

Dalesia rubbed a weary hand over his face. “I gotta get away from here.”

“Please don’t take my car. It won’t do you any good, and it can only—”

“I know, I know.” Dalesia’s anger was also tired. “I need a car, but I can’t use one all the cops are looking for.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay,” Dalesia said. “Tomorrow, when you go get this Estrella, you’re gonna drive me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“I’ll show you tomorrow,” Dalesia said, and went back into Estrella’s room, and closed the door.

2

Captain Robert Modale of the New York State Police was a calm man and a patient man, but he knew a whopping waste of time when it was dumped in his lap, and he’d been given a doozy this time. Irritation, which is what Captain Modale had to admit to himself he was feeling right now, had the effect of making him even quieter and more self-contained than ever. As a result, he had ridden in the passenger seat of the unmarked state pool car, next to Trooper Oskott at the wheel, all the way across half of New York State and probably a third of Massachusetts with barely a word out of his mouth.

Trooper Oskott, looking awkward and uncomfortable in civvies instead of his usual snappy gray fitted uniform, had tried to make conversation a few times, but the responses were so minimal that he soon gave up, and the interstates merely rolled silently by outside the vehicle’s glass while Captain Modale contemplated this whopping waste of time he had to deal with.

Which was going to be a two-day waste of time, at that. The captain had to travel these hundreds of miles on a Friday, but he would reach Rutherford too late to meet with his Massachusetts counterparts until Saturday morning. In the meantime, the plan was that he and Trooper Oskott would bunk in a motel somewhere.

At first, though, it had looked as though no accommodation would be available, since it was the height of the fall foliage season over there in New England, and most inns of any kind were full. Captain Modale had been counting on that, the whopping waste of time called off for lack of housing, but then somebody made an early departure from a bed and breakfast with the disgusting name of Bosky Rounds, so the trip was on after all.

Bosky Rounds was not as repulsive as its name, though it was still not at all to the captain’s taste. Nevertheless, the proprietor, Mrs. Bartlett, did maintain a neat and cozy atmosphere, steered the captain and the trooper to a fine New England seafood dinner on Friday night, and furnished such mountains of breakfast Saturday morning that the captain, indulging himself far beyond his normal pattern, decided not to mention the breakfast to his wife.

Mrs. Bartlett, in a side desk drawer in her neat office, seemed to keep an unlimited supply of local maps, on one of which she drew a narrow red pen line from where they were to the temporary unified police headquarters in the Rutherford Combined Bank building, that being the rightful owner of the money stolen last week.

When they went out to the car, they were preceded by another guest here, a brassy-looking blonde in black, who got into a black Honda Accord festooned with antennas. With just a quick glimpse of her profile, the captain found himself wondering, have I seen her before? Possibly in here last night, or at the restaurant. Or it could be she’s just a kind of type of tough-looking blonde, striking enough to make you notice her, but also with a little warning sign in view.

Whatever the case, she was none of the captain’s concern. He got into the pool car, and Trooper Oskott drove him over to the meeting.

What was normally a loan officer’s space, a fairly roomy office with neutral gray carpet and furniture and walls, had been turned into the combined police headquarters, crammed with electronic equipment, extra tables and chairs, and easels mounted with photos, chain-of-command charts, progress reports, and particularly irritating examples of press coverage.

While Trooper Oskott waited at an easy parade rest out in the main banking area, still shut down since the robbery with all necessary bank transactions handled at another branch twenty-some miles away, Captain Modale went into the HQ room to be met by several of his opposite numbers, brought here at this hour specifically to meet with him.

What the captain read from those solemn faces and strong handshakes was a frustration even deeper than his own, and he decided to give up his bad temper at having his time wasted like this, because he knew these men and women were clutching at straws.

Three strangers had come into their territory, armed with antitank weapons illegal to be imported into the United States, and they’d made off with just about an entire bank’s cash assets. One day later, the law had managed to lay its hands on one of the felons, but the very next day they lost him again, and lost one of their own as well. Now, in the nearly a week since, there had been no progress, no breaks, no further clues as to where any of the three men had gone.

One of the brass here to greet him, a Chief Inspector Davies, said, “I’ll be honest with you, Captain, this reflects on every one of us.”

“I don’t see that, Inspector.”

“Yes, it does,” Davies insisted. “The one man we got, and I’m afraid lost—”

“We lost him,” said the tight-lipped FBI agent Ramey that the captain had been introduced to. “We’ll be changing some procedures after this.”

“The point is,” Davies said, “we know who he is. Nicholas Leonard Dalesia. He’s not from the Northeast at all. He has no friends here, no associates, no allies. He hasn’t stolen a car. He’s been loose for almost a week in the middle of the biggest manhunt we can muster, and not a sign of him.”

“He’s gone to ground,” said the captain.

“Agreed. But how? The feeling is, around here,” the inspector told him, “the feeling is, the other two are with him.”

“I don’t follow that,” the captain said.

“We know they had to leave the money behind, hide it somewhere,” the inspector told him. “Are they with it now? One of them, the one you met, went over to New York State to engage almost immediately in another robbery. Did he do it for cash to tide the gang over while they’re hiding out?”

“You’re suggesting,” the captain said, “the one that came to us managed to escape your manhunt, did that second robbery, and went right back into the search area.”

“You don’t buy it,” Inspector Davies said.

“I know I wouldn’t do it,” the captain said. “If I got my hands on some different money, I’d just grab it and keep going.”

“Then where’s Nicholas Leonard Dalesia? It just doesn’t— Oh, Gwen, there you are. Come over here.”

A very attractive young woman in tans and russets had just entered the HQ room, and before the captain could show his bafflement — what was somebody like that doing here? — Inspector Davies all unknowing rescued him by saying, “Detective Second Grade Gwen Reversa, this is New York State Police Captain Robert Modale. You’re the two law officers who’ve actually seen and talked to that second man.”

After a handshake and greeting, Detective Reversa said, “John B. Allen, that’s who he was when I met him.”

“He called himself Ed Smith in my neighborhood.”

She smiled. “He doesn’t go in for colorful names, does he?”

“There’s not much colorful about him at all.”

“Tell me,” Detective Reversa said, “what do you think of the drawing?”

“Of Mr. Smith?” The captain shook his head, “It works in the wrong direction,” he said. “Once you know it’s supposed to be him, you can see the similarities. But I had a conversation with the man after I saw those posters, and I didn’t make the connection.”

Inspector Davies said, “While you’re here, Captain, I’d like you and Gwen to sit down with our artist and see if you can improve that picture.”

“Because you think he’s come back.”

Detective Reversa said, “But you don’t.”

“I think,” the captain said carefully, not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings, “the third man could very well still be here, helping Dalesia hide out. But the fellow I talked to? What do you think?”

“He’s a cautious man,” she said, “and not loud. No colorful names. I think he’d be like a cat and not go anywhere he wasn’t sure of.”

Inspector Davies said, “So the two of you could improve that drawing.”

The captain bowed in acquiescence. “Whatever I can do to be of help.”

The artist was a small irritable woman who worked in charcoal, smearing much of it on herself. “I think,” Gwen Reversa told her, “the main thing wrong with the picture now is, it makes him look threatening.”

“That’s right,” Captain Modale said.

The artist, who wasn’t the one who’d done the original drawing, frowned at it. “Yes, it is threatening,” she agreed. “What should it be instead?”

“Watchful,” Gwen Reversa said.

“This man,” the captain said, gesturing at the picture, “is aggressive, he’s about to make some sort of move. The real man doesn’t move first. He watches you, he waits to see what you’re going to do.”

“But then,” Gwen Reversa said, “I suspect he’s very fast.”

“Absolutely.”

The artist pursed her lips. “I’m not going to get all that into the picture. Even a photograph wouldn’t get all that in. Are the eyes all right?”

“Maybe,” Gwen Reversa said, “not so defined.”

“He’s not staring,” the captain said. “He’s just looking.”

The artist sighed. “Very well,” she said, and opened her large sketch pad on the bank officer’s desk in this small side office next to the main HQ room. “Let’s begin.”

The three had been working together for little more than an hour when Inspector Davies came to the doorway and said, “You two come listen to this. See what you think.”

The larger outer room now contained, in addition to everything else, a quick eager young guy with windblown hair and large black-framed glasses like a raccoon’s mask. He mostly gave the impression of somebody here to sell magazine subscriptions.

The inspector made introductions: “Captain Modale, Detective Reversa, this is Terry Mulcany, a book writer.”

“Mostly fact crime,” Mulcany said. He looked nervous but self-confident at the same time.

“That must keep you busy,” the captain commented.

Mulcany flashed a very happy smile. “Yes, sir, it does.”

The inspector said, “Mr. Mulcany believes he might have seen your man.”

Surprised, dubious, the captain said, “Around here?”

“Yes, sir,” Mulcany said. “If it was him.”

The captain said, “Why do you think it was him?”

“I’m just not sure, sir.” Mulcany shrugged in frustration. “I’ve been talking to so many people in this neighborhood this past week, unless I make notes or tape somebody it all runs together.”

Gwen Reversa said, “But you think you saw one of the robbers.”

“With a woman. Yesterday, the day before, I’m not really positive.” Shaking his head, he said, “I didn’t notice it at the time, that’s the problem. But this morning, I was looking at those wanted posters again, just to remind myself, and I thought, wait a minute, I saw that guy, I talked to him. Standing... outdoors somewhere, with a woman, good-looking woman. Talking to them just for a minute, just to introduce myself, like I’ve been doing all week.”

“And he looked like the poster,” the inspector suggested.

“Not exactly,” Mulcany said. “It could have been, or maybe not. But it was close enough, I thought I should report it.”

Gwen said, “Mr. Mulcany, would you come over here?”

Curious, Mulcany and the others followed her into the side office, where the artist was still touching up the new drawing. Stepping to one side, Gwen gestured at the picture. The artist looked up, saw all the attention, and cleared out of the way.

Mulcany crossed to the desk, looked down at the drawing, and said, “Oh!”

Gwen said, “Oh?”

“That’s him!” Delighted, Mulcany stared around at the others. “That’s what he looks like!”

3

Nelson McWhitney liked his bar so much that, if the damn thing would only turn some kind of profit, he might just stay there all the time and retire from his activities in that other life. His customers in the bar were more settled, less sudden, than the people he worked with in that other sphere. His apartment behind the place was small but comfortable, and the neighborhood was working-class and safe, the kind of people who didn’t have much of anything but just naturally watched one another’s backs. About the only way anybody could get hurt really badly around here was by winning the lottery, which occasionally happened to some poor bastard, who was usually, a year later, either dead or in jail or rehab or exile. McWhitney did not play the lottery.

McWhitney did, however, sometimes play an even more dangerous game, and he was planning a round of it just now. When he got out of bed Saturday morning, he had two appointments ahead of him, both connected to that game. The second one, at eleven this morning, was a three-block walk from here to pick up the truck he’d bought yesterday, which would have the Holy Redeemer Choir name painted on the doors by then, and be ready for the drive north. And the first, at ten, was with a fellow he knew from that other world, named Oscar Sidd.

Because of the meeting with Oscar Sidd, McWhitney had only one beer with the eggs and fried potatoes he made in his little kitchen at the rear of the apartment before going out front to the bar, where he put a few small bills in the cash register to start the day.

He had the Daily News delivered, every morning pushed through the large letter slot in the bar’s front door, so he sat at the bar and read a while, digesting his breakfast. He had some tricky moments coming, but he was calm about it.

Oscar Sidd was a frugal man; at exactly ten o’clock, wasting no time, he gave two hard raps to the glass of the front door, wasting no energy. A dark green shade was lowered over that glass, but this would be Oscar.

It was. A bony man a few inches over six feet, he wore narrow clothing that tended to be just a little too short for him. He came in now wearing a black topcoat that stopped above his knees with sleeves that stopped above the sleeves of his dark brown sport coat, which stopped above his bony wrists, and black pants that stopped far enough above his black shoes to show dark blue socks.

“Good morning, Nels,” he said, and stepped to the side so McWhitney could shut the door.

“You okay, Oscar?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“You want a beer?”

“I think not,” Oscar said. “You go ahead, I’ll join you with a seltzer.”

“I’ll join us both with a seltzer,” McWhitney said, and gestured at the nearest booth. “Sit down, I’ll get them.” He wouldn’t be introducing Oscar Sidd to his private quarters in back.

Oscar slid into the booth, facing the closed front door, opening his topcoat as McWhitney went behind the bar to fill two glasses with seltzer and ice and bring them around the end of the bar on a tray. He dealt the glasses, put the tray back on the bar, sat across from Oscar, and said, “How goes it?”

“Colder this morning,” Oscar said. He didn’t touch his glass, but watched McWhitney solemnly.

“You keep up with the news, Oscar,” McWhitney suggested.

“If it’s interesting.”

“That big bank robbery up in Massachusetts last week.”

“Armored car, you mean.”

McWhitney grinned. “You’re right, I do. You noticed that.”

“It was interesting,” Oscar said. “One of them got picked up, I believe.”

“And then lost again.”

Oscar’s smile, when he showed it, was thin. “Hard to get reliable help,” he said.

McWhitney said, “Did you notice how it was they got onto him?”

“The bank’s money is poisoned, I believe,” Oscar said. “Traceable. It can’t be used.”

“Well, not in this country,” McWhitney agreed.

Oscar gave him a keen look. “I begin to see why we’re talking.”

McWhitney, having nothing to say, sipped his seltzer.

Oscar said, “You are suggesting you might have access to that poisoned cash.”

“And I know,” McWhitney said, “you do some dealings with money overseas.”

“Money for weapons,” Oscar said, and shrugged. “I am a... junior partner in a business trading weaponry.”

“What I’m interested in,” McWhitney said, “is money for money. If I could get that poisoned cash out of the States, what percentage do you think I could sell it for?”

“Oh, not much,” Oscar said. “I’m not sure it would be worth it, all that trouble.”

“Well, what percent do you think? Ten?”

“I doubt it.” Oscar shrugged. “Most of the profit would go in tips,” he said. “To import officials, shipping company employees, warehousemen. You start playing with those people, Nels, many many hands are out.”

“It’s an awful lot of money, Oscar,” McWhitney said.

“It would very quickly shrink,” Oscar said, and shrugged. “But since it’s there,” he went on, “and since you do have access to it, and since we are old friends” — which was not strictly speaking true — “it is possible we could work something out.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Oscar looked around at the dark wood bar. “Do you have this money with you now?”

“No, I’m on my way to get it.”

“The police theory,” Oscar said, “according to the television news, is that the thieves hid their loot somewhere near the site of the robbery.”

“The police theory,” McWhitney said, “is, you might say, on the money.”

“But you believe,” Oscar said, “you could now go to this area and retrieve the cash and bring it safely home.”

“That’s the idea,” McWhitney said.

“And are you alone in this endeavor?”

“Well,” McWhitney said, “that’s the complication. There’s other people involved.”

“Other people,” Oscar agreed, “do tend to be a complication. In fact, Nels, if I may offer you some advice...”

“Go ahead.”

“Leave the money there,” Oscar said. “The little profit you’d realize from an offshore trade becomes ridiculous if you have to share it with others.”

“I may not have to share it,” McWhitney said.

Oscar’s thin face looked both amused and disapproving. “Oh, Nels,” he said. “And do you suppose your partners have similar thoughts?”

McWhitney shook his head, frowning for a stressful instant at the scarred wood tabletop. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Could be. I don’t know.”

“A dangerous arena to walk into.”

“I know that much.” McWhitney gave Oscar an impassioned look. “I’m not talking about killing anybody, Oscar. I’m not talking about a double-cross.”

“No.”

“You said it: a dangerous arena. If I have to defend myself I will.”

“Of course.”

“There’s three of us.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe three of us come out with the money, maybe one of us comes out, maybe nobody comes out.”

“You’re determined to know which.”

“Oh, I am,” McWhitney said. “And so are the others. If at the end— If at the end, I’m clear of it, and I’ve got the money, and it’s just me, I want to be able to think you’ll be there for the export part.”

“You won’t be mentioning me to the others.”

“No.”

Oscar considered. “Well, it’s possible,” he said. “However, one caveat.”

“Yeah?”

“If you come out trailed by ex-partners,” Oscar told him, “I do not know you, and I have never known you.”

“That’s one thing I can tell you for sure,” McWhitney promised. “I won’t be trailed by any ex-partners.”

4

Terry Mulcany couldn’t believe his good luck. He’d been in the right place at the right time, that’s all, and now look. Here he was in the exact center of the manhunt, hobnobbing with the major headhunters. Well, not exactly hobnobbing, but still.

Mulcany knew he didn’t belong here. He wasn’t at this level. A young freelancer from Concord, New Hampshire, he had two trade paperback true-crime books to his credit, both to very minor houses and both milking, to be honest, very minor crimes. A few magazine sales, a whole drawerful of rejections, and that was his career so far.

But not any more. This is where it all would change, and he could feel it in the air. He was an insider now, and he was going to stay inside.

If only he could remember where exactly he’d run into that robber and his moll. Outside some B and B around here, that’s all he could bring to mind. A white-railed porch, greenery all around; hell, that described half the buildings in the county.

But even if he could never finally pinpoint where he and the robber had met, what he did remember was enough. He had come to this temporary police HQ just in time to end a disagreement between two of the top brass, and since it was the top top brass his evidence supported, he was in.

Apparently, it had been the local honcho, Chief Inspector William Davies, who believed one of the men they were looking for had left this area, pulled another robbery in New York State, and then come back here with the cash to finance the gang while they were hiding out. The other honcho, Captain Robert Modale from upstate New York, had insisted the robber, having safely gotten away from this area, would never dare come back into it. It was Mulcany’s positive identification of the man that proved the chief inspector right.

Fortunately, Captain Modale didn’t get sore about it, but just accepted the new reality. And accepted Terry Mulcany along with it. As did all of them.

The woman artist had left now, to have many copies made of the new wanted poster, and the others had moved into that office. Chief Inspector Davies sat at the desk where the artist had done her drawing, while Captain Modale and Detective Gwen Reversa — there’s a picture for the book jacket! — pulled up chairs to face him, and Terry Mulcany, with no objection from the others, stood to one side, leaning back into the angle between the wall and the filing cabinet. The fly on the wall.

At first, the three law officers discussed the meaning of the robber’s return, and the meaning of the woman who’d been seen with him, and the possibility the man was actually bold enough to be staying at one of the B and Bs nearby.

But what the sighting of the robber mostly did was put new emphasis on the whereabouts of the stolen money. “We probably should have done this before,” Inspector Davies said, “but we’re sure going to do it now. We’ll mobilize every police force in the area, and we will search every empty house, every empty barn, every empty garage and shed and chicken coop in a one-hundred-mile radius. We will find that money.”

“And with it, with any luck,” Captain Modale said, “the thieves.”

“God willing.”

“Inspector,” Mulcany said from his corner, “excuse me, not to second-guess, but why wasn’t that kind of search done before now?” He asked the question with deference and apparent self-confidence, but inside he was quaking, afraid that by drawing attention to himself he was merely reminding them that he didn’t really belong here, and they would rise up as one man (and woman) and cast him into outer darkness.

But that didn’t happen. Treating it as a legitimate question from an acceptable questioner, the inspector said, “We were concentrating on the men. We were working on the assumption that, if we found the men, they’d lead us to the money. Now we realize the money will lead us to the men.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Detective Reversa said, “Captain, I don’t understand what happened last weekend over in your territory. What was he doing there? Did he have confederates?”

Captain Modale took a long breath, a man severely tested but carrying on, “It really looks,” he said, “as though the fella did the whole thing by the seat of his pants. If he ever had any previous connection with Tom Lindahl, we have not been able to find it. Of course, we can’t find Tom Lindahl either, and unfortunately he’s the only one who would know most of the answers we need.”

Detective Reversa asked, “Tom Lindahl? Who’s he?”

“A loner,” Modale said, “just about a hermit, living by himself in a little town over there. For years he was a manager in charge of upkeep, buildings, all that, at a racetrack near there. He got fired for some reason, had some kind of grudge. When this fellow Ed Smith came along, I guess it was Tom’s opportunity at last to get revenge. They robbed the track together.”

Detective Reversa said, “But they’re not still together. You don’t think Lindahl came over here.”

“To tell you the truth,” Modale said, “I thought we’d pick up Lindahl within just two or three days. He has no criminal record, no history of this sort of thing, you’d expect him to make nothing but mistakes.”

“Maybe,” Detective Reversa said, “our robber gave him a few good tips for hiding out. Unless, of course, he killed Lindahl once the robbery was done.”

“It doesn’t look that way,” Modale said. “They went in late last Sunday night, overpowered the guards, and made off with nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash. None of it traceable, I’m sorry to say.”

Inspector Davies said, “One hundred thousand dollars would be a good motive for the pro to kill this Lindahl.”

“Except,” Modale said, “his car was found Tuesday night in Lexington, Kentucky, two blocks from the bus depot there. People who travel by bus use more cash and fewer credit cards than most people, so he won’t stand out. If he’s traveling by bus and staying in cheap hotels in cities, spending only cash, he can pretty well stay out of sight.”

Detective Reversa said, “How long can he go on like that?”

“I’d say,” Modale told her, “he’s already got where he wants to go. Anywhere from Texas to Oregon. Settle down, get a small job, rent a little place to stay, he can gradually build up a new identity, good enough to get along with. As long as he never commits another crime, never attracts the law’s attention, I don’t see why he can’t live the rest of his life completely undisturbed.”

“With one hundred thousand cash dollars,” Inspector Davies said, sounding disgusted. “Not bad.”

Oh, Terry Mulcany thought, if only that could be my story. Tom Lindahl and the perfect crime. But where is he? Where are the interviews? Where are the pictures of him in his new life? Where is the ultimate triumph of the law at the very end of the day?

No, Tom Lindahl was safe from Terry Mulcany as well. He would stay with the true crime he had, the armored car robbery, with bazookas and unusable cash and three professional desperados, one of them now an escaped cop killer. Not so bad, really.

THE LAND PIRATES; working title.

5

Oscar Sidd’s car was so anonymous you forgot it while you were looking at it. A small and unremarkable four-door sedan, it was the color of the liquid in a jar of pitted black olives; dark but weak, bruised but undramatic.

Oscar sat in this car up the block from McW after his meeting with Nelson McWhitney. Some time today the man would set out on his journey to get the Massachusetts money. Oscar would trail him in this invisible car, and McWhitney would never know it. Out from beside the bar would come McWhitney’s red pickup truck, and Oscar would slide in right behind.

Except it wasn’t the pickup that emerged, it was McWhitney himself, from his bar’s front door. He paused in the open doorway to call one last instruction to his bartender inside, then set off on foot, down the sidewalk away from Oscar Sidd.

That was all right. Oscar could still follow. He put the forgettable car in gear, waited till McWhitney was a full block ahead, then slowly eased forward.

McWhitney walked three blocks, hands in pockets, shoulders bunched, as though daring anyone or anything to try to slow him down. Then, taking his hands out of his pockets, he turned right and crossed the tarmac to a corner gas station that was also a body repair and detailing shop. He went into the office there, so Oscar stopped at the pumps and filled the tank, using a credit card. He expected to make a long drive today.

McWhitney was still in the office. When he came out, surely, he would be getting into one of the vehicles parked around the periphery here; but then which way would he travel?

The Belt Parkway was down that way, several blocks to the south; Oscar was going to guess that’s where McWhitney would head, if his final goal was Massachusetts. Therefore, when Oscar left the station, he drove half a block north and made a U-turn into a no-parking spot beside a fire hydrant. He sat there and tuned his radio to a classical music station: Schumann.

Oscar Sidd was not as important in the international world of finance as he liked to suggest, but the reputation itself sometimes brought useful opportunities his way. This cash of McWhitney’s now; that could be useful. In fact, he did have ways to launder hot money overseas, mostly in Russia, though the people you had to do business with were among the worst in the world. You were lucky to come away from them without losing everything you possessed, including your life. Still, McWhitney’s money might be worth the risk. Oscar would trail along and see what opportunities might arise.

It was nearly ten minutes before McWhitney emerged, and then Oscar nearly missed him, it was so unexpected. A small battered old Ford Econoline van, a very dark green, with holy redeemer choir in fairly rough white block letters on the door, came easing out of the gas station and paused before joining the moderate traffic flow.

It took Oscar a few seconds to realize the driver of the van, hunched forward to look both ways, was McWhitney, then the van bumped out to the roadway and turned right, just as Oscar had expected. He let one other car go by, to intervene between himself and the van, then followed.

The van up there was old, its bumper and the lower parts of its body pockmarked with rust, but the New York State license plate it sported was new, shiny, and undented. That name he’d seen on the door, Holy Redeemer Choir, that was also new, and must be the reason McWhitney had left the van at that shop.

Why would McWhitney use a name like that? What would it mean?

He wasn’t surprised, several blocks later, when the van signaled for a right and took the on-ramp to the Belt Parkway, heading east and then north. We’re going to New England, he thought, pleased, and the radio switched to Prokofiev.

6

The police meeting in the bank building was breaking up, and Gwen walked out to the main bank lobby with Captain Modale from New York State, saying, “I want you to know, Bob, I’m glad you made the trip over here.”

“Somewhat to my surprise,” the captain told her, with a little grin, “I am as well. All the way over here yesterday, I’ll have to tell you the truth, I was in quite a sour mood.”

They’d stopped in the lobby to continue their conversation as the others left. Gwen said, “You thought it was going to be a big waste of time.”

“I did. Mostly, because I was convinced my Ed Smith was likely to be anywhere on earth except this neighborhood right here.”

“I’m almost as surprised as you are,” Gwen told him. “When I talked with my John B. Allen, he just didn’t seem like somebody who’d take unnecessary risks.”

“I imagine,” the captain said, “two million dollars could be quite a temptation.”

“Enough for him to make a mistake.”

“We can only hope.”

“But now we’ve got a better likeness,” Gwen said, “we maybe have more than hope. Which is the main reason I’m so glad you came over. We’ll have the new poster up this afternoon, and if he’s still in this general area we’ll definitely scoop him in.”

“I almost wish I could stay for it,” the captain said. “But I’m sure you’ll let us know.”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Gwen promised him, and laughed. “I’ll e-mail you his mug shot.”

“Do.” The captain stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Gwen.”

“And you, Bob,” she said, as they shook hands. “Safe trip back.”

“Thank you.” The captain turned. “Trooper Oskott?”

The trooper had been seated at a loan officer’s desk, reading a hunting magazine, but he now stood, pocketed the magazine, and said, “Yes, sir.”

The two men left, and Gwen paused to get out her cell phone and call her current boyfriend, Barry Ridgely, a defense lawyer who spent his weekdays in court and his Saturdays on the golf course. When he answered now, in an outdoor setting from the sound of it, she said, “How many more holes?”

“I can do lunch in forty minutes, if that’s what you want to know.”

“It is. You pick the place.”

“How about Steuber’s?” he said, naming a country place that had originally been very Germanic but was now much more ordinary, the Wiener schnitzel and saurbraten long departed.

“Done. See you there.”

Leaving the bank building, putting her cell phone away, Gwen turned toward her pool car when someone called, “Detective Reversa?”

She turned and it was Terry Mulcany, and it seemed to her he’d been waiting on the sidewalk specifically for her to come out. “Yes?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to come out,” he said. “I have two questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Go ahead.”

“Well, the first is,” he said, “I know my publisher, when the book comes out they’re going to want pictures, and particularly the detectives who worked on the case. So what I was wondering is, if you’ve got a picture of yourself you especially like.”

And have you, she wondered, asked the same question of the other detectives on the case? Of course not. Smiling, she said, “When the time comes, your editor can call me or someone else at my barracks. I’m sure there won’t be any problem.”

“That’s fine,” he said, with a hint of disappointment. What had he been hoping for? That she would suddenly hand him her Playboy playmate photo?

Wanting to get to Steuber’s, she said, “Was there something else?”

“Yes. The other thing,” he said, “is, I’ve been trying to remember where I saw that guy.”

“My John B. Allen.”

“Yeah.” He twisted his face into a Kabuki mask, to demonstrate the effort he was putting in. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but there’s something about a pear it reminds me of. The place where I saw them.”

She did her own Kabuki mask. “A pear?”

“You know this area,” he said, “a lot better than I do. Is there someplace around here called like the Pear Orchard, or Pear House, or something like that?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard of.”

“Oh, well,” he said, and elaborately shrugged. “If I figure it out, I’ll give you a call.”

“You do that,” she said.

Barry’s current client was a veterinarian who either had or had not strangled his wife. A jury would answer that question very soon now, probably early next week, and at lunch Barry was full of the problems besetting a poor defense counsel merely trying to put his client in the best possible light. “The judge just isn’t gonna let me show the video in my summation,” he complained, crumbling a roll in vexation. His client, in happier times, had won a humanitarian award from some veterinarian’s association, and Barry insisted that no one who watched the video of the man’s acceptance speech would ever he able to convict him of anything more nefarious than littering. “He’s not even gonna let me show a photo of it.”

“Well,” Gwen said, being gentle, “that is kind of far from the subject at hand.”

“Which of course is what the judge insists. But if I were to just mention it, the award, that could be even worse than—”

“Bartlett,” Gwen said.

Barry frowned at her. “What?”

“Bartlett pear,” Gwen said, “Mrs. Bartlett. Bosky Rounds.”

“Gwen,” he said, “is this supposed to be making sense?”

Beaming at him, Gwen said, “All at once, it does.”

7

When Trooper Louise Rawburton signed in at the Deer Hill barracks at three fifty-two that afternoon, she was one of sixteen troopers, eleven male and five female, assigned to the four-to-midnight shift, two troopers per patrol car, doing this three-month segment with Trooper Danny Oleski, who did most of the driving, which was okay because it left her more freedom to talk. Danny didn’t mind her yakking away, so it made for a happy patrol car, and if it wasn’t for the system of rotation she knew she and Danny would have been happy as a team on their tours of duty forever.

However, the system of rotation was, everybody agreed, all in all a good idea. Put two straight men who get along with each other into the confines of a patrol car for several hours a day and they’ll swap old stories, tell jokes, recommend movies and generally make the time go by. Make it one straight man and one straight woman and they’ll do all the same things, but after a while they’ll start to smile on each other a little differently, they’ll start to touch, start to kiss, and down that road lies marital unhappiness and inefficient policing. A three-month rotation is usually short enough to keep that sort of thing from happening, to almost everybody’s relief.

When Louise joined Danny and the other fourteen troopers in the shape-up room for the day’s assignments from Sgt. Jackson, she expected today’s tour to be more of the same: roadblocks. For over a week now, most of their on-duty time had been spent mounting roadblocks, the only variant being that the roadblocks were shifted to slightly different locations every day.

No one would say that the roadblocks had been completely unsuccessful. A number of expired licenses had been found, lack of insurance, faulty lights, the occasional drunk. But as to the purpose of the roadblocks, to nab the three men who’d destroyed three armored cars and made off with the fourth, full of cash, over a week ago, not a glimmer, The one man who’d been captured, and subsequently lost, was the result of a tip from a deli clerk who’d been passed one of the known stolen bills. Still, the powers that be felt better if they could mess up the whole world’s schedules by littering the highways and byways with roadblocks, thus assuring the whole world that something was being done, so that’s what Louise and Danny and the rest had been up to and would continue to do.

Except not. “This afternoon,” Sgt. Jackson told them, pacing back and forth in front of where they stood on the black linoleum floor in the big square empty room with tables and chairs stacked along the rear, “our orders are a little different.”

An anticipatory sigh of relief rose from the sixteen, and Sgt. Jackson gave a little shrug and said, “We’ll see. Ladies and gentlemen, our mission has changed. We’re not going to stand around any longer and wait for those fugitives to come to us. We are going to actively search for them by trying to find that stolen money.”

One of the troopers said, “How we supposed to do that, Sarge? Hang out in delis?”

“Those three did not manage to transport their loot away from this part of the world,” Jackson told him. “That’s the belief we’re operating from. Now, it’s a big untidy pile, that money, and the idea is, if we look for it, we’ll find it, and if we find it, the fugitives won’t be too far away from it.”

There was general agreement in the room on that point, and then Jackson said, “What our job is today, you are each getting a sector, and you are to physically eyeball every empty or abandoned building in that sector. Empty houses, barns, everything. On the table by the door there’s a packet for each patrol, with your sector laid out in it, and by the way, a new suspect sketch on one of the fugitives. This is supposed to be closer to the real man.”

“What’ll they think of next?” asked a wit.

Riding shotgun, Louise ran an eye down the printout of the roads and intersections in their sector, then unfolded the new suspect sketch and studied it. “Oh, that one,” she said.

Danny, driving, glanced once and away. “That one,” he agreed.

“He doesn’t look as mean this time,” she decided.

“He was always a good boy,” Danny said.

“Did somebody ever say that in a movie?” Louise wanted to know. “You hear it all the time.”

“Beats me.”

Putting away the sketch, Louise went back to the printout, studied it some more, and said, “We should start from Hurley.”

“Real backwoods stuff.”

“That’s what they gave us. Oh!” she said, surprised and delighted, “St. Dympna!”

“Say what?”

“That’s where I went to church, when I was a little girl. St. Dympna.”

“Never heard of it,” he said. “What kind of name is that?”

“She was supposed to be Irish. Most churches with saints’ names are Roman Catholic, but we weren’t. We were United Reformed.” Louise laughed and said, “The funny thing is, when they founded the church, they just wanted some unusual name to attract attention, so they picked St. Dympna, and then, too late, they found out she’s actually the patron saint of insanity.”

Danny looked at her. “You’re putting me on.”

“I am not. Turned out, there’s a mental hospital named for her in Belgium. When I was a kid, that was the coolest thing, our church was named for the patron saint of crazy people.”

“Is it still going?”

“The church? Oh, no, it got shut down, must be more than ten years ago.”

“Ran out of crazy people,” Danny suggested.

“Very funny. No, it’s really way out in the sticks. There weren’t so many small farms after a while, and people moved closer to town, until there was almost nobody left to go there, and nobody could afford to keep it up. It shut down when I was in high school. There was some hope an antiques shop would buy it, but it never happened.”

“So that’s got to be one of the places on our list.”

“It sure is.” Louise smiled in nostalgia, and looked at the road ahead. “I’m looking forward to seeing it again.”

8

Mrs. Bartlett was sorry to see Captain Robert Modale and Trooper Oskott leave Bosky Rounds. Not that the room would go begging; this time of year, she always had a waiting list, and would surely fill that room again no later than Monday. But she’d liked the captain, found him quiet and restful, and a happy surprise after the unexpected departure of Mr. and Mrs. Willis.

The Willises had also been quiet and restful, not like some. Her in particular. Claire Willis. Mrs. Bartlett never did get a good reading on her husband, some sort of humorless businessman who clearly didn’t really care about anything but his business and was taking this vacation solely to make his wife happy; which was of course a mark in his favor.

But the rest was all her. She did all the driving and all the talking, and even made the apologies when they unexpectedly had to depart because of some crisis back home with his business.

Mrs. Willis had been so apologetic and so understanding, even offering to pay the unused portion of their stay, that Mrs. Bartlett couldn’t even get irritated. Of course she refused the extra payment, and assured Mrs. Willis she’d fill the room in no time, and then, the Willises barely gone and before she’d even had time to turn to her waiting list, here came the call from the New York State Police, needing a room for just the one night.

It was a sign, Mrs. Bartlett felt. She and Mrs. Willis had behaved decently toward each other, and this was Mrs. Bartlett’s reward. She certainly hoped Mrs. Willis was rewarded, perhaps with something other than that cold-fish husband of hers.

Barely half an hour after the departure of Captain Modale, here came Gwen Reversa, looking as fresh and stylish as ever, though Mrs. Bartlett could never quite get over her feeling that an attractive young woman like Gwen was never supposed to be a policeman. Still, here she was, carrying yet another of those wanted posters. Mrs. Bartlett frankly didn’t like the look of those things, and felt they did nothing for the decor and atmosphere of Bosky Rounds, but there was apparently to be no choice in the matter. Her front room was a public space, and the public spaces must willy-nilly be filled up with these dreadful-looking gangsters.

Still, she couldn’t help saying, “Another one, Gwen? I’m not going to have much wall left.”

“No, it’s a replacement,” Gwen told her, going over to where the two drawings and one photograph were already tacked to the wall. “You know that Captain Modale who was here.”

“A charming man.”

“Well, he and I both encountered the same one of the suspects. This one,” she said, taking the latest poster from its manila folder and holding it up for Mrs. Bartlett to see. “We worked together with the artist,” she said, “and we think this picture is much closer to the real man. See it?”

Mrs. Bartlett didn’t want to see it. Squinting, nodding, she said, “Yes, I see it. It takes the place of one of the others, does it?”

“Yes, this one. Here, I’ll take the old one with me.” While she was tacking the new poster in the old one’s place, she said, “Did a reporter named Terry Mulcany talk to you?”

“Oh, the true-crime person.” she said. “Yes, he was all right. He seemed awfully rushed, though.”

Gwen turned away from the wall, folding the old poster and putting it into her coat pocket as she said, “He thought he possibly saw that man somewhere around this house.”

“In this house? Gwen!”

“Not in the house, near it. Outside. With a woman.”

“Gwen,” Mrs. Bartlett said, and pointed toward the row of posters, “not one of those people has ever set foot in Bosky Rounds. Can you imagine? What on earth would they ever do here?”

“Well, they have to sleep somewhere.”

Frosty, Mrs. Bartlett said, “Those are not my customers, Gwen.”

Laughing, Gwen said, “No, I suppose not. Still, if you see anybody who looks like that,” and pointed again at the new poster, “be sure to call me.”

“Of course. Of course I will.”

Gwen left, and Mrs. Bartlett spent the next few minutes sending out e-mails to her waiting list, telling them an unexpected five-day vacancy had just come up. As she was finishing that, Ms. Loscalzo, from number two upstairs at the back, came through, heading out, carrying her usual big ungraceful black leather shoulder bag. “Off for more scenery,” she said, as though it were a joke, or a difficult chore of some kind.

“Enjoy the day, dear,” Mrs. Bartlett said.

“That’s a good idea,” Ms. Loscalzo said, waved, and marched off.

Mrs. Bartlett couldn’t help but wonder about Sandra Loscalzo. Most tourists this time of year were couples or groups, almost never singles. You’d go to the movies or a museum by yourself, but you wouldn’t drive around the countryside looking at the changing leaves all on your own in your car. Anyway, most people wouldn’t.

Also, Ms. Loscalzo seemed a little coarser, a little more — Mrs. Bartlett was almost ashamed of herself, thinking such a thing — working-class than most of the leaf peepers she’d seen over the years. And she didn’t wear a wedding ring, though that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could be she was recovering from having been recently divorced, and needed a change to get her just for a little while out of her regular life. That might be it.

As she thought about Sandra Loscalzo, Mrs. Bartlett found herself unwillingly gazing at the posters of the wanted robbers, diagonally across the room from her desk, and especially that new one, nearest her along the wall.

Oh, my goodness. She stared at the poster, then rose and walked over to frown at it from a foot away.

It couldn’t be. Could it? Could that nice Claire Willis be married to that? It was impossible.

But it was true. The more she stared at that cold face, the more she saw him standing there, just behind his wife, saying little, showing almost no emotion, certainly no enthusiasm for looking at leaves.

But why would Claire Willis be married to a bank robber? It was ridiculous. Mrs. Bartlett would be more willing to believe Sandra Loscalzo was married to such a man; not Claire Willis.

There had to be an explanation. Maybe the police had their eye on the wrong man all along, or maybe this was just as inaccurate a sketch as the first one. They got it wrong before, maybe they got it wrong again.

Should she phone Gwen, let the police detective sort it out? Mrs. Bartlett had the uneasy feeling that was exactly what she should do now, but she didn’t want to. It wasn’t Henry Willis she was thinking of, it was Claire. She didn’t want Gwen glaring down her nose at Claire Willis. Whatever was in the woman’s life, Mrs. Bartlett certainly didn’t want to be the one who made things worse. She couldn’t call Gwen because she couldn’t make trouble for that nice Claire Willis.

And there was a second reason as well, even stronger than that, though she barely acknowledged it to herself. But the fact is, she had been very remiss. Oh, yes, she’d assured Gwen, over and over, she had studied those posters, she was ready to do her civic duty if any of those robbers happened to wander into Bosky Rounds.

But had she studied? Had she paid attention? The man had been right here, in this house, in this room, and she had never noticed. How could she possibly make that phone call now and say, “Oh, Gwen, I just happened to notice...”

No. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t phone Gwen, not now, not ever, and the reason was, she was just too embarrassed.

9

Sandra drove south and east out of town, headed for the Mass Pike. When McWhitney had phoned her this morning from Long Island he’d told her their new truck was an Econoline van, dark green, not black, and he expected to get to her around five. She hadn’t told him she’d bird-dog him the last part of the trip, but that’s what she intended to do. Always err on the side of caution, that was her belief.

She’d expected two or three roadblock stops along the way, but yesterday’s heavy police presence had suddenly evaporated. Where had they gone? Had they caught Nick again? If so, she and McWhitney were going to have to rethink their approach to the money in the church, and Parker might already be in trouble over there. She turned on the car radio, looking for all-news stations, but heard about no developments in the search for the robbers.

So where were all the cops? Sandra didn’t like questions without answers. She had half a mind to just keep driving south, and let this whole business alone.

Well, she could still bird-dog McWhitney. If something seemed weird with him, or if he got nabbed by the cops, she’d be long gone.

There were two gas stations near the turnpike exit he’d be taking. She chose the one in the direction he would go, parked among a few other cars along the side perimeter, and used her hands-free cell to call him in the truck.

“Yeah?”

Of course he wouldn’t say hello like everybody else. Sandra said, “Just wondering how you’re coming along.”

“Fine.”

That was helpful. “About how long, do you figure?”

“You’re impatient for that green, huh?”

“I don’t wanna be doing my hair when you get here.”

That made him laugh, and loosen up a little. “Do your hair tomorrow. I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

“Where are you now?”

“On the Pike, be getting off in five, ten minutes.”

“I’ll be here,” she promised, and broke the connection, and spent the next seven minutes watching traffic come down the ramp and peel away.

If Roy Keenan were still alive, and still her partner, he’d be waiting north of here right now for Sandra to tell him when the van came off the turnpike and what it looked like. Then he’d follow from in front, keeping the van visible in his rearview mirror, so that Sandra could hang well back, ignoring the van as she watched for other interested parties. But Roy was gone and hadn’t as yet been replaced, so she’d do it this way.

Sandra had gotten her private investigator’s license a year after leaving college, and had worked for the first few years mostly on unimportant white-collar criminal matters for a large agency with many business clients. She investigated inside-job thefts at department stores, trade-secret-selling employees, minor frauds, and slippery accounting.

The work, which had at first been interesting, soon became a bore, but she couldn’t find an acceptable alternative until, at a fingerprinting refresher course given by the FBI, she’d met Roy, whose previous woman partner had just left him to get married. “Well, that won’t happen to me,” Sandra assured him.

They became a very good partnership. She kept her private life to herself, and Roy was fine with that. Sometimes they were flush and other times money was tight, but they’d never been scraping the bottom of the barrel until this protracted, expensive, frustrating search for Michael Maurice Harbin, a search that still hadn’t paid off, and the reason she was now waiting for an extremely dangerous felon in a Ford Econoline van.

There. Very good, good choice, a dark green beat-up little van. Holy Redeemer Choir.

She started the Honda, gave the van a chance to roll farther down the road to the north, then started to ease out after him, but abruptly stopped.

She’d almost missed him, dammit, she must be more distracted than she’d thought. Because there he was, in a little nondescript no-color car, just easing into McWhitney’s wake.

What he’d done, this guy, he’d come down the ramp and stopped at the yield sign at the bottom, even though there wasn’t any traffic to yield to. He stayed there almost ten seconds, a long time, until a car did come along the secondary road going in his direction. Then he pulled in behind that car. Sandra knew that maneuver, she’d done it herself a hundred times.

Now she accelerated across the gas station tarmac to the road, so she could get a close-up of the tail as he drove by. Cadaverous guy in black, hunched forward, very intense, very focused.

Sandra did the same thing he’d done, waited for another car to intervene, then joined the cavalcade. Out here there were towns to go through, every one of them with one traffic light. The first time they were all stopped at a light she took a hurried look at her Massachusetts map, then when they started moving again she called McWhitney and said, “You’ve got a tin can on you, you know about that?”

“What? Where are you?”

“Listen to me, Nelson. He’s in a nothing little car, two behind you.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Tall bony guy in black, looks like he’s never had a good meal in his life.”

“That son of a bitch.”

“You know him, I take it. Pal of yours?”

“Not any more.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t worry, Sandra, I’ll get rid of him.”

“Not in that truck,” Sandra told him. “We don’t want any problems with that truck. I’ll deal with it.”

“The dirty bastard.”

“Up ahead, you got Route 518.”

“Yeah?”

“Take the left on 518, the right on 26A, right on 47, it’ll take you back to this road, then just head on up, same as before.”

“And you’ll be up there.”

“I’ll do the cutout, catch up with you later. Here comes 518.”

The traffic light up ahead was green. The van’s turn signal went on, and then the follower. They went off to the left, and Sandra continued north, saying to McWhitney, “You wanna tell me about him?”

“His name is Oscar Sidd, he’s supposed to know about moving money out of the country.”

“You told him what we’ve got.”

“So we’d have some place to take it after.”

“And you just happened to forget to mention your friend Oscar to me.”

“Come on, Sandra. I never thought he’d pull something like this. What does he want, something to fall off the back of the truck?”

“If he forgot to mention to you, Nelson, that he was gonna take a drive up here today, he wants more than a skim, doesn’t he?”

“The bastard. He’s out of his league, if that’s what he’s thinking.”

“He is and it is. If you see me, a little later, don’t slow down.”

“There you go insulting me again.”

“Have a nice ride, Nelson,” she said, and broke the connection.

A few minutes later she was stopped at the red light for the intersection with Route 47. When it turned green, she drove more slowly, looking for a place to roost, and found it at a small wooden town hall on the edge of town, up a rise higher than the road. Saturday afternoon, it was deserted, no cars in the parking lot beside the building. She pulled in there, up the steep driveway to the parking lot beside the town hall, then swung around to face south, opened the passenger window, and waited.

Not quite ten minutes, and here came the van. Well behind it, but with no intervening vehicle this time, came Oscar Sidd in his no-brand jalopy. Sandra popped the glove compartment and took out her licensed Taurus Tracker revolver, chambered for the.17HMR, a punchier cartridge than the .22, in a very accurate handgun.

As the van went by, Sandra leaned over to the right window, curled her left hand onto the bottom of the frame, the side of her right hand holding the Tracker on the back of her left, and popped a bullet into Oscar Sidd’s right front tire.

Very good. The car jerked hard to the right, ran off the shoulder, and slammed into the rise, jolting to a stop. The windshield suddenly starred on the left side, so Mr. Sidd’s head must have met it.

Sandra started the Honda, closed the right window, put the Tracker away, and drove back down to the road. When she went past the other car, its hood was crumpled and steaming, and Mr. Sidd was motionless against the steering wheel.

Redial. “Nelson?”

“What’s happening?”

“That’s me behind you now. See me?”

“Oh, yeah, the black waterbug.”

“Thank you. Can you find that church from here?” Because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.

“Sure.”

“Then I’ll stay back here,” she said, “keep an eye out, see are there any more friends of yours coming along.”

She did recognize the road the church was on, when McWhitney turned into it, and hung back even farther than before. There had still been no roadblocks, though she had seen the occasional police car, moving as though with a purpose, not just idly on patrol.

What had changed in the world? She’d considered talking it over with McWhitney and decided it was better not. If everything was okay at the church, fine. If it turned out there was some sort of trouble there, let McWhitney walk into it, at which point Sandra would just drive on by, nothing to do with that van, and head for Long Island.

There it was, church on the right, white house on the left. McWhitney turned in at the house, because that’s where Parker would be, and Sandra lagged back so far that McWhitney was already out of the van, looking impatient, before she pulled in beside him. She opened her door, McWhitney said, “You wanna take a lotta time here?” and a gunshot sounded from the house.

10

It had been the worst week in Nick Dalesia’s life, but it never quite went entirely all to hell. Every time things looked hopeless there’d be one more little ray of possibility, just enough to get him moving again. He was beginning to think that hopelessness was the better option. More restful, anyway.

Public transportation had seemed like the best way to get clear of the search area right after the robbery. Who knew that all he had to do to get himself scooped up like a marlin in a net was buy a sandwich to eat on the bus to St. Louis, paying for it with a twenty from the bank?

He was certain he was done for then, with all those lawmen’s hands on his elbows, and he spent the first night in the solitary holding cell at some state police building in western Massachusetts trying to figure out what he could trade for a better deal.

The money certainly. McWhitney: he could point a finger right directly at that bar of his. And Parker, he could give them leads on him, too. And the story of the killing of Harbin for wearing the federal wire, and the names of the other people present at that meeting. There was a lot he could give them, when he added it all up. He was still going to do serious time, and he knew it, but he’d be a little more cushioned than if he’d walked in empty-handed.

But then, early next morning, they didn’t question him at all, so he didn’t get to tell them which top lawyer they should call, who happened to be a guy Nick didn’t know but had read about in the newspapers, and who would be perfect for Nick’s defense, and who would be bound to take the job because this was a high-profile case and that was a lawyer who liked high-profile cases.

But then none of that happened, and then, early in the morning, he was rousted out and put into a small office with a cup of coffee and a donut. It was the US marshals who had their hands on him, and they didn’t care to question him about anything, they were just there to conduct him to someplace else.

One marshal in the room, an automatic sidearm in a holstered belt strapped over his coat, his partner gone off to see about transportation. The coffee was too hot to drink, so Nick threw it in the marshal’s face, grabbed the automatic, whammed the guy across the forehead with it, and headed for the door.

Locked. The marshal must have a key. Nick turned back and the guy was conscious, coming up to a sprawled seated position, groping in a dazed way inside his coat, coming out with something.

The son of a bitch had another gun! Nick lunged across the space between them, shoved the automatic barrel into the guy’s chest to muffle the sound, and shot him once.

All the guy had needed to do was lie there till Nick was out of the room, then yell like an opera singer, but no. Nick found the keys, and got moving.

Getting through and out of that state police building had been very tough. It was a maze, and the alarm was already out. He eventually went out a window to a fire escape and down to where he could jump onto the roof of a garage, and then get to the ground and gone.

He kept the automatic. He’d paid for it, he’d paid a lot, and he was gonna keep it.

He carjacked an early-morning commuter drinking his cardboard container of coffee at a red light, but he couldn’t keep that vehicle long; just enough time to get to some other town. And while he drove, he tried to think where to go next.

Forget transportation, public or otherwise. Any traveling he did would get him picked up right away. What he had to do was go to ground and stay there, maybe a week, maybe even longer.

But where? Who did he know in this part of the world? Where would he find a safe place to hunker down?

He was just about to abandon his carjacked wheels when he remembered Dr. Madchen. Not a criminal, not somebody the police would have any reason to look at. But Nick did have a handle on his back, because the doctor had some kind of connection with the local guy in the setup of the robbery, and the doctor would provide him an alibi.

When, just before the robbery, it had looked as though the doctor was calling attention to himself, being coy, being stupid, Nick and Parker had gone to his home to have a word with him. That was all it took, and in any case the robbery went wrong so quickly there was no alibi in the world that would help the local guy and so, after all, the doctor did nothing. Which meant he was clean; but if Nick asked him to help, he would help.

The week at the doctor’s house was grueling. Nick had a terrific sense of urgency, a need to take action, but there was never anything to do. All week the television news told him the heat was still on, and he knew he was the reason why. If it was just the bank’s money, they’d ease off after a while, but he’d killed one of their own, and they weren’t about to let up.

He kept trying to make plans, come to decisions, but there was simply not a single move he could make. If he left Dr. Madchen’s house, how long would it take them to catch up with him? No time at all. But how could he stay here, like this, as though his feet were nailed to the floor?

He had never thought before that he might some day go crazy, but now he did. The jangling electric need to do something, do something, when there was nothing to be done; there was nothing worse.

He thought sometimes he’d kill the doctor, take his car and whatever valuables he had in the house, and head north. But then he’d remember the roadblocks, and he knew it couldn’t happen. He didn’t have safe ID. They had his picture. What was he going to do?

By Friday evening, when the doctor told him the maid would be coming back tomorrow and Nick couldn’t stay at the house any longer, Nick was ready to go, it hardly mattered where. He’d been more beaten down by the week of inaction than if he’d spent a month in a war zone. When the doctor gave him the ultimatum — too timid for an ultimatum, but that’s still what it was — he actually welcomed it, as a change, any change from being in this paralysis, and he knew immediately what he was going to do.

“Tomorrow,” he told the doctor, “when you go get this Estrella, you’re gonna drive me somewhere,” and the next day he had the doctor drive him past the church, but without stopping or pointing it out or making it seem as though the church had anything to do with his plans. But then, a little farther on, where the road curved and dipped down to a bridge over a narrow stream, Nick said, “Stop here, I’ll get out and you drive on.”

The doctor stopped, beside the road just before the bridge, and Nick got out, then stooped to look back into the car and say, “We never met each other, Doctor. If you make no trouble for me, I’ll make no trouble for you.”

“I won’t make any trouble.”

Nick believed him; the doctor’s face looked as whipped as his own. “Thanks,” he said, and shut the car door, and the doctor’s Alero wobbled away over the bridge and out of sight.

Nick saw no other cars as he walked back to the church. Would it all be the same? He was counting on it. His idea, if it could even be called an idea, was to grab as much of the money as he could, steal a car from somewhere around here, then drive it strictly on back roads, keeping away from the roadblocks.

Canada was still the best hope he had, if he had any hope at all. He’d head north, up through the winding little roads in the mountains. He’d sleep in the car and only use the bad money in places where he would immediately be moving on, paying only for food and gas.

Somewhere up near the border he’d have to leave that car and walk, however far it was until he reached some town on the Canadian side. There, he could do a burglary or two to get some safe Canadian money, steal another car, and make his way to Toronto or Ottawa. There he could come to at least a temporary stop, and try to figure out the rest of his life from there. It wasn’t much of a plan, but what else did he have?

The church looked the same. When they’d first holed up in here, McWhitney had kicked open the locked side door so they could carry the boxes of money in, then they’d kicked it shut again so that it looked all right unless you really examined it. Had anything been done to change that? Not that Nick could see. He leaned on the door and it fell open in front of him.

The money was still there, up in the choir loft, untouched. Nick filled his pockets, then went downstairs and outside, this time not bothering to pull the door shut.

He was going to keep walking down the road, looking for a vehicle parked outside somebody’s house or a passing driver to carjack, when he glanced at the house across the road and decided it wouldn’t hurt to see what might be inside there that could be of use. He expected the place to be empty, but was quiet as a matter of habit, and when he walked into one of the upstairs bedrooms somebody was asleep in there, on the floor, covered with a rough-looking quilt.

A bum? Nick edged closer, and was astonished to see it was Parker.

What was Parker doing here? He had come for the money, no other reason.

So where was his car? Nick had been on both sides of the road and he hadn’t seen any car. Was it hidden somewhere? Where?

He hunkered against the wall, across the room from Parker, trying to decide what to do, whether he should go look for the car, or wake Parker up to ask him where it was, or just kill him and keep moving, when Parker came awake. Nick saw that Parker from the first instant was not surprised, not worried, not even to wake up and find somebody in the room with a gun in his hand.

We used to be partners, Nick thought, with a kind of dull disbelief. Could we be partners again? Could we get out of this mess together?

We’re not partners, he thought, as Parker looked at him with that lack of surprise and said, “So there you are.” I don’t have partners any more, Nick thought. I only have enemies now.

“Where’s your car?” he asked.

Parker bullshitted him. He danced around without moving, without trying to get up from the floor, just saying things, dancing around. He doesn’t have a car. But why doesn’t he have a car? Somebody dropped him off, some woman dropped him off, some woman Nick doesn’t know dropped him off.

Bullshit! Where did this woman come from, all of a sudden? Why is Parker asleep here? Now angry, angry at Parker, at the marshal, at the world, Nick pounded the pistol butt on the floor and demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to look at the money.”

“You wanted to take the money.”

No, Parker told him, no, too early for that. And more bullshit, more bullshit, while Nick tried to figure out what Parker was up to.

“You were out, you were free and clear, and you came back.” With sudden tense suspicion, with a quick shiver up the middle of his back, he said, “Is Nelson here?”

But Parker said no, he didn’t travel with McWhitney, and Nick could believe that. But what was he doing here? With sudden conviction, Nick said, “You’re waiting.”

“That’s right,” Parker said, and as though it didn’t matter he flipped that rough quilt off his legs.

Nick didn’t like that movement. He didn’t like any movement right now. Aiming the automatic at Parker’s face, on the brink of using it, only holding back because he needed to know what was going on here, who was Parker waiting for, where was there a car in this for Nick, he aimed the automatic at Parker’s face and yelled, “Don’t move!”

“I’m not moving, Nick. I got stiff, that’s all, sleeping here.”

“You could get stiffer,” Nick said, and as he said it he knew he couldn’t wait any more. He didn’t care about Parker any more, didn’t need the answers to any questions, didn’t have any questions left.

But Parker was still talking, moving his hands now, saying they could help each other, saying, “And I got water,” holding up a clear bottle in his left hand.

Water? What did Nick care about water? But he looked at the bottle.

“It’s just water. Check it out for yourself,” Parker offered, and slowly lobbed the bottle toward him underhand, in a high arc, toward the ceiling, toward his lap.

Nick’s eyes followed the movement of the bottle for just a second, for one second too long, and something like a great dark wing slashed across the room at him, Parker lost and hidden behind it, the quilt twisting toward him through the air. He fired, with nothing to aim at, and a hard hand chopped down on the gun wrist. The automatic skittered away across the wood floor and Parker’s other hand clawed for his throat. Nick screamed, kicked his heels to the floor to jolt himself away, flopped over to his right, found his elbows and knees beneath himself, and lunged out and away, up off the floor and through the closed window.