Final judgment

SEVENTY

Dennis Brewer was on time. They met in the office Mickey used as his living room, sitting on folding chairs around a card table. Brewer was all business, slipping a transmitter the size of a flat aspirin into the collar of Mickey’s shirt and a tiny receiver into Mickey’s ear with practiced ease. He explained that they would have Mickey under surveillance at all times and would use the transmitter and receiver to coach him as well as to record his encounter with Sylvia McBride.

Finished, he handed Mickey two bank forms. One was a signature card confirming that he was authorized to use the safety deposit box registered in the name of Myron Wenneck, the alias Fish used to hide his ownership of the box. The second was a register signed and dated by owners of safety deposit boxes each time they used them. It bore two signatures of Myron Wenneck showing he had been in the box twice in the last six months. There were blank lines on either side of both signatures.

“Sign the signature card and then sign the access card three times,” he instructed, handing Mickey three different pens and pointing to lines on the card above and below where Fish had signed Myron Wenneck’s name.

Mickey looked at Mason.

“I thought Fish was going to execute a power of attorney,” Mason said to Brewer.

“This is simpler,” Brewer replied. “We’ll backdate Mickey’s signature on the signature card by six months and date the register so it looks like he’s been in the box before. Different pens will make it look like he signed on different dates. When he asks to be let into the box this afternoon, it will look like business as usual to Sylvia McBride.”

“You can do that?” Mickey asked.

“We’re the FBI,” Brewer answered. “All you have to do is show her the money. Let her count it if she wants to, as long as it’s all back in the box when you leave. Walk out together and go your separate ways. Got it?”

“Got it,” Mickey said.

“Good,” Brewer said.

That was it. There were no silent exchanges between Brewer and Mason filled with accusations or suspicions. They didn’t spar with one another and neither of them dropped hints about what he knew or thought he knew. Mason had found more hidden meaning in fortune cookies.

“Brewer doesn’t give much away,” Mickey said after Brewer left.

“What’s he going to do?” Mason asked from the doorway, watching Brewer show himself out. “Grill us? He’s got to play it cool.”

“Maybe he didn’t kill Rockley and maybe he isn’t in bed with Webb. Maybe he’s just doing his job.”

“Or maybe he’s just very good.”

“Not as good as we are,” Mickey said. “I called the businesses that should be next door to the companies that Rockley and Keegan claimed they worked for. Guess what? None of Rockley’s and Keegan’s former employers exist. They’re all fake.”

“That means you’re right about Sylvia’s call center,” Mason said. “She’s in the phony ID business.”

“Except Keegan’s name wasn’t phony, just his employment records. I got a call this morning from my girlfriend. Her friend at the FBI hit pay dirt.”

Mason returned to his folding chair. “Give.”

“You remember you told me that Sylvia McBride had a sister in Minneapolis?”

“Yeah. The one she went to live with after her husband supposedly drowned.”

“Her name was Olivia Corcoran. She was married to Tommy Corcoran’s father. That made her Tommy’s stepmother. Tommy’s aunt Sylvia gave him a new ID as Charles Rockley. Johnny Keegan was Olivia’s son by her first marriage. He didn’t need a new ID since he’d never been arrested. Aunt Sylvia only gave him a phony resume.”

Mason whistled. “How many laws were broken getting us that information?”

“None,” Mickey said. “Our friend’s job includes running checks through the FBI’s database. She ran Corcoran’s name and came up with his bio. There was an obit for Olivia Corcoran that listed Tommy, Johnny Keegan, and Sylvia McBride as her survivors. But here’s the weird part. She couldn’t get into the rest of Corcoran’s file or the file on Wayne McBride and his alter ego, Al Webb.”

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t have clearance for national security matters.”

“Since when is skimming dough from a casino a matter of national security?”

“It isn’t,” Mickey said. “But dealing in phony IDs could be, especially if the IDs are sold to people that blow up buildings with airplanes.”