Heat

Chapter 30

Jesse left the hotel at eight o’clock the following morning, the briefcase in his hand, and walked uptown on Madison Avenue. Jenny had still been in the tub when he’d left, and she had a morning of sightseeing planned. The street was full of other men and women, most carrying briefcases, hurrying to their jobs, and he felt anonymous among them, until he caught sight of his tail in a shop window.

He had to be somewhere at nine; that gave him an hour to lose both his followers. He walked up to Fifty-Seventh and Madison, cut over to Fifth Avenue and headed for the park. He walked as far as the zoo, then exited the park and headed down Fifth at a leisurely pace, doing a lot of window shopping and making a point of not looking at his watch, taking in the available clocks on the street and in the shops to keep his schedule.

He made Rockefeller Center by a quarter to nine, and he stood for a moment and looked down into the ice rink. Then, still playing the tourist, he walked into 30 Rockefeller Plaza and found the nonstop elevator to the roof. On reaching the top he immediately got onto a down elevator. Back in the lobby he walked quickly to Fifth Avenue and north a block, skirting behind the statue of Atlas and into the building. A quick glance at the directory gave him the floor for the United States State Department. He walked up and down the lobby twice to make sure he had shaken his tail before taking the elevator.

His timing was good; the doors were just being unlocked and a line of a dozen people was being let in. He waited a few minutes for a vacant window, set the briefcase between his legs and pulled a thick envelope from his inside pocket. “I’d like to apply for passports for my family and myself,” he said, removing the documents and handing them to the woman behind the counter. “We’re flying to London tomorrow, and I understand a one-day service is available here.”

“That’s correct,” the woman said, looking through the papers. “Let’s see, you have three birth certificates and a marriage certificate?”

“That’s right,” he replied. “Here are the photographs of my wife and daughter. Are they all right? We took them ourselves.”

“They meet the specifications,” she said, handing him a set of forms. “Please fill out these applications; you can sign for your wife and daughter.”

Jesse sat down on a bench and quickly filled out the forms, inventing what information he didn’t have. He returned to the window.

“These seem to be complete,” she said. “There’s a fifty-five dollar charge for each passport, plus twenty-five dollars each for the one-day service, a total of two hundred and forty dollars.”

Jesse paid her in cash.

“And I’ll need to see some form of identification,” the woman said.

He produced his brand new Idaho license in the name of Jeffrey Warren.

“Thank you, Mr. Warren; you can pick up your passports after three o’clock.”

Jesse thanked the woman and left. They would certainly check with the county seat on the authenticity of the birth certificates, but that would not be a problem, since the originals were in the county registrar’s files.

He had been in the office about half an hour. He went back downstairs and resumed his stroll downtown. At Forty-Eighth Street he spotted a very worried young man in a gray suit and hat and looked away before he was seen. A pity, he thought; he would have liked to see the expression on the man’s face.

He walked downtown to Forty-Second Street, crossed to the east side of Fifth and strolled back uptown. He reached Sak’s Fifth Avenue at Forty-Ninth Street exactly at ten o’clock, and he spent the next forty-five minutes Christmas shopping. He found a beautiful negligee for Jenny and a very pretty winter coat for Carey that he hoped was the right size, and he bought some neckties for himself. He took the neckties with him and had the gifts sent to St. Clair.

At quarter to ten he started up Fifth Avenue again toward number 666. He reached the seventieth floor one minute before the appointed time and quickly found the suite. There was only a number on the door, and although the reception room was luxuriously appointed, there was no company name visible.

“May I help you?” the woman behind the reception desk said.

“My name is Jesse Barron. May I see Mr. Enzberg, please? I believe he’s expecting me.”

“Just one moment, please.” She picked up a phone, tapped in a number, spoke briefly in German and hung up. “He will be right with you,” she said to Jesse.

Shortly a beautifully dressed man in his forties appeared. “Mr. Barron? Will you come with me, please?”

Jesse followed the man to a small, clinically furnished office, where he was asked to wait. “May I have the case, please?”

Jesse handed it over.

“I will return shortly,” Enzberg said. He left the room. Ten minutes later, he returned and handed the briefcase to Jesse. “A receipt is inside,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Enzberg,” Jesse said, and left. He was followed into the elevator by the young man in the gray suit.

“I’m from Pat Casey,” he said.

“Oh?”

“You may give me the briefcase now.”

“I wasn’t given any such instruction,” Jesse said.

“You have your instructions now.”

The elevator reached the ground floor. “Come with me,” Jesse said to the man. He walked to a bank of public telephones and telephoned Pat Casey. “Hi, Pat,” he said. “I’ve made the delivery Kurt Ruger asked me to, and now there’s a guy who says he’s from you and wants the briefcase.”

“It’s okay, Jesse,” Casey said. “Give it to him, and thanks for your help. Have a good time in New York.”

Jesse handed over the briefcase. “There you are,” he said, “and have a nice day.”

The man took the case and left the building.

Jesse walked slowly back down Fifth Avenue, thinking. He’d had occasion in Miami to see large sums of cash displayed from time to time — once an even ten million dollars in hundred dollar bills. He thought about the bulk that had represented and he figured that the briefcase had held two million. He got a cab back to the Roosevelt, picked up his presentation materials from his room, put on one of his new neckties then knocked on the door of the next room. Kip opened the door.

“Everything go smoothly?”

“No problem.”

“Manners lost you for half an hour; where were you?”

“Doing some sightseeing. Couldn’t he keep up?”

“No, and neither could your other tail.”

“Their problem, not mine.”

“We X-rayed the briefcase last night, but no joy. The technician reckoned it was lined in lead foil. However, the office you delivered it to is the New York branch of a small, very private Swiss bank.”

“I reckon it was two million,” Jesse said, explaining his reasoning. “My tail approached me in the elevator and asked for the case. Enzberg said there was a receipt inside.”

“Very interesting,” Kip said. “We now know Coldwater is not short of a few bucks, not if he’s sending millions outside the country.”

“I’ve got a theory about the source,” Jesse said. “Mind you, it’s only a guess.”

“Tell me.”

“St. Clair is the hometown of one Melvin Schooner; ring a bell?”

“The software billionaire?”

“One and the same. I spotted him in the local drugstore.”

“What makes you think he’s funding Coldwater?”

“Like I said, I’m only guessing, but one of the richest men in the country has a St. Clair connection.”

“You could have something there,” Kip said.

“Now don’t put the IRS on him or anything; let’s not muddy the waters.”

“Right. Do what you can to develop your theory.”

“If I’ve learned anything on this assignment, it’s not to develop anything, but to let them do the developing. So far, they can’t say that I’ve so much as asked an untoward question, and I’m going to keep it that way.”

“Do it your way.”

Jesse looked at his watch. “I’ve got a lunch date with Jenny at the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, and my business appointment is at two. I’d better get going.”

“Okay, looks like we’re all finished here. I’ll pack up and go; you and your lady have a good weekend. And you take care of yourself, Jess.”

They shook hands, and Jesse left. He walked to Rockefeller Center and found Jenny gazing up at the huge Christmas tree.

“Isn’t it the most spectacular thing you’ve ever seen?” she asked.

“It certainly is. You hungry?”

“Starved.”

They found a table at the skating rink restaurant, and Jesse heard the story of her morning. He kept his appointment at two, and left with assurances that orders for chipboard and plywood would be placed almost immediately.

Back at Rockefeller Center, he made sure he wasn’t still being followed, then went back to the State Department office. He walked back down Fifth Avenue toward his hotel, the new passports in his pocket, regretting that he couldn’t have taken the two million dollars and Jenny on the next plane to South America. At least, now, he had an out that included the two people in the world who were most important to him.

As that thought came to him he stopped dead in his tracks. A woman and a little girl were just turning into a shop. He watched them through the window for a moment and convinced himself that the child was not his own Carrie; she was too tall and her hair was too long. The woman looked oddly familiar, though. He walked back to the hotel, remembering that there was a third person, somewhere, who was terribly important to him, and that his chances of ever seeing her again were just about nil.