Liars & Thieves

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Monday morning the sun illuminated a hazy, gauzy summer sky. The humidity was already high and going higher at seven in the morning when we set out from New Jersey for Manhattan. Joe Billy Dunn, Willie Varner, and I were in the van, and Sarah Houston was still sacked out in her motel room, which she announced last night was a far cry from her digs at the Hilton. Her observation almost broke my heart. Slumming can be so hard on a girl.

“I have to go back to Washington this evening,” Joe Billy said. “I thought I’d hop a train this afternoon.”

“Can’t you tell them you’re still sick?” He had called in sick before we left the motel.

“No. And I haven’t earned enough vacation to get days off. It’s back to work or go looking for another job.” Fortunately Sarah had taken a week’s vacation, so I knew I could count on her. That is, if and when she woke up and got sufficiently caffeinated to be of some use.

“Maybe we could take Joe Billy on at the lock shop,” Willie said to me. “He could sweep out and work the counter while we teach him how to duplicate keys and stuff.”

“Maybe you could sorta cut class like I’m doing and hope everything shakes out okay,” I said, and turned the rearview mirror so I could see Dunn’s face. “After we’ve saved the free world from the forces of evil, all will be forgiven.”

Joe Billy made a rude noise. “With your luck, Carmellini, you’re going to be still rotting in prison when they find a cure for the common cold.”

“Hey, man, don’t be so negative,” Willie chided. “Too early for bad vibes.”

“Take a train,” I told Joe Billy. “The Musketeers will soldier on without you.”

“Mail me a little medal when you get your big ones, okay?”

“Negativity sucks, you know?” Willie said, continuing his soliloquy. “You gotta think positive as you travel the road of life. Tommy gets prosecuted, they’ll probably let him plead to desecration of a body or obstructin’ justice, something like that. Hell, he’ll only be in eight, ten years max.”

“Desecration of a body?”

“Yeah. You know, fuckin’ a corpse, something along those lines. Tommy will make out all right. Have faith.”

Easy enough for Willie to say, but mine was shaken an hour later, after we parked on a narrow east-west street just north of the Hilton. Willie was listening on the bugs, I was working the computer making a digital recording, and Joe Billy was munching a banana, three spies in the house of love, when Willie asked, “Who in hell are these people, anyway?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“You listen a while. You tell me what we’re listenin’ to.” He handed me the earphones.

A guy and a gal, talking about getting it on with another couple they knew from Tampa. The guy sounded lukewarm, the woman enthusiastic, trying to persuade him.

“What suite are they in?”

“Royston’s.”

“Naw.”

“Yep.”

“These aren’t the right people. That couldn’t be Royston. His wife is in Washington.”

“For Christ’s sake, I know that, Tommy. These are two goddamn swingers from California. They were talking about car dealerships in L.A. a minute ago. Who are they?”

I called Sarah Houston, woke her up, sounded like. “We’ve got a problem. Get on your computer and find out who the hotel put in these suites we bugged.”

“Please.”

“Get on your computer, please.”

“Okay.”

She called back twelve minutes later. “They’re registered as a Mr. and Mrs. Bronson Whitworth from Beverly Hills, California.”

Joe Billy and Willie were both wearing earphones now. “It’s the woman she’s got the hots for,” Joe Billy said gleefully. “This one’s a switch-hitter.”

“What suite did the hotel put Royston in?”

I slapped one phone on my left ear in time to hear the woman say, “Bronnie, you can watch. You know how much you enjoy that.”

He didn’t think the convention was the place.

“Royston’s party is in Penthouse Ten, Twelve, and Fourteen,” Sarah said.

“We bugged Fifteen, Seventeen, and Nineteen.”

“A delegation from California got all three of those suites. Someone shuffled the parties around. There is a notation in Royston’s reservation about a good view. Royston must have demanded a view room.”

“What suite is Dorsey O’Shea in?”

In the silence that developed while she checked, I heard the woman in the suite cooing softly in my left ear.

“They’re gettin’ it on,” Willie announced gleefully. “She’s goin’ to screw him around to her way of thinkin’.”

“God almighty,” Joe Billy said with a smile on his face. “Wish we had put a little video camera in there.”

“What is going on?” Sarah asked. Apparently she could hear the comments of my colleagues.

“Gimme Dorsey’s room number, huh? I don’t want to run into her when I’m in the hotel trotting around.”

“You’re going in again?”

“Someone has to move the bugs. I planted everything we brought.”

“Twelve twenty-one,” she said crisply. Then she added with a trace of envy in her voice, “She paid several hundred extra for the room. It must be a small suite.”

“Next time around inherit some money, please,” I snarled, and snapped the cell phone shut. Damn women, anyway.

Years ago I learned that prior planning prevents piss-poor results. I call it my P⁵R rule. Sarah could check to ensure the master code I had put in my plastic door pass the other day was still in use. Or I could put in the new code. Getting into the rooms was not the problem.

However, getting in without arousing the suspicions of the people monitoring the hallway surveillance cameras was a problem. Unfortunately my suit, white shirt, and tie were in the motel room in New Jersey, and I didn’t want to drive two hours to retrieve them. Should have brought them along, just in case.

I left Willie and Joe Billy to be audio voyeurs and got out on the sidewalk to walk and think about the problem.

I didn’t have enough cash left to pay for a suit, and my Zack Winston credit card was bogus. I had high hopes that I would eventually be able to convince the powers that be that I had been merely defending myself and others since that Tuesday at the Greenbrier River safe house, but I didn’t want to try to explain credit card fraud. Some people get downright pissy about money.

If I used my own personal credit card, would it light up alarms in Dell Royston’s universe?

Maybe I should go back to Jersey and get the damned suit. We couldn’t move the van without losing the parking place, and I didn’t want to waste cash on a taxi.

What the heck, I had plenty of time. I couldn’t go into those rooms until the people were out of them. The dinner hour would be the most likely time.

Over on the East Side on Lexington I found a large men’s shop that opened at ten. Looking in the window, I thought I saw some sports coats on manikins that might fit. The problem is my shoulders and arms, which are so big that an off-the-rack coat that I can get around my shoulders doesn’t hang right around my small waist.

I strolled along soaking in the sights, sounds, and smells of New York, had a bagel and cup of coffee at a small breakfast place, then wandered back up Lexington to arrive at the men’s shop a few minutes after ten.

The owner was a former prizefighter, I surmised. Scars on his eyebrows, one permanently mashed ear, and huge shoulders and arms.

“You have a pair of trousers and a sports coat that might fit me without alteration?”

“You some kind of athlete, ain’t you?”

“Rock climbing.”

“Yeah. I got the stuff to fit guys who work out, take care of theirselves. Lot of pro athletes come here for their duds. Not the high dollar guys, but the guys who watch their wallets.”

“That sticker in the window says you take credit cards.”

“MasterCard and Visa.”

He did have a sports coat that didn’t make me look like an ape, and the price was reasonable. I decided the risk of using my own credit card was small, so I surrendered my Visa card with TOMMY CARMELLINI embossed on the bottom. He ran it through the machine, I signed the invoice, and he bagged my purchases, which included a tapered shirt and subdued tie.

Walking crosstown, I called Sarah. “Where are you?”

“Eating breakfast,” she said.

I told her what I needed. “I don’t want the entire surveillance camera system to crash, just temporarily go on the fritz floor by floor as I move around. I’ll call you on your cell.”

“The motel doesn’t have a high-speed Internet connection. I dropped off the Net twice this morning and had to log back on and go back into the system. Takes about four minutes to get through.”

“I don’t have the money to pick up another night at the Hilton, Sarah, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I don’t have the bucks either. No, I was merely warning you that there may be problems.”

“Okay. Warning received.”

“You’re going into Dorsey’s room, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t decided,” I answered, a trifle evasively I suppose.

“You will. I know it.”

“What’s it to you?”

“I think you have a thing for her, that’s all. Very unprofessional, I must say.”

“Are you jealous?”

She made a noise and hung up.

I knew she wasn’t jealous — heck, I knew what she thought of me. Still, the fact that she guessed right on Dorsey bothered me a little. Maybe I was getting too predictable. If Sarah Houston could guess my next move, so could someone with lethal intentions. It was a thing to think on.

Joe Billy Dunn shook hands with me and Willie and left about two in the afternoon. Just when I needed someone that Dorsey didn’t recognize to act as a lookout, there he went.

After he closed the van door, Willie and I sat in the back of the thing — which was about the size of my closet at home — looking at each other. “Well, nothing ever goes perfectly,” the Wire remarked.

I was in no mood for philosophy. I grunted unpleasantly.

“How do you get yourself into these messes, anyway?” he asked.

“Do you want to go play pool or get a beer or something?” I said. “There’s nothing to do until I get ready to move the bugs.”

“You want me to go inside and act as lookout?”

“No. I want you to sit right here in the van and watch the floor surveillance camera on that monitor”—I pointed to the one mounted high in the corner—“and communicate with me on the cell phone. The cameras will still work even when Dorsey diddles with the computer downstairs.”

“I could do that, I reckon,” Willie Varner admitted as he picked at a scab on his arm. “I just don’t want to put myself in harm’s way. Can’t handle it, the shape I’m in. I’m already runnin’ on two gallons of other people’s blood. Been gettin’ these urges to read romance novels, drink white wine, and listen to white music — I figure the blood was from some white women. Republicans, probably. I’m all crippled up from that cuttin’, still wearin’ bandages, and here I am workin’ anyway. You know I oughta be on that Social Security disability, gettin’ a little check in the mail, takin’ life easy till I’m feelin’ myself again.”

“Take a hike, goddamn it.”

He went, leaving me in splendid solitude in the back of a stolen FBI van parked beside a fancy hotel in New York that I couldn’t afford to stay in. Ah, the glamour of the clandestine life. And to think I could be heisting jewels on the French Riveria!

I felt like a fool strolling in the side entrance of the hotel in my new duds. Dorsey O’Shea was in there somewhere, and I certainly didn’t want to run into her.

I had waited until six in the evening — the cocktail hour in civilized climes. Willie was out in the van; he’d come back an hour ago well hydrated with beer. He didn’t have a set of Hilton clothes, and he would have drawn security men like flies if he had walked in there in his jeans and ratty T-shirt. Not that I could have used him as a lookout even if he had the right clothes — Dorsey might recognize him. She might recognize me, too, but putting more people she knew in the building made no sense. Willie had the penthouse corridor surveillance camera on the monitor when I left the van.

The three penthouse suites where we had our bugs were empty just now; I had listened carefully before leaving the van and locking Willie in. Knowing Dorsey, she would be someplace swilling white wine with the beautiful people while nattering about outside artists and spiritual advisers.

I dialed Sarah on my cell phone. “I’m going up to the penthouse now.”

“Give me one minute, then call me back.”

I paused just inside the entrance and surveyed the lobby. The cocktail bar was in a slightly raised area on the right, and it was packed. Every seat was taken, and people were standing around and talking loudly. I didn’t see Dorsey. Nor did I see Dell Royston. I had certainly seen enough photos of him through the years to be able to recognize him in the flesh, I thought. For a brief second I wondered if the California car dealer and his AC/DC wife were in this crowd. Might be.

I glanced at my watch, then dialed Sarah again.

“Coast is clear,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“Terrific.”

I walked on through the lobby, past the desk to the elevators. The penthouse had its own elevator. A group was coming out. I held my breath, half expecting to find myself face-to-face with Dorsey, but my luck held. The person who did step out was Dell Royston, surrounded by four guys in expensive suits. They didn’t even glance at me.

A plastic door key was required to activate the elevator. My master key worked like a charm. The door closed and I ascended.

I met one matron on the penthouse level. She was dolled up, apparently heading for dinner. This being New York, she avoided eye contact with me. After all, we hadn’t been introduced.

I knocked on the car dealer’s room door. Rapped several times, then used the master key.

The place was empty. I scrambled around collecting bugs, which I tossed in an attaché case I had brought along for that purpose, and was finished in ninety-five seconds flat. Standing in front of the door, I called Willie. Who knew who would be standing out there when I opened this door? Years ago Willie had met the guest as he opened the door of a room he had just robbed — that twist of fate sent him up the river. He was supposed to call me if anyone showed up in the hallway, but I wasn’t willing to run on faith, not with him half potted.

“Anyone out there?” I asked when he answered.

“Hey, dude, I’ll call you.”

“Right.”

I took a squint through the security glass anyway, saw no one, and opened the door. Corridor was empty. Walked to the adjoining suite and repeated the procedure.

When I had all the bugs, I used the phone by the wet bar in the third suite to dial Royston’s suite. No answer. I dialed each of the other two in turn. The telephone rang in each suite until the hotel’s automatic message system picked up.

Without further ado I marched down the hall and proceeded to scatter the bugs through the three suites in places the maid and guests were unlikely to discover them. About the only rule was to avoid placing them by a television or radio speaker or near a water faucet or toilet. It didn’t really matter where in a particular room the tiny microphones and transmitters were — the computer would synchronize the audio if two or more bugs picked up the same conversation. The operator could filter out extraneous noise picked up by the bugs or be selective in which bugs he wanted to monitor. Unless we left them on continuously, the batteries in each unit would last about ten days, more than enough for our purposes. Our ability to turn the units on and off remotely made them impossible to sweep with conventional gear unless they were transmitting.

Standing in front of the elevator twelve and a half minutes after I arrived on the floor, I called Sarah.

“I’m on the red level. The bugs are in place. I have to ride the elevator back to the level above the lobby to catch a regular one. Give me one minute, then turn on the cameras on this level. Then call Dorsey’s room. See if she’s there.”

“What will I say if she answers?”

“Ask her to confirm her dinner reservation. I’ll call you from downstairs.”

The elevator arrived and I stepped aboard for the trip down. Unfortunately Willie couldn’t monitor the surveillance camera on that floor, since I hadn’t put a tap on the coaxial cable. No time to do it now, even if I had another cable tap, and I didn’t.

I bailed out on the so-called balcony level, which had its own lobby with meeting rooms leading off in various directions. My choice of floors was not a good one. This lobby was jammed with people, too, although they appeared somewhat more sober and subdued than the crowd around the bar on the floor below. Apparently many of the convention committees were meeting here, wrestling with things like credentials, the platform, and so forth.

I stood by some sort of artificial potted plant that some of the conventioneers had watered with beer and called Sarah one more time.

“She doesn’t answer her phone. Perhaps she’s in the shower.”

“Did you do the cameras on twelve?”

“No. I’ve lost my Internet connection. Do you want to wait?”

“No.”

Without a lookout on the floor, I was playing Russian roulette darting in and out of Dorsey’s suite. The sooner I was out of this building, the better.

I took a regular elevator to twelve and marched along the hall to Dorsey’s room. Rapped three times loudly. No answer.

“Room service,” I called in what I judged to be the proper volume.

When I received no answer I took a deep breath and used the master key.

The door opened, and I surveyed the room before I entered. Indeed, Dorsey had popped for a small suite, with a sitting room with wet bar, a bedroom with a king-sized bed, and a bath off the small hallway leading between them.

I stepped in, pulled the door shut, and stood poised, ready for anything. When nothing happened, I did the tour. The place was empty.

Wasting no time, I put a bug behind the head of Dorsey’s bed and one under the counter of the wet bar. I had to short Royston two bugs to have these for Dorsey. He would have felt slighted if he knew, but I hoped he never would.

I had just placed the bug under the bar when someone knocked on the door. “Maid!”

Before I could get to it the door clicked, then opened.

Thank heavens it wasn’t Isabel from Puerto Rico. “Oh,” she said. “So sorry. Turndown service.”

“I’m just leaving, thank you,” I said, and left carrying the attaché case.

In the hallway I stole a chocolate chip cookie from her cart and pocketed it for later. We thieves have no morals.

A couple was waiting by the elevator. I joined them, then followed them into the elevator for the trip down.

“Where are you from?” the lady asked. She was in her sixties, a dried-up wizened thing wearing a choker of plastic pearls.

“California, originally.” See, I can tell the truth on occasion.

“We’re from Arkansas. My husband is a Southern Baptist minister.”

He beamed at me. I smiled at him.

“What religion are you, young man?” she asked seriously.

The tone of her voice must have irritated me a little. As the door opened at the main lobby, I said, “I’m a nudist,” and made my escape.

“A Buddhist!” she exclaimed. Behind me I heard her ask her husband, the Southern Baptist, “Did he say he was a Buddhist?”

Scanning for Dorsey, walking confidently, assuredly, I headed for the side entrance where I had entered the building. I was five feet from the door and a clean getaway when who should come through it but Dorsey O’Shea! Through a side door, no less! What was the world coming to?

“Tommy Carmellini! Of all people! My God, what are you doing here?”