CHAPTER NINE
The Herald was holding four more letters and a small padded parcel under my box number when I called at their building that afternoon. I read the letters in the car. Three were from time-wasters, the last was from an ex-con, Luke Cross, who claimed to have shared a cell with Andy in Raiford. He had an address in South Kendall.
I turned my attention to the parcel. It wasn't franked, meaning that it had been dropped off at the Herald by hand. I tore open the flap and pulled out the contents: a sequence of three colored photographs of Floyd and me leaving the underground garage in Boca Raton. I couldn't be positive, but I thought they had been taken at some point near the end of our ill-fated counterfeiting operation. The first was a long range shot with the skeleton of the unfinished condominium in the background, for the other two, the photographer had zoomed in on our faces. From the angle of elevation, it was obvious that the photographer had been on the roof of one of the neighboring buildings.
A knock on the car door snapped me out of my reverie. I jerked my head up, half expecting the anonymous photographer to be staring in at me. A heavy middle-aged woman waved apologetically; she had allowed her door to collide against mine as she squeezed into her car. I breathed out and waved back at her. I double-¬checked the inside of the parcel in case I had missed something. It was empty, and I turned my attention to the outside. The letters of the box number were printed in black fiber pen and there was nothing to differentiate the padded parcel from those that could be bought at any Post Office. No clues to the sender's identification, but it was probable that whoever took the photographs had also killed Andy.
Returning the photographs to their parcel, I slipped it into the door pocket.
I took Second Avenue across the Miami river, past Rivergate Plaza, south towards Kendall. I kept one eye on the mirror until I found my tail. The red sedan was tucked in behind a delivery truck five vehicles behind. I was growing so accustomed to company I would have felt disappointed if it had not been there.
Making my way through the slow-moving traffic I thought about what motive the killer could have had for sending me the photographs. It didn't make much sense. He had tried to frame me by putting the Treasury agents onto me, so what the hell was he playing at now? Maybe the advert had rattled him, convincing him that Andy's body had not been discovered, and the pictures were intended as some sort of cryptic clue.
I couldn't make head or tail of it, but one thing was clear: as long as Andy's body remained where it was, Floyd and I were in deep shit.
I thought about my promise to Robin.
Luke Cross lived alone in a duplex in a garden development in South Kendall. We talked in the kitchen.
Andy's Raiford cell mate was a small, wiry man in his late-fifties and a more affable man than his name suggested − a career burglar, now retired, who had caught a six years stretch after being shot in the leg by an irate house-holder. He boasted that it was the only hard time he had ever done.
He and Andy had become good friends during their stint at the penitentiary. Andy had come in after Cross and had been paroled before him.
"When was the last time you heard from him?" I asked.
"He came back to visit me about three months after he was paroled. I hadn't long to go myself by then and we talked about meeting up on the outside. Both of us knew that it wouldn't happen, but it's the sort of thing old cell mates talk about."
I looked around the kitchen, noticing how carefully arranged and spotlessly clean everything was. Even the glass storage jars were ranked according to size. I was pretty sure that Cross was still plying his trade and had to be reasonably successful; felons were not known for being big contributors to pension funds. He lived comfortably enough and had the sort of habits that would serve a burglar well. A man who would use stealth and guile rather than violence.
"What made you reply to the ad? It's been years since you last saw Andy."
Cross was nodding. "I don't really know. I guess it was a peculiar thing to do, but Andy was a bit different from the other cons and I liked the guy. He was bright enough, but real soft. He wouldn't have lasted six months if his family hadn't stepped in and helped him out. Being gay − the virus would have got him if nothing else had."
"What help could his family be?"
Cross expertly constructed a roll-up and, holding it between heavily nicotine-stained fingers, lit it, and took a long pull. He dropped the match into the mouth of the waste disposal unit.
"His first couple of months inside was a nightmare. He was sharing a cell with a sadistic motherfucker, name of Curtis, doing a twenty for armed robbery. He butt-fucked Andy three times the first night and made him his bitch. Four or five weeks after that, Curtis starting trading Andy to anyone who had a pack of cigarettes. It didn't matter if Andy went along with it or not, he still took some heavy beatings. I was on another floor and couldn't have done much for him anyhow, but I wouldn't have wanted to see a dog treated the way he was. There was a time when a forger was given some respect in prison. The cons used to admire somebody that got by with their brains. Not these days."
"What happened to change it?"
Cross was confused for a second. "The cons?"
"No, Andy's treatment in Raiford."
"I don't rightly know how it was managed, but Andy was moved in with me and suddenly the word was out. He wasn't to be touched. Anyone messing with him would get seriously fucked with. Even the bulls didn't hassle him as much as they did the other inmates. Curtis didn't pay any mind and tried to have Andy smoke his joint in the showers. They cut Curtis's dick off and flushed it down the john."
"Who were they?"
Cross took another heavy pull on his roll-up. He exhaled the smoke down his nostrils and tossed the butt into the sink. He turned the faucet on and watched it disappear. "It doesn't pay to ask too many questions. All I know is that after Curtis was gelded, Andy was left well alone. Somebody was paying over big money to buy protection like that. I always figured his family for it. They had that sort of dough."
"Didn't you ask Andy?"
"Pretty near every day. He'd just smiled like he does and tapped the end of his nose with his finger."
"What happened to Curtis?"
"He took a razor to his wrists in the hospital. Couldn't face a future with no dick, I guess. Or maybe someone held the razor for him."
I pulled forty dollars from my pocket and offered it to Cross. He waved it away.
"Keep your money. But when you catch up with Andy, let him know where I'm living. Once the word went out on him, nobody messed with me either. I guess I owe him."
I was halfway to the door before remembering something else. "Did you ever work construction in Boca Raton?"
Cross looked puzzled. "I break into buildings; I don't build them."
On the way home I stopped off again at the Herald and paid cash to reserve the box number for another week. It was doubtful if the killer had any more surprises to deliver, but it he had, then I would prefer for them to be sent there.
By the time I made it back to the apartment I was through soul-searching and had decided to tell Floyd about the three photographs. It would be the second time that day I had broken my word. First, my agreement with Angelo, and now the promise I had given to Robin was about to go the same way and that troubled me the most. Floyd knew nothing of my meeting with Angelo and wasn't going to hear of it from me, but he had a right to know about the photographs.
I brought the parcel from the car. Thankfully, Robin was not around. I asked Floyd to go for a drink with me.
We walked to a bar three streets away, the Dew Drop Inn, a seedy joint that smelt of stale beer and piss. The sort of place where staff members were fired if they left bottles on the bar; they made for too handy a weapon. We could talk freely there because it was not our regular haunt, so it was unlikely that the Service would have anyone planted there. I ordered a couple of bourbons and carried them to a table in the open air decking at the rear. The only other customers were a drowsy drunk perched at the bar and a couple of guys playing pool.
It was the first chance I had had to bring Floyd up to speed on what I'd unearthed about Andy. He was more surprised than I had been to hear that Andy had been sitting on a trust income. When I was through talking, I handed over the parcel.
Floyd took his time examining the photographs, not letting their impact show on his face. He lit a cigarette and took a long, slow draw, as though gathering strength from the nicotine, then looked at me through tired eyes.
"Andy's goin' have t'be moved," he said. "Ain't nothing else for it. As long as his body's there, the killer can land us in a world of trouble any damned time he feels like it."
I had reached the same conclusion. "I'm to report to Shapiro tomorrow. I'll skip work and move the body then."
"No you won't. This one's on me. You and Andy brought me in t'watch your backs and I'm not t'o made up over the job I've done of that. It's time I started t'do my share. Anyways, it will be a whole lot easier for me to shake off the T-men."
What Floyd was saying made sense; there had been just the one surveillance team keeping tabs on him and Floyd could wrong-foot a mountain goat if he had a mind to. A picture of Robin flashed into my mind.
"Not this time, buddy," I said decisively. "Not with that gimpy leg of yours. I could be in and out in less than a minute."
"Goddammit, Steve!" Floyd snapped, giving the drunk at the bar a jolt.
A barrel-chested man pushed through the bar's swing doors. His mean eyes swept the room and settled on us for a moment. He swaggered up to the bar and ordered a drink. I grabbed the photographs and slid them under the brown parcel.
"Don't sweat it," Floyd said in a whisper. "He's nothing hut a billyboy who's been thrown outa all the other bars around here. Nothing t'get worked up about."
I relaxed slightly. My nerves had been stretched tight ever since opening that damned parcel. I was starting to imagine that there were a hundred eyes on me.
I knew now what it must have been like for Andy.
Floyd stubbed out his cigarette and gave me a look that I couldn't read. "I'm tellin' you, Steve. It's settled. I'll do any undertakin' that needs done."
It was what I had been afraid of. "Okay," I said. "If that's the way you want it."
Floyd grinned. "That's what I want."
"You'll need another vehicle. Can you lay your hands on one?"
"There's a guy at the gym will loan me his. He'll not ask any questions."
"Good. It's makes more sense than stealing one. Where does he live?"
"West Oceania."
I took another glance at the two men at the bar inside. They were watching the first round highlights of a golf tournament on the TV. The drowsy drunk had one eye shut.
I leaned into Floyd. "First thing tomorrow, call him up. Use a pay phone. Have him stuff the keys in the tailpipe, that you're not sure when you'll be round to pick it up. Wait for six o'clock, then slip your tail, pick up the car and drive to Boca. The traffic will be lighter by that time and you'll be able to spot any tail."
Floyd didn't need telling twice. 'Fair enough. Any ideas what t'do with Andy's body?"
"The Glades."
He nodded. It was settled.
I watched as Floyd lifted his glass and drained it. It was not the sort of bar you'd want to linger in. I had a sour taste soured in my mouth, and it wasn't the cheap bourbon. I hadn't enjoyed deceiving my friend, but with a bit of luck I would have Andy safely relocated before midday.
CHAPTER TEN
"Your blood test came back clean," Shapiro announced, when I walked into his office the next morning.
An enormous weight was lifted off me. I wouldn't have put it past Morrell to have rigged the test results.
"Ryder tells me that you're settling in okay."
"Yeah, it's not much of a job, but it will do until something better comes along."
Shapiro eyed me suspiciously. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just that I don't intend spending the rest of my life pumping gas."
"He says you didn't show up at work last Friday after you left here. How come?"
"I had some personal things to attend to. They couldn't wait."
"Has Morrell been giving you any hassle?"
"Nothing I can't live with."
Shapiro scribbled in my file and said, "Lincoln holiday on Monday, so you don't check in again until next Friday. Same time."
"That's it?"
"Yep. Go to work."
I left his office and rode an escalator down with three other men, getting off at the second floor. No one else left the car. I found the back stairs and walked down to the first floor. Security in public buildings had been heavily beefed up after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and September 11th. Now the Dade County courthouse had only one entrance, where all visitors were channeled through metal detectors and subjected to a body search. They were signed in and handed a pass to clip to their clothing until they left the building.
My strategy was dependent on the Service agents not seeing any point in following me into the courthouse, assuming that once I was inside I couldn't go any place and they could pick me up again as I left.
Firefighters are familiar with the layout of large public buildings in their precinct, especially the ones considered to be potential terrorist targets. Metro Dade had been my precinct, and I had been through the plans of the courthouse plenty of times during evacuation exercises.
Nobody challenged me as I took the stairs to the basement. Two maintenance men were painting the central service corridor, covering a drab gray with a drab green. They had detour barriers set up. That was all I needed. I followed the signs, then, unchallenged, took a smaller corridor and another flight of stairs to the second level. So far so good. Now to find an alternative route that would bring me up at the far end of the corridor being painted. If my memory was to be trusted, the emergency entrance hatch which allowed firefighters emergency access to the wet and dry risers was located there.
My luck held and ten minutes later I was on the outside. I waved down a cab and asked the driver to take me to Boca. How long would it be, I wondered, before the agents on surveillance woke up to the fact that I had given them the slip once again?
There was a Rent-a-Wreck outlet on the outskirts of Boca Raton which Andy had once hired a truck from. They didn't put as much emphasis on ID and credit cards as the regular rental companies. For a hundred dollar deposit they fixed me up with a five-year-old Dodge that was blowing oil.
I circled the streets of Boca for three-quarters of an hour, checking for tails, before heading for the print shop. I slipped through the picket gate, then swung open the main gates and drove the car in. The Dodge's hood cleaved through the weeds like the prow of an icebreaker. The steering wheel bucked in my hands and there was a thump from underneath as the car hit something hard concealed in the undergrowth.
Driving into the inky blackness of the garage was like entering a cave and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. I reversed the car up to the metal door and switched off the engine. The only sound was the hot metal of the engine cooling off.
It wasn't only the cold air that was making me shiver. There was no going back now. It was time to do what I had come to do.
I opened the trunk, and then raised the door to the print shop.
Straight off I knew something wasn't right. The inner door was pulled only halfway across.
Then all hell broke loose.
Two cars thundered down the ramp and spun around in front of the Dodge, throwing clouds of dust into the glare from their headlights. Morrell, gun drawn, was the first man out. He was wearing a Kevlar vest and a smirk. Four other men and one female agent took positions in a semi-circle around me. Six guns and all pointed in my direction.
Morrell holstered his and moved towards the sound-proof inner door. The female agent passed him a flashlight and he shone it into the vault. He rolled the door fully open.
The room was empty.
All I could do was stand and stare. My first thought was that Floyd had somehow beaten me to it.
Morrell found the wall switch and flooded the room with light. He stepped into the room and started to give it a thorough inspection, examining the walls, the concrete floor, the inside of the sliding door. One of the agents moved forward, but Morrell waved him back.
We stood there like mannequins in a shop window. The room wasn't just empty; it had been thoroughly cleaned. The walls had been wiped and the floor scrubbed. There was no trace of the ink I had spilt.
Eventually Morrell came out. He leaned into me, close enough for me to see every fleck of green in his eyes. He had the look of a crazed dog.
"Nobody makes a fool of me twice."
But someone had. Our eyes automatically turned towards the ramp when we heard the sound of running footsteps. Nicole Cantrell, an investigative reporter for a local tv channel, came tearing down the ramp towards us. In her wake a cameraman, his high-intensity Kleig light turning the garage bright as day. A sound man with his fluff-wrapped mike brought up the rear.
Cantrell was one of Miami's homegrown celebrities. She had made her name producing hard-hitting documentaries attacking what she considered to be the inadequacies of the law-enforcement agencies to cope with Miami's criminal classes. She didn't favor either side of the equation. Both the law and the hoodlums to a man despised her.
She took a long hard look at the empty vault, then held her mike towards Morrell. "What exactly was the Secret Service expecting to find here?"
Morrell's face reflected white under the glare from the camera's harsh light. "No comment," he snapped.
"Can you confirm that this building is the property of the federal authorities?"
I don't know how Morrell handled that nugget of information, but it knocked the wind out of me.
The Secret Service trains their agents to react quickly. Even so, the film-crew had forty-five seconds of footage shot before Morrell bundled me into the vault and pulled the door across. We couldn't hear what was going on outside but it was certain that Morrell's people were removing the news-team.
Morrell grabbed me by the hair and snapped my head backwards. I knocked his arm away and tried to throw a punch to his throat. He dodged and caught my fist in his cupped hand.
"Back off!" he roared.
I pulled my hand free and stepped back. "What's up? You started it. Not prepared to go through with it when your friends aren't here to back you up?"
Morrell's eyes narrowed to slits. He surprised me by pulling at the Velcro straps of his vest and slipping it off. He let it slide to the floor. He took his gun, removed the clip, before dropping both on top of the vest. "Try me."
We circled around, sizing each other up. I probably had the edge on Morrell for boxing skill and was fifteen years his junior, but he was Service trained and would have picked up plenty of dirty moves along the way. I needed to forget about boxing and rely on the techniques that Floyd had taught me, and some of the tricks I'd witnessed at Butler.
Morrell launched his first attack. He feinted a punch to my solar-plexus and stabbed at my eyes with extended fingers. I grabbed hold of his index finger and tried to snap it. Instead of resisting he allowed his arm to swing back, catching me off balance. His arms wrapped around me in a bear hug and started to apply pressure, keeping his head stretched back out of butting range. He was a lot stronger than I had thought. I hooked a leg around his and we both crashed onto the floor. His grip didn't relax for an instant. I sank my teeth into the cartilage of his ear.
The battle was just getting interesting when the door was opened and we were pulled apart like a couple of snarling pitbulls.
Morrell conducted the questioning back at the Miami field office. I had been driven there at speed, hauled out and frog-marched to an interview room. The door was closed and I was left on my own.
I sat at a table facing a video camera on a tripod. A tape recorder was on the table. The room was airless and had no windows.
Two hours were to crawl by before Morrell appeared with the female agent I had seen earlier. He seemed to have cooled off, though his left ear was swollen and had a fresh dressing on it. He switched on the camera and the tape recorder and told me that I wasn't under arrest and could leave any time I wanted.
And, conceivably, I might make it as far as the front steps before I was arrested and hauled back in.
Morrell ran his fingers through his spiky hair. "Would you like to explain what you were doing in that garage?"
I didn't think telling him that I had been searching for a parking spot was such a good idea. "I had some property stashed there."
"What sort of property?"
"Personal things that I moved there before I torched the house. Cameras, clothes, some books."
"Where are they now?"
"I wish I knew. If I find the bastard who's taken them, I'll rip his head off."
Morrell slapped his palm on the table. "Don't make the mistake of fucking with me, Stricker. I know the type of games you like to play."
"What you're talking about?"
"Do you admit to knowing Andy Kove?"
"Sure I do. We met up a few years ago. When I was released from Lake Butler, I thought it would be cool to get in contact with him again."
"What for?"
"To drink a few beers, shoot some pool. I thought he might know of a decent job."
"You placed an ad in the Herald. Is that the way you normally contact your friends?"
"Lots of people do the same thing,"
"They don't offer a ten thousand dollar reward. Where does a man fresh out of the pen put his hands on that sort of money?"
I gave him a scornful sneer. "You've got to be joking. I'd no intention of paying any reward."
For the first time Morrell appeared to believe me. He moved on. "Who told you about the vault?"
"Nobody. I overheard some guys mention it one night in a bar. They were construction workers griping about being laid off when the work was halted."
"And who did you tell?"
"Nobody."
"You're sure?"
"Absolutely."
I should have known it for a trick question. Morrell kept a straight face as he pulled some papers from the inside pocket of his jacket, opened them up and smoothed them out on the table. They were Xerox copies of the photographs.
He explained, "One of our agents made these from photographs he found in your car.
It was dumb of me not to have thought of it. It would be easy for the Secret Service to track down the VW's original dealership to obtain duplicate keys. They must have searched the car while I was talking with Luke Cross.
Morrell wasn't through. "First thing this morning we had these delivered to city hall's building control in Boca Raton. It took them a while, but eventually they identified the building. We were on our way there when surveillance contacted us to say that you had given them the slip. We had a pretty good notion where you were headed, so we held back until you showed up."
"What did you think you were going to find?"
"You tell me."
"I have, but you don't appear to have been listening."
Morrell stood up and walked around behind me. "I guess you're real thrilled with how it all worked out. Quite a performance you laid on."
I turned around to look at him. "What the hell are you talking about now?"
"Face the camera," he ordered. "You needed us off your back, permanently. Shaking our surveillance every now and again wasn't good enough. So you dreamt up this farce to make it appear that the Secret Service have been harassing an innocent man. Isn't that how your friend Cantrell will present it on tv?"
I felt stupid talking to a camera. "That's a powerful imagination you have. First you tell me that I'm a counterfeiter, now you have me manipulating the media."
"What's your next step? Have the courts award an injunction blocking us from going anywhere near you?"
"Might be an idea."
"You're welcome to try. It won't stop us from finding your print shop, sooner or later. That's a promise."
"There's no print shop to find."
"Then what were you doing in that garage?"
And so it went on. Hour after hour.
The new day was four minutes old when Morrell threw me out. It had started to rain and my Rent-a-Wreck Dodge had been impounded. I was soaked through by the time I succeeded in flagging down a cab. Water dripped on to the floor of the cab on the ride home, but I was too occupied to pay it any mind. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to spring a trap at Boca Raton but I was damned if I could figure out why. Angelo was the most likely candidate; he appeared to know what the Secret Service were doing before they did, and he had every reason to want their investigation curtailed before they started on him.
But if he had murdered Andy, he could have just as easily killed me and taken the money.
Floyd was still up, anxiously watching tv news' updates for any fresh developments concerning me. He told me that the local channel had networked the story and an all-news cable channel was running it four times a hour, savoring the embarrassment to the Secret Service, though, other than Morrell's, the agents' faces had been blurred to conceal their identity.
By the time I had dried myself off, the clip was being broadcast again. I sat down beside Floyd to watch it. Nothing had been cut; the semi-circle of agents with their guns drawn; the empty vault; Morrell pushing me ahead of him and sliding the door across; his brief and ill-humored press interview filmed outside the field office; confirmation that the building had been seized by the federal authorities under RICO legislation. The story had by now been relegated to the end-of-programme humor slot with the punch line being my release without charge. When it had finished, I switched off the tv and opened a pint of bourbon, and poured us a couple of drinks.
Floyd's reactions were all mixed up. He was that relieved over the way it had worked that he wasn't all that concerned over the why, who and when behind the clearance of the print shop.
He must have felt let down by my attempt to dupe him and avoided making any direct mention of it. His gaunt frame seemed to shrink into the seat and for the first time in my life I knew what it meant to be lonely.
"Floyd, I didn't mean you any disrespect. There's no man I'd rather have next to me in a tight corner."
He lifted his eyes to me, but it was as though some impenetrable barrier had sprung up in front of them. I wasn't feeling too proud of myself at that moment. Having messed up every good thing in my life, I had now come close to losing the one friend who had never lost faith in me.
We sat there for a while, sipping bourbon, saying nothing. Floyd was the first to break the silence. "Where do we go from here?"
I cleared my throat. "I'm not sure. I'm starting to feel like Wily Coyote chasing the Road Runner. Too dumb to realize that I'm never going to catch the damn bird; just be on the receiving end of more punishment."
"Maybe it's best t'drop it."
"We can't let what was done to Andy be forgotten about. Someone has to answer."
"I agree, but now's not the time. Not when someone else is callin' the plays."
Floyd was talking sense, and it wasn't his big face flashing up on fifty million tv screens. 'You know those times when a boxer gets so caught up trading punches? He can't see his opponent's weaknesses."
"What are you drivin' at?" Floyd asked.
"Three million is an awful lot of money to kiss goodbye, even in return for getting away with murder."
"Three million of funny money."
"Doesn't matter a damn. Any half decent fence would have paid us twenty cents on the dollar. Six hundred thousand in real paper.
"If the money was good."
"It was better than good," I said. "I checked and rechecked every stage. We made eighty-three photographic plates, we tested over sixty different inks before we found perfect matches. You know the hours we put in. The money was good."
I paused for a moment to organize my thoughts. What if it wasn't? Maybe the killer didn't go after the money because he knew it wasn't worth shit.
Floyd was looking at me curiously, waiting for me to say something. I explained what I'd been thinking.
"It has to be the serial numbers?" I insisted, convinced I was onto something. "Andy told us which live series to take them from. Maybe he made a mistake."
The notebook I had found in Andy's suitcase was in my other jeans. I fetched it and handed it to Floyd. "Those are the numbers we worked from. Andy told me that he had copied them from genuine, freshly minted bills."
Floyd took a cursory look at them and handed back the notebook. "You didn't double check?"
"No, there was no reason to. Why would Andy want to print bad money?"
"Killin' him then stealin' his body don't make much sense either."
I sat staring at the open notebook. Researching current serial numbers had been the simplest of the tasks; so simple that I had saw no need to doubt Andy's word. Earlier I was prepared to discount Angelo as Andy's killer. Now I wasn't so sure. "I'll check them out first thing in the morning."