“I think the manifests are all I need.”
“You do?”
“If the same name turns up going and coming back, that’s more significant than how he paid for the ticket.”
“I didn’t even think of that. Let’s check.”
I gathered up the sheets of paper. “I’ve taken up enough of your time,” I said. “The hard part’s done. And, speaking of your time, I want to pay for it.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “You don’t have to do that.”
I tucked the money into her hand. “The client can afford it,” I said.
“Well...” She closed her fingers around the bills. “Actually, that was fun. Not as much fun as booking you and your wife on a South Seas cruise, though. Be sure and call me when you’re ready to go someplace wonderful.”
“I will.”
“Or even Omaha,” she said.
“‘The client can afford it,’” TJ said. “Thought we didn’t have a client.”
“We don’t.”
“‘Social engineering.’ What you did is you used a computer. Only thing, it was somebody else’s computer. And somebody else’s fingers on the keys.”
“I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
“Let’s see the lists,” he said. “See how many repeats we got.”
“Mr. A. Johnson,” I said. “Flew Midwest Express from Philadelphia to Omaha on the fifth, changing planes in Milwaukee. He flew back to Philadelphia on the morning of the seventh. Paid by cash or check. My guess is cash.”
“You think it’s him.”
“I do.”
“Whole lot of folks named Johnson. Right up there with Smith and Jones.”
“That’s true.”
“‘Cordin’ to Phyllis, you got to show ID to get on a plane.”
“They’ve tightened up all their security measures.”
“Case you a terrorist,” he said, “they want to make sure it’s really you. They probably do the same when you buy the ticket, if you payin’ cash. Ask for ID.”
I nodded. “Same with a check, but then they always want proof of identity for a check. Of course, it’s not that hard to get ID.”
“Store right on the Deuce, print up all kinds of shit. Student ID, Sheriff cards. Wouldn’t make much of an impression on a cop, but you gonna look too hard at it if you’re behind the counter at the airlines?”
“Especially if the customer’s a prosperous-looking middle-aged white man in a Brooks Brothers suit.”
“The right front gets you through,” he agreed.
“And the ID may have been legitimate,” I said. “Maybe he had a client named Johnson, maybe he hung on to a driver’s license for some poor bastard who wouldn’t need it while he was locked up in Green Haven.”
He scratched his head. “We got a name of a dude flew to Omaha one day and back a couple days later. We got anything more than that?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“I’m glad you brought him in,” Joe Durkin said. “This is the very mope we’ve been looking high and low for. I’ll ask him a few questions soon as I remember where I put my rubber hose.”
“Bet I know where it’s at,” TJ said. “You want, I help you look for it.”
Durkin grinned and gave him a poke in the arm. “What are you doing with my friend here?” he demanded. “Why aren’t you out on the street selling crack and mugging people?”
“My day off.”
“And here I thought you guys were dedicated. Seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, soothing the emotional pain of the public. Turns out you coast just like everybody else.”
“Hell yes,” TJ said. “I didn’t want to do nothin’ but work all the time, I be joinin’ the po-leese.”
“Say that again for me, will you? Po-leese.”
“Po-leese.”
“Jesus, I love it when you talk dirty. Matt, I don’t know what gives me the idea, but somehow I think you’re here for a reason.”
We were in the squad room at Midtown North, on West Fifty-fourth Street. I took a chair and explained what I wanted while TJ went over to the board and thumbed through a sheaf of Wanted flyers.
“When you find one with your picture on it,” Joe advised him, “bring it over and I’ll get you to autograph it for me. Matt, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You want me to call the Omaha police and ask them to check hotel records for some zip named Johnson.”
“I’d appreciate it,” I said.
“You’d appreciate it. In a tangible way, do you suppose?”
“Tangible. Yes, I suppose I—”
“I like that word,” he said. “Tangible. It means you can touch it. You reach out and it’s there. Which gives rise to a question. Why don’t you reach out and touch someone?”
“Pardon me?”
“You know the hotel, right? The Hilton?”
“That’s the place to start. I’m not positive that’s where he stayed, but—”
“But you’d start there. Why didn’t you? Use their eight hundred number and the call’s free. Can’t beat that for a bargain.”
“I called,” I said. “I didn’t get anywhere.”
“You identify yourself as a police officer?”
“That’s illegal.” He gave me a look. “I may have given that impression,” I admitted. “It didn’t do me any good.”
“Since when did you become incapable of calling a hotel and conning a little information out of a desk clerk?” He looked at the slip of paper in front of him. “Omaha,” he said. “What the hell ever happened in Omaha?” He looked at me. “Jesus Christ,” he said.
“Not Him personally,” TJ put in, “but this dude who said he was real tight with Him.”
“The abortion guy. What was his name?”
“How quickly we forget.”
“Roswell Berry. Will got him right in his hotel room, didn’t he? I forget which hotel, but why is it something tells me it was the Hilton?”
“Why indeed?”
“You have reason to think our boy Will’s a guy named Johnson?”
“It’s a name he may have been using.”
“No wonder the Hilton wouldn’t tell you anything. You wouldn’t have been the first caller trying to get something out of them. All the tabloids, guarding the public’s right to know. The Omaha PD must have slammed the lid shut.”
“That would be my guess.”
“You know how many detectives are working on Will? I can’t tell you the number, but what I do know is I’m not one of them. How do I justify sticking my nose in?”
“Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with Will,” I said. “Maybe it’s a simple investigation of a robbery suspect who pulled a series of holdups in this precinct and may have fled to Omaha.”
“Where he’s got relatives. But instead of staying with them we think he holed up at the Hilton. We know the dates, and the name he used. That’s some story, Matt.”
“You probably won’t have to tell it,” I said. “You’re a New York police detective with a question that’s easy to answer. Why should they give you a hard time?”
“People have never needed a reason in the past.” He picked up the phone. “Here’s a question that’s not easy to answer. Why the hell am I doing this?”
“Allen W. Johnson,” he said. “That’s Allen with two L’s and an E. I don’t know what the W stands for. I don’t suppose it stands for Will.”
“I’m not sure it stands for anything.”
“Stayed two nights and paid cash. As a matter of fact, the Omaha cops checked on everybody staying at the hotel as part of their investigation of Berry’s murder. Anybody paid cash, that was a red flag. So Mr. Allen Johnson definitely had their attention.”
“Did they have a chance to talk to him?”
“He’d already checked out. Never used the phone or charged anything to his room.”
“I don’t suppose they’ve got a description of him.”