“Incredible,” I said. “Those are great opinions.”
“You just figured out the price,” he told me.
“Yeah, business as usual,” I said, and there was a lot of acid in my tone.
“If it‟s business like last night,” Stick said. “Count me in every time.” It was obvious that he had said
all he had to say about my personal problems.
“Thanks for sparing me your tales of conquest,” I said.
“Speaking of business, I got a little for you. Let‟s get to the number one problem, okay? 1 don‟t like
to brag, anyway. I was up and at the Warehouse by eight. We got good news, we got bad news, and
we got some in-between news.”
“Gimme the good news first,” I said.
“The good news is that Kite‟s finally got Nance in view. The bad news is that he didn‟t make contact
until about three a.m. Otherwise he might have been a witness to your little party over there on the
waterfront.”
“It‟d be nice to know what he‟s been doing for the past two days,” I said.
“Kite‟s working on it. Also Charlie One Ear has some information on who owns what in town and
Cowboy Lewis is hot on Cohen‟s trail this morning. So what got your day off to such a lousy start,
besides the fact that your head‟s not screwed on right?”
“First of all, I hurt a very nice lady,” I said.
“What‟d you do, turn her down?”
“Worse, I asked her to break the law.”
“Oh, is that all? Murder, bank robbery, what?”
“The bank‟s computer code and Cohen‟s bank account numbers,” I said.
He didn‟t bat an eye. I might have said I asked her to get me a glass of water, for all he seemed to
care.
“Did she do it?”
I shook my head. “The lady has more integrity than I have,” I said.
“Well, Lark hasn‟t got any such notions,” Stick said, with that strange smile of his. “Here‟s the rest of
the good news.” He reached into his shirt pocket, took out a slip of paper, and handed it to me. There
were two numbers written on it. Lark had drawn a smiling face behind the second one.
“Are these the bank‟s computer access numbers?” I asked excitedly.
“And the numbers for the Tagliani account.”
“This is incredible! Are you sure they‟re correct?”
“I trust the lady all the way.”
“The lady‟s got one hell of a memory,” I said.
“There‟s a little more to it than that. Guess who the computer operator at the bank is.”
“You‟re kidding!”
“She has a master‟s degree in mathematics and computer technology from Emory University. I may
be in love. A dame looks like that with all those smarts, shit, I might even think about early
retirement.”
I was impressed with the information, but even more impressed that he had asked for it.
“How the hell did you know I was after these numbers?” I asked him.
“Lark told me you went to Casablanca to meet DeeDee, so I figured you must be after something,” he
said. “It wasn‟t hard to figure out what it was. Hell, I can put one and one together and get two almost
every time.”
“Now that I‟ve got them, I‟m not sure what to do with them,” I said.
“Have you forgotten I spent six months slaving over a computer when I joined the Freeze? I know
what to do with them.”
“Can you access the code and get into the bank‟s main terminal?”
“I can hack into anything,” he said with a grin. “I‟m the magic man, remember?”
My palms got sweaty thinking about what we could come up with. For the first time since arriving in
Dunetown, I felt we were getting close to something important. The information wouldn‟t stand up in
court, but it could lead us straight to the bad seeds.
“You want to tell me what you want, specifically?”
“I‟m not sure. But I am sure Cohen‟s the bagman and he deals only with Seaborn at the bank. DeeDee
did tell me that. They‟re using the bank for a washing machine, I know it. That bank account should
tell us something.”
“I agree with you about Cohen. Lark says he usually makes cash deposits once a day. Big ones.”
“Does she know how much?”
“No, but she checked the daily deposit tape once out of curiosity and it was in six figures.”
“What! Jesus, Stick, we‟re on to something. Just maybe we can get them this time.”
I whistled through my teeth and we laughed and slapped each other on the back and acted like a
couple of high school kids. If Lark was right, Cohen could be moving as much as halfa million dollars
a week or more through the Tagliani accounts.
“It had to be shielded in some way,” Stick said. “That kind of money activity attracts the Lepers like a
petunia attracts a hummingbird.”
I said, “It also means Seaborn has to be involved.”
“So you want to go fishing?”
“Yeah. What I‟m really looking for is a Hollywood box, some kind of payoff account.”
“That the tax boys won‟t tumble on to?” the Stick said.
“Right.”
“That‟s been tried before by experts.”
“Well,” I said, “there‟s always somebody who thinks he has a better mousetrap.”
284
54
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM
Dutch Morehead had a hunch.
When we arrived at the Warehouse, he was sitting with his feet on the desk under the two holes he
had put in the ceiling the night before.
“Did y‟see this?” he asked, tossing us the morning paper.
The article was on page 7, circled with a ballpoint pen:
MAN BELIEVED VICTIM OF SHIPWRECK
The story, datelined Jacksonville, went on to say that an unidentified white male had washed ashore
twenty miles north of the resort town the night before. Local police speculated that he was aboard a
trawler believed to have burned at sea three days earlier. Charred wreckage of the boat had been
floating up along the coast for two days. An autopsy was planned and there were no other details. The
item was about three inches long.
“Don‟t we have enough trouble?” the Stick said.
“1 already talked to the boys down there” was Dutch‟s answer.
“1 guess we don‟t,” the Stick replied.
“I got this hunch,” the Dutchman said. It was obvious he was feeling proud of himself.
“Shit!” the Stick said. “Now what?”
“The Coast Guard got the name of the ship off some of the wreckage. It sailed out of Maracaibo nine
days ago with a crew of four. Maracaibo is right around the corner from Colombia, and Colombia
spells cocaine to me. The Department of Natural Resource boys have been picking up bits and pieces
of it since Monday morning. Then this morning another stiff floated up.
This new one is a black guy. Both of them are full of bullets, Jake. Twenty-twos.”
“What‟s that got to do with—”
“I‟m not finished yet,” he said. “lie labels in this black dude‟s shirt and pants say he‟s from
Doomstown. Designer jeans, a two-hundred-dollar shirt, five-hundred-dollar boots. And one other
thing—he has a shiv mark, from here to here.” He drew a line with a thumb from ear to mouth.
“I‟ll be damned,” Stick said. “Stitch Harper?”
“Fits him like homemade pyjamas. He also had an empty holster on his belt,” said the Dutchman. „So
what sailor do you know dresses like that and packs heat?”
“Who‟s Stitch Harper?” I asked.
“One of Longnose Graves‟ top honchos.”
“If it‟s Stitch Harper,” Dutch said, “we just might have us a whole new scenario working. And I‟ll
know in an hour or so. I got photos of both victims comin‟ in on the telex.”