"Not on the phone. How about dinner? Just you, me, and Shamrock. It's pretty good stuff."
Where do you meet for dinner in a small town with two restaurants that were bound to be filled with either cops or press? Not the office. I couldn't afford to have them see any of the prep people who were beginning to arrive. Too cold for a picnic. Which left one place. "Can you pick me up a fish sandwich? Bring it to my house… You know where I live, don't you?"
She did. I called Sue, and told her that I had to have company for dinner. She thought that was nice, and suggested I get home a few minutes ahead of our company, and tidy up my breakfast dishes. She was going out with a friend, anyway. I told her that I'd have to go back out about ten. She wasn't too enthused about that, and reminded me about the dishes again.
"Can you please get home before your company comes? I left some homework on the dining room table… if you could move it to my desk… and there's some really good rice in the freezer, if you need it."
"Thanks. Do we have any potato chips or anything?"
"Some in the cupboard on the right. Use the good green dishes. Not the good china, but the good but not everyday things." She thought for a second. "And the good glasses. Those other ones are just too old."
"Okay."
"Don't eat too much. See you, Batman."
By the time Nancy and Shamrock hit the house, I had cleared the table, set it, put a couple of condiments out, started a pot of coffee, and had remembered paper napkins. I was rather proud of myself.
"Jeez," said Nancy. "You expecting company?"
We unwrapped the sandwiches, poured caffeine-free diet pop all around, and sat down to eat. I took a couple of bites, and then asked the question.
"So, what you got this time?"
Nancy took a drink of pop, and put her glass down. "You know anything about a bank robbery going to go down in Nation County on Sunday?"
I thought I carried it off rather well. "Sure. You too, eh?"
"You serious?" she asked. "You do know about that?"
"Sure." I took a drink of my pop. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
"Just how in the hell do you find this shit out?"
She grinned happily. So did Shamrock. Nancy pointed at the blue-eyed little elf with the camera. "My girl Friday, here. You gotta give it to her, Carl. She's good."
According to the two of them, they were in one of the local bars on Wednesday night. Relaxing. One of the local denizens hit on Shamrock. Gently, to be sure. But a hit, nonetheless. Being bored, she played him for a while, with Nancy right at the table.
I asked who. Didn't know his name, beyond Terry. They described him as about twenty-five through thirty, nearly six feet, and with "nice buns."
"That'll look good on a police report." It had to be Terry Waterman. The only guy I could think of in the county with a strong ass.
"Be creative," said Nancy. "Anyway…"
Terry found out that Shamrock was with the media. Trying to impress her, he said something on the order of "I just might have a scoop for you…"
"And I go, 'Oh, right,' like that," said Shamrock. "And he goes, 'No really, there's something big going down on Sunday.' And I go, 'Oh, sure.'"
She must have said it sweetly, because, as the evening wore on, he got more specific. Apparently, with both details and proposals. After the second time she refused to go home with him, he really turned on the charm.
"So he goes, 'You want to cover a bank job, sweet lady?' and I go, 'Maybe.' So he goes-" and she lowered her voice about two octaves- "'This is gonna be a record breaker. Five hits at the same time. Five. All close.'"
Five. There was the magic number again. And all close.
"No shit?" I took another slug of pop. "What else?"
Nothing. She'd still refused to sleep with him. So he got angry, called her a "media tease," and left.
Shamrock was laughing so hard she almost fell off the chair. "Mmmedia teeeasse!"
I was glad to see the local boys were still as adroit as ever. I laughed, too, but it wasn't easy. Five. Five.
When the gaiety subsided a bit, I pressed. "You sure it was five?"
"It was," said Nancy. "Five hits, and all close together. That's what he said."
I excused myself, and went to the phone. Fascinating. I called the office, and got George and Sally looking for information on Waterman.
When I returned to the table, I popped the question. "So, what would you like in return? I suspect this little dinner isn't going to cover it."
As it happened, Nancy had a plan. All I had to do was tell her where the hits were going down, and they'd just "happen" to be in the area. Might even get a shot or two of the thing in progress. Scoop of the century. Hint, hint.
Or, as Shamrock put it, "That could make my whole career. Honest." The eyes had it, so to speak.
"Look, you two. I only have fair information on one location. I'll give you what I have, but you gotta promise to stay back where you won't get into trouble." I shrugged. "If it actually goes down. I'm not going to promise anything more than a fifty percent chance at this point."
Of course they would. Went without saying. Nancy I could really believe, as she'd been in the crap before, and wanted no more. I felt I could rely on her to keep Shamrock from getting carried away.
I took a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. "Right. Okay, look, sometime on Sunday, we think there may, and I emphasize may, be a hit on the bank in Frieberg."
"No shit! This Sunday?" Nancy was genuinely excited. It dawned on me that they hadn't had any idea of the reality of the bank hits until I'd confirmed it. They'd been guessing. Maybe "hoping" would be a better word. But they obviously hadn't expected anything so soon.
"Yeah," I said, "tomorrow. Don't make me sorry I told you…"
"No, no. But that's the little bank just up the street from the Beauregard, isn't it?"
"Yep."
"Fantastic," said Nancy. "You can see it from the boat. We'll be able to do a phony shoot from the boat, and pick up the bank really good…"
"How far to the bank?" said Shamrock.
"Eight hundred feet? Right, Carl?"
"About."
"Great! I've got a five hundred millimeter Schmitt-Cass in the car…" Shamrock, I thought, was going to be happy with this arrangement. Good. I didn't want either of them getting in close.
"What time?" asked Nancy.
"For the hit? Don't know. Sunday is all I have."
"You trying to tell me that you guys are going to set up on it, full force, for twenty-four hours?"
"Yeah."
"Good Lord, Carl," she said. "You really like these marathon things, or you just have bad intel?"
"I'm just in this for the food. You decide." I smiled. "Look, if you two get any more, let me know. But for Christ's sake, don't breathe a word of this to anybody else."
"You mean, like, the competition? Get real." Shamrock had that eager look about her. "They can buy my frames, man. Big bucks. Big, big bucks."
"Take a deep breath, dear," said Nancy.
Shamrock stuck out her hand. "Thank you, Carl. I mean it."
I shook her hand, a little surprised. "Hey, it's nothing definite. Just a chance, here."
"Oh, no," she said. "That dude Terry really wanted it, last night. He didn't lie."
"We'll talk about evaluation as we get ready," said Nancy. "Lust makes guys stupid, but it doesn't make 'em tell the truth." She laughed. "He was just stupid enough to let it slip."
Because we were to be on duty for twenty-four hours straight, I tried to catnap after Nancy and Shamrock left. Right. Like I could just go to sleep. I did try. Sat there, watching TV. Dozed once, I think. Not for more than forty-five minutes.
I kept the Weather Channel on and saw that my favorite blue and pink segmented worm of a jet stream was making progress. Tomorrow would be much warmer. A real, sudden "January thaw," in all its glory.
That was Iowa, for you. In eighteen hours, the temperature could change fifty degrees or better. Much better, in this case. It looked like we'd hit thirty degrees by 3 A.M., and go up from there.