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“I’ll see what I can do,” Phil said. “No promises.”
“One promise. You get me two names, I pay you for ten hours of your time, and throw in the bonus.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Joey,” Phil repeated.
From the glass-walled office that had been loaned to him by Vice President James C. Chase of the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust Company, Detective Matthew Payne of the Philadelphia Police Department devoted a good deal of his attention throughout the morning to the bank’s employees and customers.
He was looking for someone who might be an FBI agent, on surveillance duty, and charged with keeping an eye on the safe-deposit box leased by Miss Susan Reynolds, who was aiding and abetting the Chenowith Group in their unlawful flight to escape prosecution for murder and their participation in a series of bank robberies.
It had been agreed between them that in the event Matt saw someone who might be the FBI, he was to signal Susan cleverly—with a negative shake of the head—on her arrival in the lobby. If he gave such a signal, she was not to go to her safe-deposit box but, instead, come directly to his office, from which they would go to lunch.
If he did not give her a negative shake of the head, she would go to her safe-deposit box, take out the bank loot, and then come to Matt’s office. After transferring the money to his brand-new hard-sided attaché case, they would then go to lunch.
The only person he saw who even remotely looked like a police officer of any kind was the gray-uniformed bank guard, who was about seventy years old and had apparently learned to sleep on his feet with his eyes open. Matt didn’t think he would notice if someone walked into the lobby and began to carry out one of the ornate bronze stand-up desks provided for the bank’s clientele.
There was something unreal about the whole thing, starting with the fact that someone like Susan would even know someone who robbed banks, now with a homemade movie-style machine pistol. And it was, of course, absolutely unbelievable that, in violation of everything that, before the Hotel Hershey, he had believed was really important to him, he was actively involved in the felony of concealing evidence in a capital criminal case.
Or as unbelievable as what had happened—or at least how many times it had happened—in his hotel room that morning, before Susan finally got out of bed and put her clothes back on just in time to go to work.
But that was true, and so was the fact that he was a yet-undetected criminal.
He wondered, idly, once or twice during the morning if this detachment from reality was the way it was for real criminals—he changed that to “other criminals”—and might explain the calm, I don’t give a shit behavior many of them manifested.
And then, at ten to twelve—Susan said she would probably be at the bank at 12:05—he spotted a familiar head walking across the marble
floor to the bronze gate to the safe-deposit room door.
The familiar head needed both a shave and a haircut. The man was wearing blue jeans and a woolen, zippered athletic jacket.
Not what one expects from the usually natty FBI. Which means that not only are they surveilling the safe-deposit boxes, but using an undercover agent to do it.
He felt bile in his mouth.
Christ, we’re going to get caught! What made me think we could get away with this?
And then he realized, with mingled relief, chagrin, and surprise, that while the unshaven man in the jeans and athletic jacket was indeed a law-enforcement officer, he was not in the employ of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He gets his paychecks from the same place I do. That son of a bitch is Officer Timothy J. Calhoun of the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit!
Matt’s mind made an abrupt right turn: Christ, there’s four paychecks in my desk. I’ve got to find the time to go to the goddamn bank and deposit them!
And then returned to the lobby of the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust Company. He lowered his head and raised his hand to shield his face.
He won’t expect to see me here, of course, but the son of a bitch is a cop, and he just might recognize me. He gave me a long hard look the last time I saw him.
That flashed through his mind. He had been startled then, too, to recognize Calhoun, the first time he had ever laid eyes on him. He’d just come from going through the personnel records of Five Squad, which had included a photograph of clean-shaven Officer Calhoun taken on his graduation from the Academy.
But that had been enough for him to recognize unshaven undercover officer Calhoun in the Roundhouse parking lot. He had followed him into the building and watched as he and somebody else—Coogan, Officer Thomas P.—had processed prisoners into Central Lockup.
And the both of them looked at me long and hard when they saw me later in the parking lot. If he sees me here, he will recognize me!
But what the hell is he doing here?
I’ve already cross-checked the names I got from his record against the names of people who rent safe-deposit boxes here, and there wasn’t a match.
Which means either I was not doing my job well—which seems possible, since I have had other things on my mind—or that the box is rented in the name of somebody whose name I don’t have.
I have to find out what box he’s going into.
