Not a Creature Was Stirring(105)

Gregor came to. “Coffee? No, no. I’m sorry, Miss Hannaford. I meant to tell you when I first came in. We’re leaving.”

“We?” Bennis said.

“Detective Jackman and I. We’ve done everything we can do here. There are some small details to clear up, but they’re the crime unit’s business. It’s after three o’clock. I have to get back to Philadelphia.”

“I keep forgetting you have a life away from us,” Bennis said. “Did you find what you came here looking for, before all this started?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope you did.”

Gregor took the accordion folder from her. Bennis watched it disappear into his jacket.

“We’ll be out again,” he said. “Try to take care of yourself.”

He turned away and went walking down the hall the way he’d come in.

Bennis stood where she was, watching him. It was true. He had definitely changed. And she didn’t like it.

She was beginning to think she’d made a mistake. She had had it all worked out, when she’d first gone to speak to him—but now…

She watched him lumbering off down the hall, and told herself she wasn’t frightened. Then the phone started ringing, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.





2


In a perfectly ordinary police station in central Philadelphia, Bobby Hannaford stood leaning against a wall next to a pay phone, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line. The fact that he was in a perfectly ordinary police station bothered him. What he had committed was a federal crime. He ought to be at the FBI, or in the U.S. Marshall’s office. He ought to be taken seriously. Being in a perfectly ordinary police station put a complexion on things he didn’t like at all.

He kept his back to the squadroom, so he didn’t have to look at McAdam. McAdam was handcuffed to a chair.

“Listen,” one of the detectives back there was saying, “what he did was, he had this money in the back of his car. A kind of maroon Mercedes. It was in the trunk.”

“Fifty thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills,” one of the patrolmen said.

Bobby knew who was who, because they’d been having this conversation repeatedly for most of the last three hours.

“So anyway,” the detective said, “the money is in a briefcase. In the trunk, like I said. He drives into this Mercedes dealership, and he goes in, and he finds a car just like the one he’s driving—”

“Another sort of maroon Mercedes.”

“Right. And he buys this car that looks just like the car he’s driving, and he turns the car he’s driving in for the trade-in. But he leaves the money in the first car.”

“This is what I don’t get. He was going to walk away from fifty thousand in cash?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“But that’s nuts.”

“These aren’t your ordinary criminals here. These are rich guys. Rich guys are nuts.”

“Didn’t the dealer think he was nuts?”

“Nah. The dealer’s used to working with rich guys. So anyway, Hannaford here, he leaves the money in the first car, and he starts to drive away in the second car. Then the Feds come in behind him and stop him, and they search the car he’s driving, but it’s the second car, and the money isn’t in that—”

“This must have taken forever. Dealers don’t like to let cars drive off like that.”

“You go into some dealer some time, put a guaranteed check down on the table, see what happens.”

“So the Feds pick him up and he’s in this second car—”

Bobby put his head down against the phone and closed his eyes. He just wished he could shut out sound the way he could shut out sight. When the detectives told it, the whole damn thing sounded impossibly, unforgivably stupid. In fact, it sounded impossible and unforgivable, period. Briefcases full of cash. Switched cars. Dawn meetings in tenth-rate cafes where the waitresses spoke only Arabic. Or whatever. He’d seen television movies that made more sense than this.

But here he was, and there they were, and on the other end of the line the phone was ringing at Engine House. Bobby wondered if Marshall was drunk. Somebody should have picked up by now. If he had real luck, he’d get Myra herself right away, and not have to explain anything to anybody else. For the moment.

Not too far down the road, there were going to be newspaper headlines, and legal formalities, and other things he’d rather not think about. For all the Keystone Kops aspects of this morning, this was serious. Eventually, he’d make himself believe that. In the meantime—

The phone on the other end picked up. Bobby heard a clear, high voice say,