Richard Patterson - The Lasko Tangent

I pulled the slip out of my shirt pocket. “J859020.”

Glendenning’s lids dropped. “Did I count six digits?” he asked.

I repeated the number. “Six digits and the letter ‘J,’” I added.

“We have those numbers,” he said slowly. “On our safe deposit boxes.”

“What’s your record system?”

Glendenning was a man of precision. “Do you mean how does it work?” he clarified. I nodded, feeling edgy and impatient. “All right. We have a standard signature card for authorized access to the box.”

“What I’m getting at is this. I take it that only the people who’ve signed on the signature card could take anything out?”

He nodded approvingly; I had it right.

“OK,” I said. “What I want is the signature card for J859020.”

Glendenning’s mouth thrust forward, as if nibbling my request. He finally spoke. “I suppose it’s best to cooperate. You realize, Mr. Paget, that this bank has no means of knowing the source of anything that’s put in the box.” His sharp eyes underlined the point.

“I understand that.”

Glendenning unraveled his fingers, then stood abruptly. “I’ll look over the records, then give them to you. You can use our conference room.”

He steered me there, then vanished for the records. The room was deliberately impressive: brass chandeliers and an oversized conference table. The antique bookshelves were graced by leather volumes which I assumed were rare editions. None of that helped. I felt alone and out of place.

I fidgeted for twenty minutes or so, wanting to pace. The records were part of my answer. Finally I went to a window. I was staring absently when Glendenning’s secretary burst in. She held the signature card and looked flustered. I took the card.

Robert Catlow’s name and picture were on the signature card, with Lehman’s. The card showed Lehman’s first and only visit: July 28. Catlow had never come.

Glendenning was still in his office. “I want to look in the box,” I told him.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “First, you haven’t a subpoena. Second, it takes two keys to open our safe deposit boxes. The bank only has one; the owner has the other.”

“What if someone dies and you can’t find the key?”

“We have a locksmith drill it.”

“I’ll make you a deal, Mr. Glendenning. I can be back with a subpoena tomorrow. And if the contents of that box are gone, you’ve been part of something you wouldn’t touch with gloves on. I’ll tell you what’s in that box. Drill it, and see if I’m right. If I am, then I want your word no one gets in the box.”

Glendenning frowned, forehead creased. “All right, Mr. Paget. What do you think is in there?”

“One and a half million dollars,” I told him, “in unmarked bills.”

He called the locksmith.

I waited in the conference room, hoping I was right. Thirty minutes, then forty-five. I stared at Catlow’s signature card, trying to think ahead. There weren’t many choices. I needed to move, before Lasko traced me. I needed the memo. And I needed help.

Glendenning opened the door, looking very sober. “It’s all there,” he said, “in a brown briefcase.”

I stuffed the signature card in my breast pocket, and told him to keep the money safe, for evidence. I left without saying good-bye.

I couldn’t have said how long it took me to get to the airport. I flagged a cab in the kind of daze that follows anesthesia. The cabbie rambled on about sports, politics, and the merits of full frontal nudity. I emitted a few absent grunts and tried to think.

I had the bank records and knew where the money was. But they meant nothing without Lasko’s scrawled memo, hidden in my desk. For ten days I hadn’t made sense of it. Now the case didn’t make sense without it. It was the indispensable link in the chain of proof, tying Carib, Lasko, and Lehman’s death in a neat bundle.

And it was my protection-the thing that could end Lasko before he got to me. Lasko would be working overtime, trying to figure how I had found the money. And sooner or later, he’d recall his memo. It wasn’t safe, not now, any more than I was. I had to get it out.

“Which airline, sir?” the cabbie was asking.

I woke up. “Oh…Eastern.”

“It’s right here.”

There was a pay phone in the terminal. I got Mary on the second ring.

“Mary, this is Chris.”

“Chris? My God, where have you been?” She sounded intense, almost breathless.

“Miami.”

“I’ve been worrying all day. Have you seen the papers?”

“Don’t need to. I was there. Can you pick me up at National? I’m on Eastern, flight 435.”

“Yes-sure,” she began distractedly. “Please tell me what happened.”

“Can’t now. Listen, don’t come to the gate. Just double-park out front.”

“OK, I’ll be there,” she said, and hung up.

I stood, still holding the phone, hoping that had been the right thing to do. Then I got my bags and ran to the gate, half-glancing over my shoulder. No one following.

I just made the plane.

I sat in tourist, wanting the case to be over, wanting out. The feeling lasted all the way to Washington.

We landed in the dark. Mary was at the gate, leaning on the metal railing. She smiled uncertainly and squeezed my arm. “Chris, are you all right?”

My voice felt as tight as piano wire. “What the hell are you doing here? I said meet me out front.”

She stiffened, hurt. “I had to see you.”

I took her arm. “Well, let’s get moving then. This isn’t safe for you.”

I pulled her along until she fell in step. We headed toward the main lobby as people rushed around us, bustling to planes. “What happened?” she demanded.

I kept my eyes ahead. “Remember Peter Martinson?”

“Yes, the man on St. Maarten.”

“Lasko kidnapped him to Boston, to a place called the Loring Sanitarium.”

She turned to me with grave black eyes. “Literally kidnapped?”

“Uh-huh. Last night I got Martinson out. Lasko sent two hoods after us. Tried to run us off the road. But we lucked out. I lost control, and they flipped trying to get out of our way.”

She stopped and looked up. Her eyes were big. “My God, Chris,” she said. Then she slowly reached up and brushed the hair from my forehead.

We started walking again, with Mary still clutching my arm. “How did you find Martinson?”

“I checked IRS for sanitariums on the dole from Lasko.”

Her tone cooled a bit. “Was that another of your little secrets?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“When are you going to be honest with me?” she said in a quiet, troubled voice.

“Any day now.”

She turned on me, annoyed. “That’s not an answer.”

I stopped, but didn’t reply. We were near the main terminal; the last gate area was to our right. Ahead was a large room with ticket counters to the left, two revolving baggage racks on the right, and automatic double doors straight ahead, leading outside. To the far side of the baggage area was the only other exit: a corridor linking this terminal to others, and enclosing the traffic circle outside in another half-circle. I looked around, but didn’t know any of the faces picking up tickets and suitcases or striding away to catch planes. Then I saw what I was looking for.

“What is it?” she was asking, in a quick, tense voice.

It was the mustached man from the sanitarium, Lasko’s man, standing by the double doors to the outside. His gaze swept the baggage area to my right, moving back toward me. I glanced to my side. The gate area was empty. I jerked Mary over past the railing, out of sight of the terminal.

Her annoyance had merged into fear. “Damn it, what did you see?”