Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

“Of course I will pay you. What time?”

“Tomorrow-”

“That is not convenient for me. Why not today?”

“Because I said tomorrow. Be at the Middlesex Diner in Burlington at eleven-thirty. If you are not there on time I will leave, and believe me, you will not hear from me ever again. Wait by the cashier and make sure you have the money with you.”

“How will I know you?”

“You won’t. But I know you and that is all that matters.”

The caller hung up. Petrenko, feeling more relaxed than he had felt in days, placed the phone down. He stood for a long moment rubbing his thumb over the hard calluses that had built up over his knuckles.

If the caller hadn’t known about the safety deposit box numbers, Petrenko could’ve considered paying him off – or, if not paying him off, at least letting him live. But now that was impossible. The caller’s knowledge, both about the safety deposit box numbers and what was taken from them, meant that he must have been part of the robbery. Which meant he had to be paid back by means other than money.

Petrenko couldn’t keep from smiling, thinking that this person must have been double-crossed after the robbery. Well, if he was double-crossed once, he could be double-crossed again.

Resnick was surprised to see that it was after ten o’clock. This was the first morning since he was told about Brian needing a new heart valve that he had been able to stay in bed past six. That was over ten years ago. Now he found himself lounging around, partly thinking about the robbery and what his next steps with Dan Wilson were going to be and partly drifting into daydreams about Kathleen Liciano. He kept thinking of how she looked sitting in the bar: the expression in her almond-shaped eyes, the way her hair fell past her shoulders, the softness of her lips and the way they parted slightly when she smiled. Thinking of her, he found himself longing to see her again. Then, clenching his teeth hard enough to hurt his jaw, he made a decision. She was too young to have all his emotional baggage dumped on her. He’d call her later and let her know that he was afraid things were never going to get less complicated for him.

He pushed himself out of bed, put on running shorts and a T-shirt, did his ten minutes of stretching and went out for a five-mile run to try to clear his head. When he got back he took a quick shower and then made some salami and scrambled eggs for lunch. It was almost twelve before he headed out to the hospital. On his way, he stopped off at a drug store for a newspaper. When he spotted the single-word headline, ‘Framed?’, on the front page, it took a moment for it to register. Scanning down the page, he saw the two pictures side by side: Raymond Lombardo outside the bank with his ski mask off, and at a golf course clean-shaven with his hair cut short and dyed yellow.

According to the accompanying article, the photographer who took the golf course picture swore it was taken at the same time that the bank robbery had happened. The article also stated that there were over two dozen people who supported the photographer’s claim, all of them filling out affidavits saying they had seen Lombardo at the golf course with one of the affidavits coming from a Massachusetts Superior Court judge. The gist of the article was that the videotape was a fake and that Lombardo was being framed, possibly by the FBI.

Resnick put down the paper and first tried calling Hadley at his home before reaching him at the station.

“What do you want?” Hadley asked brusquely.

“Nothing really. I thought maybe you’d want me to come in.”

“Didn’t I assign you to watch Viktor Petrenko?”

“Yeah, you did, but after what was in the paper-”

“Look, I’m with the district attorney right now. If you want to put in any overtime today, keep watching Petrenko.”

Hadley hung up. Resnick stared at his cell phone, wondering what the hell was going on. Shaking his head, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, paid for the paper and headed off to the hospital.

When Mary O’Donnell’s eyes closed, Resnick couldn’t help thinking she had passed on. Holding her hand and feeling the coldness of her skin, that was all he could think of though logically he realised this was the effect of the morphine. She reminded him of the way his mom had been during her last few hours. His mom was only fifty-two when she died. She had been brought to the hospital after her stroke and had the same shrunken look to her face. The same heaviness in her eyelids. The same frailness.

“Mrs. O’Donnell,” Resnick said. “Are you awake?”

Mary O’Donnell’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m so tired,” she forced out, her voice barely above a whisper. The whole middle of her body was thickly bandaged. Even with the morphine drip, Resnick knew she was in a great deal of pain.

“I know,” Resnick said. “I’d just like to ask you a few questions. Do you remember anything about the man who shot you?”

“He talked about Brazil.”

“What was that?”

“He was talking stuff about Brazil. I couldn’t understand him. Also something about the New Jersey Shore.” She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “One of the beaches there.”

“Which beach?”

“Asb-” She coughed weakly. The effort seemed to wipe her out. When she could, she whispered, “Asbury Park.”

“Did you see anything that could help us identify him?”

She closed her eyes again. Resnick thought she had drifted off. He was about to leave when she whispered something too low for him to make out.

“What was that?” he asked. He moved closer to her.

“His sneaker…”

“We know, he was wearing Converse basketball sneakers.”

“Not that. Green paint on the bottom.”

That seemed to take all the strength she had. Resnick lowered her hand, placing it gently to her side.

“You’ve been a great help,” he told her. He was about to say more, but realized she was drifting off, her breathing growing shallower.

“Don’t worry,” he said, more to himself that to her. “They’re not getting away with this.”

Later, when he was walking across the parking lot to his car, his cell phone rang. It was Hadley.

“Alex,” Hadley said, his voice sounding so tired that Resnick could picture his pale blue unhappy eyes drooping with exhaustion. “Why don’t you come in after all.”

Dan knew there was no getting around Carol seeing the newspaper and reading about Raymond Lombardo. If she didn’t read it in the paper she’d see it later on the news. All he could do was prepare himself for what was coming and to try to act as oblivious as possible when she called him on it.

From the corner of his eye he saw her picking up the front section. He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking his coffee and pretending to read the sports page. Carol stood by the refrigerator, holding the paper in one hand while pouring a glass of orange juice with the other. All at once her body went rigid. While reading the front page, her eyes narrowed into thin slits and her mouth compressed into a small tight circle. Muscles clenching along her jaw formed hard lines above and below her lips. She looked worn out, almost like she had aged twenty years.

In an odd, barely recognizable voice, she asked, “Did you read this?”

He peered at the paper, feigning mild interest in what she was showing him. “Yeah, pretty wild, huh?” he said. “Sounds kind of far-fetched to me.”

“Far-fetched? What do you mean far-fetched?”

“That he wasn’t the guy who robbed that bank.”

“How can you say that? With all of those people claiming they saw him at the golf course? And that picture?”

“The guy’s mafia. I’m sure he knows how to buy witnesses.”