A Pure Double Cross (15 page)

Lizabeth flicked her ashes on the floor and crossed her legs. Didn't they have any ashtrays in this place?

“He's a very smart man, my Henry. I've never known him to do anything crazy.”

“Crazy's the wrong word then. But it seems like a huge gamble for an old gent with a lot of money in the bank.” I paused. Lizabeth smoked. “If he wants to call it quits why not just cash out and sail away?”

Lizabeth lowered her chin and regarded me through long eyelashes that glimmered at the tips. “And be remembered as Henry Voss, king of the vending machines? No, I was wrong when I said that old men only care about money. Henry cares about his reputation. He wants to go out in a blaze of glory.”

If Lizabeth was attempting to reassure me about the Federal Reserve heist her words were poorly chosen. Going out in a blaze of glory was not on my to-do list.

Lizabeth leaned forward and clasped her hands on the table, her black cigarette wedged between her fingers. “Was I wrong about young men too?”

“You were wrong about this young man. I've had power. All I want now is a fat wallet and a villa in the South Seas.”

“With JJ?”

“Of course.”

The ashes from Lizabeth's upturned cigarette had dribbled down onto her alabaster fingers. I reached over and gently dusted them off. Lizabeth curled her index finger around mine.

“I hope that works out for you,” she purred.

I willed my hand away from hers but it paid no attention. I heard a soft clunk from under the table and felt a warm foot on my ankle, creeping upwards. Sweat beaded on my upper lip.

“If it doesn't, you let me know.” Her toes found my bare shin. “Will you do that?”

I didn't know what to say to that. I was having trouble concentrating. I do know that when Lizabeth got up to go I rose with her and walked her to the doorway. We stopped there.

The sexual tension of that moment could have lit up the Ohio Valley from Akron to Zanesville. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to kiss her so bad you can't believe it. But I wanted something else even more, difficult as it was to rate anything above drowning myself in Lizabeth's deep lush slightly-trembling purple lips.

I slipped my arm around her waist, resting my hand on the soft saddle of her hip. She didn't pull away. When the blood hammering in my ears subsided to the point where I could hear myself think I said, “The Schooler knew where I deposited my end of the armored car heist, the satchel of money he gave me at Moreland Courts.” I steeled myself and peered directly into those oversized aquamarine eyes. “How did he know that?”

Lizabeth didn't appear offended at this crude interjection of business. In fact she leaned in and planted a long sticky wet kiss that stiffened my spine and other places.

Then she clocked off in her high-heeled slippers, saying, over her shoulder, “Who called the taxi?”

I returned to the reading table and shuffled up a deck. Seven up, twenty-one down. I was going to win a hand if I had to stay here all night. Lizabeth had left her cigarette butt on the table, standing upright on its filter tip. I got up and tossed it in the potbellied stove.

There. That was better.

I sat back down. I knew what her parting ‘Who called the taxi' meant of course. The Schooler didn't need to have me tailed. All he had to do was call a hackie who was on the pad.

Smart, Schroeder, well done and executed. I slapped a black two on a red three, a red eight on a black nine. I turned over an ace. About time.

The question was why The Schooler cared. My trip to National City Bank told him something important. I cast my mind back to the Moreland Courts. Something hadn't fit. I remembered my excitement, the fat pigskin satchel. And momentary suspicion. The Schooler keeping a big bag of hot snaps on the premises. Why risk it?

There was only one logical explanation. He wouldn't. He
knew,
the son of a bitch knew from day one!

A sharp guy like The Schooler wouldn't have trusted the FBI. He would have had the money from my Society for Savings job checked out right away. He let Jimmy make the announcement, let him have his little moment of triumph, but Henry Voss knew from the get-go that the cash was worthless. He used his paid-for hackie to find out if I was in on the joke. Needless to say, I was not.

So why put Jimmy and the troops at risk in the armored car heist if The Schooler knew it was all funny money from day one?

I slammed my cards down on the reading table, cursed and drained my brandy. I knew why.

All I need is you.

The Schooler had been plotting his grand exit for a long time. When I walked in the tumblers clicked. He approved the armored car heist so that I would maintain my bona fides with the FBI. When I demanded Jimmy's ouster The Schooler refused out of loyalty. That and he needed the big thug to lead the assault on the Federal Reserve Bank. When his on-the-pad hackie called to say that I had deposited my satchel of bogus bucks at National City Bank, Henry Voss knew he had his patsy.

Yours truly.

I got up and warmed my hands at the potbellied stove. I poked at the embers. There wasn't any more wood in the tin-derbox so I gathered up my losing hand and tossed it in. The cards smoked and smoldered, then crackled to life in a burst of waxen flame. I soaked up the quicksilver heat and tried to wedge the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle into place. Why did The Schooler wait for Jimmy to tell me about the counterfeit cash?

Jimmy would be an unhappy chappy to know that he had faced the muzzle of an FBI Tommygun just to put the G-man in solid with his superiors. The Schooler must have dropped hints to insure Jimmy made the discovery on his own,
after
the armored car job. Counting up the take maybe, saying, ‘I sure hope this is coin of the realm.'

Henry Voss wanted Jimmy Streets to take credit for discovering the phony dough so that Harold Schroeder wouldn't suspect what Harold Schroeder now knew.
Both
The Schooler and the FBI had played him like a drum.
I hunted up that sliding panel in the bookcase. The monks had a sense of humor. The liquor cabinet was concealed behind the collected works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I poured myself another stiff brandy, tossed more playing cards into the potbellied stove and sat down at the reading table.

Jimmy had been making nice in recent days. I didn't understand why but could be it was simple. The Schooler treated him like a brainless, if loyal, mutt. Maybe Jimmy wanted most what he couldn't get - respect for his smarts.

Had Jimmy staged that silly rescue outside the Theatrical and squired Jeannie and me around town simply to win respect for his wit and guile? If so Jimmy had, in his mind, succeeded. Jimmy didn't know I knew about the staged rescue. And he trumped me with the counterfeit money reveal. In Jimmy's mind he had nothing left to prove to me. He had a lot left to prove to The Schooler.

This was good stuff but I needed something more. That the boss man knew about the funny money in advance didn't figure to be enough.

I sipped brandy. I cogitated till my brain did back flips and my head grew so heavy that my elbows slid sideways and my chin came to a rest on the reading table. I was about to drift off when it snapped my eyes wide open.

A logical inconsistency in The Schooler's plan to rob the Federal Reserve. A logical inconsistency that Jimmy would find interesting.

I checked my watch. It wasn't there. I looked out the window. It was black as pitch. I knew that The Schooler and Lizabeth were lights out and that Jimmy was probably chain-smoking in front of the cavernous fireplace while feeding live baby chicks to Kingdog the wolf. I got up to go see.

Jimmy was sprawled on the couch in the parlor. Kingdog was curled up on a hook rug at his feet. A fire was burning in the fireplace. I should've called Norman Rockwell maybe. Kingdog opened one sinister yellow eye as I approached, Jimmy turned. I gestured with my snifter.

“Want some brandy?”

Jimmy shook his head. He looked groggy, drunk or half-asleep. I parked my carcass in an upholstered chair and nodded at Kingdog.

“He's a wolf, right?” Jimmy didn't dignify this icebreaker with a reply so I tried another. “You think this hare-brained scheme has a holy chance in hell?” Jimmy grunted. “It could work, I'm not saying it couldn't. But I'm a natural born worrier.”

I wrung my hands for emphasis. Jimmy's contempt was palpable. A gust of wind shoved smoke down the chimney.

“I didn't know that money was counterfeit Jimmy, I swear. But I'm beginning to wonder if The Schooler knew it all along.”

Jimmy blinked his good eye awake at this. He muttered something I took for ‘how you figure?'

“I'm not sure. It's just that The Schooler went to some trouble to find out where I stashed my cut from the armored car job. I can't for the life of me think why he would do that. Can you?”

Jimmy sat up straight. He knew he'd been tossed a live grenade.

I made myself comfortable and waited for him to think it through. I pulled up my socks. I took a slug of brandy, trimmed my cuticles and recited the capitols of the forty-eight states.

“He wanted to find out if you knew the jack was no good.”

I nodded. “Yeah, makes sense. But you hadn't told him about the counterfeit cash back then, had you?”

Jimmy's clenched jaw answered that question.

“Seems to me like old Henry had a good laugh at our expense, sending us off to rob an armored car full of funny money.”

“Who gives a shit? The score he's got lined up'll make us all fat.”

“If it works. The bigger question is do we want to trust our payday to a guy who's danced us around the stage like marionettes.”

I mimed a puppeteer pulling strings off Jimmy's blank look. He thumbed his lighter.

“Henry's always been square with me. ‘Sides, what's he gonna do?” he said, lit cigarette flapping up and down in his mush. “He's one guy.”

“One guy with a million bucks in newly-minted cash.”

“So what?”

“I'm just wondering why The Schooler wants traceable bills.”

I kept him guessing as I nipped at my brandy for a quick minute, then cleared my throat for the big announcement. “The Federal Reserve does more than just distribute new currency to commercial banks. They also collect deposits from those banks - truckloads of used bills, old bills,
spendable
bills.”

Jimmy skipped over surprise and fury and went right to grim resignation. “He'll have some mob juice dealer lined up.”

“Could be. And the juice dealer will bring friends.”

Jimmy's good eye narrowed, his glass eye did not. How did he keep it clean, I wondered. The eyelid never blinked.

“Could be,” said Jimmy with some sarcasm. “Now how ‘bout you cut the bullcrap and say your piece.”

“I'd be happy to.”

I explained my objection to The Schooler's plan, how my ugly mug wouldn't be enough to convince the Federal Reserve Police Commander to open the castle gates. If Frederick Seifert knew all about me as The Schooler claimed, then Frederick Seifert also knew the value the FBI placed on my services. As evidenced by my collection of bank bags full of confetti.

“But if I could walk up those steps on 6
^th
Street with a valuable asset in hand, something that would get Frederick Seifert thinking that his time had come...Well then.”

“Spit it out already,” barked Jimmy. “You're bad as the old man.”

I flagged my palms in a peaceable gesture and paused to make sure his outburst hadn't stirred any activity. No upstairs floorboards creaked.

“I want a real gun Jimmy, with bullets and everything. I imagine The Schooler plans to give me a dummy.”

I paused. Kingdog yawned. I continued.

“I'll use my real gun to get the drop on The Schooler and march him up the steps and tell Frederick Seifert that I have intercepted a Fulton Road Mob plan to rob the bank and that I have captured the mastermind of that plan, the elusive Mr. Big that his pals at the FBI have been hunting all these years. I believe this approach stands a greater chance of prying open the front door. Don't you?”

Jimmy didn't answer in the affirmative. But neither did he spit in my eye.

“I surrender Henry to the Federal Reserve Police and tell Commander Seifert the rest of the mob is due any second, that the plan was for me to talk my way in, put a gun to his back and force him to lower the drawbridge. I'll suggest he play along, send his troops out those tunnels,
allow
me to put a gun to his back,
open
that front door and
stand
there in plain sight
so that the Fulton Road boys will sweep up the front steps only to see the bulletproof doors slam shut and ten members of the Federal Reserve Police pour out of those big statues and round them up from behind, thereby securing Frederick Seifert a place in the pantheon of law enforcement alongside Elliot Ness and J. Edgar Hoover.”

Jimmy was listening hard now, trying to keep up. I took a slug of brandy and kept on.

“That's the beauty part, I don't have to get the drop on Seifert. I already
have
my gun in his back and his troops out the door when I let him in on the joke and march him down to the side delivery gate on Rockwell. He opens the gate, you and the boys storm in, we rob the bank.”

Jimmy folded thick arms across his chest. “And if it works we've got a million in hot cash and no way to move it.”

“You're a smart guy, you'll think of something. Me, I'm taking my dib overseas. The dollar's king, someone'll cash me out.”

I watched and waited. I had mentioned my dib. If Jimmy was on board he would ask about percentages. He took his time, muttered something I couldn't make out. I asked him to repeat it. He turned to face me.

“And why would the G-man trust Jimmy Streets?”