The Lasko Tangent (24 page)

They probably wouldn’t miss me until this afternoon, when the news broke. And I didn’t think I’d been followed to the airport. I tried to be happy with that. But there was a delayed reaction, one that made me sick. I’d nearly been killed, nearly gotten Martinson killed—and accomplished nothing in the process. I hadn’t liked that option during Vietnam and didn’t like it now. The idea of death was ugly and enormous, like infinity made personal. A flight attendant brought me a doughnut. I couldn’t eat it.

But others had died—the two men. I tried to feel something, but it didn’t work. I wasn’t sorry and never would be.

Eventually I tried my coffee and went over what had happened. I’d turned up where I wasn’t expected, broken the carefully placed boundaries. Outside the boundaries, events had a violent, irrational quality. It scared me, badly. Now I was racing to catch up to the answers before anyone caught up with me. That seemed to be the only way out. And no one had paid for Lehman.

I looked for the first time at the faces around me. They chatted and read, on their way to sell things or see things or do whatever fit with the rest of their lives. I envied that. So I decided to imitate them for a while, and asked the girl for the Wall Street Journal. I noticed then that she looked like Mary, but without the eyes. Amazing, I thought, the difference that makes.

She brought the Journal. It took about a minute to spot the item in the “News in Brief” section on page one:

White House sources indicate that Joseph P. McGuire, tough-minded chief of the ECC’s Prosecutions Bureau, is now favored over three other prospects for appointment as a commissioner. The prospective vacancy in the seven-man commission follows the resignation of Commissioner Charles Ludlow, who yesterday announced plans to return to private practice.

It was a minor Washington classic. Dangle the bait for the eager candidate, but remind him that there are others available. And while you’re at it, let the press do some digging for you. If it comes out that your boy is a neo-Nazi or was caught last year in Central Park dressed up as Marie Antoinette, you can dump him with a bland denial that he ever crossed your mind. The motive here was pretty clear—to confirm the deal and remind McGuire of the price. Don’t push the Lasko case. It was a message he could hardly miss. I folded the Journal and picked up my coffee. It was cold.

We reached Miami about 2:30. I walked into the terminal, picked up my bags, and crammed them into an airport locker. Then I found a pay phone and called Ken Parrish, Robinson’s friend. Parrish was happy to help. I thanked him and hung up. I looked around. No one near.

The only thing left was to catch a taxi. I stepped through an exit door onto a steaming sidewalk which curved around a small taxi lane. A line of taxis sat by the curb. I waited, staring at the lurid green palm tree which jutted from a patch of grass across the lane. It was clearly thriving. A great place for palms, Miami.

I got edgy. Finally, a cab peeled lazily out of the line and eased up next to me. The cabbie leaned out the door and motioned me to the curb. I got in. My driver had dark hair and a mustache—Cuban, I thought. He turned sideways and spoke to a window. “Where you go, sir?”

“Biscayne Boulevard,” I said. “The First Seminole Bank.”

The First Seminole Bank was in one of those all-glass towers that would look awful in twenty-five years, if it took that long. I paid the driver, got out, and headed for the door. The glass doors were set back in a small alcove, with a newspaper rack in front of them. I stuck twenty cents in the slot, took a paper, and stopped in the alcove to glance through it. It was the afternoon edition and I had made page two. “Industrialist Queried In Murder Try,” the headline read. The first paragraph was a grabber:

William Lasko, Boston industrialist and Presidential friend, was questioned this morning in connection with the attempted murder of an employee and a government lawyer investigating Lasko’s affairs.

I read on. It was a wire story, Associated Press, and they had the facts right—what they knew of them. No charges contemplated at this time and no evidence, it concluded. I finished, thinking all hell would break loose. At least they’d spelled my name right. I folded the paper and stepped inside.

The bank was new, with red carpets and formica deposit counters which almost looked like marble. Behind them, tellers idled and chatted with customers. The walls were white and here and there was a picture of a happy-looking Seminole bragging that he got 6¾ per cent at the First Seminole Bank. Beyond the counters and carpet stretched a low wooden rail with a swinging door and behind that were the desks of six actual vice-presidents. I picked the nearest one, a smooth looking fellow with perfect grey hair—“Mr. Williams” according to his desk sign. Could he help me, he wondered politely. I showed him my ID card and asked for the president. That chilled him a little. He asked me to wait and headed for a row of offices in the rear.

I fidgeted in my chair. Then Mr. Williams returned and said to follow him. We looped around the six desks and into the office space. At the end was a large office. Mr. Williams steered me in, past a sign reading “Richard Henry, President.”

The office held a fine maple desk and conference table, with a couple of seascapes and an ocean blue rug. Two men sat at the table. One was a big man with tortoise shell glasses, and an outsized smile. He rose. “Mr. Paget,” he said, “I’m Dick Henry.” We shook hands. Henry was built like a running guard, with a rugged face which was all surfaces and angles. From his manner he was the cheerful banker, and I was a big depositor.

The other man remained seated, his face betraying the true extent of my welcome. Henry caught my glance. “This is Larry Carr, our outside counsel,” he said hastily. Carr silently extended his hand. He was big, too, except for his mouth, a thin slash which looked more like an incision. But where Henry was bushy-haired and rumpled, Carr was close-clipped and tailored, with constricted, cheerless movements. It made him seem smaller. I turned down coffee, and we all sat.

Henry unknotted his tie and leaned back. “Are you here to deposit money?” he asked, chuckling the practiced chuckle of a second banana on a nighttime talk show.

I glanced at Carr, who wasn’t laughing. “I take it Ken Parrish called you,” I asked.

“He did, yes,” Henry said. “He said you want access to some bank records.”

“That’s right.”

Henry stopped smiling. Carr spoke for the first time, in a clipped, prosecutor’s voice. “Do you have a subpoena?”

I looked him over. “You already know the answer to that. You can put me to the trouble of getting one,” I bluffed, “but I’m asking for voluntary cooperation.”

Carr carefully brushed some imaginary lint from his lapels. “Well,” he finally said, “we’ve got to consider the privacy of our customers.”

I looked straight at him, ignoring Henry. “There are some other facts you should know, Mr. Carr. A man named Samuel Green got a $400,000 loan from this bank in July. He used that money to buy Lasko Devices stock, on the orders of William Lasko. Green has a fraud record going back to the fifties—not exactly your prime loan candidate. But Lasko controls 25 per cent of the stock of this bank. So Mr. Henry and his bank,” I nodded at Henry, “are neck-deep in stock manipulation.”

“We had no idea of any manipulation.”

The words had blurted from Henry’s red, unhappy face. I turned to him. “Then you’ve nothing to lose by cooperating.”

Carr cut in, less aggressive now. “I’d like to consider your request,” he said. “How long will you be in Miami?”

I felt my temple throb. There wasn’t time for waiting. I pulled out the newspaper and shoved it under Carr’s face. “There’s one more thing. Lasko was questioned in Boston last night concerning an attempted murder.”

Carr’s mouth parted in surprise. He snatched half-glasses from his inside pocket with hasty, scrabbling fingers. Halfway through the article his mouth began moving as he read. He kept staring after he had finished, then slowly raised his head. “He tried to have you killed?” he asked, in a quiet, shocked tone.

“That’s right.”

Henry blinked at that with real fear, as if I blamed him. The atmosphere had turned visceral and very personal. Which was exactly how I felt about dying.

I had Carr’s full attention. “You’ve got fraud, you’ve got this”—I pointed at the newspaper—“and you’ve got a man named Lehman who was killed in Boston two weeks ago.” Henry tugged at his tie with sudden violence, like a man hanging himself. “Perhaps you’ve heard of Lehman, Mr. Henry?”

Carr wheeled on Henry, sudden, sharp eyes asking the question. Henry nodded.

Carr looked warily back to me. “Have I heard it all?” he asked in a voice that clearly hoped so.

“I think Lasko had Lehman killed.”

Carr removed his glasses, and looked them over. Then turned back to Henry. “Give him what he wants,” he said in a flat voice.

Henry stood then, rubbing his hands and maneuvering his mouth into an awful smile. “What would you like?” he asked me. His forced cheerful tone tried to suggest the conclusion of a tough but mutually pleasing loan negotiation.

I didn’t smile back. “What series of numbers would contain two digits—the number 95?”

“Our safe deposit boxes.”

“Fine. I’d like the signature card and entry records for number 95.”

Henry went for them himself. Carr stared silently out the window. I supposed it was hard to chat with someone who should be dead.

Henry came back a little out of breath and almost throwing the records on the table. I reached for the signature card, glancing at Henry. “This card shows the people who are authorized to enter the box, right?”

“That’s correct,” he nodded glumly.

I turned it over. Alexander Lehman’s boyish face looked up at me.

I pulled over the entry card. On July 24, Lehman had entered safe deposit box number 95. On July 28, he had returned again.

I stared for a moment at Lehman’s picture. Then I looked at Henry. “I’ll want these records,” I said.

He didn’t argue.

I left them in the conference room, looking somber, and walked past the vice-presidents and the cheerful Seminoles, out the door.

I took out my slip of paper with the words of Lehman’s memo, but I didn’t really need it. I had it memorized: “95—Move whole package across the street—J859020. Justice is blind.”

There was only one bank across the street. A large sign on an old cement building proclaimed “The Mariner Bank of Miami.” I went there.

Thirty-Three

The Mariner Bank was old, stodgy, and as reassuring as the U.S. Mint. The president’s suite was on the second floor. So I went there and asked for Mr. Glendenning. The starchy receptionist eyed me doubtfully, then dialed. A few minutes later Glendenning’s secretary appeared, a chubby, quick-stepping girl with that certain smile which conveys a total absence of warmth. I followed her out.

Glendenning sat behind a Louis the Fourteenth desk in an office filled with antiques. He rose quickly, shook my hand, and asked me to take a chair. I sat, taking quick note of him. He had a sharp badger face and a long straight nose. His clothes were perfect: grey pinstripe, breast pocket handkerchief and burgundy club tie, very subtle. I could see him shuffling bonds.

“How can be we of service?” he asked curiously.

I handed him my card. “I’m with the ECC. I’m working on a case which involves tracing laundered money. I think the money is here.”

Glendenning webbed his fingers in a reflective gesture. “What’s your basis for that?”

“I have confidential information and what I think is a safe deposit box number. The number should tell whether I’m right.”

“Well,” he pointed out, “it will show whether someone has a box here, at least. What’s the number?”

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.”