The Moneychangers (66 page)

Estela followed Juanit
a. Lou came in after them, faste
ned the blindfolds and sat on the rear seat. lIe pushed
Juanita's shoulder.

"Down on the floor, botha ye. Make no trouble, ya won't get hurt."

Squatting on the floor with Estela close beside her, Juanita curled her legs and managed to keep facing forward.

She heard someone else get in the car, the motor start, the garage doors rumble open.

Then they were moving.

From the instant the car moved, Juanita concentrated as she had never done before.

Her intention was to memorize time and direction if she could.

She began to count seconds as a photographer friend had once taught her. A thousand and ONE; a thousand and TWO; a thousand and THREE; a thousand and FOUR… She felt the car reverse and turn, then counted eight seconds while it moved in a straight line forward. Then it slowed almost to a stop. Had it been a driveway? Probably. A longish one? The car was again moving slowly, most likely easing out into a street

… Turning left. Now faster forward. She recommenced counting. Ten seconds. Slowing. Turnrng right

… A thousand and ONE; a thousand and TWO; a thousand and THREE… Turning left… Speed faster.. . A longer stretch… A thousand PORTY-NINE; a thousand FIFTY… No sign of slowing… Yes, slowing now. A four
-second wait, then straight on.
It could have been a traffic light… A thousand and EIGHT… Dear God! For Miles's sake help me to remember!

… A thousand and NINE; a thousand and TEN. Turning right.. .

Banish other thoughts. React to every movement of the car. Count the time hoping, praying that the same strong memory which helped her keep track of money at the bank… which once saved her from Miles's duplicity… would now save hire.

… A thousand TWENTY; One thousand aruf twenty dollars. Nol. .. Mother of Godl Keep my thoughts from wandering… A long straight stretch, smooth road, high speed…

She felt her body sway… The road was curving to the left; a long curve, gentle. .. Stopping, stopping. It had been sixty-eight seconds… Turning right. Begin again. A thousand and ONE; a thousand and TWO…

On and on. As time went by, the likelihood of remembering, of reconstructing, seemed increasingly less likely. '
T
his's
Sergeant Gladstone, Central Communications Bureau, City Police," the flat, nasal voice on the phone announced.

"Says here to immediately notify you people if
Juanita NCnez or child Estela Nu
nez located."

Special Agent Innes sat up taut and straight. Instinctively he moved the phone closer.

"What do you have, Sergeant?"

"Car radio report just in.

Woman and child answering description and names found wandering near junction of Cheviot Township and Shawnee Lake Road.

Taken into protective custody. Officers bringing 'em to 12th Precinct now." Innes covered the mouthpiece with his hand. To Nolan Wainwright, seated across the desk at FBI Headquarters, lie said softly,

"City Police. They've got Nunez and the kid." Wainwright gripped the desk edge tightly. "Ask what condition they're in." "Sergea
nt," Innes said, "are they okay
"

"Told you all we know, chief. Want more dope, you better call the 12th." Innes took down the 12th Precinct number and dialed it.

He was connected with a Lieutenant Faiackerly. "Sure, we got the word," Fazackerly acknowledged crisply. "Hold it. Follow-up phone report just coming in." The FBI man waited. .~

"According to our guys, the woman's been beaten up some," Fazackerly said.

"Face bruised and cut. Child has a bad burn on one hand.

Officers have given first aid. No
other injuries reported." - Inn
es relayed the news to Wainwright who covered his face with a hand as if in prayer.

The lieutenant was speaking again. "Something kind of queer here." "What is it?" "Officers in
the car say the Nunez woman won’t talk
`. All she wants is pencil and paper.

They've given it to her. She's scribbling like mad. Said something about things being in her memory she has to get out." Special Agen
t Innes breathed, "Jesus Christ!
" He remembered the bank cash loss, the story behind it, the in
credible accuracy of Juanita Nun
ez's circus freak memory.

"Listen," he said. "Please take this from me, I'll explain it later, and we're coming out to you. But radio your car right now.

Tell your officers not to talk to Nunez, not to disturb her, help her in any way she wants.

And when she gets to the precinct house, the same thing goes. Humor her. Let her go on writing if she wants.

Handle her like she was something special." He stopped, then added,

"Which she is."

Short reverse. Prom garage. Forward. 8 sees. Almost stop. (Driveway.7) Turn left. 10 sees. Med. speed. Turn right. 3 sees. Turn left. 55 sees. Smooth, fast. Stop. 4 sees. (Traffic light?) Straight on. 10 sees. Med. speed. Turn right. Rough road (sho
rt dis
t.) then smooth. 18 sees Slowing. Stop. Start immed. Curve to right. Stop-start. 25 sees. Turn left. Straight, smooth. 47secs. Slow. Turn right… Juanita's finished summation ran to seven handwritten pages. , . -.

***

They worked intensively for an hour in a rear room at the precinct house, using large-scale maps, but the result was inconclusive. Juanita's scribbled notes had amazed them all Innes and Dalrymple, Jordan and Quimby of the U. S. Secret Service who had joined the others after a hurry-up call, and Nolan Wainwright.

The notes were incredibly complete and, Juanita maintained, entirely accurate.

She explained she was never confident that whatever her mind stored away could be recalled until the moment came to do so.

But once the effort had been made, she knew with certainty if her recollections had been correct.

She was convinced they were now.

Besides the notes, they had something else to go on. Mileage. The gags and blindfolds had been removed from Juanita and Estela moments before they were pushed from the car on a lonely suburban road. By contrived clumsiness and luck, Juanita had managed to catch a second glimpse of the odometer. 25738.5. They had traveled 23.7 miles. But was it a consistent direction, or had the car donbled back, making the journey seem longer than it was, merely to confuse? Even with Juanita's summary, it was impossible to be certain.

They did the best they could, working painstakingly backwards, estimating that the car might have come this way or that, turned here or there, traveled thus far on this road.

Everyone, though, knew how inexact it was since speeds could only be guessed at and Juanita's senses while she was blindfolded might have deceived her so that error could be piled on error, making their present exercise futile, a waste of time.

But there was a chance they could trace the route back to where she had been captive, or come close. And, significantly, a general consistency existed between the various possibilities worked out so far. It was Secret Service Agent Jordan who made an assessment for them all.

On an area map he drew a series of lines representing the most likely directions in which the car carrying Juanita and Estela would have traveled.

Then, around the origins of the lines, he drew a circle. "In there." He prodded with a finger. "Somewhere in there."

In the ensuing silence, Wainwright heard Jordan's stomach rumble, as on all the occasions they had met before.

Wainwright wondered how Jordan made out on assignments where he had to stay concealed and silent. Or did his noisy stomach preclude him from that kind of work?

"That area," Dalrymple pointed out, "is at least five square miles." "Then let's comb it," Jordan answered. "In teams, in cars.

Our shop and yours, and we'll ask help from the city police." Lieutenant Pazackerly, who had joined them asked, "

And what will we all be looking for, gentlemen?" "If you want the truth," Jordan said, "damned if I know."

Juanita rode in an F
BI car with Innes and Wainwright.

Wainwright drove, leaving Innes free to work two radios a portable unit, one of five supplied by the FBI, which could communicate directly with the other cars, and a regular transmitter-receiver linked directly to FBI Headquarters.

Beforehand, under the city police lieutenant's direction, they had sectored the area and five cars were now crisscrossing it. Two were FBI, one Secret Service, and two from the city.

The personnel had split up. Jordan and Dalrymple were each riding with a city detective, filling in details for the newcomers as they drove. If necessary, other patrols of the city force would be called for backup. One thing they were all sure of:

Where Juanita had been held was the counterfeit center. Her general description and some details she had noticed made it close to a certainty.

Therefore, instructions to all special units were the same: Look for, and report, any unusual activity which might relate to an organized crime center specializing in counterfeiting. All concerned conceded the instructions were vague, but no one had been able to come up with anything more specific. As Innes put it:

"What else have we got?" Juanita sat in the rear seat of the FBI car.

It was almost two hours since she and lasted had been set down abruptly, ordered to face away, and the dark green Ford had sped off with a screech of burned rubber.

Since then Juanita had refused treatment other than immediate first aid for her badly bruised and cut face, and the cuts and lacerations on her legs.

She was aware that she looked a mess, her clothing stained and torn, but knew too that if Miles was to be reached in time to save him, everything else must wait, even her own attention to Estela, who had been taken to a hospital for treatment of her burn and for observation.

While Juanita did what she had to, Margot Bracken who arrived at the precinct home shortly after Wainwrig
ht and the FBI was comforting E
stela. It was now midafternoon. Earlier, getting the sequence of her journey down on paper, clearing her mind as if purging an overburdened message center, had exhausted Juanita.

Yet, afterward, she had responded to what seemed endless questioning by the FBI and Secret Service men who kept on probing for the smallest details of her experience in the hope that some unconsidered fragment might bring them closer to what they wanted most a specific locale.

So far nothing had. But it was not details Juanita thought about now, seated behind Wainwright and Innes, but Miles as she had last seen him.

The picture remained etched with guilt and anguish sharply on her mind. She doubted it would ever wholly disappear. The ques
tion haunted her: If the counterf
eit center were discovered, would it be too late to save Miles?

Was it already too late? The area within the circle Agent Jordan had drawn located near the city's eastern edge was mixed in character. In part, it was commercial, with some factories, warehouses, and a large industrial tract devoted to light industry. This last, the most likely area, was the segment
to which the patrolling forces were paying most attention.

There were several shopping areas. The rest was residential, running the gamut from regiments of box bungalows to a clutch of sizable mansion-type dwellings.

To the eyes of the dozen roving searchers, who cam, municated frequently through the portable radios, activity everywhere was average and routine. Even a few out-ofthe-ordinary happenings had commonplace overtones.

In one of the shopping districts a man buying a painter's safety harness had tripped over it and broken a leg. Not far away a car with a stuck accelerator had crashed into an empty theater lobby.

"Maybe someone thought it was a drive-in movie," Innes said, but no one laughed. In the industrial tract the fire department responded to a small plant blaze and quickly put it out.

The plant was making waterbeds; one of the city detectives inspected it to be sure. At a residential mansion a charity tea was beginning.

At another, an Alliance Van Lines tractor-trailer was loading household furniture. Over amid the bungalows a repair crew was coping with a leaky water main.

Two neighbors had quarreled and were fistfighting on the sidewallc. Secret Service Agent Jordan got out and separated them. And so on.

For an hour. At the end of it, they were no further ahead than when they started. "I've a funny feeling," Wainwright said.

"A feeling I used to get in police work sometimes when I'd missed something." Innes glanced sideways. "I know what you mean.

You get to believe there's something right under your nose if you could only see it." "Juanita," Wainwright said over his shoulder, "is there anything, any little thing you haven't told usI" She said firmly, "I told you everything." "Then let's go over it again." After a while Wainwright said, "Around the time Eastin stopped crying out, and while you were still bound, you told us something about there being a lot of noise." She corrected him, "No, una conmoci
o
n. Noise and acttivity. I could hear people moving, things being shifted, drawers opening and dosing, that sort of thing."