No Time To Run (Legal Thriller Featuring Michael Collins, Book 1) (24 page)

While the van pulled away, Michael had disappeared into the rush hour crowd beneath the city. Within twenty minutes, he had shed the suit and found new clothes. Within an hour, he had platinum hair and his ears sported gold rings.

“
Here’s your bag.” Kermit passed Michael’s green knapsack across the table. “Ms. Patty sure wanted to know where you were, but I played it cool, man, nothing to worry about.”

Michael looked in the knapsack. It contained his toiletries, some clothes, and most importantly, the photograph of his Irish revolutionary namesake that had been hanging in his office at Wabash, Kramer & Moore.

He probably shouldn’t have called Kermit from a pay phone and asked him to retrieve the photograph for him. It seemed like a needless risk, but Michael felt better having it with him. Unfortunately, his briefcase was gone, left on the street with Vatch.

“
So you got in and out of the office without much of a problem?”

“
Smooth as silkworms in a bubble bath,
mi amigo
.” Kermit finished his soda. “It was in the door and out, all in, like, a minute or two.”

“
But Patty saw you?”

Kermit nodded, pushing his empty glass inside and grabbing the last of Michael’s fries. Michael didn’t mind. His thoughts were elsewhere.

“
Not much I could do about that, man, she was like in your office, going through your stuff.”

“
And what did you say?”

“
I said, ‘Hey pretty lady, come here often?’ and she was not amused. Then I said you had some things in there of a personal nature, things that were yours no matter what happened.”

“
She accepted that?”

Kermit shook his head.

“
No, but what’s she gonna do?” Kermit finished drinking the rest of his soda. “The love thing was probably never going to happen between us anyway, different worlds, you know? But still, the look she gave me as I took the picture off the wall ...” Kermit shook his head in dismay. “It was not a soft look, let me say that.”

A waitress appeared at the table. “Anything else for you two?”

“
Nothing for me,” Michael said.

“
Have any chocolate shakes?” Kermit licked his lips.

“
Of course.” The waitress nodded.

“
Hand dipped?”

“
Of course.”

“
Vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, rather than just chocolate ice cream all mixed up?”

“
Yes.”

“
Then I’ll have one of those.” Kermit watched her jot down the order and run it back to the kitchen, and then turned back to Michael. “So I’ve been thinking about this security guard thing, and I’m starting to think that – And don’t say I’m crazy here – but I’m starting to think that maybe Andie was set up and the guard had something to do with it.”

Michael stared at him, silent.

“
What do you think?” Kermit asked. “Crazy or does the theory have legs?”

“
I think the theory had legs about two days ago when I told you that was the theory.”

“
Oh.” Kermit looked down at the gold Formica tabletop in front of him. “So we each get, like, half-credit for the theory if it all works out?”

“
You understand that I’m no longer Andie’s attorney.” 

Kermit raised his eyebrows.

“
When did that happen?”

“
This afternoon, when …” Michael’s voice trailed off. It wasn’t worth the effort, explaining what had happened with Andie or that a person who has assaulted a federal law enforcement officer and is soon-to-be indicted for stealing $500 million is not in the best position to represent someone in a court of law.

He needed to move. He needed to get out of the city, and Kermit had stopped paying attention. Wheel Of Fortune was on the diner’s television.

“
That dude has got to buy a vowel in a big way.” He took a sip of milkshake without taking his eyes off of the screen. “Buy a vowel. Buy a vowel. Buy a vowel.” When the show went to commercial, Kermit turned back to Michael. “What were you saying?”

“
Nothing.”

“
All right.” Kermit shrugged. “Say I’m pretty beat, how about you? You want to go see Andie, and then hit the hay?”

“
Probably not a good idea right now.” Michael glanced at the door, expecting a SWAT team. A family walked inside from the cold, instead. “You know you haven’t said anything about her, yet.”

“
What about her?”

“
You were at the hearing, right?”

“
Yeah.”

“
And you don’t have anything to say about Andie not really being Andie.”

Kermit put his head down and fiddled with his napkin.

That was when Michael realized.

“
You knew.” Michael shook his head. “Of course you knew.”

Kermit remained silent, while Michael watched. For somebody who swore that he wouldn’t ever trust anyone, Michael couldn’t believe that he had been so naïve.

For his part, Kermit kept his head down. He wanted to tell Michael how much Andie loved him, how torn up she was about keeping her past from him, how she didn’t want Helix Johannson back, but she needed money for the resort.

“
You gotta understand Andie’s situation.” Kermit continued to look away. “She was in a rough spot, that’s all.”

He waited for Michael to respond. When Michael didn’t, Kermit continued. “You have to understand the circumstances. The numbers were off. The equilibrium was all whack-o.”

When Michael, again didn’t respond, Kermit finally looked up, but Michael had already gone.

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

The conference room adjacent to Brenda Gadd’s office had been converted into a makeshift war room. Maps of New York City covered the walls, dotted by colored thumb tacks indicating each subway station where Michael may or may not have gotten off or transferred. Three televisions on carts had been rolled into the corners of the room, broadcasting live news reports, and young men in pressed white shirts, loosened neck ties, and rolled-up sleeves darted in and out, delivering reams of paper.

“
This is it?” Vatch shook his head. “All we can confirm is that about one hour and forty minutes ago a man who may be Michael Collins may or may not have been seen exiting the Green Line on Spring Street?”

“
I saw the tape,” a young agent said. “It looked like him, but it was black and white, grainy. I’m 99 percent.”

“
Get out of here,” Vatch barked, touching the narrow white bandage across the bridge of his nose. Every minute that went by made it less likely that Michael Collins was going to be caught.

“
Where did he go?” Vatch turned to Tammy Duckstein. “Where’d your
friend
go?”

Tammy looked up from a sheath of reports listing every neighbor and co-worker Michael Collins had ever had.

“
I don’t know,” she glared. “And he’s not my friend.”

“
Sure he is.” Vatch rolled his wheelchair out from under the table, crossing to the window overlooking Foley Square below. “Maybe if you would’ve gotten us the Maltow file a little sooner …” Vatch shook his head. “Maybe I could still breathe through my nose.”

“
That’s not fair.  I was trying – ”

“
Enough, children.” Brenda Gadd entered the room. “Everybody out except Duckstein and Vatch. We need a minute.”

Vatch had never seen agents, clerks, cops, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys clear a room so quickly.

Brenda Gadd shut the door, walked over to the televisions, turning each one off. The conference room soon became silent and still.

“
We can play the blame game tomorrow, all right?” She glared at both of them, Vatch still with his back turned and staring out the window. “Any word about our little helpers in the now-bullet-ridden white van?”

“
No word,” said Duckstein. “Disappeared. Nobody got a license plate. We think it didn’t have any.”

“
What about our runaway attorney?” Gadd asked Duckstein, and then looked at the map of New York City. “I assume from your silence, you’ve got nothing.” She turned back toward Duckstein and Vatch. “Well, I haven’t told the media about the $500 million that Collins has hidden away somewhere. So far, everybody’s kept quiet about the pending grand jury indictment. That might leak eventually, but not by me. There are political implications to raising the stakes. If we can’t find him we look incompetent and we don’t need another story about incompetent federal agencies at the moment.”

Or when contemplating a run for the United States Senate
, Duckstein thought.

“
Right now,” Gadd pointed at Vatch, “the story about attacking a handicapped federal agent in broad daylight is all the motivation anybody needs to hunt this kid down and keep the story going on television.”

Vatch’s jaw clenched at the description of him as a “handicapped federal agent.”

Brenda Gadd walked away from the maps, and over to the conference room table. She sat down.

“
Agent Vatch, come over here,” she said. “Please join us.”

Vatch grumbled, but even he knew not to disobey the United States Attorney for New York.

When Vatch was at the table, Gadd looked at both him and Tammy Duckstein.

“
I want this guy” Gadd said it as if she was revealing a secret. “The case against Joshua Krane was the only one that ever got away from me. Agent Vatch has his own motivations.” She looked at Vatch, and Vatch nodded, thankful that Gadd hadn’t mentioned his dead partner. “This kid was responsible, one way or another. I think we all agree on that, don’t we?” Gadd looked directly at Tammy Duckstein, waiting for a response, but none came.

“
So where is he? Where is he going?” Gadd waved off the maps. “Forget the subway stations and finding security video, we don’t have that kind of time. You two know him best. Where did he go?”

Tammy went first.

“
Gone. If he took the money as you say, which I don’t think he did, he has the resources to buy a plane ticket and fly anywhere in the world.”

“
He won’t use his own passport.” Vatch adjusted the bandage across his nose. “I know he has access to fraudulent papers.”

“
Know this for a fact?” Gadd asked.

Vatch’s narrow slit of a mouth turned into a crooked smile as he thought about shaking down the proprietor of Hoa Bahns.

“
I have excellent information,” he said. “I’ll pass the boy’s aliases on to the border patrol so that we can be notified if he tries to get out of the U.S. Let’s leave it at that.”

“
Well, I can’t leave it at that.” Gadd paused, thinking. “There has to be somebody in his life.”

“
Andie Larone was one,” Vatch said. “But she’s out, so that just leaves us with our beloved priest. That’s it.”

“
Then that’s where we’ll go. Find Father Stiles as soon as possible and stay close, but I want the agents in plain clothes. SWAT and helicopters on standby. I can’t have them circling and spooking this kid away.”

“
Isn’t that all a little much?” Tammy asked.

“
No.” Vatch wheeled back from the table and started toward the door. “Sounds just right to me.”

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

The outer edge of a winter storm, still days away, kicked stray pieces of paper down the sidewalk through quick bursts of cold wind. Michael turned the hood up over his head, and adjusted the green knapsack that hung over his shoulder. After a quick visit to Hoa Bahns, it contained several alternate passports and three credit cards issued under other names. Two hundred thousand dollars in cash also kept the picture of Michael’s revolutionary namesake company.

As for the gun, he had left it behind. By morning Michael would be on a plane, and, the last time he checked, airlines didn’t appreciate armed passengers.

He turned another corner and stopped, scanning the street for windowless vans belonging to the FBI. He looked for people just sitting in their car, neither coming nor going, anything that would be out of the ordinary for Friday Karaoke and Trivia Night at Saint Thomas church.

He saw nothing.

Michael cut across the street and joined a family of five walking toward the side door of the church. He stayed close, as a group of teenagers fell in behind. Michael walked with the pack down the sidewalk, through the door, and eventually down into the church’s basement.

As usual, the darkened room was filled with happy families enjoying free baskets of chips and popcorn. The kids had small cups of pink Kool-Aid, while the parents drank 3.2 keg beer donated by McSweeney’s Liquor on Columbus. Although there was never any doubt, the presence of alcohol confirmed that Saint Thomas the Compassionate Church was a Catholic institution, not Baptist.