Shall We Tell the President? (15 page)

Mark turned cold. The man had been ahead of
him again. Father Gregory was right, there was something professional about
him.

‘Can you describe him, Mrs
Casefikis
?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Oh, he was a big man, very dark, I think,’
she began.

Mark tried to remain offhand. It must have
been the man who had passed him in the elevator, the man who had earlier kept Father
Gregory from going to the hospital and who, if Mrs
Casefikis
had known anything at all about the plot, would no doubt have dispatched her to
join her husband.

‘Did he have a beard, Mrs
Casefikis
?’

‘Of course he did.’ She hesitated. ‘But I
can’t remember him having one.’

Mark asked her to stay in the house, not to
leave under any circumstances. He made an excuse that he was going to check on
the Welfare situation and talk to the Immigration officials. He was learning
how to lie. The clean-shaven Greek Orthodox priest was teaching him.

He jumped into the car and drove a few
hundred yards to the nearest pay phone on
Georgia Avenue
. He dialled the Director’s
private line. The Director picked up the phone.

Julius.’

‘What is your number?’ asked the Director.

Thirty seconds later the phone rang. Mark
went over the story carefully.

‘I’ll send an Identikit man down to you
immediately. You go back there and hold her hand. And, Andrews, try to think on
your feet. I’d like that fifty dollars. Was it one bill, or several? There may
just be a fingerprint on them.’ The telephone clicked. Mark frowned. If the
phony Greek Orthodox priest weren’t always two steps ahead of him, the Director
was. Mark returned to Mrs
Casefikis
and told her that
her case would be dealt with at the highest level; he must remember to speak to
the Director about it at the next meeting, he made a note about it on his pad.
Back to the casual voice again.

‘Are you sure it was fifty dollars, Mrs
Casefikis
?’

‘Oh, yes, I don’t see a fifty-dollar bill
every day, and I was most thankful at the time.’

‘Can you remember what you did with it?’

‘Yes, I went and bought food from the
supermarket just before they closed.’

‘Which supermarket, Mrs
Casefikis
?’

‘Wheaton Supermarket. Up the street.’

‘When was that?’

‘Yesterday evening about six o’clock,’

Mark realised that there wasn’t a moment to
lose. If it wasn’t already too late.

‘Mrs
Casefikis
, a
man will be coming, a colleague of mine, a friend, from the FBI, to ask you to
describe the kind Father who gave you the money. It will help us greatly if you
can remember as much about him as possible. You have nothing to worry about
because we’re doing everything we can to help you.’

Mark hesitated, took out his wallet and
gave her fifty dollars. She smiled for the first time.

‘Now, Mrs
Casefikis
,
I want you to do just one last thing for me. If the Greek priest ever comes to
visit again, don’t tell him about our conversation, just call me at this
number.’

Mark handed her a card.
Ariana
Casefikis
nodded, but her lacklustre grey eyes
followed Mark to his car. She didn’t understand, or know which man to trust:
hadn’t they both given her fifty dollars?

Mark pulled into a parking space in front
of the Wheaton Supermarket. A huge sign in the window announced that cases of
cold beer were sold inside. Above the window was a blue and white cardboard
representation of the dome of the Capitol. Five days, thought Mark. He went
into the store. It was a small family enterprise, privately owned, not part of
a chain. Beer lined one wall, wine the other, and in between were four rows of
canned and frozen foods. A meat counter stretched the length of the rear wall.
The butcher seemed to be minding the store alone. Mark hurried towards him,
starting to ask the question before he reached the counter.

‘Could I please see the manager?’

The butcher eyed him suspiciously. ‘What
for?’

Mark showed his credentials.

The butcher shrugged and yelled over his
shoulder, ‘Hey,
Flavio
. FBI. Wants to see you.’

Several seconds later, the manager, a large
red-faced Italian, appeared in the doorway to the left of the meat counter.
‘Yeah? What can I do for you, Mr, uh…’

‘Andrews, FBI.’ Mark showed his credentials
once again.

‘Yeah, okay. What do you want, Mr Andrews? I’m
Flavio
Guida
. This is my
place. I run a good, honest place.’

‘Yes, of course, Mr
Guida
.
I’m simply hoping you can help me. I’m investigating a case of stolen money,
and we have reason to believe that a stolen fifty-dollar bill was spent in this
supermarket yesterday and we wonder now if there is any way of tracing it.’

‘Well, my money is collected every night,’
said their manager. ‘It’s put into the safe and deposited in the bank first
thing in the morning. It would have gone to the bank about an hour ago, and I
think—’

‘But it’s Saturday,’ Mark said.

‘No problem. My bank is open till noon on
Saturday. It’s just a few doors down.’

Mark thought on his feet.

‘Would you please accompany me to the bank
immediately, Mr
Guida
?’

Guida
looked at his watch and then at Mark Andrews.

‘Okay. Give me just half a minute.’

He shouted to an invisible woman in the
back of the store to keep an eye on the cash register. Together he and Mark
walked to the corner of Georgia and
Hickers
.
Guida
was obviously getting quite excited by the whole
episode.

At the bank Mark went immediately to the
chief cashier. The money had been handed over thirty minutes before to one of
his tellers, a Mrs Townsend. She still had it in piles ready for sorting. It
was next on her list. She hadn’t had time to do so yet, she said rather
apologetically. No need to feel sorry, thought Mark. The supermarket’s take for
the day had been just over five thousand dollars. There were twenty-eight
fifty-dollar bills. Christ Almighty, the Director was going to tear him apart,
or to be more exact, the fingerprint experts were. Mark counted the
fifty-dollar notes using gloves supplied by Mrs Townsend and put them on one
side — he agreed there were twenty-eight. He
signed for them, gave the
receipt to the chief cashier, and assured him they would be returned in the
very near future. The bank manager came over and took charge of the receipt and
the situation.

‘Don’t FBI men usually work in pairs?’

Mark blushed. ‘Yes, sir, but this is a
special assignment.’

‘I would like to check,’ said the manager.
‘You are asking me to release one thousand four hundred dollars on your word.’

‘Of course, sir, please do check.’

Mark had to think quickly. He couldn’t ask
the manager of a local bank to ring the Director of the FBI. It would be like
charging your gasoline to the account of Henry Ford.

‘Why don’t you ring the FBI’s Washington
Field Office, sir, ask for the head of the Criminal Section. Mr Grant
Nanna
.’

‘I’ll do just that.’

Mark gave him the number, but he ignored it
and looked it up for himself in the
Washington
directory. He got right through to
Nanna
. Thank God
he was there.

‘I have a young man from your Field Office
with me. His name is Mark Andrews. He says he has the authority to take away
twenty-eight fifty-dollar bills. Something to do with stolen money.’

Nanna
also had to think quickly. Deny the allegation, defy the alligator
-
Nick
Stames’s
old motto.

Mark, meanwhile, offered up a little
prayer.

‘That’s correct, sir,’ said
Nanna
. ‘He has been instructed by me to pick up those
notes. I hope you will release them immediately. They will be returned as soon
as possible.’

‘Thank you, Mr
Nanna
.
I’m sorry to have bothered you. I just felt I ought just to check; you never
can be sure nowadays.’

‘No bother, sir, a wise precaution. We wish
everybody were as careful.’ The first truth he’d uttered, thought Grant
Nanna
.

The bank manager replaced the receiver, put
the pile of fifty-dollar bills in a brown envelope, accepted the receipt, and
shook hands with Mark
apologet
-
ically
.

‘You understand I had to check?’

‘Of course,’ said Mark. ‘I would have done
the same myself.’

He thanked Mr
Guida
and the manager and asked them both not to mention the matter to anybody. They
nodded with the air of those who know their duty.

Mark returned to the
FBI
Building
immediately and went straight to the Director’s office. Mrs McGregor nodded at
him. A quiet knock on the door, and he went in.

‘Sorry to interrupt you, sir.’

‘Not at all, Andrews. Have a seat. We were
just finishing.’

Matthew Rogers rose and looked carefully at
Andrews and smiled.

‘I’ll try and have the answers for you by
lunch, Director,’ he said, and left.

‘Well, young man, do you have our Senator
in the car downstairs?’

‘No, sir, but I do have these.’

Mark opened the brown envelope and put
twenty-eight fifty-dollar bills on the table.

‘Been robbing a bank, have you? A federal
charge, Andrews.’

‘Almost, sir. One of these notes, as you
know, was given to Mrs
Casefikis
by the man posing as
the Greek Orthodox priest.’

‘Well, that will be a nice little conundrum
for our fingerprint boys; fifty-six sides with hundreds, perhaps thousands of
prints on them. It’s a long shot and it will take a considerable time, but it’s
worth a try.’ He was careful not to touch the notes. ‘I’ll have
Sommerton
deal with it immediately. We’ll also need Mrs
Casefikis’s
prints. I’ll also put one of our agents on her
house in case the big man returns.’ The Director was writing and talking at the
same time. ‘It’s just like the old days when I ran a field office. I do believe
I’d enjoy it if it weren’t so serious.’

‘Can I mention just one other thing while
I’m here, sir?’

‘Yes, say whatever you want to, Andrews.’
Tyson didn’t look up, just continued writing.

‘Mrs
Casefikis
is
worried about her status in this country. She has no money, no job, and now no
husband. She may well have given us a vital lead and she has certainly been as
co-operative as possible. I think we might help.’

The Director pressed a button.

‘Ask
Sommerton
from Fingerprints to come up immediately, and send Elliott in.’

Ah, thought Mark, the anonymous man has a
name.

‘I’ll do what I can. I’ll see you Monday at
seven, Andrews. I’ll be home all weekend if you need me. Don’t stop working.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Mark left. He stopped at the Riggs Bank and
changed fifteen dollars into quarters. The teller looked at him curiously.

‘Have your own pinball machine, do you?’

Mark smiled.

He spent the rest of the morning and most
of the afternoon with a diminishing pile of quarters, calling the weekend-duty
secretaries of the sixty-two senators who had been in
Washington
on 24 February. All of them were
most gratified that their senator should be invited to an Environmental
Conference; the Director was no fool. At the end of sixty-two phone calls, his
ears were numb. Mark studied the results . . . thirty senators had eaten in the
office or with constituents, fifteen had not told their secretaries where they
were having
lunch or had mentioned some vague ‘appointment’, and
seventeen had attended luncheons hosted by groups as varied as the National
Press Club, Common Cause, and the NAACP. One secretary even thought her boss
had been at that particular Environmental Luncheon on 24 February. Mark hadn’t
been able to think of a reply to that.

With the Director’s help he was now down to
fifteen senators.

He returned to the Library of Congress, and
once again made for the quiet reference room. The librarian did not seem the
least bit suspicious of all his questions about particular senators and
committees find procedure in the Senate; she was used to graduate students who
were just as demanding and far less courteous.

Mark went back to the shelf that held the
Congressional Record. It was easy to find 24 February: it was the only thumbed
number in the pile of unbound latest issues. He checked through the fifteen
remaining names. On that day, there had been one committee in session, the
Foreign Relations Committee; three senators on his list of fifteen were members
of that committee, and all three had spoken in committee that morning,
according to the
Record.
The Senate itself had debated two issues that
day: the allocation of funds in the Energy Department for solar-energy
research, and the Gun Control bill. Some of the remaining twelve had spoken on
one or both issues on the floor of the Senate: there was no way of eliminating
any of the fifteen, damn it. He listed the fifteen
ames
on fifteen
sheets of paper, and read through
he
Congressional
Record
for every day from 24 February to 3 March. By each name he noted the
senator’s presence or absence from the Senate on each working day.
Painstakingly, he built up each senator’s schedule; there were many gaps. It
was evident that senators do not spend all their time in the Senate.