Steel Guitar (25 page)

She didn't say anything between songs, just dropped her dark head until the music started up again, pumping new life into her, as if she were a doll, a puppet energized by the songs.

“There's a train every day, leaving either way,” she sang. I wondered if she'd chosen her set for me, or for Davey. Most likely Jimmy Ranger had lined up the songs he considered the most solidly commercial. Anything else was sentimental crap, I reminded myself. Dee was an industry, not a simple country girl singing the blues.

She owned that stage; it was her real estate. She strutted and sang, danced when the music moved her. From the balcony, she was the most beautiful woman imaginable. She'd have to be, with that voice. Only during the applause did she let go of the illusion, and in between the seventh and eighth songs, after a muttered “thank you,” she said clearly, “This one's for Davey.”

It was “For Tonight.” She'd been singing for forty-five minutes. I elbowed Mooney. It was time for us to go.

Forty

No one noticed when we left. That was the idea behind top-row aisle seats. I led the way to the little room Hal Grady used as an office. The night's standing-room-only haul wouldn't begin its journey to the deposit vault next door till midnight.

That's what Hal had sworn when DEA, on Mooney's advice, had picked up Dee's “gamblin' man” that afternoon. It was, Mooney told me, a long and interesting conference. Confronted with salary records and bank account statements—items difficult to reconcile—Grady had at first attributed his fortune to gambling luck. Mooney told me he thought Hal would demand a lawyer at that point. But threatened with the IRS, he became eager to cooperate, increasingly eager for a chance to stay out of jail. Eager to the point of agreeing to wear a DEA wire tonight.

I wondered if Mickey Manganero, years earlier, had seen the long-term money-laundering potential in Hal's career, sought him out in Atlantic City with attractive terms. I wondered if any of the faceless MGA execs had been bought or threatened by the Gianellis. Grady swore his only contact was Manganero.

According to Hal, tradition dictated that two security guards would walk the money to the bank, one being George Wolfe, with an
e
, the man on the exempt list. The other was generally somebody burly enough to discourage neighborhood punks. Tonight it would be Leroy, Gloria's youngest brother. He's not the largest of the trio, but he's the meanest, the one you'd least like to meet in a dark alley.

As we walked, the hawk-nosed man from DEA spoke quietly into what seemed to be an ordinary shirt-collar button. The Drug Enforcement Agency always has the latest in high-tech chic.

They'd had an interest in Big Mickey long before I'd had my first chat with Joanne Triola. The guy with Mooney and me, an old DEA hand, stared at the two of us with the burnt-out expression of a man with a hopeless job, pried what I'd mistaken for ordinary earplugs out of his ears, and said, “The wire's working, everything's going great.” He tried to summon enthusiasm, but his tone said: I can't believe something won't go wrong at the last minute.

A burnout case for sure.

“Want to listen?” he said to me.

Dee's wailing voice was faint in the background. Mainly I could hear Freddie's thumping drums. I said, “Okay.”

He passed over a plug and I stuck it in my right ear. It wasn't high-quality sound, but I could make out the words. Hal sounded nervous.

“Look,” I heard him blurt suddenly, “I don't wanna do this stuff anymore, understand?”

“You haven't got a lot of choices, Hal buddy.” Manganero's voice was deep and pleasant, relaxed. I remembered him resplendent in his dinner jacket at the MGA/America bash, where his only mistake had been to chat with Sam Gianelli's girlfriend. Sam didn't exactly advertise my career to his dad's business associates.

“The money's good,” Manganero continued. “Keeps your kid in that fancy school, right? You know, lots of things happen to kids away at school, teenage girls, especially.”

“Bastard,” I muttered, under my breath.

Mr. DEA spoke into his button. “We got enough? You sure the tape's good?”

“Take him,” came the response, loud enough to make me yank the plug out of my ear and hold it gingerly an inch away. Two agents appeared on either side of the office door, armed with 9mm automatics, wearing bulletproof vests with DEA stenciled back and front, the better to avoid shooting each other.

I moved aside, a habit of mine when the firepower index is high. I wasn't there for any gunplay; I was there for the next step, the walk to George Wolfe's office, to keep Hal's morale up—more to the point, to make sure he didn't take it into his head to skip.

DEA didn't like it. Mooney wasn't fond of the arrangement either. But Hal had insisted on my company. During his DEA session, he'd volunteered the opinion that nobody would mistake me for a cop.

To ensure that nobody would, I'd dressed for the concert, or rather the party after the concert, with more than usual care. Tight black jeans that really didn't look like jeans, a green silk blouse that made my eyes seem emerald. I wore Aunt Bea's gold locket in the low-cut V-neck.

Manganero stuck his hands in the air and kept his lips clamped when DEA busted the door. He was so quiet I wondered if he was automatically considering the possibility of a wire. The bills stacked on Hal's desk hadn't come from any ticket sales. But entered into the Bank of Commerce through Hal's tricky bookkeeping, with George Wolfe's help—for which he would earn a couple thousand off the top—the money would lose its identity until the time came for it to enter a seemingly “legit” Gianelli-run business.

Green & White Cab is not one of them. Or so Sam says.

The DEA agents hurriedly photographed Manganero's banded stacks of bills, concentrating on serial numbers to establish a direct chain of evidence, counting the cash. They hoped to trace it further down the pipeline, to whichever MGA executive had been bought or coerced into involvement, whichever bank manager had been suborned. The same signature on a series of checks made out to a Gianelli front for, say, nine thousand, nine hundred-odd dollars would be of great interest to DEA.

Hal murmured nervously, “They'll be waiting for me.”

Manganero, handcuffed, shot him a glance that could have fried fish. He hadn't been certain about the wire; now he was.

“They'll wait a little longer, Hal,” Mooney said soothingly. “Don't freak on us now.”

“It's just … I'm having trouble—”

“Take a deep breath,” I counseled. “Another one.”

“It's just, it all catches up to you,” Hal said with a bewildered shrug.

I thought about Dee. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” I said.

“Believe me,” he said, as if he knew who I was thinking about, “I never would've made trouble for Dee. I love that girl. She should've kicked me out the first time I tried to borrow money to make up a bad debt. In a way, she kept me in the business. And now I'm in way over my head.”

“Mimi did the really dumb thing,” I said.

“Little bitch,” he agreed, without anger. “She's Manganero's little piece, when she's not spreading it around. And, like the jerk I am, I had to confide in her, tell her I was worried about you.”

“You didn't buy it when Dee said I was a friend?”

“I figured maybe you could be a replacement for Brenda. Maybe Dee was looking to shake up the band. But Mimi said Dee talked about some license you had. I wanted to have a look at that.”

“So you arranged to have somebody steal my purse.”

“Yeah, I did that, but I didn't expect any knifeplay, and the break-in was Mimi's idea of a night out. I didn't even know about it till she told me.”

The DEA had finished with the money. Hawk-nose said, “Look, Hal, why don't I take the walk with you?”

“No,” Hal said stubbornly. “That's not the deal I made. Me and her. She can go right into the office with me. You can't.”

We walked slowly. Hal seemed to need to talk, wire or no wire. It was so simple to slip into it, he said. The money stuff. He knew it was wrong, but it was so damned simple.

I agreed. It's easy to buy people, especially with the carrot-and-stick approach favored by the Manganeros of the world. Either you help me launder this money and earn a nice chunk of change for yourself, or your fifteen-year-old daughter has a very unpleasant experience.

We heard a loud burst of applause signaling the end of a number, and Hal stood up to his full five-five, as proud of Dee as any parent.

I whispered, “Turn off the mike for a second, Hal.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

He undid a couple of shirt buttons, rotated a dial. “What?” he said. “The guys are gonna be pissed.”

“Tell me once, tell me the truth, did Dee know about the money laundering?”

“No,” he said.

“The truth, Hal,” I said. “Between you and me.”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he said quietly, “No way. Swear on my mother's grave. Can I turn it back on now?”

“Wait. Did Dee ever talk about Lorraine Holbrook? Ever say she learned any song from somebody named Lorraine?”

“Sorry,” Hal said, staring at the floor. “I don't think she ever mentioned the name. I'm turning the mike back on now, okay? I don't want these guys to think I'm crossing them. I've got enough trouble.”

We knocked at George's locked door—three-two-three—as Hal had arranged. A tense voice ordered us to come in and close the door. Hal, hastily buttoning his shirt, maybe envisioning his future in the Federal Witness Protection Program, didn't notice anything wrong.

Forty-One

“Lock it behind you,” the slender man in the security guard uniform barked.

I heard the click as Hal obeyed. Hal was still wearing the wire, I reminded myself, sucking in a deep breath. But had he turned it back to the proper volume? Was anybody tuned in? Were the DEA listeners partying in their van, celebrating the capture of Manganero?

This was the simple part, after all.

DEA agents would pick up George, along with Gloria's brother Leroy, as soon as they left the building, and tail them to the bank. What could go wrong before then? DEA hadn't even sent an agent with me, figuring a judge would like it better if an independent citizen could back up Hal's statement and testify that Manganero's dubious cash had mingled with legitimate concert receipts in George's office.

Hal introduced me to George, the man on the bank's exempt list, a heavyset middle-aged fellow who didn't say anything beyond hello. I managed a smile. Maybe George didn't realize anything was wrong either. Hal hadn't noticed. That left me, and I'd seen the smudgy-eyed man only once. Was I absolutely certain? I hadn't even asked Mooney for a peek at his mug shot.

“You think the two of you can handle this?” I said, giggling in a way I never do, speaking too loudly, trying to catch the ear of some quick-witted technician in the sound van. “Hell of a lot of money. Must weigh a ton.”

George tried a weak laugh and said, “Yeah, they sent me a pint-sized assistant this week. Regular guy's off, uh, sick.”

“Man your size doing security work,” I said in a flirty voice. “You carry a big gun?”

“What's it to you?” Ray said. I took that for a yes, and hoped the DEA had picked it up.

How had Ray put Leroy out of commission? I prayed he'd used his brain and not his gun, envisioned a furious Leroy locked in some closet. How could I face Gloria if anything happened to her brother Leroy? One thing: Ray hadn't stolen Leroy's clothes. The blue uniform fit his narrow frame precisely.

Christ, this guy was resourceful. If he couldn't get the money one way, he'd get it another.

“Who are you?” Ray addressed me warily.

“She's my baby tonight,” Hal said cheerfully, slipping an arm around my waist, keeping to our cover story. “I like 'em tall.”

I deviated from it. “I'm Dee's good buddy,” I announced. “Dee and Mooney want to make sure every little nickel gets to the nest.” I tried to sound as if I'd had a drink too many, slurring an occasional word. I listened, hoping for footsteps in the hall, on the stairs. Nothing.

George glanced at Hal's heavy satchel. “What's the count?”

While they shifted stacks of bills, I took a good look around the office. No other entrances or exits, not even a window. I memorized a poster of an early Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tour, stuck to one of the yellowed walls with pushpins. A bulletin board covered with pastel flyers announced upcoming events. A round schoolroom clock ticked. Eleven forty-six. Eleven forty-seven. I gave Ray a sidelong glance, wondering if the gun was in the back of his pants, tucked in his waistband, or in his side pocket. I couldn't spot a bulge.

“What're you staring at, bitch?”

“What do you think?”

“Hey,” Hal said. “None of that talk.”

I measured the distance between the desk and the door, between Ray and George. Could I stop him?

She was a decent player. That's what Dee had said about Brenda. A tough cookie, and a decent player. Not a bad thing to have carved on your tombstone.

“Wait a minute,” I said with a wide smile. “Haven't I seen you around? You a musician? No, don't tell me. Didn't I see you with what's-her-name? Brenda, Dee's bass player?”

There. I'd said it. Now would somebody in the damned sound truck clue Mooney that something weird was happening in the office where the nicely photographed money was about to slip into the wrong hands?

“Not me,” Ray said curtly, quietly. I wondered if he remembered me from our brief encounter in Dee's suite.

“I guess everybody has a double,” I said lightly. “But you sure look like Ray—Brenda's boyfriend, Ray. Hal, honey, do you believe everybody's got a double someplace?”