Stolen Prey (21 page)

“Also true,” ICE said. “And it’s not because he’s depressed. He’s just fuckin’ lazy.”

Jon and ICE said that whoever had built the back door had, in fact, created a little group of booby traps and alarms, but they were taking them out and should be done by the middle of the day. “I never did finish over at Sunnie, so after we’re done here, I’m gonna go home and get a few hours of sleep, then get some sliders and go back to Sunnie. When I get done with
that
, I’m going to Paris.”

“
Where do I find this Jacob guy?” Lucas asked.

“I know the answer to that,” Jon said.

W
HEN
L
UCAS
left the bank, it was still before eight o’clock, and there was no reason to expect that Del would be awake. But there was no reason to expect that Lucas would be awake, either, and there was no reason that he should have to suffer alone, so he called Del, got his wife, and told her that he was on his way and to pull Del out of bed.

Del was not happy when Lucas arrived: “There’s a nuclear weapon somewhere in the Twin Cities and we only have a half hour to find it,” he said. He was sitting on his bed, pulling on his socks.

“No, there’s a guy named Jacob in an apartment off Lyndale who may have stolen twenty-two million dollars, and we have to shake it out of him,” Lucas said.

Del: “Jesus, couldn’t you have gotten a flunky to go with you?”

“Uh, Del…”

“I know, I
am
a flunky.” He got a pistol from under the bed, already in a holster, and stuck it in his belt. “I’m good.”

D
EL LIVED
in St. Paul. Lucas filled him in as they drove back to Minneapolis, then turned south.

“What you’re telling me,” Del said, “is that we got nothing but what some pizza guy suspects.”

“No. We’ve got solid judgments from two computer people that the work looks like Kline’s, and that he has voiced some inclination to make a killing, somehow. And that he was fired,
and he was pissed about it. According to the Polaris computer guy, when they fired him, he threatened to shit in their revolving door.”

“Another Dillinger, no doubt about it,” Del said.

T
HEY WERE
at the apartment by eight-thirty. Most of the parking around Kline’s apartment was on-street, but they found a space without much trouble. They walked around a corner past a basement-level mystery bookstore, and Del asked, “You read that stuff?”

Lucas nodded. “Sure. We’ve got a bunch of detective novels up at the cabin. I read them on rainy days. They’re mostly full of shit.”

“That’s because they have to combine Hollywood and the cops. An author told me that,” Del said. “He said if a book described what the cops really do, everybody would fall asleep. So they have to stick in some Hollywood. Maybe a lot of Hollywood.”

“What about true-crime books? Those sell pretty well.”

“Yeah, but … those aren’t about the cops,” Del said. “Those are about the criminals, and what they do. The bloodier the better.”

“You ever read that book about Ted Bundy?” Lucas asked, as they waited by the door to the apartment.

“No, but I saw the movie. He was cute as a button, Ted was.”

A guy came out of the apartment and Del hooked the door while it was open. The guy turned and looked at Del, frowned and asked, “Do you live here?”

“Would I be going in if I didn’t?” Del asked.

Lucas pulled his ID and said, “It’s okay, we’re cops.”

The guy nodded and took another look at Del, and went on his way.

“People are just too goddamn suspicious,” Del said.

A
CCORDING TO
the building directory, Kline was in 204. They took one flight of steps, turned right, and were looking at the door, one of twenty or thirty running down a long dim hallway. Lucas knocked. They waited. No response, so he knocked louder. No response, so he knocked louder yet, and they heard what sounded like a groan from the apartment, and heard somebody call, “I’m coming.”

They could tell before he got to the door that he was barefoot, from the soft footfalls. A chain rattled on the back of the door, and the man opened it. He was as tall as Lucas, or maybe an inch taller, white, with a curly black semi-Afro. He had thin, wispy whiskers on a face that probably wouldn’t need much shaving. He was wearing a pair of jockey shorts and nothing else. He said, “I don’t want any.”

“We’re with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Lucas began.

“I don’t want any of that, either,” the man said.

“Are you Mr. Kline?” Del asked.

“Yeah. I think so. I was last night.” He pulled on the top of his underpants, peered into the opening, then looked up and said, “Yep. Still am. What do you want?”

“We need to talk to you,” Lucas said.

“Oh, right,” Kline said. “I let you in, you toss my apartment, take my stash.”

“Not interested in your stash,” Del said. “We don’t have a
search warrant, so we won’t toss the apartment. We just need to talk to you about a problem at Polaris National.”

Kline snorted, “They got more than one problem.”

A young blond woman came out of her apartment down the hall, wearing what might have been a churchgoing dress, and as she pulled her door closed she called, “Jacob, you put some pants on or I swear to God I’ll call the cops.”

“These
are
the cops,” he said.

The woman was coming along the hall, slowed, and said to Lucas, “I was joking. He plays with it, but he never wags it.”

“Doesn’t necessarily qualify him for an honorary degree,” Lucas said. She was pretty, and he was always up for a chat with a pretty woman.

“No, but … he’s not actually a pervert,” the woman said. “Well, he
is
a pervert, but not a dangerous one.”

“They say they’re not looking for my stash,” Kline told the woman.

“Then they must not be,” she said. “The police never lie. It would be against their ethics.”

“You’re my witness,” Kline said to her. Then, to Lucas and Del, “You can come in, but you can’t search the place.”

“Okay, I’m your witness,” the woman said, and went on her way.

“Good-bye,” Lucas said, and she twiddled her fingers over her shoulder, but didn’t look back.

K
LINE’S APARTMENT
stank of tomato-based food-like products, ramen noodles, pepperoni, and maybe some spilled Two-Buck
Chuck with an underlying whiff of ganj. Two wooden chairs faced each other across a tiny table in the compact kitchen; in the living room, a couch faced a huge television that was wired into three different game systems, the consoles of which sat on a plywood coffee table; and straight through, they could see the foot of an unmade bed.

Kline flopped full-length on the couch and said, “So, get the kitchen chairs.”

Del picked them up, handed one to Lucas, and they put them in the living room facing the couch, their backs to the TV, and Lucas asked, “Did you steal twenty-two million dollars from an account at Polaris National Bank through a back door you put into the system before you were fired?”

Kline looked from Lucas to Del and back, then said, “Noooo … Do they think I did?”

“Some of them do,” Lucas said.

“That’s right, blame it on the handicapped guy,” Kline said. Then, in what seemed a genuine question, “They lost twenty-two mil?”

“They didn’t exactly lose it,” Del said. “Somebody took it. We thought maybe it was you.”

“I confess, Ossifer, it was me,” Kline said. He waved his arm at his living quarters. “The first thing I did when I got the money is, I went out and rented this beautiful apartment, so I could live a life of leisure and luxury with a lot of high-price hookers.”

“If you didn’t do it, who did?” Lucas asked.

Kline pushed himself up, looked under the coffee table, came up with a pack of cigarettes and a Bic lighter, lit one, and blew smoke. “Good question. I mean, I didn’t do it, so it must be somebody
else. But they’re all so fuckin’ straight … on the surface, anyway. I suspect Angela … have you met her?”

“No.”

“Blond chick, big headlights.” He cupped his hands on his chest, to indicate the size of the headlights. “One of the analysts down there. I suspect her of being a secret rubber freak. She denies it. Anyway, I don’t know who would take it. The money. I sort of can’t believe that anybody did. If
somebody
did, of the people who work down there, or used to work down there, it’d most likely be … me. That’s who I’d suspect. But let me tell you a secret: their security isn’t as good as it looks. You’ve got the cameras and the doors and all that, but if you’ve got administrator’s status, you can actually get in from a couple of places around the building. Did they tell you that?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got a pro checking it out, and it doesn’t look like that to her,” Lucas said. He hadn’t known about the other entries, and that worried him. “It looks like it took a pretty heavy programmer, who really knew the system. This wasn’t some casual hack from a secretary who took a college course in C.”

“Her?” Kline blew more smoke. “Would I know her? Your pro?”

Lucas said, “Ingrid—”

“ICE. Well, well.” Kline blew more smoke, and then laughed up at the ceiling. “They let little ICE into the security section, huh? Fuckin’ morons. They’ll be missing a lot more than twenty-two million before she gets out of there. She’s not gonna build in a back door, she’s gonna build in a fucking Holland Tunnel. How’d you ever hook up with a crook like ICE?”

“
She used to work for me,” Lucas said.

“Oh, yeah,” Kline said. He shook a finger at Lucas. “Now I know the name. Davenport Simulations, right? Nice little gig. I heard you were a cop. Okay, I want to get really clear with you. A: I didn’t do it. Didn’t build a back door, didn’t take any money out. B: I don’t know who did it, but I find it hard to believe that it was one of my former associates, may their treacherous little souls burn in hell, anyway. C: I really need to light up a fatty, so if you guys are done…”

“I understand you’ve been a little depressed, from time to time,” Lucas said.

“No, I’ve been a lot depressed,” Kline snapped. “It’s not what you think it is. It’s not being bummed out. It’s…”

“I know what it is,” Lucas said.

“Ah.” Something softened in Kline’s face. “Well then, you know like Snoop says, I need my medicine.”

They worked him for a while, recycling the same questions, looking for holes, pushing him on other suspects. “So where’re you working now?” Lucas eventually asked.

Kline said, “Same ol’ same ol’. Hennepin National Bank, doing the same old shit.”

“They took you after you were fired by Polaris?” Lucas asked, surprised.

“I wasn’t fired. I resigned, with a good recommendation,” Kline said.

“And if they hadn’t let you do that, you would have shit in their revolving door,” Del said.

Kline smiled. “So you heard that, huh? I thought it was colorful.”

T
WENTY MINUTES
later, they were back out on the street, walking past the mystery bookstore. Del said, “The guy is unhinged. But I think he might know something about the money.”

“Yeah. He was a little too unconfused about the questions,” Lucas said. “I’m gonna get Jenkins and Shrake over here. Keep an eye on him for a few hours. Let’s just sit for a while, see if he moves.”

They found a no-parking zone where they could watch both of the building’s exits. They were still watching, an hour and a half later, when Jenkins and Shrake pulled up behind them. Lucas got out of the Porsche and went and sat in Jenkins’s backseat.

“We got a photo, but we can’t find a car,” Shrake said. “He must either borrow one, or get around on buses. So what are we looking for, other than time and a half?”

Lucas told them, and gave them a thorough description to go with the photo: “Figure out where he goes, if anywhere. We need to know who he talks to, and where. You’ve got the camera?”

“Yeah.” Jenkins held up a compact camera with a super-telephoto.

“If he meets somebody, when they split, make sure you get the other guy’s license tag or take him home, or something. If Kline is on foot, maybe one of you can follow him on foot.”

“We can do that,” Jenkins said. “By the way, Shaffer says he’s calling his whole crew in. They’ll be meeting in a bit. You’re invited.”

W
HEN
L
UCAS AND
D
EL
got to the BCA, the meeting was over. Lucas stopped at Shaffer’s office, intending to fill him in on the morning’s developments, and was told by another cop that Shaffer had gone to Sunnie Software, where the DEA accountants were still at work, and planned to go to Polaris after that.

Lucas walked back to his office and found Martínez sitting outside the door. Shaffer had told her that Lucas was on his way in, and she’d decided to wait. “I hoped to speak with you.”

“Sure, but I’ve got to make a phone call. Come on in.”

She took a visitor’s chair, and he settled behind his desk, got Shaffer’s phone number, and when Shaffer came on, filled him in. At the end, he said, “It could be a wild-goose chase, but Shrake and Jenkins weren’t doing much anyway, they’re not real churchy, so they’ll tag him around for a while.”

“That’s fine,” Shaffer said. “And you think Kline knows something that we don’t?”

“Yeah, I do. I don’t know what, or how much,” Lucas said. “It’s also possible that he suspects a particular person, and maybe’s gonna ask for a piece of the action. I was told that he’s too lazy to steal, so … take it for what it’s worth.”

When he got off, Martínez said, “My superior wishes that I stay here until we can send David’s body back to Mexico, and to come to the meetings in his place so I can relay the news back home. If that is okay. I am a certified police officer.”

“I don’t think anybody will have a problem with that,” Lucas said.

“
You have been making progress, but I understand from this morning’s meeting that Agent Shaffer has not,” she said.

She already knew about the back door at Polaris, but not about Kline. He filled in what she hadn’t overheard in the phone conversation, then said, “It could be a complete waste of time. This guy is a slacker…. You know slacker…?”

“Yes, I know this,” she said.