The Wheelman (5 page)
Authors: Duane Swierczynski
Do I look like a bank robber to you?
—WILLIE SUTTON
K
ATIE LEFT MICHAEL IN THE COTTAGE AT 1:55 A.M. AND asked him to stay there until she called. He said it was okay; he had some loose ends he had to tie up anyway. He told her to be safe, and call him if anything got out of hand. He’d be there in a heartbeat. Katie said she’d be fine. She really didn’t want to involve him in this.
ATIE LEFT MICHAEL IN THE COTTAGE AT 1:55 A.M. AND asked him to stay there until she called. He said it was okay; he had some loose ends he had to tie up anyway. He told her to be safe, and call him if anything got out of hand. He’d be there in a heartbeat. Katie said she’d be fine. She really didn’t want to involve him in this.
At 6:10, Katie’s flight from San Juan landed at Philadelphia International Airport. By 6:40, she was in a rented car, a black Buick Regal, her one piece of luggage stowed in the trunk. By 7:05, she was at Rittenhouse Square. By 7:08, she was knocking on the door of room 910 in the Rittenhouse Towers, a combination luxury hotel/condominium complex. At 7:10, the door opened.
“Katie?”
“Morning, Henry.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”
Katie pushed past him. The door led to a $1,275,000 three-bedroom apartment: ceiling-to-floor windows, revealing views of both rivers, parquet floors. Nice, but by no means the best apartment in the building. Henry Wilcoxson didn’t like to live too ostentatiously. He was a semiretired jugmarker, a man who plotted bank robberies for other teams in exchange for a percentage of the profits. Wilcoxson had worked with Lennon years ago, which was how Katie had met him. The man had taught them both a great deal; he was the closest thing either of them had to a mentor.
Wilcoxson had settled in Philadelphia, despite the fact that he had once escaped two different prisons here—Eastern State and Holmesburg—back in the 1950s under a different name. Now he owned a number of restaurants and coffee shops in the city and suburbs, and except for rare occasions, was out of the business. Wilcoxson liked to dabble, offer advice, but not much else.
“Coffee? I was just making a pot.”
“No you weren’t. There’s still sleep in your eyes. Have you heard anything?”
“No,” Wilcoxson said. “Nothing that wasn’t in the news. All signs of a successful conclusion. But I take it that Patrick didn’t make it to your predetermined meeting place.”
Katie didn’t seem to hear him. She put down her luggage, then paced, gray-faced, around the apartment, idly looking out the window at the two gleaming blue Liberty Place towers. “Can I use your bathroom?”
Wilcoxson smiled confusedly at first, then looked at Katie again and remembered. “Of course.”
L
ENNON SHOULD HAVE PASSED OUT BY NOW. A GUNSHOT wound and a pistol-whipping in the trunk of the car—“Gotta keep you humble,” the ex-cop explained—should have sent vital instructions to his brain to shut down already. But no. Lennon stayed painfully conscious, albeit in a thick brain fog, the entire time: across the city’s bumpy streets, into a garage, out of the trunk, and onto a thick wooden door which rested on two short metal cabinets.
ENNON SHOULD HAVE PASSED OUT BY NOW. A GUNSHOT wound and a pistol-whipping in the trunk of the car—“Gotta keep you humble,” the ex-cop explained—should have sent vital instructions to his brain to shut down already. But no. Lennon stayed painfully conscious, albeit in a thick brain fog, the entire time: across the city’s bumpy streets, into a garage, out of the trunk, and onto a thick wooden door which rested on two short metal cabinets.
He was strapped down by chains and thick elastic bungee-type bands, the kind you use to strap furniture to a roof. The ex-cop was careful to steer clear of Lennon’s shoulder and lower right arm, but managed to strap him down every other way.
He had no idea where in the city he was—if he was even in the city. Or who this guy really was, and what was next.
Lennon did know one thing: this fucker was not getting the money. If he was going to die, it would be with $650,000 to his name.
“You know, I was just standing here all worried about trying to find a gag for you,” said the ex-cop. “But that’s not really a worry now, is it?”
The garage was a two-car model. The stolen Chevy Cavalier sat in one slot; Lennon was strapped to the table in the other. This guy—if he even lived here—used the garage as storage for tools and random junk. An ergonomic shovel. A wet/dry vac. A bike frame. A rusted gas grill with tank. Shelves lined every available wall, and they were packed to the point of being swaybacked.
“We’ve got a ticking clock here. If you don’t see a doctor soon, you’re going to bleed to death. Believe me, I know. I’ve seen guys take a dozen slugs and live. But just one GSW, left untreated, will kill you. Even if the bullet passed all the way through—which I think it did, because there’s a nice hole in the backseat. Still, that shoulder of yours is going to be trouble in a couple of hours. And let me say, it doesn’t look all that great now. It’s starting to stink.”
His captor placed a Bic ballpoint pen in Lennon’s right hand and slid a legal pad beneath it.
“Just write down where I can find the money. I go check it out and make sure, then come back with a doctor.”
Lennon just stared at him.
“Now I’ve got to come clean with you—there’s no deal to be made. That was just some shit I said to get you to cooperate. Now you’ve got a stronger incentive: staying alive. You do want to stay alive, don’t you?”
Honestly, at this point, Lennon wasn’t exactly sure.
“Of course you do. And being alive in federal custody is a lot better than being buried in the middle of Pennypack Park.” The guy wrapped his meaty hand around Lennon’s writing hand and squeezed. “Do you know what ‘Pennypack’ means? ‘Deep dead water.’ I never knew that until recently, and I’ve lived up here my whole life.”
A pause.
Lennon started scribbling on the legal pad.
“There we go,” the guy said, leaning over to take a look.
He frowned.
“Oh. Fuck me, is that it? Okay, pal. Have it your way.” He disappeared, and Lennon heard a door slam.
Immediately Lennon knew he’d made a mistake. He should have swallowed his rage and scribbled down a plausible location—hell, point him to any parking lot downtown and give him a phony make, model, and license number. That would at least take him out of the picture for a while; from his guesstimates, it was about a thirty-minute drive between where he was now and downtown Philly.
Lennon thought about that name—Pennypack Park. That rang a bell. Lennon consulted the map of Philly he’d stored in his brain for the job. Nothing downtown. Nothing in South or West Philly, either; he’d scoped those areas for possible getaway routes. Maybe it was near suburbs.
Pennypack, Pennypack. The name bugged him. In for over six hundred thousand, out for a pennypack. But where did that fit into the map of Philly? The biggest park in the city was Fairmount, and Kelly Drive shot up right through the middle of that. The guy had driven too far to be near Center City still, unless he had doubled back to be clever.
Lennon heard the guy’s weight creaking on the floorboards above. Probably his kitchen, right above the garage. Water and gas pipes snaked around and up into the ceiling. He could hear his voice above, murmuring. Talking on the phone to somebody.
A short while later, Lennon found out who.
“
I
HAVE NEWS,” WILCOXSON SAID OVER THE CELL PHONE.
I
HAVE NEWS,” WILCOXSON SAID OVER THE CELL PHONE.
“I’m not going to like this news, am I?” Katie asked. She was walking around Rittenhouse Square, sipping a paper cup of decaffeinated tea, trying hard not to lose her cool. It was getting harder and harder every day—emotions, body temperature, everything out of whack. She was tempted to call Michael, but that was weak. She just got here. She could figure this out by herself.
“No. The latest deal fell through.”
She knew the code, but didn’t understand what Henry was saying. The Wachovia bank had been robbed. It was in all of the local papers.
“According to the business section,” she said, “the deal went through.”
“Indeed. Initially. But it fell through during the financing, and someone else stepped in.”
“Someone on the inside?”
“No, an outside company.”
“Who?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know if I should reveal that kind of information, since it hasn’t been reported anywhere. In fact, not even the SEC has receiving filings yet.”
SEC = FBI.
“Fucking tell me,” Katie said.
“Look, let’s have lunch and talk about this in greater detail. There are other options for you. And your family.”
“Who the fuck was it, Henry?”
He sighed. “Your husband wouldn’t like me discussing his business with you like this, but all things considered, maybe it’s better you hear it from me. It was a foreign company, with increasing financial interests in this part of the state.”
“Do you mean the company based in Milan?”
“No. Uh … St. Petersburg.”
Katie was silent. Russians?
What were the Russians doing involved in this? Think, think. The hijacked funding was meant for urban renewal. Maybe the Russian mob had their hand on the building and trades folks, or were on tap to do the demolitions. Shit. Katie knew little about Philadelphia—just the physical layout and a few rudimentary historical facts, such as the fact that the Italian mob had been decimated in this town over the past twenty years. Katie had no idea the Russians were such a force. Think. What was their interest here? How did they find out about the heist?
And what did they do with Patrick?
“Do you have a PR contact for that company?”
“Oh Jesus,” Wilcoxson said. “Katie, no.”
A
HALF HOUR MUST HAVE PASSED. LENNON COULD feel the blood spurting out of his shoulder in slow, steady waves. He grew bored with making an inventory of the items in his captor’s garage—channel locks, hammers, picture frames, band saw, power screwdriver … but at least it kept his mind off Katie. For a few moments. Until he started thinking about Katie again.
HALF HOUR MUST HAVE PASSED. LENNON COULD feel the blood spurting out of his shoulder in slow, steady waves. He grew bored with making an inventory of the items in his captor’s garage—channel locks, hammers, picture frames, band saw, power screwdriver … but at least it kept his mind off Katie. For a few moments. Until he started thinking about Katie again.
Lennon had to rethink this. There was some other leak—not Katie.
Why, then, did she pop into his head the first moment he realized there’d been a double cross?
Her behavior over the past month. Weird. Katie was not a secretive girl—not to him, anyway. It wasn’t one huge thing, just a series of small, seemingly inconsequential things. Sudden errands to run. Phone calls that suddenly turned polite after he returned home. The “history” on their Internet browser routinely erased.
Stop it, Lennon. Think about who else could have sold you out. Not Bling. Bling was dead.
But you didn’t open the body bag, did you? You don’t even know both body bags went down the pipe. Where were Holden and Bling during the crash? The backseat. Where did the van hit? Pretty much Lennon’s driver’s side door. Did the crash knock Holden and Bling out? Or did Holden and Bling owe the Russian mob money, and decide to cash in their getaway driver to settle the debt?
No, not Bling. Bling was almost as ridiculous as Katie.
Unless it was Bling and Katie.
No.
Think about the bleeding first. How to stop the bleeding. How to get unstrapped from this table. How to get the hell out of this garage.
Then answers.
A door opened behind him. “I can’t believe it,” a voice said. “Pat, are you still awake?”
Lennon stared at the ceiling.
Someone slapped him in the face. “Hey, come on. Don’t be rude. I’ve brought along a friend. Patrick Selway Lennon, bank robber and fugitive, meet the man who’s going to get a few answers out of you.”
The other guy walked around the table, eyeing Lennon up and down. He was a big guy. Not fat or especially strong-looking, just big and wide and tall. He had a thick black moustache tucked under his nose, a sleepy-eyed expression on his face, and a Borsalino hat on his head. The man looked tired, mean, and permanently rumpled.
“Say hi, Pat,” the ex-cop said. “Oh, that’s right, I forgot. Sorry.”
The big guy turned away and started looking around the garage. “You got a drop cloth or something?”
“Hmmm. I don’t know. Wait—I painted the back bedroom a few months ago, and the set came with a plastic drop cloth. Never use ’em, because they’re for shit. Will that do?”
“Yeah. Unfold it and put it over here, to his right, on the floor and over anything you don’t want splattered.”
His captor found the plastic drop cloth and unwrapped it. His big pal unholstered a Sig Sauer pistol from under his right arm and yanked back, popping one into the chamber. His captor dropped out of Lennon’s sight. There was the sound of crinkling plastic.
“Hey, Saugherty.”
The captor’s head popped up. “Huh?”
The big guy aimed and shot Saugherty in the chest. The man’s fingers tensed on the table, scraping at the surface, and then his head flopped forward, as if on a hinge that suddenly decided to unfold the wrong way. Then a gurgle, fingers slipping from the table, then a thud on the floor.
Lennon looked up at the big guy.
The big guy stared back at him. “What, you waiting for an explanation ?”
Lennon stared at him.
“Well, this is gonna be an extremely disappointing day for you.”
The big guy disappeared and walked up the steps. The floorboards above creaked. He started making a phone call.
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