"Who is it?" a woman asked.
"The manager," Andy replied, proud of his title. The door opened, and the man who favored the composite of Mitchell Y. McDeere slid out.
"Yes, sir," he said. "What's going on?"
He was nervous, Andy could tell. "Cops just came by, know what I mean?"
"What do they want?" he asked innocently.
Your ass, Andy thought. "Just asking questions and showing pictures. I looked at the pictures, you know?"
"Uh-huh," he said.
"Pretty good pictures," Andy said.
Mr. McDeere stared at Andy real hard.
Andy said, "Cop said one of them escaped from prison. Know what I mean? I been in prison, and I think everybody ought to escape. You know?"
Mr. McDeere smiled, a rather nervous smile. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Andy."
"I've got a deal for you, Andy. I'll give you a thousand bucks now, and tomorrow, if you're still unable to recognize anybody, I'll give you another thousand bucks. Same for the next day."
A wonderful deal, thought Andy, but if he could afford a thousand bucks a day, certainly he could afford five thousand a day. It was the opportunity of his career.
"Nope," Andy said firmly. "Five thousand a day."
Mr. McDeere never hesitated. "It's a deal. Let me get the money." He went in the room and returned with a stack of bills.
"Five thousand a day, Andy, that's our deal?"
Andy took the money and glanced around. He would count it later. "I guess you want me to keep the maids away?" Andy asked.
"Great idea. That would be nice."
"Another five thousand," Andy said.
Mr. McDeere sort of hesitated. "Okay, I've got another deal. Tomorrow morning, a Fed Ex package will arrive at the desk for Sam Fortune. You bring it to me, and keep the maids away, and I'll give you another five thousand."
"Won't work. I do the night shift."
"Okay, Andy. What if you worked all weekend, around the clock, kept the maids away and delivered my package? Can you do that?"
"Sure. My boss is a drunk. He'd love for me to work all weekend."
"How much money, Andy?"
Go for it, Andy thought. "Another twenty thousand."
Mr. McDeere smiled. "You got it."
Andy grinned and stuck the money in his pocket. He walked away without saying a word, and Mitch retreated to Room 38.
"Who was it?" Ray snapped.
Mitch smiled as he glanced between the blinds and the windows.
"I knew we would have to have a lucky break to pull this off. And I think we just found it."
Chapter 38
Mr. Morolto wore a black suit and a red tie and sat at the head of the plastic-coated executive conference table in the Dunes Room of the Best Western on the Strip. The twenty chairs around the table were packed with his best and brightest men. Around the four walls stood more of his trusted troops. Though they were thick-necked killers who did their deeds efficiently and without remorse, they looked like clowns in their colorful shirts and wild shorts and amazing potpourri of straw hats. He would have smiled at their silliness, but the urgency of the moment prevented smiling. He was listening.
On his immediate right was Lou Lazarov, and on his immediate left was DeVasher, and every ear in the small room listened as the two played tag team back and forth across the table.
"They're here. I know they're here," DeVasher said dramatically, slapping both palms on the table with each syllable. The man had rhythm.
Lazarov's turn: "I agree. They're here. Two came in a car, one came in a truck. We've found both vehicles abandoned, covered with fingerprints. Yes, they're here."
DeVasher: "But why Panama City Beach? It makes no sense."
Lazarov: "For one, he's been here before. Came here Christmas, remember? He's familiar with this place, so he figures with all these cheap motels on the beach it's a great place to hide for a while. Not a bad idea, really. But he's had some bad luck. For a man on the run, he's carrying too much baggage, like a brother who everybody wants. And a wife. And a truckload of documents, we presume. Typical schoolboy mentality. If I gotta run, I'm taking everybody who loves me. Then his brother rapes a girl, they think, and suddenly every cop in Alabama and Florida is looking for them. Some pretty bad luck, really."
"What about his mother?" Mr. Morolto asked.
Lazarov and DeVasher nodded at the great man and acknowledged this very intelligent question.
Lazarov: "No, purely coincidental. She's a very simple woman who serves waffles and knows nothing. We've watched her since we got here."
DeVasher: "I agree. There's been no contact."
Morolto nodded intelligently and lit a cigarette.
Lazarov: "So if they're here, and we know they're here, then the feds and the cops also know they're here. We've got sixty people here, and they got hundreds. Odds are on them."
"You're sure they're all three together?" Mr. Morolto asked.
DeVasher: "Absolutely. We know the woman and the convict checked in the same night at Perdido, that they left and three hours later she checked in here at the Holiday Inn and paid cash for two rooms and that she rented the car and his fingerprints were on it. No doubt. We know Mitch rented a U-Haul Wednesday in Nashville, that he wired ten million bucks of our money into a bank in Nashville Thursday morning and then evidently hauled ass. The U-Haul was found here four hours ago. Yes, sir, they are together."
Lazarov: "If he left Nashville immediately after the money was wired, he would have arrived here around dark. The U-Haul was found empty, so they had to unload it somewhere around here, then hide it. That was probably sometime late last night, Thursday. Now, you gotta figure they need to sleep sometime. I figure they stayed here last night with plans of moving on today. But they woke up this morning and their faces were in the paper, cops running around bumping into each other, and suddenly the roads were blocked. So they're trapped here."
DeVasher: "To get out, they've got to borrow, rent or steal a car. No rental records anywhere around here. She rented a car in Mobile in her name. Mitch rented a U-Haul in Nashville in his name. Real proper ID. So you gotta figure they ain't that damned smart after all."
Lazarov: "Evidently they don't have fake IDs. If they rented a car around here for the escape, the rental records would be in the real name. No such records exist."
Mr. Morolto waved his hand in frustration. "All right, all right. So they're here. You guys are geniuses. I'm so proud of you. Now what?"
DeVasher's turn: "The Fibbies are in the way. They're in control of the search, and we can't do nothing but sit and watch."
Lazarov: "I've called Memphis. Every senior associate in is on the way down here. They know McDeere and his wife real well, so we'll put them on the beach and in restaurants and hotels. Maybe they'll see something."
DeVasher: "I figure they're in one of the little motels. They can give fake names, pay in cash and nobody'll be suspicious. Fewer people too. Less likelihood of being seen. They checked in at the Holiday Inn but didn't stay long. I bet they moved on down the Strip."
Lazarov: "First, we'll get rid of the feds and the cops. They don't know it yet, but they're about to move their show on down the road. Then, early in the morning, we start door to door at the small motels. Most of these dumps have less than fifty rooms. I figure two of our men can search one in thirty minutes. I know it'll be slow, but we can't just sit here. Maybe when the cops pull out, the McDeeres will breathe a little and make a mistake."