"Never heard that before," he said. "Hang on, I'll give it a shot."
He put me on Hold. Across the room, Michael Jackson peeked at me through the fingers of his white glove. Bellamy came back on the line and said, "Damn if it didn't work. 'Code Five emergency.' Cut right through the bullshit. She came up with the password. Lemme enter it.
There you go. Now what was that license number?"
I gave it to him.
"Let's just see what we get. Okay, didn't take long. Vehicle is a Eighty-eight Honda Civic two-door, color is pewter… Pewter? Man, why can't they say gray? But you don't care about that. Owner is— you got a pencil? Callander, Raymond Joseph." He spelled the last name.
"Address is Thirty-four Penelope Avenue. That's in Queens, but where in Queens? You ever hear of Penelope Avenue?"
"I don't think so."
"Man, I live in Queens, and it's a new one on me. Wait, here's the zip. One-one-three-seven-nine. That's Middle Village, innit? Never heard of no Penelope Avenue."
"I'll find it."
"Yeah, well, I guess you're motivated, aren't you? Hope nobody in the car was hurt."
"No, just a little body damage."
"Nail him good, leaving the scene like that. Other hand, you report it and your friend's insurance rates go up. Best thing might be if you and him can work something out private, but that's probably what you got in mind, huh?" He chuckled. "Code Five," he said. "Man, that really lit a fire under that girl. I owe you for that."
"My pleasure."
"No, I really mean it. I run into problems with this thing all the time. That's gonna save me a lot of major headaches."
"Well, if you really figure you owe me—"
"Go ahead."
"I just wondered if he had a sheet, our Mr. Callander."
"Now that's easy to check. Don't have to call a Code Five 'cause I happen to know that entry code.
Hang on now. Nope."
"Nothing?"
"Far as the state of New York is concerned, he's a Boy Scout. Code Five. What's it mean, anyway?"
"Let's just say it's high level."
"I guess."
"If you get a hard time," I heard myself say, "just tell them they're supposed to know that a Code Five supersedes and countermands their standing instructions."
"Supersedes and countermands?"
"That's it."
"Supersedes and countermands their standing instructions."
"You got it. But don't use it on routine matters."
"God no," he said. "Wouldn't want to wear it out."
FOR a moment there I'd thought we had a bead on him. I had a name now, and an address, but it wasn't the address I wanted. They were somewhere in Sunset Park, in Brooklyn. The address was somewhere in Middle Village, in Queens.
I called Queens Information and dialed the number given to me.
The phone made that sound they've developed, somewhere between a tone and a squawk, and a recording told me the number I had reached was no longer in service. I called information again and reported this, and the operator checked and told me that the termination of service was recent and the listing had not been deleted yet. I asked if there was a new number. She said there was not. I asked if she could tell me when service had been terminated and she said she couldn't.
I called Brooklyn Information and tried to find a listing for a Raymond Callander, or an R or RJ
Callander. The operator pointed out that there were other ways to spell that last name, and checked more possibilities than would have occurred to me. Spelled one way or another, there were a couple of listings for R and one RJ, but the addresses were way off, one on Meserole in Greenpoint, another way over in Brownsville, none of them anywhere near Sunset Park.
Maddening, but then the whole case had been like that from the beginning. I kept getting teased, making major breakthroughs that didn't really lead anywhere. Turning up Pam Cassidy had been the best example. From out of nowhere we'd managed to produce a living witness, and the bottom-line result of that was that the cops had taken three dead cases and shoved them all into a single open file.
Pam had provided a first name. Now I had a last name to go with it, and even a middle name, all thanks to TJ with an assist from Bellamy.
I had an address, too, but it had probably stopped being valid at about the time the phone was disconnected.
He wouldn't be all that hard to find. It's easier when you know who you're looking for. I had enough now to find him, if I was able to wait until daytime, and if I could allow a few days for the search.
But that wasn't good enough. I wanted to find him now.
IN the living room, Kenan was on the phone, Peter at the window.
I didn't see Yuri. I joined Peter, and he told me that Yuri had gone out to look for more money.
"I couldn't look at the money," he said. "I was getting an anxiety attack. Rapid heartbeat, cold damp hands, the whole bit."
"What was the fear?"
"Fear? I don't know. It just made me want to do some dope, that's all. You gave me a word-association test right now, every response'd be heroin. A Rorschach, every ink-blot'd look like some dope fiend bangin'
himself in a vein."
"But you're not doing it, Pete."
"What's the difference, man? I know I'm gonna. All it is is a question of when. Beautiful out there, isn't it?"
"The ocean?"
He nodded. "Only you can't really see it anymore. Must be nice living where you can look out at water. I had a girlfriend once, she was into astrology, told me that's my element, water. You believe in that stuff?"
"I don't know much about it."
"She was right that it's my element. I don't like the others too much. Air, I never liked to fly. Wouldn't want to burn up in a fire or be buried in the earth. But the sea, that's the mother of us all, isn't that what they say?"
"I guess."
"That's the ocean out there, too. Not a river or a bay. That's just nothing but water, straight on out, farther than you can see. Makes me feel clean just to look at it."
I clapped him on the shoulder and left him looking at the ocean.
Kenan was off the phone, and I went to ask him how the count stood.
"We got a shade under half of it," he said. "I been calling in every favor I got coming and Yuri's been doing the same. I got to tell you, I don't think we're going to find a whole lot more."
"The only person I can think of is in Ireland. I hope this looks like a million, that's all. All it has to do is get past whatever rough count they give it on the spot."
"Suppose we shoot some air into it. If every pack of hundreds is short five bills, you got a tenth again more packs."
"Which is fine unless they pick one pack at random and spot-count it."
"Good point," he said. "First glance, this is going to look like a good deal more than what I handed over to them. That was all hundreds.
This has about twenty-five percent of the total in fifties. You know there's a way to make it look like a lot more than it is."
"Bulk it up with cut paper."
"I was thinking with singles. The paper's right, the color, everything but the denomination. Say you got a stack, supposed to be fifty hundred-dollar bills, total of five grand. You dummy it up with ten hundreds
on top and ten on the bottom and fill in with thirty singles. 'Stead of five grand you have a little over two grand looking like five. Fan it, all you see is green."
"Same problem. It works unless you take a good look at one of the dummied-up packets. Then you see it's not what it's supposed to be, and you know right away, no argument, that it was phonied up that way to fool you. And if you're a nut case to begin with, and you've been looking for an excuse to murder all night long—"
"You kill the girl, bang, and it's over."
"That's the trouble with anything flagrant. If it looks as though we're trying to screw them—"
"They'll take it personally." He nodded. "Maybe they won't count the stacks. You got fifties and hundreds mixed, five thousand to a stack, half that in a stack of fifties, how many stacks are we talking if we come in at half a mil? A hundred if it's all hundreds, so call it a hundred and twenty, thirty, something like that?"