I must have shown a pretty strong reaction because he laughed again. “C’mon Gregor,” he said. “You were thinking it earlier. The words are coming back. That’s the start. You’re beginning to communicate with yourself.” He took another bite of his cheeseburger. “The sooner, the better.” Then he stopped chewing and his eyebrows shot up. “What is it?”
He’d made me nervous so I’d started shuffling the paper-when I get nervous and there’s no TV to stare at, I move things around, and all I had to play with at the moment was the newspaper. On the front page of the national section was an article about yesterday’s helicopter crash. The picture alongside it was taken at a press conference in front of L Corp Headquarters.
I was staring at the picture-I couldn’t help it, though I didn’t know why at first. And then I recognized what had grabbed me-the logo, the logo on the front of the building. I was staring at it in the newspaper but in my head, I was seeing the logo on a different background-greenish stiff paper, a rectangular strip of paper with computer cutouts stamped into the bottom edge-the green stiff paper of Miriam Fine’s paystub, on her perfect neat desk, where I’d seen it just an hour earlier.
And then my head went hot again and Renn leaned back in his seat and exhaled hard. “She works for L Corp,” he whistled. “Does that mean they all work for L Corp? The whole blue-nylon brigade?” He stared out the window now, a long way out the window, considering, gathering himself.
“Okay,” he said finally, “we’ve got to disappear for a while. Until we can figure out the next couple of steps.”
He pulled out the map and studied it for a few minutes. “C’mon,” he said and we headed out toward the parking lot.
Right outside the door, a dumpy-looking guy in a hardhat got out of his Cherokee and walked away, leaving the thing idling behind him.
“What happens when he remembers?” I asked as we pulled onto the highway.
“He won’t,” Max answered. “He’ll remember going into the men’s room and coming out to find the car gone.” He put his foot down and we pulled away from traffic, heading North. “I need what I need,” he said, “but I’m not sloppy with people. He’ll be okay. Now let’s take care of money.”
“They have ATM’s at the rest stop.”
He shook his head. “We need a bank. They can track your location from an ATM withdrawal.”
“Taking it out of a bank is different?”
“It is if you take it from someone else’s account.”
A few blocks later, we walked into an old-fashioned bank, with marble floors, dark wood booths and cathedral-type windows, a bank being just a church for money anyway. Teller windows filled the back wall but all but two of them were empty.
Max went immediately to the far side of the lobby, where the senior offices stood behind etched-glass doors. The first opened as we approached, and a slim, balding, depressed-looking man appeared, carefully neatening the creases around the shoulders of his blue suit and wearing a face that said he was expecting someone.
“Mr. Guernsey-” Max began while Guernsey’s expression wavering somewhere between polite tolerance and Do I know you? Max laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and Guernsey immediately stood four inches taller and smiled like Max was the long-lost cousin who hit Lotto.
“Can we talk privately?”
Guernsey ushered us into his office, bubbling over with good to see you and all that fizz.
The office dated to when a bank officer was a big man, having built half the town or at least paid for the building. A mahogany desk hovered on shiny brass feet in front of a brand-new untouched-by-man puffy black leather couch, four guest chairs, three large file cabinets and a safe. No cubicles for Mr. Guernsey, nossir-he was landed gentry. He settled behind the desk and affected a look that suggested he was actually interested.
“So how can I help you gentlemen?”
“Your trust in Ms. Rand is misplaced,” Max told him brusquely.
“Ms. Rand is in the back at the moment,” Guernsey replied and it was obvious that he wasn’t interested in hearing what Max had said. “I asked if I could help you?”
Max leaned forward in his chair; Guernsey did the same in response.
“Ms. Rand has been holding back several commercial deposits half a day and investing the money on her own behalf,” Max announced in a stage whisper. “She’s chosen to loot accounts with heavy activity, where it’ll take time for anyone to notice. She’s also been skimming currency transactions in several — ”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Guernsey demanded, standing up like someone had goosed him.
“Here are the accounts she’s set up for herself and her balances in each,” Max said, pulling a piece of scratch paper from Guernsey’s desk blotter, scribbling some numbers and handing it back to him. “She’s been at it for eight months. If you check, you’ll see she’s into you for almost a quarter-million.”
“This is absurd,” Guernsey flushed. “I trust Ms. Rand with-”
“Your job?” Max asked and that shut the fat goose up for a moment. He threw Guernsey his heat-your-skull look and all the sharpness in Guernsey’s expression disappeared. “Check the accounts.”
“Check the accounts,” Guernsey mumbled a half-second behind. We waited while he tapped away at his computer, his eyes widening and collar getting tighter by the minute.
“This started when you two got back from Atlanta,” Max said quietly while Guernsey seemed to be calculating the odds of killing himself jumping off a three-story building. “You’ll have to explain that weekend trip to your superiors, but it’ll play a whole lot better if you catch her before the auditors do.”
“Before the auditors…” Guernsey mumbled on a one-second lag. He’d turned the color of the diploma on the wall. “George-get me a bank check for ‘Cash’, would you? No, no, discretionary expenses-just bring it for my signature.”
About halfway through, I realized I heard another voice echoing behind Guernsey’s; I looked over and Max was mouthing the words, again a half-second ahead of him. I would have sworn no sound was coming out of his mouth, it was just in the air somehow.
George came through in a minute, very green and obsequious, bearing the check. Guernsey filled in the figure and signed it. “Cash this for Mr. Granville here, will you?” Guernsey ordered.
George just stood there, staring. I got the feeling maybe this was a little irregular.
“ID?” George squeezed through tightly pursed lips.
“Obviously, he’s provided me with adequate ID. Get going!” Guernsey said heavily and George rushed off, returned with the money neatly folded into two envelopes and disappeared just as fast.
Guernsey sat staring at his desk blotter, the morose look deepening on his face. “I trusted her,” he said helplessly, to no one in particular.
“Remember that when you confront her,” Max answered. “Our fee is half the interest on her bogus investments-not unreasonable.”
Guernsey mumbled ‘not unreasonable’ behind him but he was slurring now.
“If you only tell them about her first two accounts, the money you recover should cover our finder’s fee,” Max said, touching Guernsey on the forehead again. “This way, we’ll stay anonymous.”
“Mr. Anonymous,” Guernsey mumbled, “and his brother, Mr. and Mr. Anonymous.” He checked to see if we were smiling at his little joke.
It was all I could do to keep from running to the car. Once we got inside, I collapsed in the passenger’s seat, puffing like a tugboat. He started talking to me about the route, and I thought, he’s trying to keep my mind off — off what? Off something. Of course, once that occurs to you, the next thought is to try to figure out what.