As always, his computer sorted options and retraced movements, calculating the time it would take the authorities to follow his paper trail along the interstate highway. He felt fairly confident that he'd lost his trackers, but for once Bunkowski couldn't have been more wrong.
Blue Springs, Missouri
In the parking lot of a shopping mall down the highway from Blue Springs Antiques Barn, the gigantic killer pulled out photocopies of ads, familiarizing himself with his merchandise, both real and imagined, seeing where the holes were in his presentations.
The first auction would be Wednesday night at six P.M., closing at midnight, Central Daylight Savings Time. By then the results of the first series of letters would have arrived and the collectors wishing to respond could reach Elaine Roach by telephone.
These were memorabilia collectors of one kind or another whose ads Tommy Norville had seen in various publications. It didn't matter what you were looking for, so long as it was shippable, the Norville Galleries probably had it: militaria, clocks, china, cut glass, French cameo, antique firearms, Indian Americana. Name a category and he stocked it in depth. Your top want, in each instance, was the item that caught his expert eye. You were prepared to pay the maximum for X item and he had X item in his next auction—what a coincidence! You could phone your bid in Wednesday night. In some cases, he even sent a Polaroid of the item in stock.
The ideal merch was something for which ten different collectors across the country lusted. By some coincidence again—on those particular items—there would be ten winners! He looked at the ads and computed the logistics of the come-on. First there would be a week while the invoices were mailed out to the winners. Allow another ten days for all those "winning" bidders to respond with their remittances, and he estimated a three—to three-and-a-half-week window between that moment and the time the money was in his pocket.
He was already sending in the ads for the direct priced-sale offering of collectible weaponry that would run more or less simultaneously. Tommy Norville had learned all these fields in the same way he'd learned everything else of a survival nature, and he knew everything from toxicology to locksmithing; he'd force-fed it to his brain.
For the past week, he'd been all over the Kansas City area, driving as far as fifty miles out to visit promising shops and galleries, photographing rare merchandise. Especially weapons. He'd even taken a few illicit shots in museums. The dealer's shops were much more lenient about permitting a would-be customer to "keep a visual record" of such-and such for his files. He'd learned there were dealers called "runners" who used such a technique, finding scarce items, running to find a buyer, then running back to buy the item only if they had a money-in-hand sale.
He read ".69-caliber flintlocks. Beautifully dec. 18th century. Gold-washed barrels and mounts." The rare pair of cased weapons represented an expenditure of $6.50 in gasoline, Polaroid film, and a flashbulb.
"Unique .55-caliber flintlock has solid ivory stock with silver and gilt inlays, enamel niello work and gorgeous cloisonné. Clean, superb, no cracks. Ivory ramrod is original. Fourteen-inch barrel octagonal at the breech. Lockplate has no bridle on frizzen. Ivory stock/carved dragon's head butt makes this a museum-quality flintlock." A gun collector's wet dream. Indeed, it was museum quality, all right. The nearby Patee Museum is where he'd obtained the photo.
The next half dozen with pictures were firearms that could actually be purchased from dealers within ten to fifty miles: an unusual wheellock from around 1600; a Japanese matchlock long rifle from the same time period, dripping in ornate brasswork; a little sterling sash pistol; a sheathed hunting sword dated 1550. Pieces Tommy Norville could actually buy and sell. Weapons with checkable histories to lend credibility to his scam.
The remainder of the auction was composed of fantasies, pure artifacts of the imagination, and scarce goodies with pictures and/or descriptions cribbed from other collectibles auctions.
". 58-cal. cased set of flintlock duellers by Wogdon. Extraordinary presentation set marked 'to the inestimable Conan Doyle from his admirer.' Signed Wogdon. Museum qu. pair of cased duellers. Pristine mint, lavish gilt and sterling inlays on long, slim barrels. Gold-lined b. vents. Set, complete with documentation from the author's estate, accompanied by engraved, gold powder flask rod, and inlaid bullet mold. Rare wood presentation case with brass corners, carved Sherlock Holmes image on lid of case, marked inside, Wogdon, London."
A more experienced weapons buff would have realized that Wogdon was not making cased dueling pistols when the creator of Holmes and Watson was alive, but nobody's perfect.
Fantasy listings would be certain to elicit a few outstanding bids, and they would gain attention for the priced-sale items to be offered at the same time.
When the first week to ten days' worth of remittances from the auction and the sale ads had been banked by the trustworthy Miss Roach, Tommy Norville would have her make a withdrawal. Shortly thereafter, the up and coming antique weapons dealer who ran the auction galleries would cease to exist.
A dissimilar-appearing but equally large man had once hired a nice lady to aid him in much the same type of enterprise, working from a nearby post-office drawer she had rented, and utilizing a bank account and telephone in her name. He'd netted over eleven thousand dollars profit from two sales of "rare regulator and advertising clocks."
When a chief postal inspector and local authorities finally got around to following this paper trail, they'd end up with a perplexed Elaine Roach, whose sissified Tommy Norville description would be somewhat at odds with the tenant of the upstairs office on East Minnesota Avenue, should they even track him to that particular lair. It was all most confusing. Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski was rebuilding his war treasury.
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3
The next few days found Daniel Bunkowski busy with the details of his mail-order scam, and searching for a likely rental location for his safe house. Because the East Minnesota Avenue office had running water and toilet facilities, he could make do with a sleeping bag on the floor for a couple of weeks. Sometime in the next three weeks, however, he needed to find a suitable place where he could hunker down when he "ran his traps," courtesy of Elaine Roach, and pulled the lion's share of money out of his auction remittances. At that point he needed to vanish.
An extremely large but well-spoken gentleman with a full beard, who did something academic and terribly vague for a living, put a deposit on a small rental property in Overland Park. Two months in advance, as agreed, with the first month's rent effective in thirty days. It was adequate for his needs of the moment, and the terms fit his window of logistics. If he had to bail out in three weeks rather than four he could always extemporize for a few days. He was the very definition of "field expedient."
With safe house rented, office and temporary dwelling paid for, ads in the mail, Elaine Roach with her nominal make-work, letters of auction solicitation out, Bunkowski had time. Time to kill, that is.
For the first time since they'd freed him from Max Security in Marion, Illinois, once again blessed with an official sanction to go out there and take lives, he'd analyzed his choice of an escape route. As always, he made such decisions instinctively, but with the constant spoonfed data from his mental computer, acting in sync with whatever presentient vibes were brought forth.
It had been the most natural thing to decide on a northerly course as an exfiltration route from Southeast Missouri. When the Waterton spree reached a climax he'd prepared a suitable identity, legal wheels, and without much analysis headed for Kansas City. Now, with a bit of time on his hands, he could ponder the why of it. He'd been heading for Kansas City, perhaps, because it was home, as much as the beast could be said to have a home.