‘I’ve heard of it, yes,’ I said, feeding out some truth in case Krantz’s agents had already questioned the glittered receptionist.
‘Phelps told you about Second Securities?’ he said, watching my face, still testing.
‘I got the name from an insurance company contact.’
‘Did you get an address?’
‘I’ll check my file.’
‘Cut the crap, Elstrom. Second Securities is on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. They wired the Barberi and Whitman payouts to a bank on Grand Cayman. That money is gone. But the Carson check was converted to cash at an outfit laundry in Chicago.’
‘An outfit laundry?’ I asked, as though I’d never heard the term for a mob-controlled bank that converts checks into cash for people with connections.
‘We’re thinking that since Lamm’s been hiding out, it was likely his partner Phelps who ran the check through the laundry.’
‘You’re trying to pin things on the wrong guy, Krantz.’
‘If Phelps is so innocent, then where is he?’
‘Maybe dead,’ I said, thinking of the car at Second Securities. I really needed to talk to Leo.
A faint, smug smile had formed on his face. He might have had more against Wendell; he might have been bluffing. I wanted to smash that smugness with a hammer, but all I had were words.
‘You put a brick on Lamm’s passport?’ I asked.
His smile broadened from smug to obnoxious. ‘Some trouble with Homeland Security.’
‘Bricking Lamm’s passport was your way of preventing Lamm from going to Grand Cayman to get at the Barberi and Whitman payouts?’
‘Four million, total. Damned shame,’ he said.
‘When did you put the brick on his passport?’
‘First of this year.’ He wanted to crow.
‘Wait until Keller reports that you singlehandedly got Carson killed six weeks later. You made Lamm hang around to kill again – Carson this time – for new getaway cash. If you hadn’t bricked Lamm’s passport, he would have been long gone to Grand Cayman, and Grant Carson would still be alive.’ I smiled. ‘Details will be following.’
The maddening smile flickered, but not his self-righteous calm. His hand was steady as he poured himself more coffee. ‘About that Carson cash… that money I said we found in Phelps’s Buick?’
‘A million.’
Leo shifted abruptly in his chair, Krantz’s smile widened, and I knew, in an instant, that I’d slipped.
Krantz pounced. ‘I never said how much was in that case.’
‘I’ve been sedated,’ I offered, too feebly and too late.
‘I just told you the Carson payout was for two million, Elstrom. We found only half of that in the Buick. We’re thinking that was Lamm’s share, fifty per cent, which Canty got by killing Lamm. Question is: who’s got the other million? Answer: Wendell Phelps.’
‘Wendell doesn’t need a new million. He’s got hundreds of them already.’
‘It was Phelps’s car you pushed in the river.’
‘That day you called Wendell, to set up an interview?’ I asked.
‘He blew me off.’
‘How hard did you lean on him? Did you threaten him, tell him he would do time for Lamm’s crimes?’
‘I might have.’ Still the bastard smirked.
‘You set Phelps off like a live grenade, Krantz. He didn’t simply skip his appointment with you. Most likely, he charged right up here to confront Lamm, a man who’d been his friend for years, for setting him up. Knowing Wendell just a little, he probably planned on throwing Lamm in his trunk and driving him back to Chicago to deliver to you.’
‘Nice try, Elstrom. Phelps didn’t leave until two days after we set up our appointment. Phelps came up here to collect his half of the Carson payout.’
‘Then Richie Bales enticed Wendell to drive up to help his old friend. Remember, there was nothing on the news that Richie, the infamous Delray Delmar, was impersonating a Chicago police officer when Wendell took off from home. So far as Wendell knew, Delray Delmar was a real cop.’
‘You’re trying awfully hard to come up with excuses for your father-in-law.’
‘Find Lamm. And find Wendell, if you can find him still alive.’ I looked away.
‘We’re getting warrants to search Second Securities,’ he said, to the back of my head.
‘Enlightenment looms,’ I managed, through teeth that surprisingly had not started chattering.
Amanda came into the room.
Krantz, the gentleman, stood up. ‘Ms Phelps,’ he said.
‘Secret Agent,’ she said.
Krantz turned to me. ‘I’m going to think about what you’ve told me,’ he said. ‘Very carefully. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
He nodded at Leo and Amanda and started to leave. But he stopped at the door. ‘Any news about your father, Ms Phelps?’ he asked.
She frowned. He left.
‘There’s a ski resort two miles outside of Bent Lake,’ Amanda said. ‘Plenty of rooms.’
‘I heard it was closed,’ I said.
‘They were thinking about closing for the season, but changed their minds when I said we’d need lodging.’
Leo’s eyebrows rose.
‘Dek won’t be staying there at all,’ she said, mock-frowning at Leo, ever the romantic. She turned to me. ‘Leo and I will stay there tonight. The doctor said you can leave tomorrow. Leo will drive you home and I’ll stay on up here, until something is learned about my father.’
‘I’m getting out of here now,’ I said.
‘You can’t,’ Amanda said.
‘You’re nuts,’ Leo said.
‘I’m ready,’ I said, because now I had no choice.
SIXTY-FIVE
It was night, just past nine o’clock, before I got out of the clinic and then only with dire warnings of my likely demise from infection.
‘I expected Amanda would be hauling you back to Rivertown horizontally, like truck-smacked venison,’ Leo said, explaining the long Cadillac Escalade he’d rented for the drive up. Amanda had parked it behind the Jeep at the front of the clinic.
‘I don’t know if I trust you driving my Jeep back to Chicago,’ I said.
‘It’s a wonder it still runs,’ he said. ‘Or why.’
I maneuvered myself up onto the Cadillac’s passenger seat and handed him my crutches to toss in back. My wounds weren’t much – a gunshot that missed bone in my left arm and ligaments torn in both legs from straining to throttle the Jeep into the Buick while trying to lie beneath Canty’s gunfire. But working the Jeep’s clutch and shifter was out of the question for a couple of weeks.
‘You noted the extent of the Jeep’s damage?’ Leo asked, trying for light as I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to go away. ‘To restore it to its previous, uh, condition, you’ll have to find a used fender in cracked, faded black plastic; a used front bumper, also faded black, but in rusted metal. You’ll need a radiator cover and a hood in the same tarty red, if you can find one mottled with enough of the aforementioned rust to match the rest of your heap. The whole repair shouldn’t set you back more than two hundred bucks.’
Amanda would be coming out at any moment. ‘You forgot to take off the spare tire,’ I said.
‘Ah, yes, the spare.’ He left me to hustle forward in the Escalade’s headlamp beams.
Amanda came out of the clinic holding a big white envelope with my medical instructions and pills. She went up to Leo, who’d taken out a lug wrench and was removing the Jeep’s spare tire. He shook his head and jerked a thumb back at me. She shrugged, gave him a hug, and came to slide in behind the wheel of the Cadillac.
‘He won’t tell me what he’s doing,’ she said.
‘Putting my spare tire into the back of this thing for the night,’ I said.
He came back and tossed the Jeep’s spare in the back of the Escalade.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘The tire is out of air.’
‘Is that supposed to make sense?’ she asked.
‘Must be the meds,’ I said, patting my pockets like I was missing something. ‘I think I left my phone in my room.’