Part 43 (1/2)
”Why do you think people in Cacher are crazy?” Mel asked, thinking to himself that he had no right to ask that question, sitting in a black silk suit in a black car in July in Oklahoma.
He had found precious little in absolute terms as he chased down lead after lead: the inst.i.tutional roots of the Radhakrishnan Inst.i.tute; the fascinating pattern of stock trades surrounding the takeover of Ogle Data Research and Green Biophysical Systems in March; the interlocking directorates of Gale Aeros.p.a.ce, MacIntyre Engineering, Pacific Netware, and the Coover Fund; and the even more shadowy group of very private investment funds that held majority shares in them.
He had even placed intercepts on the lines and numbers of various people, hiring monitors placed in vans near microwave relay towers. Nothing had come up. He had gone through financial reports, he had gone to friends in the FBI, he had tried everything, but he could not find the Network. He had hired private detectives, hehad hired investigative accountants. He had spent a whole month pulling strings and working various connections in order to get his hands on some IRS data that he thought would be promising. It had turned out to be worthless.
The one lead that he had was the G.o.dS envelope that Mary Catherine had pulled from the Cozzanos' burn bag on the night of July fourth. Mary Catherine was the one to blame for his being here.
The envelope did not bear anything as obvious as a return address. It had code numbers instead. G.o.dS was a well-run company, highly centralized, and was not interested in helping Mel decipher those codes. He had provided some financial aid to a financially troubled G.o.dS delivery man in Chicago and eventually gotten the information that the envelope appeared to have been routed through the Joplin Regional Airport in extreme southwest Missouri, near where that state came together with Kansas and Oklahoma.
Mel had spent four days living at a Super 8 Motel on Airport Drive outside of Joplin. He claimed to be a businessman from Saint Louis, working on a big project of some kind. He spent several hundred dollars express-mailing empty packages to an address in Saint Louis, and quickly became a familiar sight to the three people who worked at the Joplin G.o.dS depot.
One of them had informed Mel that he was now their biggest customer. Mel pursued this line of conversation doggedly and got the man to say that they had another fellow across the border in Oklahoma who mailed almost as much as Mel did. Finally, yesterday afternoon, Mel had gotten them to specify a town: Cacher, Oklahoma.
He snapped back to the steamy reality of Miami. The gas station kid was peering at him. ”You okay, mister?”
”Yeah. How's the oil?”
”Fine.” Then, continuing to pursue his endemic insanity theory, he said, ”It's the lead.”
”Lead?”
”Yeah. Even though the lead mines are shut down, Cacher is soaked through with lead pollution, and like we learned in school, that will make you crazy.”
Mel muttered genially, as if this information were fascinating, and handed over his credit card. The kid took it into the battered old station and swiped it through the electronic slot. Their building didn't look like much but they had the latest point-of-purchase electronics.
”You got something else, buddy?” asked the kid with a satisfied leer on his face, waggling the card in the air.
”You've got to pay your bills from time to time, you know . . . just kiddin'.”
Mel was too surprised to be embarra.s.sed. He compulsively paid every bill within twenty-four hours of receipt, especially the national ones. You didn't let bills get overdue. Unlike the people who ran Was.h.i.+ngton, Mel understood that an overdue bill was a club that other people could wave over your head.
”It's a mistake,” he said, ”but why don't you try this one.” He handed the kid another credit card. Once again, it was rejected.
”s.h.i.+t buddy, don't you every pay your bills? What about cash?”
Mel looked in his wallet. It contained several hundred-dollar bills, a ten, and a five. The bill was $16.34.
”Can you break a hundred? Mel asked, already feeling he knew the answer.
The kid yukked it up for a little bit. ”I can't remember the last time I saw a C-note. We never got more than a few bucks in change.”
Down the street, set anachronistically into the sandstone facade of an old bank, was an ATM machine with a familiar logo. Mel took off his jacket, ambled slowly down the street, trying not to get hotter than he was, and stuck his bank card into the slot.
The video screen said PLEASE WAIT.
An alarm bell began ringing on the side of the bank.
A siren began to sound from the direction of the police station in downtown Miami, two blocks away.
Mel lurched back down the street, got to the car, and turned on the ignition.
”Hold it right there, hot shot,” said the kid. Mel looked over and was astounded to see a twelve-gauge pump shotgun cradled in the kid's hands. ”You might as well wait for Harold to come.”
The Miami P.D. patrol car, an aging Caprice, swung around the corner. Mel knew that he could easily outrun it. But it wouldn't be a good idea. Instead he shut off the ignition, and, as a good faith gesture, took the keys out of the ignition and tossed them up on the dashboard, in plain sight. He rolled the window back down and put bothhands on the steering wheel.
A lean, small, pox-faced cop emerged reluctantly from the Caprice, winced from the heat, and walked over toward Mel, moving with exaggerated slowness.
”Harold, I presume.” Mel said, when he got close enough.
”What we got here li'l buddy?” Harold said to the kid.
”Looks like it's credit card fraud to me,” said the kid.
”Come on out of there, fellow,” said Harold, shooting a mean, judgmental look at Mel. ”Don't make a bad thing worse for you.”
Mel was p.i.s.sed off, hopelessly out of any chance to control things. He eased out of the car, frustrated, frightened, feeling helpless for the first time in years, and said, ”I don't know what the h.e.l.l has happened.”
”Nothing yet, and nothing will, unless you do something stupid.”
”All I want is to pay for my gas and go to Cacher.”
Harold looked at the kid and said, ”Why in the name of G.o.d would anybody want to go to Cacher?” Mel knew what was coming next, Harold said it anyway. ”Ain't n.o.body there, but a bunch of loony-tunes.”
Mel said, ”Let me talk to you straight.” He had spent enough time downstate to know that this att.i.tude might be appreciated. ”I'm not trying to pull a fast one, and I don't know why none of my cards don't work.
Look, take the AMEX, call the eight hundred number and you'll see I've got a huge line of credit, and Texaco's been all paid up, and I don't know why the ATM went crazy.”
Harold looked at him and then at the kid. ”He broke any laws?”
”Not exactly.”
”Fella, you look decent enough. Let's go rescue your bank card and send you on your way out of town.”
They strolled down to the bank, which had closed at three o'clock. Harold banged on the front door, and a Big Hair Girl peered out the door.
”Honey, your machine's done eaten this man's card. Think you could dig it out so's he could leave to go to” - and here Harold could not keep a straight face - ”Cacher.”
”Cacher,” she shrieked, ”who the h.e.l.l would want to go there?” Mel by this time had heard all he wanted to about the deficiencies of Cacher and simply said, ”I've got some relatives out there.”
Honey retreated into the bank, opened up the machine from the back side, and retrieved Mel's card. ”Before I can let you have this, mister, I got to make sure you're who you say you are,” she said. She sat down at a desk, called Chicago, asked a few questions, whistled, shook her head in wonderment.
”Buddy,” she said, handing the card over, ”I'm going to treat you with a lot more respect. You're one rich sucker.”
Mel relaxed, realizing for the first time that he was probably going to get out of Miami alive. ”Could I get change for a hundred so I can pay off boy wonder over at the Texaco?”
Harold didn't like that. ”Now slick, you just be careful. That's my nephew over there, and you bad-mouth any of my kin, you might be spending a night in jail.”
Mel fumed at his own stupidity, considered a number of replies, and decided to shut up.