The Cases of Lenora X, Domme Detective: The Cryptic Man, Part 8

Vallie picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"I'm calling about a unique financial opportunity."

Vallie knew his lines. "I'm fully invested already."

The voice on the other end relaxed, hearing the correct response. "It's time for another."

Vallie was no longer the kind of person to stop and consider that those four simple words, "it's time for another" meant that he was going to kill another person. The dead bodies, and all the before and after stuff, had ceased to matter. It was 100% business. Do a job, get paid. He was also no longer the kind of person to wonder where the other Hank Vallie had gone.

"OK. Parameters?"

Parameters. That's how Vallie thought of them. Constraints, limits, to be fed into a formula, giving rise to a solution.

The voice continued. "It needs to happen at Roscoe's Ranch. Within a week."

Vallie nodded. "Clean or messy?"

"Very messy." Vallie winced a little. He hated messy.

"All right, but this is more."

Silence on the other end. Vallie didn't care; he stayed alive and free by not taking any job where the risk/reward equation wasn't right. So he let the silence grow.

Finally . . . "How much more?"

"Twenty-five, plus five for messy. Thirty." Vallie was starting to get a little nervous about this job. Staying in the same town for more than one body was never a good idea, and messy was always riskier than clean.

A short pause, then, "All right. Half will be there by 4pm."

"If it's not, we never spoke. And the word for this one?"

"Royalty."

Vallie wrote it down an hung up.

* * *

In every large city there are people who are part of a worldwide network, a network for transferring money from one person to another without involving a bank and without drawing the attention of the SEC, the IRS, the DEA, Homeland Security, Interpol, or anyone else.

The system is simplicity itself. Person A, in, say, Toronto, wants to transfer $10,000 to Person B, in Blog City. So Person A goes to a certain neighborhood in Toronto where members of the network are known to have a stall, and gives the operator $10,000 in cash, plus the fee. Person A tells the operator what the destination city is and the operator gives Person A a five-digit number. The operator faxes the five-digit number and the amount to the operator in Blog City. Person A transmits the 5-digit number to Person B and Person B finds the operator in Blog City and presents him with the number, and the operator gives Person B $10,000 in cash. No questions asked. Don't lose your number.

Vallie took a circuitous route to his destination in Fairmont, a dilapidated neighborhood known unofficially as Little Beirut, in recognition of its bombed-out appearance and now predominantly Arab population.

To get to Fairmont from Vallie's place in the equally downmarket Morris Heights section on foot, one needed to traverse several other much better neighborhoods, and many good options for lunch. Vallie always "celebrated" a new contract with Indian food.

Vallie slipped into an unassuming little place called Rani, one of many pretty reasonable ethnic food choices in the neighborhood around Blog City U. He settled on the chicken adrak and bhujia and looked out the window at the busy street.

Mentally Vallie ticked off the activities for the afternoon. Pick up the money. Stash it. Check out Roscoe's Ranch and figure out how, when, and all that.

He was musing that Roscoe's Ranch was either a petting zoo or a gay bar, when the food arrived.

* * *

As usual things went without a hitch as far as getting paid. In the back of the market with the battered sign in Arabic only, there's a man with a ledger book full of neat columns of numbers, a fax machine, and a safe. He looks like he's been right in that spot forever. He's old, but clearly very alert, with an old man's focus and air of permanence and certainty, he looks like the absolute Emperor of his 40 square feet, and he is.

Half an hour earlier Vallie had gotten a text message that simply read: 78212. That's all that was needed.

Vallie approached the man's desk and he nodded. Vallie wrote "78212" on a piece of paper and handed it to the man. He checked his column of perfectly neat numbers, a long finger finally stopping when 78212 was found. He turned, opened the safe, pulled out an envelope, put the piece of paper in the envelope, and with his pen and a straightedge struck through the number 78212. He handed Vallie the envelope and their business was done. Vallie stuffed the envelope in his coat and walked away. He could hear the fax machine dialing, letting the originator know that 78212 had been picked up. Transaction complete.

Vallie had the money for cabs but he walked or took the subway, except when he needed possible corroboration of an alibi. In those cases he made sure to take a cab to talk the diver's ear off, or otherwise be a memorable passenger.

Vallie went back home and counted out the envelope. Fifteen large, all there. He grabbed $700 and put the rest in a coffee can in the freezer. This was a terrible hiding place but it was very temporary -- just until he could get to the bank tomorrow.

He looked at his bed. A nap would feel good right now but there was work to do. Time to go check out Roscoe's Ranch.

* * *

I had just been thinking that I hadn't heard from Arty in a while when My phone went off.

Arty was doing well. He'd weathered the storm over his name coming up in connection with the case, and had satisfied his bosses (and Internal Affairs) that the killer was just taunting the cops in general and he, Arty, in particular.

"Yeah, got grilled by the Rat Squad for a couple hours. The highlight of any day." Arty laughed derisively -- one truism that cut across time and geography and area of specialty was that all cops hate Internal Affairs. Can't really blame them.

Arty filled me in on what else they had learned about the murders, which was more or less nothing. I wasn't going to share with Arty anything I'd learned on My own, but I decided that wasn't really right. Some part of Me realized it was more important to catch this sick bastard than who got the credit. I laughed to Myself -- I must be slipping!

"Arty, you know Bobby Astro, right?"

Arty grunted. Like most cops he felt that a guy in prison belonged there -- if not for the specific crime he had been convicted of, then for the ten crimes before that one that he had gotten away with. So Astro being sprung on appeal was something that rubbed Arty the wrong way, to put it mildly.

"What about him?"

"Well, I came to find out there was some old beef between Astro and King, and I was thinking maybe he hated King enough to do these murders to get back at King."

Silence on Arty's end while his mind ran the complex cop calculations.

"Not his style. A guy like Astro . . . he's more direct about things. He could kill King anytime he felt like it and we wouldn't have a clue. The man is the most professional, most efficient hitter I've ever run across, X. I don't see him doing this."

I lit up, making another mental note about having to quit smoking, as I listened. Even though that whole "word game" thing as we parted ways threw a little jolt of doubt into Me about Astro, I was pretty sure he wasn't involved, either.

"Thanks, Arty. That helps." The other thing I really didn't want to ask Arty about, but I had to.

"Arty, one more thing. Anything Federal going on lately?" If the Feds were doing a legit operation in Blog City, they'd make sure the local PD knew about it. The FBI enjoyed making the local cops feel as small-time as possible.

No answer from Arty. He was still hung up on why I was asking. Finally, about two seconds late, he answers.

"No, X. Nothing they let me know about."

He might be telling the truth or he might be answering carefully so to avoid lying too blatantly. No point getting Arty's radar any more engaged than it already was.

"Thanks, Arty . . . Astro mumbled something about the Feds -- I figured it was just a con's obsession but thought I'd ask."

"OK, X, no problem." Arty's demeanor was back to normal.

I hung up the phone and wondered if it wasn't too late to consider that career in direct sales.

* * *

Vallie kept bank accounts in all major cities he worked in, and his trade took him to Blog City often enough. Vallie put his cash into a safe deposit box, then parceled it out into the savings and checking accounts a bit at a time, keeping under the reporting threshold for cash transactions. Getting involved with a money launderer was not for him -- it was just one more person who could screw up and get him busted.

To go along with each bank account Vallie had an identity. To the Blog City National Bank, he was Michael Fitzsimmons. Vallie grabbed about $6,000 in cash and put the rest in his safe deposit box. Over the next few days he'd make several deposits at various branches and ATMs.

The other chore for today was to write the clue. For that, he needed a quiet place. The first one he did at the Library, the second in General's Park. As he was leaving the bank he passed a Blog City Joe location and on impulse went inside, grabbed a coffee, and sat down at a table in the far corner, meditating a bit on the word.

Royalty.

The first time the clue came right to him; last time he had to stare at the word a long time. This time it wasn't coming either. After ten minutes or so, Vallie got up, stretched, then sat down again and people-watched a bit. Then he turned back to word and the clue jumped out at him like it had been written there all the time:

King's 40% batty following winning hand (7)

Vallie finished his coffee and exited the coffee shop, walking down the street, feeling oddly relieved.