The Bricklayer

THIRTY-THREE

FROM WHERE HE SAT IN THE EMERGENCY WAITING ROOM, VAIL watched Kate follow Kaulcrick through the door. The assistant director maintained his usual controlled facade, but not Kate. Her lips were drawn back into a flat line and her fists were clenched in anger. Vail stood up to meet them.
“How’s Tye?” she asked.
“They’re still examining her.” He hesitated before adding, “They’re going to have to do a rape kit.”
Kate sank into the nearest chair, forgetting her anger. “How awful,” she said. “How awful.”
“Physically, she’s a little banged up, but she’s all right.”
“Did she say how he got her?”
“I didn’t ask her any questions. I have no idea how to help with this, so I didn’t want her reliving anything she shouldn’t be.”
All Kate seemed to be able to say was “That’s awful.”
Kaulcrick could wait no longer. “And the three million dollars?”
In a tone that was neither defensive nor apologetic, Vail told them everything from the phone call warning of insider information, to delivering the money and surviving another of Radek’s traps, to Tye’s PDA video and the final shoot-out.
“Does she have any idea what he did with the money?” Kaulcrick asked.
“He tied her up and left her chained to the radiator in that hotel room and disappeared with it. She said he was gone for a couple of hours. She didn’t see any sign of it after he got back.”
“So you have no idea where it is.”
“Maybe there’s something back at the hotel room. I didn’t get a chance to look around.”
This time the assistant director didn’t try to hide his disdain for Vail. “Now we’ve got to try to find that three million dollars again.”
“Technically, you didn’t find it the first time.”
“Technically, you gave it away twice. Give me your credentials. You no longer represent this organization.”
Kate said, “Don, don’t you think we might need Steve’s help looking for the money?”
Kaulcrick spun around, his anger rising. “Let me explain something to you and your—whatever he is—here. I’ve been letting this farce go on because at times it seemed to be moving the investigation forward, but without FBI credentials, without FBI equipment, without the systems we have in place and the official channels that we draw information through, your superagent wouldn’t have been able to accomplish anything. It’s this organization and its people that allowed him to achieve whatever success he’s had. So, no, Kate, we don’t need his help. We just need to work a little harder and we’ll find the money on our own. Everyone is one hundred percent dead now, so nobody will be moving it around. It’ll be much easier to come up with.”
Vail handed him his credentials. “I hope you’re right,” he said. Kate looked at Vail, somewhat amazed. He was sincere. She couldn’t believe that he wasn’t insulted by what the assistant director had said.
But Kaulcrick assumed Vail’s only response could be rancor. “I suppose that means you think you can find it without the FBI?” His face grew flush with lost control. “I’ll tell you what”—his tone now lowered itself to a seething ridicule—“if you can find it, you can keep it. How’s that, hotshot? Let’s go, Kate.”
“Give me a minute, will you, Don?”
“I guess this man hasn’t done enough damage to your career. I’m waiting two minutes and then you can find your own way back. And I’m not talking about back to the office.” He turned and stormed out of the room.
She stood up, her voice formal again. “Please tell Tye if she needs anything at all to call me. I assume you’re all right.” It sounded almost like an accusation.
“Kate, don’t confuse what might have happened between us a couple of nights ago—or how I feel about you now—with the way I do things.” He lowered his voice. “I wasn’t going to call you on this because I knew, given any opportunity, I would probably kill him. I wouldn’t expose anyone to that kind of trouble, least of all you.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you to stop protecting me.” Her voice calmed. “Maybe I should have simply told you to quit using it as an excuse. Now I understand why there are no faces in your apartment, or anywhere else in your life—you are incapable of trusting anyone. Not even me, who has stood by you to the point of getting shot and having my career left hanging by a thread. Only the bad guys deserved to be thrown through plate-glass windows. But that’s all right. It’s who you are. The good part is that you solve impossible problems. I appreciate everything you’ve done. Without you, we’d still be leaning back congratulating ourselves for hanging this on Stan Bertok. But unfortunately, the bad part makes it impossible for anyone to form an alliance with you on any level. So thanks for your help and, since I doubt I’ll see you again, good-bye.”
Vail watched her walk away. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to defend himself, to bring her back, but he knew most of what she was feeling was more right than wrong.
A half hour later, two men who had that detective’s exhaustion about them walked in. “You Steve Vail?”
“I’m guessing you’re homicide.”
“We’d like to get a statement from you.”
Vail knew that no matter how impure his intentions had been, the shooting was justifiable. “I can’t leave, but if you don’t mind doing it here, fire away.”


WHEN THE DETECTIVES had finished they stood up, and each shook Vail’s hand. It was a positive sign he could feel in their grip. They were sending the message that it had been a good shoot. One of them handed Vail his card. “We’re going to need to take a statement from Miss Delson. Do you think she’d be up to it?”
“I understand that you have to interview her, and I understand that you have to ask her about the rape. But—”
“Don’t worry, this isn’t our first time.”
Vail flashed an embarrassed smile. “Sorry.”
The detectives made an inquiry at the nurses’ station and were ushered through a door behind it.
Almost two hours later, a nurse came out and told Vail that Tye was ready to be discharged. When she walked out, Vail was surprised at her demeanor. She seemed relaxed and somewhat energized. He watched her closely, trying to see if it was an act, something he suspected tough women, having gone through what she had, tried to talk themselves into. She wasn’t giving out any clues with her body language, but Vail knew that verbal clues could be more telling. “Feel like some breakfast?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost four thirty.”
“a.m., right?”
Vail smiled gently. “Made that jump right from ‘breakfast’ to it being morning. Evidently your mind is working.”
She gave a brief laugh, more courteous than amused. “I know you’re concerned, but after some food and sleep, I think you’ll be impressed how quickly I bounce back.”
“Actually I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
“That’s very kind of you.” She put her hand on his. “I haven’t really thanked you for what you did.”
“And now you have.”
Her eyes had started to well up, but Vail’s response made her smile. She sniffled away the tears and patted him on the hand. “Let’s go find a truck stop and order the biggest, greasiest thing on the menu. I’m buying.”
“That’s the best offer I’ve had all day. Especially from a woman.”


DURING BREAKFAST, Vail could see Tye’s spirits gradually repairing themselves. By the end of the meal she was laughing with a seemingly reengaged sense of humor, maybe the best indicator of all. At one point, after a period of awkward silence, she became more serious. “Steve, there’s only one thing I’m concerned about. Do you think Radek was the last of them?”
“I hope so. I’m out of ammunition.” She gave another short, polite laugh, making him realize it was the wrong tack. “Sorry. As far as I can see, that’s it.” Vail smiled at her reassuringly. “Absolutely, I think he was the last of the Pentad.”
This time it was Tye who read some doubt in his voice. “But you’d feel better if the three million had been sitting in his apartment.”
“Well, the money is a consideration. If you don’t know where it is, you don’t know if someone’s got it. But Radek had robbed eight armored cars; he knew how to hide bulk money. It could be off somewhere being laundered. The Bureau’s searching his hotel room right now. Maybe the answer will be there.”
Tye looked at him questioningly. “You said ‘the Bureau is searching’ instead of ‘we’re searching.’ What’s going on?”
“I’m no longer with the FBI. I was just more or less fired. Who could have seen that coming?” Vail said, his smile relaxed, disarming. “I know what you’re missing. Do you want me to get you some cigarettes?”
“No, no, that’s all right. I think I’m going to try to quit.” She patted him on the hand. “I’m okay. Really.”
Vail nodded at her plate. “I’d ask you if you want anything else, but I think you’ve already eaten everything on the menu.”
“While I’ll never be able to thank you for what you did last night, I think I’m just as impressed with how kind you’ve been since…since you came and got me.” She took a deep breath to demonstrate renewal and pushed her plate away. “Now, I’m ready to go home.” Her words were meant to be filled with resolve but sounded tenuous, as if she were about to bungee jump off a bridge and wondered if the tether was the proper length.
A little later when Vail pulled into her driveway, she looked at the house solemnly. “Do you want me to come in?” he offered. “I could stay while you get some sleep.”
“As tempting as that is, eventually it’ll make it that much harder. No, this is it for you, Steve Vail. You’re off duty. Go back to your life. It’s time for me to climb back on the horse.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, her eyes damp with emotion. “But I’ve got to warn you, the next time I get kidnapped, I’ve still got your number.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said, and got out.


AS SOON AS VAIL walked into the lobby of his hotel, two agents he recognized from the office came up and announced with forced authority, “The SAC wants to see you.”
Vail laughed. “You do know that I no longer work for the FBI?”
“He still wants to see you,” one of them said nervously.
“How long have you been waiting here?”
“A couple of hours.”
“Then the SAC can wait a little longer. I’m going up to shower and change clothes. You can come up and make sure I don’t escape, or you can wait in the bar.”
The two agents looked at each other, not sure what to do. Vail turned to go. “While you two figure it out, I’ll be in my room.”
They hurried after him.
When they got to the FBI office, the agents took him directly to the SAC’s office and waited inside the doorway like guards. Mark Hildebrand was sitting at a small conference table at one end of the room. Seated across from him were a couple of older agents who Vail assumed were supervisors. “Steve, have a seat,” Hildebrand offered. Vail sat down. “Coffee?”
“Half a cup. I’m not going to be here that long.”
One of the agents who had escorted him from the hotel filled a mug and brought it over. “We need to get a statement from you as to exactly what happened last night.”
He took a sip. “Why?”
“Because this is an FBI investigation, and we don’t know what happened.”
“Normally I wouldn’t interrupt a ruse as clever as this, but I’ve had very little sleep. So if I fast-forward this a bit you’ll have to excuse me. Kaulcrick isn’t here, so I’m supposed to assume that you no longer have any loyalty to him or interest in your own career? You’re asking for my statement about what happened last night. That isn’t what this is about. You don’t have a clue where the money is.” Vail searched the faces around the table. “No, there’s something else. You think I found something last night, and I’m keeping it from you. That’s it, isn’t it?” He looked around the table again. One of the supervisors diverted his eyes, confirming Vail’s suspicions.
“Steve, try to look at it from our side. We have to consider the possibility that you might have found something.”
“Where are Kaulcrick and Kate?”
“Kate’s in her office.”
Vail waited a few seconds. “Since you’re not saying where Kaulcrick is, I’ll have to assume…he’s searching my room, isn’t he?”
Hildebrand’s face reddened. “We have a warrant.”
Vail roared with laughter. “When I was first an agent, I used to wonder if there was someone in a secret room watching everyone in the office who would feed management the answers to make sure that they got everything completely wrong. There had to be because how else could you guys get everything perfectly backward?” He looked around at the walls. “Come on, you can tell me, where are the cameras?”
“Would you be willing to take a polygraph to clear yourself?”
He smiled. “I’ll be glad to take a polygraph. On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You take one first.”
“Me? About what?”
“Kaulcrick wouldn’t have waited for a warrant to search my room, especially if he knew I wasn’t going to be there. You knew I was with Tye Delson at the hospital. Even though you did a quickie yesterday to lift my handgun, somebody had to go back to my room after the shooting for a little prewarrant reconnaissance. A little light lifting of the pillows to look for large chunks of money. Nothing that I’d notice. Just pass the box on that one question, Mark, and then you can hook me up.”
“So you’re saying no.”
“Sounds like you’re the one saying no.”
“Would you mind waiting out in my secretary’s office.”
“Listen, if you want me to help look for the money, just ask. If not, I need a ride back to my hotel. Please call and ask them to have the courtesy of being out of there by the time I get back.” Hildebrand hesitated for a few seconds, considering the advantage of joining forces with Vail, but knew that Kaulcrick was the surest route back to Washington. There was an old saying among managers: Contacts trump competence. The SAC nodded to the two agents at the door to take him back to the hotel. “Oh, two more things,” Vail said. “First, I assume you’d like to know the identity of the body in the elevator.”
“You know who that is?”
“A federal parolee named Benjamin Lavolet. He had an apartment on Sistine Lane.”
“How do you know that?”
“Actually, Radek told me when he called with the ransom demand.”
“Why would he tell you that?”
“He couldn’t help himself. He was rubbing it in my face how smart he was. Also because, at the time, he knew I couldn’t tell anyone. And he planned to kill me before I had the chance. Which brings me to the second thing, something he was even more proud of. Pendaran is innocent,” Vail lied. “They set him up as a fall guy in case someone saw through their Bertok ruse. Go to Pendaran’s lawyer and offer him an immediate walk if he passes the polygraph. I suspect you’ll have better luck with him than you did with me.”
Vail smiled enigmatically, almost as if to himself. He had bluffed them out of his taking a polygraph because he knew he couldn’t have passed it regarding the whereabouts of the money.


EVERYONE WAS GONE from Vail’s room when he got back. There really wasn’t much they could disrupt. The bed linens had been removed and were piled on a chair. A copy of the search warrant lay in the middle of the mattress. He checked the return: nothing had been taken as evidence.
He pulled a sheet off the chair and arranged it across the bed. He considered sleeping for a couple of hours, but knew he wouldn’t be able to. It was true what Kaulcrick had said, that he would have little success finding the money without the Bureau’s resources, but he had something none of them did. There was a good chance that the answer to everything was in his pocket. He pulled out the ring of keys he had taken off Radek’s body. “That’s the sound of freedom,” he had told Tye. Since the handcuff key was not among them, it had to be his freedom he was referring to—the money. And an assistant director of the FBI had told Vail that if he found it, he could keep it. Had he done three million dollars’ worth of work for the FBI? Everything considered—he just may have.
One of the keys, cut on a manufacturer’s blank, was for a car. There was only one place Radek’s car could be.


AS VAIL PULLED UP to the Lindbergh Hotel, he let what had happened there the night before replay itself. All the little details that still didn’t make sense kept forcing their way into his thoughts.
He still had the bartender’s master key, which no one had thought to ask for. He let himself into the building and found the door to 3C sealed with plastic ribbon and an FBI document affixed to it warning that the premises were officially under the jurisdiction of the FBI and any entry would constitute a federal offense punishable by five years in prison and/or a twenty-five-thousand-dollar fine. He smiled. If he found the money, he decided he would FedEx the twenty-five thousand dollars to Kaulcrick in the original, recorded hundred-dollar notes. A South American postmark would be the crowning touch.
Vail peered through one of the shotgun holes in the door and then took out Radek’s key ring and compared each to the manager’s master. One of them appeared to be a match. He slid it in the lock and turned the cylinder partially before it seized up as it had the night before. He took a step back and kicked the door open.
A copy of the search warrant had been left on the couch in the small living room, listing everything that was taken. There were more than forty items. He quickly read them, looking for anything that might give a hint as to where Radek’s car might be. “Miscellaneous documents” were listed without any specifics, and inexplicably the handcuff key hadn’t been located. Maybe Radek never had one, which could mean only one thing: he was going to dump Tye’s body still cuffed. Most of the items taken were clothing from the bedroom closet. No forensic reason existed to confiscate them, but experienced investigators had all sooner or later had a case where, staring at crime-scene photos after the fact, they wished that one small, seemingly insignificant item at the time had been collected. So they took almost everything, whether they could see its potential or not. After all, they knew that Radek wouldn’t be demanding their return. The area rug that Radek had died on had been taken. His handgun, and even Vail’s Bureau shotgun, had been tagged and removed.
The chain and handcuffs were listed, reminding Vail of their purpose. He went into the bedroom and stared at the radiator that Tye had been anchored to. Looking out the window, Vail recognized the downward angle to the building with the extended window casings. It was something he hadn’t taken the time to do the night before, and it now gave him a sense of order. Then he quickly stepped back. Something had unknowingly caught his eye when he came into the room but was just now registering.
It was the radiator. He stepped back another couple of feet and examined its symmetry. Squatting down, he looked at it from a more direct angle. The small domed cap that housed the steam valve had been painted many times over the years. At the cylindrical valve’s base, Vail could see a couple of brass threads. The cap had been put back on crookedly and twisted, cross-threading it.
Vail wrenched it off. When he saw what was inside, he collapsed onto the bed. His thoughts raced backward through the entire investigation, through every turn and dead end, ticking off every little inconsistency that, unknown to him, his mind had been collecting.
Everything now made sense.
As he walked back down the stairs, Vail checked his watch. It was almost noon and there was moderate foot traffic along the street. Because of the limited parking in the neighborhood, he had parked illegally directly in front of the hotel. He examined the car key on the ring he had taken from Radek’s pocket. It was for a Chrysler product, the older type key without lock and trunk buttons.
Since the car had been used to transport a kidnap victim to the hotel, logically it wouldn’t be parked far away. For the next half hour he searched the surrounding blocks. He found only one older Chrysler. As discreetly as possible he tried the key in the door lock but it didn’t fit. A closer inspection of the key revealed that none of the plating had been worn away, indicating it was new. As deceptive as Radek had been, Vail wondered if he hadn’t had another manufacturer’s key duplicated onto a Chrysler blank. If so, it most likely would still have been for an older car.
He started back toward the hotel looking for any vehicle that the key might fit. At the end of the block was an overnight parking zone. As Vail approached it, he spotted an older Chevy sedan. On the windshield was a parking ticket suggesting it might have been parked there since the night before. To avoid suspicion, he stabbed the key into the lock as if he had done it countless times before. It turned in the lock. Pulling the ticket from under the windshield wiper, Vail got in. The interior had the odor of air freshener, the kind sprayed at a full-service car wash. It smelled the same as Radek’s stolen Honda had, minus the gasoline odor.
He didn’t think Radek would chance leaving three million dollars in the trunk of a car parked on the street, but stranger things had happened. As much as Vail wanted to look in the trunk, he knew that this was not the place. He was unarmed and had no idea who might be around. He put the key in the ignition and started the car. The glove compartment was empty. Between the two front seats was a deep console storage compartment. The only object it contained was a garage door opener. Feeling around inside, he found some kind of matting covering the bottom, but it was cut a little too large and bunched at the edges, suggesting the manufacturer had not put it there. He pulled it back and underneath was a California driver’s license in the name of Terry A. Frost. The address listed was in Inglewood.
The man in the photo was Victor Radek.