Even the Wicked (21 page)

I told her the name and she repeated it and frowned. “Spell it?” I spelled it and she hit keys. “It’s a familiar name to me,” she mused. “Where did I hear it recently?”

“No idea,” I said. “Of course there’s the ballplayer, Dave Winfield.”

She shook her head. “Since the strike,” she said, “I don’t pay any attention. Flight 1103, on the fifth. No luck there. Flight 179, also on the fifth…”

Nothing on any of the flights in question.

“There’s still a good chance he used the initials,” I said. “But you can’t access it that way. Suppose you just pull up the passenger manifests for each of those flights. Can you do that?”

“
I
can’t.”

“Who can?”

“Some computer genius, probably. Or somebody at the airline who’s got the access codes.” She frowned. “This is important, huh?”

“Kind of.”

She picked up a phone, flipped through a Rolodex, dialed a number. She said, “Hi, this is Phyllis at JMC. Who’s this? Judy? Judy, I’ve got this very good customer of mine who happens to be a detective. He’s on this case that involves a noncustodial parent…Right, you hear about stuff like this all the time. I know, it’s amazing. They don’t pay child support and then they come and kidnap the kids.”

She explained what I needed to know. “He wasn’t on any of those flights under his own name,” she said, “but the detective thinks he may have kept the initials. No, I understand it’s confidential, Judy. You would have to have a court order. Right.” She made a face, then forced a smile. “Look, could you do this much? Without telling me the name, could you see if there’s a male passenger on one of those flights with the initials AW? Yes, Philadelphia to Omaha.”

She covered the mouthpiece. “She’s not supposed to do this,” she said, “but she’ll bend a little. My guess, she’s divorced and not on the best of terms with her ex.” She uncovered the mouthpiece. “Hi, Judy. Rats. None at all, huh?”

“He probably paid cash,” I said.

She was quick. “Judy,” she said, “he probably made up a name, so he probably paid cash. If you could…uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right, I understand.”

She covered the mouthpiece again. “She can’t do it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t. It’s against the rules, she’d get in trouble, blah blah blah.”

TJ said, “Could you do it? If you had the access codes?”

“But I don’t.”

“But she does.”

She considered, shrugged, and uncovered the mouthpiece. “Judy,” she said, “last thing I want is for you to get in trouble. For curiosity, though, tell me something. Is that information there to be pulled up? Like whether a ticket was purchased cash or charge? I mean, suppose a customer comes in and pays me cash, and…Uh-huh. I see. So anybody could access it. I mean, I could get it myself if I had the access codes, is that right?” She grabbed up a pen, jotted down a phrase. “Judy,” she said, “you’re a doll. Thanks.” She broke the connection, grinned fiercely, and held up a clenched fist in triumph. “Yes!”

We still had a ways to go. What she managed to produce, after a lot of head-scratching and keytapping, was a printout of passenger manifests for flights on the three airlines in question from Philadelphia to Omaha and as many return flights two days later. An asterisk next to a name indicated a non-credit card sale.

“Cash or check,” she explained. “There’s no distinction in the data bank. Also, these are just the cash and check sales made by the airline. Sales through travel agents are just listed that way, with no indication as to how payment was made. That’s not what she told me, but if there’s a way to separate it out, I can’t figure it out.”

“That’s all right.”

“It is? Because do you see the names coded with a C? These are all customers who bought their ticket through another airline, probably because their trip originated with another flight segment on the issuing carrier. For all I know they paid for their ticket with Green Stamps.”

“I think the manifests are all I need.”

“You do?”

“If the same name turns up going and coming back, that’s more significant than how he paid for the ticket.”

“I didn’t even think of that. Let’s check.”

I gathered up the sheets of paper. “I’ve taken up enough of your time,” I said. “The hard part’s done. And, speaking of your time, I want to pay for it.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You don’t have to do that.”

I tucked the money into her hand. “The client can afford it,” I said.

“Well…” She closed her fingers around the bills. “Actually, that was fun. Not as much fun as booking you and your wife on a South Seas cruise, though. Be sure and call me when you’re ready to go someplace wonderful.”

“I will.”

“Or even Omaha,” she said.

“‘The client can afford it,’” TJ said. “Thought we didn’t have a client.”

“We don’t.”

“‘Social engineering.’ What you did is you used a computer. Only thing, it was somebody else’s computer. And somebody else’s fingers on the keys.”

“I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

“Let’s see the lists,” he said. “See how many repeats we got.”

“Mr. A. Johnson,” I said. “Flew Midwest Express from Philadelphia to Omaha on the fifth, changing planes in Milwaukee. He flew back to Philadelphia on the morning of the seventh. Paid by cash or check. My guess is cash.”

“You think it’s him.”

“I do.”

“Whole lot of folks named Johnson. Right up there with Smith and Jones.”

“That’s true.”

“‘Cordin’ to Phyllis, you got to show ID to get on a plane.”

“They’ve tightened up all their security measures.”

“Case you a terrorist,” he said, “they want to make sure it’s really you. They probably do the same when you buy the ticket, if you payin’ cash. Ask for ID.”

I nodded. “Same with a check, but then they always want proof of identity for a check. Of course, it’s not that hard to get ID.”

“Store right on the Deuce, print up all kinds of shit. Student ID, Sheriff cards. Wouldn’t make much of an impression on a cop, but you gonna look too hard at it if you’re behind the counter at the airlines?”

“Especially if the customer’s a prosperous-looking middle-aged white man in a Brooks Brothers suit.”

“The right front gets you through,” he agreed.

“And the ID may have been legitimate,” I said. “Maybe he had a client named Johnson, maybe he hung on to a driver’s license for some poor bastard who wouldn’t need it while he was locked up in Green Haven.”

He scratched his head. “We got a name of a dude flew to Omaha one day and back a couple days later. We got anything more than that?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“I’m glad you brought him in,” Joe Durkin said. “This is the very mope we’ve been looking high and low for. I’ll ask him a few questions soon as I remember where I put my rubber hose.”

“Bet I know where it’s at,” TJ said. “You want, I help you look for it.”

Durkin grinned and gave him a poke in the arm. “What are you doing with my friend here?” he demanded. “Why aren’t you out on the street selling crack and mugging people?”

“My day off.”

“And here I thought you guys were dedicated. Seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, soothing the emotional pain of the public. Turns out you coast just like everybody else.”

“Hell yes,” TJ said. “I didn’t want to do nothin’ but work all the time, I be joinin’ the po-leese.”

“Say that again for me, will you? Po-leese.”

“Po-leese.”

“Jesus, I love it when you talk dirty. Matt, I don’t know what gives me the idea, but somehow I think you’re here for a reason.”

We were in the squad room at Midtown North, on West Fifty-fourth Street. I took a chair and explained what I wanted while TJ went over to the board and thumbed through a sheaf of Wanted flyers.

“When you find one with your picture on it,” Joe advised him, “bring it over and I’ll get you to autograph it for me. Matt, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You want me to call the Omaha police and ask them to check hotel records for some zip named Johnson.”

“I’d appreciate it,” I said.

“You’d appreciate it. In a tangible way, do you suppose?”

“Tangible. Yes, I suppose I—”

“I like that word,” he said. “Tangible. It means you can touch it. You reach out and it’s there. Which gives rise to a question. Why don’t you reach out and touch someone?”

“Pardon me?”

“You know the hotel, right? The Hilton?”

“That’s the place to start. I’m not positive that’s where he stayed, but—”

“But you’d start there. Why didn’t you? Use their eight hundred number and the call’s free. Can’t beat that for a bargain.”

“I called,” I said. “I didn’t get anywhere.”

“You identify yourself as a police officer?”

“That’s illegal.” He gave me a look. “I may have given that impression,” I admitted. “It didn’t do me any good.”

“Since when did you become incapable of calling a hotel and conning a little information out of a desk clerk?” He looked at the slip of paper in front of him. “Omaha,” he said. “What the hell ever happened in Omaha?” He looked at me. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Not Him personally,” TJ put in, “but this dude who said he was real tight with Him.”

“The abortion guy. What was his name?”

“How quickly we forget.”

“Roswell Berry. Will got him right in his hotel room, didn’t he? I forget which hotel, but why is it something tells me it was the Hilton?”

“Why indeed?”

“You have reason to think our boy Will’s a guy named Johnson?”

“It’s a name he may have been using.”

“No wonder the Hilton wouldn’t tell you anything. You wouldn’t have been the first caller trying to get something out of them. All the tabloids, guarding the public’s right to know. The Omaha PD must have slammed the lid shut.”

“That would be my guess.”

“You know how many detectives are working on Will? I can’t tell you the number, but what I do know is I’m not one of them. How do I justify sticking my nose in?”

“Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with Will,” I said. “Maybe it’s a simple investigation of a robbery suspect who pulled a series of holdups in this precinct and may have fled to Omaha.”

“Where he’s got relatives. But instead of staying with them we think he holed up at the Hilton. We know the dates, and the name he used. That’s some story, Matt.”

“You probably won’t have to tell it,” I said. “You’re a New York police detective with a question that’s easy to answer. Why should they give you a hard time?”

“People have never needed a reason in the past.” He picked up the phone. “Here’s a question that’s
not
easy to answer. Why the hell am I doing this?”

“Allen W. Johnson,” he said. “That’s Allen with two L’s and an E. I don’t know what the W stands for. I don’t suppose it stands for Will.”

“I’m not sure it stands for anything.”

“Stayed two nights and paid cash. As a matter of fact, the Omaha cops checked on everybody staying at the hotel as part of their investigation of Berry’s murder. Anybody paid cash, that was a red flag. So Mr. Allen Johnson definitely had their attention.”

“Did they have a chance to talk to him?”

“He’d already checked out. Never used the phone or charged anything to his room.”

“I don’t suppose they’ve got a description of him.”

“Yeah, they got a real useful one. He was a man and he was wearing a suit.”

“Narrows it down.”

“He checked out after Will got Berry with the coat hanger, but before the body was discovered. So why take a second look at him?”

“He paid cash.”

He shook his head. “Not when he checked in. He gave them a credit card and they ran a slip. Then when he checked out he gave them cash. Apparently that’s common. The card simplifies checking in, but you’ve got reasons for settling up in cash. Maybe the card’s maxed out, or maybe you don’t want the bill showing up at your house because you don’t want your wife to know you were over at the Hilton humping your secretary.”

“And when you pay in cash—”

“They tear up the slip they took an imprint on. So nobody ever knows if the card’s a phony, because they don’t run it by the credit card company until you check out.”

“So we know he had a credit card,” I said, “whether or not it was a good one. And he had a piece of photo ID in the same name.”

“Did I miss something? How do we know that?”

“He had to show it to get on the plane.”

“If he had the credit card for backup,” he said, “the other could be any damn thing long as it had his picture on it. One of those pieces of shit they print for you on Forty-second Street, says you’re a student at the School of Hard Knox.”

“Like I said,” TJ murmured.

“Tell me about this guy,” Joe said. “Since you got my attention. How’d you get on to him?”

“From the airline records.”

“New York to Omaha?”

“Philadelphia to Omaha.”

“Where did Philadelphia come from?”

“I think the Quakers settled it.”

“I mean—”

“It’s too complicated to go into,” I said, “but I was looking for someone who flew Philly to Omaha and back again. He fit the time frame.”

“You mean he went out before Berry got killed and came back afterward.”

“It was a little tighter fit than that.”

“Uh-huh. Who is he, you want to tell me that?”

“Just a name,” I said. “And a face, if he showed photo ID, but I haven’t seen the face.”

“He’s just a man in a suit, like the girl at the hotel remembered.”

“Right.”

“Help me out here, Matt. What have you got that I should be passing on to somebody?”

“I haven’t got anything.”

“If Will’s out there running around, looking for fresh names for his list—”

“Will’s retired,” I said.

“Oh, right. We got his word for that, don’t we?”

“And nobody’s heard a peep out of him since.”

“Which makes the department look pretty stupid, wasting manpower and resources chasing a perpetrator who no longer represents a danger to the community. How’s this your business, anyway? Who’s your client?”