The Firm (52 page)

“First one was at a Texaco Quick Shop. Second one was four miles away at a Burger King. They drove through the drive-in window. Both witnesses were positive and gave identical IDs.”

Voyles turned to the sheriff. “Sheriff, call Tallahassee and confirm. How far away is it?”

The black boots hit the floor. “Hour and a half. Straight down Interstate 10.”

Voyles pointed at Tarrance, and they stepped into a small room used as the bar. The quiet roar returned to mission control.

“If the sightings are real,” Voyles said quietly in Tarrance’s face, “we’re wasting our time here.”

“Yes, sir. They sound legitimate. A single sighting could be a fluke or a prank, but two that close together sound awfully legitimate.”

“How the hell did they get out of here?”

“It’s gotta be that woman, Chief. She’s been helping him for a month. I don’t know who she is, or where he found her, but she’s on the outside watching us and feeding him whatever he needs.”

“Do you think she’s with them?”

“Doubt it. She’s probably just following closely, away from the action, and taking directions from him.”

“He’s brilliant, Wayne. He’s been planning this for months.”

“Evidently.”

“You mentioned the Bahamas once.”

“Yes, sir. The million bucks we paid him was wired to a bank in Freeport. He later told me it didn’t stay there long.”

“You think, maybe, he’s headed there?”

“Who knows. Obviously he has to get out of the country. I talked to the warden today. He told me Ray McDeere can speak five or six languages fluently. They could be going anywhere.”

“I think we should pull out,” Voyles said.

“Let’s get the roadblocks set up around Tallahassee. They won’t last long if we’ve got a good description of the vehicle. We should have them by morning.”

“I want every cop in central Florida on the highways in an hour. Roadblocks everywhere. Every Ford pickup is automatically searched, okay? Our men will wait here until daybreak, then we’ll pull up stakes.”

“Yes, sir,” Tarrance answered with a weary grin.

Word of the Tallahassee sightings spread instantly along the Emerald Coast. Panama City Beach relaxed. The McDeeres were gone. For reasons unknown only to them, their flight had moved inland. Sighted and positively identified, not once but twice, they were now somewhere else speeding desperately toward the inevitable confrontation on the side of a dark highway.

The cops along the coast went home. A few roadblocks remained through the night in Bay County and Gulf County; the predawn hours of Saturday were almost normal. Both ends of the Strip remained blocked, with cops making cursory exams of driver’s licenses. The roads north of town were free and clear. The search had moved east.

On the outskirts of Ocala, Florida, near Silver Springs on Highway 40, Tony Verkler lumbered from a 7-Eleven and stuck a quarter in a pay phone. He called the Ocala Police Department with the urgent report that he had just seen those three convicts everybody was looking for up around Panama City Beach. The McDeeres! Said he saw their pictures in the paper the day before when he was driving through Pensacola, and now he had just seen them. The dispatcher informed him all patrolmen were on the scene of a bad accident and asked if he would mind driving over to the police station so they could file a report. Tony said he was in a hurry, but since it was somewhat important, he would be there in a minute.

When he arrived, the chief of police was waiting in a T-shirt and blue jeans. His eyes were swollen and red, and his hair was not in place. He led Tony into his office and thanked him for coming by. He took notes as Tony explained how he was pumping gas in front of the 7-Eleven and a green Ford pickup with a U-Haul trailer behind it pulled up next to the store and a woman got out and used the phone. Tony was in the process, he explained, of driving from Mobile to Miami and had driven through the manhunt up around Panama City. He had seen the newspapers and had been listening to his radio and knew all about the
three McDeeres. Anyway, he went in and paid for the gas and thought that he had seen the woman somewhere before. Then he remembered the papers. He walked over to a magazine rack in the front window and got a good look at the men. No doubt in his mind. She hung up, got back in the truck between the men, and they left. Green Ford with Tennessee plates.

The chief thanked him and called the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. Tony said goodbye and returned to his car, where Aaron Rimmer was asleep in the back seat.

They headed north, in the direction of Panama City Beach.

    39    

Saturday, 7 A.M. Andy Patrick looked east and west along the Strip, then walked quickly across the parking lot to Room 39. He knocked gently.

After a delay, she asked, “Who is it?”

“The manager,” he answered. The door opened, and the man who resembled the composite of Mitchell Y. McDeere slid out. His hair was now very short and gold-colored. Andy stared at his hair.

“Good morning, Andy,” he said politely while glancing around the parking lot.

“Good morning. I was kinda wondering if you folks were still here.”

Mr. McDeere nodded and continued to look around the parking lot.

“I mean, according to the television this morning, you folks traveled halfway across Florida last night.”

“Yeah, we’re watching it. They’re playing games, aren’t they, Andy?”

Andy kicked at a rock on the sidewalk. “Television said there were three positive identifications last night. At three different places. Kinda strange, I
thought. I was here all night, working and being on the lookout and all, and I didn’t see you leave. Before sunrise I sneaked across the highway to a coffee shop, just over there, and as usual, there were cops in there. I sat close to them. According to them, the search has been called off around here. They said the FBI moved out right after the last sighting came in, around four this morning. Most of the other cops left too. They’re gonna keep the Strip blocked until noon and call it off. Rumor has it you’ve got help from the outside, and you’re trying to get to the Bahamas.”

Mr. McDeere listened closely as he watched the parking lot. “What else did they say?”

“They kept talking about a U-Haul truck full of stolen goods, and how they found the truck, and it was empty, and how nobody can figure out how you loaded the stolen goods into a trailer and sneaked outta town, right under their noses. They’re very impressed, all right. Of course, I didn’t say nothing, but I figured it was the same U-Haul you drove in here Thursday night.”

Mr. McDeere was deep in thought and did not say anything. He didn’t appear to be nervous. Andy studied his face carefully.

“You don’t seem too pleased,” Andy said. “I mean, the cops are leaving and calling off the search. That’s good, ain’t it?”

“Andy, can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“It’s more dangerous now than before.”

Andy thought about this for a long minute, then said, “How’s that?”

“The cops just wanted to arrest me, Andy. But there are some people who want to kill me. Professional
killers, Andy. Many of them. And they’re still here.”

Andy narrowed his good eye and stared at Mr. McDeere. Professional killers! Around here? On the Strip? Andy took a step backward. He wanted to ask exactly who they were and why they were chasing him, but he knew he wouldn’t get much of an answer. He saw an opportunity. “Why don’t you escape?”

“Escape? How could we escape?”

Andy kicked another rock and nodded in the direction of a 1971 Pontiac Bonneville parked behind the office. “Well, you could use my car. You could get in the trunk, all three of you, and I could drive you outta town. You don’t appear to be broke, so you could catch a plane and be gone. Just like that.”

“And how much would that cost?”

Andy studied his feet and scratched his ear. The guy was probably a doper, he thought, and the boxes were probably full of cocaine and cash. And the Colombians were probably after him. “That’d be pretty expensive, you know. I mean, right now, at five thousand a day, I’m just an innocent motel clerk who’s not very observant. Not part of nothing, you understand. But if I drive you outta here, then I become an accomplice, subject to indictment and jail and all that other crap I’ve been through, you know? So it’d be pretty expensive.”

“How much, Andy?”

“A hundred thousand.”

Mr. McDeere did not flinch or react; he just kept a straight face and glanced across the beach to the ocean. Andy knew immediately it was not out of the question.

“Let me think about it, Andy. For right now, you
keep your eyes open. Now that the cops are gone, the killers will move in. This could be a very dangerous day, Andy, and I need your help. If you see anyone suspicious around here, call us quick. We’re not leaving these rooms, okay?”

Andy returned to the front desk. Any fool would jump in the trunk and haul ass. It was the boxes, the stolen goods. That’s why they wouldn’t leave.

The McDeeres enjoyed a light breakfast of stale pastries and warm soft drinks. Ray was dying for a cold beer, but another trip to the convenience store was too risky. They ate quickly and watched the early-morning news. Occasionally a station along the coast would flash their composites on the screen. It scared them at first, but they got used to it.

A few minutes after 9 A.M., Saturday, Mitch turned off the television and resumed his spot on the floor among the boxes. He picked up a stack of documents and nodded at Abby, the camera operator. The deposition continued.

Lazarov waited until the maids were on duty, then scattered his troops along the Strip. They worked in pairs, knocking on doors, peeking in windows and sliding through dark hallways. Most of the small places had two or three maids who knew every room and every guest. The procedure was simple, and most of the time it worked. A goon would find a maid, hand her a hundred-dollar bill, and show her the composites. If she resisted, he would continue giving money until she became cooperative. If she was unable to make the ID, he would ask if she had noticed a U-Haul truck, or a room full of boxes, or two men and a woman acting suspicious or scared, or anything
unusual. If the maid was of no help, he would ask which rooms were occupied, then go knock on the doors.

Start with the maids, Lazarov had instructed them. Enter from the beach side. Stay away from the front desks. Pretend to be cops. And if you hit pay dirt, kill them instantly and get to a phone.

DeVasher placed four of the rented vans along the Strip near the highway. Lamar Quin, Kendall Mahan, Wally Hudson and Jack Aldrich posed as drivers and watched every vehicle that passed. They had arrived in the middle of the night on a private plane with ten other senior associates of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. In the souvenir shops and cafés, the former friends and colleagues of Mitch McDeere milled about with the tourists and secretly hoped they would not see him. The partners had been called home from airports around the country, and by midmorning they were walking the beach and inspecting pools and hotel lobbies. Nathan Locke stayed behind with Mr. Morolto, but the rest of the partners disguised themselves with golf caps and sunglasses and took orders from General DeVasher. Only Avery Tolar was missing. Since walking out of the hospital, he had not been heard from. Including the thirty-three lawyers, Mr. Morolto had almost a hundred men participating in his private little manhunt.

At the Blue Tide Motel, a janitor took a hundreddollar bill, looked at the composites and said he thought he might have seen the woman and one of the men check into two rooms early Thursday evening. He stared at Abby’s sketch and became convinced it was her. He took some more money and went to the
office to check the registration records. He returned with the information that the woman had checked in as Jackie Nagel and paid cash for two rooms for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. He took some more money, and the two gunmen followed him to the rooms. He knocked on both doors. No answer. He unlocked them and allowed his new friends to inspect them. The rooms had not been used Friday night. One of the troops called Lazarov, and five minutes later DeVasher was poking around the rooms looking for clues. He found none, but the search was immediately constricted to a four-mile stretch of beach between the Blue Tide and the Beachcomber, where the U-Haul was found.

The vans moved the troops closer. The partners and senior associates scoured the beach and restaurants. And the gunmen knocked on doors.

Andy signed the Federal Express ticket at 10:35 and inspected the package for Sam Fortune. It had been shipped by Doris Greenwood, whose address was listed as 4040 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. No phone number. He was certain it was valuable and for a moment contemplated another quick profit. But its delivery had already been contracted for. He gazed along both ends of the Strip and left the office with the package.

After years of dodging and hiding, Andy had subconsciously trained himself to walk quickly in the shadows, near the corners, never in the open. As he turned the corner to cross the parking lot, he saw two men knocking on the door to Room 21. The room happened to be vacant, and he was immediately suspicious of the two. They wore odd-fitting matching
white shorts that fell almost to their knees, although it was difficult to tell exactly where the shorts stopped and the snow-white legs began. One wore dark socks with battered loafers. The other wore cheap sandals and walked in obvious pain. White Panama hats adorned their beefy heads.

After six months on the Strip, Andy could spot a fake tourist. The one beating on the door hit it again, and when he did Andy saw the bulge of a large handgun stuck in the back of his shorts.

He quickly retraced his quiet footsteps and returned to the office. He called Room 39 and asked for Sam Fortune.

“This is Sam.”

“Sam, this is Andy at the desk. Don’t look out, but there are two very suspicious men knocking on doors across the parking lot.”

“Are they cops?”

“I don’t think so. They didn’t check in here.”

“Where are the maids?” Sam asked.