The Millionaires (19 page)

“Mr. Duckworth…?” the woman on the other line interrupts. “Can you hold on a second? I’ll be right back.”

“Of course,” I agree. The line goes silent, and for thirty seconds I don’t think much of it. After a minute, I can’t help
but wonder where my phonebanker went—it’s the first rule they teach you—when you’re dealing with rich people, you’re never
supposed to put them on hol… hold on. My chest twitches. This is still a company line. And the longer she keeps me on it,
the easier it is for the Secret Service to tra—

I slap the phone shut, hoping I’m fast enough. There’s no way they can do it that fast. Not when it’s—

The phone vibrates in my hand, sending a frozen chill across the back of my neck. I check the number on Caller ID, but it’s
nothing I recognize. Last time, I ignored it. This time… if they’re tracing it… I need to know.

“Hello?” I answer, keeping it confident.

“Where the hell are you?” Charlie asks. There’s no phone in the chapel. If he’s risking a call from the street, we’ve got
problems.

“What’s wrong? Are you—?”

“You better get back here,” he demands.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“Oliver, get back here.
Now!
”

I pound the bus’s
Stop-Request
strip with the base of my fist. Goodbye frying pan—Hello, fire.

D
id we get him?” Lapidus asked, leaning over DeSanctis’s shoulder.

“Hold on…” DeSanctis said, staring down at his laptop. Onscreen, courtesy of the cellular company’s Mobile Telephone Switching
Office, was the call log for Oliver Caruso’s cellular phone.

“What’s taking so long?” Gallo demanded.

“Hold on…”

“You already said—”

The screen of the laptop blinked and a grid of information suddenly appeared. Gallo, DeSanctis, and Lapidus all pulled in
close, studying each entry:
Time, Date, Duration, Current Outgoing Call
…

“That’s us!” Lapidus blurted, quickly recognizing the number for the customer service line. “He’s on the phone with someone
here!”

“In this building?” Gallo asked.

“Y-Yeah… on the first fl—”

“He’s moving,” DeSanctis interrupted. Onscreen were the cell sites that carried the call:

Initial Cell Site: 303C

Last Cell Site: 304A

“How do you…?”

“Each number is a different tower,” DeSanctis explained. “When you make a call, your phone finds the nearest cell tower with
a signal—but here, his call started in one place and continues in another…” Next to his laptop, DeSanctis scoured the cellular
map spread out across the desk. “… 303C is 79th and Madison; 304A is 83rd and Madison.”

“So he’s heading up Madison Avenue?”

DeSanctis rechecked the screen. “The call’s only two minutes long. To get from 79th to 83rd… he’s moving too fast to be on
foot.”

“Maybe he’s on the subway,” Lapidus suggested.

“Not up there. Subway doesn’t run on Madison,” Gallo said. “He’s on wheels, though—either cab or bus.” Rushing for the door
and fighting his limp, Gallo looked back at Lapidus. “I need your customer service person to stall as long as she can. Make
small talk… keep him on hold… whatever works.”

“Do you want me to—”

“Don’t even think of picking up—he hears your voice, he’s gone.”

“He’s still in 304A,” DeSanctis called out, madly tucking computer wires under his armpit. With his laptop balanced in his
palm like a delivered pizza, he rushed to the door and out into the hallway. “That gives us about a four-block radius.”

“So you think you can…”

“Good as dead,” Gallo said as they darted for the private elevator. “He’ll never see us coming.”

A
s the bus pulls up to a pristine brownstone on the corner of 81st Street, I dial the number for the Kings Plaza Movie Theater
in Brooklyn and hit
Send.
When the prerecorded voice picks up, I grab a newspaper from the seat next to me, wrap my cell phone in it, and slide the
phone package under my seat. If they’re tracing it, this should buy us at least an hour—and the infinite loop of movie times
should give them a working signal that’ll have them goosechasing all the way up to Harlem.

Before my fellow passengers realize what’s going on, the bus bucks to a stop, the doors open, and I’m gone. My trip’s over.
Luckily, abandoned phones ride for free.

It takes ten more minutes for the bank teller at Citibank to empty the three thousand five hundred dollars that’s left in
my checking account, and it’s one of the few times I’m glad that I can’t afford the private bank minimums. With their access
to Lapidus, the Service would’ve had an account at Greene shut down in no time.

Back at the church, I keep my head down and speedwalk through the main sanctuary, straight toward the private chapel. Up ahead,
the glow of candlelight seeps out from the crack beneath the door. I grab the doorknob in a tight fist and check once over
my shoulder, then again to be safe. No one looks up.

Shoving the door open, I rush into the candlelit room and scan the benches for Charlie. He’s in the same one I left him in—in
the corner—still hunched over. But now… there’s something in his hands. His notepad. Once again, he’s writing… no, not just
writing. Scribbling. Furiously. The man who can’t be stopped.

I nod to myself. He’s finally coming back. “So what’s the emergency?” I ask.

It’s the only time he stops writing. “I can’t find mom.”

The words collide like a kidney-punch. No wonder he snapped out of his silence. “What’re you talking about?”

“I called her before and—”

“I told you not to call her!”

“Just listen,” Charlie begs. “I called her from a payphone seven blocks away… she never once picked up.”

“So?”

“So, it’s Tuesday, Oliver. Tuesday afternoon and she’s not there?” Falling silent, he lets it sink in. As a seamstress, mom
spends most of her time either in the house or at the fabric store—but Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for fittings. Out
goes the coffee table; in come the clients. All day long.

“Maybe she was in the middle of measuring,” I suggest.

“Maybe we should go check it out,” he shoots back.

“Charlie, you know that’s the first place they’ll look. And if they nab us there, we’re only putting mom at risk.”

His eyes drop back to his notepad. Forget what I said. Everyone can be stopped.

“You okay?” I ask.

Charlie nods, which means it’s a giant lie. Once he’s wound up, he’s allergic to quiet.

“Don’t shut down again,” I tell him. “She’ll be okay. As soon as we get out of here, we’ll figure out a way to get in touch.”

“I’m sure we will,” he says. “But let me tell you something—if they go near her…”

I look up, noticing the change in Charlie’s voice. He doesn’t joke about mom. “She’ll be fine,” I insist.

He nods to himself, trying his best to believe it. With his back to me, he adds, “Now tell me what happened with Duckworth.
You find out where he got the money?”

“Not exactly,” I say, carefully relaying my conversation with the woman at the bank. As always, Charlie’s reaction is immediate.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “Even though when we checked, it said three million, Duckworth had the three hundred and thirteen
all along…?”

“Only if you believe what it says in the files.”

“You think she was making it up?”

“Charlie, you know how many clients have over a hundred million in assets? Seventeen at last count… and I can name every one
of them. Marty Duckworth isn’t on that list.”

Charlie stares at me, completely silent. “How’s that possible?”

“That’s the issue now, isn’t it?” I ask. “Obviously, someone was doing a primo job of making it look like Duckworth only had
three million to his name. The real question is, who did it, and how’d they hide it from the rest of the bank?”

“You really think someone can just hide all that cash?”

“Why not? That’s what the bank’s paid to do on a daily basis,” I point out. “Think about it—it’s the one thing every rich
person loves: hiding their money. From the IRS… from ex-wives… from snotty kids…”

“… that’s why people come to us in the first place,” Charlie adds, quickly catching on. “So with a specialty like that, there’s
gotta be someone here who’s figured out how to make an account look like one thing and actually be another.
Yes, Mr. Duckworth, your balance is three million dollars—wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
”

“Stupid us, when Mary transferred the balance, we got the whole megillah.”

Staring at the candles, we both kick our way through the logic. “It’s not bad…” Charlie admits. “But for an insider to pull
that off…”

“I don’t think it was just an insider, Charlie—whoever it was, they were getting help…”

“Gallo and his buddy in the Service?”

“You heard what Shep said—he wasn’t the one who called them in. They showed up the moment their money went poof.”

We simultaneously nod our heads. It’s not a bad theory. “So they were in on it from the start?” Charlie asks.

“You tell me: What’s the likelihood that two Secret Service agents would wander into a case and then kill Shep just to turn
a quick buck? I don’t care how much money’s at stake, Gallo and DeSanctis weren’t randomly assigned. They came to protect
their investment.”

“Maybe they were on the take, selling their services…”

“Maybe they’ve been working with the bank all along.”

“You mean like money laundering?” Charlie asks.

I shrug, still thinking it through. “Whatever it was, these guys had their hands in something bad, something big… and something
that, if all went right, would’ve netted them three hundred and thirteen million George Washingtons.”

“Not a bad day’s work,” Charlie agrees. “So who do you think they were scheming with?”

“Hard to say. All I know is, you can’t spell Secret Service without
Secret.
”

“Yeah, well, you can’t spell
Asshole
without Lapidus or Quincy,” Charlie says, pointing a finger.

“I don’t know,” I say doubtfully. “You saw their reactions—they were even more scared than we were.”

“Yeah… because you, me, and everyone else were watching. Actors don’t exist without an audience. Besides, if it wasn’t Lapidus
or Quincy, who could it possibly be?”

“Mary,” I challenge.

Charlie stops, stroking an imagined goatee on his chin. “Not a bad call.”

“I’m telling you, it could’ve been anyone. Though it still leaves us with the original question: Where’d Duckworth get three
hundred and thirteen million?” The candles continue their dance. I stay quiet.

“Why don’t you ask the man himself?” Charlie says.

“Duckworth? He’s dead.”

“You sure about that?” Charlie asks, cocking an eyebrow. “If everything else is a hall of mirrors, what makes you think this
is the only wall?”

It’s a good point. Actually, it’s a great point. “Do you still have his…”

Charlie reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded-up sheet of paper. “That’s the beauty of rewearing yesterday’s
slacks,” he says. “I’ve got it right… here.” Unfolding the paper, he reveals the Duckworth address that was on the Midland
National Bank account: 405 Amsterdam Avenue. With his fuse lit, he takes off for the door.

“Charlie…” I whisper. “Maybe it’s better to go to the police.”

“Why—so they can turn us over to the Service, who’ll put bullets in both our heads? No offense, Ollie, but the fact that we
have the money… and the way they set us up with Shep—no one’s gonna believe a word.”

I close my eyes, trying to paint a different picture. But all I see is Shep’s blood… all over our hands. It doesn’t matter
what we say. Even I wouldn’t believe us. Stepping backwards, I take a seat on the bench. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”

“Don’t say that,” Charlie scolds. I’m not sure if it’s denial or little-brother stubbornness, but I’ll take it either way.
“If we find Duckworth… that’s our first step to finding answers,” he insists. “This is our chance to shake the Magic Eight-Ball.
I’m not giving that up.” Yanking the door open, he disappears into the sanctuary.