Foley nodded. “They sure can’t just be shoved under the front door of the nearest local branch bank. There are proprieties to be observed, or our lawyers will feed the feds their restraining order and make them eat it.”
Bertone stubbed out his cigar. “Then we must be certain the account has been emptied before the FBI and the IRS can act.”
“I can’t do anything before Monday morning.”
“So says Kayla Shaw. You will test her words.”
“Look,” Foley said wearily. “I’ve already tried everything I can think of on the remote-access portal.”
“Then go to the bank. Try it there.”
“But-”
“Call me as soon as you arrive.”
All Foley really heard was the chance to escape. He reached for the door handle. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
Just before the door closed, Bertone said clearly, “Do not make the mistake of thinking that Gabriel is the only killer I control.”
Foley shut the door and forced himself to walk, not run, away.
Chandler Mall
Sunday
Rand hung up his cell phone and crowded Kayla into a little alcove behind a towering potted plant.
“Grace can’t believe that you just realized you have Bertone by the short and curlies,” he said against her ear. “I’m having a tough time myself.”
“That’s because you’re not an honest banker.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” He oofed softly when her elbow met his belly.
“I was an honest banker. That means I never thought of my client’s money as, well, accessible to me. Their money was just numbers in a column.”
“So when did the lightbulb come on?”
“When I realized I hadn’t given the password on Bertone’s new account to anyone. You can add money without a password, but you can’t subtract it from the account, even as a transfer to another of the client’s accounts. I was going to tell Bertone at the party, but I forgot.”
“Before or after the handcuffs?”
“About the time Bertone was telling me how he required special service from his bankers.”
“Yeah, that’d be downright distracting. But was the rest of what you told Foley the truth?” Rand asked.
“Which part?”
“The one about not being able to move money from a remote access portal.”
“I think it’s true.” She shrugged and nibbled along Rand’s chin. “But true or not, Foley won’t be able to. When it comes to computers, he doesn’t know his butt from butter. He won’t be able to do anything until Monday morning.”
Rand kissed her hard, then straightened. “I hope that’s enough time.”
“For what?”
“Grace to get that restraining order on the account.”
“Is there a problem?” Kayla asked.
“With bureaucrats, there’s always a problem.”
Scottsdale
Sunday
Grace tapped her finger impatiently on the scratched and gouged end table next to the rump-sprung bed.
“Of course I know it’s the weekend,” she said crisply into the phone. She’d been so informed by a series of underlings until she had finally broken through to the judge’s personal underling. “Unfortunately, criminals don’t work regular hours.”
The person on the other end of the line repeated his unwillingness to disturb an already overworked judge on the judge’s birthday.
“As a former judge, I sympathize,” she said. “However, as a judge, I wouldn’t have minded the few minutes it would take to lock down a money launderer’s accounts. I would consider it time well spent.”
She closed her eyes and listened to the same unwillingness restated in different, less polite words. Pushing him any harder would just make him angry, which would make him even less helpful later on.
If there was a later on with Bertone’s account.
Why do laws work so well against the lawful?
“Thanks, I really appreciate all you’ve done,” Grace lied sincerely. “If anything new breaks on this, I’ll call you.”
She hung up and said bitterly, “But I don’t know quite what to call you. Joe will. He’s good with those kinds of words.”
Pushing herself to her feet, she straightened her T-shirt over the growing mound of her pregnancy and headed for the unbolted doors connecting two of the cheesy motel’s even cheesier rooms. The sharp scent of cleaning chemicals tainted the air of every room in the Scottsdale Sun-Up Inn, but Room 203-the one that had been reserved in her name-was rank with old cigarette smoke barely covered by some cheap room perfume that made her nose itch.
Arizona, last bastion of smokers and gunmen, she thought with a grimace.
She glanced around the room. Empty. It had been turned over, with fresh sheets and towels and a quick vacuum, but it was still a tired, threadbare motel room that had been inhabited by years of smokers.
“Joe?” she called out.
No one answered.
Lane was in the second room, nose deep in a textbook. She closed the door behind her, crossed the room, and headed for yet another interior door. When she opened it on her side, she came face-to-face with Faroe. He put his hand around her neck and kissed her thoroughly.
“I hope you aren’t planning an assignation,” she said, leaning her stomach against him, “because cheap motels and oily bureaucrats don’t put me in the mood.”
Lane snickered. “La la la, I’m not listening, la la la, I’m not-”
“No luck on the lockdown warrant?” Faroe asked.
“I didn’t realize a judge’s birthday was a sacred holiday,” she said curtly.
“Only to oily bureaucrats.” He rubbed her stomach, felt the baby doing backflips, and said, “C’mon. Rand and Kayla just got here.”
“Lunch?” Lane asked without looking up.
“I gave you my last candy bar,” Faroe said.
“I ate it.”
“Then you’ll survive for a few more minutes.”
Faroe led Grace out of the second motel room and through the unlocked companionway door to a third room. Drawn drapes contributed to the gloom. Officially, this room hadn’t been rented. The desk monkey had a fifty-dollar bill and a promise of two more if it stayed that way.
Nobody spoke until Faroe closed and locked the door. “Did the feds tail you?” he asked Rand.
“If they did, I didn’t spot them.”
“Then they probably didn’t follow you.”
“Good.” Grace went to a chair, lowered herself into it, and sighed. “We left the camera crew at the compound to keep most of the surveillance teams anchored.” She stretched her legs out on the cigarette-scarred coffee table. “Explain to me again why we need three rooms?”
“It’s a cheap way of confusing the guys with the eyeballs,” Faroe said. He slipped off her shoes, sat on the floor, and began rubbing her feet. “They saw you come in two-oh-three, so they’ll probably camp all day on two-oh-three, waiting to ID whoever you meet there. Meanwhile, we’ll come and go from two-oh-seven all day long, and they’ll never figure it out. I hope.”
“Hope is good.” Grace yawned. “It’s all that’s keeping me from grabbing someone and squeezing his balls until his eyes cross.”
“Oily bureaucrats don’t have balls,” Faroe said.
“Quiet, you’re ruining my fantasy.” She looked at Rand. “Joe has already filled me in on your meeting with Foley. Anything to add?”
“Bottom line hasn’t changed,” Rand said. “Bertone is trying like a dirty beggar to move that money, but so long as the account is protected by Kayla’s password, that money is as secure as it would be under a temporary restraining order.”