They didn’t make the eleven o’clock news but Farber’s “Paul Conklin” DMV photo got good coverage in the morning papers and on the drive-time broadcasts. Wren had promised that he would get Kane any resources he needed and Greg figured he would be a fool not to take advantage of the offer. By six a.m. they had a tip line set up and manned. By seven-thirty the phones were lighting up with calls from nut jobs, psychics, lonely old ladies, and citizens who thought that anonymously fingering their hated boss or faithless spouse would be a great way to get revenge. Farber was aware of none of this. He didn’t stagger to the bathroom to pee out the last of the rotgut scotch until almost a quarter after eight, right on time as far as he was concerned.
He planned on arriving at the bank between ten and eleven, renting a car by noon, and being on a plane by five. None of that happened. After a quick shower he ran a disposable razor over his face and then unzipped the inside corner pocket of his go-bag for his safety deposit box key. And it wasn’t there. A little ball of vacuum opened in Farber’s stomach and he scrabbled his fingers helplessly around the compartment. No key. He dumped the bag on the bed and, with rising fear, worked his way through every item. No key. He went back to the bag itself, fingering every cavity, every zipper, every seam. No key.
Cold with terror he collapsed into the room’s single chair and tried to think. The bank box held his new ID, his new credit card, his new passport and, except for a bit over the eight hundred bucks still in his wallet, all his cash. He couldn’t get into the box without the key. He couldn’t get a replacement key without identification in his new name. All the IDs in his new name were in the box. He had to have the key. Where the hell was the key!
Think! Think! Think! When was the last time he had seen it?
He had visited the bank three weeks before to drop off his latest payment from Ryan Munroe. Farber ran the morning back through his mind. As he always did when he went to the bank he had dressed in his blue suit, white shirt and dark tie. He gave the teller the slip with his new name, Harlan Boyce, and the box number. She pulled the signature card and compared it to the paper he had just signed. Of course the signatures matched. She smiled and grabbed her keys. That was one of the things he liked about that bank, no computers. It was like being back in 1970 – no photo IDs, no mag strips, not even a computerized database, just a name, a box number, a small steel drawer filled with well-worn signature cards and a key.
The woman had inserted her key and his into the locks and opened the little door, then she removed both keys and gave his back to him. He took the box to a little room, shoved the bundles of bills inside and closed it up again. A few moments later they repeated the process in reverse. She locked the door. Had she given him back his key? Yes, he remembered her handing it to him. He had held on to it until he was back in the car, then he must have done what he always did. He had to have slipped it into the little pocket he had sewn into the lining of his suit coat, the one that nothing could fall out of. When he was on the street he used that pocket to keep special items, the safety deposit box key, flash drives from Munroe with details of a new assignment, an emergency stash of flattened hundred dollar bills.
All right, he had put the key in the pocket. Then he went home, no, wait, he didn’t go home. He was going to go home when the burner phone rang. It was Munroe calling him for a meet to give him new instructions from their mysterious employer. He remembered Munroe had made a joke about the suit, “A pig in a party dress” he said and laughed. Farber had smiled but inside he’d wanted to break Munroe’s nose. Then what? Think?
He’d had to run around checking out some stuff for Munroe. He remembered that he had missed lunch. It was almost dinner time by the time he finished Munroe’s errands and he stopped for take-out on the way home. When he arrived he was still pissed at Munroe over the remark about the suit and hungry and he had to pee. He’d thrown the suit on the bed, hit the head, then gone downstairs in his underwear and a bathrobe to eat the pizza he had picked up before it went cold.
Then what? Then what? TV? A few beers? When he’d finally gone upstairs the suit had still been lying on the bed. He’d put it into the closet! Had he taken the key out? He didn’t remember, but, no, he couldn’t have because if he had removed the key from the secret pocket the only place he would have put it would have been the go-bag and it wasn’t there. So, it still had to be in the suit!
The cops would search the house. They’d go through everything, but would they find a key in a secret pocket of a suit hanging in the closet? Maybe. What were the odds? Farber thought about it, thought about the crime-scene guys he had known when he was on the job. They were pretty careful when they were running a room where they’d found a couple of bodies but an empty house where the guy was already in the wind? Eighty percent at least, he figured, eighty-twenty or better that they wouldn’t find the key.
Farber glanced at the curtains. It was full daylight. No way he was going to be able to get back into the house now. He’d have to wait until dark, way after dark, three, four a.m. and then go in over the back fence, slip upstairs and get it from the suit. He wanted to be gone right now but there was no help for it. He wondered if the raid on his house had made the news and he turned on the TV. Ten seconds later his picture flashed up on the screen – “Armed and Dangerous.” Shit! Shit! Shit.
He’d have to hole up in this fucking room all day. Had anyone seen him? The night-shift guy had been half in the bag and besides he didn’t look like a big fan of current affairs. It was a risk that the night clerk might see the picture on the news and connect it to the guy in room 203 but less of one than showing his face outside right now.
OK, OK, Farber told himself. Things could be worse. I’ll just play it cool until it gets dark. Have a pizza delivered for lunch and shove the money through a crack in the door. When it’s good and dark I’ll steal a car, get the key, dump the car a few blocks from the bank and keep my head down until it opens. Maybe some cotton balls to puff out my cheeks and a fake mustache and a prayer that the old lady at the bank is half blind will do the trick.
Sounds like a plan, Farber thought and switched the channel.