1975

Old Man Railsback was prancing like a kid in desperate need of a visit to the bathroom. Cash didn't ask why. He had arrived fifteen minutes early, trying to beat everyone in. But Hank had gotten there ahead of him anyway.

"Come on in here, Norm," the lieutenant called from his lair.

Cash entered on tiptoe, perpetually poised to flee.

"Sit down. And settle down. The shit ain't going to hit the fan just yet." He shoved the door closed. "Purely business."

"Well?"

"First, soon as Gardner comes through with a warrant, we start taking the Groloch place apart. Brick by brick. I got a feeling we're in for some surprises." He kept fingering the edges of something that looked like a very old, hand-drawn, extremely complicated circuit diagram.

"Huh? Why?"

"Well, I not only got idiots in my squad, I've got them in my family. After we left for the fire, the old man tossed the place."

"But…" He wanted to ask why he hadn't been told last night.

"Yeah. After I warned him. After what happened to the Kid. After all the time he spent on the force. But he has a mind of his own. And he wants to help, you know what I mean? To be useful, to impress the rest of us. This time it paid off." He rolled his chair back, opened a side drawer, tossed two large, stringbound bundles onto the desktop. "He thought these might be important. He's probably right, but not as right as he wants to be. A few more nails in her coffin, maybe."

One bundle consisted of gold notes. Twenties. Cash suspected he knew the amount without counting. The second bundle, far larger, was made up of old letters still in their original envelopes. There were more than a hundred.

"The counterfeit?" The bills looked fresh, despite their age. Even if they were real, only a bank would accept them.

He picked up a handful of envelopes after Hank cut the string with his nail clippers. The lieutenant admitted that he had been through them already. Hadn't the man slept at all?

"A nice collection of covers." They sketched eighty years of turbulent postal history clearly, beginning with envelopes franked with stamps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then stamps of Austria and Hungary overprinted Czeskoslovenka, several dozen regular Czech issues of the prewar period, and, on the last few envelopes, Sudetenland provisional and stamps of the German puppet-protectorate, Bohemia and Moravia. Scattered among the predominate PRAGA postmarks were several indicating that Miss Groloch's correspondent had on occasion wandered into Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, and Romania.

"Nothing since the war."

"Since before we got into it, really."

A December 17, 1940, postmark was the most recent. The envelope had been rubber-stamped with censor marks and numerous backstamps indicating the circuitous routing followed by mail coming out of the Greater German Reich. The St. Louis backstamp, indicating date received, was March 6, 1942.

Cash opened that one.

"Your old man can read German, can't he?"

"Yeah. Only these aren't in German. I seen enough when I was a kid to know that."

Cash looked again. "You're right. Czech? Or Slovak?"

Railsback shrugged. "Whatever they talk over there, I guess."

"There aren't any American letters."

"From what Dad told me about the place he found these, there might have been. He said it looked like somebody had taken another bundle out of there."

"She took them with her." Cash smiled. "Because she didn't want to give Rochester away. She's crafty all right. Except that I've already got the angle on her there. I already know."

"Which probably means there's nothing in these we can use. Maybe she even left them to distract us." Railsback tried to put a rubber band around the envelopes. It snapped, stinging him. He cursed. Next try he broke the pile into several bundles. "I'd have you check those bills with your friend the hood, only I want you checking the airport, bus station, and what not."

"She went to Rochester."

"Maybe. Check it. Use Beth if you want. Smith and Tucholski are tied up with this fire thing."

"Hank, I want to go up there."

"Where?"

"New York."

"You've got to be shitting me."

"I mean it. She's old. She'll go by train. I could take a plane and be there waiting for her."

"And then what?"

He hadn't thought about it. "I don't know. Maybe bluff her…"

"Aren't you a little scared? I mean, she's burned seven or eight guys already."

"No." He said it with surprise. "No. You know, I think the house made the difference. I feel like I've won just by getting her out of it."

"Yeah? Well, get on the road. I want to know how she left and where she went."

"I'm going up there, Hank. If I have to pay out of my own pocket."

"Yeah. Sure. Meantime, get on the job I just gave you."

Beth had arrived while they were closeted. Cash whispered with her for a minute, then turned to Old Man Railsback, who was grinning. "Bad as me, eh?"

The elder Railsback chuckled.

"You're not doing anything this morning, you can do me a couple favors."

"Such as?"

"Make it down to St. John Nepomuk Church, Twelfth and Lafayette, and see if the priest can put you on to anybody who could translate those letters for us. Then take one of those bills down to the Feds and see if it's kosher. Only one. We don't want them grabbing the whole damned pile yet."

"Okay. It's something to do."

Damned but it was going to be rough learning to do without John. He was going to have to do his own leg work.

Cash followed his railroad hunch and visited Union Station first. And yes, the ticket agent remembered the little old lady with the foreign accent. But he didn't remember where she had gone. The Amtrak ticket records-of course-were screwed up beyond hope.

"That's what you get when you let the government fuck around with things," Cash grumbled as he walked back to his car, a rail schedule in hand.

She had pulled out Thursday morning. Assuming the usual foul-ups and delays, a plane should get him into Rochester well ahead of her.

He paused to call Beth. "Norm. Yeah. I was right. She took the train. No. Hold off telling him. I'm going to slide home and talk it over with Annie. And I've still got to tell John's wife. You make my reservation? Good girl. Talk to you later."