"I'll check," said George.

"So," said Hester, "Super Agent Volont have the principals wired on this one?"

"Everybody but Gabe," I said, grinning. "He says he's lost him, and I think that's true."

"Even if it wasn't," said George, "I think he'd be a lot better off trying to take him out in the world, than he would be trying to arrest him wherever he's holed up." He shrugged. "I think we can be pretty sure that Gabe will find us."

I couldn't have agreed more. Gabriel would be able to not only hold off a small army, but I wasn't so sure he wouldn't take the offensive and break out. With lots of unnecessary bodies in his wake. The man was really good at that sort of thing, and I believed he had access to more dangerous tools than even the FBI did.

"So where's Volont?" asked Hester. "I would have thought he'd be with you two."

"Last we saw of him," I said, "I think he was off to meet one of his famous sources." I took a sip of coffee. "I wonder who they are, anyway?"

"Wouldn't it be funny," said Hester, "if he was calling a psychic?"

That made my day.

As we left, she said, "Hey, look on the bright side. At least you know who did the brothers in the shed. The big case is all over but the shouting."

"Yeah, and Art'll take care of that."

When I got back to the office, I met with Mike Connors. Since he'd been with the department for over fifteen years, he was pretty much in charge of the night shift. He was also renowned for being able to keep his mouth shut.

I checked with him on the general stuff happening with the night shift. Who or what was moving. Anything suspicious. Mike just shook his head.

"You might want to keep an eye on all the banks in the county…"

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He'd been one of those tunnel rats in Vietnam. It took a whole hell of a lot to get a rise out of him. Whether it was a case of the chicken or the egg being first, I couldn't tell you.

"We might have a problem there," I said. "There might be somebody scouting some of 'em. You see anything unusual…?"

"Sure."

"But don't tell the other people on the shift," I said. "Just you and me for now."

"Got it."

"Hey, by the way, do you know either Harvey or Linda Grossman?"

He smiled. "Linda. You should remember her, too."

"Me?" I grinned. "Sure I do, I just met her a couple of days ago."

"No, no. She was a Perrin. Married a fellow named Voshell before she got hitched to this Grossman guy. You remember now?"

Not at all.

"You remember Nola Stritch?"

Did I. She had been heavily involved with the whole Gabriel business back in '96.

"Linda's her sister."

"'Sister'? I didn't know she had a sister…" I was dumbfounded.

"Yep. Well, half sister. Nola's maiden name was Jaekel. Divorce in the family. Little sister's maiden name was Perrin. Linda Perrin. Remember her? Charlie Perrin's kid. We got her twelve, thirteen years ago for beer."

It never occurred to me to question a beer ticket from a dozen years ago. He had that kind of memory.

"I'll be damned," I said. "Be really aware around the banks. You remember the Gabriel dude who did all the shit at the courthouse?"

"Oh, yeah…"

"He's back, and he's the one we think is going for the banks."

He got very serious, very quickly. "No shit?"

"No shit. Without any names, bring the night folks up to one hundred percent, okay? I think something's gonna happen between now and Monday."

"Yep. Who else knows about this?"

"Me, and Lamar. Sally, at least part of it. Two DCI. FBI, of course. Gabriel," I added, grinning.

"Right."

"And Mike? One more thing. I think it's about one hundred percent that Gabriel offed the Colson brothers. You can figure he's in a mood."

George came in with a look in his eye.

"Let's take a drive up to the Frieberg bank."

I drove. Less conspicuous that any U.S. government Ford. Even if George had drawn one of the better ones. Forest green as opposed to navy blue.

"This could be a good day," I said.

"Let me guess. You're thinking, 'Thirty minutes of Frieberg. Minimum of thirty minutes at the bank. Time for lunch. The pavilion of the General Beauregard. Buffet.'" He looked up from studying the photographs of the field. "Right?"

It's embarrassing to be that obvious. I said as much.

"We all have our needs," he said.

The news we got at the bank took the fun right out of the day. In response to the ruse that we were engaged in a routine survey of all banks, the branch manager had been very reluctant to talk with us, even though he knew me on sight. George hit him with the Credential from God, and we got the straight dope right away.

It seemed that this little branch bank was often holding more than five million dollars in cash. Cash.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"Well, it was all so hush-hush, you know. The casino people told us that nobody was supposed to know." Consequently, nobody did.

We asked where it was. All in the new vault. He checked his computer screen. "Well, right now, we're way down. Only one-point-three million."

Swell. And when did they expect the ante to rise?

"We do our greatest business beginning Thursday with the last deposit of the day. By end of business on Friday, we normally have about three-point-five million, and by start of business on Sunday, after the weekend drops, probably a little over five million."

Holy shit. And, it turned out, they had somebody in the bank on odd hours. One employee, to supervise the cash deposit and exchange. The casino was open, after all, twenty-four hours a day. And it appeared that there was no deposit slot in the area that could handle that volume of cash, without forcing the boat courier to spend an unconscionable amount of time standing around with the trunk of the car open.

"I wouldn't worry too much," he said. "We expect nearly half a million to be in coinage. Maybe more. Nobody would ever take that much weight in coins."

"Uh, just how much would that be?" I asked. "Would it weigh, you know?"

"Well," he said, "a thousand dollars in quarters weighs about fifty pounds. That would make ten thousand dollars weigh in at five hundred pounds, a hundred thousand dollars at five thousand pounds… so half a million dollars in quarters would run in the neighborhood of, oh, say twenty-five thousand pounds."

George and I looked at each other. I chuckled. "Nobody without a dump truck."

It was noon before we connected up with Hester in her office. I went right to the phone, while George gave her the bad news.

"Hey, Sally, can I talk to Lamar?" I waited, watching Hester react. I'd never seen her jaw drop before. "Lamar? Uh, I think we found the bank that's gonna get the most attention."

The term "flurry of activity" doesn't even begin to approach what was happening in the next thirty minutes. We were wanted at meetings with both Lamar and Volont, and even Art was trying to contact us. I dug my heels in, and finally convinced everybody that we'd attract a lot less attention at the DCI boat office than we would back at the Sheriffs Department.

Hester caught on immediately. "You're shameless. You know that, don't you?"

"It's the only buffet in the whole damned county," I said. "You've just become desensitized because you get to eat here every day."

"You do, too," she said.

Yeah. Anyway, as we waited for the conference to congregate, I asked Hester if she had some quarters. She fished six from her purse. I asked George, and he came up with four. I added them to the seven I had in my pocket, and stacked them on Hester's desk.

"You got a ruler?"

"Houseman," she said, fishing around in her desk drawer, "what are you doing?"

She handed me a ruler. I stacked the quarters, and removed two.

"There's fifteen quarters to an inch," I said.