The Moneychangers

"Okay, then," Innes said. "Until morning. But understand one thing, Nolan this conversation never took place." He crossed ~ to the conference room door and opened it. "You can come in, Mr. Gayne. Mr. Wainwright's leaving and we'll take your statement now."

14

A list of branch bank officers, maintained in the security department for emergency, revealed Miles Eastin's home address and telephone number. Nolan Wainwright copied down both. ~

He recognized the address. A medium income residential area about two miles from downtown. It included the information "Apartment 2G."

Leaving FMA Headquarters Building, the security chief used a pay phone on Rosselli Plaza to dial the telephone number and heard the ringing continue unanswered. He already knew Miles Eastin was a bachelor. Wainwright was hoping he also lived alone.

If the phone had been answered, Wainwright would have made an excuse about a wrong number and revised his plans. As it was, he now headed for his car, parked in the headquarters basement garage.

Before leaving the garage he opened the trunk of the car and removed a slim chamois case, placing it in an inside pocket. He then drove across town.

He walked toward the apartment building casually but taking in details. A three-story structure, probably forty years old and showing signs of disrepair. He guessed it contained two dozen or so apartments. No doorman was visible. Inside a vestibule Nolan Wainwright could see an array of mail boxes and call buttons. Dual glass doors opened-from the street to the vestibule; beyond them was a more solid door, undoubtedly locked. The time was 10:30. Traffic on the street was light. No

other pedestrians were near the apartment house. He went in.

Next to the mail boxes were three rows of buzzers and a speaker-phone. Wainwright saw the name EASTIN and depressed the button beside it. As he expected, there was no response.

(guessing that 2G indicated the second floor, he chose a bell button at random with the prefix 3 and pressed it. A man's voice on the speaker-phone rasped, "Yeah, who is it?" The name beside the button was Appleby.

"Western Union," Wainwright said. "Telegram for Appleby." "Okay, bring it up."

Behind the heavy interior door a buzzer sounded and a lock clicked open. Wainwright opened the door and went in quickly.

Immediately ahead was an elevator which he ignored. He saw a stairway to the right and went up it, two stairs at a time, to the second floor. On his way Wainwright reflected on the astounding innocence of people generally. He hoped that Appleby, whoever he was, would not wait too long for his telegram. This night Mr. Appleby would suffer no harm beyond minor puzzlement, perhaps frustration, though he might have fared far worse. Yet apartment tenants everywhere, despite repeated warnings, continued to do exactly the same. Of course, Appleby might grow suspicious and alert the police, though Wainwright doubted it. In any case, a few minutes from now it would make no difference.

Apartment 2G was near the end of the second-floor corridor and the lock proved uncomplicated. Wainwright tried a succession of slim blades from the chamois case he had pocketed, and on the fourth attempt the lock cylinder turned. The door swung open and he went in, dosing the door behind him.

He waited, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, then crossed to a window and drew drapes. He found a light switch and turned it on. The apartment was small, designed for use by one person; it was a single room divided into areas. A living-dining space contained a sofa, armchair, portable TV, and meal table. A bed was located behind a partition; the kitchenette had folding louvered doors. Two other doors which Wainwright checked revealed a bathroom and a storage closet. The place was orderly and clean. Several shelves of books and a few framed prints added a touch of personality.

Without wasting time, Wainwright began a systematic, thorough search.

He tried to suppress, as he worked, gnawing self-criticism for the illegal acts he was committing tonight. He did not wholly succeed. Nolan Wainwright was aware that everything he had done so far represented a reversal of his moral standards, a negation of his belief in law and order. Yet anger drove him. Anger and the knowledge of failure, four days ago, within himself.

He remembered with excruciating clarity, even now, the mute appeal in the eyes of the young Puerto Rican girl, Juanita Nunez, when he encountered her for the first time last Wednesday and began the interrogation. It was an appeal which said unmistakably: You and I. .. you are black, I am brown. Therefore you, of all people, should realize I am alone here, at a disadvantage, and desperately need help and fairness. But while recognizing the appeal, he had brushed it aside harshly, so that afterwards contempt replaced it, and he remembered that in the girl's eyes too.

This memory, coupled with chagrin at having been duped by Miles Eastin, made Wainwright determined to beat Eastin at his game, no matter if the law was bent in doing it.

Therefore, methodically, as his police training had taught him, Wainwright went on searching, determined that if evidence existed he would find it.

Half an hour later he knew that few places remained where anything could be hidden. He had examined cupboards, drawers and contents, had probed furniture, opened suitcases, inspected pictures on the walls, and removed the back of the TV. He also riffled through books, noting that an entire shelf was devoted to what someone had told him was Eastin's hobby the study of money through the ages. Along with the books, a portfolio contained sketches and photographs of ancient coins and banknotes. But of anything incriminating there was no trace. Finally he piled furniture in one corner and rolled up the living area rug. Then, with a flashlight, he went over every inch of floorboard.

Without the flashlight's aid he would have missed the carefully sawn board, but two lines, lighter colored than the wood elsewhere, betrayed where cuts had been made. He gently pried up the foot or so of board between the lines and in the space beneath were a small black ledger and cash in twenty-dollar bills.

Working quickly, he replaced the board, the rug, the furniture.

He counted the cash; it totaled six thousand dollars. Then he studied the small black ledger briefly, realized it was a betting record and he whistled softly at the size and number of amounts involved.

He put the book down it could be examined in detail later on an occasional table in front of the sofa, with the money beside it.

Finding the money surprised him. He had no doubt it was the six thousand dollars missing from the bank on Wednesday, but he would have expected Eastin to have exchanged it by now, or have deposited it elsewhere. Police work had taught him that criminals did foolish, unexpected things, and this was one.

What still had to be learned was how Eastin had taken the money and brought it here.

Wainwright glanced around the apartment, after which he turned out the lights. He reopened the drapes and, settling comfortably on the sofa, waited.

In the semidarkness, with the small apartment lighted by reflections from the street outside, his thoughts drifted. He thought again of Juanita Nunez and wished somehow he could make amends. Then he remembered the FBI report about her missing husband, Carlos, who had been traced to Phoenix, Arizona, and it occurred to Wainwright that this information might be used to help the girl .. ,

Of course, Miles Eastin's story about having seen Carlos Nunez in the bank the same day as the cash loss was a fabrication intended to throw even more suspicion on Juanita.

That despicable bastard! What kind of man was he, first to direct blame toward the girl, and later to add to it? The security chief felt his fists tighten, then warned himself not to allow his feelings to become too strong.

The warning was necessary, and he knew why. It was because of an incident long buried in his mind and which he seldom disinterred. Without really wanting to, he began remembering it.

Nolan Wainwright, now nearly fifty, had been spawned in the city's slums and, from birth, had found life's odds stacked against him. He grew up with survival as a daily challenge and with crime petty and otherwise a surrounding norm. In his teens he had run with a ghetto gang to whom brushes with the law were proof of manhood.

Like others, before and since, from the same slum background, he was driven by an urge to be somebody, to be noticed in whatever way, to release an inner rage against obscurity. He had no experience or philosophy to weigh alternatives, so participation in street crime appeared the only, the inevitable route. It seemed likely he would graduate, as many of his contemporaries did, to a police and prison record.