The Undertaker

I got out and popped open the trunk. Slim pickings there too: a nearly-flat spare tire, a rusty jack, and a box of road flares that were probably too old and too wet to light. I felt around inside, under the insulation, inside the spare tire, under the carpet, and along the sides. Nothing. But there had to be something in the Buick. There had to be. I went around front, popped the hood, and examined every inch of the engine compartment with the dying flashlight. I unscrewed the air cleaner cover. Nothing inside but a very dirty filter. I felt inside every nook and cranny where something might be hidden. Still, nothing. I closed the hood and felt around inside all the wheel wells. Other than getting my hands filthy, I found nothing there either.

That only left the passenger compartment. I started with the back seat and went through the trash. Carefully, piece by piece, I picked up each section of newspaper, each coke can, and each candy bar wrapper, felt them, looked inside them, tore them apart, and stacked each piece on the ground outside. Nothing. I felt under the front seat. With the flashlight, I rolled over and looked underneath the seats to see if anything was wedged up in the springs or in the seat mechanism. Nope. I sat up, frustrated. I knew I was smarter than this guy. There was no question he hid something inside, but there were only so many places left where he could have put it. Slowly and methodically, I felt my way across the front and rear seat cushions looking at each seam, but there were no bulges, no cuts, and no re-sewing.

Finally, I looked at the padded door panels. Like most cars, they were fastened to the doorframe with plastic clips. I got the flashlight up close and worked my way around the edge of each panel, looking for any scratches or signs it had been pried off. I started with the driver's side front, then went to the passenger's side front, and on to the passenger side rear before I finally saw something. Along the top edge, the painted metal doorframe bore the unmistakable signs of having had been scratched. I didn't care about leaving more marks, so I wedged the Jimmy under the panel and popped it off. Sure enough, I saw what appeared to be a cigar box duct-taped to the inside of the door.

I ripped it loose and leaned back in the seat with a huge grin on my face. The box said White Owl cigars. Figured. That was about as cheap of a brand as you could buy, and I could picture ‘Pete’ with a White Owl in one hand and Racing Forum in the other, leaning back in his desk chair in that dumpy accounting office on Sickles. Inside the box lay a dirty business-size #10 envelope with a rubber band wrapped tightly around it. Inside the box was a New Jersey Driver's License in the name of George Deevers. The photo was of a fat man with thinning hair and round cheeks. DMV photos anywhere were notoriously out of focus, but this guy bore a striking resemblance to one of the photos I saw in the public library yesterday morning. I tried to remember which one, then it suddenly came to me. It was Louie Panozzo, Jimmy Santorini's bean counter who ratted him out and put him in the Federal pen in Marion. That answered a lot of questions. I stuck the driver's license in my pocket. I could say I had lost a hundred pounds working out with Fergie at Weight Watchers. After all, when you have no papers, even a bad ID is better than no ID at all.

In the envelope, I also found a New Jersey insurance certificate in George Deevers’ name, a Visa card, and $2,500 in cash. So you did have an escape plan, eh, ‘Pete?’ In the bottom of the box, under the money, I saw three small computer flash drives and knew I had just hit the Power Ball Lottery.

A flash drive is smaller than a lipstick tube and the latest in data storage devices: cheap and very easy to use. Even one could hold an unbelievable amount of data – reports, spreadsheets, data files, photos, whatever you might want. The top one had a black “#1” written on it in Magic Marker. The others were similarly labeled “#2” and “#3.” You had to give bean counters high marks originality, but other than the three numbers, there were no other markings or hints as to what they contained. Louie had been a Mafia accountant, and I'd bet the farm these were copies of the financial records of the Santorini crime Family in New Jersey. No doubt, they were what Tinkerton had been trying to pry out of me on the embalming table, and what he had tried to pry out of the other ‘Pete', and that had made my life a whole lot more interesting and a whole lot more dangerous.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Indiana: Get thee behind me, Satan…