Hit and The Marksman by Brian Garfield

there’d be bloodstains in the car if I’d carried Aiello’s corpse out to that roadbed and buried it. Of course I didn’t know what they were looking for at first, but then later I heard the radio news about the body and I knew that’s what they’d been looking for in the station wagon. All right, they didn’t find any stains, and that slowed them down. But the way Senna looked at me I knew I was a long way from being off the hook. I went in the john and I could hear them out in the kitchen. There was a phone call, probably DeAngelo, and after Senna hung up he told Baker to get his gun because they were going out to your place to pump you and Joanne and see if you had the money. So they went, and as soon as they were gone I got in the station wagon and came over here. I had to think.”
    â€œWhy here?”
    â€œIt used to be a drop. I’d pick up satchels here once in a while. I think a long time ago they used the place to pass dope from dealers to pushers.”
    His voice ran down. He sat sweating in a dark pool of shadow. I said, “Three million dollars is a lot of cash. What was it doing in Aiello’s safe in the first place?”
    â€œThey used the vault for a collection point for everything this side of El Paso and Salt Lake.”
    â€œThey wouldn’t just let all that cash lie idle in the safe. What was supposed to happen to it?”
    He looked at me; he was deciding whether to answer. He said, “Jesus, why not? Look, the way they worked it, Aiello would hold the stuff they collected from various enterprises all over the district. They kept it in cash because they didn’t want any records for the tax boys to dig in. This was the raw take, you understand. All sizes of bills, unmarked. The mob’s got its own legit banks back east, Long Island and New Jersey, but out here they don’t, so it was handy to have that big old bank vault in Aiello’s house. They’d let the cash pile up until there was enough for a shipment—maybe four million. Then they’d satchel it into a small van with two or three torpedoes and armor plate and more locks and electric guard systems than you ever saw, and Aiello and DeAngelo would ride with it over to Los Angeles. Over there they’d work through a dozen banks, change the money into cashiers’ checks and bank letters under phony names. They’d take a week, ten days to get it done, all in small batches so they wouldn’t attract attention. Then somebody flies it over to Switzerland—they’ve got dozens of numbered bank accounts in Zurich. It used to be Madonna who called the turns but he never touched the stuff with his own hands. Usually Aiello and DeAngelo would fly over to Switzerland.”
    â€œAnd the safe was almost full last night?” I asked.
    â€œClose. Like I said.”
    â€œIt all belonged to the mob?”
    â€œMostly. A lot of people had pieces of it. And Aiello used to keep money in the safe for people who didn’t want to report it for taxes—private money.”
    â€œWho else?”
    â€œI don’t know names. Outsiders, but I don’t know which ones.”
    He got up and wobbled toward the door to get air. I stayed close with the gun. He said, “God, I feel like I just got out of the hospital after six months and fell down in the lobby on my way out and broke both legs. Only this time there’s no cure. Jesus H. Christ. I belong to the running dead, you know that?”
    All this had been preamble; suddenly he wheeled to face me. He said in a sharper tone of voice, “Crane, I’ve leveled with you. When I heard Senna and Baker talking this morning, I knew the mob was trying to decide whether it was me that took the money, or you and Joanne. Or maybe all three of us. They want to play marbles with our eyeballs. Okay, listen, I played straight with those guys, I said I was sorry, but I’m not going to die for it and I’m