Free Skin Trade by Reggie Nadelson Page A

in the middle of the shopping street. In the lull after lunch, only a few customers were doing business, writing deposit slips, waiting for a teller, women mostly, an old lady with her middle-aged daughter, a mother and twins, six or seven years old, all three in matching pink parkas.
    The tellers worked behind a marble counter. The way the bank was set up, it would be easy to write the check, give it to a teller, then slip out before some manager arrived to ask any questions. I looked at the ceiling. There were no obvious surveillance cameras.
    Someone with balls. You had to be pretty arrogant or really stupid to walk through the door, saunter in, write out a check on somebody’s account, give it to the teller. I had already called the branch but no one was talking, so I figured it wasn’t the bank who put Keyes on the job. At the bank, someone would remember. Hard to forget a guy who comes in and forges a check for twenty thousand on a dead man’s account.
    I got a deposit slip, filled it out and wrote a check to Eric Levesque. It was a pretty desperate idea, but I thought it might alert somebody high up or get them riled. At least I’d get a conversation.
    I found a teller. The marble ledge where I leaned was cool and the girl behind the grille had her back to me, so I pushed the check through and waited. When she finally turned around, she was a tiny, pretty girl who smiled flirtatiously. Glancing at the check and the deposit slip, she punched a few keys into her computer. Her little face puffed out with stupidity as she fidgeted with her hair and fingered the collar of her blue blouse. She asked me to wait.
    A few minutes later, a middle-aged man in a blue suit emerged through a door to the right of the tellers. His name was Stuart Larkin, he said in English with a Scottish accent. Branch manager. Shook my hand, then escorted me up a flight of stairs and into his office, industrial carpet on the floor, a tray of coffee on the desk and a TV and video player. For a few minutes we danced around each other.
    Larkin, who was around fifty, had the good-natured face of a bureaucrat who looked open and gave away nothing at all.
    I told him who I was and who I worked for. He was evasive. He poured the coffee, we exchanged useless information.
    â€œYou’re from Keyes?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDo you want to tell me who hired Keyes?”
    I was silent.
    Larkin laughed. “No names?”
    â€œSorry. By the way, I didn’t see any surveillance cameras downstairs.”
    â€œWe have cameras.”
    â€œYou have cameras, how about a tape with pictures on it?”
    He said, “I have tapes.”
    â€œBut you want to know who hired Keyes.” I wasn’t going to tell him I didn’t know who hired Keyes, so I bluffed. “I can’t tell you about the client. It’s illegal.” It was hot in the office. I needed answers. “Can I smoke?”
    â€œGo ahead.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œIt was you who traced the address where Levesque’s statements went? The post office box in California.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOur security people are on it, of course,” he said. “They’re pretty damn good.” He was faking. “We’ve had handwriting experts, we’ve determined the signature was a forgery. I’d like very much to help you, but it’s just not in my gift.”
    I couldn’t ruffle him. He had faced down a thousand angry customers, he could out-sit you, out-bore you, could drink coffee without answering anything until you were out of your mind and it was five o’clock and time for him to go home.
    I had training, though. I grew up in the capital of bland bureaucracy. I could remember how to wait. In Moscow, even as a kid, you learned to wait. You waited in line, at shops, at school, for everything. In my family, after a while, you waited to leave the country. I could out-wait anyone if I had to. Larkin and me, we