Without a Hitch by Andrew Price

Arlington throughout the day
and you in Arlington.  With both of us here, we couldn’t have been flying up 95
touring banks.”
    “You know, I do
have one concern.”
    “What?”
    “When we go pick
up the money, how do we know some Sherlock Holmes banker hasn’t figured us out
and flagged the account?”
    “We can’t be
absolutely sure, so you should be ready to make a break for it if necessary.”
    “That’s
comforting,” Alvarez said sarcastically.
    “What?  Not
givin’ you a warm fuzzy?”
    “Can’t say that
it is.”
    “Don’t worry,
I’ve got a plan to reduce the chances of that happening.  Before you go into a
bank, we’ll find an ATM.  If the ATM allows us to withdraw money from the
account, we can take that as a sign everything’s cool, and you can go inside
the bank and withdraw more.  If the ATM gives us grief, then we walk away and
consider the account spoiled.”
    “Makes sense.”
    “Can’t guarantee
the plan is perfect, but we’ve done our best.”
    “I’m not
complaining.”
    “All right, give
me a call tomorrow when you get the credit scores.  I’ll bring over the salary sheets,
and we can decide whose credit to tap.”
     
    The following
day would find Corbin and Alvarez staring in stunned silence at the results of
their credit calculations.  Neither expected numbers on the order of magnitude
as those revealed by the credit check.
    “We’re gonna
need a bigger bag,” Alvarez said.
    “Bag?” Corbin
laughed.  “We’re gonna need a bigger car .”
    Alvarez shot a
glance at Corbin.  “There’s an old joke about lawyers.  It involves a client
who goes to a lawyer’s office to pay his bill.  He owes the lawyer one hundred
dollars.  In his haste, he mistakenly hands the lawyer two one hundred dollar
bills.  The lawyer, realizing the mistake, is confronted with an ethical question: 
does he tell his partner?”
    “You and your
lawyer jokes.  If I ever find out what you do for a living. . . let’s just say,
you’ll rue the day.”
    “What do you
mean ‘if you ever find out.’  I’m an associate supervisor.  What more do you
need to know?”
    Corbin laughed. 
Then his tone became serious.  “And I get the meaning of your joke.  We’re not
cheating Beckett.”
    Now Alvarez
laughed.  “What kind of lawyer are you?”
    “The honest
kind.”

Chapter 8
     
    “There’s one
thing we haven’t thought about?” Beckett said as he walked into the office and
closed the door.
    “What’s that?” 
Corbin peered over the top of his book.
    “How do we
launder the money?”
    Corbin stared
blankly at Beckett.  In all of his careful planning, Corbin never once stopped
to consider what to do with the money after they stole it.  He stalled for
time.  “Pardon?”
    “How do we
launder the money?” Beckett repeated.  “I think we need to agree not to spend
any of it for at least six months.”
    “Six months,”
Corbin repeated, letting Beckett lead the conversation.
    “Yeah, at
least.  Were you thinking longer?”
    “No, six months
sounds about right.  Don’t want to do it too soon, do we?”
    “Exactly.  When
I was a public defender, I saw it over and over:  the guys who got impatient
got busted.  Juries connect the dots really quickly.”
    “That is what
they’re asked to do.  So tell me more.  What else does your public defender
experience tell you?  What’s tipped the cops off and what hasn’t?”
    Beckett folded
his arms and leaned back in his chair.  “If the cops think there’s been a crime
involving a lot of cash, they subpoena bank records and credit card records. 
In the bank records, they look for large deposits around the time of the crime
or a series of smaller deposits adding up to something close to the amount of
cash taken.  In the credit card records, they look to see if the suspect
changed their spending patterns by, say, suddenly charging only half of what
they used to charge.  Basically, they’re looking to see if