Sight Unseen Read Online Free Page B

know what this is all about, but I’m no crook.”
    “Well, you’re in a lot of hot water,” Lockwood said. “You let somebody drive a $100,000 piece of equipment right through your
     gate.”
    The man crumpled into a chair across from Lockwood. “Look, they didn’t tell me to look in that truck. They told me
not
to.”
    “Who told you what?”
    Hamlisch’s eyes appeared lost as he looked back in time. “That truck’s been going out every second or third night for the
     past two or three weeks. Same guy driving it.”
    “What?”
    “Yeah,” Hamlisch said. “It started about three weeks ago. Mr. Greer called me up about 6:30, just after I come on, and says
     that a new guy’s going to be working late and’ll be taking out a load of garbage in the middle of the night, and it’s okay.”
    “Did you look in the truck?”
    “First time or two I did. He had fiberboard trash barrels full of junk.”
    “Last night?”
    “It was the same guy as before. He gave me a cigarette, and we shot the breeze a minute or so. I wrote down the license number
     and the time, and he drove off—same as always.”
    “How do you know it was Greer?”
    “I—” Hamlisch suddenly looked frightened. The coffeepot boiled over, and he jumped to take it off the stove, burning his fingers
     in the process. He ran some cold water over his injured fingers and then wrapped his hand in a filthy dish towel.
    “Aw, Jesus,” Hamlisch said when he sat back down.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know it was Greer. He just said it was him.”
    “I’ve got a bad feeling it wasn’t Stanley Greer,” Lockwood said. “I bet you’ve been had.”
    Fear in his face, Hamlisch asked, “Think I’ll get fired?”
    “If you worked for me, I’d fire you.”
    Hamlisch shook his head, looking as if he might cry. The look exasperated Lockwood. “I got to have this job.”
    “What did he look like?” Lockwood said.
    “Who? The guy in the truck?”
    Lockwood nodded.
    “Said his name was Morgan. Dave, I think. In his early thirties, blond hair, blue eyes, light skin. Real friendly. Didn’t
     like driving the truck. Said he was just married, and this night work was ruining his home life. Just a friendly working stiff,
     that’s all.”
    Lockwood got up to go. “If I were you, Hamlisch, I’d get on out to the plant. There’s about a dozen guys from the Treasury
     Department running around there who’re going to want to talk to you, and it wouldn’t hurt your case if you went to them instead
     of making them find you. They’ll probably go at you through most of the night.”
    “What about my job?”
    Lockwood sighed for the frightened man. “You didn’t do it, so they’ve got the marines doing it. I think the U.S. Government
     has just taken over your job.”
    Lockwood left, and as he drove up to the front gate of Northstar, he saw Pops Tibbett driving out in a ’35 Ford. It wouldn’t
     hurt to see where he went now that the T-men were finished with him. Lockwood waited until the car got a quarter of a mile
     down the road and then swung in behind the black Ford. He reached under his coat for his .38, and cursed silently when he
     remembered it was still on Dr. Dzeloski’s desk. He wondered if he would have any trouble getting it back and wearing it with
     all these Feds around.
    Pops drove at a maddeningly slow pace northward until he reached a community called North Shore Beach. Pops pulled into the
     driveway of a run-down house that looked as if it might collapse with weariness in the next rainstorm.
    Lockwood drove on past and out of the corner of his eye saw Pops get out and enter. He stopped up the road out of sight and
     crept back through the field until he had a good view of the front and back of the house. Lockwood made himself comfortable,
     deliberated whether to have a cigarette, and using his better judgment, decided not to.
    After a half-hour, the back door opened, and Pops stood there on the stoop with a long round case in