The fact that he so easily understood the thinking of shit-bags like Wayne Summerall had once troubled Cecil. But that was years ago. Now it was another of the many sources of amusement life afforded him. And there were oh-so-many.

A year before, he'd had no intention of getting back in the crimefighting biz—he still didn't—but the time he'd spent with Kenny in recent months reminded him how much fun the whole affair could be, adrenaline rush and all. Of course, he'd reached out and slapped the occasional bag-snatcher or strong-arm man during that time, but mostly he spent his late-night hours cavorting and frolicking and seeing what adventures each new night might bring.

He was in the twilight of his years with nothing to lose and only happiness to gain, so the endless opportunities at merriment he might enjoy by helping Camille and Eric were tantalizing. He certainly didn't want to make it a fulltime job—he was way too old for that—but just the opportunity to watch from the sidelines, giving the occasional pointer to the youngsters, thrilled him.

It wasn't 1977 anymore, after all. Crime was a fraction of what it had been in the City in those days, and the officers nowadays were smarter, better trained, and more capable than their predecessors of 40 years before. They really didn't need his help on any regular basis.

And the newer breed of officers was also more sensitive to the finer points of the law, which was why, after much spitting and head-scratching, Cecil had decided not to apprise Eric and Camille of what he planned next ... namely, to get one up on Summerall.

Cecil knew the way the world worked and was as certain as he was of the rising sun that the feds had kicked Summerall loose after springing him from NYPD custody. That notion allowed him to reason a number of things, the most important being that Summerall was bound to be on his way out of town—the man simply couldn't risk another encounter with the local police. More than likely, if everything Cecil was hearing was true, the criminal would also try to get out of the country.

That meant Summerall was coming, sooner rather than later, to the building outside which Cecil loitered. Bourse Bank Scotland wasn't the largest or the oldest bank in Manhattan, but it was large and old. And it was a bank in which Cecil happened to know Summerall kept a safety deposit box.

The old man had been present when Camille first had gone through the criminal's wallet and had noticed something that stuck with him. Many people have security boxes, and someone might keep a single box for storing items as banal as personal papers or Aunt Minnie's cookie recipes. But no one has three security boxes unless they have something of significant value in each.

A tiny little kernel in Cecil knew Summerall would come. With very little doubt, the box located at the New York bank was the villain's getaway money, and a friend of Cecil's whose niece worked there had revealed that the box had remained untouched when Cecil had arrived at noon on Friday.

The oldster had watched the area until 5:00 pm, when the bank closed. But Bourse Bank Scotland's main branch, located just outside the Financial District in Lower Manhattan, was the rarest of banks in the city, an institution that provided full banking services from 9:30 until 2:00 on Saturday.

That fact had given Cecil the night to prowl and pace the area around the bank at his leisure. Over a 14-hour period, the old man had walked every street, alley, rooftop, and tunnel, many of them over and again. He had learned every door, hatch, manhole cover, and garage in a two-block radius of the bank. All throughout, he'd dispersed various tools and implements that might come in handy. The subway and bus schedules and the routes between each stop and the bank were inscribed on the back of his heart.

At 9:30, when the bank opened, all he had to do was wait.

The small courtyard in front of the bank's single entrance was easy to watch on Saturday morning, but it was a hard place in which to be inconspicuous. People were sparse, and most vendors who were open on that day didn't show up until past 10:00. So, the two hours following the bank's opening witnessed Cecil practicing his greatest ingenuity, as he slowly and leisurely idled away time, moving from place to place, occasionally doffing a hat or changing his jacket to alter his appearance. He spent 30 minutes at one kiosk, 15 at another, and then 45 at a café. All the while, he chatted with passersby, read the newspaper, watched the birds, and hummed some old songs.

His efforts were aided by one truism: it's easy for the elderly to make themselves invisible.

He stayed alert throughout, and at 20 minutes before noon, the old man relished a sudden surge of excitement as a familiar figure came into view, dark glasses now covering his black-eyes and part of his bandaged nose. Cecil carefully marked the direction from which the criminal Wayne Summerall had come, calculated the train on which he likely had arrived, and pondered the probability the man would take the same path back.

His prey doubtless had come via the Chamber Street Subway Station. Everything told Cecil the criminal was not a lifelong New Yorker, and since even journeyman visitors to the city sometimes fretted over ending up in the wrong neighborhood, the villain likely would exercise normal prudence and take the same way back as he'd come.

As Summerall went into the bank, Cecil backtracked him for half a block and waited. His perch was under the awning of a now-closed lunch spot. After 27 minutes, Summerall emerged, a medium-sized brown duffle draped over his shoulder, and turned in the direction opposite from where Cecil watched. However, the fugitive immediately came to a halt, looked about as if marking his bearings, and turned on his heels back in the direction Cecil waited.

"Not a New Yorker," Cecil whispered, a demonic giggle in his voice.

Once he'd ascertained Summerall truly was retracing his original path, Cecil cut down an alley and, after taking a right turn, casually paralleled the villain's route on an adjacent street. If Summerall continued on his current course, he would pass through a section of road on which no establishments were open for business on Saturday.

The street would be deserted, and it had seemed such an obvious route from the station to the bank that the old man had paced-off the area a dozen times the night before in anticipation of what he was about to do.

His age didn't concern him. Cecil knew he'd lost half a step or so in the last three decades but still was nearly as quick and strong as he'd always been. More, he'd fought the criminal once and had heard the blow-by-blow of his capture from Eric. He knew Summerall's strengths and weaknesses, and he now knew how to beat him—by ugly stealth.

And this big, strong young fucker has never once in his life worried about watching his six. Cecil laughed.

The laughing and smiling septuagenarian took another hard right down an alley and was nearly at the intersecting road on which Summerall travelled when the villain came into view 40 feet ahead. The only other things visible were a few parked cars and the buildings opposite. Hardly breaking stride, the husky old man snatched up the heavy manhole cover he'd earlier secreted against a wall, drew back as a discus thrower might, and let fly with all the strength in his body. The moment he released, he barked, "Hey, Wayne!"

As the mercenary turned to the sudden voice, the edge of the heavy metal disc caught him square on the forehead, flipping him backward, end over end. The man landed heavily on his belly on the hood of a parked car.

The old man didn't hesitate. He walked up to the unmoving Summerall, shouldered the duffle, ran his hands across the man's pockets before removing a few things, and shoved a heavy manila envelope deep inside the man's shirt. A weak groan showed that Summerall was still very much alive.

As a final indignity, the New York grandfather reached down, secured Summerall's dark glasses from where they'd fallen to the ground, and fitted them to his own face.

Ten seconds later, Cecil was moving back in the direction from which he'd come. Thirty-five minutes later, he was ringing the doorbell of Camille's apartment.

***

"I thought about that, Camille," said Cecil after another sip of coffee. "But what would you have done? Let's just back this up. Say I tied him up nice and tight and delivered him to the precinct?"

He paused for her answer, but Camille again was at a loss. The situation was far outside her training and normal experience. She merely exhaled and took a sip of coffee.

"Exactly," the old fellow continued kindly, "the feds would've come and plucked him up again. Sure, we could've stashed him somewhere ... I even had a couple of places picked out in the steam tunnels. But ... um, what would your boss think if he found out you were keeping a prisoner off the books?"

"I get it," she said wearily. She looked down again at the bag Cecil had brought in with him ten minutes before. I suppose mugging isn't as bad as kidnapping. The thought caused her to smile, but she was still afraid of what might be in the bag.

"This is best," the old man said in the same kind voice. "You can't arrest the guy ... so at least you can get some information out of him. I left him a note and a prepaid phone with 500 minutes. If he wants his money back, he can call this phone," he said, holding another new prepaid aloft, "and spill his guts."

"So ... how much is in it?" she said hesitantly, eyeing the brown duffle as she might a sack of venomous snakes.

"Well, let's just see," said the old man, scooping up the bag and flopping it on the table between them. "I peeked in when I got on the train but didn't give it a count."

The young woman winced at the sight of the bag on the table in front of her and fought the urge to push it away. She sat patiently as Cecil slid back the thick zippers and pulled the opening wide. Inside, she could see various colorful bundles. The first thing he pulled out was a thin valise, which he poured out into his hand.

"Huh, passports ... ID cards." He opened one after the other and glanced at them. "Same photo, different names ... American, American, Canadian, Canadian, and ... Irish," he said of the last one. He pulled another from his pocket. "And American ... he was carrying this one in his pocket ... along with ...." The oldster dropped the additional passport on the table, followed by a folding clip of crisp American bills and a key card, likely from a hotel. "Musta been a boy scout," he mumbled.

"Ugh ... that looks like a lot of cash in there," Camille groaned. "How sure are you he's going to call?"

"Shopping for a new car already, are we?" asked Cecil with a mischievous twinkle.

"No ...," she said emphatically, "... though I guess you don't know me that well ..."

"I was just teasing with you, miss. I've met the type," he said without further explanation. "You definitely ain't it ... neither's your partner. But to answer your question ... I think he's going to call. You did freeze all his accounts, didn't you?"

"Uh ... that's complicated ... let's just say, 'yes' ... he doesn't have access to his accounts anymore." Camille was still startled at her friends' sudden turn toward larceny.

"Then I'm 99 percent certain he'll call. Of course, I ain't no neurosurgeon. I mighta beaned him too hard and brain-damaged the dude. In that case, I've had my eye on this cabin cruiser ...."

"We should call Eric."

"He a boater?"

"No! ... well, actually he is, but don't joke that way."

All the while, Cecil had been running his thick fingers in and out of the sturdy bag, gently moving things back and forth.

"Oh ... the usual suspects, here," he murmured. "Probably 75 or a 100 thousand in greenbacks, a lot of Euros ... a lot of 'em ... 20 or 30 thousand British pounds." He stopped and pulled out an awkward looking brick of bills. "That's odd. Couple bricks of Euros? ... no, shit, Moroccan dirham. I'm not sure how many he has here." He pulled a bunch of what looked like 200-dirham notes and began counting. "What's a dirham worth?" he asked idly.

"I'll look it up after I call Eric," she said. "Hey, make sure that phone is actually charged."

It took only a few minutes to alert Eric and get him on his way. After a moment's thought, she called the precinct to ascertain if any bodies had been found that morning near the Financial District. There were none. Then she got online.

"The exchange rate is about ten to one, so a dirham is about ten cents," she told the old man, who was still leafing through the brick of bills. The odious duffle was back on the floor, and the phone was on the charger.

"Meh, it's not that much, then. I doubt there's ten or twelve-thousand bucks worth of the stuff." He tossed the bundle back into the duffle on the floor. "Still, that's an odd choice."

"Philly has mentioned Morocco a few times. It seems Summerall and his group have some sort of business going in Tangier."

"Huh. Never been to Morocco," the old man mused, leaning one elbow on the table. "Never been to Africa at all. We vacationed in Europe a few times ... oh, and the Holy Land. Missy loved the Holy Land," he continued wistfully. "She wasn't especially religious ... I think it was the dry air ... we pro'ly woulda retired to Arizona or southern California if it hadn't been for the cancer ...."

His voice had dropped, peaceful and soft, and he only recovered from his reverie when he felt Camille's hand on his arm and saw her affectionate smile.

"I just had an old-man moment, didn't I?" he chuckled quietly. "I been getting a lot of those the last few years."

Camille already had grown deeply fond of the old man. He was nothing at all like her father, the most serious and studious person Camille had ever known. Her dad had shown her love over the years—he was a good father—but the old doctor's life was all about books, boards, and business. She couldn't recall him ever telling a joke. For Cecil, business was that thing you used to fill in the gaps separating one joke or bawdy story from the next.

It was another 40 minutes before Eric arrived. By that time, Camille had made ice-tea, and a pizza Cecil ordered had arrived. The phone still had not rung.

"It's been over an hour and a half," she told her partner. "Cecil has been pricing boats."

"You know we're going to have to take this in as evidence in the human-trafficking case," Eric said solemnly. "Sorry, Cecil."

Still with a mouthful of pie, the always smiling Cecil raised his ice tea in a silent toast.

"I know," said Camille. "I just didn't want to do anything until you got here. Hopefully the guy will still call ... though that's seems less and less likely."

Eric began moving toward the door. "I've got some bags, tags, and inventory sheets in the trunk. I'll grab that and the camera if you want to start laying it all out on the table."

"Yeah," she said, "might as well do it now. Sorry, again, Cecil ... you mind moving over to the coffee table?"

The old man gave up his spot graciously, quickly helping the detective clear and wipe the table. Now that they'd made the call to observe procedure, her fear of the duffle vanished as if it never had been. She lay the bag in a chair and began transferring the bundles of cash one and two at a time, ordering them by currency type.

It had occurred to her they might have some trouble wording the affidavit necessary to make the seizure. But Eric had a flair for such things. If Summerall wanted his money back from the department, he would need to file a civil case. That might bring him out of hiding and give them some leverage.

While she brainstormed, her hand encountered something hard in the duffle. She peered in and moved some bundles of Euros around but saw nothing. She gave the bag a shake and felt it from the outside. There was something hard inside. She pinned it and reached back in. After some fumbling around, her hand landed on a small box somewhere in size between a deck of cards and a cigar box. Pulling it out, she noticed it was shiny and black.

"Let's not trouble ourselves with serial numbers," came Eric's voice. He dropped a number of items next to the door. "If the boss wants that, we can have the techs take care of it ... what have you got there?" He was right next to her.

Camille was fiddling with the sides, convinced the contraption had a latch.

"I think it's like some sort of document protector or electronics' case," she said absently. "I've never seen one quite like this before ... it was in the duffle."

Eric wasn't the kind who took puzzles out of peoples' hands but did kibitz several times as Camille tinkered. After about two minutes of twisting things this way and that, Camille felt a click and the item sandwiched open.

"A hard drive," he said.

"Two of them," she corrected.

They were portable, USB-type drives. The detectives' eyes met.

"I'm guessing it's not porn," observed Cecil from his place on the couch.

"No, I don't think it is." Camille suddenly was too nervous to allow herself the luxury of excitement. "Why don't you call Philly," she said to Eric calmly. "I'm going to fetch the tablet she gave us."