"Turn out the lights." "You know, Rockford, this is the murder of a federal agent." "So now, you'd better have a pretty good reason for asking about him, or I'm gonna take you down and have you held for suspicion of murder." "He's not dead, is he?" "Tell me he's not dead." "Look, I'm trying to be nice." "Now, why do we have to speak to each other in such violent terms, huh?" "Don't get cute." "I'm holding myself in, but I might lose it." "Then you'd be out a slug of money, so you'd best keep a tight rein on your mouth." "This is Jim Rockford." "At the tone, leave your name and message." "I'll get back to you." "Hi, Jim, it's Jamie at the Police Impound." "They picked up your car again." "Lately, they've been driving it more than you have." "Who is it?" "It's Tom." "Tom?" "Can't it wait till morning?" "Angie, get dressed and go up to the house." "In the den, there's an English riding print." "Behind it I've got a wall safe." "A safe?" "Now, I'm going to give you the combination." "And I want you to open the safe, and inside you'll find a package." "Take it to a bank." "Tom, what's going on?" "I can't tell you, but don't go to the police, promise me?" "Okay, I promise." "All right." "All right, now, I'll give you the combination." "Okay, wait, I don't have a paper." "Well, please hurry." "Okay." "No!" "No!" "Don't!" "Okay, okay, I've got it." "What is it?" "Tom?" "Are you still there?" "Now, we don't have any lions or any hippopotamuses or any trick slogans." "All we have down here, folks, is good deals and a sales manager who used to be an all-pro end for the Rams." "So bring the kiddies on down to the Used Car Shopping Mart and get a signed football by Big George Sloane." "We got little cars and we got big cars, we got economy cars and we got some gas eaters." "But whatever you're in the market for, we got it." "So come on down and drive out in style." "Don't forget, we also have..." "Hello." "I would like to speak to James Rockford." "Speaking." "My name is Angela Perris." "I'm in trouble and I need help." "There's a man in a green, two-door Ford." "I don't know who he is, but I got this strange phone call from my brother, and he sounded very frightened." "He told me to go to his house and open up a safe and take something out of it and put it in the bank." "I was sound asleep when he called, and then he wasn't on the phone anymore." "Are you anywhere near Santa Monica?" "Yeah." "All right, there's a bar named The Colony Inn on Wilshire." "Go inside and sit at the bar." "Put two packs of cigarettes, one on top of the other, in front of you, and I'll be there in, oh, 10, 15 minutes, all right?" "Oh, thank God!" "Okay, which one is he?" "No, no, don't point." "Just tell me." "Uh, he's in the gray suit." "He's in the corner table." "You could see him in the mirror, by the exit sign." "Okay, I got him." "Now, what's going on?" "Well, I don't know, that's the whole problem." "I was at home, sound asleep, and I got this phone call from my brother." "And he sounded really frightened and..." "All right, I got all that." "He wanted you to go up to his house and open up a safe?" "Yeah, but I didn't have a piece of paper, and when I got back to the phone," "I just heard some breathing, and I said, "Are you there, Tom?"" "Somebody hung up." "And your brother is Tom Perris?" "Yeah." "What does he do?" "Uh, he's the head of the Institutional Investment Department at Bundy and Banes." "A stockbroker?" "Well, it's actually a little more than that." "But, yeah, a stock broker." "Okay, Angie." "I'll go back and talk to him." "You stay here." "Gee, what are you supposed to be?" "Well, I'm the messenger who's been sent back here to ask you very politely what you're doing following that young lady around?" "Uh-uh." "No, you're the guy who's gonna be checking into" "County General in about 20 minutes with a busted jaw and a couple of fractured ribs." "No kidding?" "You gonna do that all by yourself?" "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right, Groucho." "All by myself." "Yeah, look, I'm trying to be nice." "Now, why do we have to speak to each other in such violent terms, huh?" "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I guess I should have said, "1, 2, 3, go," huh?" "How would you like to be booked for assaulting a federal officer?" "Look, I think I know how we can fix this right now." "Why don't I just go up, pay my bar bill and fade right out of the picture, huh?" "You wanna say anything to Miss Perris, you just go right ahead." "Yeah, why don't you do that, huh?" "I will." "And, hey, if you ever get a chance, why don't you drop around?" "We'll have a drink." "I'd like to make it up to you." "No, no, I'm serious, I'm serious, that was a sucker punch." "Hey, you'd been ready, you'd probably knock me silly." "Hey, what's going on here?" "Here, here." "He's not coming." "Yeah, well, I took the rotor out of a green, two-door Ford sedan when I went into the place." "It just don't run too good without them." "If he was a federal officer, then why did you hit him?" "Well, I said he had a federal officer's ID," "I didn't say he was a fed." "He wasn't." "How do you know?" "I know, because the picture on his ID was taken against a blue field like on your driver's license." "Feds have theirs taken against a yellow field." "What he did was cut the picture out of his driver's license and paste it into a federal ID and then encase it in plastic." "A nice job, but it was a phony." "How can you be so sure?" "Oh, because that's what I did." "I think we ought to call the police." "I'm sorry, but I can't allow that." "Fine, but you still owe me for my time and trouble." "Okay, how much?" "It's $200 a day." "Just because we didn't decide on something beforehand," "I mean, it doesn't mean you could just up your rates like that." "How much a day does brother Tom make?" "Look, I'm not paying you $200." "I can't afford it." "I'll give you $25." "You didn't even work for half an hour." "I think that's very fair." "Forget it." "Where do you want to go?" "I don't see what's wrong with $25." "Where do you want to go?" "2375 Brentwood Drive." "Who lives here?" "My brother." "Things are tough, huh?" "My brother has money, but I live on my own income." "I work as a bookkeeper at a restaurant and I make $220 a week." "I'm $1.26 short." "I'll mail it to you." "I told you to forget it." "No, I won't forget it." "Take it!" "Well, I thought you'd left." "Yeah, well, so did I." "Look, Angie, there's a lot of things to be considered here." "I mean, there's a strong possibility that something's happened to your brother." "Look, nothing has happened to Tom." "I told you to stop saying that." "If something had happened to him, I'd know about..." "I'd feel it." "All right, all right." "I have a special sucker rate." "For $23.74, you got me for at least another 10 minutes." "Long enough to get you away from here clean and take you back to your car." "So, let's go..." "Nothing's gonna happen to me here." "And I'll get a girlfriend to pick up the car." "And I wanna see that safe." "I mean, I didn't know Tom had a safe." "I mean, why would he have a safe?" "Yeah, well, don't..." "What do you..." "You don't even have the combination." "Couldn't we crack it or blow it?" "Well, it's a beauty." "German-made, I'd say about six tumblers set in a soundproof vacuum, about four inches of space-age iron alloy." "You know, if you took this safe and you took, oh, say, 20 pounds of plastic explosive and put it around the safe, then go across the street, push the plunger, you'd probably blow this house right off its foundation," "you wouldn't bother that safe one little bit." "Well, how do we get into it?" "We don't." "Look, why don't you just leave?" "Because I'm trying to get you to leave." "You know there's some chance you're in danger here?" "I'm just a little bookkeeper in a restaurant." "I'm supposed to be some big risk to somebody?" "The bookkeepers of this world, Mr. Rockford, count numbers, but they don't count." "Tom counts." "He counts plenty." "And I'm gonna do exactly what he told me if that means chipping away at that safe over there with a kitchen knife!" "What are you doing now?" "I'm looking for the combination." "The combination to the safe, he wouldn't hide it in there." "Where do people hide their door keys?" "Look, I really don't see what this has to do with it." "Well, they hide it under the doormat or over the doorframe, right?" "I suppose." "Yeah, well, most people who have safes write the combination on a piece of masking tape and then they tape it to the underneath side of a desk drawer." "I'll be damned." "Turn out the lights." "Turn out the lights!" "Go on!" "257 l-M-D, 257 l-M... 2527. 25..." "What are you doing?" "I'm writing down the license number." "252..." "No, 257..." "Why don't you do it, then?" "I can't remember it." "2257..." "That could be important, you know..." "I know it!" "Would you wait a minute?" "Look, that alarm system dials the cops, and they're gonna be here any minute." "Hey, good, I think it's about time we talked to them." "Look, I am not gonna talk to the police." "Tom said, "No police," and he knows best." "I'm not gonna do it." "Now, hold on a minute." "You're not going any place with that package." "For all I know, you're not Tom Perris' sister, and I just helped you knock over a safe in there." "Well, if that's true, you're really not gonna wanna stick around and try to explain that to the cops, are you?" "Well, I'm gonna get my whole $200 out of this if I have to take it to small claims court." "Come on, let's go." "I'll hold onto this." "There must be almost $500,000 in here." "She don't look so good." "Here, here, take a little sip of that, you'll feel better." "Angie, I wanna know what's going on." "And I gotta warn you, I'm just about ready to turn this whole thing over to the cops, so make it good." "He's probably dead." "Tom is probably dead." "They must have taken him when I was talking on the phone." "They must have got him to give them the combination and then they must have..." "What's she talking about?" "Will you just shut up a minute, Dad?" "I don't know what she's talking about." "I'm trying to find out." "Well, you're not doing too good a job." "I know that, Dad, but I'm just getting warmed up, so butt out." "Angie, what's the address where you work?" "What?" "I wanna know the address." "3887 Wilshire Boulevard." "Okay." "Let's say for now that I believe you're Angela Perris and you work at Stacy's Grill." "What?" "I wanna know why your brother has squirreled away almost $500,000 in a wall safe in his house." "I don't have the faintest idea." "Look, I know you think that he probably stole it or something, and I swear to you, I don't know where he got it, but I know he couldn't have stolen it." "I think you ought to call the police." "Okay, Rocky, let's say we do that, huh?" "And let's say this money isn't hot, and this is not Tom Perris' little sister, where does that leave me?" "Well, it leaves you with a lot of explaining to do." "Right, and without the faintest idea of what's going on." "Wait a minute!" "Wait a minute." "What about Tom?" "I mean, nobody here cares about Tom!" "He could be in a lot of danger, you know?" "Angie, okay, okay." "I'll make you a deal." "We'll put this money in the bank, like Tom said." "Only, we're gonna put it in your name and my name." "That way, it's gonna take both of us to open that safe deposit box." "Why?" "Because, I want a ticket I can cash just in case this is some kind of crazy frame-up." "With these escrow boxes, each of you gets a key." "We, of course, have the master key." "So it would take all three keys to open the box." "Thank you." "Well, what now?" "Well, I'll take you to work, and you stay put while I do some checking, huh?" "Okay, but no police, you promised." "All right." "Okay, which line?" "Yeah, Rockford, what is it?" "Hey, Shore, I got something for you." "Yeah, what do you got, hotshot?" "Huh?" "You're gonna beef the Bureau?" "You gonna file a citizen's complaint?" "What're you gonna do?" "Go on, tell me." "You got a federal agent named Bettingen?" "Okay." "Where?" "How about Billy's Diner on Fifth?" "They make a great omelet." "And bring your wallet." "Who's he?" "This is Agent Slater." "I guess I should have said "Come alone,"" "but it always sounds so melodramatic." "Well, we're living in the melodrama capital of the world." "Otherwise, guys like you wouldn't be able to make a living." "Shake him down and cuff him." "If Agent Slater lays a hand on me," "I'm gonna close up like a cherrystone, and you're gonna be talking to my lawyer." "Why are you gonna make it so difficult, Rockford?" "'Cause I'm willing to trade a little information, Danny boy." "I'm not gonna do it in front of him and I'm not gonna take any of your customary lip." "So why don't you sit down and have an omelet, huh?" "Okay, wait over there." "Oh, waitress, would you give him an omelet, please?" "Forget it." "You wanna trade information?" "Okay." "You asked about Bettingen, right?" "Right." "Somebody canceled his ticket last night." "We found him about 2:00 a.m. stuffed in the trash can behind The Lobster Bin on Melrose." "He'd been dead 24 hours." "So now, you'd better have a pretty good reason for asking about him, or I'm gonna take you down and have you held for suspicion of murder." "Drop dead." "Yeah?" "Yeah, you couldn't pin that charge on me with a riveter." "I didn't know Bettingen." "I don't have any motive for killing him." "I'm listening, Rockford." "Make it good." "What do you know about Agent Bettingen's death?" "Well, I met a guy last night, and he tried to convince me that he was a fed named Gary Bettingen." "He showed me an ID, and it was a real one, except he had substituted his driver's license picture." "So, maybe he's the guy who killed Bettingen." "Maybe." "What's he look like?" "Well, you see, I was wondering just exactly what Bettingen was working on." "It's classified." "Unclassify it." "You know, Rockford, this is the murder of a federal agent." "This is a very hot little item." "I could hit you with withholding information in a murder investigation." "What makes you think you can sit there and trade information?" "I think I can do it, Danny, because I am doing it." "Okay, maybe $2 million worth of forged stock certificates," "Bettingen was working on that." "With who?" "Why?" "That's it, Rockford, end of the line." "It's a green, two-door Ford sedan." "That's the license number." "What's he look like?" "Well, you take Agent Slater over there, you chop off a couple of inches, flatten his nose and give him gray eyes, you'd be pretty close." "Oh, and he's also got a slightly bruised lip." "You hit him?" "No, just..." "Would you take care of that for me, Danny?" "See you." "Bundy and Banes." "One moment please." "I believe he is, sir." "If you'll hold on a minute, I'll connect you." "Thank you." "Hi, I'm trying to find Jim Rockford, with our central office." "I'm Terry Stovall." "Which one are you with, Mr. Stovall?" "County Tax Assessor, we're running an audit." "That makes four independent audits, all going on at once." "Of course." "Would you call Tom Perris' office and see if Mr. Rockford's there?" "He's supposed to be quartered there for the day." "Mr. Bundy set it up." "Mr. Perris didn't come in today." "What's going on, anyway?" "Did he steal something?" "Everybody's being so secretive, and all these audits going on." "Hi, Susan?" "Susan, this is Jan at the switchboard." "Do you have a Mr. Jim Rockford from the County Tax Assessor's Office there?" "Okay, well, thanks anyway." "If he shows up, tell him there's a Mr. Stovall from his office looking for him." "Okay." "He's not there." "Well, Rockford had better get on the ball, or he's gonna be balancing figures for another agency." "Mr. Gorman's onto him already." "Mr. Gorman?" "Mr. Gorman." "Look, I'll be in the coffee room if he shows up." "Oh, hold on a minute, sir." "Oh boy, oh boy, I am really sorry." "I got hung up in traffic." "Are you Mr. Rockford from the County Tax Office?" "Right, right." "Listen, why is it when you're going down the freeway, there's an accident on the other side of the divider, everybody in your lane stops to look at the accident?" "What, do they wanna see blood or something?" "Everybody in their right..." "Mr. Rockford, apparently there's somebody from your office who's been looking for you downstairs." "That's just Stovall, he's supposed to run the tapes out of the accounting department anyway." "Oh." "Where could I set up?" "In here okay?" "I suppose if Mr. Bundy set it up, it's okay." "Bundy, Bundy..." "Oh, yeah," "I think somebody talked to him." "Yeah." "Well, then I guess it's okay to use Mr. Perris' office." "Hey, good." "Would you get me some coffee, honey?" "Cream and sugar, not too much, and not too little." "Okay." "Ah." "Bonito, perfecto." "I beg your pardon?" "It's good, it's perfect." "Oh." "Miss..." "Susan Miller." "Who's Mr. Perris' boss around here?" "Well, that would be Mr. Whitlaw." "Tall, skinny, gray hair, kind of pale?" "No, actually, he's kind of stocky with slightly balding..." "Of course, of course." "The..." "Of course, you know what's going on, don't you, Miss Miller?" "I guess so." "It's sort of hard to believe." "Isn't it?" "Just how informed are you?" "I suppose I should know before" "I take you into my confidence." "I don't understand." "Well, Miss Miller, let me clarify, huh?" "What we have here is a very serious situation involving over $500,000 in bogus securities." "Now, I have been instructed to maintain absolute strict confidentiality in this matter by Mr. Bundy." "See, it's important that I know what you know, so that I don't tell you anything that might be, well, how'll we say it, news to you?" "You know, Mr. Bundy wouldn't want you spreading it around the coffee room." "I don't discuss anything that happens in this office with my friends, Mr. Rockford." "Good girl, good girl." "Well, I suppose I don't really know that much." "Except that apparently Mr. Perris was buying some forged stock certificates from somebody and putting them into a street account here at the brokerage firm." "Apparently, that had been going on for some time." "Yes, yes, for quite some time." "Well, that's about all I know, except that the Federal Government moved in here this morning and started an audit at 6:00." "I did hear a rumor that they were working with Mr. Perris to buy the securities." "See, somebody in accounting said that they talked to one of the Federal accountants, and that they gave Mr. Perris $500,000 to buy the forged certificates with." "Can you believe that?" "Oh, you believe it, Miss Miller." "It's not the last you've heard of it." "Then it's true that he took off with the Federal Government's money and that Bundy and Banes is left holding $500,000 worth..." "Wait, wait, let's not engage in any speculations just yet, huh?" "Oh." "Okay." "Well, I don't understand why you're here." "Why is the County Tax Assessor's Office interested?" "Well..." "Well, that's because the annual pre-paid discount on all unlisted, but depreciating, securities is handled by the County Tax Assessor's Office, on all units up to 2457 of the new State Tax Code, with the exception of the new State Tax Board's special auditing amendment," "which doesn't go into effect till March, anyway." "You see?" "Will there be anything else, then, Mr. Rockford?" "Just a little peace and quiet, thank you." "I'm sorry Mr. Whitlaw, but he said he was from the County Tax Assessor's Office." "But, Mr. Whitlaw, he said he was..." "Thank you, Miss Miller." "Would you excuse us, please?" "All right, who are you?" "I'm Rockford." "I'm an accountant with the County Tax Assessor's Office." "I was just about to call you, Mr. Whitlaw." "We're gonna need a lot more information on all of this..." "County Tax Assessor was here yesterday." "He did his audit and left." "Well, he's back, Mr. Whitlaw, and I'm him." "Miss Miller, would you have security come up here right away, please?" "Oh, this is ridiculous." "I'll just call Mr. Bundy." "Mr. Bundy is at home." "Mr. Bundy is retired." "He is?" "Here." "I'm going down to see Stovall." "I'll be back in about 20 minutes." "And Mr. Whitlaw will be tied up." "He doesn't want to be disturbed." "Yes?" "Mr. Bundy." "A man named Jim Rockford just got into Tom Perris' office." "How did that happen, Whit?" "I don't know, sir." "It just did." "What do you want me to do now?" "Don't do anything." "Not for just now." "Check him out, and I'll get back to you." "I know Agent Shore." "He wouldn't let me manhandle him like that unless he was in a lot of trouble." "If you'd like to do a little creative speculating," "I'd say his trouble is that he gave your brother" "$500,000 worth of taxpayers' money just to help him trap some guys who were selling counterfeit securities." "Then they assigned Agent Bettingen to watch your brother." "Somebody put Bettingen's lights out and stuffed him in a trash can behind The Lobster Bin." "This whole thing is absurd." "Yeah, you keep saying that, but from where I'm sitting, it begins to add up." "Look, Angie, people are dying." "Now, maybe, just maybe, your brother's already dead." "So don't go stubborn on me, will you?" "I mean, I'm gonna..." "I'm gonna make sure that nobody's following us, then I'm gonna stash you in a safe place." "Look, this is absurd, really." "Yeah, well, it's beginning to add up to me." "You should have seen him, Mr. Rockford." "I mean, he was 20, and I was 5." "And we were all alone in the world." "It was just my brother and me." "It's been that way ever since." "That was 20 years ago." "And during all that time, Tom has taken care of me." "And he's been my whole life." "What happened to your parents?" "I don't remember them at all." "But Tom has told me about them." "They were a lot older, and my mother had me when she was 45." "We lived on this farm in Maryland, and we had horses and dogs and chickens." "My father got kicked in the head by a horse he was trying to ride." "And he died." "And my mother loved him so much that about six months later she died, too." "I guess of a broken heart or something." "It's kind of sad, but it's beautiful, too." "I mean, you don't see people that attached to one another that they can't live without the other one." "You just don't see that anymore." "Anyway, that's what Tom says." "Well, he's right." "Angie, have you given any thought to what you're gonna do if Tom is dead?" "Tom is not dead." "I told you to stop saying that." "And he didn't steal any money, either." "He's my brother, I ought to know." "I mean, he took care of me and he raised me and he cared for me, and he's everything to me." "But you wouldn't understand that kind of devotion, would you?" "I mean, you just couldn't understand that." "Oh, I think I can, Angie." "It's just that we have a set of circumstances here that just can't be ignored." "Now, devotion is one thing, but blind devotion is another." "It's not blind." "For 20 years, I saw him." "I saw him work to support me, I saw him give up things that he wanted to buy me a new school dress." "Now that's anything but blind." "Okay." "I'll be back around 7:00." "What're you gonna do?" "I'm gonna go see if I can get a line on the guy Whitlaw." "I wanna check him out, okay?" "Not dead, is he?" "Tell me he's not dead." "Angie." "Angie, you're 25 years old." "Now, sometimes it's hard, but you have to look trouble in the eye and deal with it." "Sometime, you're gonna have to start living for yourself." "Hello, Mr. Rockford." "I'm glad you finally called." "I've been waiting here in a phone booth for almost an hour." "Meaning, don't bother to try to trace the call?" "Meaning nothing, Jim." "Just a fact, not worth mentioning." "All right, you say you want to discuss Tom Perris." "We have Mr. Perris." "You have $500,000 of our money." "I do?" "You sure do, honey." "Yeah, so?" "I'm not empowered to make any decisions, Jim, but I would like to set up a meeting with our principals and yourself to discuss the terms of our agreement." "And I suppose you want me to meet your principals in a deserted warehouse behind the freight yards around midnight?" "Bring the money and come alone, something like that?" "You are very amusing, Jim." "I pick the time and the spot." "That sounds just fine." "You call it." "There's a hotel in Santa Monica on the corner of Wilshire and Lincoln." "They have a stairway up to the roof." "Meet me there." "What time?" "Oh, 4:00." "Tell your man to come alone." "I'll be there 10 minutes late, and if he's not there when I show up, the deal is off." "Okay, where is it?" "Let me guess." "You had a tip, right?" "That's right, Rockford." "Somebody called you and said I'd be here and I'd have $500,000." "That ain't what you've got, Rockford." "Get his keys." "Open the trunk." "Tom Perris?" "Look, I can explain." "No, you can't." "Where's his sister?" "No, I can explain." "I really can." "Okay, go ahead." "I'm afraid it may take me a while." "It's the strangest thing you ever saw." "These two men came up here, kicked the door and took the lady out." "She was screaming as they took her down the stairs." "How did they know she was here?" "They probably were following you, Rockford." "I was very careful about that." "Nobody was following me when I brought her up here." "You're up to your neck in trouble, Rockford." "Look who's talking." "Your checkbook's a mess." "Don't you ever balance it?" "You wanna get out of there?" "You wanna shut up, Rockford?" "You're still under arrest." "I let you talk me into this, but that doesn't mean I won't get sore and have a change of heart." "You're not gonna have a change of heart, Danny boy." "No, you're up to your peaches in departmental reprimands." "The way I see it, they've got you all crated up and ready to ship back to the tax audit department in Washington." "Is that so?" "Yeah, that's so." "Yeah, let me see, now." "You made a deal with Tom Perris to acquire some forged securities, and then it turns out that Tom Perris is in the forged securities business." "Huh?" "Then you gave him $500,000 worth of the taxpayers' money." "You wanna shut up, Rockford?" "Do you wanna get out of my desk, Danny?" "Now, let me see." "In all your brilliance, you put Agent Bettingen on Tom Perris to watch him, somebody blew him away, so you got that hanging over your head." "No, you're not going to have a change of heart, Danny." "You've had your card punched by too many people on this thing." "Yeah." "Well, Jimmy, things don't seem to be working out, do they?" "Oh, sure they do, honey." "Now, you tried to get cute, and that's fine." "That's fine, except the price goes up with every failure." "We have Angela and one of the safe deposit box keys." "And we're willing to trade the girl for the other key." "There just isn't going to be any money involved." "Well, sure there is, honey." "There's gonna be $100,000 involved." "I'm not sure that can be arranged." "Well, now, look, I can go to the feds, tell them about the box, they can drill it, and I'll just pick up a 10% finder's fee." "What about the girl?" "You hurt her and you're just gonna heap more trouble on yourself." "And besides, you can't get into that box without Angela to sign the card, so you be sure and take good care of her." "Okay, but we call the spot." "Okay, just what do you got in mind?" "There's an abandoned building on Adams near the freeway, next to the railroad track." "Come alone." "If you bring heat, the girl pays the price." "Well, I won't have the key with me, but it'll be handy." "So, don't make that mistake, huh?" "Of course, sugar." "Key." "They're gonna find it there." "Well, of course they will, that's the whole idea." "Come on." "The area's clean." "We checked the whole lot and all the cars." "I got four guys watching it." "Nobody's here who shouldn't be here." "Is that it?" "Yeah." "We can follow you up to a half mile with this." "All you gotta do is break it when you want us to come in." "What is this?" "Look at that, will you?" "Well, that explains how they found the motel." "They were tracking me electronically." "I mean, these are for official use only." "How do hoods get their hands on this stuff?" "It just isn't fair, is it?" "Okay, you're set." "Get going." "Get the rest of our people tuned in." "He's headed for the abandoned building on Adams by the railroad track." "Hiya, Whit, how's your Dow Jones?" "We can deal, Rockford, but don't get cute." "I'm holding myself in, but I might lose it." "Oh, well, then you'd be out a slug of money." "You'd better keep a tight rein on your mouth." "You got the key?" "Come on, Whit, do I look like I'd carry the key with me, huh?" "You're giving me awfully low marks on craftsmanship." "All right, you get out and get in this car." "I'll take you to somebody that can set the deal." "You don't think I'm gonna put $100,000 in the trunk of this car, do you?" "Nothing doing, Whit." "Now, you wanna get out of that thing and get in here with me," "I just might consider taking you someplace where we could call your principal and meet, but I'm not handing myself over to you on a bet." "All right, relax, relax." "I've changed my mind and decided to go with you." "Would you like to get in the car now, please?" "Get ready, they're coming towards us." "Surprise, surprise." "Won't Mr. Bundy be pleased?" "And we can take care of Mr. Rockford and Miss Perris." "What do you mean when you say, "take care of"?" ""Take care of" as in "kill"." "You see, we don't need you or Miss Perris to get into the box." "Just how do you figure to arrange that?" "We had a very good forgery expert duplicate your signature which your wallet was kind enough to provide us." "I have sent for a very reasonable facsimile of both you and Miss Perris." "The gentleman who will play your part at the bank is also a dealer in Las Vegas." "He will simply palm the signature card and give the bank the forgery." "It is troublesome and highly complicated, but terribly effectual." "It will also insure that you do not go berserk in the bank and try to hit somebody, which you seem prone to do." "Get them out of here." "Go!" "Run!" "Run!" "Go, go, go." "Go." "Hold it!" "It's Rockford." "Hey, that was nice." "That was nice." "If you hadn't dropped like that," "I don't think we could have pulled it off." "Dropped?" "I just tripped, it was an accident." "You know, I hated doing that." "You told her?" "Yeah, I told her part of it, but I just didn't have the heart to tell her the rest." "I mean, all that stuff we got out of CID and the old warrant and everything." "What're you talking about?" "Oh." "Well, we ran the prints on the body of Tom Perris, and it turns out his real name is Theodore Kane." "He was wanted for murder in Connecticut." "The beef is 20 years old." "Murder?" "Who'd he kill?" "He killed his father." "Apparently, his father used to like to beat up on Perris' kid sister, Angela." "He came home from school one day and saw the old man beating her, and he got his father's shotgun and killed him." "Then he took his sister, stole the family car and left." "That was in 1955." "I didn't tell her that." "Losing him's hard enough." "She seems to have a kind of fixation about her brother." "I just couldn't tell her." "You know something, Dan?" "You have your moments." "It pleases me that you think so." "His name wasn't Perris, was it?" "No." "He told me that once a long time ago." "He was very depressed about something and he let it slip." "And then later I asked him what it was, and he just laughed and said it was a joke." "If he wasn't Tom Perris, then who am I?" "Who the hell is Angie?" "Angie is a bright, efficient, very pretty young girl with a good head on her shoulders, who has a life that belongs all to her." "If he was stealing, then he couldn't have been all the things that I thought he was." "He loved you, he took care of you and he was your brother." "I guess, for now, that's all I need to know."