After spending the last half of the Mets game watching nonfunctioning pay phones at Shea Stadium with D5 and Homeland Security agents posted at various locations, Aizen and Esparo had to call it a night. A fruitless night.
The only redeeming news came from Shoren the next morning at Division headquarters, where she waved a few papers at them across from her desk, smiling triumphantly through the room milling with agents.
"The good news," she began as Aizen and Esparo crowded around her desk, "is that we know he's bouncing signals through the University of Missouri and a Pennsylvania apartment. The bad news, is that the University traces it down to a runaway program that pops up every so often, and the Pennsylvania state trooper who looked into the apartment found nothing. Nada."
Aizen took the papers from her and skimmed over the first page. The apartment was leased under the name Kent Smith. No phone number. The apartment leased was paid annually, up to date, but the landlord hadn't seen his tenant in months. He flipped a page as Shoren continued.
"The rental car we followed was under the name John Horton." She lifted one shoulder as Esparo leaned over her chair to see her computer monitor better. She gave him a dismissive look and turned back to Aizen. "It doesn't check out either. Paid in cash, held by a credit card in the same name by one of those vanity banks."
Esparo shrugged, reading the computer screen. "We keep on Scott and we'll find whoever he's working with."
"Doesn't mean it'll be Kurosaki," Shoren said.
"With the stones Scott's dealing?" Esparo nodded. "Not many padparadscha roaming the streets, Shoren."
Aizen sighed as his underlings quibbled. The room was crowded with desks clustered in sets designated by partnership, spots of noise rising and falling of fellow agents around him. Now it was Shoren and Esparo's desks pushed to his. He looked to Ichimaru's office divided by glass walls across the room. The day would come that it would be his office, Aizen knew. Captain Ichimaru wouldn't stay in the New York Division Five office much longer; he'd already made his preference known for the Los Angeles location. Aizen had been well on his way to his own captaincy and knew Ichimaru would vouch for him.
Except for Paulson's indiscretion.
That had set Aizen back, and he knew it.
Ichimaru's scowling face looked out from the office's open doorway, spotting Aizen and partners. "You three," he snapped, "in here now."
Shoren and Esparo followed Aizen through the busy room and into their superior's office. It was the same as always, a jumble of papers and files, everything out of place but in needful reach. The computer was turned off, as was Ichimaru's custom. Everyone knew how much he hated computers.
"Leave it open," Ichimaru said as Aizen started to close the door. He sat behind the desk and leaned back in the chair. "What happened last night?"
"We lost him," Aizen said simply.
"Kurosaki? You found him and you lost him?"
Aizen shook his head. "Daniel Scott."
Ichimaru chuckled. "You lost an accountant?"
Esparo and Aizen looked to each other.
"You had half a dozen HS behind you and you lost him?" Ichimaru grinned.
"We think the drop location was changed at the last moment," Aizen said in defense. Esparo looked at him with apparent doubt.
"It's the only explanation," Aizen said. "Scott didn't cross our field of vision during the last half of the game. Either the time or location of the drop was changed."
"Or made before you got there," Ichimaru added, his grin sharpening on Aizen.
Shoren looked between each of the men but remained silent.
Aizen nodded after a moment. "Or that."
Ichimaru leaned forward and picked up what appeared a random piece of paper from the desk, glancing only briefly at it. "What about this Kent Smith or John Horton?"
"The names don't check out," Esparo said.
Ichimaru's eyes narrowed on him. "Then get me something that does check out, Spiranzo."
Esparo wanted to correct his superior, but Aizen shook his head at him.
"Captain Ichimaru, why am I on this project?" Shoren asked, crossing her arms. "I'm not even range qualified."
Aizen and Esparo both looked to her with surprise.
Ichimaru shrugged. "You wanted Field. Get qualified."
"I didn't request a transfer out of Analysis," she pushed. "The request was made by one Orihime Inoue."
Ichimaru frowned. "So where's Inoue?"
Shoren gave her partners an annoyed look. "While some of us were running about watching broken payphones I looked that up. Agent Inoue is on loan to Civilian Disarmament for three months. Somehow the last two digits of our badge numbers got transposed on the transfer form." She looked to Aizen. "You got the wrong file."
Ichimaru stood up. "Put in a request to transfer out, Thomason, but until then you're working with Aizen and Spiranzo." He glanced to the doorway where Rangiku Matsumoto loitered, stepping to one side as the occupants of the room caught sight of her.
"Get your tag placed and find out if it's Kurosaki," Ichimaru said to Aizen, attention slipping from the conversation. "That's all."
Shoren and Esparo nodded and left the room, but Ichimaru motioned Aizen to remain. "Tag him and follow him," he told him. "We'll see after that."
Aizen shook his head. "I still think he'll run."
Ichimaru nodded. "Of course he'll run, if he knows. Be discreet. If it's him he'll lead you right to his clients." He glanced to the doorway. "I'm taking a long weekend. You've got use of any manpower or equipment you need, Aizen, but I don't want him brought in just yet. If he's like his old man he ain't going to talk."
"We can make him talk," Aizen promised.
"Follow him first." Ichimaru straightened his gray shirt and combed his hair with his fingers, and then waved Matsumoto in. "Maybe pay that accountant a visit, get him to enlighten you. Got it?"
Aizen nodded, sizing up the shapely combat instructor as she gave him a cursory look. "Enjoy your weekend, Captain."
Ichimaru grinned at Matsumoto approaching his desk before looking back to Aizen. "Oh, and get that Thomason woman range-qualified before she shoots one of you in the back."
Rukia slid into a booth at Rosa's Bar and Grill that afternoon, choosing one against the wall in sight of the counter. She straightened her plum skirt of wrinkles, pulling at her lilac tank top that was damp with the day's humidity. She pushed her dark hair back from her face, enjoying the restaurant's central air after a hot night in York's house. It had taken her well into the evening the day before to find the box fan in the large house's basement.
It wasn't that she had misgivings about meeting the man she'd agreed to. Not many misgivings, anyway. She eased her conscience that had begun to play games with her morals.
Why she hadn't called Michael with the news of the gemstones, she wasn't sure. Why she had agreed to meet Ichigo-with-no-last-name she wasn't sure either. She tapped her fingers on the table, playing with the edge of the napkin, the perspiring glass of ice water making dripping impressions on the speckled table attached to the wall.
After all, if she got more out of York's inheritance than the will promised, Michael would be pleased. He'd overlook her blameless meeting with another man. After all, she'd looked beyond his indiscretion.
Her fingertips tightened on the napkin, scrunching it into a white wrinkle of cheap paper.
But it still hurt. Michael had said all the right things, done all the steps in regaining trust, as outlined by the church's free marriage counseling meetings, but it didn't erase the lingering doubt.
"Hello, Mrs. Parker."
Ichigo's voice jolted Rukia's thoughts from their lapse into semi-misery. She looked up and offered a slight smile. "Hi. It's Rukia."
"Rukia."
She nodded as he gestured to the opposite booth bench seat. He glanced at the table, not seeing an ashtray.
"You went to the deposit box?"
She nodded and paused before saying more as the waitress came up to their table.
She looked to each of them, a smile on her tired face. "Something from the bar to start off?"
Rukia nodded. "Vodka martini."
"Make it two," Ichigo said.
"Be right back." The waitress left, and Rukia tried to still her trembling fingers.
Ichigo grinned at her clenched hands. "Calm down, Rukia. York didn't steal the stones.'
Her eyes widened. "You know? You've got to be criminal. My grandfather wouldn't have anything to do with counterfeiting, or money-laundering, or --"
"Whoa, who, keep it down," he said, casting a cautionary look to the next occupied table halfway across the room. "I'm not a counterfeiter or money-launderer."
"Then why all the secrecy?" she asked pointedly.
"Those stones aren't your average jewelry store rocks," he said, then waited as the waitress reappeared with their drinks. When she was gone he nodded to Rukia's glass. "You're going to want to drink some of that first."
She sipped the clear liquid, making a face at the strong liquor. "Start talking."
He shrugged lopsidedly. "Since the IRS overhaul, the government has increasingly demanded all assets be counted as income. They do this in a variety of ways. Some not so nice. Taxes, duty forms, what you've got in the bank and buried in the back yard." He searched the surrounding tables. Not an ashtray in sight. "Why do you think they reissue new banknotes so often?"
A frown replaced some of the skepticism in her face. "To track drug dealers and counterfeiters."
It was the answer he'd expected. "Straight from the Congressman's mouth. But so often? It doesn't work. Hong Kong prints better quality fake bills than our actual currency within weeks of the changeover. It's a smokescreen, Rukia. Another excuse to trace money, which they'll never admit to. As soon as they find a way to trace a valuable, like money or precious metals, someone else finds a way to get past it."
Rukia didn't like what she was hearing. The waitress returned with an expectant look on her face.
"Ready to order?"
Rukia shook her head, watching Ichigo take a long drink from his glass, watching her steadily. "I don't want anything."
Ichigo shook his head too, and the waitress left.
He leaned over the table, voice lowering. "Listen, Rukia, ten years back the newest negotiable instrument taxpayers had to report was gemstones. Problem was, the government had no way to check on unreported stones. They tried to confiscate every jeweler's client records, but some stones still went unreported. They tried to coerce people into registering stones on tax forms, nut they had no concrete way of actually checking. Well, now they've got a way, and they do enforce penalties."
"But these stones were never reported," she said slowly. "Grandpa's attorney knew nothing of them."
"Did you tell anyone about them?"
"No."
"Don't."
"They never even asked about them at the bank," she recalled, fingers tracing the martini glass. "I just walked out." Trepidation seeped into her eyes. "I think I'm in a lot of trouble. I can't even take them to a jeweler?"
He shook his head, but not in answer. "Jewelers are required to report all untraceable stones, such as yours."
She sighed shallowly. "Then they're worthless."
"No. Right now every store-bought stone is coated with an invisible chemical wash that makes them show up on script scanners. That's how they find the stones at airports, banks, wherever. The same scanners that read the magnetic strips in the paper money and chips in the investment coins."
She shook her head. "They had a scanner at the bank. Nothing happened." She rested her elbows on the table and gave him a shrewd look. "Maybe they're not real."
He chuckled. "Oh, they're real." He stood up. "Come on. I'll show you."
Ichigo paid for their drinks and they headed outside and down the sidewalk. He looked at the signs overhead of the town's main street, seeing the usual barber shop, antiques stores, bakery, and finally a small jeweler's storefront.
He looked down to Rukia, her gaze on the velvet beds in the window display cases that housed jewelry of all sorts and prices.
He moved her to one side of the store's door, feeling her flinch at his casual touch. "Do you have a pair of sunglasses?"
She nodded and reached into her purse to retrieve them.
He took his wallet from his back pocket and found a small thin film of clear plastic. "Put this in one lens," he told her.
Rukia had her doubts, but slipped the film in one lens of the darkened glasses.
"Okay, put them on, and keep them on in the store. You'll see what I'm talking about." He watched her violet eyes be eclipsed by the large sunglasses. "Ready?"
She nodded.
Inside the store they made their way to the first case, looking into the glass counter at the selections of watches before moving farther in.
A starchly dressed sales associate met them, smiling a brilliant, hopeful smile. "Hello, can I help you find something today?"
Ichigo shook his head. "Just looking."
"Let me know if I can find anything for you," the woman said, stepping back from the counter and eyeing another customer walking in the front door.
Rukia looked into the next case set with assorted gemstone rings. She frowned at the slightly fuzzy images beneath the glass. She closed one eye and used the lens eye to look closer at the rings. The red and blue stones appeared checkered, tiny crisscrosses playing on their faceted surfaces. She opened her eye and closed the lens-free eye. The checks disappeared. She moved to the next case as Ichigo hung back, following her a step behind.
She looked at the next set of cases. It was the same in each. Every stone in the rings, bracelets, and pendants was the same, each surface appearing checked.
She took the glasses off and looked to Ichigo, nodding. He took her elbow and steered her out of the store.
They stopped a block away at the town park and sat at a bench in the shade of a maple tree. Rukia's eyes went to the children at the playground behind them for a moment before settling on the lens in the sunglasses.
"You're right. All the stones looked fuzzy."
"That's the wash."
She looked to the modest ring on her finger. "Why didn't my wedding ring set off the alarm at the bank?"
His eyes went to the ring. "Wedding stones have a secondary wash that scanners recognize and ignore. It won't register an alarm."
She picked at the edge of the film in the lens.
"Keep it," he said. "Check your stones from York. They're not worthless."
She sighed, frowning at the film. "What would a jeweler give me for them?"
He shook his head, hooking an arm over the back of the bench. "I hope you don't do that, Rukia."
"How much?"
"I only know what York bough off us." He hesitated answering until she looked at him for a long moment. "Okay, if you took them to a jeweler they'd bring about $300,000."
She stared at him, mouth slightly agape. "That's not bad," she finally stammered.
He nodded. "Not bad, but the jeweler has to call the IRS, a national gem lab, and the local authorities. After all the taxes, penalties, and back assessments, you keep about sixty thousand. Not bad, but nothing compared to what I think you have."
She sat back against the wooden bench, unable to suppress a laugh. "What do you think I have, Ichigo?"
"About two million."
For a moment Rukia said nothing, watching his eyes before breaking into a giggle. "And all this time I thought you were serious!"
"I am serious," he said sternly as she waved a hand at him. "Your grandfather bought well, Rukia. A lot of the stones you have are mined out. He didn't hide them for nearly fifty years to be confiscated now."
She shook her head, giddy half at his suggestion and half at the reality of the amount. She looked to her watch. "I've got to call the attorney in fifteen minutes."
He nodded and stood as she did. "Don't mention the stones to them."
She nodded, smoothing her skirt and shirt.
"I know you've got a lot to think about, Rukia, and you've got questions."
She shook her head. "I don't know if I believe anything you've said yet."
He sighed, putting his hands on his hips. "Have dinner with me tonight, and I'll answer any questions you have."
She crossed her arms tightly, looking to the children on the swings for a moment, considering the invitation. She looked back to him. "Okay. I guess dinner is all right."
