Now her face was a bloated black-and-blue mask on one side, one eye totally closed under the bulbous swelling, the other a flat slit. Her hair was gone around the bandaged area and her upper lip was twice normal size.
I put my hand over hers and whispered, "Damn it, kitten . . ."
Then her wrist moved and her fingers squeezed mine gently. "Are you . . . all right?" she asked me softly.
"I'm fine, honey, I'm okay. Now don't talk. Just take it easy. All I want is to be here with you. That's enough."
So I just sat there and in a minute she said, "I can . . . listen, Mike. Please tell me . . . what happened."
I played it back to her without building it up at all. I didn't tell her the details of the kill and hinted that it was strictly the work of a nut, but she knew better.
Under my fingers I could feel her pulse. It was steady. Her hand squeezed mine again. "He came in . . . very fast. He had one hand over his face . . . and he was . . . swinging at me . . . with the other. I . . . never saw his face at all." Remembering it hadn't excited her. The pulse rate hadn't changed.
I said, "Okay, honey, that's enough. You're supposed to take it real easy a while."
But she insisted. "Mike . . ."
"What, kitten?"
"If the police . . . ask questions . . ."
I knew what she was thinking. In her mind she had already put it on a case basis and filed it for immediate activity. There was no way she could be foxed into believing the story of a psycho on the loose. We had been too close too long and now she was reading my mind. She wanted me to have more space to work in, even if she had to be a target herself.
"Play sick," I said.
Until she made a statement, everything was up in the air. She was still alive, so there was a possibility that she could have seen the killer. He couldn't afford any witness at all, but if he tried to erase her he'd be a sitting duck himself. From here on, there would be a solid cover on the hospital room. The killer was going to sweat a little more now.
I thought I saw the good corner of her mouth twitch in a faint smile and again I got the small finger squeeze. "Be careful," she said. Her voice was barely audible and she was slipping back into a sleep once more. "I want . . . you back."
Her fingers loosened and her hand slipped out of mine. She didn't hear me when I said, "I want you back too, baby."
Outside the door the cop said, "How is she?"
"Making it." He was a young cop, this one. He still had that determined look. He had the freshness of youth, but his eyes told me he had seen plenty of street work since he left the academy. "Did Captain Chambers tell you what this was about?" I asked.
"Only that it was heavy. The rest I got through the grapevine."
"It's going to get rougher," I said. "Don't play down what you're doing."
He grinned at me. "Don't worry, Mike, I'm not jaded yet."
"Way to go, kiddo."
"By the way . . ."
"What's that?"
"How come you never locked into the department?"
"King Arthur wouldn't let me go."
"That's right," he laughed. "I forgot, you're the Black Knight."
"Take care of my girl in there, will you?"
His face suddenly went serious. "You got it, Mike."
Downstairs another shift was coming on, fresh faces in white uniforms replacing the worn-out platoon that had gone through a rough offensive on the day watch. The interns looked too young to be doctors, but they already had the wear and tear of the profession etched into them. One had almost made it to the door when the hidden PA speaker brought him up short, and with an expression of total fatigue, he shrugged and went back inside.
I cut around the little groups and pushed my way through the outside door. The rain had stopped, but the night was clammy, muting the street sounds and diffusing the lights of the buildings. Nights like this stunk. There were no incoming taxis and it was a two-block walk to where they might cruise by. There was no other choice, so I went down the steps to the street. Behind me two interns were debating waiting for a nurse who had a car, then decided they were too tired to wait and followed me, taking the other side of the street.
At night this area was solid bumper-to-bumper parked cars, wedged so tightly together you wanted to see how they came unstuck in the morning. A smart one had a two-foot space in front of him with his wheels cranked hard away from the curb so he couldn't be pushed up, and I walked right past it like a Jersey tourist before I knew it didn't fit and the slight metallic creak of a door was wrong and everything exploded at once.
Ducking and twisting was automatic and something whispered by over my head. Then a pair of bodies were on me, fists smashing at my kidneys and bouncing off my neck. I rammed my elbow back and felt teeth go under it and the back of my head mashed the guy's nose who was holding me. I was off balance and before I could use my feet another flying pair of arms nailed my legs together in a crude tackle and we all hit the pavement with me on the bottom. My .45 was still tight in the shoulder holster and I felt a hand going under my coat and yanking it clear.
It wasn't a mugging. I felt the needle go into my hip and within seconds the drowsiness started. Somebody was cursing and spitting blood behind me, and when I had no strength left the restraining arms fell away and I heard a voice saying he wanted to kick my brains out for breaking his nose.
It wasn't dream time. There were faraway sounds and feelings of being in motion. I could hear voices, but didn't know what they were saying. And it was black. I felt tired and wanted to sleep, but I was in a limbo all alone.
Time itself had no meaning. Its passage I could record by the throbbing where my body hurt, but no other way. So I just let it all happen, thinking of what a damned sucker I had been for letting myself get trapped. I said, "Shit," and my ears heard it and I let my eyes slide open and lifted my head up.
Somebody said, "He's awake."
There was barely any light and it came from a small open bulb thirty feet away. I was tied to a chair, my arms and legs snug to it and two turns of rope holding me tight against the back. There was no sense wasting any strength thrashing around. Pros had done this job and I could barely make out the form of one of them in front of me, his face an indistinguishable pale orb. There was another behind me and he wasn't breathing right. He kept swearing under his breath and spitting on the floor.
A hand came out of the darkness and tilted my head back. The beam of a small flashlight swept across my eyes and the voice said, "It's all worn off. He's wide awake." It was an accented voice, but nothing I could place.
The other one sounded like he had a bad cold, his words whispery deep with a rasp to it. He moved in closer, but I still couldn't make out his face. "Tell us about Penta," he said.
Sometimes you have to mouth off. I told him, "Up yours."
His hand came around and there was no way I could move. It was a flat-handed slap with a hell of a lot of meat behind it and I could taste blood in my mouth.
"One more time, Hammer."
"Asshole," I said.
The hand got me again, harder than before. My ear was ringing so badly I hardly heard the other voice say, "Knock if off. We haven't got time for this."
"You just let me . . ."
"Damn it, you're not playing with some patsy. He's been through the rough stuff before. Give him the sodium pentothal."
I thought now somebody would come in close enough for me to get a good look at them, but an oily smelling towel was tossed over my head, then somebody pulled my sleeve back. I felt the cold touch of an alcohol swab, then a needle went into my forearm.
Again, reality drifted away. It took all my defenses with it and I could hear and speak and even see light through the worn towel. A little part of my brain told me if I fought real hard I could lie right through the truth serum, but then, why bother lying when telling the truth was so much fun?
"Who is Penta?"
"I don't know."
"Where is Penta now?"
"I don't know."
"When did you meet Penta?"
"I never met Penta."
"Who is Penta?"
"I don't know."
The first voice said, "Let's increase the dosage." I felt the needle again. There was another long pause before the questions started. I gave them the same answers. It was almost a pleasure to be able to do it.
Another needle, and this time they waited almost too long. The sleep was coming on me.
The voice said, "I am Penta."
Only my brain made an idiotic grin. If I said he wasn't, it would mean I knew Penta.
My tongue said, "Good for you."
"Do you work for Penta?"
They were trying it again.
"I work . . . by myself." The words didn't come out easily at all.
The raspy one said, "He's going."
"Well, that's it," his partner told him.
"You think he was faking it?"
"I don't know how he could."
Sounds were too faint now to register and I felt myself being jostled around, then the sleep came and the strange, fuzzy chemical dreams that had no direction or substance, shooting off into one area after another like a firefight pattern of tracer bullets gone wild.
Awakening was in slow motion, one part at a time. I stayed immobile until I had things back in focus again, trying to remember what had preceded the odd stupor I was in. Then the mental door unlatched and it was all there, not totally clear, but discernible enough.
The ropes holding me in the chair had been loosened, with just enough tension there to keep me from falling off the chair. I shook them loose, then leaned forward and stood up. I was shaky, so I didn't move for a minute.
No drugs were lousing me up now and I could see better in the light from that dull bulb than I could before. I was in some kind of a garage, the oil and grease smell thick, dull forms of heavy machinery on either side of me. On the floor, in front of my feet, was my hat. Next to it was my .45.
Bending down was easy. Getting back up wasn't. I put the .45 back in the holster and straightened out my hat.
No, that wasn't a mugging. That was as far away from a mugging as you could get. I still had my money in my wallet and when I looked at my watch it read four fifteen.
A wide sliding door was on the other side of the light with a normal door built into it. I twisted the lock, pulled on the knob and went out to the street. A sign over the door read SMILEY'S AUTOMOTIVE in old hand-painted letters. I walked to the corner slowly, saw where I was, then crossed the street and went another long block to where the lights were, waited a good five minutes, then flagged down a taxi.
The driver's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. "You okay, mac?"
I nodded. "Yeah, just been one of those nights." I gave him my address and closed my eyes.
Pat looked at me with total disgust and jammed his hands in his pockets. "Mike, what kind of clown crap you call this? You let ten hours go by before you give me the story of what happened. You think we wouldn't have responded right away?"
"They were pros."
"Pros can leave marks behind," he reminded me.
"What did you find?"
"Okay, nothing of importance. The chair, ropes. Somebody spit blood on the floor. Type O positive."
"And that's half the population," I said. "At least there's somebody with some teeth out of whack and another dude with a busted nose probably sporting a pair of beautiful black eyes right now. You get anything more from the owner?"
"Zilch, that's what, Smiley's place has been in that spot for over twenty years. During the slow season he shuts down and heads for the tracks. Playing the ponies is his one vice."
"That's not a great area to leave a business alone, buddy."
"What's he got to steal? A couple of hydraulic presses for straightening car frames? What're you getting at anyway?"
"The guys who had me knew the place would be empty."
"Hell, there were two other places down the street that were empty too." He stopped and breathed in deeply. "Maybe we'll get lucky and find a broken nose or de-toothed slob who has grease marks on his shoe soles we can identify."
"Don't bother. They would have thought of that too."
"Why didn't you answer your phone?"
"Because I was beat. There wasn't one damn thing I could have done."
"When those interns called 911 we had you ID'd in fifteen minutes. Every car in the city was scrounging around looking for you."
"How about the car they threw me into?"
"A black Mercedes. Late model and nobody got the number. One intern said the right rear tail-light was out. So far, we haven't located it."
"So what are you all pissed off about?" I asked him. "I'm here, nothing's happened and we know somebody else is looking for the Penta character too."
Pat took another of those comforting deep breaths, quieted down and then told me, "We have all the information on the late Anthony DiCica."
"Oh?"
"Forget those minor counts in New York. DiCica turns out to have been an enforcer for the New York mob. He was a suspect in four homicides, never got tapped for any of them and gained a reputation of being a pretty efficient workman."
"Then how'd he get to be a delivery man?"
"Simple. Somebody cracked his skull open in a street brawl and he came all unraveled. He was in a hospital seven months and left with severely impaired mental faculties."
"Who sponsored him?"
"Nobody took him in. He remembered very little of his past, but he could handle uncomplicated things. He had been working with that printer you used for over a year. The hospital had no choice except to release him."
"What's the tag line, Pat?"
"He could have made enemies. Somebody saw him and came after him."
"In my office?"
"Anybody with a hate big enough to take him apart like that wouldn't be rational about it. He'd take him when and where he could and your office was it. He spotted him, followed him, then went in after him. If your unknown client did show up afterward all the activity scared him off."
For a minute I thought about it. There was still the "walker" Maria Escalante had seen, but for now I was keeping that to myself. I said, "Why the hell was I abducted then, Pat? Nobody wanted me. They wanted Penta."
A detective came in and handed Pat a thick folder and left. Pat flopped it open, scowled, then closed the office door, sealing out the confusion on the other side. "Mike, you remember Ray Wilson?"
"Sure. The old intelligence guy?"
"He's had Penta on the computers with Washington for two days. Usually we get some sort of a reply in a short, reasonable time. With Penta it's all delays and referrals to other agencies."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Probably nothing," Pat said. "Ray seems to think that when Penta was mentioned a flag went up somewhere down the line. When that happens we're into something pretty damn heavy."
I let out a laugh. "And I can see what will drop on you if they know we have such great heart-to-heart talks." I looked around. "This place bugged?"
He looked startled a second, then grinned. "Go screw yourself, pal. You're my pigeon and I'm running you."
"Good story," I said. "Stick to it." I looked at my watch. It was almost four o'clock. "When's the next briefing?"
"Like now," Pat said. "Let's go."
This time the Ice Lady wore a cool blue sheath of a fabric that seemed to caress her whenever she moved. She knew what it did and every motion was beautifully orchestrated for her audience. Their response was just as carefully calculated, as though they were totally ignorant of this vibrant woman who was one of them too. They saw us come in, but only stopped talking when we were close enough to hear what they were saying.
Pat motioned to the table. "Shall we sit down?"
I didn't bother with the chair bit this time. I took a seat across from Jerome Coleman and when he was ready, he nodded to the man next to him and sai
d, "This is Frank Carmody and his assistant, Phillip Smith, both of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On my right is Mr. Bennett Bradley, representing the State Department, and his special assistant from the CIA, Mr. Lewis Ferguson."
It's funny how cops look like cops. When they're federal they seem to dress alike, groom themselves identically and use the same body language. There were slight differences in the color and pattern of their suits, but not much. They were all in their early forties and probably had the same barber who gave proper haircuts and shaved close.
At least Bradley, the guy from State, was different. His suit was a light gray, his tie was red and he wore a mustache, which was more hair than he had on his head. Like Yul Brynner's, it was shaved off on the back of his skull for convenience. But he was still State, bore the bureaucratic attitude of tired integrity and seemed anxious to get on with the meeting.
Pat said, "I'm Captain Chambers and this is Michael Hammer. I believe you want to ask him some questions."
I held up my hand before they could talk, "This is a strange interagency relationship here. Cooperation between the FBI and CIA is pretty damn rare. Not to mention State. Do I need a lawyer here?"
The Ice Lady said, "You are not in jeopardy, Mr. Hammer."
"My licenses are intact, I presume."
"For now." There was no inflection in her voice at all.
I gestured with my hand and sat back.
Carmody spoke up first. "We want to know about Penta, Mr. Hammer."
"So does everybody else," I told him.
"Yes. We've all read the statement you gave Captain Chambers. The witnesses at the hospital saw the assailants, saw you abducted, and we know what you have said."
"What's your point?"
It was Bennett Bradley from the State Department who broke in. "Mr. Hammer . . . when your name came up in this matter I remembered having heard it before. After an inquiry or two I opened a file that made interesting reading."
Pat grunted and said, "Everything he does is interesting."
Bradley simply ignored him and said, "You testified at a trial as to the possible inaccuracy of the polygraph test. In fact, you gave a demonstration using an authorized operator of the device and succeeded in lying without being detected."
The Killing Man mh-12 Page 4
