"That's some rumor," I said. "Why did they let Torres keep operating?"
"No way Torres could have bucked the organization. He could have had the shipment, but not for long. The other side had all the guns."
I rattled the ice around in my glass, then drank it down. "So it was DiCica all the way, huh?"
"All the way. A stupid man who did a stupid thing. He knew where the trailer was. When they finally found him they were supposed to take him somewhere where they could squeeze the information out of him the hard way. They have some interesting ways of extracting information. The trouble was, he put up one hell of a fight and one of his attackers leaned on him a little too hard with that pipe. The fight was interrupted by a police cruiser so they didn't drag him off, but the trauma from the pipe took him out of action very effectively." She paused and took a deep breath. "I wonder what he would have done with all that cocaine?"
"He would have used it for one hell of a big bargaining chip, that's what. Even the mob would have cut a clean deal with him and let it go at that. Our own government would even set him up for life under an assumed identity to get their mitts on that load."
For one second her back went up and she started an angry denial.
I held up my hand. "Smarten up, lady. We have people in politics as dirty as those on the other side."
"Well," she told me, her face still tight, "he really paid for that mistake in your office."
"You know," I said, "you're back to me again. It always comes back to me. With the kind of money going down on this project, somebody could afford to call in an outsider like Penta to nail my ass . . . but that leaves one fucking, excuse me, big hole in the picture."
"Like what?"
"Who the hell needed him? We have pro hitters in this country."
She seemed to look at me for an eternity. "He said you killed him, Mike. What was he talking about? Could that note really have been for DiCica?"
"All I know, baby, is that it wasn't meant for me."
"It isn't over, you know." She finished her drink too and set the glass down beside mine. The first side of the Dante Symphony slid to a close and the machine flipped the record over. Now the real meat of Liszt's symphony would begin to show. "What are you going to do?"
"What I started out to do," I said. "That one son of a bitch is going to fall. I don't give a damn what happens to all the money or all the coke as long as I get that bastard under my gun. We're playing around with somebody who likes to kill, likes to get paid for killing and likes to sign his name in chopped-off fingers."
Coolly, she said, "One of you is going to find the other, Mike."
This time I grinned. "Has to happen. But before it does, sugar, I'm going to make sure you have your truckload of nose candy. When you do, you're going to let Petey Benson in on the story, lay some credit on Ray Wilson and his espionage system, then you can hop into your boss's chair and be on your way to the White House."
The beautiful blue icicle moved toward me and the static fire in the jumpsuit crackled minutely, and when her body touched mine, I felt shock that jumped from her nipple tingle in my chest, and whatever that charge did to her melted the ice completely and her mouth was on mine, eating at me, swirling and tasting, trying to vulcanize us together.
For a second I tried to hold her away, but her arms were around me and she was melting into me again. I let my fingers run down her back, following the muscles that moved along her spine, then my hands were at her waist and I knew what she wanted. I didn't do it, so she did it herself, sweeping the top of her jumpsuit off in a fast, fluid motion, and deliberately letting me have a long look at the lovely swell of those firm breasts before she pushed my coat off my shoulders and laid her breasts against my shirt so I could feel the heat, the incredible body warmth of her nakedness.
She started to smile, an impish quirk of her mouth. "Can you take off your gun?"
I unsnapped the belt loop, pulled the shoulder strap off and laid the rig on the chair. "A man's gotta do what he's gotta do," I told her.
"John Wayne said that," she mentioned.
"Many times, in many pictures."
"Now you do what you gotta do," she directed.
The Dante Symphony was coming to the end now. It was pounding, forcing the notes into an eerie crescendo so that you could see the flames, feel the passion and hear screams like none other anywhere. It was exhilarating to the point of absolute exhaustion and left you shaken with tremors that never came any other way.
Traffic was light going out of town. I picked up the Long Island Expressway, stayed at speed limit and let my mind wander back to when General Rudy Skubal was the main man in covert activities. During World War II he had his own unit, working under the Office of Strategic Services, and had been reassigned after the Nazi collapse to nailing war criminals trying to get out of Allied control.
He took a discharge in 1949, but the CIA was waiting then. The big action was tuning up in the cold war and it got hotter when Korea and Vietnam made their imprints on modern history. It was when the Middle East took on its own dramatic stance and developed terrorism to a high point of sophistication that the general's expertise was called on.
Then, suddenly, Rudy Skubal wasn't there any more. Somebody else occupied his office and the carefully couched words were that he had decided to retire. In a pig's ass he had decided to retire. He had rubbed some politico's feathers the wrong way and the power of the party had gone to work and squeezed out a real top gun and threw in some insipid party hack instead.
But old Skube didn't make any waves. He didn't have to. From then on he just made them pay for his services and kept himself the hell out of harm's way. Any more medals he didn't need.
I wondered what kind of light he was going to throw on Bern and Fells. Until now, I had never heard of any of his tigers going sour. But there always had to be a first time.
At Number 67 turnoff I picked up Route 21 North, ran past the little town of Yaphank and looked for the posts that marked the entrance to the old Kimball estate. It took thirty minutes searching and backtracking before I recognized them under a covering of wisteria, surrounded by sumac bushes. Unless the road was used almost daily, the ground covering obscured the tire tracks. I made a hard turn off the road, bounced over the culvert and felt a little relief when I knew the ground under the wheels was hard and firm.
After the first turn I was in another world. The seemingly uncared-for roughage of the exterior became a carefully tended wildlife area that quickly ended at a vast lawn surrounding a brick mansion right out of the Roaring Twenties.
Even now the general was taking no chances. Any invasion of his privacy could be clearly seen from any angle of the house, and the floodlights that were spotted around the building could turn night into day instantly.
I stayed on the driveway, going slowly, making the two large S-turns that gave the residents extra time to survey their guests, then drew up under the portico and got out of the car.
Maybe I should have called ahead. Nobody came out to meet me.
Then again, this wasn't the 1920s and the years of servants and butlers.
I walked up the stairs to the huge main door, pushed the button and heard a plain old-fashioned doorbell ring inside and then somebody appeared.
Some women can hit you with a visual impact you'll never forget. There aren't many of them, but there don't have to be many to leave a trail of men whose minds will always be impressed by a single contact. They don't have to be beautiful in any special sense, or with bodies specifically tuned to certain concepts, but to each viewer, they are the total thing that makes them woman.
This one had crazy electric blue eyes that could smile, as well as a full-lipped mouth, and when she said "Good morning," it was like being licked by a soft, satin-furry llama.
She had on a suit. The shoulders were broad, but not with the padding that was in style in 1988. She was real under the jacket and the military cut. It was tailored around beautifully full breasts, but short enough to sh
ow the generous swell of her hips. And she had a dancer's legs, muscularly rounded, but perfectly curved. They hardly make them like that any more, I thought. What she's doing here has to be a story by itself.
I said, "Damn!" under my breath and grinned back at her. "My name is Michael Hammer, ma'am. I'm an old friend of the general and I have something very important to see him about, and I'm hoping he'll have time to hear me out." I held out my wallet with the PI license and gun permit behind the plastic windows, wondering where the hell my city schmarts had disappeared to.
She let out a disconcerting laugh. "Well, Mr. Hammer, it is nice to see you. Please, come in."
"Thanks." I stepped up and walked past her. She was another big woman, with elfish grace, yet strangely athletic motion. She closed the door with a sweep of her hand, then thumbed open a panel and touched a red lighted button that went out momentarily and turned green.
"May I have your weapon?" she asked me.
I flipped out the .45 and handed it to her. She took it, slipped it inside a small wall closet and covered that too. "You didn't ask me for a throw-away piece." I said.
"That's because you haven't any." She smiled back. "Keys, pocket change and possibly a penknife, but nothing more. The instrument is very sensitive."
"Supposing somebody just comes busting in here-"
"Why talk of unpleasant things?" she said. "Now, I haven't introduced myself. I am Edwina West, General Skubal's secretary."
"Hold it."
She paused. "Mr. Hammer?"
"Let's keep it simple and square, Miss West. No secretary garbage."
"Oh?"
"You're CIA, aren't you?"
There was no hesitation at all. "Yes, I am. Why should you ask?"
"Women don't generally refer to a gun as a weapon. You knew what a throwaway was."
Her smile had real laughter in it. "I'll have to remember that," she told me. "Do you like me any less now?"
It was my turn to laugh. "You're some kind of doll, Miss West. You make a guy feel like he walked into a propeller."
"Please, call me Edwina."
"Okay, Edwina. Just tell me . . . is it genetic?"
She took my arm and folded it around her own. "My mother seemed to have some sort of attraction for men too. Don't all women have that?"
"Honey, not the way you have it. You must have been a terror when you were growing up."
"Do you know how old I am, Mr. Hammer?"
"Mike," I told her. "And I'd say you were forty, forty-two." Usually, when you lay that on a beautiful woman you feel the chill. A cold can come off them like a shore-bound fog and you get the thrust of mental death.
But not her. She said, "I am forty-eight. Does that disappoint you?"
I said, "Watch it, Edwina, you're touching nerves I didn't know I had."
She squeezed my arm with her fingers. It was a long, gentle, but soft grasp and she said, "Don't be surprised at what I know about you. I've read the profile the general has on you, the accounts the press have touched on and a lot of information you probably consider extremely personal."
I stopped, turned us around and looked at the door forty feet behind us. We were in a big foyer, a generous room lined with expensive fixtures I hadn't noticed until now. I said, "Kid, we just met, we walked about thirteen yards together and I could write a book about what's happened inside three minutes. Does that happen all the time?"
The way her mouth worked when it was starting to smile was startling. Those incredibly blue eyes were almost hypnotic. "Only when I want it to," she said. "And there is something else."
"What's that?"
She turned me around toward a pair of heavy hand-carved oaken doors, tugged very easily on an ornate brass handle and the door opened noiselessly and without effort. "That I will tell you later."
The house was real enough, the kind you could get lost in, the kind they used for background in period motion pictures, or classic horror films.
Edwina gave me a small, tour on the way to see the general, but everything got lost in the throaty rich tone of her voice. There was music in it, low and demanding. There was a light touch of lust and overtones I could feel, but couldn't describe, and when we got to the final door I began to wonder what the hell had happened to me. I was in some kid's damn daydream acting like I had my head up my ass and enjoyed it. I finally let out a laugh and she knew I was laughing at myself, gave me one of those lovely grins back and knocked on the door.
A buzzer clicked and the door swung open. We stepped inside and the door closed automatically.
A light was on us, so bright it cut off all vision of anything behind it like a solid wall.
I heard a chuckle, and a voice that hadn't changed at all with the years said, "Good afternoon, Michael."
The light went off with a metallic ping and another came on that lit up the office. Back there at the same old desk, but now surrounded by rows and banks of electronic equipment, was General Rudy Skubal.
I said, "Hello, General."
"What do you think?"
"Pretty damn dramatic," I told him.
"You're only looking at the surface." He waved at us. "Come on over here." He pushed himself out of his chair and held out his hand. I took it, enjoying the good grip the old man still had. "How long has it been, Michael?"
Hell, he would have known to the day, but I said, "Many moons, General. You still look pretty sharp."
"Eyewash. I'm becoming enfeebled. It's a pain in the butt, yet unavoidable." He tapped the side of his head. "Up here I can go on indefinitely, and with the machines much can be accomplished, but the old physical thrill of the chase is gone. I haven't popped anybody in the teeth in so long I hardly remember what it sounded like."
"It never sounds," I said. "They break off quietly. If you cut your hand on them, you can get one hell of an infection."
General Skubal squinched up his face and shook his head angrily. "Hell, man, you see that? You remember? Damn, you still get to do those things and have the fun. You kick ass and get laid and I push buttons."
"Don't sweat it, General. It's only fun when you live to remember it," I reminded him, "and with the security you have here you'll live long enough."
He ran his fingers through his mop of blazing white hair and let me see a small smile. "Don't overrate Edwina here. She causes me more anxious moments than the enemy. You know she's CIA, don't you?"
"Of course."
"You tell him?" he asked her.
"No, he knew," she answered.
"See, that's why I wanted to recruit this guy," he said. "What an agent he would have made." He paused, looked at the both of us a second, a wrinkle showing in his forehead. "He would have straightened you out, gal."
She looked straight at me, a bright blue stare daring me to say it. So I said it. "General, you never straighten out lovely curves like that."
I watched old Skubie frown again and look up at me from under his whiskery eyebrows. Finally he said, "Edwina, go rassle us some coffee and Danish, okay?"
She winked at us both, waited for the general to trip the door buzzer and left. "Crazy," I said.
"I never had that when I was young," the general muttered. "Now, Michael, I assume this is not a 'just happened to be in the neighborhood' call."
"Pure business, General."
"Our kind of business?"
"Right."
He flipped a set of switches on a control panel in front of him, then leaned back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. "One more assumption . . . this has to do with the death in your office?"
The old guy was on the ball all right. "That's how it started."
"Okay, shoot," he said. "Tell it your own way."
I gave it to him in detail the way it opened up, setting the stage with the way I found Velda and the mutilated body of DiCica in my office. He knew about the note, but when I mentioned the name Penta, his lips pursed, he took his hands down and wrote out the name on a pad, then sat back and listened again. I
ran the whole thing down for him without bothering to tail off into DiCica's initial role. Anything he could give me I wanted to point directly at the killer himself.
Halfway through, the buzzer sounded. Edwina came in with the coffee and Danish, put them down on the desk and went back out again. When we stirred the coffee up, the general nodded for me to continue.
I took him through the details Russell Graves had dug up, the data Ray Wilson had brought out of the computers and the events that led to Harry Bern and Gary Fells being mentioned as cadets the general had in his old unit.
When I finished, the general leaned on the desk and touched his fingertips together. "You're stirring up old memories, Michael. The names you mentioned, I know those people well. Carmody has always been a good career man. If you remember, he was the one who grabbed that bunch hijacking trucks last year. Ferguson spent his early years in the European sector. Speaks four languages, I understand. The last administration brought him to this area. Bennett Bradley was always a good man for State. He had the makings of an operative, you know, but too conservative. His forte, as I remember it, was political science. Too bad they're forcing retirement on him." He stood up, pushing his chair back. "However, before we get to Bern and Fells, let me have a brief consultation." He nodded toward a computer bank. "Want to watch?"
"Sure," I said. "Why not?"
This was the new battlefield now. Nothing dirty, no wild screams of terror or staccato noises of fast-firing guns. No sliding around in muck or taking high dives onto hard flats to get out of a field of crossfiring rifles. No knives or insidious poisons or wire garrotes nearly decapitating a human. Now it was quiet button-tapping sounds and lighted letters and numbers flashing on the screen, being rearranged, rechanneled for new information, positioning themselves into faraway circuits, then returning in seconds.
The general had entered his request for knowledge of the one called Penta. It was caught up in the wizardry of electronics and General Skubal sat back and let the machine take over. While it worked, he said to me, "In case you're interested . . ."
"General, I'm very interested."
"My so-called retirement was not for very long. The idiots who pulled me were dumped at the next election and I was reinstated right where I wanted to be . . . here, and at government expense. These machines are owned and serviced by federal funds and are state-of-the-art equipment. And believe me," he added, "the government is getting their money's worth . . . and I'm living doing what I can do best."
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