In the Name of a Killer cad-1

by Brian Freemantle

  In one of those bureaucratic decisions defying logic, unless it had to do with saving money, Barry Andrews had again been booked into the temporary, scarcely basic hotel across the river in Pentagon City. The commute to and from FBI headquarters was almost an hour if he hit rush-hour traffic, like he was doing this morning. All in all, Andrews was annoyed, thoroughly pissed off at the thoughtlessness. He didn’t deserve it; didn’t his record describe him as outstanding? He bet Cowley had never been dumped out in the boondocks, although Christ knows he’d deserved to be, so many times. Andrews felt the anger building and tried to stop it getting worse. Foolish to lose his temper. He’d given himself plenty of time, so it didn’t matter that he was stuck in traffic. He’d still be early: early enough maybe to grab some breakfast because he refused to eat anything in that Pentagon City dog’s nest. Give him time to settle down. That was the thing to do. Settle down. Stay calm: calm and cool. Today was the day. Reward time, after the Moscow imprisonment. Today he was going to get the final assignment of duties, within the Russian division. And ahead of Cowley’s return. Showed what little clout the guy had, in his own section, decisions being made without him.

  The traffic block shifted and Andrews was able to start moving slowly across the 14th Street bridge. He’d certainly been treated pretty good since he’d gotten back, apart from the hotel. He guessed everyone getting a headquarters posting probably received the welcoming letter from the Director, but he’d liked the gesture: deserved it, too. And all the guys in the division had been friendly, beers after work the first night, always someone suggesting lunch, offers of help from everyone if he needed it. Had him marked out, Andrews guessed. Someone on the ascendancy: asshole creeping. He didn’t care. It was good.

  He’d respond, of course: invent some problems so no one would think he was too smart, not needing help from anyone. Which he didn’t. Still wise to settle in, though: settle in and see which way the wheels turned. Even the shitty hotel wouldn’t be an irritant much longer. He’d kept on top of the letting agency and been promised he could get back into Bethesda by the weekend. Perfect timing for Pauline’s arrival. Have to go through it with her again, how he wanted it all to be. She hadn’t been properly concentrating in Moscow. The distraction of Cowley, he decided: everyone distracted by William John Cowley, reformed alcoholic, reformed everything, Mr Good Guy. If the man with the beard and the trick with feeding five thousand hadn’t got there first, Cowley could have invented a whole new religion.

  The traffic was smoother when he left the bridge and Andrews settled more comfortably back in his seat: he’d been unaware of being tensed forward like that. It was going to be interesting, when Pauline got back: watching, listening, picking up the hints that would be there to what they’d done behind his back in Moscow. That was going to be the best part, in the very beginning. The first game. Cultivating the revived friendship, putting them together all the time and all the time each of them knowing — because they always had to know — that he had her. Who’d won. She was a bitch, he decided suddenly. Didn’t deserve him. No matter.

  Andrews left the vehicle in the car-park on 12th Street to walk the last few hundred yards, admiring the squat red building as he approached. Had it really been personally designed by Hoover with machine-gun emplacements at the corners, to put down any communist-inspired insurrection? Quirky thing to find out: make a good cocktail-party story, if it were true. He was anticipating a lot of parties.

  Entering the darker foyer from the outside brightness of a spring morning, Andrews didn’t immediately see the personal assistant who’d hand-delivered the Director’s letter. He was almost at the entry security turnstile, activating pass in his hand, when the normally bland-faced Fletcher approached, smiling this time.

  ‘Assignment day,’ Fletcher announced. ‘I’m to take you.’

  Andrews smiled in return, falling into step with the man. ‘Any news from Moscow?’

  ‘Being wrapped up,’ the man promised.

  On their way up through the floors and more monitoring turnstiles, Andrews said he was glad to be back in America (‘although Moscow was a marvellous workplace: don’t get me wrong’) and that the traffic here was a mess but the weather wonderful and that he might get himself a small boat, either on the Potomac or up on Chesapeake.

  ‘Sounds good,’ agreed Fletcher, standing back at the entrance to an anonymous, unmarked room for Andrews to enter.

  Which he did. To stop dead, frozen, uncomprehending.

  It was a large room but quite bare, just closed metal cupboards along one side and a table dividing it, although not quite in the middle.

  William Cowley was sitting at the table. With Dimitri Danilov beside him.

  Andrews was utterly astonished, momentarily beyond speech or thought. ‘Bill …! What in the name of …?’

  ‘Waiting for you, Barry. Come on in.’

  Waiting for him? Why the hell were they waiting for him? He abruptly became conscious of other things in the room. There was a side-table, with a male stenographer and recording apparatus, red operating lights already on. And other men. He hadn’t seen them when he’d walked in but he became aware of them now. Five, all lined along the back. ‘I don’t understand … I mean what …’

  ‘We know you did it, Barry. All of them. I want you to tell me about it. Everything. You’ll do that now that we know, won’t you?’ Cowley hoped it wouldn’t be a long interrogation. Meadows, the psychiatrist at Quantico, had guessed it wouldn’t be, but then admitted he wasn’t sure.

  ‘Bill! I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Help me here! What’s happening?’

  So it wasn’t going to be easy. Hit him hard, Meadows had advised. ‘You miscounted. Miscalculated, too, but you might have gotten away with it if you hadn’t miscounted. And forgotten colours. It’s always the silly little things, isn’t it?’

  What was the motherfucker on about? Didn’t Cowley know he had to be careful: that he was going to take over the divisional directorship very soon, replacing him here like he’d replaced him everywhere else, even in bed? ‘Help me understand, Bill! For Christ’s sake!’

  ‘You know. We know. We just want you to tell us about it.’

  ‘Bill!’ exclaimed Andrews. Too loud: shouldn’t have sounded so loud, like he had something to be frightened about. Didn’t have anything to be frightened about.

  ‘Buttons,’ declared Danilov, entering the interrogation: the agreed arrangement, against what might happen later, was that the tape would show shared questioning. ‘When Yezhov was seized, he had two buttons on him. And there were ten, at the apartment. Making twelve. They were all sent back here, because of America’s superior technology. Sent by you. But we got fifteen back: fifteen of which nine all came from the women killed or attacked.’

  What did they think they were talking about, trying to trick him? Little people, trying to trick him! ‘Listen! This isn’t right! I just shipped back what you gave me, Bill. You know that. You gave me the buttons in the plastic exhibit bags and I simply pouched them. That’s how it was: the job I was ordered to do, by he Director. I’m damned if I’m going to get stuck with some problem I don’t even understand, apart from something to do with mistaken arithmetic.’

  ‘This is a pretty big problem and we didn’t get our arithmetic wrong,’ said Cowley, keeping his voice as low as he’d been instructed at Quantico, although it wasn’t easy for him. ‘I counted. Dimitri counted. Pavin counted. All of us. Separately. And each of those counts before I handed them over to you. You got it wrong, Barry. Finally fucked it up. Blew it.’

  Friends could use his Christian name. Not enemies. Not people he hated: the person he hated most of all. Hadn’t fucked anything up.

  ‘And not just counted,’ Danilov came in. ‘We recorded the individual colours, as well. Three red, three green, two blue, one brown, and three fashioned out of bone. No black. Yet two black buttons arrived here: and one of them conveniently, for the conviction of Petr Yezhov, from Nadia Revin�
��s skirt.’ He’d been nervous to begin with: nervous at being in America for the first time — alone, vulnerable, not knowing how to behave — and earlier at meeting the FBI Director and then taking part in this interrogation, on show in front of so many Americans, in front of everybody, because it was all being recorded to be listened to and discussed later, back in Moscow. But it was better now it had started. He didn’t think there was going to be a confession, though: would have wagered there wouldn’t be, if he hadn’t wanted the money for other things.

  He’d let them talk, Andrews decided. Hear the idiots out.

  ‘You fooled me,’ Cowley admitted, sacrificing any later discomfort from the tape play-back to achieve the collapse he wanted. ‘I missed it all, until you got the count wrong. Then I went back over everything. It was all disjointed, of course. Like things are. Let me throw something at you. How about your attack upon Lydia Orlenko, when thank God she didn’t die?’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ Enough! They should talk, not him.

  ‘How about your remark?’ suggested Cowley, relentlessly, allowing himself at last to hate this man who’d stolen his wife. ‘“What about the woman last night? There must be something!”’

  Andrews shook his head, wearily. ‘This isn’t making any sense. It’s quite ridiculous.’

  ‘Now it isn’t,’ insisted Cowley. ‘It didn’t make sense, not then. Remember? It was when I came back from interviewing Hughes, about the attack upon Lydia Orlenko. But you didn’t know, then, who the victim had been. So how did you know it was a woman? The first attack was on a man. So it could have been another man. Unless you knew it had been a woman.’

  Weak shot. Another trick. Perry Mason shit. Andrews gave a heavy sigh. ‘I really don’t know what we’re doing here. Talking about.’

  ‘Let’s try another quote,’ suggested Cowley. ‘“And who would have thought it, about innocent little Pamela?” What about that?’

  Andrews expanded another tired sigh. ‘Why don’t you tell me? What about it?’

  ‘I hadn’t even talked about Pamela Donnelly’s alibi then. So how did you know Pamela was involved, unless you’d tracked Hughes? Discovered he’d switched, from Ann to Pam Donnelly. Which you had, hadn’t you? You were stalking everybody, weren’t you? Planning your perfect serial murders: murders you’d learned all about from the FBI training lectures …?’

  ‘… This is pitiful …’

  ‘I know how it was,’ Cowley pressed on. ‘I know Ann had dumped you, for Hughes. So I think you set it all up. Killing Vladimir Suzlev, knowing he was often Hughes’s driver, which you could prove. And then killing Ann, taking the hair and everything else to fix all the evidence — like you fixed it in the end — to overwhelm any possible defence Hughes might have. You planned it perfectly, didn’t you? You set out to destroy a rival — a better lover than you — and the mistress who despised you. And intended to solve both the killing of Suzlev and Ann Harris to come back here in glory. Must have knocked you sideways when I got assigned, instead of you.’

  Still weak. Still deniable. Cowley was fucking himself: digging a deeper and deeper hole, which would bury him. All this shit would be laughed at, in court. Ruin the motherfucker. Mr Cowley, is it not a fact that my client married your ex-wife, after your marital break-up? Is it not a fact that these entire accusations are motivated by jealousy, an insane desire for revenge? Answer, Mr Cowley! I want an answer! Will the court please order Mr Cowley to answer! Andrews looked towards the stenographer and the red-lighted machine and said: ‘I am very glad this is all being recorded. It needs to be.’

  Danilov had been out of the exchange too long: it had had to be this way — the way they had rehearsed on the plane coming from Moscow and again in discussions with the Director and the FBI legal experts — but he was anxious to involve himself in the recording again. Seeing his chance, the Russian said: ‘We’re sure it needs to be recorded, too.’ A pause. Then: ‘Mr Droop.’

  Not that! Jesus, not that! He’d hated Ann for laughing at him when he couldn’t make love to her, sneering at him as Mr Droop. He’d loathed worst of all being called that, pleaded with her not to say it, which had made her say it all the more.

  Cowley had to strive for control at the expressionless, blank reaction. It was becoming almost impossible not to scream at this man: shout at him, go across the table and beat the shit and a confession from the son-of-a-bitch. Mockery, the Quantico psychiatrist had recommended: just as he’d recommended they wait for Andrews to arrive expecting to learn of his appointment and get hit like this, instead. Staying, hard as it was, with the guidance, Cowley said: ‘That was what she called you, wasn’t it Barry? Laughed at you, because you couldn’t get it up? Not like Hughes could get it up for her, kinky though he might have been. Mr Droop! Shit, Barry, that’s funny! Really funny!’

  ‘NO!’ Fuck … fuck! fuck! fuck! Why had he said anything? Reacted? Should have ignored it.

  ‘Yes, Barry.’

  Had to recover: end this nonsense. He looked back to the empty-faced men between him and the door, then back to Cowley. ‘I refuse to go on with this! Get someone here in authority!’

  ‘Mr Droop.’ Cowley forced himself to laugh again. ‘Imagine being called Mr Droop!’

  ‘Don’t call me that! Won’t have it!’ Fool! He shouldn’t have spoken. Ann’s fault. All her fault. Whore: dirty, wonderful whore.

  It was Danilov who gestured sideways, to the stenographer and all his apparatus. The man seemed to be waiting, primed, his hand going to one of the smaller pieces of equipment. The telephone intercepts that Gugin had provided, along with so much else, echoed into the room, as recordings always seem to echo.

  ‘Hi, Mr Droop! Thought I’d see how you’re doing. A week or two since we spoke. Feel better now, Mr Droop?’

  ‘Don’t call me that! I told you not to call me that!’

  His voice! Incontrovertibly his voice. The scientific bastards here in this building could prove voiceprints, as well as fingerprints and DNA genetics and Christ knows what else! Why were they doing this to him? Wasn’t fair.

  ‘Paul hurt me again last night, Mr Droop. Not just my tits, either. He’s got this dildo now. Uses it. That turn you on, Mr Droop? You like to play a little, with the dildo? Think it might help? Something needs to help, doesn’t it, Mr Droop?’

  ‘Bitch!’

  Argue inadmissibility. Illegally recorded and not even here in America: in Moscow, the asshole of the world.

  ‘That’s not what you said last time, Barry. Liked me talking dirty last time. Telling you. Got the pecker moving then, didn’t we?’

  Why had she been so evil? So wonderful and beautiful and exciting. And evil.

  ‘Don’t Ann. Please don’t.’

  ‘I think it’s fun Barry. Except you can’t make it. That’s not fun.’

  ‘It won’t happen again, Ann. I promise it won’t happen again. Please!’

  ‘Promise not to be Mr Droop ever again! Promise me!’

  ‘I promise! I really promise!’

  It was Danilov who gestured for the recording to be stopped. There was a moment of complete silence. Oddly, Danilov imagined an attitude of embarrassment throughout the room. Which wasn’t odd, he decided. It was absurd. How could they be embarrassed, trapping a monster?

  ‘Fake,’ said Andrews, the beginning of desperation. ‘Fake. Deniable.’

  ‘We’ve got a witness,’ said Cowley, sweating, wondering how long he could go on prodding like this. ‘Remember I told you about interviewing the best friend, Judy Billington …’ He stopped, as the Quantico psychiatrist had ordered he should. ‘That must have worried you. Not being sure if there was anything in the letters you couldn’t get to in the apartment … just like there turned out to be a recording, as there was for Hughes … Didn’t that worry you …?’

  Ignore it, don’t answer.

  ‘You remember me telling you about Judy Billington, don’t you?’

  Wanted him to speak. Trap himself. Say nothing.

>   ‘Ann did tell her something, on the home leave. Told her about someone at the embassy: someone she called Mr Droop who tried to be a lover but couldn’t make it. I didn’t know who that was at the time. But I do now.’

  It took every bit of control that Andrews could find but he did find it. Circumstantial but inadmissible: he was sure of it. They were in America now, land of the free and protected. Not an asshole society like Russia, where everything could be bent to fit. There had to be a formal charge and there had to be formal, legally acceptable evidence, and they didn’t have it. He was cleverer than them all: always had been. Firm-voiced, unafraid, he said: ‘I told you I wanted someone here of authority. Someone to end all this …’ He turned to the men behind him. ‘There’ll be a civil action, against each of you. As well as criminal proceedings. Enjoy today. It’ll be the last for any of you, here at head-quarters. Anywhere. I don’t know how you got caught up in this, but I feel sorry for you. Pity you.’

  ‘We’ve taken a formal statement from Judy Billington. She will give evidence about Mr Droop, if she’s called.’

  ‘So will Fred Erickson,’ said Danilov. ‘You know Fred Erickson, the New York Times man, don’t you? He regards you as a good contact. Particularly after your prompting him before the Moscow press conference about Ann Harris being defiled in some way, meaning her hair I guess. Which no one publicly knew about then. But guaranteed a sensation.’

  ‘Can’t understand why you did that,’ resumed Cowley. ‘Unless, of course, you wanted to build it all up into a case we were never going to be able to solve. Make us look stupid. Or was it to make me look stupid? That’s what the psychiatrist, Dr Meadows, thinks. He thinks you hate me: that stealing Pauline away was part of hating me. And that when I got assigned, taking the case and the glory away from you, you tried to kill Lydia Orlenko and then did kill Nadia Revin to create a serial killing I couldn’t solve. And I wouldn’t have been able to, Barry, if you’d left it there. But you couldn’t, could you? You’d planned the perfect murders and the perfect solution and you wanted to show how you meant Hughes to be convicted, didn’t you? You got confused there. You know what you did? You caught yourself! How about that, Barry! Perfect murders, perfect solutions.’