by Dane Hartman
As if that were not a sufficient handicap, it also appeared he was intoxicated. He wasn’t staggering, but his walk hinted at the amount of liquor coursing through his blood.
To Mulqueen it did not seem conceivable this was the man who had Turner so frightened. Yet that was not his judgment to make. All he had to do was make the kill.
He anticipated an easy kill. A man who could barely get his keys out of his pocket was not someone who could easily defend himself with a .44 Magnum and hope to stay alive.
“No fucking challenge,” he whispered to Hennessy who characteristically remained silent.
Mulqueen looked out again, but could no longer see Harry. That would mean he was already on his way up. They could hear footsteps on the landing. They grew louder until they were coming from just outside the door.
They trained their guns on the door. What they planned to do was to allow Harry to enter and shut the door behind him. They wanted him to trap himself. Then they would open up.
One lock snapped open, then a second. Mulqueen and Hennessy raised their guns higher, waiting.
When the door opened, it wasn’t Harry who stood there, partly silhouetted in the light from the hallway beyond. It was a man in a mask of bandages.
The two assassins were so astounded that for several moments they couldn’t bring themselves to react. Then it dawned on Mulqueen that it must be Gallant. He’d assisted Pine in putting the dressings on him not more than twelve hours before. What the hell was he doing here?
Gallant had anticipated their temporary paralysis. The .44 in his right hand, the Dan Wesson .357 in the other, he fired simultaneously on both men.
Mulqueen was struck in the neck and he toppled over without getting off a shot. Blood rushed so profusely from the wound it soon had his whole face covered. The head had nearly been decapitated and it lay at an angle to the neck which in life would have been impossible.
With Hennessy, Gallant wasn’t quite so lucky. The bullet had hit Hennessy, catching him below his left collarbone, and knocking him over, but the injury was not critical. He still had hold of the Sterling. He picked himself off the floor with a groan, discharging his gun at the same time.
Gallant couldn’t hear the gun, with its subsonic rounds, but he was very much aware of the racket it made as it tore up the windows and sent a lamp tumbling to the floor.
Yet the chest wound had had its effect. Hennessey was resisting unconsciousness, but the struggle all but exhausted him. Each time he tried to sight Gallant, the man seemed to vanish on him, dissolving into the darkness.
Gallant hadn’t vanished, he’d simply shifted positions, like a ballet dancer. With only one man to worry about, he turned both his handguns on Hennessy and fired again.
Hennessy staggered back with the two additional wounds. His weapon slipped from his hand. He didn’t seem to want to die. He doubled up and crumpled to the floor. His blood began pumping out of his ears. He made an especially loud gagging noise as he choked on the blood leaking into his throat.
By the time Hennessy had breathed his last, Harry had arrived. He was out of breath from running up the stairs and he held his gun in his hand although the strain of maneuvering his fingers around it told on his face.
It was one hell of a mess, with two bodies, and all the blood, and the shattered windows and bullet-riddled furniture. Only two things were missing: the killer and an explanation.
C H A P T E R
E l e v e n
The day finally came when the beard was fully grown. The worst scars were well hidden. To his surprise, his face did look completely different, though Dr. Pine had only tampered with the angle of his nose and the set of his eyes. It was uncanny how a few alterations, and the growth of hair, could so alter one’s appearance. Similarly, his voice had a gruff quality to it that was also the result of Pine’s handiwork. When he listened to himself on a tape-recorder, he was forced to admit he would never have recognized his new voice.
Gallant didn’t know whether he liked the face Jonas Pine had given him. Nor was he convinced he looked any better than he had previously. Yet of one thing there could be absolutely no doubt, he could expose himself in public without the slightest fear that the police, or even an old acquaintance would identify him as James William Gallant.
When Turner sent for him, Gallant had a sense of what was coming. Now that the plastic surgery was finished, and his beard had thickened, he had expected this meeting any day. He assumed Turner would tell him his life at the shelter had ended, and he was soon to be assigned to the staff of Jay Silk.
Turner was in good spirits. For several weeks, he’d languished in seclusion, certain the failure of Mulqueen and Hennessy to kill Harry Callahan meant his downfall. Though he isolated himself from his followers, occasionally accusing them of deserting him, he never gave an indication he had any idea Gallant was responsible for killing his men. And how could he? Gallant had been careful to cover his tracks.
Yet the expected had not happened. Harry Callahan had not come crashing through his door with a warrant in one hand and a gun in the other. Harry was blamed for the killings, which only added to the controversy in which he was already embroiled. Rather than being restored to the force, as Turner had anticipated, Harry had simply disappeared. Gone underground. So while he held out little hope of locating him to make a third attempt on his life, Turner was no longer worried. If Harry was safe from him, it worked the other way too. He was safe from Harry.
When Gallant entered his private office, he looked up at him with a broad, slightly diabolical, smile. “You know, Jimmy, you don’t look half bad.”
Gallant shrugged. “I think sometimes my eyes are a bit too close together.”
“No, take it from me, you look fine. The good doctor has created a man who all the women will fall for.”
Not all the women, thought Gallant, just one will do.
“So, Grant, what happens now?”
“You’ve done your homework?”
“Homework?” He. realized Turner was referring to the concentrated course he’d given himself in collectibles. “Yes, I’ve boned up on what you wanted me to. I studied the fucking catalogues. I stayed up nights memorizing your bloody picture books. I spent hours with your paintings and chests and fucking tea sets. There’s nothing else to do around here.” Especially, he considered, since Turner had declared an end to the weekend entertainment now that there was no Samoan and no beach boy to do the singles bars and bring home a woman anxious to party.
Turner reached down below his desk and brought into view a small gold-framed painting. “Can you tell me who did this and in what period?”
It was a study of a group of bathers seated by a lake.
“Seurat. I’d say 1860,1865, somewhere around there.”
Turner nodded. “I’m impressed. You have done your homework.”
“That’s the test?”
“Short and sweet.”
“So I’m to go up there to Paradise Road and the man hires me.”
“Almost. But there’s one little thing that has to be done beforehand.”
Gallant knew it couldn’t be that simple.
“What is that?”
“You can’t become the family chauffeur until you dispose of the family chauffeur they already have.”
“You never mentioned that problem.”
Turner’s smile widened. “It was so minor I thought it could wait.”
The photograph that Turner had shown him hardly did justice to the Silk estate. Perched on a hillside, it commanded an imposing view of the bay. The mansion itself could not be seen from the road that ran below it. Pines, alder, and oak grew in such dense profusion they kept it entirely concealed.
Although Gallant saw no guards or patrols, he guessed that the security was tight and any intruder, even a stray hiker, would be stopped and questioned should he wander too far onto the Silk property.
At this stage, however, penetrating the security system was not what interested Ga
llant. He’d see the mansion and its grounds soon enough. For now, he was only concerned with the chauffeur and his comings and goings.
Turner had given him a black TransAm to use. He was scrupulous about keeping from sight. He’d park off the asphalt road that wound its way up the hillside toward the estate. With a pair of high-powered binoculars, he’d sit in his car from six-thirty in the morning all the way through the afternoon, through blazing sun and thickening fog, never removing his eyes from the road. After more than a week, he thought he pretty well had the chauffeur’s schedule down.
Twice during the week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the long gray limousine would appear, with Silk himself. The limousine wouldn’t return until the evenings. Gallant assumed these were the two days that the retired Silk still went into town, maybe to his private club or to a business luncheon with his accountants. On the other days, the schedule was irregular, which may have been because it depended on the needs of whoever else lived on the estate. Very often, Gallant would observe Sheila riding in the back of the limousine, sometimes with her daughter, often alone. To Gallant, she always appeared preoccupied, her eyes directed straight ahead. She looked like a princess, detached and unattainable and more beautiful than when he’d first seen her after his escape. He was more resolved than ever to seduce her, and to make sure Harry became aware of it before he took his life.
But there seemed no opportunity to get close to the chauffeur so long as he was performing his duties. It was far better, Gallant reasoned, to kill him when he was on his own, relaxing. While he lived somewhere on the grounds of the estate, he did from time to time go into the city by himself. Naturally, for this purpose he wasn’t allowed to use the limousine. Instead, he relied on his own car. Gallant hadn’t seen a Shelly-Cobra GT in sometime which, so far as he knew, they’d stopped production on back in the mid-Sixties. The chauffeur had a love of old cars, he decided, maybe retooled them in his spare time.
He began following the chauffeur into the city to see where he went. The chauffeur seemed, from Gallant’s observation, to be a cautious man. He was probably armed, but only when he was acting in his official capacity. Out of uniform, he drove at an alarming speed with little thought to the traffic rules. Gallant trailed him all the way from Paradise Road to the corner of Columbus and Broadway, and not just once or twice, but three times, without the chauffeur ever giving any sign he was aware he was being followed.
The chauffeur liked to take in a few topless bars on his nights off. He was a tall strapping man, and it was unlikely anyone would give him trouble no matter how disreputable the clientele was that frequented such places.
A barker stood in front of a flickering neon sign ablaze in yellow and purple, proclaiming: GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, motioning for passers-by to enter, assuring them, “No cover, no minimum, have a free look. Don’t be shy, step inside.”
The chauffeur, whose name Gallant had yet to find out, evidently suffered no feelings of shyness. He heeded the barker and walked into the arched doorway which Gallant supposed was meant to resemble Arab architecture.
Gallant followed a few paces behind. The barker gave him an encouraging gaze. “No cost to look,” he said as though he were worried Gallant might suddenly change his mind.
Inside, it was dim except for the stage which was bathed in a harsh pink light that made the three nude girls gyrating there look as though they were suffering from some tropical ailment that discolored their skin. The music was raucous and driven by a propulsive beat. It was originating from a jukebox by the entrance, and whenever there was a break between selections, the girls would stand around awkwardly, occasionally exchanging remarks with the customers below, until the music again resumed.
The chauffeur took a stool by the bar to Gallant’s relief. It was far preferable to make his approach at a bar, even one as uncrowded as this one, than to try to find a pretext to join a solitary man at a table for two.
After the chauffeur had ordered a drink and settled himself in, Gallant selected a stool close to his. The chauffeur didn’t notice, being too mesmerized by the sight of the naked flesh just a few feet away from him. It would have been within touching distance actually if he decided to stand up. To Gallant, the girls seemed ordinary. Only one held any attraction for him, and even then he found her too fleshy. He wondered idly what Sheila would look like naked.
He returned his attention to his mark. At a break in the music, he addressed the chauffeur. “Say, could you tell me something?”
The chauffeur turned, regarding him with puzzlement. “Are you talking to me?”
“That’s right. I was wondering . . . uh . . . whether these girls fuck, you know, the customers.”
The chauffeur shrugged. “Sure, if you pay them. A twenty will get you twenty minutes, that’s how it works. They take you upstairs as soon as they get offstage. But it’s never longer, see, because twenty minutes later, they’ve got to be back on again. These aren’t the best though. I know, I’ve tried. There’s one coming on later, name’s Lisa, she’s something, you wait.”
“No problem, I’m not going anywhere.” Gallant reached over, extending his hand. “The name’s Dave,” he said.
“Dave, pleased to meet you. My name’s Roy. I drive people around for a living, rich people. What do you do?”
“Me? I don’t do shit. I’m presently unemployed, you might say, but I got a job off the books so there’s no cash flow problem. Speaking of which, may I offer you a drink?”
The drinks were overpriced and whatever Roy’s salary might be, he was clearly pleased to have someone offer to buy him a second round.
Gallant moved to the stool next to Roy’s and began to engage him in conversation, allowing him to do most of the talking. From what he gathered, Roy lived a lonely life. His job was shit, his employers were shit, he said, and his ambition was to save up enough money so that he could buy a cab and go off on his own, and not to have to answer to anyone ever again.
“What kind of rich people are these?”
Roy freely told him. He mentioned his employer had a daughter who’d recently moved in.
“She a looker?”
“Oh, she’s something all right,” said Roy appreciatively. “And you can tell she’s hot to trot, but she’s so goddamn stuck up there’s no getting close to her. She just sees a uniform, she never sees me.”
Feigning sympathy, Gallant nodded and insisted on buying Roy another drink. Roy protested Gallant was spending too much money on him, but the protest was a half-hearted one. After the fourth round, Roy felt obligated to buy Gallant a drink. Gallant accepted, only because he didn’t want the chauffeur’s suspicions aroused. The man might think Gallant was coming on to him, and bolt. And as Roy was a big man with a great capacity to hold his liquor, and as the drinks were clearly watered, Gallant resigned himself to a very long night.
Predictably, Roy broke off conversation once Lisa came on stage. Roy was right about her. She possessed a statuesque body and a classically proportioned face framed by a flow of blond hair. She came on in a sleeveless blouse and shorts cut way up her thighs, and these two articles of clothing she quickly discarded. A barely visible slip of black cloth covered her crotch and after awhile she dispensed with this too.
Roy was dazzled. “After this I’m going to have to excuse myself,” he mumbled. “Me and Lisa are old friends.”
Roy sipped leisurely at his drink, watching Lisa dance. He took no notice of Gallant.
Gallant was extracting from the inside of his jacket an icepick, a small one to be sure, but sharp and lethal enough.
In the reflection of the garish pink light, Roy’s profile was clearly visible. The hollow of his cheekbone, the irregular tapering of his nose, suggested he’d once had it broken.
Roy was spellbound by Lisa’s writhing and the convulsive movements she made to mimick orgasm. Gallant raised the ice pick so if Roy had glanced sideways, there was no way he could miss it. But his eyes were fastened completely on the stage. Gallant, with one d
eft motion, guided the ice pick into Roy’s brain, piercing it to a depth of five inches.
Roy’s eyes gaped open for a moment, then clouded over as his consciousness died. Gallant withdrew the ice pick and quickly returned it to his jacket pocket. Roy’s head dropped to the surface of the bar.
There was little blood, just a speck of it at the corner of his eye. Gallant liked this method of killing—it left so little mess.
The barmaid, as voluptuous a specimen as was being offered for view on stage, though only slightly more clothed, came over to him. She gazed down at Roy and frowned.
“I think he’s had a little too much to drink,” Gallant said apologetically.
“You wouldn’t want to get him out of here, would you?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t take responsibility for him. He’s just a guy I met in here. But give him a few minutes, maybe he’ll come to.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You get Lisa here, you’ll see.”
The barmaid was dubious, but didn’t press the matter. Gallant made sure to leave her a big tip.
It was remarkable how much his mind had absorbed during his stay at Turner’s underground condominium. For instance, he had only to glance at the cabinet positioned by the fireplace to know that it was probably designed by Pierre Manguin in the time of Napoleon III. The painting above the fireplace was a portrait of a dour-looking woman by Mary Cassatt; the small abstract figure of bronze resting on the table was by Boccioni; the chair he occupied was designed by Gio Ponti; and the one his host lounged upon was an elegant Mies Van Der Rohe.
Silk looked the part of a multimillionaire. He was approaching his sixties, but he projected an aura of radiant good health and vitality that many men decades younger might envy. His hair was solidly gray, his face had a rugged, somewhat unfinished appearance to it, and Gallant guessed that he had come late to money. But even poverty-stricken, Jay Silk would be a natural aristocrat. Gallant could see where Sheila came by her looks—and her arrogance.
