Menaced Assassin

by Joe Gores

  “I was going in the wrong direction, asking the wrong questions. When we parted from the great apes was not nearly so important as what we brought with us. Our carbon-dating and argon-dating techniques for fossil-associated strata had come of age; we had not parted from the chimps 8 or 9 million years ago, the break was less than half that ancient. Our direct ancestry started at least 4 million years ago, not a million.

  “The chimpanzee, our closest living relative, was so close we could not call him cousin, but had to think half brother, half sister. Even the baboons, way off on the side as far as direct descent goes, gave us a hierarchical organization that eerily foreshadowed the Zulu impi, the Greek phalanx, the Roman legion, the British infantry square.

  “I realized I would have to study not only the stones and bones to learn about our early hominid and human ancestors, but the living creatures that most resemble what we were then. The great apes, who can tell us much about the primate genetic input we get from the ancestors we all have in common.

  “So I’ve studied gorillas in Rwanda-Burundi, orangutans in Borneo, and now wild forest chimpanzees in the Kibale Forest. When I accepted the Institute’s invitation to speak on my work, I was still in Uganda doing the ethological field-work and taking the slides I expected to show you tonight. Vital stuff, because any discussion is teleologically, whether stated or not, a prelude to the understanding of Homo sapiens sapiens.

  “Well, tonight I have to beg your patience as I reverse the procedure. I want to examine some aspects of human nature as a prelude to our discussion of the Kibale chimps. I want to do this because, as most of you know, shortly before I left for Uganda my wife, Moll, was murdered.”

  Dante’s head jerked back in such surprise that he banged it against the wall. He rubbed his hand over the spot, watching the surprised stirring in the audience. This was not what they had come expecting to hear.

  “Because of her death, it is perhaps not surprising that I went seeking insights into the chimpanzee’s understanding-if any-of death. Conventional wisdom holds that such knowledge first appeared with Neanderthal, some fifty thousand years ago, but tonight I hope to place it much earlier.

  “To do this I’m going to have to ride two horses, because this is not the material of hard science. I don’t scorn science; it is my life. But science has made some mistakes. It has tried to put death and chaos on hold. It has given us permission to explore anything, do anything, take anything, destroy anything, until we have exploded the natural world and strewn its dying guts around us for all to see.

  “It has the power to do this. Does it have the right? It can tell us how to make the bang! but not when to make it. Or whether we should make it at all. But it has the facts on its side. A human being exposed to too much radiation will die whether he believes in radiation or not.

  “But I want to explore the other side also. If we cannot scorn science, we cannot scorn myth and legend, either. That guy I just mentioned, who is trying to avoid his fatal dose of radiation, stole the fire at which he cooks his meats from angry gods. It is that same fire, nurtured carefully but used carelessly over the millennia, that has gone from catapult to cannon to missile to smart bomb to megaton that will destroy him because he forgot who he is and where he came from.

  “The tragedy is not that we want science to tell us what to love and what to hate; it is that science isn’t designed to know the difference between them. So we have to look elsewhere. That is what I want to do here tonight…”

  Listening, Dante thought, Love and hate. Life and death. His mind swooped back unbidden to the time when Dalton’s staying alive seemed a day-to-day, even an hour-to-hour thing…

  C HAPTER N INE

  It was ten days after Moll Dalton’s funeral, and to Dante’s relief her husband was still alive. And about to depart for East Africa. But Dante was leaving nothing to chance, so here they were on their way to SFO, Will’s stuffed duffel bag and backpack on the backseat of Dante’s car.

  Whatever Molly had sent him must have thoroughly terrified Will; he had followed Dante’s safety precautions to the letter. Leaving his distinctive 4Runner in the driveway and renting a nondescript compact under a name not his own-a trick used in protecting federal witnesses. Varying the times and routes by which he left his office. Changing motels every two days. Monitoring his answering machine until he knew who was calling.

  Dante was still a little sore at him for holding out-but during these ten days he had come to respect the scientist as a careful, moderate, committed, and very bright individual. And even at this last minute he hoped Will might finally trust him enough to talk about the contents of the padded mailer.

  “Where’s all your safari gear or whatever you need?”

  “My kind of work doesn’t require a safari or very much in the way of equipment. I’ve got an old Land-Rover in Nairobi; beyond that, a camera, film, notebooks, all the books I can carry-the rest is perishables I renew every couple of months.”

  Dante glanced over at him. A strange peace emanated from the man, as if he had come to terms with his mourning. Just on impulse, Dante sought to disrupt it.

  “On professional hits, I collect information, collect information, until suddenly something from over there comes together with something from over here, and I have a toehold.”

  “You seem damned sure Molly was… murdered professionally.”

  “I am.”

  Switching grounds, Will asked, “Information like what?”

  “Why wasn’t your wife’s mother at the funeral? Why weren’t your folks? I snooped around a little, found her mother’s still alive, found out you’re real close to your parents.”

  “Her mother, I don’t know. I’ve never met her. My folks, I asked them not to come. They love me, I love them, they knew that Moll and I loved one another, but they didn’t think she was the right woman for me. So I couldn’t handle their being there.”

  “Fair enough. Why don’t you like your wife’s old man?”

  “Did you know there’s a strong incest taboo among most bird and animal species, Lieutenant? Dian Fossey saw only one silverback gorilla mate with its daughter in all her years there. Gorillas are strict vegetarians, but when the offspring of that match was born, the troop killed it and partially ate the body.”

  “You’re telling me that you suspect St. John of sexually abusing Moll when she was a child?”

  “Once I was able to accept the idea, things began to fall into place. I think that fucker…” He stopped, got control. “I think he also pandered for her, introduced her to people and got some erotic pleasure out of imagining her with them-with anyone but me. In Paris… maybe L.A…”

  “Palm Desert,” said Dante. To Will’s suddenly dense silence, he added, “Her old man comped your wife and Gounaris to a long weekend at a resort near Palm Springs called the Desert Spa to celebrate her getting the position as San Francisco corporate counsel for Atlas. Legend says Al Capone-”

  “The Desert Spa,” said Will in a low, flat voice. “That’s where Moll and I had our honeymoon.”

  Dante had dropped in the Desert Spa hoping to jar Will into showing his hole card: all it did was make him fold his hand. He said nothing more until they arrived at the USAir terminal. Dante wasn’t about to leave him alone and unprotected at the gate; if there was going to be a hit, he wanted to be there, take down the fucker who tried it. Then Dalton would talk, by God!

  His eyes swept the unloading area; nothing suspicious. Armed with Will’s flight numbers and times, even his contact number in Nairobi, he showed his badge to the airport cop in front of USAir so his car wouldn’t be towed, used it again to follow Will through the metal detectors with the gun on his belt.

  At the commuter gate, Will said abruptly, “Do you think Kosta Gounaris had anything to do with Moll’s death?”

  “What do you think?”

  “That he’s a rich, powerful, manipulative, sadistic son of a bitch who seduced my wife.”

  “Which doesn’t make hi
m a murderer.” Dante added, almost grudgingly, “But if I come up with anything definite on him or any aspect of the case, I’ll call you.”

  “ Call me? Once I leave Nairobi, not even mail will reach me for at least three months, until I go to Fort Portal for supplies.” He paused. “Maybe I don’t want to know anyway.”

  And Will Dalton walked through the gate and down the ramp to the plane without shaking hands or looking back. Dante stared after him, irritated again. Will Dalton wanted… something. Help, maybe. But he wouldn’t give anything. Maybe Moll had felt that way, too. Dante owed the bastard nothing, except the pleasure of the case, but unexpectedly he had gotten something: Dalton actually suspected Gounaris of being directly involved in his wife’s death. He hadn’t actually said so, but…

  Did he have something beyond the obvious wishful thinking of revenge for his sexual humiliation? Something that might have been in that padded mailer-assuming it really had come from Dalton’s wife? If Dante had voiced his own suspicions of Gounaris, would Dalton have talked to him?

  Dante returned to his car, started the long loop around the departure gates to get back onto 101 North to the city. How would he have acted in Dalton’s place? Probably no better, maybe worse. And he had gotten the man safely on the plane to L.A. for the British Air flight over the Pole to London and then on to Nairobi and his chosen jungle.

  Everyone chose a jungle of sorts in his life. A place of solitude where pain could be taken out and looked at. Maybe it was simple as that with Dalton. His synapses fusing, he had to get away to get sane again.

  Or maybe not. Will Dalton was a very smart man. Maybe he knew more than he was telling. Maybe his wife had left him something that let him know organized crime might be involved in Atlas Entertainment. Maybe he thought it would take Gounaris down while he was gone. Dante was no stranger to that sort of thing. Secret witnesses dying, months of work coming unraveled just because the wrong person overheard a single careless word. Because he knew cops who were stupid, casually venal, and frankly corrupt, his own work was one long secret from everyone but Rosa.

  Cops corrupt like Jack Lenington, as he was soon to learn.

  Kosta was getting jumpy. Ten fucking days after Moll’s funeral, her husband was still alive, and no word from Jack Lenington. He’d put on a bland face for the fat cop, Flanagan, during the questioning following Moll’s… death-but he didn’t know if he could do it today.

  He’d been almost crazed when he found out she’d been hit. He’d called up Gid, who’d told one of his fucking Hebe jokes, then added, “You knew damn well what would have to be done about Moll,” and hung up. But Kosta hadn’t known. He’d been crazy about Moll.

  Of course the night they’d killed her, he’d told her Atlas Entertainment was dirty as Gid had told him to do, knowing she’d run to her husband with it. What did he think they’d do to the two of them? And he’d been crazy wild with her, even going down on her-he who never went down on anybody, not once since Constantinople and the fat greasy Turk. He must have known, somewhere deep inside, what was going to happen to her. But whoever pulled the trigger, it was her husband’s fault she was dead, right? You don’t walk off and leave a woman like that.

  Why didn’t Uncle Gid eliminate that fucking Dalton so it was over and done with? “Patience,” he’d said, and Gounaris had replied, “No loose ends,” because he wanted Dalton off the face of this earth forever. He contemplated the idea with great personal satisfaction, but told himself that the real reason was just what he’d said to Gid, Dalton alive was a constant danger.

  Martin Prince had bought Gid’s explanation of why Moll had to be hit, but Kosta knew he couldn’t trust even Uncle Gid if the FBI started an active interest in the case. And if Martin Prince even dreamed he’d been so stupid as to leave an incriminating file in a computer, Kosta’s own life would be on the line.

  So right after the hit, despite Gideon’s admonitions of caution, Kosta had got hold of Jack Lenington and had told him to keep an eye on Dalton’s comings and goings. Ten days ago, and not a fucking word since. Maybe it was time to bring in some wrecking crew of his own. The Organization had probably used that guy out of Jersey-Ucelli, that was it-but he needed somebody Prince and the others, didn’t know about. Somebody as expert with accidents as Ucelli was with a. 22.

  Hell, there wasn’t anybody. He’d have to do it himself. He’d done the Turk in Istanbul at fourteen, he could do No-Balls Dalton at fifty-five. But first he had to know what was going on.

  Ten days was long enough. He needed to see Lenington.

  Sergeant Jack Lenington of the SFPD Vice Squad thought, Maybe fucking Kosta Gounaris wasn’t so hard-nose as everybody said: he’d let the silence go ten days before asking for a meet. So Lenington would push it. He had a hard, lined face and doleful blue eyes that tipped down at the outer corners like a bloodhound’s, with none of the bloodhound’s sweetness of disposition, however: rage was his central metaphor. Whether forcing a hooker to go down on him in his patrol car or knocking her pimp around for a little rake-off of the profit, anger was his drug of choice.

  Anger with caution. His suit was never quite expensive enough to raise Internal Affairs eyebrows, his boat was fiberglass with a 30-horse Evinrude, just possible on his department income, his home was a Sunset District stucco row house a few blocks from the similar house in which incorruptible Tim Flanagan lived.

  But just wait until he had his twenty in. Then he’d dump his cow of a wife and head over to the Bahamas to his nice little offshore account. Buy a boat, get an all-girl crew…

  He was almost smiling as he entered one of Vince O’Neill’s porn palaces on Mason Street in the Tenderloin. The garish red and yellow sign over the door read: HOT STUFF!!! XXX ARCADE!!! PHANTASY IN THE PHLESH!!! Covering the walls inside were intimate photos of women wearing only pubic hair, if that, and facial expressions seldom seen in full daylight. The middle-aged woman reading The Wall Street Journal in the raised change cage monotoned, “The-hottest-show-in-town-have-a-good-time,” without raising her face from the page. AT amp;T was down an eighth, but now that they were going into fiber-optic TV transmission…

  Mobile masks of light flickered over male features from the eyepieces in the labyrinth of coin-operated peep-show machines, set up so each patron had his back turned to anyone passing by, thus assuring him a modicum of privacy. Perfumed disinfectant gave the place a county-jail smell.

  Kosta Gounaris was at the end of the many-angled corridor, the only place where two machines stood relatively side by side. His eyes were glued on some unrolling endless loop of tape; throughout their discussion he seldom moved except to feed in coins when the machine clicked and went black.

  Lenington jammed a fistful of quarters into the slot as fast as his machine would swallow them, ignoring what was behind the eyepiece. He was a hands-on, dick-in kind of guy; watching someone else do it did not interest him at all.

  “You called,” he said to Gounaris in his flat angry voice.

  “Tell me everything happened that night.”

  He was instantly defensive. “There a fucking problem?”

  “You’re here to answer questions, goddam you. Everything that happened that night.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Lenington worked through Vince O’Neill since he was Vice and Vince was who he was supposed to be stamping out, and was a hardcase, so he’d been planning to push it with Gounaris; but now he wasn’t sure. The whisper was the tall, hard Greek had been a life-taker in his time. And he looked ready to do it again.

  “Guy was supposed to have come in from JFK on a one-stop through Dallas, but I met him in the main concourse so I didn’t actually see him get off the plane.”

  “You make him if you saw him again?”

  “You think I’m fucking nuts?”

  Gounaris nodded as if this were the right response, and fed in another quarter. “Go on.”

  “I gave him the overnight bag, Naugahyde, some shit, I’d wrapped a pair of gloves arou
nd the handle like I was told, inside two photos, a man and a woman, the address of Bella Figura, street map with the route marked in yellow highlighter, gun, overcoat, spray can of Armor All. He put on the gloves before he touched anything else, then went in the men’s room. I went to one of the airport bars, gunned a couple drinks. You wanta know which bar-”

  “No.”

  “Couple hours, he’s back, hands me back the overnight bag without the overcoat. The gun was gone, too. He was still wearing the gloves. He caught the next shuttle to LAX. I returned the rental car, dumped the overnight bag. Next morning I read all about it in the Chronicle.”

  Another quarter. “What about the husband?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing? I directed you to-”

  “Listen, you and me haven’t worked together before,” said Lenington, taking a chance. “I know you draw a lot of water, but I don’t eat too big a ration of shit from anybody, okay? I’m telling you there was no way I could keep tabs on him. Dante Stagnaro was in on this from the git-go.”

  “I don’t know any Stagnaro. Just Flanagan.”

  “Yeah, well, Flanagan’s just a cop, but Stagnaro’s a fuckin’ snake. You don’t see him, you don’t hear him, don’t know he’s near you, all of a sudden he’s lighting your fuckin’ cigarette. He heads up SFPD’s Organized Crime Task Force.”

  Gounaris had returned to his machine. His voice tightened. “Organized Crime? And he’s been on it from the beginning?”

  “Flanagan called him from the crime scene.” Lenington’s mouth twisted into a secret, angry smile. The fucker was worried, you could hear it in his voice, see it from the corner of your eye in the tension of his stance by the machine. “It looked like a pro hit to Tim, and they’re close, so he called him in. Anyway, Stagnaro on the scene I walk light, believe me. Day after the funeral, Dalton dropped out of sight.”