The Assassins Gallery - [Dr Mikhal Lammeck 01]

by David L. Robbins

  He set the file on the desk, then turned to see Dag on the phone. The man had slept in his clothes and looked no different than he would at midafternoon.

  “Uh-huh,” Dag said into the receiver. “Uh-huh. Yeah, well, it’s a Saturday, so may as well do it this weekend. I’m hitting nothin’ but dead ends here anyway. Yep, stayed up all night. Hey, do me a favor. Have those dropped off at the front desk of the Blackstone Hotel. Yeah, that’s where I spent the night. I holed up over here with the professor. No, very funny. I took the bed, he slept in a chair. I must have bad breath or somethin’. Okay.”

  Dag hung up. He answered Lammeck’s stare. “What?”

  “Was that Mrs. Beach?”

  “Yeah. Apparently I misjudged her. She has a sicko sense of humor. Anyway, sorry I conked out on you last night. You stay up late?”

  “Yep. All night. Don’t you remember? You were right there with me, apparently.” Sarcasm fit Lammeck’s frame of mind.

  Dag ignored the jibe. “How late?”

  “Long enough to get through all but one box. And to be pretty sure she’s not working for Uncle Sam.”

  Dag yawned. He pointed at the only two files separated from the rest.

  “What about them?”

  “My money says no. Waste of time.”

  “I’ll have Mrs. Beach run those two down anyway. We can take that last box with us.”

  “We going somewhere?”

  “We’re heading back to Boston.”

  “Why?”

  Dag began to unbutton his shirt and peel the tails out of his belted waist.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m gonna take a shower. You mind?”

  “That depends. What did she tell you?”

  “We got word back from the Newburyport cops. Mrs. Beach’s real impressed with you all of a sudden. The cops up north have pulled seventeen auto records on locals who bought themselves a second car between November 1 and January 1. In eleven of those, the old car was traded in or titled to someone else. Those titles were checked out and turned up legit; we found the new owners and everything was hunky-dory. In the six other cases, the folks hung on to their original car. In three out of those six, both cars have been accounted for. In the other three, the ones we’re interested in, the folks only have one car now. But there’s no record or explanation where the other car went. Honest to hell, Professor, it’s just like you said.”

  Dag seemed enthused. This sort of investigation was more his style, getting out on the street, combing through people’s lives, raking stories and events, not poring over files and records like Lammeck the historian.

  “Are we really going now? I just got an hour’s sleep. In a chair, as you’ve noted.”

  “Mrs. Beach’s getting us a flight out of the Naval Air Station. Come on, we’ll grab some java on the way. Besides, our girl isn’t going to bump off Roosevelt today. He’s on a navy ship out in the Atlantic.”

  “Dag, look—Maybe this is just another snipe hunt.”

  “You don’t want to go?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Then what are you saying? Remember, Professor, you’re the one who came up with this notion about the cars. It seemed cockamamie to me at the time, but now we got ourselves three of ‘em to talk to up there. Three little mystery Indians. So let’s go. What the hell else have we got to do?”

  Lammeck shook his head, still edgy from lack of sleep and the fallow files. He needed a glass of water, a piss, and a day of thinking about something else. “That’s just it. It’s cockamamie. Like the idea I had that she’s working for the government. She’s not. We wasted a lot of time and resources getting these boxes. I guess I should just tell you. If you haven’t noticed, I’m making a lot of this stuff up as I go. The government-job idea. The suggestion that she drove instead of taking the train. This notion that she has a connection in Newburyport. Just about every bright thing I’ve come up with in the past five weeks has come out of my ass. I’m grasping at straws, trying to unravel this whole thing.”

  Dag yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it on the bed. Then he sat on it. He tugged off his right sock.

  “Professor, don’t go goofy on me, alright? She’s an assassin. You’re an expert on assassinations. You’re trying to figure it out on the fly. So is she. The fact that you’re both making it up as you go along is our best shot at finding her, you said so yourself. If we’re lucky, you’re hitting the same dead ends she is. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll come up with the same path in to Roosevelt that she does at the same time. Then boom, there she’ll be. Plus, keep in mind, if it’s tough for you, it’s tough for her. That’s a good thing, alright? The President’s not supposed to be easy to kill.”

  Lammeck nodded.

  Dag sniffed his socks and made a face.

  “No one’s been interviewed in Newburyport yet about those cars, just some snooping on the Q.T. by the police there. So let’s head up and have a chat with folks ourselves. We’ll have a local cop along with us, for jurisdictional concerns; the guy will know his way around. No big deal. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Did they find any Japanese or German connections?”

  Dag stood from the bed, rising off his flattened shirt. He laughed.

  “Okay, now that part of your idea really was screwy. Turns out half of Newburyport’s got Irish or Scotch grandparents, and the other half had an ancestor on the Mayflower and is real happy to tell you about it. Oh, and maybe there’s fifty Portuguese in the town. They spend so much time on the water they don’t even know there’s a war on. So, no dice.”

  Lammeck needed a shower himself. “Alright. When do we leave?”

  “Sooner the better.”

  Lammeck glanced around the hotel room, scattered with boxes, government folders, cartons of stale food, paper cups, all of it just a useless mess. In the middle of the disarray stood Dag, dropping his pants. Lammeck felt very far away from his classroom.

  * * * *

  Boston

  LAMMECK DIDN’T TALK AND didn’t take the cotton out of his ears until the naval plane had stopped taxiing. A police car from Newburyport, a battered Ford with a cherry on the roof and the town’s name on the door, waited on the tarmac.

  The cop was named Hewitt. Tall and uncommonly thin in his khakis, winter coat, and badge, he was young and in his second year on the force. Lammeck watched him fold uncomfortably behind the steering column, his bony knees jackknifed up to the wheel.

  As soon as Dag took the front seat and Lammeck the back, Officer Hewitt said without being asked, “I’ll tell you right off, I wanted to go in the army. But I got flat feet. That’s why.”

  “I’m sure that’s the case, Hewitt.” Dag hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the backseat. “The professor over here didn’t go ‘cause he’s got a flat ass.”

  “Better than the flat nose I’m going to give you.”

  Dag turned to scowl at Lammeck with a look that asked, “Are you going to cheer up or am I going to have to screw with you all day until you do?”

  Hewitt laughed at the exchange, unaware that both men were squarely on each other’s nerves. He drove them away from the cold landing strip into a gray Boston day.

  “I brought sandwiches,” the young cop said, pointing to the glove compartment. Dag ate two while Lammeck closed his eyes for the drive north.

  Lammeck drifted in and out. He listened to Hewitt ask about why a Secret Service agent and a teacher were so interested in Newburyport and the killings on the beach. Dag told him it was confidential, and whatever Hewitt saw on this trip was also completely under wraps. Hewitt liked that. Without being asked, Dag spoke of his affection for Roosevelt, the man whose protection was his profession. FDR was Dag’s hero, the way he’d handled everything from the Depression to the war, the greatest leader America had ever known. Lammeck kept his mouth shut and thought of the many dead heroes he knew who would not agree. Hewitt inquired about Roosevelt’s personal life. Dag told him the
President liked his cocktail time, which FDR called the “children’s hour.” Roosevelt made all the drinks himself, often experimenting with concoctions that produced the worst martinis in Washington, though no one told him so. The President’s health came and went, but a strong will carried him most days. Dag confided that FDR and wife Eleanor were a great team for the country without being a super couple. “Some water under the bridge there,” was all he would say.

  “Oh, hey! I almost forgot,” Hewitt said. “You remember that knife, that one we found on the beach you told us to check out? We just heard back from Harvard. They did a... what was it?”

  From the backseat, eyes closed, Lammeck interjected, “Spectrograph.”

  “Yeah, that,” the young cop enthused. “Turns out their best guess is the damn thing is like a thousand years old. And the eggheads are sure it wasn’t made in Europe.”

  Lammeck sat awake in the back now.

  “Watch this, kid.” Dag poked the cop in the shoulder, then turned to face Lammeck. “Hey, Professor, why isn’t the knife from Europe?”

  “High-carbon cast iron is almost unheard of in Europe prior to the fifteenth century. Before that, it was just low-carbon alloys. On the other hand, the Chinese have been making high-carbon iron since the sixth century b.c.”

  “So our knife’s Chinese?”

  “Maybe just the blade. More likely it was made by a Chinese craftsman or with Chinese techniques somewhere else, because of the motifs on the handle. And the Chinese probably would have used jade or something other than onyx for the haft. Onyx is more of a classic Middle Eastern material.”

  “So we’re still sticking with... ?”

  “Persia.”

  With a smile, Dag turned back to Hewitt.

  “That’s something, isn’t it, kid? He’s like a party trick. Fuck those eggheads at Harvard. That man back there has forgotten more than they’ll ever know. Right, Professor?”

  “You say so.”

  “I do.”

  Lammeck raised both palms, to surrender his bad mood to this wrinkled agent, his former student who’d killed three German guards with improvised garrotes. Who now relied on Lammeck to save his hero, Roosevelt.

  The remainder of the ride to Newburyport rolled gently by. Lammeck rested easier, and when he opened his eyes in the town, he was slightly revived.

  “How do you want to do this?” Dag asked Lammeck when Hewitt had pulled to the curb. The police car idled in a tight street of grimy woodframe houses. Icicles dove from gutters. Yards lay blanked out under a crust of snow. Lammeck had grown up on a New England street like this, where for four months a year trash cans and hydrants became shapeless humps and the snow turned sooty the day after it fell.

  “Hewitt, you do the knocking. I’ll take over soon as we’re inside. Dag, did you bring a gun?”

  “A piece? Aw, hell. No.”

  Lammeck rubbed his forehead, fighting off the resurgence of his black mood. “Officer, have you ever fired your weapon at a real person?”

  Hewitt’s gaunt cheeks flushed. For a moment the skinny kid reminded Lammeck of the actor Jimmy Stewart, gawky and easily embarrassed.

  “No. Am I gonna have to?”

  “Always good to be prepared, son. Check your load. Just stay calm but in range.”

  “I guess we’re not just checking on car-title violations, are we?”

  “No, Officer, we’re not. We’re investigating a plot to assassinate the President.”

  Dag almost exploded in the front seat. “Hey! Goddammit, that’s classified. Hewitt, you didn’t hear that!”

  “Yes, he did, Dag. We’re trying to find an accomplice to a multiple murder. I’d like my bodyguard to know what we’re up against. Hewitt, you can be trusted, right?”

  The young cop’s jaw hung slack. Lammeck asked him again. Hewitt shook off his shock. He gave Dag a wary glance, then said to Lammeck, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Right now you know all you need to know. Don’t get curious beyond that or you’ll answer to Dag here. Let’s go.”

  The house was one of the humbler structures on the working-class street, but with a wide front yard. Parked at the curb on this frosty Saturday afternoon sat a cream-colored two-door coupe with fat whitewalls and a rounded cowling that came to a pointed snout.

  “What is that?” Lammeck asked. “Studebaker?”

  “1940 Studebaker Champion,” Hewitt answered. “It’s their economy model. Started making them in ‘39, stopped in ‘42. Won’t be making any more ‘til the war’s over.”

  The boy had a quick acumen. Dag seemed to soften toward Hewitt’s inclusion, saying, “Exactly.”

  “I don’t fish, and I ain’t in the army. In this town, cars is all that’s left.”

  Lammeck let Hewitt precede them up the snowy sidewalk. The cop climbed the stoop alone and knocked.

  A small man opened the door with a weekend beer in his hand. He wore a brown cable-knit turtleneck, stained work pants, and boots.

  “Mr. Lazenby? I wonder if we could have a moment, sir? These gentlemen are from Washington, D.C.”

  Lammeck did not hear what Lazenby asked, but Hewitt replied, “No, sir, you’re not in any trouble. We’re investigating a car theft ring here in Newburyport. These two gentlemen are from a federal agency, just observing our local police work. May we come in for a minute?”

  Lazenby stared at them for a long moment, then stepped aside.

  They filed in behind Hewitt. The short man stashed his beer behind a lamp, then rubbed his mitts on his slacks before shaking hands all around. Lammeck stepped up and asked:

  “Mr. Lazenby, is that your Studebaker out front?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s a beaut. I understand you had another car before that one, but we can’t quite determine what happened to it. There’s no record of a sale and no one has seen it in months.”

  Lazenby shrugged. “I didn’t steal nothing.”

  “Of course not, sir. But can you tell us what happened to your other car? It was a...”

  Lammeck expected Lazenby to answer but it was lanky Hewitt who jumped in with, “—a black ‘34 Hudson Terraplane Series K Special.”

  Lammeck paused for Lazenby’s reply. The little man turned his attention away from Lammeck, stabbing a finger at him and speaking instead to the local kid cop: “I thought you said he was just observing.”

  Hewitt held his ground. “Just answer the man’s question, sir, and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  Lammeck said, “The Terraplane, Mr. Lazenby. Where is it?”

  Lazenby looked confounded. He glanced behind him, as if he might make a break for it. Lammeck saw Hewitt’s finger brush the holster clasp over his revolver. Dag saw this, too. He moved in Lazenby’s path to the back door.

  “Car’s in the garage.”

  “May we see it?”

  Lazenby shrugged again. “I don’t give a fuck.”

  Lammeck invited Lazenby to lead the way.

  He took them through the tiny kitchen to the corrugated tin garage in the backyard. Lazenby unlocked a metal door to the hut, revealing a thirty-foot boat on jack stands, in the latter stages of rehabilitation.

  “There she is.”

  “Sir,” Dag said, “that’s a boat.”

  The man made no reply but climbed a ladder to the deck. Lammeck moved to follow, but Hewitt stepped in first, patting his sidearm.

  When Lammeck reached the deck, Lazenby lifted a panel in the floor to reveal the boat’s engine.

  Hewitt whistled. “A Deluxe Eight.”

  Lammeck gazed into the compartment crammed with pipes, hoses, and an engine block. He knew nothing about cars. Hewitt made it simple for him.

  “That’s a Hudson ‘35 high-compression eight-cylinder. No question.”

  “I even got the hood ornament on the bow.” Lazenby beamed at Hewitt, who clearly appreciated the skill it took to retrofit that engine to a marine use. “I cut the body up and sold it for scrap. Gave the tires to the government.
Kept the transmission. I can show it to you.”

  Lammeck turned away, Dag followed.

  “Named her Aquaplane,” Lazenby said. “You know, like Terraplane, but like that fella said, it’s a boat.”

  Hewitt explained how they appreciated his cooperation, and bade Lazenby a good afternoon.

  Back in the police car, Dag chuckled. “Aquaplane. That’s good. That was clever. Hey, Hewitt. Did that guy look like an accomplice to an international assassin to you?”