Unnatural Acts

by Stuart Woods

  He smiled, revealing expensive dental work. “I’m Steve.”

  “Hello, Steve,” she said, offering her hand. “I think you’re going to work out just fine.”

  “Thank you,” Steve replied. “And speaking of work …”

  “Of course,” she said. She went to her handbag and retrieved the money, already counted out and in a hotel envelope. “Here you are.”

  “You’ll get your money’s worth,” he said. “Whatever you want.”

  “Right now, I want a drink and some dinner,” she said. “I’ve booked a table in Bemelmans Bar, downstairs. It’s in a corner with a good view of the bar and the entertainment. I’ll take the gunfighter’s seat, facing the room. Got it?”

  “Whatever you want,” Steve said.

  “I may decide to leave suddenly. If I do, your first job is to get out of my way. Your second job is to follow close behind me. Your third job is to get in the way of anybody who follows me.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “A jealous ex-husband could show up. Can you handle that?”

  “I can handle whatever you want.”

  She looked at her watch. “Let’s go.”

  DINO’S DRIVER stopped on Seventy-fifth Street, half a block short of Madison Avenue, as instructed.

  “Okay, listen up,” Dino said from the front passenger seat.

  “We’re listening,” Viv said from the backseat.

  “This is not going to be as easy as it sounds,” he said.

  “It doesn’t sound easy,” Rosie replied.

  “It’s even harder than that. Shelley Bach is a very, very smart woman.”

  “She doesn’t have a monopoly,” Viv said.

  “You start thinking like that, and she’ll have you for dinner.”

  “All right, all right.”

  “Shelley will be armed.”

  “How do you know that?” Rosie asked.

  “She was an FBI agent for twenty-odd years. She got used to packing, and she likes it.”

  “Does she take it off in bed?” Viv asked.

  “Goddammit, will you two take this seriously?”

  “We’re listening, boss,” Viv said contritely.

  “She will suspect that I’m going to try to take her, and she will act accordingly. She will suspect that I will have help, and she’ll act accordingly.” Dino handed them the photograph he had printed from the FBI website. “This is what she looks like, sort of.”

  “What do you mean, sort of?”

  “Last time I saw her, she was a flaming redhead. She will have done what she can to alter her appearance. What she can’t alter is that she’s tall—taller than I am, in heels.”

  Rosie put her hand over her mouth, then took it away. “So we’re looking for a tall woman who isn’t a blonde or a redhead?”

  “That’s a start. She dresses well, and I don’t think that will change. I want you two to go in first and sit at the bar. If you order booze, don’t drink it. Order some food, a salad or something. It will give you something to do. I don’t want you getting bored.”

  “What do we do if we spot her?”

  “You’re not going to spot her. I don’t even want you looking around the room after you get there. Got that?”

  “Got it, boss,” Viv said.

  “Start a conversation with each other—talk about something that absorbs your attention.”

  “Who’s going to look for Shelley?”

  “I am, dummy. I’m the only one who’s got a shot at recognizing her. If I see her, I’ll make a noise, or do something to attract your attention. Again, don’t look around the room. When I attract your attention, look at me. I’ll make a move, then you back me up. There may be a struggle, even a fight, but there will be no shots fired. You both got that?”

  “Yes, boss,” Rosie said.

  “I don’t want to be reading in tomorrow’s Post that there was a shoot-out at the Carlyle Hotel, you understand?”

  “Yes, boss,” Viv said.

  “I may want to go back to the Carlyle someday, and you may, too. We don’t want to get eighty-sixed from the joint.”

  “Yes, boss,” Rosie said.

  “You’re taking turns saying that,” Dino said.

  “Yes, boss,” Viv said.

  “It’s like watching Ping-Pong.”

  “Yes, boss,” Rosie said.

  “Stop that!”

  “Yes, boss,” they said in unison.

  “All right, go in there and get established. I’ll be in in a few minutes. Don’t notice me when I arrive.”

  “Yes, boss,” they said in unison.

  The two detectives got out of the car and started toward the hotel.

  SHELLEY STOPPED at the door and checked out the room. Dino wasn’t there yet, as she had suspected, and nobody looked like the FBI or a cop. There were two women at the bar, but they were looking at each other, not the room. Probably lesbians, she thought. The headwaiter seated them at the corner table she had booked, and Steve dutifully pulled out the table and gave her the gunfighter’s seat.

  DINO CHECKED his watch for the fifth time. He didn’t like letting them go in first, but it was for the best. They’d already be there when Shelley arrived, and maybe that would make her less nervous. On the other hand, maybe it would make her more nervous, who knew? All he could do was the best he could do.

  Ten o’clock. “Take me around to the Madison Avenue entrance,” he said to his driver.

  In front of the hotel, he got out of the car and took a look through the glass door of the bar, then he walked inside. The place was packed, and a girl singer was working with a trio, doing Gershwin. He waited for the headwaiter to ask, then said, “I’ll sit at the bar.”

  The man retreated, and Dino walked slowly behind the musicians, turned a corner, and spotted Viv and Rosie to his left, at the far end of the bar. He didn’t check the crowd, not yet.

  He found a stool at the other end of the bar. “Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, fizzy water on the side,” he said to the bartender, who gave him a quick nod and produced the drink in a flash. Dino sat on the stool, turned, and rested his back against the bar. The whole room was before him, now, and he began checking things out, face by face, left to right.

  By the time his head had swiveled all the way to the right, he had checked every table, looking for a single woman. There wasn’t an unescorted woman in the place. Shelley was not in the room, he was sure of it.

  54

  HERBIE WAS working late. It was after nine, and Cookie was long gone. He was just closing folders and his briefcase, when there was a sudden movement at the door of his office. Herbie instinctively leapt to his feet. Dink Brennan was standing in the doorway.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Dink said.

  Herbie sank back into his chair. “I wasn’t expecting you, Dink.”

  “If you’re all done here, let me buy you a drink.”

  “I’ll buy you one,” Herbie said, getting up again and going to the bar. “You’re legal now. What’ll you have?”

  “Whatever you’re having,” Dink said.

  Herbie put some ice cubes into two glasses and poured Knob Creek over them, then handed one to Dink and sat down.

  Dink sipped it tentatively. “Bourbon. I like it.”

  “You’re a precocious drinker,” Herbie said. He was still a little nervous about being there at night, alone with Dink.

  Dink took a drag on his drink. “What do you think of me, Herb?”

  “I think you should have been an actor.”

  Dink looked at him. “Funny you should mention that, I considered it once.”

  “You should consider it again,” Herbie said. “Instead of law school.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re good at it. You’ll get lots of attention from girls, and you won’t have to sweat the work that goes with law school, and especially with practicing law. And I think you’d enjoy being famous.”

  “Somehow I get the i
mpression that what you’ve just said is not exactly a compliment.”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “You avoided my question about what you think of me by saying I should be something else.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “You think I’m acting now?”

  “I think you’ve been acting at least since you made your exit from the farm—with me, with your dad.”

  Dink regarded him for a slow count of about five. “I don’t like that much.”

  “I don’t much care whether you like it or not.”

  “You want to be careful, Herb. I’m a lot bigger than you, and I can be mean.”

  “Both those things are obviously true,” Herbie said, “but let me give you some very good advice. Never pick a fight with someone you don’t know well. You won’t know what you’re getting into.”

  “What would I be getting into if I got into a fight with you, Herb?”

  “It’s time you knew a few things about me, Dink. Knowing them will save you a lot of grief.”

  “What should I know about you, Herb?”

  “You should know that, in my time, I’ve killed three men.”

  “You were in the army?”

  Herbie chuckled. “No, I wasn’t cut out for that.”

  “Under what circumstances did you kill three men, Herb?”

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Carmine Dattila? Also known as Dattila the Hun?”

  Dink wrinkled his brow. “Mafia guy, maybe?”

  “Mafia guy, certainly. I once owed some money to a bookie who worked for Dattila—oddly enough, the one I paid two hundred grand of your dad’s money to to get out of your life.”

  “So, how did you handle that?”

  “It’s more about how Dattila handled it. He sent two men to beat me up, then kill me. Large men. They got into my apartment.”

  “And how did you handle that?”

  “There was a fight. One of them came at me with a knife, so I took it away from him and killed him.”

  Dink seemed to be frozen.

  “Then the other guy came after me, and I killed him, too.”

  “Why aren’t you in jail?”

  “I didn’t commit a crime. I acted in self-defense. Dino Bacchetti and Stone Barrington saw that the whole business went away in a hurry.”

  “What about the third guy?”

  “That was Dattila. I took a long walk, and I thought about it. I decided that Dattila was going to send more men to kill me, if he was still around to do it, so I went down to the coffeehouse in the village where he did his business. I walked into the place and shot him twice in the head.”

  “Why are you still alive?”

  “Because a few minutes before my arrival, unbeknownst to me, the feds had raided the place, disarmed everybody, and taken half the people there away.”

  “And that was self-defense?”

  “When Stone got through talking to the DA about it, it was self-defense.”

  “That’s quite a story.”

  “My point is, it’s a true story. Stone once said to me that I have a rat-like instinct for survival. You should remember that, Dink.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “There’s something else,” Herbie said. “I’ve just spent some time at a facility where people are trained to be expert with firearms and other weapons, and I excelled there.” Herbie picked up a letter opener from a cup next to his chair and turned it over and over in his hand.

  “So, when I came in here, you could have killed me with that?”

  “With that or a couple of other innocuous objects in this room.”

  “Are you threatening me, Herb?”

  “Certainly not. I’m advising you on your future behavior. I would not like to think of you as a threat, Dink. You should conduct yourself in such a manner so as not to make me think that of you.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope you do. You see, your physical size and your past behavior as a bully give you a false sense of confidence when dealing with other people. You should always remember that there are people who are smarter, tougher, and more lethal than you, and you never know who they are until you pick on the wrong person. Last week, I met people who could kill you with a thumb.”

  “I’ll try to avoid people like that,” Dink said.

  “You can’t avoid them, Dink, so you should make it a point not to be a threat to anyone you meet.”

  Dink nodded and tossed off his drink. “Thanks for the refreshment, Herb,” he said, “and for the advice. I’d better run along.”

  “And,” Herbie said, “you should give serious consideration to a career in acting. There’s a very good drama school at Yale.”

  Dink got up and left. Herbie took another couple of minutes to finish his drink and calm himself.

  55

  HE HADN’T recognized her, Shelley was sure of it. She could take her time now. Carefully, face by face, she checked the room again. Nearly everybody was riveted on the singer; the rest seemed absorbed with each other, including the lesbians at the bar. Dino had started to check the room again.

  “Everything all right?” Shelley said to Steve.

  “I could use another drink. How about you?” He looked over his shoulder and waved at a waiter.

  “I’m fine for the moment,” she replied.

  The waiter brought Steve another drink.

  “I’ll tell you this,” Rosie was saying to Viv, “even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t wear that designer shit—you know, Armani, Ralph Lauren. It isn’t cut for real women.”

  “If I had money, I’d wear nothing else,” Viv replied. She flicked her eyes at the room.

  “Don’t do that,” Rosie said. “The boss said not to.”

  “I know, but it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Look over my shoulder and tell me what the boss is doing,” Rosie said.

  Viv looked at Dino for half a second. “He’s leaning on the bar, facing the room. Shelley isn’t here yet.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because he’s still looking for her, and he looks bored.”

  “Why would she not show up?”

  “Maybe she couldn’t get a table,” Viv said. “The place is jammed.”

  “That would be a joke, wouldn’t it? She couldn’t get a table?”

  “Wait a minute,” Viv said. “Dino sees something.”

  “Stop looking.”

  “He didn’t say don’t look at him. Something’s happening.”

  SHELLEY FIXED her gaze on Dino now. His eyes were panning the room again, starting from her right. She looked directly into his eyes and flashed a little of her new cosmetic dentistry, which practically glowed in the dark. The eyes came to her and stopped.

  Shelley turned back toward Steve. “In just a minute, I’m going to get up and walk toward the bar,” she said.

  “What would you like me to do?” he asked.

  “If I stop at the bar and talk to a man standing there, pay the check and leave.” She threw a couple of hundreds on the table. “If I keep going and leave the room, follow me upstairs. I’m going to want to fuck you.”

  “Anything you want,” Steve said, waving for the waiter again.

  DINO’S MOVING gaze was stopped by half a smile and a pair of eyes. A woman he didn’t recognize was staring directly at him. Then she turned back toward the man she was with. That couldn’t be Shelley, he thought—or could it? He couldn’t tell how tall she was, but the nose wasn’t right. The hair was dark, though, maybe an auburn red. He continued to watch her. She glanced at him again.

  SHELLEY TOOK her handbag and stood up. Steve stood and pulled the table back for her, and she began picking her way slowly through the tables toward the bar. Then she was aware of another pair of eyes on her, in the mirror behind the bar. One of the two lesbians was watching her.

  DINO SLIPPED off the bar stool and stood, unbuttoning his jacket. She was coming slowly, the tables being close togethe
r, but she was coming. He remembered he was supposed to give Viv and Rosie some sort of sign. He tilted his head back and let go with a loud sneeze.

  SHELLEY SAW the two women turn and look at Dino, but half the room was looking at him; he had sneezed in the middle of “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Then she saw something that got her attention. As the women turned to look at Dino, Shelley looked in the mirror and saw something that looked like the butt of a pistol under one of the women’s jackets. At the same time, she saw Dino unbutton his jacket. She reached into her purse and found her own weapon.

  Viv hopped off the bar stool and put her hand under her jacket. Dino had sneezed, and he couldn’t do that and watch the woman at the same time. She saw the woman’s hand go into her purse and come out with what looked like a compact Glock. “Dino!” she yelled. “Gun!”

  SHELLEY SAW the woman’s hand go under her jacket, heard her shout, then saw Dino’s hand go under his jacket. She didn’t have time to aim; she snapped a shot off at the woman, then turned to see Dino’s hand coming up with a gun in it. Everything was in slow motion. She saw the woman duck, but she didn’t think her shot had hit her. The other woman was turning, and she was coming up with a gun, but Dino was faster. Shelley got a shot off at Dino and saw him stagger, then she turned to her right and ran for the door.

  VIV GOT back on her feet and elbowed Rosie. “Out of the way!” The woman had turned and was sprinting toward the door, her back to Viv. Viv fired once and saw, simultaneously, the woman struck and propelled forward and the shattering of the heavy glass door. Up until that moment she had heard nothing, but now there was the sound of a couple of women screaming and men shouting, and people all over the room were hitting the floor. “Police!” Viv shouted. “Everybody stay down!” She started toward the door, with her gun held out in front of her, trained on the woman ahead of her. Rosie was right behind her.

  DINO HAD BEEN knocked back against the bar by the round, and his feet had slid from under him. Now he heard a shot from the direction of Viv and Rosie. Both women were walking past him, their attention ahead of them.

  Viv had another eight feet to go, when the woman suddenly spun onto her back and got off another round. Viv fired, striking her full in the chest, and she didn’t move again. “Rosie, check on Dino,” she said, then continued toward the woman on the floor, her gun beside her. Viv kicked the weapon out of her reach, then got a hand on the woman’s throat. Nothing. Her chest was a mess, and the floor was slippery with her blood. The screaming continued.