V is for Vengeance

by Sue Grafton

  At the top of the stairs, the offices were enclosed in waist-high wainscoting, with glass panels above. The door was open, and a young girl with a mass of frizzy blond hair sat at her desk. There was a computer in front of her and an old-fashioned typewriter on a rolling table nearby. Unlike Dante’s downtown offices, this place was grubby—plain linoleum on the floor, fluorescent lights overhead, battered wooden desks, and cheap rolling chairs. The room was rimmed with file cabinets, and I knew the raiding party would be all over them. She looked up at me. “Can I help you?”

  I was caught off guard by the calendar on her desk. It was one of those thick blocks of sheets with the date writ large on each page, which would be torn off and discarded at the end of the day. Even upside down, I could see it was Thursday, May 5, and I could barely suppress a yelp. May 5th is my birthday. That’s why Henry had made a point of coming home. That’s why he’d offered to take me to dinner. The downside of being single and alone is having a birthday come around and catch you by surprise. I was suddenly thirty-eight years old. Still distracted, I said, “Is Mr. Dante here?”

  “In there, but he said no interruptions.”

  Dante opened the door and stepped out of his private office into the reception area. “I’ll take care of this, Bernice,” he said to her. He turned a flat look on me. “What can I do for you, Ms. Millhone? You have no business being here. I hope you know that.”

  He’d seemed friendlier in the limousine, but I needed his help, so I decided to overlook his surly attitude. I put my hand in the crook of his elbow while I steered him out of reception and into his private office. “Pinky’s got a gun and he’s either here on the premises or not far away. Dodie died this morning and he’ll kill Cappi if he catches up with him.”

  I expected him to react, but he was engaged in a more important task. His wall safe was open, and he was transferring thick packets of cash into a soft-sided suitcase that lay on his desk. He didn’t seem to care that Cappi’s life was in jeopardy or that Pinky was on the verge of bursting in with a loaded gun. His manner was relaxed; his movements efficient and methodical. He had a job to do and he was doing it with no wasted energy.

  “Do you know where Cappi is?” I asked.

  “I sent him on an errand to get him out of my hair. Sorry about Pinky’s wife. I never met the woman, but I know he was devoted. I suggest you get out before he and Cappi cross paths. Neither one of us has a dog in their fight.”

  “Can’t you put a stop to it?”

  “No more than you can.”

  I stared at him, fascinated by his calm when I was in such a state of panic. I said, “It gets worse. You’ve got three dozen cops down the road about to descend on this place.”

  “That’s Cappi for you. The guy can’t keep his trap shut and this is what comes of it. My best guess, he’ll make sure he’s rounded up with everyone else so it looks like he’s in the same jam. He better hope he succeeds. This isn’t a business where a snitch gets away with it. If Pinky doesn’t kill him, someone else will.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What’s it look like?”

  As though on cue, I heard shouting down below, and Pinky’s voice echoed through the vast warehouse space. “Cappi! This is me, Pinky. I got a debt to settle with you. Show your face, you son of a bitch.”

  I moved toward the door.

  Dante said, “Don’t go out there.”

  I ignored him and left the office. I went out on the landing and looked over the rail. Pinky was drunk and weaving on his feet. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and when he’d managed it, he’d slept in the same clothes. He held the gun in his right hand, relaxed at his side. If Cappi showed up, he probably didn’t want him to spot the weapon until he took aim and fired.

  I called down to him. “Hey, Pinky? Up here.”

  Pinky did a lazy visual search until he spotted me one floor up. “You seen Cappi?”

  “What do you want with him?”

  “Dodie died. I’m going to kill his ass.”

  “I heard about her. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. If I come down, can we talk?”

  “Soon as I shoot him, we can chat all you like.”

  I could feel the despair surging from my feet all the way up my frame. Pinky had nothing to lose. Violence was about to erupt and I didn’t want him to die. How was I going to talk him out of this dumb plan of his? He was beyond listening to reason. Worse, I didn’t think I’d be persuasive when he had a gun in his hand and murder on his mind.

  Across the concrete apron that jutted out from the loading docks, men had stopped what they were doing. Most seemed poised for action … most likely, running away. All waited to see if a deadly confrontation would actually develop. Maybe this was nothing more than big talk from a drunk with a gun, or maybe this would turn into a movie-style showdown with real blood and real death.

  Cappi appeared at the side door. He stopped in his tracks, surprised at the tableau of guys standing motionless, eyes turned to the man in the center of the floor who swayed unsteadily. Cappi’s gaze traveled to the object of their interest. The minute he realized it was Pinky, he took off at a run. Pinky wheeled. He extended his arm, gun pointed at Cappi as he took the stairs two at a time, using the handrail to propel himself upward. I heard his footsteps on the metal treads, the sound half a beat behind the actual impact. The effect was much like a jet flying overhead, the aircraft itself moving faster than the sound that follows in its wake. In a curious way, it was the perfect distraction for the raid, which was suddenly in progress.

  Six black-and-whites pulled in and screeched to a halt. Cops poured into the loading area and fanned out. Several were armed with sledgehammers and two hauled a battering ram. Workers scattered in all directions. The officers with sledgehammers began smashing into the wall near a computer terminal, the pounding magnified in the confinement of the metal structure. One man broke through the outer shell of cinder block, wielding the sledgehammer with a force that made his arms quiver from his elbows to his shoulders.

  From my vantage point, it was like watching short clips of film. I saw a man in coveralls scale the fence and disappear into the weedy field next door. Three others banged out the back door and scrambled down into the drainage ditch that some of their pals were already using as an escape route. Officers advanced along the ditch from opposite directions, blocking their escape. Though I couldn’t see them from where I stood, I heard guys shouting as they scurried along the railroad tracks. None of the warehouse employees were armed. Why would they carry guns when, for most of them, their jobs were so mundane?

  Cappi and Pinky were as oblivious as lovers who had eyes only for each other. Pinky scrambled up the stairs after Cappi, who’d pulled his own gun from the small of his back. Both fired randomly to no particular effect. Bullets pinged off the steel beams that supported the roof and ricocheted into the corrugated metal walls at the rear. I backed up, all too aware how wild and inexpert the shooting match was. This was not a gentlemanly duel at ten paces with pistols raised. This was a two-man war. The window next to me shattered and I dropped to the floor. Dante appeared suddenly behind me and grabbed me under the arms, pulling me up, propelling me toward his inner office.

  “Stick with me. I’ll get you out of here.”

  “No! Not until I see Pinky’s okay.”

  “Forget about him. He’s a dead man.”

  In all the shouting it was nearly impossible to separate police orders from the uproar on the loading dock. I pulled away and returned to the front windows so I could see what was going on. Dante disappeared into his office. I stood where I was, sick with fear. Violence scares me silly, but it felt cowardly to run off when Pinky’s life was at stake. Below, one of the tractor-trailers growled to life. The driver stomped on the gas pedal. The cab shot forward, careening toward the road where two police cars were parked, blocking the exit. Officers took cover, their guns drawn. The driver refused to give ground and plowed into one of the black-and-
whites, which seemed to levitate before coming to rest with a bang. The impact smacked the trucker against the steering wheel and he slumped to one side, blood running down his face. I half expected him to open the door and make a run for it, but he was out cold. By that time, most of the workers had had the good sense to give up the fight. They were herded into the open, where they were ordered to get down on the ground, hands over their heads.

  Mesmerized, I scanned the loading platform, where I saw Cheney Phillips. Next to him was Len Priddy with his face upturned. Both ducked out of sight and came up on the far side of a semi, using the cab to shield themselves as they popped up in range of the two shooters. I was certain all the officers had been cautioned about the unwarranted firing of their weapons. Pinky and Cappi, of course, were free of such restraints.

  Behind me, Dante’s office girl had taken cover under her desk, phone in hand. Her instinct was probably to call the police, but the place was already overrun with officers. Meanwhile, Cappi had circled half the warehouse on the elevated walkway. He ran toward me, approaching from my right. He pushed me aside and headed toward the nearest stairway. He must have thought if he could get down to ground level, he’d be close enough to the side door to get out. He was so focused on reaching safety that he ignored the fact that officers were blocking the exit. Pinky was still to my right and closing the gap between them. Cappi turned and fired twice, and Pinky went down, his right leg going out from under him. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet away from me. Cappi was out of ammunition, and that changed the dynamic of the game for him. Abruptly, he turned, his face set. Maybe having wounded Pinky, he’d flipped from victim to aggressor. He moved toward me at a measured pace, reloading as he walked. Pinky pulled himself up. I screamed. “Pinky, RUN!”

  I meant for him to go back the way he’d come, but he hobbled in my direction, his gaze fixed on mine. This put him directly in Cappi’s path. My instinct was to grab him and pull him out of the line of fire. Dante apparently had a similar impulse, but he was focused on me. His face was dark with anger. “I told you to get down!”

  I glanced back and realized he was two feet behind me, screaming in my ear. He grabbed me for a second time and dragged me toward his inner office.

  “Let go!” I broke his grip, desperate to protect Pinky if there was any way I could. In retrospect, it seems pointless, my thinking to intervene. I have no idea how I could have affected the outcome. Far from helping, I was only putting myself in harm’s way. Dante turned me with a quick yank that threw me off balance, saying, “Sorry about this.”

  I stumbled, and I might have caught myself if I hadn’t been so astonished at the sight of his fist coming at my face. There was no way to avoid the impact. The blow caught me dead center and he landed a punch to my nose that dropped me to my knees. I put my arms out, tumbling forward until I supported myself on my hands and knees. My brain clanged around in my skull like the clapper in a bell. I collapsed into a sitting position and put my hands to my face. Blood gushed through my fingers, and at the sight of it I could feel my eyes roll back in my head. I heard one more shot fired, but the sound came from a long distance away, and I knew the shooter wasn’t aiming at me. I blacked out briefly and then I was dimly aware of officers swarming up the stairs.

  31

  DANTE

  May 5, 1988

  Dante felt his way down the steep set of stairs built into his office wall. One push had activated the touch latch, and he secured the door behind him before he moved on. During Prohibition, his father built the staircase to cover emergencies. For Pop, an unexpected visit from the cops or an angry competitor was the sort of crisis that required a hasty retreat. Dante had played in the underground passages as a kid, long after Prohibition ended, and he knew how to navigate the maze of small rooms in total darkness. Originally the space housed a number of stills for the manufacture of assorted liquors and spirits that could be stored by the caseload before shipment by rail. The corridor extended for a block and a half, with a number of offshoots created to confuse those unfamiliar with the subterranean network. The hard-packed dirt path gradually climbed upward and daylighted in a culvert that skirted the now-defunct drive-in theater. When Dante exited, he was on the second of two side roads that flanked the theater. The other road ended at the warehouse. Dante was well beyond the chaos, and he imagined the raid was in its mop-up phase. On this side of the drive-in there were five three-story buildings that made up an industrial complex with sufficient traffic to make his sudden appearance seem unremarkable.

  Lou Elle was waiting in her car with the engine idling. Dante approached on her right, with the big soft-sided suitcase in hand. He opened the rear door and deposited the suitcase on the backseat, then opened the passenger-side door and got in. Lou Elle shifted from park to drive and pulled onto the road, accelerating slowly to a modest twenty miles per hour. At Holloway, she turned right and drove on for a quarter of a mile. Dante glanced back, but there were no police cars in sight and no indication that an alarm had been sounded in the wake of his escape.

  He massaged his right hand where the knuckles were bruised and swollen, though not as painful as they appeared.

  Lou Elle glanced over at him. “What happened to you?”

  “I busted a lady in the chops. I forgot what it’s like punching someone’s lights out. Hurts like a son of a bitch.”

  “You hit a woman?”

  “I had to stop her barging into the middle of a shoot-out.”

  “A shoot-out?”

  “Cappi and a guy named Pinky Ford exchanged fire while the raid was going on. Talk about a wild scene. Pinky got clipped, but he’ll survive. It’s a wonder nobody else was hurt.”

  “I remember him. He came to the office once. Wasn’t he that wiry, bowlegged fellow in a satin shirt?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Is Cappi all right?”

  “Cappi’s dead. A cop took him out with one shot to the head. The timing was close. Cappi was about to blow a hole in Pinky’s chest.”

  “You’re okay with that?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. Saved me doing it myself. It’ll break Pop’s heart and I’m fine with that too. He’s getting what he deserves. You talk to Nora?”

  “Well, I called, but she didn’t seem receptive. I gave her the information, but she didn’t jump all over it.”

  “You tried, at any rate.”

  He reached into the inner jacket pocket of his suit coat and took out a bulky envelope with a name and address written on the front. “Couple of weeks, deliver this. Tell her to do what she wants with it. The money’s compensation for the punch.”

  Dante slid the envelope into her handbag on the floor at his feet. Lou Elle turned left onto a short street that led to a small fixed-base operating terminal used by charter companies. He told her to pull up to the entrance to the field and press the call button. When the intercom came to life, she gave the name Dante was using for current travel purposes, and five seconds later the gate slid back, allowing her to pass through. On the tarmac, there was a midsized private jet, a Gulf-stream Astra, with a range of twenty-three hundred nautical miles, sufficient to deliver Dante to the second plane he’d be taking that day. There was a third flight as well before he reached his destination. Lou Elle drove within twenty feet of the plane.

  Dante retrieved his suitcase from the backseat and walked around to the driver’s-side window, which Lou Elle lowered. He leaned in and kissed her lightly. “You’re a peach. Thanks for everything.”

  “Good luck,” she said. “You want me to wait until takeoff?”

  “I’d prefer to picture you at your desk,” he said. “Cops are gonna come down on you like a ton of bricks and I’m sorry about that.”

  “What can I tell them? I don’t know anything.”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  “It was a pleasure working with you. Safe journey. I hope life is good to you.”

  “I’ll touch base when I change pla
nes. Nothing after that.”

  “Understood.”

  Dante proceeded to the aircraft where one of the pilots stood near the retractable stairs. The two shook hands and Dante offered his passport for identification purposes. The pilot glanced at it briefly and then returned it to him. The pilot had been paid well and exhibited no curiosity.

  “I was hoping a lady friend would be here. Nora Vogelsang. I put her name on the manifest.”

  “She hasn’t arrived. How long do you want to wait?”

  “Give it fifteen minutes. She knows time’s at a premium. She doesn’t show, she doesn’t show. Have we been cleared?”

  “We will be shortly. You want me to put that bag in back?”

  “I’ll keep it with me in the cabin.”

  The pilot boarded the plane, leaving Dante on the tarmac. Dante looked over at the gate. Lou Elle’s car was receding and the gate was sliding shut. There were cars parked outside the fence, but no cars coming in or out of the lot. He’d said his good-byes and regretted he hadn’t had the chance to say good-bye to Nora. The way things had turned out, maybe it was just as well. With Cappi dead and Lola gone, Pop would rattle around the house on his own. Alfredo might last another week to ten days and then he’d be gone as well. Dante knew his sisters would come to the old man’s aid, but he didn’t think any of the four would offer to take him in. Saul Abramson had been instructed to keep up maintenance on the estate for as long as he deemed wise. Dante had given him power of attorney with instructions that if the legal bills got out of hand, he was free to list the house for sale. If it sold, so be it. Pop could go into a nursing home and rot.