But last year’s package had been more sophisticated in one sense—a foil-wrapped plastics explosive charge, one inch by four inches—but less so in that the bundle simply used the ignition as a power source.
And now, as I paused with my hand on the key, looking toward the hood where Velda pointed, I again saw a clean area where it had been lifted.
“Doll,” I said quietly, “get out and stand back around the corner.”
She shook her head firmly, black arcs of hair swinging. “Walk away, Mike. We’ll call Pat and he can get his bomb squad experts over.”
“Don’t be a backseat driver. I’m dealing with this.”
“Mike, don’t be a macho idiot. Let me call Pat.”
“Okay, honey. Go ahead. I’ll stand watch here.”
She nodded and got out, then walked quickly toward the elevator and once she had stepped in and disappeared behind its sliding door, I unlocked the hood latch from inside the car. From the glove compartment I got a small flashlight, then went around to the front of the vehicle. The nose of the heap hadn’t been so close to the wall that there wasn’t room for me to do my work, and I lifted the hood a little, slid the lever over, and pushed the lid up.
That was when I smelled it.
Not gas or oil, no—an aftershave, vaguely foreign, and very damn familiar.
When I dropped to the floor, the bullets carved into the concrete wall above me, sending cement shrapnel flying, the .22 shots echoing in the chamber that was the parking garage. I had perceived him only as a dark blur, stepping from behind the nearby pillar, catching that glimpse as I dropped on my side and I would have screamed, landing on the old tender waterfront wound as I did, but I was too busy hurling the metal flashlight at him.
The little projectile hit him on the left shoulder, knocking him back a bit, and the small man in the tailored navy suit lost his pale blue hat, revealing a head every bit as bald as an egg, and a skull eerily apparent under the skin, dark eyes almost glowing as despite the inconvenience of getting knocked back a shade by that flash, he pushed forward and aimed down, the narrow nose of the .22 preparing to spit fire and death.
But my .45 was out from under my arm and as much as I wanted to talk to this son of a bitch, as much as I needed him alive, there was that .22 to contend with, and a guy like this doesn’t miss the second time, so I couldn’t.
I fired off three rounds so fast they made one massive recoil, and each one made purchase with that round hairless orb that split into bloody ragged chunks like a target-range melon. Bone and blood and brain sprayed and splattered, mostly on the pillar and the nearby wall, but also on me and the Ford and even his fallen blue hat. He staggered, but he wasn’t feeling anything, and then he went down all at once, like a sheet that lost its ghost.
I got to my feet and looked down at him sprawled on his back, arms and legs going every which way, as what was left of his head drained what used to be a brain onto the dirty concrete floor of the parking garage.
“That’s how it’s fucking done,” I told him.
CHAPTER SIX
Having a captain of Homicide for a best friend can come in handy. Pat Chambers came straight over from his One Police Plaza office and had a look at the crime scene before the lab boys even showed.
I recounted the clever ruse used by the dead hitter to distract me—there of course was no explosive rigged to my starter at all—and commented on his poor judgment in aftershave choice. As Pat took this all in, Velda looked on with narrowed eyes and folded arms, her body language stating she was pissed at me for sending her off on an errand that had left me alone and to my own devices.
“Honey,” I said, in a peace-keeping manner, “you better call Dooley’s kid and set up a new time for the meet.”
“This is a for real call?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Calling Pat was for real,” I said defensively.
Pat was amused. “You usually wait till after you’ve killed somebody before calling me, Mike.”
“Go on, doll,” I told her. “Set it up for this afternoon or this evening.”
She turned to go, walking quickly, which always made for a nice view, and Pat put in, “Why don’t you two get cellphones and join the twenty-first century?”
Dark hair bouncing, Velda glanced over her shoulder. “Are you kidding? He won’t even go for beepers.”
Then she was gone.
“Buddy,” I said to Pat, “it isn’t the twenty-first century yet. Let me enjoy my Luddite ways, will you?”
He was over having a look at the corpse in the natty blue suit. “This is nobody I know,” he said. “How about you?”
“Just that it’s the guy from the other day. My elevator man.”
He knelt and checked for I.D. “His name is Ronald Johnson and he has a New York State driver’s license. But nothing else. No credit cards, no Social Security card, nothing.”
I wandered over. “Just enough I.D. to show a cop or anybody else official who might ask.”
Pat rose, nodding. “We’ll run his prints and let you know what we find. You know, even with me here streamlining things, this’ll take a while. Always a headache, dealing with a crime scene in a parking garage.”
I shrugged. “It’s a slow time of day. You won’t need to bring in many uniforms to deal with cars pulling in and out.”
“I’ll need your .45 till after the inquest.”
I handed it over and he slipped it in his trenchcoat pocket, for the forensics bunch to bag.
“Hate to think you’re walking around naked, Mike.”
“I may find something else to wear.”
He nodded again, then gave me the squint that meant he was trying to pull me into focus. “What’s this about Dooley’s kid?”
“Just checking in with him, to see how he’s doing. You know, following through for our late buddy.”
“Well, that ‘kid’ is in his forties, right?”
“Pat, it’s just a social call. You’re getting suspicious in your old age.”
“I’m suspicious at any age. This is about the billions his old man hid, isn’t it?”
“He doesn’t know anything about that.”
Then Pat was looking past me. “Here come the forensics boys… Why don’t you go back to your office? I’ll come up and get a statement from you after we wrap up here.”
I patted his shoulder. “Thanks, buddy.”
He checked his watch. “We’ll catch some lunch, after. Chinese okay?”
“Sure, as long as they don’t require chopsticks.”
“We’ll make it Suzie’s in the Village. Anyway, there’s someplace I want to drop by down there, if your afternoon’s clear.”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
“Doing what?”
His smile was damn near impish. “Getting torn a new one by your fiancée.”
* * *
But Pat was wrong. Velda was over her snit by the time I strolled in. She was getting herself some coffee and asked if I wanted one myself. I said yes.
She sat behind her desk and I sat on the edge of it, half-turned to her, sipping from my Styrofoam cup.
“I re-scheduled the meeting with Marvin Dooley for this evening,” she said. “Eight o’clock.”
“Good.”
“Any idea who you killed downstairs?”
“A pro.”
“Does that mean mob?”
“Probably.”
Her forehead got thoughtful. “Then why bother trying to track down this accomplice of Dooley’s? Any old rummy pal of his wouldn’t have the means to hire a hitman. That puts the kill attempt in the mob column.”
“I don’t like that word ‘accomplice.’”
She looked up at me, patience and irritation fighting a battle. Maybe she wasn’t over the snit after all.
I sipped coffee. “What is it, baby?”
“Why do you assume your pal Dooley wasn’t after that money himself?”
“Just wasn’t like him.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Then why did he go to the trouble of changing road signs, covering up paths… why did he steal it in the first place?”
“He didn’t steal it. He hid it away.”
She rolled her eyes. “Mike, listen to yourself.”
“Doll, Dooley didn’t steal that money, he just took it out of circulation. Put it where nobody could get their hands on it, not the mob, not the government. He was having a big horse-laugh at a world gone to pot after he had fought a damn war to save it.”
Her smile was thin, her eyes hooded. “I heard you say this before, Mike. That your old pal was making a statement.”
“That’s how I see it.”
“It’s how you want to see it. What did he ask you to do with the money? What were his instructions, Mike?”
“Well… you know he died before he could—”
“How much did he get out?”
I shrugged. “He said I’d be able to find it.”
“And he left you his ashes, to return to his son in an urn that had longitude and latitude on it, disguised as an army serial number.”
“Right.”
“So did it ever occur to you that maybe… maybe he wanted his son to have the buried treasure?”
Was she right?
Had I read Dooley wrong? I kept thinking of him as my old pal in army intel in the war, but decades had gone by without much contact. People change. He’d gone to work for the mob, hadn’t he? But as a goddamn gardener, not a soldier!
Not a soldier…
She put her hand on mine, looked up at me with kindness and patience. “Mike, I’ve been thinking about this a long time. Maybe Dooley did steal that money, intending to either sell it back to Don Lorenzo Ponti, or just wait until the old man died. Lorenzo was the last of the Old School capos, wasn’t he?”
They’d all died of “natural causes,” the rest of the Five Family capos who had backed the scheme of cashing everything in on paper, and hoarding it away. Some were murdered by their kids, under the guise of medically induced heart attacks and falls from high places, and sometimes time had simply caught up with them. Only Don Ponti, well into his eighties, had been left.
Had Dooley been waiting the old don out, till he could “inherit” the loot? Waiting for the black-robed guy with the scythe to take Lorenzo Ponti down to the Hell he so richly deserved?
“You might be right, doll,” I admitted. “But we don’t dare level with Marvin Dooley.”
“Why not?”
“With the kind players in on this thing, he’d be dead in a day.”
She was quietly contemplating that as I headed into my inner office.
Fifteen minutes later, the intercom on my desk let out a short blip and Velda told me I had a visitor. No details, just a tone of voice that said I’d want to see this unscheduled caller. I said send him in.
And when he came in, he needed no introduction—I had never seen him before, but knew exactly who he was.
Something odd happens to people who work in Washington, D.C., in those great buildings they like to say belong to the American public. Their clothes change for the better, their expressions change for the worse, their whole demeanor transmogrifies as they become important persons who hold power in either hand.
Flippantly, I said, “Mr. Buckley. What took you?”
A momentary furrow streaked between his eyes as he recalled that Velda hadn’t mentioned his name over the intercom and that there had been no appointment.
Then he smiled and said, “I was advised not to underestimate your deductive skills, Mr. Hammer.” He held up an opened wallet so I could see his credentials—Roger Buckley, United States Department of the Treasury.
I just nodded and waved to a chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Buckley. Always pleased to be a good citizen when the government comes calling.”
He slid into the client chair and crossed his legs, gazing at me with gray eyes that went well with his prematurely gray hair and a three-piece suit just a shade darker. His face had a chiseled look, but a certain pouchiness touched his features, and even that tailored suit couldn’t hide a growing paunch. He was dining well on the taxpayers.
“It’s interesting that you’re not surprised to see me, Mr. Hammer. Usually the mere fact that I am a Treasury agent is enough to… unnerve a person.”
“As long as you’re not Internal Revenue Service,” I said with a shrug, “there’s no sweat.”
“Tax problems, Mr. Hammer?”
“No, just a bad joke. Even if the IRS dropped around, it wouldn’t be a pain—my taxes are all paid up. So, what can I do for you, Mr. Buckley?”
His smile was a twitch that left a frown. “My office is trying to put a closure on what is a fascinating story, but most likely a fictitious one… and your name has appeared on eleven different reports that have crossed my desk.”
Why fence with the guy?
I said, “You’re still looking for those eighty-nine billion dollars, aren’t you?”
A few seconds passed before he answered, “That’s a concern. Yes.”
“What happened to Homer Watson? He was the last fed who came sniffing around.”
“I’ve taken over the case.”
“Is it? A case? I thought you said it was a fascinating story that was probably fictitious.”
“It probably is, but nonetheless investigation is required. As I said, we’d like to close the matter.”
“Why all this bother?”
“Eighty-nine billion dollars is a considerable sum, Mr. Hammer.”
“It’s less than ninety.”
He shifted in his seat, and his twitch of a smile lingered a tad longer. “Mr. Hammer, I’m sure you realize you just can’t march into a bank and deposit this sum. Pull up in a Brinks-type truck at the head of a fleet of such trucks, and cart in box upon box for deposit. If the story of this fortune’s existence is true, the denomination of those bills would be of no practical use, would they?”
I said, “If another government had them, they could be put to good use, couldn’t they?”
Buckley nodded, the gray eyes half-lidded now.
I went on: “Of course, there would be one hell of a lot of trouble arranging for delivery between here and overseas.”
He drew in a breath, then let it out. Was he going to engage me in this conversation?
Yes he was: “Not for experts, Mr. Hammer. They move tons of illegal drugs and forbidden imports around the globe.”
“Hardly my line, Mr. Buckley.”
The Treasury agent leaned forward a little. “It doesn’t have to be your line, Mr. Hammer. All you would need do is provide the location of that hoard and it would all be taken care of.”
“Including me,” I offered.
“Do you really think your government would—”
I raised a hand. “It’s buried in my official history, and perhaps still confidential, but I was briefly associated with an agency that operated in the shadow world between the F.B.I. and C.I.A. An agency that took care of liquidations whenever they were deemed necessary.”
Finally, he seemed a little shaken. A little.
Then the twitch of a smile again: “Mr. Hammer, at this stage of your storied existence, you would frankly be too little to bother with. Your reward would be beyond your wildest dreams, yet a mere business item to the others. Your personal safety would be secure, since you would have no direct dealing with anyone other than myself… You wouldn’t have to leave that comfortable desk chair.”
That rated a laugh. “You have an oversized supposition going for you, Agent Buckley. How the hell would a private investigator at this stage of my, what was it? Storied existence? How exactly would a guy my age walk into an eighty-nine billion caper? How could I hide that kind of dough, assuming it existed? Where could I hide it? Damn, man, a dozen government agencies have been on my back since the Ponti crowd went down. It would take one hell of an organization to pull off a job like that, and all I am is one man.”
Buckle
y smiled, not a twitch this time. “Hitler was just one man,” he reminded me.
“So was Patton,” I said, and gave him the nasty grin.
This time he reminded me: “I hear Patton’s dead.”
“I heard the same about Hitler,” I told him. “But last time I looked, I was still alive.”
Buckley’s smile was anything but friendly. “For how long, Hammer, how long?”
“That’s always the question, isn’t it? Someone tried to kill me just this morning.”
That got his attention. He blinked and sat forward. Way forward. “What’s that you say, Hammer?”
No Mister…
“Somebody in a suit every bit as nice as yours, Agent Buckley, tried to kill me in the parking garage of this building, oh…” I checked my watch. “…an hour and ten minutes ago, give or take. You needn’t be concerned. I killed him.”
Buckley gave me a strange look as if he were trying to put me into some definite category. His head made a brief, puzzled movement and he said, “I just can’t see how a person in your… modest circumstances can suddenly become a major cog in an international financial scandal.”
I shrugged. “What scandal is that, pal? You’re all running around like chickens who just got acquainted with an axe, looking for money you aren’t even sure exists. Your computers came up with a number. So what? You’re running down rumors and nothing sticks, does it? Just answer one question for me, will you?”
His eyebrows raised.
I said, “What would I do with that kind of dough, anyway?”
The smile twitched again. “You make an interesting point, Mr. Hammer. But first let me assure you that this morning’s attempt on your life was not the doing of your government.”
“It’s not really my government. I haven’t voted since Dewey and Truman.”
He ignored that as he got to his feet. “I mentioned a reward earlier. Might I be more specific?’
“Be my guest.”
“The Treasury Department would offer you a ten percent finder’s fee on this eighty-nine billion… should it in fact be real. In fact, we would round it off to a billion. Couldn’t you make do with that, Mr. Hammer, to supplement your retirement years?”
That made a good exit line. Anyway, I couldn’t think of a better one.
Mike Hammer--King of the Weeds Page 10
