Switch

by William Bayer

  At eleven o'clock the divers brought up the first of the two Japanese swords. By noon the dredging was complete. They had both swords, both knives, a rotted-out guitar case, a water-stiffened backpack, plus assorted plastic garments, bags and gloves and two sets of apartment keys. From an investigative standpoint the case was finished. All that remained was to take Peter downtown, book him and turn him over for prosecution.

  When Janek left the pier more than fifty patrol cars, including some from precincts in other boroughs, had assembled at the foot of Bank Street. He walked among them recognizing faces, greeting officers he knew, accepting their homage to him and to his special squad for having solved the unsolvable Switched Heads.

  Aggression

  They watched the 11 P.M. news wrapped naked in each other's arms.

  Manhattan District Attorney Francis Semple announced the indictment of Peter Lane and also, for the first time, publicly linked the killings of Amanda Ireland and Brenda Beard. Semple sat at a table in front of a battery of microphones beside Chief of Detectives Dale Hart. Janek stood in the background along with his squad waiting to be introduced.

  "...revealing certain gruesome details concerning the Ireland/Beard double homicide," said the pert and breathless female reporter, "which, according to Chief Hart, were kept confidential until the investigation was complete. It was revealed this afternoon by sources close to the Chief's office that for months this case has been known informally as 'Switched Heads.' Chief Hart gave no special praise to individual detectives but chose to emphasize the awesome responsibilities of his division. A division which builds hundreds of important cases a year, he said, out of old-fashioned legwork performed day in, day out by thousands of dedicated men.... "

  Janek slipped out of bed to switch the TV off. Then, standing naked before the set, he turned and faced Caroline.

  "God, didn't you just want to slug him?"

  "Told him I wanted a transfer to Internal Affairs."

  "Hope that jolted him some."

  "Some. But not enough."

  He walked into the living area, went to the table where she kept her liquor, poured out two glasses of Scotch, handed one to her, then sat down on a hassock.

  "You're a great detective, Frank. Everyone says you are. Aaron told me no one else could have gotten Lane."

  He sipped his Scotch. "We could get Hart too, you know. The two of us. I couldn't do it alone."

  She slipped into her robe, picked up his, placed it over his shoulders, then knelt before him and tied the belt. Then she leaned against his knees. For a while they drank in silence. "Okay," she said finally. She looked up at him. "Let's, the two of us, nail the prick."

  "When Carmichael told me about the car being filled with junk what struck me was how Al had gotten so excited hearing that. Soon as Lou told me Al was after Hart I put the two things together. Hart obviously didn't kill your father himself. He ordered it done, which meant a chain of command. It all snapped together. Hart tells his henchman, Sweeney, to get rid of Tommy Wallace. Sweeney, in turn, passes the word to a couple of the goons who work at his garage."

  "How did you know about the garage?"

  "Sweeney's been bugging me to bring in my car ever since he drove it back from the burial. For years I've heard about the fat discounts he gives to cops and all the little courtesies he extends. I've also heard about shoddy parts—getting your car back, then later finding something wrong. I put Sal on it, and when he found the back shop and I could see them stripping cars it was pretty obvious how the thing had worked. Sweeney told his goons to make it look like a New Jersey gangland slaying. But they got sloppy—out of greed or incompetence or both. You know: 'Why waste a stolen car? Let's get double use out of it. Strip it first, the stereo, the tires and all the easy stuff. Then slap on some crud and use it to stow the corpse.' Al must have known he'd hit pay dirt when he heard about that car. But then he blew his case. He had no real proof, but he went ahead anyway and threatened Hart. Big mistake. He should have concentrated on Sweeney instead."

  "Why Sweeney?"

  "Because Sweeney's the weak spot, the link between the executioners and Hart. He's the insulation, and the insulation's always weak. He had no stake in your father being killed and he doesn't go around shooting people in the head. They way he sees it he was just the broker, and he's not going to want to burn alone for that. Still he's a strong-arm guy and that's important to know because you can break a strong-arm guy if you handle him right—show him superior force."

  "So what are we going to do?"

  "Make him squawk."

  "How?"

  "Leverage. I send him to prison for the garage unless he gives me Hart."

  "Is that really going to do it?"

  "First you're going to have to scare him."

  "Me?"

  "You"—he leaned over and kissed the top of her head —"with your crazy-daughter-of-the-man-he-killed routine. Now, don't worry, I know you can do it. It'll go something like this: If Sweeney doesn't tell me what I want to know I threaten to cut you loose. He'll believe in your fury if you show him furious eyes. If you do it right you'll scare him and he'll break."

  "Well," she said, "sounds like we're back to aggression."

  "Yeah," he said. "But this time it's yours."

  The first hard part would be to lure Sweeney out. Janek decided to use his car.

  It was a late 1960s Volvo, the classic Model 122, battered and only shiny when it rained. But it ran well, never failed to start, and it could use a tune-up, he thought.

  He drove it over to the Bronx and into the garage, then stood beside it, stupid, while Sweeney's chief mechanic checked it out.

  "Needs all new shocks. The pinion on the differential leaks. Needs a new slave cylinder. Tune-up and ring job like you say. And there's an oil leak. New oil-pan gasket. Run you eight or nine hundred, but when we're finished it'll be perfect." The man glanced at the body. "Mechanically speaking, at least. I notice some rust on those fenders round the lights."

  "Let's just stick to the insides," Janek said. He showed his discount card.

  She spent two weekends working with Jamie Sullivan in the garage behind Jamie's house in Bayside, Queens. Janek watched her. She and Jamie got on well. He showed her how to handle explosive, mold it around caps, how to strip and curl wire, connect caps to wire and wire to batteries and then bring all the wires to the terminals of the switch.

  "You got to do it like you've been doing it for years," Jamie told her. "It's the way you handle the plastic. There's a touch. You can always tell a good demo man by the lightness and sureness of his hands. You train yourself by playing with clay. Your fingers get good. You always flutter them first before you begin. And in weather like this you always wear gloves. The way an old safecracker does, to keep his fingers warm and loose."

  They left her to practice, went to the kitchen, opened beers, sat down and drank.

  "She'll make it if she doesn't panic," Jamie said, "and she won't panic if she concentrates." He was an ex-cop, a Vietnam vet who'd been a member of the Bomb Squad for five years. In that time he saw four men he loved get blown to bits. He quit finally because he began to shake; he'd be shaking in the morning before he left for work. He got a full disability discharge and grew a beard. It was half a foot long now, black and curly tinged with gray.

  "She says she plays tennis. Is she any good?"

  "Excellent player," Janek said.

  "She and I should play this week. It'll help her concentration." Jamie paused. "She might even pay more attention to me if I win."

  He told her, "At first he'll think I'm pissed about the car. He'll know there's got to be more, but he won't put it all together till the end. I won't talk much and you won't talk at all. You'll do everything with your eyes. Don't grimace or make faces. Just feel your anger and it'll show. Don't try to act and don't forget: this guy got your father killed. You want him to die hard. I'm the only one who can control you. When I tell you to do something you nod and do it right
away. That way he knows I can stop you. You're my creature until I cut you loose and then you're an icy maniac. Try and be like Lane. Cold like that. Full of ice-cold fury. Let him catch a glimpse of the beast, but only just a glimpse. Remember: the two most effective tools we got are silence and the way you handle yourself. The more silence the better — that way he makes all the noise. If you make a mistake just go on like it didn't happen. It's important that you keep your movements clean and sure. A lot depends on the determined way you go about the thing, like you've thought it all through and there's no way once you start you're not going to take it to the end. That's what'll make him know we're dangerous. I'm a guy who doesn't give a shit and you're a woman who's willing to go all the way."

  He was delighted with his car; it purred better than it had in years. It performed exceptionally well as Caroline drove it out to Douglaston then past Sweeney's house, an expensive split-level on three-eighths of an acre with a two-car garage facing the street and an Audi 5000 parked in the drive. Janek told her to turn the corner and come around again. It was an exceptionally warm February evening, a kind of false spring evening, he thought.

  He knew that Sweeneys' wife was in Florida for the week and his kids were away at college. If they were going to do it they would have to do it now. He knew she was ready and feared if they waited she could lose her edge.

  She turned into the drive, blocked the Audi the way he told her. He liked the way her hands were steady on the wheel. He got out fast and moved quickly to the front of the house. By the time Sweeney opened the door he could feel adrenaline pumping through his heart.

  "Janek? What the hell—?" As predicted, Sweeney was surprised.

  "Took my car into your so-called garage."

  Sweeney squinted at him. "I rate a house call cause of that?"

  "Going to ask me in?"

  "You look pretty upset."

  They stared at each other. "Fuckin' right I'm upset. Rotten parts. Car's been filled with crap. Came to tell you that and that tomorrow I'm reporting you for fraud."

  "What you talking about?" Sweeney's face turned red.

  "Come out and take a look."

  "Calm down, Janek. I'll see you're satisfied. And no charge, either. The whole job free. How's that?"

  Janek ignored the offer. "You want to look?"

  Sweeney paused, trying to decide just how angry Janek was and how dangerous he could become if he didn't look at the rotten parts and sympathize. "Okay," he said, "let me get my jacket."

  "Never mind the jacket, Sweeney. Come out and see the damage."

  Sweeney shrugged and stepped onto the stoop. He glanced at the car and spotted Caroline. The sight of her seemed to relax him. A girl in the car meant Janek wasn't totally crazy, though it was strange he'd come all the way out to the suburbs to bitch to him at night.

  "Look, Janek, if there was a mix-up on parts don't worry—that's no big deal. You know me. I'm not going to let my brother-in-law screw a cop. Too much to lose. You guys are my bread and butter."

  They were beside the car now. "Hands behind your back."

  "What?"

  Janek pressed the barrel of his Colt into Sweeney's side, then jammed it hard into his kidney. "Your hands. Fast. Before I blow you away. Move it, fuck-face. Now."

  Sweeney muttered something that sounded like "Shit!" and Janek jabbed him again. This time Sweeney put his hands behind his back. Janek snapped cuffs tight around his wrists.

  "What the—?"

  "Shut up." Janek pulled open the back door and shoved Sweeney into the car face-first. Then he came in on top of him, grabbed hold of his hair, jerked his head back, then smashed his face down as hard as he could into the seat. "Listen, scumbag. I only say this once. Try something and you're gone." He gave Sweeney's head another brutal shove. Sweeney blubbered against the vinyl while Janek patted him down.

  No gun, no knife, nothing. He pulled off Sweeney's shoes and threw them into the front. Then he tied his ankles together with rope, forced his legs back, connected the handcuffs to the ankles so that Sweeney was hog-tied face-down on the seat. Then he got out, came around to the front and got in beside Caroline. "Go," he told her. She nodded crisply and backed out of Sweeney's driveway fast.

  He figured it would take a minute or so for Sweeney to comprehend his predicament. He'd been forcibly kidnapped by a fellow police officer from in front of his house at night. He was bound up now, very uncomfortably, in the back of that officer's car. A girl he didn't know was driving. They seemed to be heading somewhere. There'd been a crazy look in Janek's eyes, but he'd acted like he was carrying out a plan. Janek could lose everything for this; if Sweeney filed a complaint Janek would go to jail. Unless this whole thing was official somehow, which seemed highly improbable. Or unless Janek had planned it so he, Sweeney, wouldn't be around at the end to file a complaint.

  "Janek—"

  "Okay, here it is. Got an airtight case. You're running a chop operation behind your garage. Been watching the place for weeks. You're going to Attica. You'll do hard time. Five years, probably ten. For a big-shot police sergeant, that's going to be rough. I'm glad, Sweeney. Because I always thought you were a piece of shit."

  That, Janek figured, ought to hold him for two to three minutes, long enough for them to get out of the suburb and onto the Long Island Expressway. From now on silence would be their weapon. Sweeney had to talk himself into a state of panic.

  "Janek—?"

  Janek didn't answer.

  "Look, Janek—this is no kind of good arrest."

  Silence.

  "You can't make anything stick you take me in like this. This is fuckin' kidnapping, Janek. You'll do big time for this."

  Janek laughed.

  "Think it's funny, huh? You're stupid, really dumb. Who's this bimbo driving? She some kind of police officer, too." A pause. "You got to be crazy. All this on account of some parts. Tell you the truth, this jalopy's sounding pretty good...."

  He went on like that, calling names, complaining about his discomfort, appealing to reason, making threats. It was when he'd try to bargain that Janek would hit him again, so he glanced at Caroline, shrugged, and she drove on.

  The Long Island Expressway to the Suffolk County line, then a U-turn and back again. Then the Brooklyn-Queens to the Verrazano Bridge. Then around Staten Island for a while:

  "Where we going, Janek? Christ, my legs are cramping up. The fuck you taking me?

  "Jesus, Janek—what do you want? Tell me. The fuck you want?

  "Janek—you can't do this. You'll be up shit creek for sure.

  "Janek—let's settle this thing. The car? Christ, I'll give you a Mercedes if you want.

  "Janek—you want to kill me ‘count of some stupid parts? You're fucking crazy. You're a cocksucker, Janek. Wait till Hart—he'll ream your ass for this."

  Janek turned and looked down at his prisoner. There was a line of sweat on the back of his neck. Janek stuck the point of his Colt into the crease at the base of his skull. "What about Hart?" he asked.

  He was surprised at the harshness of his voice; his whisper, he thought, grated like a saw. Sweeney didn't answer right away; he was calculating, Janek knew, trying to figure out what Janek wanted. It had something to do with Hart; now that message had been delivered. Janek worked the gun barrel in, slowly, methodically, twisting it in the sweaty crease of flesh.

  "Calves starting to hurt bad."

  "Sure they are."

  "What do you want?"

  "Tell me about the garage."

  "What about it?"

  "The chop-shop operation—Hart's the banker, isn't he? What's the split? Who else's involved? Who you paying off?"

  Silence.

  "Okay, have it your way. It's all the same to me." He liked the way he said that; there was the proper degree of resignation in his tone. "Meadowlands," he said to Caroline. She juiced the accelerator. The car leaped ahead.

  Frighten him by their relentless silent fury—that was the plan. When Sweeney star
ted sputtering again, Janek took a long strip of sheeting, yanked up Sweeney's head, then wrapped the cloth around his lower face till he was gagged. "Now we don't have to listen to the creep," he said.

  Caroline said, "Good. I like it better that way."

  He would be thinking, Why the Meadowlands? The Meadowlands is where you dump guys you put away. Janek's going to do me. The girl's in on it, too. It's got to be more than the garage. But what? They're bluffing. Got to be.

  He would figure he could call their bluff but would think, too, that, worse came to worse, he'd spill on the garage because the way Janek coerced him no one could ever make that stick. But Janek would know that, too, so there was something deeper going on. He'd worry about that, worry about it a lot. He'd tell himself he was going to get out of this but it would cost him and when the time came he'd have to think fast about how to limit the damage.

  He would decide that until he knew what Janek wanted there was no way to know how to deal. So the next move was up to Janek. For now all he had to do was keep calm and wait.

  They passed Newark Airport, crossed into Hudson County, took a turnoff that followed Sawmill Creek. The Meadowlands: a huge rubble-filled swamp between the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers, a place of oily desolation, a place where you got rid of stuff you didn't want, where you shot people, then dumped them, left them to bloat and rot.

  They reached the spot Janek had picked, a flat between mounds of smoking debris. The light was strange; there was something in the scrub that luminesced in the night.

  "Get your stuff," Janek said.

  She cut the engine, got out, slammed the door. He liked the way she moved, as if she had a job to do. The car shook when she slammed the trunk door down.

  "Got it?"

  "Everything."

  "Okay, let's get this over with."