Five O'Clock Lightning

by William L. DeAndrea

  Bristow. What about Bristow? It could be a coincidence. Or it could be a cynical move to make you think Laird was behind it. It was Hal, after all, who said Bristow’s broken jaw might be a prophecy by the killer.

  Now look at Hal. Is he smart enough? Does he have the background to be shifty enough? Yes to both questions. You have to be smart and shifty to work OSS.

  Does he have a motive to kill Rex Simmons? He could. He’s got a defense-related industry right in Kansas City, Simmons’s power base. God knows what sort of dirt can come up in the name of congressional investigations.

  Garrett shook his head again, more slowly this time. Once your mind got perverse enough and you were willing to look at a friend that way, you could find indications all night.

  Like how much Hal had been told by Garrett. How nobody had tried to bother Garrett until he went to Kansas City and spoke to Hal. And Hal had had ample opportunity to make contact with Chicago Ned and his boys to do any heavy work that might come up.

  “Bullshit,” Garrett said aloud. The ball players didn’t even interrupt their conversation—he must have said it at an appropriate time.

  He’d let the idea have its head; now he could forget the whole damned thing. Except he couldn’t. Because he suddenly remembered leaving Martin in the care of Hal Keating’s security people, and the memory was followed by a flash of fear.

  That could only mean, Garrett realized, that deep down he didn’t really trust Hal. And that meant he had to go to Captain Murphy about it. He knew Martin was getting better and had returned to New York yesterday, but that could be because Hal wasn’t interested in Martin, only Garrett. He’d been pretty eager to get Garrett away from the crowds and into the car after the doubleheader, hadn’t he? Garrett hated himself. What was it Hal had said? A one-track mind, with the gauge too narrow to let the sense through. Probably true, he thought.

  Too narrow. That’s what the girl Lindy had said, back in Kansas City, wasn’t it? Just before she’d been crushed under the hooves of the cattle? Something like that?

  Garrett chewed his lip and brooded all the way to New York.

  7

  Cheryl was waiting for him. She stood out among the drunks and drifters that populated Grand Central Station at 3:30 A.M. like a rose on a junk pile.

  Cheryl was wearing a slinky number, bold slashes of black and pink. “I thought,” she said as Garrett climbed the ramp to the main concourse, “that we might be able to go someplace to dance.” Before Garrett could say anything, she put her arms around him and kissed him vigorously.

  There was general appreciation from the Yankees.

  “Whew, Slick,” Mickey Mantle said. “I thought it was attempts on my life we were supposed to be worrying about.”

  Garrett figured he was probably blushing.

  The kiss ended, eventually. Garrett pulled away to see an almost insufferable smirk on Cheryl’s face. Most of the ball players were walking away, laughing, but Mickey was still there. He seemed a little embarrassed himself.

  “Uh, Rags?” he said.

  “What is it, Mick?”

  “Talk to you for a second?”

  “Sure. Excuse me, Cheryl?” She told him not to take too long. Garrett and Mantle walked off a few steps.

  “I, uh, I ain’t too good at this kind of thing,” Mantle said, “but I want you to know I appreciate everything you did for me, coming to Boston and all. The cops, here and up there—well, I felt a lot better about things.”

  “You’re welcome, Mick,” Garrett told him. “Hell, you’re a lot more valuable to the game than I am. The commissioner practically ordered me to do it.”

  “Goddammit, Rags, I ain’t jokin’. I know it didn’t amount to anything, but none of us knew that ahead of time. So thanks.” He put out a hand. Garrett took it.

  “Okay, then,” Mantle said, as if glad to have it all over. “Anything I can do to help you out, you know, get back into playin’ ball, you just let me know, okay?”

  Garrett had to smile. For a split second he was going to ask for a new set of legs but choked it back in time when he realized Mantle’s legs weren’t in such great shape, either. Instead he said, “Sure, Mick, thanks. You go beat the crap out of the White Sox on Wednesday and clinch the pennant. That’ll do for now.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal.” Mantle looked up the concourse where Whitey and Billy were standing. “Hey, Slick, wait up!” He gave Garrett a hasty wave and took off after them.

  “What was that all about?” Cheryl asked.

  “Baseball talk. Nice to see you, Cheryl.”

  “I hoped you’d feel that way.”

  “Only what am I supposed to do with you? I live with my parents, you know. They’re stuffy about this sort of thing.”

  “The Commodore Hotel, Russ. I have a room in it. We can get there without even going outside—there’s a tunnel right from the station.”

  It did sound tempting. He would have liked to be with Jenny Laird, but he didn’t want to kid himself. He’d been a comfort to her when she was lonely and scared. He didn’t dare hope for anything more with her. But now he was lonely, and Cheryl was right here, so why not? The big clock over the exit said twenty to four—the way the trains ran, Garrett wouldn’t be able to get back to Port Chester until after six. Garrett still wasn’t sure how he felt about the woman, but this much seemed obvious; a plush hotel room with Cheryl for company beat hell out of the sofa in his office. It was closer, too.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got to make a couple of phone calls first.” He pointed to a phone booth and started walking. He was waiting for Cheryl to suggest he make the calls from the hotel and was just as glad when she didn’t. He didn’t especially want her to hear.

  Cheryl waited outside the booth. Garrett’s first call went to a different hotel not too far away.

  “Hello,” Jenny Laird said.

  “Hello, Jenny. Sorry to call so early in the mor—”

  “Who is this?” There was terror in her voice.

  “It’s Russ Garrett, of course. Who else knows where you are?”

  “Stop it! Don’t do this to me anymore!” Jenny was hysterical.

  “Jenny, what’s the matter? Really, it’s Russ—I took the train back to the city with the Yankees. What’s wrong?”

  “No,” she said, as if explaining something to one of the children. “It was on the radio. In Boston. Your car exploded. You—your body was mang ... It said it on the radio!”

  Garrett closed his eyes tight and asked God and Hal Keating to forgive him, because he was never going to forgive himself.

  “It’s a mistake, Jenny. Honest, I’m okay.”

  “I thought you were dead!” The sobs came back.

  “No, it’s all right.” There was something Garrett had to know. “The radio just said my car exploded?”

  “It said there was a bomb. They—they had to identify you from your license plate.”

  Well, it was a tough break for Cheryl, and possibly for Garrett himself, but no Hotel Commodore tonight. He had to call Bronx Homicide, get them to find Captain Murphy and straighten him out, then go over and sit with Jenny. If she was like this, her kids were probably hanging from the ceiling. Unless they were asleep. Garrett hoped they were.

  He was about to tell Jenny all this. Started to, in fact, but she interrupted him.

  “I love you, Russ.”

  That called for an answer. It took him a while, because he’d never expected to hear that statement or anything like it from her. Garrett took stock of how he felt and decided that in spite of everything else, hearing this brave, loyal woman say she loved him made him delighted and proud. Garrett guessed that meant he loved her, too.

  He didn’t get a chance to tell her, though.

  “Hang up the phone,” said a voice.

  Garrett turned to see Gennarro Kennedy. The big black man’s left hand had a tight grip on Cheryl’s elbow. The right held a .38 caliber revolver.

  “Russ?” Jenny Laird’s voice echoed tin
nily in the phone booth. “Russ?”

  “Hang up the phone,” Gennarro Kennedy repeated. He clicked back the hammer of his gun.

  “I’ve got to go,” Garrett said as he hung up. And as he did, a lot of things seemed to fall into place.

  “Hello again, Mr. Garrett,” Gennarro Kennedy said. “Step out of the phone booth, please.”

  “You. I should have known back in Kansas City, goddammit. Lindy. She was your girl, right? She saw you. That’s why she ran out in front of that stampede. She thought you were inside the building, and she was running to you because she saw you were safe. She was happy. She never said too narrow or tomorrow; I was fooled by the damned flat Kansas City drawl. She was saying Gennarro. Wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, Mr. Garrett,” Kennedy said. “She was.” His voice was deadly. “But we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it en route.”

  “En route to where?”

  “You, Miss Tilton, and I are going to take a little trip to the Bronx.” He let go of Cheryl’s arm; Cheryl rubbed the spot. “Walk ahead of me, please. A car will be waiting for us; and remember I have a gun.”

  Cheryl seemed unruffled. Garrett gave her high marks for that. He was certainly ruffled.

  “Does Mrs. Klimber know about this?” Cheryl demanded, but Kennedy only laughed.

  He motioned them to move along, and their footsteps echoed dismally in the marble vault of Grand Central Station.

  Chapter Eight

  Rundown

  1

  GENNARRO KENNEDY WAS REALLY quite pleased with the way things had worked out. It just went to show there was a lot to be said for doing one’s own fieldwork. Ideas came as rapidly as opportunities, once you had a little practice.

  It had been a simple matter to plant the bomb in Garrett’s car, once he’d found it parked not far from the ball field. He had, in fact, perhaps done too much preparatory work; calling a garage with some fictitious car trouble, knocking the driver of the tow truck unconscious, then stealing the vehicle.

  He’d wanted the truck for a prop, an excuse in case anyone wondered what he was doing with his head under the hood of the car. Of course, he hadn’t known how easy it was going to be, how little time it would take. Nofsinger’s enclosed instructions had been excellent.

  Once he’d wired the bomb, he’d abandoned the tow truck, then retreated to a spot something over a block away to wait. It was an overcast day and very near full night when the tall man had entered the car; Kennedy had just naturally assumed it was Garrett.

  Kennedy had been breathless with anticipation. He remembered being angry with himself for letting his control slip so far.

  The man got into the car. There was the slam of the steel door, the first grinding of the ignition, then the explosion.

  Kennedy had been wise to stand so far away. Windows were broken for several dozen yards on both sides of the street. Debris clinked and clattered and rolled practically to Kennedy’s feet.

  Of course, a mob of curiosity-seekers gathered around the wreck. When there were enough of them (including several Negroes—Kennedy had no wish to be conspicuous), he joined the crowd to have a look at his handiwork. The results had hardly been recognizable as human, let alone as Garrett, so it was with a firm conviction that Garrett was dead that Kennedy went to the railroad station to join the baseball players on their trip back to New York.

  Kennedy had gone immediately to a seat on the train away from where the ball players were likely to sit and consequently missed seeing Garrett board the train. He didn’t see him, in fact, until much later.

  After seeing the explosion of Garrett’s car, Kennedy realized that for his purposes, one of which was making the authorities turn their attention back to “Communists” and “terrorists” and similar figments of heated imaginations, it would be much better if Mickey Mantle died in an explosion, too. He thought of ways to do it.

  He came up with a magnificent plan. Not only the method, but the place would be perfect. Unfortunately, he would need Russ Garrett, alive, to make it work.

  Kennedy had sighed and thought of other things. He had poison with him; he knew athletes drank lots of beer. All he had to do was think of a way to get a poisoned beer to Mickey Mantle. He took a stroll of the nearly deserted train to scout the logistics of the problem. Then he came to the coach in which the Yankees were riding. And saw Russ Garrett.

  Kennedy was surprised (to say the least), but he still had the presence of mind to duck back out onto the platform between cars before Garrett saw him.

  He stood out there taking great gulps of humid air as bewilderment gave way to elation. Garrett was alive; therefore, Kennedy hadn’t killed him. Whom had he killed? Some friend of Garrett’s, no doubt. It really didn’t matter. The important thing now was that his magnificent idea was now possible. Even inevitable.

  And it was now in progress. All that had been necessary to do was wait until Garrett was alone, then take him. Cheryl Tilton was an added complication, but not necessarily a liability. She was an extra lever to use on Garrett if he proved reluctant.

  “Wait a moment,” Gennarro Kennedy said to his captives. They turned around and looked at him, but he didn’t mind. All he did was reach into his pocket and pull out the locker key. He opened the locker and removed Nofsinger’s other bomb quickly and efficiently, without delaying long enough to give Garrett a chance to get any foolish ideas.

  “All right,” Kennedy said. “Just walk across the concourse and up those stairs. We’re leaving from the exit at the top of them, the one where the taxicabs stop.”

  “Vanderbilt Avenue,” Garrett said.

  “Yes, that’s right, Vanderbilt Avenue.” If Nofsinger had followed instructions, there would be a car waiting for them there. It ought to be an interesting ride.

  2

  “Where am I going?” Garrett asked, though he had a pretty good idea of the answer. He was at the wheel of a bright red Plymouth Belvedere. It was a popular model and color, and Kennedy had probably done well to choose it. Still, Garrett felt about as inconspicuous as a fire engine. Not that there were many people around. This was the spooky time of the New York morning, those few hours when the city seemed empty.

  At the moment he wanted to be inconspicuous, because Gennarro Kennedy was in the backseat with the .38 pointed at the back of Cheryl’s head. He had no doubt the Negro would pull the trigger if anyone stopped him or if Garrett tried any funny business with the car. Besides, short of driving it off a bridge and into a river, Garrett didn’t think there was much he could do with the car. It was big and built like a tank.

  Garrett took a look at the woman beside him. Cheryl was gazing straight ahead, a completely blank expression on her face. He supposed she was trying to avoid giving Kennedy any reason to be nervous or upset.

  Garrett, as previously instructed by the man with the gun, was headed north on Madison Avenue, but since Manhattan was an island, he knew he couldn’t go on doing that forever. He repeated his question.

  “Yankee Stadium,” Kennedy told him. “I would have thought you could guess that.”

  “Just checking,” Garrett told him. “I thought that might be it.”

  “You’re very clever. You don’t know how much trouble you’ve caused me.”

  “Sorry,” Garrett said. He didn’t try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  A look in the rearview mirror showed him Kennedy was smiling. “Don’t apologize unless you mean it, Garrett. And I don’t think I’m likely to forgive you in any case. I was quite fond of Lindy, you know. You’ve probably guessed that, too.”

  Garrett saw Kennedy was no longer smiling.

  “The problem with you,” Kennedy went on, “is that you have too many friends. That Negro policeman. That person in Boston. Unless it was a car thief.”

  “No,” Garrett said. “It was a friend.”

  “It seems,” Kennedy said, “that you were even able to make a convert of Miss Tilton.” He reached out casually and gave Cheryl a gentle poke in
the back of the head with the barrel of the gun.

  Cheryl turned white. She spoke for the first time. “I don’t know anything about this, Gennarro, I swear to God—”

  “You know the background, though. Congressman Simmons and his ‘investigations.’ You were in it up to your pretty white neck. I don’t see why you should be complaining now—I’m only doing my best to keep the Simmons name holy and the Simmons empire alive.”

  From the corner of his eye, he could see Cheryl starting to tremble. In about five seconds she was going to start screaming. Garrett couldn’t blame her—he could use a good scream himself. But it was a low-percentage play, at least in this league.

  “Can I ask you a question, Kennedy?” Garrett got in with the distraction a heartbeat before Cheryl would have lost control.

  “Go ahead,” Kennedy said.

  “Is David Laird working for you or are you working for him?”

  Gennarro Kennedy started to laugh. He laughed so hard, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, that Garrett was tempted to reach back over the seat and grab for the gun. He decided against it. The Plymouth was just too damn big. He’d only get one chance, and he couldn’t afford to miss.

  Garrett asked him what was so funny.

  Just then a siren screamed behind them. Kennedy stopped laughing and raised the gun at Cheryl’s head. Garrett checked the mirror.

  “It’s an ambulance. Kennedy, for Christ’s sake, it’s an ambulance.” Garrett eased over to the right to let it by. Kennedy leaned back again; Garrett allowed himself to breathe.

  Kennedy chuckled. “You wanted to know about David Laird. Actually, he was working for me, but I didn’t know it. Since then I think he’s been working against me.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Garrett told him.

  Kennedy was silent for a few minutes, thinking. At last he said, “This has been a fascinating operation. Do you want to know all about it?”

  “I would definitely like to know what this is all about.”

  Kennedy sighed and began to tell him. He told him everything, Nofsinger and his bogus Communist organization, the plan to kill Mantle to make Rex Simmons look good, Laird/Thane’s infiltration of the operation, and all the rest. He gave names, dates, places.