“Why? The guy’s dead.”
“Just do it, okay?”
For a second I thought he was going to tell me to forget it, but he read my eyes a second and nodded slowly. “Sure,” he told me. “Only because of one thing will I do it.”
“What’s that?”
“We got computers and fax machines now and I don’t get tied up for a week scanning old copy.”
I threw five bucks on the bar and ordered beers for Petey and his baseball buddy, then went back to a table with Candace. I answered her question before she could ask it. “The killer was after DiCica or me. Now, I know all about me, and I know something about DiCica. What I want is to know all about DiCica.”
“We know all about DiCica.”
“Hell, kid, not even DiCica knew that. He led two completely different lives.”
She waited until the waiter brought the drinks, then toyed with her glass while she put her thoughts together. She knew I was watching her, feeling her with my eyes, reading the little bits of body language that she let slip, and let her mouth go firm.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
Her expression questioned me.
“You got a nice, sensual mouth, kid. Don’t squeeze it shut like that.”
“Please!” She glanced around quickly, afraid someone had heard me.
I grinned at her. “Now talk to me, pretty lady.” This time she shook her head and smiled back. “Why do I go from hot to cold with you?”
“Because you’re playing the game too, doll.”
“And what does the winner get?”
“I’m not sure what the prize is yet,” I told her.
She let her teeth slide over her lower lip, folded her hands under her chin and gave me a studied gaze. “You’re going to be a winner, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer her.
“That’s what’s disturbing me. Disturbing everybody. You’re the piece that doesn’t belong, but has to be there. As my friends say, a lousy private cop in a position they can’t shove around. Why is that, Mike?”
A slight shrug was the best I could do.
“My boss defers to Captain Chambers. He recognizes his professionalism and appreciates his opinion. Somewhere you have a niche in all this and nobody but you seems to know where it is.” She paused dramatically. “Where is it?”
“Right in the middle of the shitpile,” I said.
“Gross.”
“Not really. You ever been shot at?”
Her head made a slight negative movement.
“When it happens,” I told her seriously, “you’ll know what I mean.”
“But you’ll still be a winner.”
“Candace honey, whoever stays alive the longest wins. Right now something is happening and nobody wants to spell it out. We have federal agencies sniffing around, the State Department playing footsies in a murder case because they’re afraid they might screw up the political scene. Right now all that’s a lot of crap. We’re working on a murder, a killing that comes under the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department.”
“No murder is simple.”
“And a kill isn’t complicated,” I reminded her. “Only the motives are complicated.”
She took her hands down now, settling back in her chair. Her head tilted slightly and she gave me that odd stare again. “See . . . that’s the other thing about you that’s puzzling.”
This time I waited.
“Someone wanted to kill you. Most likely he still wants to kill you and you don’t seem to be scared a bit.”
“Don’t fool yourself.”
“You’re scared?”
“Not the way you’d count scared. I’m cautious.
And you have to be alive to be scared.“
“That’s a thought.”
“I’ll give you another,” I said. “Be scared, but don’t let your hand shake.”
“Later I’ll ask you to explain that.” She snapped her pocketbook open and pulled out a vanity, glanced at the mirror and put it back.
“Later?”
“After you take me home,” she said impishly.
They forget sometimes, these beautiful women. There are times when they can lift their skirts up to their eyebrows and nobody will even blink because they did it in the dark, and right then my eyes were closed.
When the cab pulled up to her building and the doorman did his little sprint, I said, “When your hand shakes, you miss the target, kitten.”
She glanced at me, frowning, and asked, “Is your hand shaking?”
“It doesn’t matter, honey. I’m not aiming.”
I kissed the tip of my finger and stuck it on the end of her nose.
This time she smiled and got out of the cab. It wasn’t an impish smile at all.
7
The workout at Bing’s Gym let me tear at something physical for a change. Weight machines were enemies I could push and shove at, my jaws clamped hard in the effort. I could pound at the heavy bag and rap the hell out of the light one, and even if it wasn’t the real thing, there was something therapeutic about it that made me feel better.
I would have kept it up, but Bing reminded me that I was overdoing it for this session and ushered me into the steam room with a towel wrapped around my middle. Nobody else was there, so I sat and let my mind drift through the details of an old hardcase being mutilated and killed in my office.
One lousy murder and the whole world fell apart. The DA’s office is in, the FBI is in, the CIA is in, the State Department is in, because a guy they call Penta took out a wacko hood. And that put me in too.
But there was one thing that only I knew for absolute certainty . . . I really wasn’t in at all. There was no way at all that I could have any involvement with the killer. Even if he was the Penta everybody was after, he was after nobody else except DiCica. It sure as hell wasn’t me.
Question. Which DiCica? The old hit man he was before he had memory smashed out of his skull? In that case, the motive was pure revenge. But why wait so long? DiCica hadn’t been in hiding. Even the mob boys knew where he was. Right now Pat would have his inquiries in the works and Petey would be working from another end. Something could show up here... possibly.
DiCica with his memory back could be something else. The mob didn’t care about him as a person. All they wanted was what he had that could bring pressure on their organization. They could kill him, but that left his information liable to a possible discovery. Their misconception that he had contacted me for assistance meant that they didn’t order the kill.
So ... another part of the organization, an upstart group or person wanting to get control or possibly another family entirely, knew DiCica had flashes of memory recall and went after him. In that case, did the torture session get it out of him?
Who set up the appointment to meet me in my office? Could that have been legitimate and the guy scared off by the action that day? Logical and possible.
The screwy thing was the trademark mutilation by somebody named Penta our government and the British government seemed to know all about, and it sure wasn’t likely that someone in the mob circles was able to contact anybody working on Penta’s level.
I let it run through my mind again and the only answer I could come up with was that somebody had picked up some stray facts about Penta and did a duplicate, but more elaborate job of mutilation on the DiCica kill to throw in the most beautiful red herring I ever saw.
And I still was in the middle of it.
After a shower I got dressed and grabbed a cab to the hospital. This time the overnight parkers had left cleared space and there was no Mercedes parked with wheels turned away from the curb. Oddly, I wondered what my muggers’ options would have been if I had grabbed a cab at the entrance that night.
Downstairs I picked up a vase of flowers, took the elevator up to Velda’s floor and walked to the desk. For one second I almost dropped the flowers. Pat was there talking to Burke Reedey and all I could think of was something had ha
ppened to Velda. When he half turned, saw me and nodded agreeably, I knew there was no trouble.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked him.
“Same as you, pal, bringing flowers to a friend.” But he knew what I had been thinking and added, “She’s okay.”
I glanced at Burke for confirmation and he grinned. “It’s a good recovery, Mike. We had her for some other tests this morning and the prognosis looks fine.”
“Can I see her?”
“Sure, but she’s asleep. Leave your flowers and we’ll tell her you were here.”
Even though the cop on the door saw me talking to Pat, he waited for him to nod okay before he let me in. I put the flowers down quietly, then stood beside the bed watching her. The swelling had gone down some and the discoloration had taken on a different hue, but the improvement was noticeable. Her breathing was strong and regular, and I said, “Sleep well, kitten,” in a barely audible whisper.
Pat and I found the visitor’s lounge, got some coffee and a table away from the main crowd. “You look like something’s bugging you,” I said.
“I spoke to Ray Wilson this morning.”
“And now I’m in deep shit, I suppose.”
“No more than usual.”
“What’s the beef then?”
“Just cool the use of departmental facilities, Mike. The word has come in loud and clear. This Penta business is being taken out of our hands.”
“The hell it is,” I told him. “The DiCica murder comes under NYPD jurisdiction.”
“Not when Uncle Sammy thinks otherwise.”
“So why tell me about it?”
“Because you’re still the fly in the ointment. You’re a principal in the case and even though you’re licensed under the state laws, you’re still a civilian, a US citizen, and there’s nobody harder to keep quiet than one of our own.”
“You can do better than that, Pat.”
“Okay, our CIA pal, Lewis Ferguson, has asked for an audience in”—he looked at his watch—“forty-five minutes.”
“Where?”
“In one of those cute little places the State Department reserves for quiet conferences. Take your time. Finish your coffee.”
Pat had an unmarked car and we drove up Sixth Avenue to the Fifties, parked in a public garage and went into the side entrance of the half-block-wide building. The elevator took us up to the ninth floor and we turned left to the frosted glass doors marked SUTTERLIN ASSOCIATES, ARCHITECTS.
Inside, a glass booth surrounded the receptionist, and when Pat spoke to her through the cutout in the window, she told us to wait, spoke into the phone, and a minute later a young guy in a business suit with the body language of the State Department came out, ushered us down the hallway and knocked on an unlabeled door, waited for the buzzer to click it open and waved us in.
Bennett Bradley and Ferguson were there already, Bradley behind his desk and Ferguson pacing beside him, ignoring three chairs already positioned. There was no handshaking, just perfunctory nods, and we all sat down at once.
Bradley didn’t waste any time. He leaned forward on his desk, his fingers clasped together, the expression on his face as if his shorts were too tight. “Gentlemen,” he started, “before we begin, I want it understood that this meeting, and what is said here, is strictly confidential. Three of us represent government agencies and understand that position, so to you, Mr. Hammer, I want to make myself clear. Is that understood?”
I said, “I hear you.”
“Good. I believe Mr. Ferguson has something to say.”
The CIA agent shifted in his chair to face Pat. He reached in his pocket and took out an envelope I recognized right away. “Captain Chambers, I have an item here that was routed through our office for identification.”
He dumped the tooth I had found into the palm of his hand.
Pat’s face hardened and he said tightly, “I was supposed to get a report in my office.”
“Let’s simplify things,” Ferguson said. This time he looked at me. “I understand you found this.”
I hedged a little. “I came by it, yes.”
“How?”
“Let’s say I’m in the business of looking for clues. I was a victim of a crime of aggravated nature and made it my business to look for my assailants. That is what is called a clue.”
“I don’t need sarcasm, Mr. Hammer.”
“None intended,” I said soberly. The hardness eased out of Pat’s face.
“You assumed this came from the mouth of an assailant?”
“Something did. This was the only thing that could have.”
“And you took it right to Captain Chambers.”
“Correct.” I knew what was coming and got there first. “The mugging on me wasn’t any street crime, so don’t let’s beat that dead horse. This went down as a very knowledgeable venture by people who knew all the ropes. They had team-work, knew drug handling, didn’t bother to confiscate my money or weapon . . . hell, they even wore spook shoes that could handle any surface efficiently and quietly.”
“You are referring, of course, to the CIA?”
Pat spoke up and said, “That’s where the identification finally came from then, didn’t it?”
Ferguson took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Yes.” When he had gathered his thoughts, he went on: “The recipient of that partial had the work done at a government facility after he lost it on a CIA operation. It was listed in his file and recorded on the computers.”
“Who was he?” Pat asked.
When Ferguson didn’t answer immediately, I said, “Want me to leave the room?”
A touch of scorn was in Ferguson’s voice. “I don’t think that would make any difference at this point, would it, Captain Chambers?”
“You said it in the beginning, pal. He’s in this pretty damn deep and if he wants to make anything public he can do it. Just remember that he’s still a good guy.”
“Well put. All right, the partial belonged to an agent named Harry Bern. He was an old hand who came into the agency in 1961. He had a military background, was well rated but considered a little reckless out on assignments. When there was all that fury about extremes in our covert operations, certain agents considered touchy were released. He was one of them.”
Pat said, “I suppose you checked his passport?”
Ferguson seemed surprised at that. To him cops weren’t expected to think that far ahead. “He made numerous trips abroad. Apparently he’s in this country now.”
“Apparently,” I muttered. “And he’s not alone.”
This time Ferguson squirmed in his chair again. “Another one we released was his partner, Gary Fells. They came in together and they went out together. They had almost identical background and personality profiles.”
For the first time Bradley let out a hrumphto get our attention and when he had it, said, “Their quizzing you, Mr. Hammer, as to the whereabouts of Penta is what brings the State Department’s interest into the picture.”
“You can’t locate either of these guys?” I asked.
“Remaining invisible if they have to is one of their specialties.”
“Good training.”
“Should be. They were in the first cadre General Rudy Skubal commanded.”
Neither Pat nor I showed any change of expression, but we both knew what the other was thinking. General Skubal wasn’t new to me at all. A long time ago he had tried to recruit me into his organization, even going to the trouble of having Pat put some pressure on me. Old Skubie, I was thinking, who took himself and the other tigers, as he called them, deep behind enemy lines for twenty-two months, a wild bunch of trained fighters fluent in Slavic languages, who raised complete hell with enemy communications until they rejoined with American units after the Normandy landing.
Most of those tigers went into frontline field work with the CIA in its early days and became shadow legends with government spooks.
“Where do we go from here?” Pat asked.
<
br /> Bradley unclasped his fingers and made a steeple of them. “Nowhere. That is, you don’t. As of now, the police department is being removed from the case. Of course, Captain Chambers, you know what that entails, don’t you?”
Pat nodded, saying nothing.
“As for you, Mr. Hammer, your total silence is required. Not requested, but demanded. There will be no more investigating the Penta affair or your assailants since this all will be in the hands of federal agencies. The nature of this case is so sensitive that the fewer involved the easier it will be to process. Now, are there any further questions?”
I said, “Is looking into the murder of Anthony DiCica any part of the Penta business?”
Bradley unsteepled his fingers and gave a shrug. “I can’t see what DiCica has to do with it, Mr. Hammer. Penta was after you.”
“Thanks a bunch,” I said. “Since I’m to be the quiet target then, do I get any cover?”
“I may sound callous, Mr. Hammer,” Bradley told me, “but you’ve already made your sentiments very clear. You prefer to remain unguarded. Now, just to make sure we all understand your position, do you or do you not prefer a guard? I ask this because in your way, you too are a professional and licensed to carry firearms.”
“Just let me take my chances, Mr. Bradley. I get nervous when people are watching me.”
“So be it,” he said and stood up. The meeting was over.
When Pat and I got to the street, he said, “You got to go anywhere?”
“No, but I’ll walk you to the garage.”
“Sure, then maybe you can tell me about that bit with DiCica.”
“Come on, Pat, we’re both thinking the same thing. It could have been DiCica he was really after and anything else was a sham. What have you got on the guy?”
We had stopped on the corner and Pat checked his watch. “I’m going off duty. How about a beer?”
“How can you go off duty? It’s afternoon.”
“I’m the boss, that’s how.”
“Fine, a beer sounds great and Ernie’s Little Place is right here. You ever been in Ernie’s?”
“No.”
“Good. Neither have I.”
The Killing Man Page 11
