Bannerman's Law

by John R. Maxim

  Marek nodded thoughtfully.

  ”I don't know about these two women,” Dunville pressed, “but if it were Bonnie ... Barbara Weinberg, you'd wake up with a knife at your throat and a quiet voice asking you where Peter is.”

  The older man sniffed. “They would never get past. . .”

  “Then there's the KGB, of course,” Dunville added. “They will want to know that as well. Especially if the one Harry shot is able to identify them both.”

  Dunville realized that he was pushing it. But his hope was that Theodore Marek would take the hint, go home, ring his Malibu estate with extra guards, and become a stationary target while he ...

  “Where else might they be?” Marek asked. “The two women.”

  Dunville shrugged. “They certainly wouldn't go near the Russian's hospital.”

  “Hardly. Where else?”

  Dunville rubbed his chin. “They might surface for the sister's funeral. But that could be days from now. In the meantime, they could strike anywhere.”

  Marek said nothing. He was staring at the monitors, his eyes searching shadows. The predator, thought Dunville, had become the hunted.

  “Speaking of funerals,” he asked, “what do you want done with Peter?”

  Marek blinked as if distracted. Then he seemed to recall that his adopted son, now useless to him, was still in the basement. He made a vague gesture with those bony fingers. You see to it, it said It was the sort of gesture made by a maître d' when he wishes a busboy to clean off a table.

  Dunville felt a welling of disgust. Some of it toward himself. He had not, in fairness, shown much more compassion for either of his own namesakes. The redeeming difference, he hoped, was that he was capable of knowing it. He had made his decision. A voice inside him said, “Good lad. It's about time.”

  He knew the voice. He had imagined conversations with it many times. It was that of the man whom he wished ... or fantasized ... to have been his real father.

  “I'm not so good. But you're right. It's time.”

  “Go to Hilton Head, Son. Take up golf. Golf is soothing to the soul.''

  “I'll see to the members first. And I'll try to protect you. You and most of the others.”

  “I know you will.''

  “But not this man. Not Marek.”

  “I can 't stand the son of a bitch either. What do you have in mind?”

  “How does one dial the KGB? Any idea?”

  ”I doubt they're in the phone book. Anyway, I'd say those ladies deserve first dibs, wouldn't you?”

  “I suppose I would. Thank you, Father.''

  “Take care, Son.”

  “What? Did you say something?” Marek hooked that finger behind his ear.

  ”Um . . . no.”

  “It sounded like take care.’ ”

  ”I said I'd take care of Peter.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “I'll take care of everything, Mr. Marek. You sit tight. Leave those women to me.”

  Marek snorted. “If you have an idea, I want to hear it.”

  “Never fear. I'll settle this by noon tomorrow.”

  “You can keep this from my door?”

  “Depend on it.”

  “If this touches me, Carleton, you'll see Harry Bunce one last time.”

  “Trust me, Mr. Marek.”

  Dunville watched from the flagstone terrace as Theodore Marek's taillights winked from sight. The Lexus, Harry Bunce driving, followed close behind.

  He could see a soapy puddle where the Lexus had stood. Bunce must have hosed it out and scrubbed it. Marek, he imagined, would probably have him abandon it somewhere and claim not to have seen it for days. Or Peter either.

  Poor Harry Bunce.

  He'll now pass the rest of the night listening to Theodore Marek's analysis of every word that was said, every nuance, every conceivable scenario up to and including a KGB plot to drag him before a war crimes tribunal.

  Just as well.

  Perhaps it will keep them both out of trouble.

  Carleton Dunville returned to his office and looked for the scrap of paper on which he'd noted the number of Miss DiDi Fenerty.

  33

  Lesko had two hours to kill.

  On his map, Queen of Angels Medical Center looked fairly close. He could swing by the waiting room. Leo Belkin might still be there. But a better idea, he decided, might be to keep an eye on the restaurant from which he'd made his call.

  Huff, he knew, could have had an address for that pay phone two minutes into their conversation. Lesko had no reason not to trust him. But someone, like Huff’s boss, might have been tempted to set up a surveillance. So Lesko watched and waited. He sat in a darkened Mazda dealership just down Sunset Boulevard.

  For an hour nothing happened. Traffic on Sunset was light. A car every five minutes or so. Then, suddenly, two cars pulled into the lot, two men in one, a couple in the other. The couple entered and took seats at the bar, heads together like love birds although they had not touched on their way in. One of the men entered two minutes later and sat at the far end. The other man never left the car.

  “That took too long,'' said Katz.

  Lesko understood. It should not have taken an hour. The cops, from the look of it, had already determined that he was not there. Probably called the manager. These four were probably waiting in case he came back to use the same phone.

  “They got a third car, you think?”

  “No.'' Katz pointed. ' “The guy who stayed outside. He 's their chase.''

  Lesko waited, to be sure. After thirty minutes, he started his engine.

  “Sit low. They're lookin’ for a moose.”

  Lesko, crouching, swung onto Sunset, then made his first right turn toward the Hollywood hills. He saw no lights behind him. He continued on for a while, then stopped to check his map. He was almost in Burbank.

  He had no special reason for going there. But he remembered that the reporter on Bannerman's TV said that Hickey, the slashing victim, lived there. Victory Boulevard. The camera had panned over a white apartment house that looked Mexican. It couldn't hurt to make a pass.

  Lesko found it with no trouble because two patrol cars were still parked outside and a crime scene was lit up and taped off. Also an unmarked van with its rear door open. A man wearing an FBI vest was reaching inside. Lesko, approaching, saw him pull out a towel. He cruised by. As he passed, he saw another man, in coveralls, lying on his back under the rear bumper of a parked car. The agent with the towel began wiping it off. He seemed in a hurry.

  Looked like a Chevy, thought Lesko. Must be Yuri Rykov's. The towel probably meant they had dusted it for prints and didn't want to leave powder all over it. The guy in the coveralls looked like he was rigging something. A bug? A tracking device? What for?

  Lesko checked his watch. It was time to look for another phone and it probably shouldn't be in Burbank. He followed a sign that said Hollywood and stopped outside an all-night supermarket. At three sharp, he punched out Andy Huff's number. Huff picked up on the second ring.

  “It's Lesko. What's the story?”

  “Ah ... we might have a deal. I have some questions first.”

  “‘Is this going to be a nice long chat, Detective?’'

  A brief silence. Then, “I'm just a cop, Lesko. You know what I mean?”

  Lesko understood. “Yeah. I know. Tell them three minutes. After this, I don't call again.”

  Another silence. Lesko heard whispers.

  “Why is Paul Bannerman here and whom else has he brought?” Huff asked. He actually said whom. That, and his tone, suggested that he was reading the question.

  ”I already told you.”

  “What is his interest in Sur La Mer?”

  ”I told you that, too.”

  More whispers.

  “As far as we know,” Huff was reading again, “Sur La Mer is a legitimate institution but we will check it out further. Do we have Bannerman’s word that he will take no action on his own?”

&nbs
p; “Tell him yes, Detective. As long as they're straight with him and they don't fuck with me.”

  Huff took a breath. “What is the KGB's interest in Sur La Mer?”

  Lesko frowned. “Tell them you have one minute, Andy. You want this Campus Killer or don't you?”

  “We ... I want him. I want him bad.”

  “Do we have a deal? Yes or no.”

  “The . . . Los Angeles Police Department will not interfere with Bannerman or any of his people before midnight Thursday if he will promise us an interview, his place or ours, within forty-eight hours of that time.”

  “He can put that in the bank?”

  “You have the word of the LAPD. You hear what I'm saying?”

  ”I hear you.” Fucking FBI. “You all understand that there are other shooters involved, right? And that we don't know who they are?”

  “We understand.”

  “So if I, or Bannerman, see anyone who looks funny, or we spot a tail, we're going to know these people must be them because you just gave me your word that they won't be LAPD, right?”

  “Um . . . you got it, Lesko.”

  Lesko heard a smile.

  “I'll be in touch,” he said. He replaced the phone.

  Sumner Dommerich was getting upset.

  All he could think of, driving back from Santa Barbara, was how glad Carla would be that he had followed those men. And now he couldn't find her.

  He had left the Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset Boulevard and stopped at the first bar that he knew to have a phone booth with a door on it. It was in Westwood, a beer and burger hangout for UCLA students. He would go there sometimes when he began to get those feelings. Almost always, he knew, he would see at least one girl there who was snooty and stuck-up and blond but he didn't care about that now. All he cared about was that phone.

  He dialed the number of the Beverly Hills Hotel. But the man said there was no answer from Bungalow 6.

  There was no use going home. He would only have to go out again to use a public phone that wasn't too close. Dommerich found a place at the bar where he ordered some potato skins and a glass of milk. He would try again in an hour.

  There was no answer the second time either. But by then he had heard the kids at the bar talking about him. And what he'd done to Hickey. He asked them about it. They said it was on TV.

  They said it was different this time because the victim was a guy and because there was also this big shoot-out but the police weren't saying much about it. One of the TV reporters, though, said that the dead man had been seen that morning near the apartment of the serial killer's seventh victim and so they began wondering if this man, Hickey, was actually the Campus Killer himself. Maybe the friends of one of his victims, or even the mob or somebody, tracked him down before the cops could.

  The bartender said he heard that they blasted their way in but Hickey also had a gun and he hit a couple of them before they got him and carved him up.

  Dommerich tried not to smile. “That's what I would have done,” he said.

  He was instantly sorry because he saw the way some of them looked at him. A big guy in a Grateful Dead shirt said. “Yeah. Right.” A blond girl, half-stoned, put her chin on this guy's shoulder and giggled into his ear. He looked at Dommerich and smiled. A mean smile. He said, “You got milk on your upper lip there, killer.”

  Dommerich picked up his napkin. He pressed it, hard, against his mouth as he glared at these two. He would remember both of them.

  He left his stool to try Carla again. She was still not in. This time he left a message that Claude called and it's important. He broke the connection, then slapped his forehead. I know, he thought. She's probably at her father's house. He remembered George Benedict, Sherman Oaks, from the newspapers. He called information, then tapped out the number.

  Carla wasn't there either. Her father was still up. He sounded funny. He asked Dommerich if he was one of her friends from ... it sounded like Westport.

  Dommerich said, “No, just from here. Mostly I knew Lisa. I'm really sorry.”

  George Benedict mumbled a thank you. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Your name again?”

  “Claude.”

  “How recently have you seen Carla?”

  ”A few hours ago.” Sort of.

  “What time, exactly?”

  “About ten, I guess.” Dommerich did not know why he lied. Except sometimes it's a good idea when people try to pin you down.

  “She was okay then? She wasn't hurt?”

  “She was fine.”

  Dommerich heard a long sigh. It sounded like relief. “Claude,” he lowered his voice even further. “If you find her, tell her she'd better not come here. Or not to use the front door if she does.”

  “I'll tell her.”

  “Tell her ... that I'll help her. Any way I can.”

  “So will I. Don't worry.”

  But now Dommerich was worried. If he'd seen Carla at ten, which he hadn't, that would have been long after she went to Hickey's apartment. If her father was relieved that she was still okay then, he must have been afraid that something happened to her earlier. Or that something might.

  It occurred to him, for the first time, that maybe they thought she did Hickey. Maybe the men with guns were looking for her too. Maybe they already found her and that's why he couldn't. Dommerich, his face flushed, hurried from the bar without stopping for his change.

  Near the long-term parking lot of the Santa Monica Municipal Airport, Theodore Marek waited with his bodyguard, Felix, as Harry Bunce disposed of the Lexus. Or rather, parked it, first wiping it carefully.

  Peter was in Mexico. With some woman. Felix had suggested the story. He'd been gone for a week. Felix would provide witnesses who had seen him there. That, if the question were asked, would be all that Marek knew.

  That would be enough for the police if they inquired. That and a well-placed phone call if they persisted. But would it be enough for this Carla Benedict? To say nothing of the KGB.

  He almost wished that Harry had disappeared as well. The Russian had seen his face. He might possibly identify him. A disappearance would be no more than Harry deserved. The guy who killed Peter is dead. Mr. Marek. Trust me. He took three hollow points.

  Trust me indeed.

  Except that he might need Harry.

  And now, Marek brooded, I am also to trust young Carleton. Who has already cost me a useful son. Who is entirely unrepentant of it.

  And who, come to think of it, seemed entirely too sure of himself. Almost smug. But on what basis? He had as much to fear as anyone. Sooner or later, Joseph Hickey would be traced to his doorstep. By trained assassins, no less, who were possibly in league with those two who ran off. What protection could Dunville have? Clearly, he had a course of action in mind. I'll settle this by noon tomorrow. Did he have something to offer in trade? The address of Harry Bunce? A dossier or two? The former Tadeusz Ordynsky in payment for the Russian?

  Marek felt a chill.

  Wouldn't the KGB love that, he thought. Wouldn't they love strapping him to a chair, electrodes on his testicles, taking their time as they asked for the location of every piece of art that the Nazis had looted during the final days of the siege of Leningrad, nearly all of which he had cataloged and dispersed, some of which remained buried near Pushkin, along with the Russian prisoners who dug the caves, and even the two SS sergeants who had executed them.

  Wouldn't they love a stroll through his house, seeing, on the walls of his library, the splendid amber panels that had once graced the summer palace of Catherine the Great. And then a look at his vault.

  No, he decided. Not possible.

  Dunville knew nothing of these. No one who had seen those panels had the slightest idea where they'd come from and no one at all had seen his vault. And Dunville would not want him taken alive and questioned.

  Much more likely, Dunville would try giving him to that Benedict woman and her friends. Marek fingered the piece of notepaper on which he'd writ
ten all that he'd learned about her. A dangerous woman. Made all the more dangerous, and possibly unstable, by her grief. In his mind, Marek now recalled how Dunville's expression had brightened when he realized that those women might well have seen Peter's car and might, by now, have the Marek address. He might even give it to them. Yes. That's exactly what he might do. Dunville had even made a point of telling him to go home and stay there.

  The thought infuriated Marek. Here he was, totally innocent of any involvement in the death of this Carla Benedict's sister and he was to be offered in recompense. Or as a distraction. Hoping that the Benedict woman would not bother to question him, or to take him alive. Hoping that she would be content to kill him and go home.

  “Mr. Marek? We're all set.”

  Harry Bunce had returned. Marek had barely noticed that his car door had opened and closed. Only that the interior light had flashed on the sheet of paper he'd been staring at in the darkness. He told the Mexican to proceed, then reached for the lamp at his left shoulder.

  He read the names. Benedict, Farrell, Bannerman.

  WASP names, basically.

  The odd thing about such names, it struck him, is that they always seem distinctly nonmenacing. More like a student roster at an eastern prep school. And the nickname, code name, whatever, of this Paul Bannerman hardly could have been chosen for its intimidation value. What had his source said? Oh, yes. Bannerman’s mother had been an agent of note before him. Hence, Bannerman’s code name had been Mama's Boy. Still . . .

  Marek's eye worked back to Molly Farrelí's name. It suggested little to him. Not as WASP as the others. A Molly Farrell could be anything from a washerwoman to a socialite. Carla Benedict could be almost anyone as well were it not for the notation—likes to work with a knife.

  There was a line drawn from her name to another notation below. Marek followed it. Ah, yes. The father. George Benedict. Sherman Oaks.

  Marek looked at his watch.

  The FBI, he knew, had been there looking for the daughter. He wondered, aloud, if they might still be watching the house.