Bannerman's Law

by John R. Maxim

  He placed a hand on her back, rubbing it, not patting. With his other hand he took the cup and set it down. He embraced her. She did not respond. She kept her arms between them. Now she pressed, pushing him away. She picked up her cup.

  ”I love you, Susan,” he said.

  A short exhaling of breath. Almost a laugh. “More than ever?” she asked.

  “As much as ever. This makes no difference.”

  “It does to me.”

  ”I know that.”

  “It's nice to be a member of the club, though. You won't have to explain me anymore.”

  Bannerman chewed his lip. “Susan . . . would you rather talk to your father? Or Elena? They're right outside.”

  She shook her head. The suggestion seemed to anger her.

  But he was hearing a low-level hysteria. He'd never had to deal with it before. He thought of suggesting a policewoman. Or a police psychiatrist. He knew that there must be someone in the building who was trained in counseling officers who'd been in shootings.

  “Bannerman . . . that's not what she needs.”

  ”I know a place,” he said. “Lake Arrowhead. We could rent a cabin. Just the two of us.” Oh. Except the funeral is tomorrow.

  “I'm not going anywhere. I killed someone, damn it.”

  “Well,” he touched her hair. “The fact is you didn't. You punched a hole in him. It was Carla who let him bleed to death.”

  She hugged herself. “We both did. Me just as much.”

  “Okay. Why?”

  ”I don't know.”

  “Because you hated him? To get even for all his victims?’'

  She shook her head.

  “What's left is kindness, Susan. Even the police realize that.”

  Susan waved a hand. Not a dismissal, exactly. A change of subject.

  “Paul, I would have shot Carla, too.” she said. “She was going to let him go. She was ready to knife me if I tried to stop her.”

  Bannerman hadn't heard that part. Carla might have cut her, he supposed, but not dangerously. And Carla certainly would not have let him go. She would have taken him someplace, put him at ease, thought it over, and then ended it. Susan, however, did not need to hear that she shot that kid for nothing.

  “Where did you hit him, by the way?”

  The question surprised her. But she touched herself to show him.

  He nodded inwardly. Just below the belt. He knew that Susan tended to pull up and to the right. She had probably aimed for his thigh.

  He understood that she would need time. The worst wounds are self-inflicted. Susan, learning to shoot, must have wondered what it would be like to kill. And whether she could do it. She had probably imagined a number of scenarios, most involving self-defense. She might even have imagined tracking down and executing someone who had harmed a friend. Himself, most likely.

  But the opponents she envisioned would have been mean and dangerous, probably lunging for a weapon as she fired. She would not have envisioned a sick, pathetic creature such as Sumner Dommerich.

  “Paul?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you please just shut up?”

  He blinked.

  “Could you please just hold me?”

  “Colonel Belkin?”

  “Yes.” He knew the voice.

  “The Marek house seems to have been abandoned.”

  “No FBI?”

  “They withdrew one hour ago. Then a man comes by taxi. He is dressed as a security guard. Ten minutes later, the man in uniform leaves and so do five other men. They are carrying suitcases, boxes, even paintings.”

  Belkin raised an eyebrow. He pinched his nose thoughtfully.

  ”I am putting you on hold,” he said.

  He asked information for the number of Sur La Mer in Santa Barbara. He dialed that number. Six rings. Eight. There was no answer. He punched the “hold” button.

  “Move in,” he said. “Secure the house. Search it thoroughly. I will send two more men with tools.”

  “What are you looking for, Colonel?”

  “Anything that reminds you of home, Lieutenant.”

  Lesko reached for the knob of Huff’s office door. Elena slapped his hand. She told him to knock.

  Bannerman answered. He saw Lesko, the anger gone, replaced by a look of discomfort.

  “You two must talk,” Elena said. ”I will stay with Susan.” She took Bannerman by the arm and eased him into the squad room. She stepped past and closed the door behind her.

  “Two things,” Lesko said, avoiding his eyes. “First, I don't blame you for putting Susan in that position. I had a hunch about that pizza kid. I even knew what he looked like. I didn't follow up.”

  Bannerman squinted. “How could you . . .”

  “He was at the hospital. I'll tell you later. The thing is I tried to make a deal with Clew to get Susan off the hook.”

  “What did you give him?”

  “I'd have given him you, maybe Belkin's place in Culver City, myself for the guy in the parking lot, and a dirty fed.”

  “But you didn't.”

  He shrugged. “Susan wouldn't go along. She won't let Carla take a fall by herself. Anyway, I could see Clew didn't give a shit.”

  “Did he tell you what he wants?”

  “He wants us by the balls, Bannerman. And that's what he's got.”

  “Detective Huff?”

  “Yeah, speaking.”

  “This is Molly Farrell.”

  “Are you coming in, Miss Farrell? There's a warrant out.”

  “I'm twenty minutes away. But I need to speak to Paul Bannerman.”

  “You'll still come in? No matter what?”

  “No matter what.”

  “Hold on a second.”

  Roger Clew sat making two lists.

  The first was a set of conditions. Or terms. Whatever. They were the promises he intended to extract from Bannerman.

  Foremost among them was that Bannerman fully explain his intentions regarding Sur La Mer, and then promise to abandon them. The next was that he and all his people move out of Westport. Return to Europe. Go back to work. The alternative was criminal prosecution of Carla, Susan Lesko, Molly Farrell, Bannerman himself under the NICO statute if nothing else, and possibly Lesko if a drug dealer named Chulo is able to pick him out of a lineup. Also the indefinite detainment of Leo Belkin, Yuri Rykov, and Elena Brugg.

  The second list was more of a timetable. It defied belief but there it was. Bannerman had been in California for less than a day. In that time he managed to join forces with the KGB, hook up with Axel Streicher, have at least five known thugs killed or crippled, and still have the leisure to track down and dispatch a serial killer who'd been hunted for almost two years by a force of two hundred men. Using Susan as a decoy. Susan, Clew would let off the hook.

  Good that they all kept busy. Another twelve hours at this rate and Sur La Mer might be a pile of rocks.

  He would rather not have it this way, getting Mama's Boy back into the fold. But the opportunity, once presented, could not be passed up. Above all, whatever Ban-nerman had learned about Sur La Mer, whatever his intention, he had to be stopped. Too much harm could be done, valuable assets lost. Or subverted through blackmail.

  The phone rang. The receptionist. May she bring Mr. Bannerman and Mr. Lesko in?

  Lesko?

  Why not?

  We'll put him to work as well. And throw in the Bruggs of Zurich.

  “Colonel Belkin?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “Do you did you know what is here at the Marek house?”

  ”I suspected.”

  “We will need a truck. A big one. Also packing materials, padding. Also we should have a restoration expert so that we can remove the panels without damage.”

  “The panels?”

  “They are solid amber. He has a book of photographs here, all about Catherine's Palace in Pushkin as it was before the war. The panels are the same as those in the book.”

&
nbsp; “Ah, yes.” My God.

  “Who is this Marek, Colonel?”

  “We are wasting time, Lieutenant.”

  “Of course, yes.”

  ”I will send the truck. Do your best without the expert.”

  “Colonel Belkin?”

  “Yes?”

  “They will name streets after you for this.”

  Bannerman was cool. Clew had to admire it.

  He had laid out his conditions. And the alternatives. Bannerman never batted an eye although twice he had to restrain himself from reaching over the table.

  “Well?” Clew sat back. He looked at his watch. “Do you need time to think it over?”

  Bannerman shook his head. “But you might, Roger.”

  Crew smiled. “Tell me why.”

  “Marek's dead, for openers.”

  Clew looked at him blankly. “You mean the man whose wall Carla caved in? That Marek?”

  Bannerman nodded.

  “So what?” The name meant nothing to him.

  Bannerman shrugged. “Okay. Let's try the Dunvilles.”

  Clew kept his expression bland. “What about them?”

  “They're dead, too. You'll find two of them at Sur La Mer. You won't find the third.”

  A long silence. “You hit them?”

  Bannerman shook his head. “I'm just here for a funeral, Roger.”

  Clew stood up, pacing. He kicked a chair. “You just killed yourself, Bannerman. Nobody will help you now.”

  “Roger, I have the files.”

  Clew stared. “What files?”

  “All of them. Over two hundred. Going back to 1932.”

  Clew blinked rapidly. “Two hundred what? People?”

  “Over two hundred.”

  ”I don't believe you.”

  “Molly's on her way over with a sample. Could we get some coffee in the meantime?”

  Clew hesitated, then buzzed the receptionist, largely to give himself time to think. He ordered a pot and three cups.

  “What do you want for them?” he asked.

  “They're not for sale.”

  “Okay, you're going to make me ask. What do you want not to use those files? That's assuming they exist.”

  “Not much. Tear up your list. Clean up this mess. Leave us alone.”

  “Or else what?”

  ”I use them, Roger.”

  “Bannerman . . .” Lesko opened the taps of all three wash basins in the lavatory. “What the hell was all that?”

  Bannerman weighed the wisdom of telling him. But Lesko had a right. His neck was out as far as anyone's. ‘“I should have briefed you. Thanks for going with it.”

  “Going with what? What files?”

  Bannerman shushed him. ”I have no idea. But Roger sure does.”

  “How did you know Marek is dead?”

  “Streicher told Molly. He didn't elaborate.”

  “You got no files?”

  “Just a sample.”

  “And that's enough to make Clew roll over?”

  “It looks that way.”

  Lesko splashed water onto his face. “All that other stuff he thinks you did? You didn't do shit.”

  “Should we go back and tell him that?”

  “No, but it's the principle. This whole thing, you hardly ever got off your ass except to make phone calls and now there's Clew thinking you're this fucking mastermind.”

  Bannerman winced at the language.

  “You know who did more than you? That DiDi Fenerty did more than you.”

  Bannerman’s eyes became hooded. ”I still have time to go beat up on Roger. Would that make you happy?”

  “It would be a start.”

  “Have you done everything people think you've done?”

  “No, but…”

  “But you use it. So do I. Count your blessings, Lesko.”

  Bannerman heard a knock at the lavatory door.

  “Mr. Bannerman?”

  The receptionist. “Yes?”

  “There's a Miss Farrell to see you.”

  “Be right out. Thank you.”

  “Sir, there's also a call from a Leo Belkin. He's holding.”

  56

  The sample file Molly brought was a before and after on Theodore Marek, née Tadeusz Ordynsky. Bannerman had it in hand when he took Belkin's call.

  The call from an enraptured Leo Belkin was to tell him that the use of the safe house, now apparently not needed, had been repayed a thousandfold.

  It was also to ask how Bannerman knew about the contents of Marek's vault, and about the panels. How, for that matter, had he known that Sur La Mer had been abandoned and that the men at Marek' s house would flee as well.

  Bannerman listened through several minutes of gushing before it became clear that Belkin was talking about stolen Russian art. He didn't know what he meant by panels and he didn't ask.

  In fact, he'd had no idea that there even was a vault. There was only the chance, based on Anton Zivic's briefing, that Marek had perhaps kept an icon or two for himself. Apparently, he'd kept a great deal of it. Bannerman read to Belkin from the file. Belkin was dumbstruck.

  “ How is Yuri, by the way?”

  “Out of danger, Paul. I can't wait to tell him. This is so...”

  “Actually, it was sort of his idea.”

  ”I beg your pardon?”

  “He probably won't remember, with the head injury and all, but somehow be found out that Marek was Ordynsky. Carla told me. I did some checking with Anton.”

  “Yuri, you say.”

  ”Yup.”

  ”I am to believe this? Even if Yuri denies it?”

  “As I said ... the head injury . . .”

  “Quite so.”

  “I would think there might be a commendation in it for him.”

  “At the very least. Paul? Thank you.”

  The next phone call, actually to Lesko, was from Irwin Kaplan, whom Bannerman liked and trusted, but who didn't like him very much.

  Irwin knew nothing whatever about Sur La Mer nor did he wish to. The real purpose of his call was to ask whether Bannerman would take a call from Barton Fuller, Clew's boss, and, if so, would Bannerman level with him?

  This indirect approach did not seem to promise much in the way of leveling but Bannerman said he would talk to Fuller, whom he generally respected and trusted within limits. They talked for more than an hour.

  The problem with leveling was Fuller's opening premise. Fuller assumed that Bannerman had mounted a long-planned, brilliantly coordinated assault on Sur La Mer with the intention of tracking down and/or compromising certain of the Sur La Mer alumni. Bannerman chose not to correct him but he gave Fuller two assurances.

  The first was that the KGB had not had, nor would it ever have, access to the files. The second was that he, Bannerman, would not use them unless provoked.

  “You say there are hundreds of those files, Paul?”

  “Over two hundred. Since 1932.”

  “What sort of people? I mean, would I know the names? Are they in sensitive positions?”

  “All sorts, Mr. Fuller. And, yes, I imagine you'd know some of the names.”

  It certainly wasn't a lie. It wasn't leveling either but it was the best Bannerman could do in his near total ignorance of the contents of those files.

  The most intriguing revelations from Fuller, which explained a great deal, were these. Certain people in government had become aware only five years ago, not fifty or sixty, that one individual had been completely made over at a place called Sur La Mer. Fuller didn't ask how they found that out. Possibly, an FBI background check blundered into it. Perhaps someone made a deathbed confession. Whatever.

  But this one individual named several more alumni. They, in turn, were quietly investigated and some were confronted. They named others. Fuller acknowledged that there might have been a dozen in all. Not two hundred.

  Certain of these had since had children and even grandchildren who were, themselves, blameless, and who had m
ade lives of their own. One turned out to be a congressman.

  It was decided that to expose these people would do more harm than good. The investigation was quashed but the alumni were monitored forevermore.

  Bannerman asked why the government did not simply close Sur La Mer down.

  “That would have broadened the investigation. Arrests would mean trials, publicity, scandal. It could not have been done quietly.”

  “On the contrary, I think it just has.”

  “We operate under certain constraints, Paul, which do not burden you. We would not, for example, have wiped out the Dunville family.”

  “So you protected them instead.”

  ”I wouldn't say that . . . exactly.”

  Bannerman smiled. “You used them, didn't you, Mr. Fuller. You put people of your own through Sur La Mer.”

  “You're playing with fire, Paul.”

  ”I thought we were leveling.”

  “If we did put people through, they would have been people to whom this country owed a debt. You would not have disapproved. And we would have been assured that no records had been kept by the damned Dunvilles.”

  And that was that.

  There was one more plea, of course, that Bannerman surrender the files. He declined with regrets. And repeated assurances. If left alone.

  The remaining problem was Streicher.

  If Streicher decided to compromise any of the people Fuller knew about, Fuller would conclude that Paul Bannerman had broken his word. On the other hand, Streicher had as much as promised Molly that he would protect the innocent. He had even predicted, unlikely as it sounded at the time, that protection of the innocent might be in Roger's interest as well.

  Still, Bannerman would have to try to find him.

  Later.

  Right now, his first concern was Susan. And then Carla.

  “Lesko?”

  Katz. Dumb shit. ”Don 't talk to me.''

  “What do you mean?”

  “That pizza kid. Dommerich. I knew he was the one and you talked me out of it.''

  “All you had was this paranoid hunch. I gave you logic. Anyway, since when do you listen to me?”

  “Yeah, well, if you kept your mouth shut I would have stayed there with Susan. I would have recognized him when he showed up with the pizza.''