THE VIRON CONSPIRACY (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS #4)

by Lawrence de Maria

  “Saw them come in, boss,” Bobo said. “Looked like trouble.”

  “They wish,” Mack said. “But don’t hurt them. Port Richmond has a pretty good season going.”

  He helped the black kid to his feet.

  “You’ll be OK. Bar fights ain’t football, kid. Never start one with someone like me. You might have noticed that my friend over there never even made a move to help me. He knew I didn’t need any.”

  “Who are you, man?”

  The kid was still bent over slightly.

  “Name is Dudley Mack.”

  One of the kids whose feet were still dangling in the air, said, “Oh, shit.”

  “Put them down, Bobo.”

  By the time they left, they were calling Dudley “Mr. Mack” and apologizing profusely for their behavior.

  Mack turned to Scarne.

  “It might have been nice if you did show some sign of support.”

  “I knew you could handle it, Duds. Besides, I saw Bobo come in the door. I’m surprised those guys didn’t notice him. He was blocking the light from outside. At first I thought it was a solar eclipse.”

  Pete the bartender walked over.

  “Thanks, Mr. Mack.”

  “Sure. Tomorrow when you come to work, I want you wear some decent clothes that fit. Good slacks, collared shirt and a dark vest. I don’t want to see your belly. You might want to try the salad bar occasionally. And get a shave and a haircut.” Mack pulled out a wad of cash and peeled off some hundred dollar bills. “This should get you started. You might mention to the other bartenders that there is a new sheriff in town.”

  “You mean, I’m staying?”

  “Yeah. I want to keep your loyal clientele.”

  Pete looked confused.

  “As long as you give me an honest day’s work,” Mack said, “you’ll have a job.” He looked hard at the man. “But this isn’t going to be a ‘tips and clips’ joint any more. My bartenders don’t clip the receipts. They don’t have to. People my places attract tend to be big tippers. Get me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cleaning service and some contractors will be in and out next week. New shipment of liquors will be arriving right after they leave. Some wine, too. Start phasing out the swill and ditch the old bottles and the funnels in the basement. I’ll stock some low-end booze, but it won’t make anyone go blind. I hope the regulars don’t go into withdrawal, but we’ll have to chance it. Give the pigs feet and eggs to the Pentagon. They can use them against Iran. I’ll redo the kitchen so we can serve some burgers and sandwiches. Did you clean the bathrooms like I told you? Last time I took a whiz, there were Lucky Strike Greens in the urinals.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “OK. Get back to work.”

  After Pete walked away, Scarne said, “Loyal clientele?”

  “Made him feel good.”

  “Nice that you’re keeping him on.”

  “Tough job market for guys like him.”

  “About those high school kids, Duds. I seem to remember we drank underage for many years.”

  “But we were always polite.”

  “The first time we met in a bar, up in Providence, where I was working, you punched me in the face.”

  “You were an asshole. Come on. Let’s go eat. It’s striped bass season.”

  ***

  Four hours later, Dudley Mack and Bobo Sambuca stood on the dock and watched Scarne’s high-speed catamaran growl away from the Seastreak pier, located a few miles from Bahr’s Landing.

  “What do you think, Boss?”

  “I hope Jake doesn’t get his tit in a wringer. Again. She’s bad news.”

  “I thought you introduced them.”

  “I didn’t do him any favors.”

  “If you didn’t like her, why’d you do it?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like her. She’s a fabulous broad. One of the best-looking women I’ve ever seen. If I wasn’t bopping her best friend at the time, I would have tried to give her a shot myself. Jake fell hard. I really thought they were going to get married.”

  “What happened?”

  “She took off. Always was a bit flighty. It’s hard to explain. Kate was one of those people that you want to be around. And they can make you feel like you’re the only important person in the world. When she turned those baby blues on you it was the ball game. But she could turn off the charm in a fucking instant. Withdraw. Do something crazy. But then just when you were fed up, she’d revert to her old self. Hell, if it was her old self. Maybe the crazy part was the real Kate.”

  “Probably the result of a troubled childhood. Lack of nurturing.”

  Mack looked at his bodyguard.

  “Who are you? Dr. Phil? Stay away from daytime TV. It’ll dry out your brain.”

  They started walking to the limo.

  “Jake was a goner,” Mack said. “He always had a weak spot for troubled women, or women in trouble.”

  “Well, I hope he can keep this one alive, boss. He doesn’t always.”

  “Yeah.”

  CHAPTER 7 - KATE AND JAKE

  The sleek Seastreak catamaran was capable of doing almost 40 knots, although at night it was kept at less than full throttle, for obvious reasons. It would reach downtown Manhattan in about an hour. A large-screen television in one of the lounges had attracted most of the 30 or so passengers to a baseball game. Boston versus the Yankees. Ordinarily, Scarne would have been interested. Instead he went to the full bar in the main cabin and ordered a double brandy, which he took back to the rear of the boat, which was deserted. He sat in one of the plush leather seats and stared out at the water.

  ***

  It had been Dudley’s idea to double date.

  “For God’s sake, Duds, what are we, 16? Who the hell goes on a double date? Just give me the girl’s number and I’ll call her up.”

  Both men weren’t that long out of the service. Scarne was just moving up the ladder in the New York Police Department while his friend was consolidating the semi-criminal empire that would become his life’s work. Scarne had quickly learned that there were good criminals and bad criminals. He knew that Dudley, despite a penchant for occasional over-the-top violence, was a good crook. In addition to a to-the-death loyalty he knew went both ways, Scarne also realized that a good crook could prove invaluable to a cop who often had to work both sides of the street.

  But Dudley Mack’s taste in women was suspect. At Providence College, where he and Scarne met and bonded after initially trying to beat each other’s brains out, Mack was known as “Go ugly early Dudley” for his tactic of always targeting the least attractive girls in bars or college parties.

  “They all look the same by the end of the night,” he’d explained. “Why waste your dough all night trying to sweet talk some snooty Newport babe when the ugly ones are so grateful for the attention you’re almost certain of getting laid or a blow job hours earlier. Then you have the whole rest of the night free.”

  Jake, who tended to romanticize woman, was appalled, but couldn’t argue the logic.

  Of course, as the years past, Dudley’s choice of women improved markedly. His growing reputation as a dangerous rogue attracted a surprisingly sophisticated series of lovers. The woman he was now dating, Chevelle Riggs, was an African-American beauty who wrote about style for the Wall Street Journal.

  “Come on, Jake. It’s not really a double date. I’m renting a house down on Long Beach Island for the summer and I’m taking Chevelle there this weekend. I told her she could invite a friend. They went to Bryn Mawr together. Girl’s one of those Philadelphia Main Line types that you prefer. You know, the ones you put on a pedestal.”

  Not wanting to be locked into a weekend, Scarne reluctantly agreed to drive down to the New Jersey barrier island near Atlantic City on Saturday for dinner.

  ***

  “I’m going to build a house here someday, Cochise.”

  They were sitting on the front deck of Dudley’s rental, drinking gi
n and tonics and watching the sun go down over the Atlantic. The house was nestled close to the dunes in a quiet section of Harvey Cedars.

  “It’s certainly very nice, Duds.”

  Scarne had arrived shortly before 7 P.M. to find Mack alone on the deck, drinking and smoking. Chevelle and her friend were out.

  “Shopping,” Dudley explained. “Women are very patriotic.”

  The men exchanged smiles. It was an inside joke. Both had been contemptuous of the Government’s exhortation that that best way Americans could respond to the 9/11 terrorist attacks was to go out and shop. Scarne and Mack thought they knew a better way. They enlisted. When they met after their respective discharges, they had compared wounds. It was Mack who said, “Maybe we should have gone shopping.”

  They heard a car pull into the gravel driveway and a moment later the two women walked out onto the deck. Both men rose and Scarne and Chevelle hugged.

  “Oh, it’s great to see you, Jake. I’d like you to meet my friend, Kate. I’ve told her all about you. And she didn’t run for the hills.”

  Scarne liked Chevelle, who was as much Bronx as Bryn Mawr.

  The woman standing confidently behind Chevelle looked amused. She was tall and athletic-looking, with a triangular face, slightly pointed chin, wide mouth and almond curved blue-green eyes that gave her a slightly feline look. Dark-haired and light-skinned with just a touch of that day’s sun, she was, in a word, stunning. She put out her hand.

  “I’m Kate Ellenson.”

  “Jake Scarne.”

  Chevelle looked at Dudley and winked.

  ***

  “Why do you call him Cochise?”

  The four of them were sitting at the bar waiting for a table at Kubel’s, a tavern a few blocks from the Barnegat Lighthouse on the northern tip of Long Beach Island.

  “Indian blood flows through Jake’s veins, Kate. Cheyenne.”

  “The term is Native-American,” Chevelle said.

  “Whatever. I used to go out to visit Jake in Montana. He taught me how to scalp.”

  “Please shut up, Dudley,” Scarne said.

  “How much Cheyenne are you,” Kate asked.

  “My grandmother, on my mother’s side.”

  “The rest of him is Sicilian,” Dudley said. “Not only can he scalp, but he’s a hell of a cook.”

  The men were drinking Absolute on the rocks. The women ordered Cosmos, which proved less of a challenge for Kubel’s bartenders than Scarne would have thought, given the restaurant’s pedigree. It was a rough-and tumble shore joint that some said had been the model for the tavern in the movie The Perfect Storm. But the seafood was the best on the island and the dining room was always crowded.

  “How does a Sicilian wind up with Cheyenne blood,” Kate asked.

  The force of her interest was palpable.

  “I’ve heard this wigwam story before,” Mack said. “Come on, Chevy, let’s play a video game. Order another round, Jake.”

  Scarne signaled the waiter and then turned back to Kate.

  “First of all, I was born in Montana. My grandfather, my father’s father, was an Italian naval officer who was a prisoner of war in Montana after his submarine was sunk in the Mediterranean during World War II. The prisoners often worked on local farms in return for fresh produce for their camp and he met my grandmother on her family’s farm. After the war he came back to the United States and they married. When my parents died, my grandparents raised me.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Six. It was a plane crash. I survived. They didn’t.”

  “How awful.”

  “I barely remember it.” Except in the occasional nightmare, Scarne thought. “After my grandmother died, my grandfather raised me alone. He had become a respected judge. I lacked for nothing. I actually had an ideal childhood, all things considered. Spent a lot of time outdoors. My grandfather believed in letting a boy find himself.”

  “But you went to college in the East.”

  Scarne smiled.

  “There’s a lot of room in Montana to find oneself. In fact, I got lost a couple of times doing it. He thought I might have been overdoing the ‘going native’ part, so he arranged a change of scenery that probably kept me out of the hoosegow. He wanted me to have a good Catholic education and had relatives in Providence he believed could keep an eye on me. Didn’t quite work out the way he envisioned. He didn’t know they were, how shall I put it, connected.”

  “Mafia?”

  “On the fringe. Wonderful people. Taught me a lot about the world. Dudley loved them.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “He liked my Montana crowd, too. He absorbed the best, or maybe it’s the worst, of both cultures. I guess I did, as well. But it’s worked out.”

  “Cops and robbers.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My father used to say that there was usually very little difference below the surface.”

  “Sounds like a very Philadelphia thing to say.”

  “I hope you’re not offended.”

  “Do I look offended?”

  She drank some of the new Cosmo that the bartender had placed down.

  “How did you wind up in New York?”

  “My grandfather died when I was in the service. There was really nothing left for me in Montana.”

  Scarne finished his drink.

  “Now, you’ve somehow managed to get me to spill my guts. It’s your turn.”

  “I’m afraid my story isn’t as exotic as yours,” Kate said. “I’m an only child and was spoiled rotten. My family has money, but not as much as I want someday. I was reluctant to come this weekend because I knew Chevy would try to set me up with someone.” She paused. “But now I’m glad I came. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  ***

  After dinner they all walked over to the lighthouse. Jake and Kate sat on the bulkhead near some fishermen while Mack and Chevelle went for a walk on the beach. It was getting cool and Scarne draped his jacket over Kate’s shoulders.

  “I’m going back to Philadelphia tomorrow,” Kate said.

  “I’m leaving, too.”

  “It will be awkward back at the house,” she said. “I like you too much to sleep with you tonight.”

  Scarne smiled.

  “Give me back my jacket.”

  She laughed.

  “You know what I mean, don’t you. I suspect we will be lovers soon. But sleeping together on our first night would be, I don’t know, inappropriate. We wouldn’t be getting off on the right foot.”

  Scarne didn’t bother asking how she was so sure of him. Women know.

  “Will you be disappointed?”

  “There is no safe answer to that question, Kate.”

  ***

  The next day, after Jake and Kate had both departed, Mack and Chevelle sat on the porch drinking coffee.

  “Well, you tried,” Mack said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess they didn’t hit it off. They slept in separate bedrooms.”

  “That’s because they’re already half in love with each other.”

  Mack looked at her.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “You dumb Mick. You don’t know anything. Just because people fuck doesn’t mean they love each other. Look at us.”

  “Hey!”

  “Hey, your ass. We like each other, Duds. We’re good in bed. We have a lot of fun outside the rack, too. But we’re not in love. Did you see the way those two looked at each other? They didn’t want to ruin it by sleeping together on their first date.”

  “We screwed the first time we met.”

  “I rest my case.”

  ***

  Scarne called her the next week and went to Philadelphia. They first made love in Kate’s Rittenhouse Square apartment. She was a bold, adventurous lover. At first, the 90-mile difference in their lifestyles suited them, giving them just enough space and time to keep their relationship at a delicious arm’s length
. The sexual tensions they released after being apart for a week or two led to sublime lovemaking. The fact that they weren’t always together also served to hide their individual traits and shortcomings from each other. In Scarne’s case, his obsessive work ethic. In Kate’s, her emotional volatility. After a year, when Kate moved to New York to take a job in advertising, things changed. Not immediately, since they were still deeply in love. But she took her own apartment, not wanting to move in with Scarne. And they had their first real fights. He worked too hard at a job she thought was beneath him. She didn’t want to discuss the future. They broke up. And made up. The makeup sex was always thrilling, but Scarne wanted more. He proposed. She turned him down. He drank too much. His friends despaired. But she came back to him and agreed to marry. They picked a church.

  Then she ran away, out West somewhere. He probably would have fallen to pieces but he had just made detective and was closing in on a child killer and was able to subsume his own problems. That, and the constant ministrations of Dudley Mack, who felt responsible for what happened with Kate, got Scarne through it.

  But he was a changed man.

  ***

  Scarne heard the rumble of the reverse engines and felt the slow deceleration of the catamaran. He stood and realized he was slightly drunk. He always knew he would see Kate again, but not like this. He walked off the ferry and hailed a cab.

  CHAPTER 8 - POOR INDIA

  Dr. Satyavrata Venkataraman lit a cigarette, his 20th of the day, and sat wearily on the wooden box outside one of the medical tents on the outskirts of Thakkar, a village near India’s border with Bangladesh. The other doctors in his team had dubbed it “Venka’s smoking box.”

  Despite his fatigue after a 16-hour day, the 36-year-old physician still cut an attractive figure. The nurses in his home hospital called him Dr. Bollywood because he had the rakish handsomeness of a movie star. Tall and thin, with a small mustache and bedroom eyes, he was catnip to females, especially since he was as yet unmarried.