“Tommy Wing would be hard to mistake for anyone else,” Chant said in a low, flat voice.
“That’s for sure. Anyway, he’s damn well never come in here, even though he’d be eligible for membership.”
“Why? He was in a mental hospital, not prison.”
“He was behind bars, which is just about the only criterion we use. Which is not to say that I’d be here if he were; there’s no way I’d share membership in any organization with Tommy Wing.”
Chant smiled thinly, without humor. “Maybe he’s all better now.”
“Sure he is,” Black said with a sharp laugh. “It’s more likely the hospital got overcrowded, or he started to spook the shrinks. Shit, I’ll never forget that fight between you two. You’re the only man who ever defeated Hammerhead.”
“I didn’t defeat him, Tony. It was a standoff.”
“Fighting Hammerhead to a standoff was the same as defeating him. Before you came along, and before the Army threw him in the stockade after he bit out that major’s throat, he’d used those big buck teeth of his to cripple a half dozen men. From the stockade he went straight to Matteawan, and I really can’t understand why they’d let him out.” Black paused, shrugged. “So much for the walk down memory lane. Chant, will you have dinner with me?”
“I counted on it. But first, there’s something you can do for me.”
“Name it.”
“Two days ago, a friend of mine was shot and killed.”
“I’m sorry, Chant.”
Chant nodded. “He was gunned down on a street in Rome by an American ex-convict.”
“The Italian magistrate?”
“Yes. His name was Vito Biaggi.”
“I read about it in the papers. He sounded like a good man, Chant.”
“He was His killer’s name was Tyrone Good. Alistair said he knew him in prison, and that Good had also been a member of the Fortune Society here in New York. It would have been a few years ago I thought you might remember him.”
Black thought about it, shook his head “If Alistair says Good was a member, then he was a member. The name just doesn’t ring a bell. He may not have been that active, or I simply may have not run into him. We have a lot of members.”
“I’m sorry to hear you didn’t know him I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about him.”
“The papers said he was just a crazy doing a crazy thing You think there may be more to it?”
“I don’t know, Tony.”
Black turned in his chair and glanced at the file cabinet across the room “We don’t really keep records, as such, on our members,” he said tentatively “It’s not what we’re about. But we do keep a card file for purposes of employment—which kinds of jobs have worked out for certain kinds of people, good sources of employment, that kind of thing. I can rummage around, if you’d like, see if there’s anything in there on Tyrone Good.”
“I’d appreciate it. While you’re at it, I’d also like to know if you have any information on a man named Axle Trent.”
“Another one of us?”
“I don’t know He’s another American ex-convict who shot down a prominent diplomat in Switzerland a few months ago Like Good, he didn’t seem to have any motive for what he did, no passport that anyone could find, and no reason for being in Europe.”
Black rose, walked across the room, opened the top drawer of the file cabinet, and began searching through it. Five minutes later, he apparently found what he was looking for. He grunted, slowly walked back to his desk carrying two sets of papers loosely held together with paper clips.
“Trent was a member, too,” Black said as he sat back down in his chair Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes glowed with obvious interest. “He’s another one I never met.”
“I’d like to know what, if anything, the two men might have had in common. Anything at all.”
Black nodded, began leafing through both sets of papers. “You’re welcome to look at these,” he said absently, “but the guy who wrote these up has worse handwriting than mine, and I can probably read it a lot better than you can.”
“You go ahead As I said, what I’m looking for is a common link, if there is any.”
Black continued to pore over the papers, alternating his attention between one set and the other. After a few minutes he looked up and shook his head. “About the only thing I can find here that they had in common was that they were both bad news—real losers. They were both longtimers, but one was in San Quentin—that would be the one Alistair knew—and the other in Folsom. They got out about a year apart, came here to New York. One had been in for murder two, and the other on seven counts of rape. Neither one was here for very long, and the society obviously couldn’t do much for either one.”
“Could they have known each other?”
“Extremely unlikely that they even met. As I said, they got out roughly a year apart, came to New York, and left—or at least dropped out of active membership in the society—after a short time. There’s no indication that either ever landed a job, and judging from what’s in these records we wouldn’t have recommended either one to any of our good employers. Both of them picked up a little cash by agreeing to participate in a research project, and there’s nothing on them after that.”
“What about the research project, Tony? That sounds like a common link.”
Black pushed aside the papers “A totally predictable one. Show me a long-term ex-convict living in the city, and I’ll show you a man who’s probably picked up a couple of bucks over at Blake College, which is a small school in Brooklyn. The psychology department at Blake has been running an ongoing project for years, using ex-convicts as test subjects.”
“What’s the purpose of the research?”
“As I understand it, they want to compare the overall physical health of long-term ex-convicts with the normal population outside The project’s funded by a bunch of insurance companies I haven’t got the slightest idea what they want to find out, but it’s a good deal for a lot of our people—gives them a chance to pick up a little extra cash.”
“Did you participate in it, Tony?”
The President of the Fortune Society shook his head “Not eligible. When they say they want long-termers, they mean serious long-termers fifteen years or longer I didn’t make the grade.”
“That’s the only qualification for participation?”
“The way I understand it, that’s it By now, there must be hundreds of men who’ve taken part in it. Long-termers are referred by friends, social workers, psychiatrists, whoever.”
“Blake College takes all comers?”
“You’ve got the picture, all comers who’ve been incarcerated fifteen years or longer.”
“You didn’t know Good or Trent. Are there any people you do know who’ve been in the program?”
“Sure Alistair, for one.”
“Besides Alistair.”
Black cocked his head to one side, drummed his fingertips on the desktop “Offhand, I can think of six,” he said at last.
“Alistair works for me. Good and Trent ended up killing people in Europe What’s happened to the six men you know?”
“Well, let’s see … two are still working steady jobs they’ve had for some time Another got laid off last month and is collecting unemployment. If you want to talk to them, I can arrange it.”
“Maybe I will I’ll let you know You said you knew six men who’d been in the program. What happened to the other three?”
“One died in a drowning accident two summers ago. I lost touch with the other two They dropped out of sight, probably left the city. One, a guy by the name of Ron Press, ended up somewhere in Texas. I happen to know his girlfriend, and she got a letter from him last summer apologizing for leaving in such a hurry and without saying good-bye. From what this woman told me, his letter made it sound like he was in pretty good shape—said he had a job in a Pharmaceuticals plant. I never heard anything from him, which doesn’t s
urprise me. We were never what you would call friends, and I never much cared for him; I found him more than a little paranoid, with a hair-trigger temper. Still, if he did finally latch on to a job he can hold, I’m happy for him.”
Chant was silent for some time, staring out the window at the streets of Manhattan ablaze with Christmas lights and decorations.
“Chant? You need to know anything else?”
Chant turned his attention from the window, smiled at the other man. “Not now, Tony. Thanks. Why don’t you pick us out a good restaurant?”
Black grunted. He was silent for some time, an odd expression on his face, as he studied the half of his friend’s face that was not now hidden in shadow in the poorly lighted office.
“God,” he said at last in a very low voice, “they must have laid something really heavy on you.”
“Who, Tony? What are you talking about?”
“Sorry,” Black said, abruptly lowering his gaze. “It’s none of my damn business. The talk about Hammerhead triggered memories. I remembered the way things were back in ’Nam, and then hearing about the incredible job you were doing fighting with the Hmong up in Laos. Everyone said you were going to be sitting with the Joint Chiefs one day. Then, the next thing we hear is that you’d deserted. Chant, I hit the first man who said that to me, knocked out a couple of his teeth, and almost got myself court-martialed. I said there was no way John Sinclair would have deserted, unless … I don’t know. I’m saying you must have had one hell of a good reason.”
“I thought I did,” Chant said evenly. “You’re my friend, Tony, and I obviously trust you with my life and freedom. Because you’re my friend, I tell you that you don’t want to know the reason why I walked away from the war. It would do you no good to know, and it’s the kind of information that could conceivably get you killed one day if our relationship ever became known. It could also cost you a lot of sleepless nights.”
“There was … a story that you killed six American servicemen.”
“True. They were trying to kill me. No more, Tony.”
“You want to do Japanese? Maybe Szechuan? There’s a really fine place just up the street.”
“Actually, if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer a good American steak house.”
“Christ Cella?”
“Perfect.”
“The CIA?” Black asked quietly. “Are they the reason you walked away? Are they the people who want you dead?”
Chant laughed easily, rose, and walked to the door. “Come, my friend. Let’s go get something to eat.”
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ISBN: 978-1-4804-7655-4
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Chant Page 21
