The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  ”I, um, would not say so. No.”

  ”A man of great charm, then.”

  “Mr. Brugg,” Bannerman grimaced, “if you're asking me what your niece sees in him . . .”

  “He came to visit her this morning. Elena was greatly touched that he did so. Yes, Paul. I suppose that is what I am asking.”

  “Mr. Brugg, I don't know the man.”

  “You know the daughter. How does she speak of him?”

  Bannerman glanced apologetically in the direction of the waiting limo. He had more on his mind than whatever emotions existed between Lesko and Elena. Still, with a small sigh, he tried to answer. “Susan speaks of him with great warmth. She has expressed the wish that others could know him as she does. She calls him a pussycat. Do you know the expression?”

  “It is similar in German.”

  “Still, she knows that he can be a brutal man. When he was a policeman, the newspapers called him Raymond ‘the Terrible.’ He's been in more than his share of shootings but he is known to prefer his fists.”

  ”A humanitarian, then,” Urs Brugg said blandly. “And your own observations?”

  “He's certainly tough but I don't think he's mean. By all accounts, he is scrupulously honest. For what it's worth, I guess I respect him.”

  “Would Mama's Boy recruit him?”

  “No.”

  “Beyond the obvious, may I ask why?”

  “He is—not like us.”

  “Yes,” Urs Bragg said thoughtfully, ”I think I understand.”

  Bannerman said nothing.

  “Elena tells me that she has invited him back to Zurich. For an indefinite visit. Do you think he will come?”

  “He might, but he won't stay. All he knows is New York.”

  “And Elena cannot go there. There are warrants for her arrest. Perhaps it is just as well.”

  “Perhaps. Yes.”

  “You have been indulging me, Paul. I appreciate this.”

  “You care about your niece. You don't want her hurt. I understand that. If you're asking my opinion, this thing with Lesko won't go much further. It's impossible.”

  “Like yourself and his daughter?”

  A long pause. ”I think so. Yes.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about men, Paul. I wonder if you know as much about women.”

  -12-

  Roger Clew, unshaven, his clothing wrinkled, turned his rented car into the Compo Shopping Plaza off Westport's Post Road. It was after six. Most of the shops were dark, the parking lot nearly empty.

  Choosing a space, he allowed his headlights to wash over the double storefront of Luxury Travel Limited. He saw no movement inside. The reservations desks were empty, their consoles silent. The only lights came from Bannerman's office in the rear and the small conference room adjoining it. He waited, gathering himself, then stepped from the car. He tried the door. It was unlocked. Bannerman had said it would be.

  He heard the clink of ice cubes being dropped into a glass. Then into another. He followed the sound, encouraged by it, to the conference room door. Bannerman turned as he reached it, holding up a Scotch bottle questioningly. Roger Clew nodded. He pulled the nearest chair and sank into it, hoping that his manner seemed weary, harassed, anything but afraid. Bannerman poured three fingers over the ice.

  “You realize,” Clew asked, taking it, “I've been to Europe and back looking for you? I haven't showered in two days.*’

  “Ships in the night.” Bannerman shrugged. He hoisted his own drink, mostly water, by way of welcome. “How's Susan doing?” he asked, although the question was unnecessary. Molly Farrell had called him from Greenfield Hill, the nearby psychiatric clinic where he himself had once been held and from which he had expelled Palmer Reid. The Leskos were being quartered there. Molly was helping them to settle in. “Yes, ” Molly had told him, “she knows you're in town. No, she hasn't asked to see you. ”

  “Shaky but okay,” Clew answered. “Her father has a message for you. He's been on the phone calling some New York cops he knows to come up and guard her. His message to you is, ‘Nothing personal, he won't tell them much, but don't you try to stop them.’ ”

  Bannerman felt a headache coming on.

  “The Swiss have a message for you, too,” he said. “Theirs is, ‘You even think about going back after whoever hit Russo and the Lesko girl and they'll lock you up for ten years.’ ”

  “I'm not thinking about it.”

  “What does that mean? You already got them?”

  “I'm not interested in shooters, Roger. You know that.”

  Clew didn't like this. Bannerman should have been full of questions. He should have been asking for help. He looked down at his drink. ”I hear you figure it's Reid. Behind all this, I mean.”

  “There is that chance.”

  Clew sipped from his glass and sat up in his chair. “That's what I want to talk to you about,” he said. “Reid's on his way out. Fuller's got a squeeze going but it has to be done carefully. Story is, Reid has private files on just about everybody, which is how he's lasted this long. We don't want you doing anything until we know what he's got.”

  “For that you chased me to Europe?”

  Bannerman had turned away. But not before Clew saw what he thought was a glint of surprise at being asked to do nothing. ”I went over as your friend. And to get you the hell out of there in one piece.”

  ”I did get out. But thank you.” Bannerman waited.

  Clew stirred his drink with his finger. It gave him something to do with his eyes. “There's more,” he said. “You want it straight?”

  “That would save time, Roger.”

  He would have preferred to have eased his way into this subject. Over several weeks if he had them. But events had forced his hand. “Once Reid's out of the way,” he said, “and it's done without headlines, we'd like you to come back to work.”

  “No chance, Roger.”

  “I'm not talking like before. Not exactly.”

  “Then how, exactly?”

  “You have a hell of a team here, Paul. It's a lot of talent not to be put to good use.”

  “What do you consider good use?”

  Clew gestured with his thumb toward the world in general. “There are some people out there. They do terrible things. We know who they are, even where. Just the other day, the secretary was saying how frustrating it is that we can't touch them.”

  “And you want us to start killing them off.”

  Clew raised his brow. ”I didn't say that. Barton Fuller certainly didn't say that.”

  “I'll try to pay closer attention. What did you say?”

  “That sometimes . . . occasionally ... we could use a little outside help. There's a way we can use you, a new way, with almost no risk to you or your people. Besides, after three years in Westport they can probably use the exercise.”

  “When they need exercise, I'll take them jogging.” Bannerman's expression darkened a shade. “Roger, someone probably said that to Palmer Reid once. If those files of his exist, that's how he started building them. In any case, I'm not interested.”

  Clew brought his glass to his lips and held it there. He knew that he was handling this badly. After months of work, weeks of stewing over the best way to raise this subject with Bannerman, he'd practically blurted it out. But if Bannerman, by any chance, knew anything at all about the Ripper Effect, now was the time to find out. There was a new way, he'd told him. No risk. And Bannerman hadn't even batted an eye. That was how little he cared. That was also how little he knew.

  He'd half-expected to walk in here, see those soft gray eyes staring up at him, watch Bannerman step to the door and close it, and hear him say, “I'd like the truth this time, Roger. Tell me how it is that you were heard discussing my travel plans over an unsecured line. Tell me about this computer that predicted what was done to Susan and what I might do in response. Tell me why you sat back and let all this happen. Tell me about the Ripper Effect.”

  Banne
rman could not have known. Clew realized that. Maybe, just maybe, he could know about the careless phone call but not the rest of it. But that was the thing about Bannerman. You just never knew. And if he did know, if he even suspected that he was being used as an experiment, a test case, it would be all over. Fifteen years would go right out the window. Those eyes of Bannerman's would bore right into him and then they'd turn dead. Clew had seen that look before. He didn't want to see it again.

  But Bannerman didn't know. And yet, there was . . . something. Clew decided to press it.

  “You're not Palmer Reid, Paul,” he said quietly. “For openers, Reid is nuts. Second, the people working for him are either there to get rich or they're a bunch of fucking robot flag-wavers all pissed off that we don't kill commies anymore. Your people are professionals. They get paid, they do their job, and they go away.”

  “Roger—”

  “Third”—Clew held up his fingers—“people trust you. No one trusts Reid. Fourth, and because of number three, you've got resources that Reid could only dream about. Now I see you're even wired into the Brugg family, which incidentally has a lot of juice over there, and also the New York cops by way of Raymond ‘the Terrible’ Lesko. This is the basis of a considerable network.”

  “You're babbling, Roger. Lesko is no friend of mine. I hardly know the Bruggs at all. In any case, I'm retired.”

  ”I know. To Fortress Westport. Where you're independently wealthy, having ripped off a few million of federal funds and a dozen prime pieces of Westport real estate. But we're not even going to mention that. No hard feelings.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “We're just going to stay in touch. Any time you need a favor, even if you can't do anything in retum, being retired and all, boy, I'm going to be right there.”

  Bannerman waited.

  “Speaking of favors, Lesko reminds me that there's a DEA warrant out on Elena Brugg and another one from New York as a material witness to some old shooting. It occurs to me that you might owe her one. So by next Monday, she'll be clean.”

  “That's very thoughtful of you, Roger.”

  “What are friends for?”

  “Okay.” Bannerman softened. “Maybe I owe you one for that.”

  “I'll try to think of something.”

  “One, Roger.” He held up a finger. “Medium size.”

  “And you'll leave Reid alone?”

  “For the moment.”

  Clew studied him. “What kind of an answer is that?”

  “It will have to do. Until you decide to level with me.”

  Clew felt his color rising. “You think I haven't?”

  “Not entirely. There's something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I'll know when you tell me.”

  ”I did. It's Reid's private files.”

  “Stop it.”

  Clew leaned backward in his chair, folding his arms. Bannerman made a mental note of the body language.

  What the hell is it? Clew bit his lip. What's Bannerman got? Was it just that he'd shot over to Europe as soon as he heard? Could that look funny to Bannerman? A little like panic?

  Clew suddenly remembered the man on the plane. The one who wanted a smoke. The one who'd stood there, God knows how long, possibly reading the screen of his Toshiba. Could he have been one of Bannerman's people?

  No. That's crazy. Still, just in case . . .

  “What if I told you,” Clew said, grimacing, “that I'm working on something. It involves computers.”

  He paused. Bannerman's eyes, if anything, glazed slightly.

  ”I can't tell you any more just yet, but when I do it'll knock your socks off. To go forward, there are some people I need. If you hit Palmer Reid, you will scare them off. This is the truth.”

  “These people you need. Am I one of them?”

  He nodded. “It's that favor we talked about. When I'm ready, I'll ask it. Whether you do it, that's up to you.”

  “But you'll tell me nothing in the meantime?”

  ”I can't. Someday, I promise, I'll explain why.”

  Bannerman stared at him. Those gray eyes. “I'll think about it,” he said.

  “No hit on Reid?”

  ”I said I'll think about it. Roger?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When did you find out what happened to Susan?”

  “When I got your message. Why?”

  “Just wondered.”

  Friday afternoon. Westport.

  Within an hour of his arrival at the clinic, Lesko was on the phone calling in favors. The first call was to Detective Lieutenant Harry Greenwald, with whom he once worked narcotics, Manhattan South and who had known Susan most of her life. Lesko told him what had happened to her.

  What cops, asked Lesko, did they both know and trust, who were currently working undercover and might, therefore, not be missed for a few days? Greenwald named three. He said he would contact them.

  The three street cops, Greenwald with them, arrived that evening before nine. They carried duffle bags packed with assault rifles, radios, and assorted weaponry that they had confiscated over the years and kept. Each was assigned a post, two inside with Lesko, two patrolling the grounds. They stood guard through the night. Nothing happened.

  Lesko had not encouraged questions. But by late morning Friday, his four cops could not help noticing that nobody else at Greenfield Hill seemed to share Lesko's sense of imminent peril. The clinic's grounds appeared otherwise unguarded. The few people there, apparently staff, went about their routines seeming to find nothing unusual or even noteworthy in seeing four rough-looking men in flak jackets tuming guns toward them every time they rounded a corner. They would nod politely, ignoring the weapons, and then go on. The three undercover cops were disappointed. Greenwald had begun to wonder aloud why he had given up several days off. And Lesko was becoming embarrassed. He would like to have revived their interest by telling them that those people passing them in the halls had probably killed more people than the average plane crash, but he had given his word. Unable to confide in the four New York cops and unable to get to Loftus who was stashed, under guard, somewhere else in town, he found himself looking for ways to be alone so that he might talk things over with David Katz.

  It had taken a while, the better part of two years, but Lesko had more or less come to terms with his partner's occasional presence. It made people wonder about him, he realized. When they caught him at it. But it wasn't so crazy. Any two cops, working together that long, get into each other's heads. Finish each other's sentences. One of them dies, leaves an empty seat in the car, the other one still talks to it. Or listens to it. It's not the same as talking to yourself. What you're doing, because you know how that person thinks, dead or not, is more like getting a second opinion.

  Even Susan said so. Anyway, he'd decided, it's harmless. And it's better than nothing.

  The trouble with Katz, though, aside from the fact that he was a fucking thief, for which Lesko still had not forgiven him, was that Katz did not always wait to be spoken to. He would just show up. In the beginning, he would show up mostly in dreams, usually the four-in-the-morning kind, the half-awake kind, walking in with coffee and Danish to pick him up for roll call like he did every morning for ten years because Katz mostly drove. But before long Katz was showing up in other places, too. Wide-awake places. Broad daylight. Lesko would be walking along, he'd see something, wonder about it, to himself, and Katz would answer him. Before long, it got so he couldn't even watch a Knicks game on TV without Katz shooting off his mouth about the Knicks having no bench because of dumb trades and lousy draft choices, which would have been irritating even when Katz was alive because Katz never knew shit about sports. But it was also good in a way. If Katz never knew basketball, but now he does, it couldn't really be him. Right?

  The thing was, as much as he hated taking Katz's crap, Lesko missed him. He hadn't been around lately. Wouldn't come, even when he was called. Lesko knew why. What it was, he wa
s sulking. Katz's nose had been all out of joint ever since he hung up from that first call to Elena.

  “Hey. Lesko. What the hell was that?”

  “Huh? What was what?”

  “You and Elena is what, damn it. That broad orders my fucking head blown off and all of a sudden by you she's Doris Day.”

  “Yeah, well, this is about Susan. Anyway, it9s none of your goddamned business.”

  “Don't give me Susan. I heard you. You were schmoozing with her, Lesko, the lady who killed your partner. But what's to hold a grudge, right? Forgive and forget. Why don't you take her fucking dancing?”

  “David—””

  “And I'll tell you something else. Forget it. Even if she was straight—”

  “She straight now. Shut up about this, David.”