The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  “Please don't carry that,” she dropped her voice, “anywhere in Westport until I tell you that all of us know you by sight. And until then, never, ever, reach into your purse while there's a weapon in it.”

  “Especially if I see a blinking light?”

  Molly hesitated, then grinned approvingly. “Especially then. Yes.” She tapped the table to signal a change of subject. ”I hope you trust me,” she said, “because I'm about to ask you to do something. You can't say no.”

  “Give you the gun?”

  She shook her head. “Fly to Zurich. This evening. You'll have your travel documents within the hour. Travel light. Join your father at Elena's house. Stay there until Paul contacts you.”

  Susan frowned. “This is about Roger Clew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Getting little Susan out of the way in case there's trouble?” She straightened. “I'd rather stay and help. Sooner or later, you're going to have to find out what I'm made of.”

  “What you're made of “—Molly put a hand on her arm— “is old Raymond ‘the Terrible.’ ” She meant it as a compliment. “But we're not staying either, exactly. We'll have faded away by the time you board your flight. There will be nobody for Roger Clew to find. We don't want him finding you.”

  “That's all you'll do? Just run?”

  ”I didn't say that.”

  “Then what happens when he gets here and finds nobody home?”

  “We'll have found him,” she said.

  -22-

  Urs Brugg could not help himself. He was staring at Lesko. Less blatantly, he hoped, than young Willem had. And without tittering, certainly, as had three more of his nephews plus two of their wives who had insisted on escorting him the short distance between his own home and Elena's. Add to these his driver and his bodyguard who also wanted see this man. In all, his escort was redundant by a factor of eight.

  But he could not blame them. Their curiosity was no greater than his own. And the cousins and their wives had stayed only long enough to be introduced to the notorious Lesko.

  Raymond ‘the Terrible’ Lesko.

  Lesko, the lumbering American giant had managed to tum the formidable Elena Brugg into a schoolgirl romantic.

  There was Elena. Alternately blushing and blathering. Confusing the names of her cousins. Dropping things in her kitchen from which she flitted back and forth assessing the progress of the meal she had insisted on helping to prepare. Trying to serve aperitifs with one weakened arm, spilling much of what she poured. Lesko rushing to assist. Spilling even more. Elena giggling. Who, Urs Brugg wondered, had ever heard Elena giggle?

  But now, alone at last. The relatives were gone. His bodyguard and driver had joined Elena's outside the gate. The only remaining upheaval, thought Urs Brugg, would be Elena's cook expelling her bodily from the kitchen if she did not promise to calm herself, leave the lids of pots alone, and keep her hands off the china, which had begun the day as a service for twelve but could now fully accommodate only ten.

  Lesko sat before him. Stiffly. Hors d'oeuvres—an assortment of cheeses and meats—sat untouched on a tray before him. Twice, Urs Brugg had seen him reach, only to withdraw his hand, lest, thought Brugg, he partake of it incorrectly. Urs Brugg wheeled closer and helped himself, using his fingers. Lesko watched, gratefully, then did the same.

  ”I have looked forward to this meeting,” said Urs Brugg pleasantly. “Although I confess I did not foresee this circumstance.”

  ”I sure as h—” Lesko stopped himself. ”I didn't either.”

  The older man glanced in the direction of the kitchen. ”I have never seen Elena like this. It is a remarkable change.”

  Lesko could only nod. He had never seen anyone like this. Not toward him. Not even his ex-wife. Fussing over him. Flattering him. Touching him every time he came within reach. All defenses down. The gates wide open.

  “There is something within her . . . some need”—Urs Brugg seemed to be struggling with this—“that could be fulfilled only by you. I have known this for some time. Perhaps I understand it. Perhaps I do not. I am delighted, of course, to see her so happy, but—”

  “You don't want to see her get hurt.”

  “Just so, yes.”

  ”I couldn't hurt her. Not ever.”

  Urs Brugg raised his glass, saluting Lesko with it. He sipped. He seemed relieved that this one subject, at least, had been successfully raised and disposed of.

  Lesko was no less relieved. A part of him would have bet his pension that Urs Brugg's first words to him would have ranged somewhere between “How much will you take to get out of the country and never come back?” and “Where do you get off, you mountain of shit, thinking you belong in the same world with her, let alone the same bed?”

  “May I speak frankly, Mr. Lesko? Man to man?”

  Lesko nodded. Here it comes, he thought.

  Urs Brugg squirmed in his seat. “It is a subject best brought up by her mother or father. It seems I will have to do in their place.”

  Lesko stared blankly.

  “Would it surprise you to know,” Urs Brugg asked, choosing his words carefully, “that Elena has had very little experience of an intimate nature?”

  What the hell is this? he wondered. His cheeks became warm. ”I—ah—never thought about that, exactly,” he answered. “But I guess it would, yes.”

  “It is not so hard to understand. To love, and to be loved unselfishly in return, is a rare thing for a woman of wealth and power.”

  ”I guess.” He was about to say that he'd never thought about that either. But he had. He'd imagined her with millionaires, big-shot politicians, society guys. Not just in her past. In her future as well. He imagined them laughing at him.

  “The first casualty of wealth, Mr. Lesko, and certainly of power, is trust in the motives of one's friends.”

  Lesko darkened, this time in anger. “She has nothing I want,” he said quietly. “Neither do you.”

  Urs Brugg raised his hands. ”I did not mean you. If I know nothing else about you, Mr. Lesko, I know that. In my clumsy way, I was leading up to what you have that Elena wants.”

  “Which is zero. Or close to it.”

  Urs Brugg sat back, frowning. “Is it possible, Mr. Lesko,” he asked, “that you do indeed have such a low opinion of yourself?”

  “Not in most ways. No.”

  “But in terms of what Elena sees in you—the answer is yes?”

  Lesko hesitated. Then he nodded.

  “You place no value on courage? Loyalty? Strength of character?”

  “In a friend? I place a lot of value. But this isn't about friendship. This is about taking care of somebody who's used to more than I can give her.”

  “What she is used to,” Urs Brugg corrected him, “is loneliness. What she is used to is having no man, other than family, of whom she can be proud.”

  “You're saying you approve of this?”

  “With reservations, to be sure. But yes.” Once more, Urs Brugg glanced in the direction of the kitchen. He moved his chair closer. “Will you listen to a proposition, Mr. Lesko?”

  ”I won't take your money.”

  Brugg's expression hardened. ”I am not about to bribe you. Do not insult me.”

  “Then I'm sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Will you take me at my word that I would have made this offer regardless of what has happened today between yourself and Elena? And that the offer will stand regardless of what happens in the future?”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  Urs Brugg lowered his eyes. He fingered the armrest of his wheelchair as he considered the best way to begin. “Behind the main railroad station—you were there this morning —there is a park called the Platzspitz. Did you happen to see it?”

  Lesko shook his head.

  “That park, sad to say, is Zurich's drug bazaar. Heroin and cocaine are sold openly under the supervision of the Swiss health authorities. They provide clean tablespoons for the heating of drug solutions and t
hey dispense some six thousand clean syringes every day. The intent is to help control the spread of AIDS.”

  Lesko said nothing.

  “Six thousand syringes,” Urs Brugg repeated, “for the nearly twenty thousand addicts who infest this city. Do these numbers not startle you, Mr. Lesko?”

  “Not especially.” He could name New York neighborhoods that had twice that many. As for controlling AIDS among junkies, his attitude would basically be why screw up a good thing if only the junkies kept it in the family. And the subject of drugs, he found, depressed him. Somehow he had gotten it into his head that the Swiss were basically too smart for that shit. “This Platzspitz,” he asked, “your Swiss cops don't bother it?”

  “Their position is that they would prefer not to waste their energies going after the ordinary drug user. They want the dealers. In the meantime, Switzerland is very likely to become the first European nation to decriminalize the use and possession of small amounts of narcotics.”

  Lesko sniffed. That's got to be great for tourism, he thought. Half the junkies in Europe will be here within a week.

  Brugg raised a hand to signal the interjection of another thought. ”I am an—admirer—of your friend, Mr. Bannerman.”

  Lesko had been waiting to get to that subject. Like, where is he? But he did not interrupt.

  “Zurich is to me,” Urs Brugg lowered his voice, “what Westport is to Paul Bannerman. I flatter myself that what he is to Westport, I am, in some measure, to Zurich.”

  Lesko waited.

  “You have seen what has happened to New York. It is a rotting, angry place where the rich live in bunkers and all others live in fear. It is drugs that have done this. In a few years, if nothing is done, every city in Europe will have followed that path.”

  Lesko realized that. He knew the figures. They said that seventy tons of cocaine, just cocaine, were shipped into Europe last year. Up from fifty tons the year before. Most of it coming in through Spain. The Colombians had turned their attention to Europe because that's where the money is. A kilo of cocaine goes for three or four times as much in Europe as it does in New York.

  But the real problem is what happens when supply outpaces demand and those prices drop. In the last two years they'd gone from about $55 thousand per kilo to between $25 and $30. When it gets down to the $8 to $13 range, as it has in New York, it's cheap enough to be worth turning into crack. And crack is a disaster. Eighty percent addictive compared to only 10 or 15 percent for cocaine in powder form. And addiction comes not in months or years but in days. Creating thousands of new street criminals every year in every city. It was going to happen. Nothing could stop it. Zurich had maybe five ... six years before it was just as unlivable as New York.

  “And you want to save Europe?” Lesko asked, without sarcasm.

  “Not Europe. Only Zurich. My home.”

  “You and who else?”

  “My family. A few friends. You, perhaps.”

  “What about your cops?”

  “Some of them as well. A select few.”

  “What do you think I can do for you, exactly?”

  “Teach us how to hurt them. These are the same people who destroyed New York. You know them. How they operate. How they think. I wish to retain your services, Mr. Lesko. What I ask is not so far removed from your present position. You are, I understand, a security consultant for the Beckwith Hotel chain in New York.”

  “What the Beckwith chain hired,” Lesko pointed out, “was a retired cop who knows about sneak thieves and hookers. They don't want anybody hurt. I think you do.”

  “If that's what is needed, yes.”

  Lesko shook his head. “You don't want me. I'm not a killer. For that, you want Bannerman.”

  ”I am aware of the difference between you and Mr. Bannerman, although I think it is not so great as you choose to believe.”

  “Then why did you tell him and not me about those three who shot Elena?”

  “For her sake. For your safety.”

  “She's your niece, not his. The driver was your nephew, not his. Why did you send Bannerman?”

  “One does not send Mama's Boy. But I knew he would go. Dr. Russo was his friend, not mine.”

  “So why wouldn't you ask him to do this other thing? Cleaning up Zurich. For that matter, why wouldn't you ask Elena? She knows how they work better than I do.”

  Urs Brugg ignored the question about Elena. “Because Paul Bannerman, by all accounts, is in no way sympathetic to the plight of the cities. His feeling is that any populace

  that has a drug problem has probably deserved it. He may have a point.”

  ”I might even agree with him.”

  The real problem, Lesko had long since concluded, was not with the suppliers. It was with the public. Try lighting up a cigarette in a public place these days and people will give you all kinds of crap. Light up a joint at a party and these same people won't say a word. The cabdriver who won't let you smoke in his taxi will take you to a street corner where you can buy crack. The disco that's plastered with no-smoking signs has washrooms that are fucking supermarkets for cocaine and amphetamines.

  Lesko had no patience at all with militant antismokers. He saw them as bullies. And gutless. They were the kind who only took up negative causes. Nice, safe causes. And only when they were in a nice, safe majority: ”I don't do this, so you shouldn't either. And while we're at it, let's take Playboy magazine, which I don't read either, off the stands.”

  Take all that energy, all that bitching over some poor stiff who wants a cigarette with his coffee and tum it against the people who use recreational drugs, and at the very least you'll see the occasional user staying away from drugs because they're no longer worth the aggravation.

  Look at Japan. Hardly any problem there with drugs. You know why? Two reasons. Get caught using them and you go to jail. Read up on Japanese prisons and you'll see why nobody wants to go there. Your cell has a cot and a toilet and that's it. No TV, no centerfolds on the wall, no nothing. Also no noise. No talking. Silence strictly enforced. If you happen to know another convict there, you never get near him. Make a new friend and you get separated. Compare that to Attica or Sing Sing where getting a sentence of three to five really means you spend eight months or so visiting with your old friends from the neighborhood until you're all back on the street. But Japan's jails are not even the biggest reason why they don't have a drug problem. The biggest is the Japs themselves. They won't tolerate drug use. They think it's not just illegal, it's wrong and it's stupid. Try snorting a line in front of a Japanese. You'll get your face slapped and then knocked on your ass and you'll sit there until the meat wagon comes to haul you away. Americans won't do that. They're afraid they'll get sued, which they might. They're afraid the cop who comes to get the user will also bust them for assault, which he might. So nobody sticks his neck out. Instead they yell at smokers.

  “Mr. Lesko?”

  ”Hmm?” His mind had wandered.

  ”I have set aside a rather large sum of money. If you will help me in this, it is yours to draw on as you see fit. If you will not, I will proceed without you.”

  ”I asked if you talked to Elena. You didn't answer.”

  “The fact is”—another glance toward the kitchen—“this was her idea.”

  “What was?” Lesko asked. “Hammering your local drug dealers or getting me involved?”

  “Both.”

  “If that's true, why do you keep looking to see if she's listening?”

  “Because she might have changed her mind. Her desire to follow Mr. Bannerman's Westport example is just as strong as mine. That much will surely remain. Her suggestion that I recruit you, while sensible enough in itself, may have been rooted in a desire to lure you back to Zurich. But now, you see, you've come of your own accord. I think she will now ask that I not involve you, just as she asked that I not tell you where those assassins can be found.”

  “Wait a second.” Lesko raised a hand. “Let's take that piece
by piece. You're telling me that Elena's in this Zurich thing no matter what?”

  “Unless you dissuade her. My hope is that you will join her.”

  Brugg watched Lesko carefully, assessing his reaction to this last. He saw surprise. Some vexation. A modicum of disappointment. For the past several hours, Lesko had no doubt been thinking of Elena in terms of domesticity. Walks in the park. Introducing her to his friends. But Elena, although she certainly had changed in many ways, was still Elena. A strong woman. Tough-minded. Ruthless when she had to be. As she herself admitted, she had not yet attained sainthood. He continued to watch Lesko. Now a new reaction appeared. The beginnings of a smile. It confused Urs Brugg at first. But then he knew, even before Lesko spoke, what he was feeling.