The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  “Is it true that you won't shoot me? Here?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “And that I can walk out? Leave you to those men outside?”

  “Absolutely. Please decide.”

  “What if I were to stay here with you? At your side.”

  “You might get killed. Anyway, that's not an option, Mr. Manley. You and I are some distance from being friends.”

  “Sad to say.” Manley took a breath. “In any case, Mr. Bannerman, I think I would prefer not to be your enemy. Or Mr. Covington's. If he will meet one requirement.”

  “Name it.”

  “He must call me his friend and ask for my protection. If he will do that, I will see that no harm comes to him and that no drugs are sold on the streets of his association. If he calls me his enemy, I must hurt him or I will not survive. It will not matter much who kills me.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me.” He cocked his head. “Mr. Covington?”

  The black man stepped from behind the rack of cruise brochures. He walked toward Manley who, in recent days, had lost his capacity for bewilderment.

  “Is it possible,’9 the Jamaican said to Bannerman, “that this man has come to live in Westport?”

  Bannerman shook his head. “Just visiting for now. A friend in need.” He looked at the man from 153rd Street. “Mr. Covington, you heard?”

  “Could I ask—what you'd do in my place?”

  Bannerman shrugged. “The devil you know. I'd take the deal.”

  “Then the bastard's my friend.”

  “Mr. Manley?”

  “Done. With the same sentiment.”

  “You needn't shake hands. Mr. Manley? Give me an hour. I'll drop you at the station. Mr. Covington? See me before you leave. I have another gift for you.”

  Bannerman had closed the glass door to his inner office, first signaling those outside that the meeting would be brief. He did not ask Susan to leave.

  Clew poured the Scotch. He turned the glass in his hand, thoughtfully, trying to understand that business with Hector Manley. Letting him walk. It was not like Bannerman to take an enemy's word that he would behave. Especially when it meant betting his new friend's life on it.

  It has to be the girl, he thought. Susan. She's gotten to him. He wants her to see that everything isn't killing and dying with him. That sometimes there's negotiation, sometimes there's forgive and forget.

  Okay, he thought. Let's give that a shot

  ”I want you to know something,” Clew said quietly, still looking at his glass. “Zivic told you about the two men in Mario's? And he figured they were there with me?”

  “They weren't. He knows that now.”

  “They were Kaplan's people, right?”

  Bannerman didn't answer.

  “Just so you know. I never broke that rule.”

  “Until today.”

  Clew sipped from his glass to wet his lips. “You were going to kill me for all this, weren't you? Even for that.”

  Bannerman said nothing. But he felt Susan's eyes on him.

  “All I was trying to do today,” Clew told him, “what I'm still going to do—is lock you up until you listen to reason.”

  “I'm listening now.”

  Clew sipped again, more deeply this time. “That thing with the car bombs,” he said. ”I didn't set that up. It was Hagler's idea. When he told me, it had gone too far for me to stop it. I might not have anyway. It might have been worth a shot if it would get you back in the game.”

  “At the risk of destroying this town?”

  Clew shook his head wearily. “Give me a break, Bannerman. You talked to Manley. It never would have happened.”

  Bannerman said nothing.

  Clew shot a glance toward Susan. She was still watching Bannerman. Maybe, he thought, her being there was keeping Bannerman from saying things he didn't want to hear. But it wasn't moving things along any. He cocked his head in her direction. “Does she have to be here?”

  “She has a name, Roger,” Bannerman hissed. “And you didn't worry about her being here when you brought up your SWAT teams.”

  Clew squirmed.

  There were things he could talk about in front of her and things he could not. Things that even Bannerman wasn't supposed to know about. Except he did. Bannerman had never asked who Hagler was. Who Kaplan was. He knew.

  “How much, Paul. How much do you know?”

  “The Ripper Effect,” he said simply. “Does that answer your question?”

  Clew seemed to wilt. “Kaplan told you. Right?”

  “Wrong.”

  Clew drained his glass. “Will you tell me who did?”

  “No.”

  “Will you at least tell me what you think of it?”

  “It's a good tool. It should work.”

  “Would you use it?”

  “Maybe. But not with you, Roger. Those days are over.”

  Clew poured his second Scotch. He slid the bottle across the desk toward Bannerman.

  “No, thanks.” Bannerman moved it aside. ”I have to fight my way out of here, remember?”

  A deep sigh. “It doesn't have to be like this. Unless you killed Kaplan. Did you?”

  Bannerman shook his head. “He's not afraid of me, Roger. He's afraid of you. And Hagler.”

  “What about me? Would you have killed me?”

  “Not for the car bombs. Not even for this.” Bannerman gestured toward the street. “But tell me about Palmer Reid.”

  Clew sat back. He shook his head slowly. “See that?” he said. “That's why I'm here with a fucking army. That's why I'm risking everything just to calm you down long enough to convince you I had nothing to do with that. None of us did.”

  “You saw it coming. Or your computer did.”

  “That's not true. Maybe that Reid would wonder how you tied in with Elena. Maybe that he'd put a tail on you or something. But that he'd have Susan here killed just to confuse the issue? That probability didn't even make the charts.”

  “Because it was illogical?”

  “Because it was nuts.”

  “So was Reid. And you knew that, Roger. Here's what we're going to do”—Bannerman rose from his chair— “We'll take a walk outside, you first. You'll tell your people that it's a false alarm. You will tell them to put down their guns, pack up, and get out of town at once. Next—”

  ”I can't do that.”

  Bannerman ignored the interruption. “Next, you'll come back in here and call the judge who issued these warrants. Get them quashed. Then, call your office. Have your staff get on the phone to the media and to the local police, and tell them I'm not your man, mistaken identity, whatever.”

  “Paul—it's gone too far.” Clew gestured through the glass toward the men who'd been disarmed. They'd seen and heard too much.

  “Promote them, Roger. Then transfer them.” He waved off further discussion. “Tell the media that you're terribly embarrassed about upsetting the good people of Westport, to say nothing of me. The man you were looking for, my height and build, arm in a cast, has just been arrested elsewhere. Make it good, cite national security if you like, ask them to say nothing of this episode. I don't want to see one word in tomorrow's paper.”

  Clew reddened. He turned toward the outer office and made a show of counting Bannerman's force on his fingers. “Am I missing something here?”

  Bannerman pretended not to understand.

  “What are you going to tell me? If I don't, I get killed?”

  “Only if shots are fired. You have my word.”

  “Then what? With ten people, you take on thirty and turn this whole part of town into Beirut? You don't think that will upset the good people of Westport?”

  Susan was smiling. She was staring toward the street. The smile had grown slowly.

  “Did I say something funny?”

  “Sorry. I just realized—”

  Bannerman touched her arm as if to silence her. “Come on, Roger,” he stepped toward the front door, “Let's loo
k at your thirty men.” He pulled the blinds.

  They were still outside, Susan saw. Still armed. But their weapons were lowered. And they'd moved closer, gathering in the parking lot, out of the street. Behind them, traffic moved normally. Around them, among them, stood twice their number of men and women dressed in civilian clothing. The civilians were chatting with them, physically touching them.

  The scene called up an image of a high-school band awaiting the start of a parade. In uniform, milling about, instruments held carelessly, friends and classmates among them.

  She scanned the faces. The federal agents in their lettered vests seemed sullen, confused. But they did not seem fearful. It was as if a rumor, as yet unconfirmed, had spread among the band members that the parade would be canceled. Next, she scanned the townspeople, half-expecting to see her father among them. He was not there. Nor were they townspeople.

  “See anyone you know, Roger?” asked Bannerman.

  Susan did. Molly Farrell. She stood, facing a federal agent, her fingers against his chest, casually conversing. Another woman stood with her. Susan recognized her as one of the two Israelis who'd attended to Paul and Billy in Marbella two days before. There were others she'd seen there as well. Glenn Cook moved through the crowd, shaking hands, slapping backs, exchanging hugs. Several black men, arms folded, hands hidden, more wary than the rest, had formed an outer ring between visitors and onlookers. Beyond them, across Post Road, the Russian chauffeur, Yuri, stood in stocking feet on the fender of his limousine, taking photographs, his expression one of boyish delight. Next to him stood a smaller man, wiry, with a bandage on his cheek.

  “Isn't that Kurt Weiss?” Clew asked. It was more of a groan.

  Susan followed his eyes. She saw Paul nod. With an upraised finger he was now picking out other men, and several women, reciting their names. Most of the faces were familiar.

  Clew turned from the doorway. He had seen enough. “How many?” he asked.

  “About thirty. Some couldn't get flights. Then there's Mr. Covington's block association.”

  “Are they armed?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would they have fired?”

  “That's the idea, Roger.”

  “Why is the European crowd here? Why else, I mean?”

  “To look the town over, I suppose. Check out housing costs, the crime rate. That sort of thing.”

  Clew rolled his eyes.

  “Roger—make your calls.”

  “Then what?”

  “Make one more. Get Barton Fuller on the phone for me.”

  Clew's color rose. “Anything else?”

  “No.” Bannerman shook his head. “But drive carefully, Roger.”

  “Question time,” Susan said.

  She had to wait until Yuri, behind the wheel of the limo, finished gleefully recounting all that he'd seen and heard. Colonel Belkin, he said, would scarely believe it. But he had pictures, which Mama's Boy said he could keep. And soon, after taking them home, he would go and have lunch at Mario's, which Molly Farrell said he could do. As her guest. Perhaps she, too, would permit a photograph, a souvenir, of the two of them together. Perhaps the others, even Colonel Zivic, would sign his menu.

  Bannerman fingered the switch that raised the partition but he decided not to bother. There was no point. And it would have been a rudeness.

  “You want to know”—he nodded—“whether they would really have fired on federal agents.”

  “That wasn't it. But would they have?”

  “They wouldn't have had to,” he answered. “Too many of them. Too unexpected. But don't count on that working a second time.”

  “What about Roger Clew? Would you have shot him if his men had opened fire?”

  “They didn't.”

  “Did me being there make a difference in what you might have done?”

  “As things turned out, no.”

  “But if—”

  He took her hand. “We'll talk about this. But it needs to settle.”

  “Bannerman,” she said slowly, ”I don't want to see you hurt anybody. But I also don't want to see anybody hurt you. Any time those are my choices, I can handle it.”

  ”I know you can.”

  “One more. The man with the Jamaican accent?”

  “Hector Manley.”

  “And he's a drug dealer.”

  “Yes. What about him?”

  ”I think you sort of like him. How come?”

  “Within limits, I suppose I might. We've had some interesting talks. And he seems to be a man who keeps his word.”

  “Will he? Where Mr. Covington is concerned?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  There was that, Bannerman thought. His capacity to judge character. But there was also the transmitter that he'd given to Wesley Covington, courtesy of Molly Farrell. And there were also the gray snakeskin boots whose hollowed-out heels were packed with a microreceiver and just enough Semtex to blow off both his feet should he reconsider.

  Bannerman's apartment complex was just ahead.

  “Let's go up and make a fire,” he said.

  “Can we unplug the phone?”

  He nodded. “And no Vivaldi this time.”

  “But no Bolero, either. I should have picked up a copy in Spain.”

  I’ll hum it,” he said.

  -33-

  In Lesko’s Queens apartment, Elena watched, sipping tea, as he filled the second of the two large suitcases he’d purchased. His daughter stood at the suitcase, opened on his bed, removing certain of the items he’s packed, stuffing them into a plastic trash bag and replacing them with others. Lesko had stopped arguing.

  Bannerman was in the kitchen with Harry Greenwald. They were packing cardboard boxes, adding them to the those already stacked by Lesko's door. The detective had agreed to store some, dispose of others. No one spoke much. Not since Elena had sat Paul and Susan down in Lesko's living room and told them, as gently as possible, of the death of her uncle, Urs Brugg.

  Lesko had argued against her making the trip with him. It could still be dangerous, he said. Unfinished business. But she'd insisted. Bad news, she said, should be given face-to-face, where people could touch and give comfort through more than words. And, too, she wished to know this Mama's Boy as her uncle had.

  Not the least of her reasons, although she denied it when Lesko asked, was to make certain that he, once home, did not change his mind. She went with him to Rockefeller Center where he obtained an emergency passport. A legitimate one. Bannerman had arranged it. Next, to the Beckwith Regency Hotel where he resigned the position he'd held. She returned with him to Queens where he saw his landlord, settled his lease, and arranged for his furnishings to be given to charity. He did all these things in her sight and in her hearing. It was a burning of bridges. An act of faith.

  One bridge remained, still unburned. It involved the partner whose death she had ordered in a different time, a different life. The ghost of that man, Detective Katz, still remained. Susan had told her about him during their first long talk as they flew from Zurich to Malaga. Later, she spoke of it to Lesko.

  “Susan's got a big mouth,” he had growled.

  But it was not the betrayal of a confidence. Merely an explanation of her father's occasional odd behavior, his protracted mutterings, interspersed with attentive silences. The partner, Susan told her, had remained his partner, like it or not. Until now, the ghost of this Detective Katz was nearly all he had. But perhaps, thought Elena, that need will soon fade. As had his memory of her past. As had that day in Brooklyn.

  Perhaps.

  But perhaps it should not.

  One could argue, she thought, in favor of keeping all such ghosts alive. This Detective Katz had become a part of him. That was not a bad thing, necessarily. To have such a ghost, and to not deny him, was to have an extra brain, an extra pair of eyes and ears. Even Mama's Boy, she felt sure, might agree with that. If
it keeps you alert, he might say, if it gives you an edge, it is a friend. If Lesko is to honor his covenant with Uncle Urs, which he will and must, he will need such an edge.

  Nor, thought Elena, her eyes on Lesko, should the ghost of her past be allowed to recede entirely. She will cook for him, make him smile, give herself to him, love him. But she is still Elena. The family now looks to her. It must not surprise him if this woman who shares his life and his bed, who teases him, pampers him, needs him, and who even now, God willing, may be carrying his child in her belly, will be, when she must, no less ruthless than he. For she too has made a covenant. And it will be honored.