Two Songs This Archangel Sings m-5

by George C. Chesbro

  The next day I called a local florist and made arrangements to wire flowers and a thank-you note to Loan Ka and his family, the order to be delivered by a Hmong-owned florist shop in Seattle. Next I touched base with my insurance company to see what they were doing about my claims for personal possessions lost in the fire, and then called a rental agent I was using. The woman had three apartments for me to look at, and I told her I'd get back to her to arrange appointments. Then I put on my parka and went out into the day.

  The Federal Building was slightly less than forty blocks downtown, and I decided to walk at least part of the distance and try to find out who, if anyone, was playing tail-of-the-day. The people interested in my comings and goings were obviously serious, and I assumed that the big man with the white eyes had at least one backup.

  The noon streets and sidewalks around midtown were clogged with cars and pedestrians, which made if difficult for me to tag anyone who might be following along behind me. I decided to try to clear the picture a little. I abruptly turned left and crossed the avenue against the light, hopping and skipping my way through an obstacle course of speeding, honking cars. The next block of the cross street was closed to traffic due to a construction project utilizing two monstrous cranes. The sidewalks on both sides of the street were shielded by narrow, wooden walkways in which people could only walk two or three abreast. I waited for a crowd of people to come across the avenue, then cut in front of those heading for the walkway on the right side of the street. Screened from anyone who might have been following me, I sprinted to the end of the wooden tunnel, turned right at the corner, and stepped behind a newsstand.

  The people who'd been behind me in the walkway emerged, parted at the corner. I waited, and more people came out; there was no one who seemed in any great hurry or who stopped to look around. I decided that if I'd had anyone tailing me, I'd lost him, and I stepped out from behind the newsstand.

  As I reached into my pocket for change to buy a Times, I scanned the day's headlines; one story leaped out at me, and I sucked in my breath and involuntarily took a little step backward.

  The Times had the story halfway down the front page, in the third column. However, both the Daily News and the Post carried the item as their sole lead story, complete with large, grisly photographs. Liu Sakh Po, notorious ARVN colonel and alleged unreformed whore-master and gangster, would not be answering my questions, or anyone else's, since he was quite dead, his brain having been mashed inside his crushed skull sometime during the previous evening. I felt lightheaded and slightly nauseated; it was an eerie feeling to be standing on a windy, snow-blown corner in New York City looking at headlines announcing a man's death in a city a hundred and fifty miles away and knowing you are responsible. There was no doubt in my mind that it was my trip to Seattle that had killed him.

  I bought copies of all three newspapers. I had a strong urge to stop in some warm coffee shop and start reading at once, but I had an even stronger urge to get my Freedom of Information Act request on Veil filed. I folded the newspapers under my arm, turned to my left, and started to cross the street. I glanced up, stopped so suddenly that the man behind me had to do a little pirouette in order to avoid tripping over me.

  On the opposite corner, casually leaning against the side of a building, was the big man with the triangular face and cold, pale eyes. I had no idea where the man had come from, but he was unmistakably there, staring directly back at me with a slight, mocking smile on his face. Game time was over. He had appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost; his lack of pretense and his smile were a challenge, a blunt statement that I belonged to him, no matter what I did. He could hide or not hide, as it suited him, leave me be or kill me. He was saying that he would be with me each step of the way as I tried to piece together the pieces of the puzzle that would help me find my friend; if I finally found Veil, he would have found him too. And there was nothing I could do about it.

  I found the man's skill unnerving, his arrogance enraging. My face flushed and hot, I started toward him-then abruptly stopped. He hadn't moved; he remained leaning against the side of the building, hands jammed into the pockets of his sheepskin coat, the same mocking smile on his face. He was in charge of the situation, I thought, not me. I had been startled, was now frustrated and upset, and I could think of absolutely nothing I could say to the big man that would make me feel any better. He had already made a fool out of me; by crossing the street and confronting him, I would only run the risk of making a fool out of myself. The only way for me to seize the initiative from this man and his employers was to gain the information I needed.

  I stepped out into the street and hailed a cab, told the driver to take me to the Federal Building. When I looked back through the window the big man was gone, but I was certain he was in one of the dozen of so cabs behind.

  When I got back to Garth's apartment building, I took a long look up and down the block. The man tailing me had special skills, to be sure, but he was no ghost; he had to have access to food, warmth, and shelter someplace close by, and he had to have help.

  Directly across the street from the apartment building an oversized Consolidated Edison van was parked beside an open manhole cover inside a barricaded work area. There was also a lot of digging and electrical equipment. It was the kind of scene one passes a dozen times a day in New York City. However, what was curious about this setup was the fact that there were no utility workers on the work site — unless the entire crew was down in the manhole, which I seriously doubted. Also, there was no driver behind the wheel of the van.

  Now that I thought about it, it occurred to me that the van, barricades, and digging equipment had appeared across the street the day after I'd moved in with Garth, and I had never seen anyone working on the site. I noted the plate number of the van, then went up to Garth's apartment.

  The flag on Garth's telephone answering machine had fallen, indicating that at least one call had come in while I was out. However, at the moment I was far more interested in the information in the newspapers I was carrying. I poured myself a cup of coffee, spread the Times out over the kitchen table, and began to read.

  The lead story and accompanying obituary were rich in details concerning Po's background-the scandal surrounding his activities in Saigon during the war, his mysterious disappearance at the height of the scandal, and his unexplained-and, at the time, unnoticed-entry into the United States after the fall of Saigon. No one questioned the legality of his immigration, but there was no record of which American official or officials had sponsored him. A long sidebar detailed Po's alleged criminal activities since his entry into the United States and mentioned the investigations that had been cut short by his death.

  The background pieces were interesting, but I could find nothing relevant to my interests in them that I had not already learned from Loan Ka and Kathy.

  Po's death had been quick, brutal, and mysterious. Despite the fact that his Albany mansion had an intricate alarm system and a half dozen live-in bodyguards, somebody-the police theorized one man-had managed to penetrate that tight security and kill Po without leaving a trace. Po's skull had been crushed and his neck broken by a single, powerful blow-possibly delivered with a bare fist-to the top of the skull. Although a window in the third-story study where he had been killed was found open, the authorities did not believe it possible that the killer could have scaled the outside of the building and entered that way. Suspicion now centered on Po's bodyguards, and each was being questioned extensively. The police had issued a statement to the effect that they believed Po had been killed by another gangster and that it was probably an "inside" job.

  There was no mention of a severed and missing right thumb, but that was the kind of detail police might keep secret. I knew damn well Po hadn't been killed by a business rival, and I seriously doubted that any of his bodyguards had been involved. I knew a man who was capable of scaling the mansion wall and killing with a single blow of his fist, and I suspected that I might have met another
.

  The Times, as usual, was long on information, short on sensationalism. For sensationalism-and the photographs I wanted to see-I turned to the Daily News and Post.

  The main photo in both papers, attributed to a UPI photographer, showed Po in his dressing gown sitting at a massive desk in his study. His head was tilted forward at an impossibly acute angle, and it looked like it had literally caved in. Blood which had seeped from his skull and burst from his nostrils and mouth had puddled on the desk in front of him and stained much of the newspaper he was clutching with both hands. Behind the desk, slightly to his left, was the open window mentioned in the Times report.

  Something about the photo struck me as odd, but I couldn't immediately identify just what it was. The picture in the Post was large and slightly clearer than the one in the Daily News, and I spent some time studying it; I still could not tell what it was in the picture that was not as it should be. I folded the newspapers, rose, and went to the answering machine in Garth's study.

  The counter on the machine indicated one message. I rewound the cassette, listened to it. It was from the New York florist through whom I had placed the order for flowers; she was asking me to call her to provide "clarification" on the instructions I had given her. I thought my instructions had been quite clear, and I experienced a growing sense of unease as I picked up the phone and dialed the number.

  "Haley Florists." It was the woman who'd taken my order.

  "This is Robert Frederickson. I placed an order earlier for-"

  "Yes, Dr. Frederickson. There seems to be some confusion in Seattle over just what you want done with the flowers. I recall that you specifically requested that the flowers be sent to the residence of Mr. Loan Ka, but the florist in Seattle insists that you must want them delivered to the funeral home."

  "What funeral home?"

  There was prolonged silence on the other end of the line. When the woman finally spoke again, her voice was halting, distinctly uncomfortable. "Was Mr. Loan Ka a close personal friend of yours, Dr. Frederickson?"

  "Yes," I managed to say.

  "Sir, I don't know quite how to say this. There… is no longer any residence to send your flowers to. According to the florist in Seattle, it was destroyed two nights ago in some kind of explosion the police think may have been caused by a defective boiler in the basement."

  "And the… family?"

  "All dead, sir," the woman said in a small voice. "Also, there was the body of a young woman. I'm so sorry you have to learn about it this way, Dr. Frederickson. It's such a terrible tragedy."

  After hanging up I sat for a long time, just staring at the phone. I knew I should call Garth immediately, but I just couldn't will myself to pick up the receiver and dial the number of his precinct station house. I felt gutted, incapable of movement or decision. I had become something much worse than a mere stalking horse being used by both sides; I had been transformed into a Judas goat given just enough tether to track Veil and, in the process, target people. Loan Ka and his family and Kathy had survived the war in Southeast Asia; they'd survived Colonel Po, as well as the postwar ravages of the Pathet Lao.

  What they hadn't survived was talking to me.

  And if and when I found Veil, then Veil, Garth, and I would be killed. There was no longer much subtlety to the plans of Veil's hunters.

  Calling Garth wouldn't ease my rage and despair, and I knew that I would continue to feel paralyzed unless I somehow struck back. I couldn't involve Garth in any plans for revenge because he was on the investigation in an official capacity. There was nothing Garth could do but investigate and report, which was not the situation with me. I could kill, and that was precisely what I planned to do.

  I checked to make sure that the magazines and the chambers of both the Beretta and Seecamp were fully loaded, then replaced them in my ankle and shoulder holsters. I rummaged around in Garth's closets and cabinets until I found what I wanted-a twelve-foot-long electric extension. Feeling as if I were moving in slow motion at the bottom of a sea of grief and hatred, I put on my parka, dropped the extension cord into one of the pockets, then walked out of the apartment.

  Bypassing the main elevators and the stairs, I went into a storage area at one end of the hall and summoned the freight elevator. I descended to the basement, got out, cut through the laundry room where a young couple were doing their wash, banged my way out of the building through a rear delivery entrance. I walked up a long, sloping concrete ramp to the sidewalk without bothering to look around to see if my watchers might have this side of the building covered. I didn't care who might be watching me, because I didn't think anyone would try to stop me before they realized what I was up to, and by then it would be too late. I had one big move left to me, and I was determined to make it regardless of the consequences.

  After going two blocks, I turned left, went down the block and crossed at the corner, putting me on the same side of the avenue as the Con Ed van. I waited for a fairly large group of pedestrians to come my way and fell into step behind them, keeping to the inside of the sidewalk, away from the street. I took the extension cord from my pocket, tied a small loop at one end. As the group I was moving with came abreast of the van I cut across the sidewalk, ducked under the wooden barricade. New Yorkers are notorious for ignoring virtually everything that doesn't directly concern them, so I wasn't too concerned about being challenged by anyone but a cop as I hopped up on the running board at the back of the van. I dropped the small loop over the top of one of the handles on the twin doors, looped the rest of the cord tightly around both handles. Then I stepped off the running board, went around, and looked up at the side.

  Any concerns I'd had about the van's being nothing more than what it appeared to be were instantly dispelled when I saw the small, glass-covered viewing portals cut into the side of the van, partially disguised in the heavy block lettering of the Con Ed logo. I'd hit my mark, and now somebody, even if it was just a foot soldier, was going to pay for the murders in Seattle, after I got the answers to a number of important questions.

  With a grim smile and wave up at the central viewing portal, I jumped into the cab of the van. I'd been prepared to hot-wire the vehicle, but somebody had thoughtfully left the keys in the ignition. After pulling up the seat as far as it would go, I turned on the engine, put the van into gear, and rumbled forward through the barricade, easing my way out into the traffic.

  Checking the rearview mirror on the far side of the van, I could see that the unlikely sight of me hijacking a Con Ed van had finally attracted some attention; a knot of fifteen or twenty people were standing beside the broken barricade, some of them excitedly pointing in my direction. What I needed was some privacy and seclusion, things I wasn't likely to find with a stolen van in the middle of Manhattan.

  I cut across town to the West Side Highway, headed north. I kept checking in my rearview mirror, but I saw no cops and heard no sirens, and when I made it to the George Washington Bridge I felt I was home free-at least as far as pursuit was concerned. I still had some very dangerous cargo to handle.

  I crossed the bridge on the upper level, got off in New Jersey at the Fort Lee exit. I circled on a ramp under the bridge, turned left on a street that led to the entrance to a park on the very edge of the New Jersey Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River. The park was closed for the winter, with a chain blocking off the access road. However, the weight of the van easily snapped the chain, and I rumbled in low gear up the snow-covered road into a tree-shrouded parking area. I turned off the engine and ran, slipping and sliding, back down to the street. There weren't many cars, and I was hoping nobody would notice-or care about-the tire tracks on the access road. I pulled the chain taut, managed to tie the broken links together with my handkerchief, then ran back up into the parking area.

  There was no sound from inside the box of the van-no pounding, shouting, or cursing, as might have been expected from a man or men who'd suddenly found themselves trapped and being carted around town to an unknown
destination. I certainly hoped I hadn't stolen the van when the owners had been out to lunch.

  I went to the edge of the parking area and poked around under the bare trees until I found what I wanted-a long, firm stick. I trimmed one of the ends into a small fork, then returned to the van. I stopped a few feet to the side of the doors, drew my Beretta, and poked with my stick at the wrapping around the handles of the doors. It took some time and doing, but I finally managed to unwind the extension cord, leaving only the small loop over the door handle nearest to me. I threw away the stick and yanked on the extension cord. Both doors flew open, and in the same instant a fusillade of bullets poured out through the opening. I counted about ten shots in four or five seconds, from what sounded like two handguns. I waited until there was a lull in the shooting, then sucked in a deep breath, stepped forward, and peered into the interior of the van through a crack between a door and the side.

  Inside the van, banks of electronic equipment lined two of the three walls; the men had not only been watching, but listening, probably by means of a bug somewhere in Garth's apartment; telephone conversations could have been monitored by means of an NSA satellite. There were also cots, a portable toilet, and a small refrigerator-all the comforts of home.

  Two men dressed in fur-lined leather coats were crouched toward the rear of the van, their guns pointed toward the opening. They must have caught a glimpse of my head, because suddenly they both turned their guns in my direction and fired simultaneously; one bullet ricocheted off the metal floor, while the other flew through the crack and passed just over my head. I fell to the ground, rolled to the opposite side of the van, came up firing. I caught one man in the chest, and the other in the right eye; both died instantly. I swung my gun up, leveling it on the barrel chest of the big man with the triangular face who was sprawled across the top of a bank of electronic equipment against the right wall, clutching at a ceiling strut for support.