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The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series)

Page 24

by Maxim, John R.


  “What do you think, David?'' he asked in his mind. Without intending to. Habit.

  He imagined Katz stretching his arms and clasping them behind his head, because that's what Katz did on patrol when he wanted to look off guard and un-threatening. “No one left the library when you did,” he imagined Katz answering. “No one was walking through the parking lot. What's left is this guy had to be waiting in his car:”

  “We'll see.” He continued on, over the iron bridge they wanted to tear down, then past the turn-off toward the Interstate, then along a road that curled under the railroad tracks and led to the Avis office on the northbound side. The Subaru seemed to hesitate at the turn-off. Then it followed. As Lesko pulled into the section reserved for rental cars, he heard its engine slow and then accelerate. He glanced over. A man his age was driving. Gray hair, tanned, dark topcoat.

  A southbound train pulled in as he was paying for the car. Too late. The next train would be another hour. Lesko remembered the two commuter bars on the other side.

  “Gary says he's gone into Mario's.” Carla Benedict said into the phone to Anton Zivic. “I don't like this.”

  “You say his car was a rental?” Zivic asked. “When is the next train into the city?”

  “Hold on.” She checked the schedule printed in the Westport phone book. “Not until 5:45,” she told him.

  “Nearly an hour. His choices, therefore, were to sit in an empty waiting room or to wait where almost anyone else would wait.”

  “You're betting an awful lot on coincidence lately, Anton.”

  “I am allowing for coincidence.” Zivic asked whether Dr. Russo had followed him all the way to the rental car drop-off. He winced when she said yes. Better send him home, he said. Too late, she told him. He'd called her from Mario's.

  “Is Molly there?” he asked.

  “Yes. She recognized him the second he walked in.”

  “Is Billy there?”

  “Lesko's talking to him.”

  It wasn't quite Happy Hour yet, but it was Friday and the bar had a fair-sized crowd. He'd passed up Dameon's next door because its bar was smaller and the people standing at it were all blue suits. Mario's had a better mix. More women, more working stiffs from the town.

  .Lesko noticed the gray-haired man with the dark topcoat who entered after he did and went to the phone.

  “Hey, David.”

  “I seen him. ”

  “Tell me something else. ”

  “What?”

  “How come everyone I run into in Westport either writes down my license or runs to a phone?”

  “The library lady?”

  “And that security guard. Yeah.”

  “Because you're mean and ugly. What else is new?”

  “I ask you a question and you give me your mouth ” Lesko almost blinked him away. But he was enjoying this. Sort of. “Four people at that table in the library and I'm the only one she comes over to check on. Next thing, she goes outside to the parking lot, no coat on. Next thing, I maybe got a tail who is, by the way, my second tail in three days who is hopeless at it. ”

  “Maybe we're cops too long. Maybe he's also catching the 5:45. ”

  “Maybe.”

  At the far end of the bar, Molly Farrell had a drink ready for Gary Russo when he returned from the telephone. She beckoned him over. Take a sip, she told him through her teeth, then take your drink into the far dining room, order something, and stay there.

  She was tempted to call Carla to make sure Carla didn't show up as well. But Molly knew she wouldn't. Carla was a pro and Molly knew from Russo that Lesko had seen her once already. Nor did Molly want to leave the bar just yet. Susan's father had taken the last seat near the door. He'd thrown his coat over the seat next to it as if he was holding it for someone. And Billy, who she was sure had never seen him, had wandered down to get acquainted. Molly picked up a bar towel and began edging close enough to hear the conversation.

  So far this was Lesko's kind of saloon. No college kids on either side of the bar. No crocks of whipped cheddar cheese or bowls of the glazed shit that looks like Chinese health food. Just baskets of popcorn. Not salted so you'll drink more, but unsalted and absorbent so you won't get smashed so quick.

  No real decor either except for mementos that were slapped up over the years. A lot of jock pictures on the walls like at Gallagher's. Golfers mostly, but that was okay. At least they weren't pictures of some fucking actor who carries glossies with him every time he goes out for a drink. Behind the bar, on a high shelf, there was a row of about twenty carved wooden statues. Caricatures. He recognized John Wayne, W.C. Fields, The Beatles, two or three presidents, all democrats, no Nixon. His kind of bar.

  “New in town?” Billy set down Lesko's beer. “I don't think I've seen you around.”

  “Just visiting. I got some friends here.”

  “How ‘bout I buy you a shooter with that beer by way of welcome?”

  “Absolutely.” His kind of bartender, too. Lesko indicated a bottle of Seagram's rye.

  The bartender was a big guy, almost as wide as Lesko and a little older. A white short-sleeved shirt, powerful arms, a belly that was rounded but it looked hard. Except that the arms had no tattoos, Lesko would have guessed he was a retired Navy chief. Definitely not a retired cop. There's a look cops have that they never lose. His was close to that but different. Maybe Army. Yeah. He even had that trace of southern accent almost everybody picks up in the Army but not the Marines, because the Marines know that and try to sound different.

  Billy brought the shot glass. Lesko picked it up, saluted with it, and sipped. “You don't come from around here,” Lesko observed. “An Army lifer, right? Probably since Korea.”

  “I got my time in,” Billy nodded. “How about yourself?”

  “Three years Marines. Then the cops. I'm retired now.”

  The woman behind the bar had moved closer. Another patron asked her for three beers. He had to repeat it. She seemed distracted. As she went back to pour them, she called “Uncle Billy,” to Lesko's bartender, then shook her head as if she'd changed her mind. Lesko studied her, trying not to stare.

  “You have a very lovely niece. Good face,” Lesko said.

  Billy nodded agreement. “But Molly's not my niece. She's one of the owners. It's just that everyone around here calls me Uncle Billy.”

  Lesko looked at her again. She looked back, smiled shyly, then busied herself polishing glasses. A good face. Not beautiful or anything. What was good about her face was that it was open, and kind, and even wise. Big sad eyes, but not a sad woman. And the look. There was something about her look, too.

  “Nice town here, too.” He turned back to Billy. “My first visit.”

  “Don't make it your last,” Billy answered eagerly. “Best place I ever lived. But you want to come back here in April or May because the whole town is like a garden then.”

  “How about the people?”

  “Good. Good people.” His gesture took in all the patrons and employees. “The thing about Westport is you're never on your own here. We take care of each other.”

  The remark seemed innocent enough to Lesko. The Rotary Club would have loved it. But Molly with the sad eyes almost dropped her glass. Her smile came right back but what came before it was that look. The same as Uncle Billy's. Maybe close to a cop-look after all. Close but not quite. He would try to remember where he'd seen it before.

  On the 5:45 headed back to New York, Lesko chose a seat with an empty one on his right. He did this hesitantly, self-consciously. Having imaginary conversations with Katz was one thing as long as they just popped into his head. Everybody has imaginary conversations. But having them on purpose was something else. If Lesko heard of anyone else doing that, he would decide the guy's elevator wasn't stopping at all the floors.

  If Katz was alive though, and sitting there, Lesko would have asked him, “What did you think about all that?”

  Katz would have said, “What?”

 
He would have said, “I don 't know. The library lady. The possible tail. Those two behind the bar. ”

  Ask me,” Katz would have answered, “They made you. They knew who you were. ”

  Which of course would be crazy. In New York, Lesko was used to being recognized. But hardly ever outside New York. Besides, he'd only stopped at two or three places. What are the odds against him just happening to stop at the two or three places where he'd be recognized? The answer is—enormous. Unless the town was staked out. Which is also crazy when you think of the number of people it would take to do that. Even if they only staked out the places a visitor looking over the town was most likely to go. Which might include the Avis guy to whom he showed his driver's license. The security guard who wrote down his plate. . . .

  Nah! Crazy.

  The train stopped at Greenwich. A bunch of people got on. Mostly black women, probably working as maids and such and now going home. One of them spotted the seat on Lesko's right.

  “What did you think of the bartender?' 'Lesko asked quickly. “The guy had this look.”

  “What kind of look?”

  ”A cop-look but different. Seen everything, done everything, can handle anything. ”

  “Like he could have a drink with you one day and snap your spine the next?”

  ”I guess. Yeah.”

  “But loyal. Takes care of his friends?”

  “I guess. ” Right. We take care of each other, he had said.

  “Then except for that part, you prick, you were looking in a mirror. ”

  “Oh, fuck you. ”

  The black woman squeezed in. She sat on Katz's lap. Served him right.

  CHAPTER 14

  Detective Harry Greenwald, who had worked with Lesko four years in Manhattan South until he made lieutenant, had left calls for him at Gallagher's and at the Beckwith Regency, and had asked the watch commander at Lesko's local precinct to leave a note under his door. Lesko found it when he arrived home from Westport. Forty-five minutes later he was at the Bellevue morgue looking down at the dead, contorted face of Buzz Donovan.

  Donovan was on a gurney table, naked, covered with a sheet. His eyes looked past Lesko through slits, his mouth was open, his white hair messed and matted. His expression, it seemed to Lesko, was more one of anger than of pain.

  “Preliminary is a heart attack,” Harry Greenwald told him.

  Lesko reached for the sheet and drew it back over his friend's face. “What do you think?”

  Greenwald pulled out his notebook and opened it to a page held by a paper clip. “Doorman says he arrived around half-past two. Gave him the messages you left, which is how I knew to call you. Super says you'd asked him to check Donovan's apartment and it was empty then. Donovan gets home, takes off his clothes and gets into the shower, lathers himself up, which is why his hair is like that, and has an apparent heart attack. Maybe another two hours go by before enough water splashes out of the shower to go through the ceiling below. That tenant calls the super, the super finds him, calls 911.”

  “Any marks on him? Anything?'' Lesko made a gesture of futility with his hands. No matter how much death he'd seen, it was still hard for him to believe that a life, particularly that of a friend, could be snuffed out just like that.

  ”A small cut on the back of his head, a long scrape down his back, both consistent with sliding down over the shower fittings. He ended up with his face into the shower stream, mouth open. They'll probably find water in his lungs.” Greenwald touched the bigger man's arm. “I'm sorry, Ray.”

  “Where was he?” Lesko asked. “I mean, last night.”

  “No one seems to know.”

  “You went through his pockets?”

  “Nothing. Just his keys, wallet, pen. The usual.”

  “How about his notebook?”

  “He didn't have one. The clothes, by the way, smelled a little sour, like he slept in them. They were folded across a chair in his. . . .” Greenwald suddenly fell silent, staring into space as if he'd just remembered something. “He always carried a notebook?”

  Lesko pulled out his own. “Leather bound, like this one. It's always either in your pocket or where you empty your pockets. Did you look on his dresser?”

  Greenwald's mind was clearly on something else. “Ray,” he asked, “what was going on between you?”

  “Nothing.” He was damned if he was going to bring his daughter into this. “He's a friend. I see Donovan maybe twice a week since he retired.”

  “So why all of a sudden are you so hot to find him? What was in his notebook, Ray?”

  Lesko studied him. “Something just got you interested,” he said quietly, “what was it?”

  Greenwald shrugged. “What I'm asking about. The missing notebook.”

  “Don't fuck with me, Harry.” It wasn't the notebook. That could have been lost anywhere. It would have taken more than that for Greenwald to suddenly ask what's going on and to wonder, which Lesko could see in his eyes, whether it was a heart attack after all.

  Greenwald studied Lesko in return. “The messages. The ones the doorman says he gave Donovan to call you.”

  Lesko's eyes narrowed. “You didn't find them, either.”

  “Come on. We'll go look.”

  Robert Loftus had wanted no part in the abduction and illegal detention of Buzz Donovan.

  It was stupid. No other word for it.

  At the root of the stupidity was Palmer Reid's conviction that he could, given the chance, persuade anybody of anything. At the root of that conviction was Reid's fundamental contempt for any intelligence but his. That was what was so ludicrous. Reid would end up telling Donovan the most transparent lies, never dreaming for a minute that a former federal prosecutor might see right through them. Almost everybody saw through them. Almost always. And when that happened, Reid would regretfully conclude that there was just no reasoning with the man, and that's when Reid would get even more stupid.

  The only good thing to say about working for a man like Reid is that you could get rich. No real supervision. Few questions asked. Hardly any financial accounting. Loftus could retire right now on what he had taken out of Bolivia alone, if Reid would let him go. But Reid had told him. You retire when I do, Robert. Not before. Your country needs you. What that really meant, Loftus knew, was that Reid would have the IRS and the FBI inquiring into his affairs within a week, and the DEA would end up confiscating every nickle, every car, every piece of property they could find that could not be explained on an R-2's pay grade.

  “Not that it should be any cause for concern, Robert,” Reid had told him. “I am entirely confident that you, like myself, have not enriched yourself in any way while in the service of your country.”

  What was so fucking galling was that Reid's statement was one of his infrequent brushes with the truth. Reid, in all probability, had never pocketed a dime. Of course, having a trust-fund income all his adult life and picking up about four million when his mother finally died just might have had something to do with it.

  As for the abduction of Donovan, Loftus had been sure that Reid's “chat” with him would be anything but

  friendly. What he had feared most was that Reid would then try bullying him, threatening him, or even ordering him kept on ice until he began to see things Reid's way. That would have been stupid enough. But never in his darkest dreams did Loftus imagine that Reid would have Donovan killed.

  It was Doug Poole who told him. Poole had been summoned to the Scarsdale house early that morning. Reid's orders. Reid wanted to hear directly from him what he saw in Westport. Nothing, Poole had sworn. Only what he had told Mr. Loftus. The questioning made Poole nervous, both because of his own abduction, which he was not about to admit to anyone, and because the questioning suggested that Reid was losing confidence in Poole's immediate boss.

 

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