The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series)
Page 31
“Tell him he did fine.” Paul heard a rapping against the glass of the terminal window. It was Susan, pointing at her wristwatch. He held up one finger. “Listen, Colonel, will you check out a couple of names for me? A Raymond and Caroline Bass from Lumberton, Mississippi. Both in their late fifties, early sixties. He's about five nine, full head of graying hair. They're passengers on this train.”
“You think someone else has sent traveling companions?”
“Not at all. It's just nice to know who your friends are.”
“I'll call you in Klosters.”
“Only if you have to, okay? And Anton . . .” Susan was jumping up and down. “Tell Billy I'm proud that he's my friend.”
Bannerman ran for the train.
On Lesko's street in Queens, on a rooftop four buildings away and down the block, Glenn Cook of Westport’s Sundance Ski Shop sighted through the scope of an Armalite carbine at the traffic turning off Queens Boulevard. Two delivery trucks came through, then several older cars, a lunch wagon, then two late-model cars, but they were driven by women.
A new-looking Chrysler turned onto the street. Charcoal brown. Driver, a man in his mid-thirties wearing a business suit. Perfect, he decided. Glenn Cook squeezed the trigger.
The brown Chrysler veered wildly, braking first and then accelerating before its wheels could be straightened. It slammed into the rear quarter-panel of a car parked at the curb.
Glenn Cook fired again.
He collapsed the stock of his Armalite and jammed it into a sling underneath his ski parka. Picking up his brass, Cook walked unhurriedly across two more rooftops and then disappeared down a stairwell.
From a gas-station phone booth two blocks away, he punched out Palmer Reid's Maryland number, spoke three sentences to a recorded message and hung up. Then, after stopping for a container of coffee and two chocolate doughnuts, he drove back to Westport.
Susan was enthralled. She barely heard a word as Andrew the steward demonstrated the switches and knobs of their private compartment She stood with a glazed Christmas-morning smile as he explained their dining car choices, and the hours of service, then collected their passports. He'd no sooner closed the door behind him than Susan let out a whoop that had several startled passengers peering out into the corridor. “Americans,” the steward explained with a smile.
“This,” she announced, semi-composed for the moment, “is the single most romantic thing I've ever seen in my life.” Every panel, every fitting, every thread of fabric was exactly as it had been a half-century before. On a table near the large viewing window sat a bucket of iced champagne and a mound of Iranian caviar the size of an ostrich egg. From a baseboard grille she could feel the heat of a charcoal stove rising against her legs.
“You don't know the half of it.” Paul grinned at her pleasure. “This particular car sat out World War Two on a siding in Lyons. It was used as a brothel for German officers.”
She closed one eye. “Are you making that up?”
He shrugged. “I'm sure they've changed the sheets since then.”
“And repaired the springs?”
“I guess we'll find out.”
Susan ran her fingers over the embroidered settee, then over the wall above it, trying to imagine where the other bed was and how this day cabin converted into a sleeper. She decided to let Andrew worry about that. Her eyes darted about the compartment, resting for only a moment in one place before dashing to another. Another whoop. A jump up and down. A wave through the window to some passing French children, who smiled and waved back.
“I wish you'd climb out of your shell,” he said dryly, “show a little enthusiasm.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said happily. She dipped a thumbnail into the caviar, ignoring a low groan from Paul. “Does everyone get all this?”
“Nope,” he smiled. “Only when you special-order for a special lady.”
Paul opened a set of curved mahogany doors that revealed a hidden wash stand and towels. “If you want to freshen up before we dress for dinner, I'll go and take a short walk. There's not much room for both of us to move around in here.”
“I don't want to wash up now. I want to explore.”
“You wouldn't like some time to yourself? To unpack?”
“Uh-uh,” she shook her head. “Let's go check out the bar car. No, wait. We have champagne. You have to make a really romantic toast.”
“I'll open the bottle.”
“And then how about a quickie?”
”A quickie what?”
She batted her eyes, pretending to blush.
“Susan,” he made a show of wincing, “one has quickies in the backseats of cars or in apartment elevators. One does not have quickies aboard the Orient Express.” He reached for the door latch. “You make yourself comfortable. I'll be back in three minutes.”
Her face fell. She said nothing, only staring for a brief moment and dropping her eyes.
”Oh-oh,” he said. “What's wrong.”
“It's okay. Three minutes.”
“Susan,” he leaned backward against the door. “What just happened?”
Her lips moved, haltingly, as if trying out words and rejecting them. “You're going to case the joint, aren't you? See who's next door. See if anyone new got on at Boulogne.”
“And bribe Andrew to show me their passports?”
“Are you?”
“Actually, I was going to the bathroom. It's down the hall.”
Susan brought her hand to her face, but she couldn't stop the laugh. “I'm sorry. I don't believe I said those things.”
“I thought we settled all that. I'm not mysterious. I'm boring.”
She stepped toward him, put her arms around him, and leaned her face against his chest. “Can I say just a couple more things?”
He answered by holding her.
“There's something about you, Paul. It's a very special quality that I've never seen before except in my father. I know what made him that way. Whatever made you that way, it's more than what you've told me, and I hope someday you'll feel you can.”
“Are you sure I even know what it is?”
“Yes. I'm sure.”
“You're not just letting your imagination run wild? After all, you're a reporter. You're also your father's daughter.”
“Paul?” He felt her chest rise. “Paul, I think I love you.”
“I love you. I don't have to think.”
She fell silent. He could see the beginning of a tear at the corner of her eye. “That's the first time you've said that.”
“I know. It felt good.”
She held him, listening to his heartbeat. “Maybe love comes faster than trust. I guess I can wait.”
“Thank you.” He knew that was the wrong thing to say. It implied acknowledgment. He said it anyway.
Susan heard it. She eased herself away from him, looked about their compartment, and then up into his eyes. “Paul,” she said, “this is all very heady stuff for me. These trips, being on the Orient Express, finding out I love you. I'm not especially sophisticated. I'm pretty easy to dazzle for a while. But I'm proud. And I'm not stupid.”
“I know. I know all that.”
“I guess I want you to know that I'm not just some empty-headed plaything who's along for the ride.”
Paul's expression became cool. “You're not stupid, Susan. But that remark was.”
She didn't blink. “Tell me why.”
“For openers, it's just as offensive as if I told you I'm not some stud who's along to pick up the tab.”
Susan winced. “Oh damn,” she said.
“Oh damn, what?”
“It's more polite than 'Oh shit.' ”
“How do we get out of this?”
“Would it help if I tore off my clothes?”
“Hold that thought for later.”
Back in Queens, it was a morning for cops.
It started, as usual, with Katz. Lesko had drifted in and out of sleep after that crazy dream th
at had everybody including Elena turning up in his bedroom. There were a whole string of small dreams after that, about Susan, about Elena, about the barbershop. That one woke him up. Mostly. He lay there, eyes closed, thinking about his last conversation with Loftus.
There was no question in his mind by now that Loftus knew, or at least strongly suspected, who had killed Burdick. The look on his face had said so. Lesko knew that Bannerman had to be somewhere behind it. Because, besides himself, no one but Bannerman would have a revenge motive after the killing of Donovan. But Bannerman was in Europe. Therefore, friends of Bannerman must have done it. Lesko's instincts told him, and this is where the logic became shaky, that Bannerman's friends were at least two, and maybe four, of the people he'd chanced upon in Westport.
It was more than shaky, Lesko knew. If he'd happened to take an entirely different route during his Westport visit he would have seen or met an entirely different group of people. True, the ones he met had this look that kept bothering him. But so what? Lots of people have a look. Ex-cops, ex-cons, combat veterans, even priests and nuns dressed in civilian clothes.
“Ask me, it's nothing. “Katz was there with the Danish.
”l guess,” Lesko muttered.
“What it is,” Katz was clanking around the kitchen, looking for a clean cup, “they just stick in your mind when you think of Westport because they're all you saw there.”
“Probably.”
“Except you know what?” Katz came in squinting. “Maybe it's logical you saw those people.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“If you want to look over a town like Westport, you do what you did, right? You drive around, you stop at the library, you look through the local paper, then you go check out the places where people hang out. ”
“Okay. So what?”
“Maybe they know that. ”
“I don't get you. ”
“Maybe they got it set up so they spot anyone who comes snooping around because they know just like us where people are likely to snoop. ”
“Maybe,“ Lesko said doubtfully. It might make sense but it was an awful lot of trouble to go to. And it would take more than four people to do it right.
“And I'll tell you something else, “Katz said brightly. “When Susan started looking that town over, I bet she went to all the same logical places. And they caught on to her. And Bannerman worked out a way to get to know her to see what she was up to. ”
“Up to what? You mean all that suicide and fatal accident crap?”
“I don't know. It could be. ”
“Which reminds me. ” Lesko opened one eye. “How come you never see any dead people except maybe Buzz? How come you don't go find some from Westport and settle that once and for all?”
“Come on, Lesko.” Katz began an instant pout.
“What come on? That's a logical question. ”
”l already told you I don't know how. Anyway, I don't hang out with stiffs ”
“Well now, David, ” Lesko's teeth bared against his pillow, “as a rule, I don't either. Except you don't give me the same choice you have.”
“Anyhow it wouldn't do any good. If they're all like Donovan you can't talk to them because they don't even think they're dead. Donovan still thinks he's in fucking Gallagher's.”
“David . . . are you listening to yourself?”
“Don't say it.”
“Not that I begrudge you, David, but one of these days we really ought to face facts here.”
“You want to face facts? You really want to make sense out of me coming here?”
“I can 't say it's at the top of my list, but I guess, yeah. ”
“Then make sense out of this.” Katz's voice was becoming shrill. “Last night you had Loftus here and he's not dead. You had Elena in the sack with you, which incidentally I didn't give you any shit about, and she 's not dead. You had Donovan here with his table and his fucking table sure isn't dead. ”
“Yeah? So what?”
“I'm telling you, there's a way out of this. Maybe next time they're here, I'm going to try sort of sliding over next to them and when they walk out, maybe l can walk out with them. ”
“What the hell,” Lesko shrugged. “Give it a shot. ”
“I'm going to.”
It was mostly a morning for live cops. The first one came after he'd dried off from his shower and was on his second cup of coffee. A sergeant named Mosconi from the local precinct, where they all knew Lesko and where he lived, knocked on his door and asked him whether he'd seen what had happened on the street an hour or so earlier.
“No, what? I was asleep.”
“We had a sniper incident.” Mosconi asked if he could enter and then led Lesko to his window where he pointed up toward Queens Boulevard. A brown, late-model Chrysler had plowed into a parked car two down from Mr. Makowski's fifteen-year-old Chevy. There was a four-inch hole high on the windshield. Five patrol cars, their blue lights strobing, had answered the call. Two of them sealed off both ends of the block.
“Anyone hurt?” No ambulance yet. One man in a suit waving his arms, talking to two uniforms.
“No.” Mosconi nodded toward the man being interviewed. “He's a salesman. Dry-cleaning equipment. He's on his way to LaGuardia and he's trying to cut over to the Parkway. Never been down this street before.”
A random victim.
“You didn't hear any shots, Ray?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Neither did anyone else so far. I came up here because I figured if anyone on this street would make a decent witness, it's you.”
“I can't help you,” Lesko shook his head. “I don't even know who owns a rifle around here.”
“How about veterans? You know any real good marksmen?”
“How good do you have to be to hit a windshield?”
Mosconi showed a mirthless smile. “Both shots are through the rearview mirror, one on either side of the stem. One while he was moving, the other after he crashed. I'd call that good shooting.”
I'd call it leaving a message, thought Lesko.
But as for the who and the why of it, Lesko had no idea. It crossed his mind, recent events considered, that the demonstration might have been for his benefit. But no. No way. Demonstrations are useless if they're too subtle. It's why loan sharks break legs.
Sergeant Mosconi declined a cup of coffee and left. His uniforms would be going door-to-door and checking rooftops all morning.
The next cop was Detective Harry Greenwald, who heard the squeal about a sniper on Lesko's street and drove out from Manhattan.
“Any chance that could have been for you?” he asked.
“None at all. I just been through that with the Queens cops.”
“They have anything?”
“Nothing. No shell casings, no witnesses, no motive. Ask me, it's probably one of those psychos who read Soldier of Fortune.”
“I wonder,” Greenwald said, then stood waiting.
“You came out for nothing, Harry. Don't waste your time.”
“You know what else I wonder?”
“What?”