The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series)
Page 40
“I can see to it.”
“But no visitors without my approval. No one gets close to her.”
“As you wish.”
Paul scribbled the number of his apartment. “I'll be there when I've finished with the police. You'll call if there's any change?”
“Of course. But you are free to wait with her.”
There was a hint of disapproval in the doctor's eyes as he spoke. Paul understood it. He was regaining control. Detached efficiency did not become a distraught husband. But there would be no control while Susan's battered face remained in sight or in mind.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
He turned and walked away.
Elena Brugg composed herself, then picked up her phone on its fourth ring, expecting to hear the voice of Raymond Lesko.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Elena.” An oily voice. Hispanic. Ortirez? No. Not possible.
“Who is this, please?”
“You forget old friends so soon, dear lady?”
“Ortirez.” She spoke the name drippingly. “Where are you?”
“At my house,” he said, his manner cheerful. “In La Paz. Enjoying a fine lunch on this beautiful day.”
She could hear children in the background. She could hear birds. “What do you want, Colonel?”
“Ah, but I am now a general. And I live in a house as grand as that of the Betancourts. It is, in fact, the very same house, dear Elena.”
“What do you want?” This man, a general. The uniform must have cost him millions.
“You will recall that you left us under circumstances that were, at the very least, questionable?”
“I gave my reasons. Among them, Ortirez, was that you are scum.”
“Brave words from such a distance.”
“Then come to Zurich. I will say them to your pig face.”
“Ah, but I am there in spirit, Elena. This very day I have made you a present of the daughter of Detective Lesko.”
Elena put a hand to her mouth. It was as she feared. She had suspected the trafficantes, certainly. But Ortirez? He was a fool, a lout, who did nothing except for profit. And a brute. Not given to poetic methods. He would have poured gasoline upon the girl and watched her dance.
“Did you hear what I said, great lady?”
“I heard you.”
“And when your detective has suffered enough pain, I will make you a present of him as well. I will save you for last, Elena. I will…” `.
“Do I hear the laughter of children, Ortirez?” she asked calmly.’
The line went silent. He had covered his mouthpiece.
“Ortirez, do you know what a perpetual trust is?”
He said nothing. Even his silence sounded stupid.
“It is a fund of money that carries out one's wishes even after death. This fund will contain two million Swiss francs. Do you know how much that is in pesos, Ortirez?”
“Tell me about your fund,” he said scornfully, “and I will laugh at you.”
“Oh, the bounty will not be upon your life, Ortirez. That would be too merciful.”
He waited.
“First it will be for the eyes of your children and the noses of your women. I will keep them here in a box where I can count them. Next it will be for your disease-ridden cock, Ortirez. I will dry it and frame it so that all who come into my house may make jokes about the great General Ortirez.”
Lesko's lunch made him sleepy all over again. He couldn't understand it. Had trouble staying awake ever since he got here. Must be run-down. Too many four-in-the-mornings. Too many aggravating dreams.
He dozed off and on in a deep leather chair, in what must have been a recreation room, back when this place had patients. Now there was only Loftus. And his wife and kids. And that other guy, Poole.
Katz was there for a while. Sitting with him, watching a fight on cable. Lesko didn't mind as long as all he talked about was the fight. And about some of the other ones they saw when they used to go out to the old Sunnyside Gardens on Friday nights. But then one of Loftus's kids came in and took Katz's seat and he had to leave. Elena came in a couple of times, too. Or he thought she did. He wanted to get up and change the channel so she wouldn't think all he watched was boxing. But when he woke up enough to do it, she'd be gone, too.
Something cold touched his wrist. Then something rubbed it. He opened one eye.
Loftus. Face all bandaged. Nudging him, saying his name through wired teeth. Billy the bartender, pulled up in a chair. Zivic, the Russian, putting away a needle. A needle?
“Come on, Lesko.” Loftus patted his cheek.
“What . . . ?” Lesko looked at this wrist where the cold spot had been. “What was that?”
“Just a stimulant,” Zivic said. “To help you wake up.”
“Lesko.” Loftus patted him harder. “You have to concentrate. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, goddamn it.” Lesko slapped away the hand. “What?”
“You're going to Switzerland. Right away. This afternoon.”
“How come?” He could feel his heart beating faster. “What happened?”
Loftus held up a finger. “First you have to promise me. You stay calm. You listen. You go nuts like you did with me, Billy here will have to break your knee and you don't go.”
He looked through hooded eyes at Billy McHugh. For a moment he thought this must be another dream because Billy's face had changed. The friendly bartender was gone. His face showed no expression. His eyes looked cold and dead.
“Tell me,” he said quietly.
“Tell me about yourself, Mr. Bannerman.” An inspector from Zurich had joined the local police at the hospital.
“Let's save time,” he said crisply. “You know who I am, where I'm from, and you know my personal history. You know, or will learn, that neither Susan Lesko nor I have ever been involved in drugs. We came on a ski holiday. Nothing more.”
“And your two friends, also from Westport. They too are here on holiday?”
Computers, thought Bannerman. They did for anonymity what the Xerox copier did for confidentiality. He got out none too soon. “I have enemies. They were concerned about me taking this trip unprotected. They came in my interest.”
“Bodyguards? And yet they claim to be unarmed.”
“You've detained them?”
“We're questioning them. As for enemies, evidently Miss Lesko has one or two as well.”
“Evidently,” he scowled. “Up where she was found, did you find any tracks or bootprints where she was thrown off that trail?”
“All signs were obscured by the rescuers.” He pointed to the bag Paul carried. “I would like to look through her belongings.”
Paul carried it to a bench and carefully doled out its contents. There was the red plastic bag that might have saved her life. A carved wooden head, bought on a credit card. A brochure from the Schatzalp Restaurant. A small bag containing two Klosters ski pins in the shape of snowflakes, one of them probably for him. Maybe she wasn't all that mad at him anymore by the time she. . . .
Not much else. Keys. A dozen postcards. A package of mints of the sort one finds at restaurant cash registers. A blue American Express receipt. For seventy one Swiss francs. About $50 American. He stared at the receipt, at Susan's signature, until the inspector took it out of his hand.
“Seventy one francs,” the inspector said, frowning. “It would be hard for two people to spend so much for a simple raclette at the Schatzalp. More likely three. Perhaps Miss Lesko plus two American assassins allegedly retired to the peaceful environs of Westport, Connecticut.”
‘Take that up to the Schatzalp. Ask the waiters if they remember three people who had raclette. Until then, you're wasting your time. And mine.”
“In your opinion.”
“You want a second opinion? One you'll like better?” The inspector waited.
“Call Urs Brugg.”
Bannerman didn't know what made him say that. Or even, clearly, what it
meant. Perhaps it would give the inspector something to think about. Keep him busy.
“As it happens, Mr. Bannerman,” the inspector said coldly, “Urs Brugg is the only reason all three of you are not already under lock and key.”
He stopped once more at Susan's, bedside as a nurse was drawing the bed's curtain for the night. He took her hand. He had to force himself to look at her.
“I'm so sorry,” he whispered. He tried to say more but his throat became full.
Bannerman reached to her good eye and closed it. It seemed to flicker at his touch. Perhaps it did not. The eye was now still.
The nurse released the curtain, still not fully drawn, and hurried away. Later, hours after he was gone, she would tremble at the look she saw on this man's face.
Back at the Klosters apartment, Bannerman called the Des Alpes Hotel to leave messages for Carla and Gary. He had no idea how long the police might detain them. He wanted to alternate them on station at the hospital's front entrance, security guard or no. If they were not released soon, he would have to go himself. He might in any case. He would rest if he could, as he'd promised Anton.
It felt odd, he reflected, to hear Anton giving him an order. Of course Anton had every right. He had the job now. The final authority on anything affecting the security of the group. And cool, collected Paul Bannerman had been right on the edge of losing his grip. Having Anton take control had felt more than odd. It felt good.
The telephone rang. Carla, maybe. He picked it up and said his name.
“This is Lesko,” said the voice on the other end. “How is she?”
Bannerman would have known the voice from Molly's wire taps. Except now it was pitched lower, little more than a hoarse whisper. He could hear a rage and a hatred held barely under control. And he heard pain.
Bannerman told him all that the doctor had said. Coma. Waiting for tests. Twenty-four hours would tell. He chose not to mention the battering of her face. -
“Who did it?” Lesko hissed.
“I'm not sure.”
“Then fucking guess. Who did it?”
“Lesko,” Bannerman sighed, “it depends on whether this was done to you or to me. Nobody was mad at Susan. I don't know whether Susan had worse luck being my friend or your daughter.”
Lesko took a breath. He had the sound of a man biting his tongue. “What about who did the hit? You got anything there?”
”No”
“No? What's no?”
The question caught him off guard. He had, he realized, answered it almost dismissively because the habit of his fifteen years was rarely to concern himself with triggermen but rather those who sent them. Chasing after dime-a-dozen hired hands was a waste of time and energy. But a policeman, he realized, would not think that way. In this case, and in the case of his mother, come to think of it, neither did he.
“There are no witnesses so far. No descriptions, but the police are working on it,” he said lamely. “There seem to have been two of them. It looks like Susan had lunch with them just prior to….”
“Lunch? So someone saw them together?”
“We don't know that yet.” Bannerman explained about the American Express receipt and the other contents of her purse that helped to trace her movements.
“So who did Susan know in Davos?”
“No one,” he said, frowning. “Unless she ran into ... I don't know. Someone she knew from the States.”
“Come on, Bannerman. Wake up.” Lesko's voice was rising. “Her friends from the States don't hang around Davos and they don't try to kill her. Who did she know in all fucking Europe well enough she'd buy them lunch?”
Bannerman felt the blood drain from his face.
“You there, Bannerman?”
“I'm here.”
“We're going to the airport right now. I'll get there in about ten hours. Do you think you can maybe give this a little thought in the meantime? Maybe keep an eye on her for a change?”
“I'll see you in ten hours.” He replaced the phone.
Bannerman was splashing water on his face, trying to stop the burning, trying to separate the sting of Lesko's words from their content, trying to see more clearly the picture that was forming in his mind when the ring of the phone jolted him again.
“Paul?” The voice on the other end took a hesitant breath. “This is Palmer Reid.”
“Yes, Palmer.” With effort, he kept his voice even.
“Paul, I've heard about the Lesko girl. The Swiss cabled a background check on you and two of your people. I saw the traffic. I picked up on it just to see what you were up to. Then when they…”
“Palmer, why are you calling?”
“I'm calling to give you my word of honor that neither myself nor my people had anything to do with it.”
Paul remained silent. Waiting.
“Damn it, Paul, this is the truth. Whatever our differences, and even though I would happily see you and all your killers in your graves, I would not dream of harming that girl.”
“I believe you, Palmer.”
A pause. “Do you?”
“Yes.” For the moment. Until I learn differently. But, in fact, he could not imagine what Palmer Reid could hope to gain by harming Susan.
“Paul, I'm offering you a truce. And even though you may reject it, I'm offering any assistance that's mine to give. Men, money . . . anything.”
‘Thank you, Palmer. I'll let you know.”
“I mean it, Paul. I have family of my own.”
Whom he didn't want visited by Billy McHugh again. “Palmer, I said I believe you.”
“Is it true that cocaine was used?”
“Yes.”
“Will she recover?”
“I don't know.”
“Paul, cocaine dealers have been known to kill that way. They have also been known to kill family or loved ones to heighten the suffering of their primary victim. Are you aware that Susan's father slaughtered several drug traffickers two years ago?”
Paul understood what he was suggesting. “But why now, Palmer? And why in Switzerland when they had two years to get her back in New York?”
“Because Switzerland is where Elena is.”
“Where who is?”
“Elena, Paul. If you want my opinion, it was done either to teach her a lesson as well or it might even have been done at her direction.”
“Palmer . . . what are you talking about?”
A long pause. “You're saying you don't know her?”
“Who is she?”
“For heaven's sake.”
“Palmer . . . ?”
“She ordered the death of Lesko's partner. Lesko killed three of her Bolivians to avenge him but left Elena alive at the scene. There has been talk that she and Lesko had been in league all along. There's also talk that they've fallen out. Either way, the attack upon that lovely young girl seems to be a case of Lesko's chickens coming home to roost.”
'T see.” ,