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The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series)

Page 48

by Maxim, John R.


  Paul stared at him. “How long have you known?”

  “That you allowed Reid to live, to keep probing us, in order to give us a common enemy? That you saw the need to focus the homicidal tendencies of a dozen violent people upon a distant bogeyman? So that they would behave as an interdependent unit and be less apt to randomly depopulate Westport? Is that your question?”

  “My question was how long?”

  “From the first day.”

  Paul kept staring. “You're a very wise man, Anton.”

  Zivic shrugged.

  “Very perceptive. Very smart. But happily there's a little corner left that still has some dumb in it.”

  “How so?”

  “You just talked yourself into a full-time job.”

  Wednesday afternoon. Zurich. Misericordia Hospital.

  Elena's eyes were closed. She had a sense that she was not alone. Another nurse. Another needle. Or worse, another policeman.

  “Please go away,” she said to the figure that filled the doorway to her room. She said it in German.

  “Yeah, well . . .” Lesko got the meaning. “I just wanted to drop this off. I wasn't going to stay or anything.”

  “Lesko?” She blinked to clear her vision. He was holding a very large poinsettia plant in both hands.

  “I wanted red roses,” he said uncomfortably. He looked around the room for a place to put it. Her bedside table was too small, the window sill too narrow. “The guy at the florist said you don't give red roses here except to…” He didn't finish.

  Fiancées. Lovers. Lesko would not have known that. “Please come in. The plant is lovely.”

  Lesko approached the bed. He still had no idea what to do with the pot. He shifted it under his left arm. The petals tickled his face.

  “I would have come sooner…” He stopped. His face fell at the sight of the cast that covered her left arm from the shoulder. There was a metal contraption that looked like a carpentry clamp. At each end was a long screw that must have been drilled into the bone. Her right shoulder was heavily padded. Some kind of strap held both shoulders in an unnaturally backward arch. “I mean….I would have been here waiting. But you know I had to wait for Susan.”

  “I know,” she said gently. “I hear Susan is much better.”

  “Much better. Yeah.”

  “There may be hallucinations. Some nightmares. Some memory loss. But it will soon pass.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “It's what the doctor said.” He gestured feebly toward her injuries. “If I knew, last time I saw you…if I could have taken the bullets myself…” again he stopped. Dumb things to say.

  “I know. Come sit by me, Lesko. And please put down that plant.”

  “Where?”

  “On the floor. They'll bring a stand for it.”

  He put it in the corner, dropping to one knee as he straightened the foil wrapping that he'd crushed. He was stalling. All the way up he'd thought about what he'd say. He could remember none of it.

  “You probably got friends coming. Relatives. Why don't I just. ..?'' He edged toward the door.

  “They were here. They've left.”

  “Oh.”

  “When are you going back home?”

  “I think tomorrow.”

  “Will you ever come back?”

  “What, like to Switzerland? I don't know. I don't travel that much.”

  “Would you consider coming here as my guest? Under happier circumstances, it is quite a beautiful country.”

  “Well, yeah…I mean…that would be nice.”

  “But would you come?”

  “Look, you had a lot of painkillers and things. I want you to just take it easy and get better.”

  Her chest heaved in a sigh. It made her wince. She looked away. “I see?’

  “Wait a minute. You see what?”

  “I am foolish to think that you can forget.”

  “Bullsh ... oh, Christ.” Lesko felt his throat getting thick and his eyes becoming moist. He turned away from her. “Excuse me.”

  She said nothing.

  “I know you saved Susan's life. Except for you, Bannerman wouldn't have known to check for that . . . thing. We're square. That wipes it clean.”

  “Fair enough,” she whispered.

  “I come over here, I'd just embarrass you.”

  “Embarrass me?” She looked up.

  “You're so pretty and I'm…” He was still looking at the wall. “You ever come to New York, though, there's this place I go. Gallagher's.”

  “I know Gallagher's. Fifty-Second Street. Big beefsteaks.”

  “No kidding?”

  “But I cannot go. I cannot go to the United States.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Federal warrants. “Listen,” he said, “not that I can promise anything, but what if I could square that, too?”

  “Lesko,” she patted the edge of her bed. “Come sit with me. Sit here.”

  He obeyed, but slowly. She shifted to make room. Still, he would do little more than lean against it for fear that he might jar her.

  She took his hand. “Such a rough man,” she said. “Such a tender man. I know that you like me. You say it in every possible way except, ‘I like you, Elena.’ ”

  Her fingers were cool. The touch made him shiver. “Look. What I said to you in Davos. The way I acted…”

  “I understood. Not at that moment, but later.”

  “I'm really sorry.”

  They sat for a while, not speaking.

  “Come to Switzerland, Lesko,” she said at last. “Leave the ghosts behind.”

  “What do you mean? Move here?”

  “An indefinite visit, if you prefer.”

  It's the painkillers, he thought. This is crazy. She's rich, she's got so much class, and he's just a nasty ex-cop who scares most of the people he meets. Katz'll have a field day with this one. “Listen,” he kept his voice soft, “What I'll do ... a couple of weeks and I'll call you. Let's see how you feel then.”

  “I suppose that is wise. As long as you promise.”

  “We'll talk. See how you're making out. One way or the other, if you still want, maybe we'll at least have dinner.”

  “Here? In Zurich?”

  “We'll see what happens.” Lesko glanced at his watch, taking care not to dislodge her hand. “Listen…you better get some sleep.”

  “You'll stay a while? Sit with me?”

  “I'll sit with you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Westport. Late afternoon, the next day.

  Roger Clew pushed through the door of Luxury Travel Limited, glared exasperatedly at Paul, then scanned the office layout for a place where they could talk. He saw the conference room, walked to it past desks and consoles, sat down in it and waited. Paul followed, closing the door behind him.

  “You realize I've been to Europe and back looking for you? I haven't showered in two days?”

  “Ships in the night,” he shrugged. “Where did you put the Leskos?” They had, he knew, come back with Roger, who smuggled them to Frankfurt and then aboard an Air Force plane complete with armed airmen and an Air Force neurologist.

  “I just delivered them to Greenfield Hill. The girl's shaky but okay. Lesko says he going to call some New York cops he knows to come up and guard her. His message to you is, ‘Nothing personal, he won't tell them much, don't try to prevent it.’ ”

  Paul felt a headache coming on.

  ‘The Swiss have a message for you, too. Theirs is, ‘You even think about going back after who ever hit Russo and the Lesko girl and they'll lock you up for ten years.”

  “I'm not going after anyone. Not in Europe.”

  “You already got them?”

  “Come spring,” he said, “the ones who attacked Susan might turn up. Or they might not. The Elena ambush was by two other men and a driver. I'm not interested in them. They're just shooters. Europe's full of them.”

  “You figure it's Reid? Behind all this, I mean?”

  “There is that ch
ance.”

  Clew moved his chair closer, “That's what I want to talk to you about. We're about to force Reid out. He's nuts. If the secretary had his way we'd haul him off to a rubber room at St. Elizabeth's, but the man's got all those files. We don't want you doing anything until we have our hands on them.”

  “For that you chased me to Europe?”

  “There's more. Him out of the way, we want you to come back to work.”

  “No chance, Roger.”

  “I'm not talking like before. Not exactly.”

  “Then what, exactly?”

  “You have a hell of a team here, Paul. It's an awful lot of talent not to be put to good use.”

  “What do you consider good use?”

  Clew brushed aside the question. “And I don't have to tell you there are lots of shitty people in the world. The worst of them always seem to be just out of reach. Just the other day I heard the attorney general telling the secretary how frustrating that is.”

  “And you want us to start killing them off.”

  Clew raised his brow. “I didn't say that. Barton Fuller certainly didn't say that.”

  “I'll try to pay closer attention. What did you say?”

  “That sometimes…occasionally…we could use specialized help that is not answerable to any civil hierarchy. That maybe sometimes your people could use a little exercise.”

  “When that happens I'll take them jogging.” Paul pushed back from the table, disappointment plain on his face. “Someone probably said that to Palmer Reid once. Haven't you learned anything from it? Anyway, I'm not interested.”

  “Whatever you say, Paul.” Roger folded his arms.

  Bannerman looked at him suspiciously. Nothing's that easy.

  “As long as I'm here,” Clew asked innocently, “and we're through talking, you mind if I just think out loud for a couple of minutes?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “The room isn't bugged, is it?”

  “Now you're asking?”

  “You see why I need professional help. Quiet now. Let me think.” Roger Clew leaned back in his chair and began talking to the ashtray. “In addition to his own group, Mama's Boy is now wired into the Brugg family of Zurich, which incidentally has a lot of juice over there, and to the Betancourt family of La Paz which— who knows?—could also be useful. He's also wired into Raymond the Terrible Lesko, who reminds me of Billy McHugh except he knows more words. This is the basis of a considerable network.”

  “I barely know Lesko. I hardly know the Bruggs at all.”

  “I'm not talking to you.” He focused again on the ashtray. “Now, Bannerman doesn't want to be back on the payroll, for which I don't blame him because he's retired and besides he's independently wealthy having ripped off a few million of federal funds and a few prime pieces of Westport real estate. But we're not even going to mention that. No hard feelings.”

  “Roger…”

  “We're going to stay friends. We're going to stay in touch. And, if I ever have anything bothering me, I'm going to come see him, cry on his shoulder, maybe just mail him a newspaper clipping. And likewise, any time Paul Bannerman needs a favor, boy, I'm going to be right there.”

  “I'm glad to hear that.”

  “The trouble is, Lesko reminds me that it's hard to have a network with the Bruggs as long as there's a federal Jane Doe out on Urs Brugg's niece and another one from New York as a material witness to some old shooting. So by Monday, there won't be.”

  “That's very thoughtful of you, Roger.”

  “What are friends for?”

  “Maybe I owe you one.”

  “I'll try to think of something.”

  “One, Roger. Just one.”

  Late Friday afternoon. Westport.

  Raymond Lesko had not been in Westport thirty-six hours before his patience began to wear thin. Four New York policemen with assorted weaponry had joined him at Greenfield Hills. They fell to discussing tactics, agreeing with Lesko that it made no sense to let an enemy pick the time and place for an assault.

  In the halls and washrooms of Greenfield Hills, Lesko had also picked up two rumors. One was that Palmer Reid had holed up in his Maryland home, where he had established an elaborate command center. The house was heavily guarded, the streets patrolled. The second was that the same long-distance shooter who was such a show-off on Lesko's street in Queens had been dispatched to a street in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

  With these rumors in tow, he confronted Paul Bannerman at Luxury Travel Limited.

  “Your guy's down there to hit him, right? You promised me a piece of it.”

  “He's just there to observe,” Paul raised a calming hand. “As for Reid holing up in his house, he often does that when he's nervous. It's good that he's nervous.”

  “So? What happens now?”

  Until Roger Clew's visit, the answer to that had been clear. Roger's friendship was valuable. That of the Secretary of State even more so. Still…“I haven't decided,” Paul told him.

  “What's to decide? You know he's behind what happened to Susan and Elena.”

  “I don't know it. I think it.”

  “But you got no question about Donovan.”

  “None at all.”

  “What more do you want?” Lesko threw up his hands. “We just sit until he drops a bomb on Westport with a signed confession taped to it?”

  Paul shook his head. “He won't move yet. Not until he's sure where you are and where Loftus is. He's probably not even sure where I am.”

  “Bannerman,” Lesko slid into a chair. “I want this guy. I'll work with you or I'll do it alone. But I want him dead.”

  Paul said nothing. He seemed to sigh.

  “Hey, look,” Lesko leaned toward him. “The last few days I heard a lot about Mama's Boy. All of a sudden you're not acting much like the guy I heard about. Does Susan, by chance, have anything to do with the change?”

  A small shrug.

  “I hear you're thinking about hanging them up, is that true?”

  “More or less.”

  “Well, if you think backing off is suddenly going to make you better son-in-law material…”

  “I don't.”

  “Then what do you say you get off your ass?”

  “You're a smooth talker, Lesko.” Bannerman reached for a pad and scribbled an address. “That's where Reid lives. You want to go after him, be my guest.”

  “You don't think I will?”

  “I think you might. You won't last a day.”

  Lesko reddened. He stood up, paced the office, struggling to control his temper. “You got a better idea, let's hear it.”

  Bannerman looked at him coldly. “I don't need you, Lesko. Try to understand that. If my problem was in some New York back alley, you'd be the first one I'd call. You're tough and straight-ahead. Reid is devious, cowardly and probably crazy. But he'll dance rings around you.”

 

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